So Jill, first question for you, how much debt did you pay off? What was it from? And what were you making roughly while you paid off? Because it did take you quite some time. And I know your income changed throughout it.

Yeah, sure. So just to give a little bit of an overview, we began paying off debt in 2013. And we made our final payment on our debt in February 2020, just before the pandemic. I mean what? A silver lining. Like at our house. Yes, we were parked in our trailer in your backyard and made our final debt payoff and we celebrated, which was so great. So for those of you who aren't doing math in your head right now, that's seven years to pay off debt and it was a combination of a few different types of debt and I will say this we collected debt throughout our debt payoff that was intentional and it has led to a lot of the things that we can now enjoy we don't want to continue collecting debt, but it was necessary for our journey. So I just want to make that kind of distinction. It wasn't as if we had this experience where suddenly I realize my finances and I'm going to get everything in order. I was very aware, but trying to be creative with how do I get at my financial goals in a way that feels good to me and will create as much freedom as possible in the least amount of time as possible. So one of the debts was a $32,000 student loan debt. And then the other debts were mostly private loans for our motor home at one point, our trailer at another point, and a vehicle for Eric's business at another point. So essentially vehicles, but those were also houses for us. Two of those three vehicles were also homes. So that was the combination of that $56,000 of debt. When Eric and I got married, I actually still in college. I was wrapping up my undergrad degree. So we got married very, very low income. He was working for himself. He had his own electrical business, lived off of that income. Then when I graduated, I of course graduated with debt, thank you, University System. Higher education and went right into the social work field, making $26,000 a year. To me, that was, I knew it was low, but it was something. I was so accustomed to not having money. I mean, I'm coming out of college, didn't have a lot of money, so I was pleased to have a regular paycheck. But $26,000 even 10 years ago, that was below poverty line. That was not enough to even cover the basics. So frugality was necessary for me just because of my circumstances. And Eric had variable income. He was still just starting out his business. So I would say our take home pay combined was low thirties. So to have $32,000 of school loan debt felt like so much. I know in some ways it's peanuts compared to what students are graduating with these days, but at the time that was above my annual salary. So that it really did feel like a lot and I knew I wanted it gone. But of course, like we said, we had other debts that we had. So we went from making about within that, that set those seven years, a combined 30,000 to there were years when we probably saw combined 60,000, but pretty low income through those seven years of debt payoff as far as a combined income goes. Yeah.

How did Eric feel about the debt? Because he didn't have any student loans or anything, and at that point, you hadn't acquired an RV or a trailer or. So like what was his kind

of response or? I can't totally speak for him, but I'll try. I'll do it. I'll try. I think this is going to sound so conceited. I think he was just so on board for like the whole package. The package being me. I don't know. I think I'm sure he would have preferred that I didn't have debt, but I think it was peripheral to the life that we wanted to have together and he was on board with, yeah, I want to help you pay this off. I think his, he was angry at the college system and yeah, why is this a thing? But forever and always, and this will probably come out as we go through this story. We've both been so supportive of each other's endeavors. And I think that is some of the reason behind our unusual journey throughout debt freedom and some of our non-traditional housing situations. So much of us choosing that was to support one another in our endeavors, but in a way that created space and freedom for us as a couple. So he was on board for paying it off. Equally didn't like it, didn't blame me for it. Was glad that I was able to pursue the degree that I wanted, was able to put that degree into action and care for the populations that were important to me. And thankfully, he didn't have any debt. He didn't go to undergrad. So it was just that, that we had to pay off. So he was on board.

Yeah. And you also cash flowed your master's degree during the seven years.

Yes, that was not a debt that we acquired. And that was one of my parameters. I said to myself and others if I were to go back to get my master's because it was lingering for me within the field of social work. It's a good idea. I think it's always a good idea to expand your skill set and experience and understanding. And certainly within this field, it's helpful. So it was always on my radar, but I said to myself and others, I will not get my master's if it means me going into debt for it. It just was some, I hate it. I abhorred the feeling of owing tens of thousands of dollars. Thankfully, we were able to make that happen. That happened in 2018 that we cash flowed my master's degree and we were able to do that because we were living in a motor home at the time. Okay.

Yeah. Let's talk about the motor home and the tree. Let's talk about all of the non-traditional methods you use to not only pay off your debt, but also cash flow a master's degree.

Yeah. So this, the idea first began and it's neat because Eric and I just celebrated 10 years of marriage and we went away on a really vacation and we were able to process. We kind of wanted to look at big picture of our lives over the last 10 years. And I even talked with him about this. So it is fresh in my mind. How did we decide to do that? How it makes sense now just looking back. Oh yeah, we did motor homes, but how in the world that that even become a thing. And it really was for low cost living. A lot of people, when we say we lived in a trailer or a mobile home, they think, oh, you must have traveled the world. You did all, not the world, you traveled the nation. You did all these things. And that wasn't the reason for it. I recall Eric and I were living in an apartment at the time and we went on a vacation with his family and we were at a lake and rented a pontoon boat and he and his dad were looking at Facebook Marketplace for other boats. And within his Facebook Marketplace boat search, like, oh, could we ever buy a boat and fix it up and have something fun to do as a family? He came across a motor home and was scrolling through and kind of thinking, oh, that'd be like a fun vacation and a fun way to camp and then kept looking at it and saying, this has everything you need. We could actually live in one of these. And I had already been floating the idea of a master's degree, wanting a master's degree, but looking at our finances and saying, like, I couldn't do that. I couldn't get my master's degree and not go into further debt. There is just no money for this. And not to mention, if I get my master's degree, I'm going to have to really scale back with work. I'm not going to have much time to even be earning income while I'm spending money. And so that's when the idea just kind of set in of, let's see if we could do that. And for Eric and I, we do move quickly. When we say something and we kind of get the idea in our head, then like we jump. So I probably within two weeks of that Facebook marketplace motor home, we had a motor home and we were beginning to renovate it and making moves to moving into it. And so again, for the low cost of living, and it really did provide that for us. And I will say what actually allowed for us to cash flow the masters was the eventual sale of that motorhome. So living in it provided us as a place to live without high rent or utilities or really any of the other expenses of time and resources, which was amazing, just the simple life. But then we renovated it and we were able to sell it at a profit, which is really what allowed us to be able to do that. And we were able to sell it. And another unusual living experience that we had was we house sat in a log cabin for a couple who was near retirement, but they wanted to keep their home. But there was an opportunity within his work to be able to go to Ireland and they didn't want the hassle of tenants, but they wanted someone to care for their home. So we were able to live there, sell our motor home and not have living expenses and pay for my master's degree. So the stars aligned in a lot of ways, but we also were moving and shaking. We were running our own businesses in the background of me getting my master's and really putting ourselves out there for does anyone have things that we can do in a non-traditional kind of creative way? So it is attainable, I think, for people, but you do have to be a specific type of person to be able to live in someone else's home for a year and all that can come with that.

do have to put yourself in a certain position in order to like some of I think the house sitting one was kind of like a lucky break you just like right place at right time but you have to put yourself in that right place at that right time in order to get lucky. are only stories because the people put themselves in a position to be able to take advantage of an opportunity that came up. And so maybe house sending isn't an opportunity that comes up for you if you're listening to this, but the more you put yourself in non-traditional situations, the more non-traditional opportunities come up for you to take advantage of.

Thankfully, the internet does provide a lot of those types of opportunities. Like, yes, this was an opportunity within our network, but there are also all sorts of people looking for house sitters for various degrees of amounts of time that they're away for. So, this could also be searched out. You don't have to wait for it to fall in your lap.

Yeah. What were some of the logistics to living in the RV and then the trailer? So like where did you park? How much did it cost? Like what was the cost of the RV compared to what you sold it for? Stuff like that.

Sure. Parking RVs is one of the most challenging aspects of living in a motor home or a trailer. And so whenever someone asks us about this and they're tossing around the idea, my recommendation is know where you're going to park it first before you sink thousands or tens of thousands of dollars into this have a place to put it. Thankfully, we were able to find that, but I'm not going to say that that was easy or that we didn't have to move around a bit to make that possible for ourselves. I think people are becoming more and more open to having RVs parked on their property, but National Lampoon's Christmas vacation did not give a great look for RVers. And I think a lot of people have that image in their head of, you're going to do what? And you're going to live in it and you're not just going to camp and where does your waist go? And I don't think I want it. But thankfully we had enough other non-traditional thinking friends and even people on the internet who were willing to let us park on their property. So we did a variety. We had our trailer or RV parked at friends' houses at some points for short terms of time. We had it parked in your backyard for a short period of time. There are some RV parks that would allow year-round rent, like lots, rental spots that you can have. That's not always the most cost effective. And especially if you're like us who lived in the north, usually you can only find a space for six to eight months out of the year. You got to go someplace else for the winter. So those are some of the barriers. But one of the best situations that we ended up finding when we were living in our trailer was we rented out an office space, which was a previous barn that was renovated to be an office on someone's property in the farmland of the suburbs of Philadelphia. And they just happened to be open enough with us to bowl. I don't know. They were, they chose to allow us to park on their property, which was amazing. So we both rented out the office space because both Eric and I worked remotely. And then we were also able to park our trailer on their property so we could live there and work there. And very unusual. I think it was great that they were open to that. But things like that we've been able to find. And I would say Facebook Marketplace was helpful for us in identifying places that we could park the motorhome and be able to meet with people and chat with them and explain to them what we're doing, why we're doing it, the type of people that we are, we're not going to be partying, we're not going to be up late at night. We're going to be doing weird stuff on your property. We promise. We're professional adults, but this is what we're doing. Would you be willing to let us have your hose in your backyard?

Yes. What would you say the monthly cost was for living in an RV?

That's really going to but I'll give a generalization. So we paid anywhere from a hundred to a thousand dollars to park our trailer monthly. The higher end of that spectrum was of course when we were at the office space where we were both renting an office and we had our motor home park there. So for us, that was great. Because we were, again, running our own businesses. So a lot of that rental could be a business write off. And so we kind of more so factored that our lot rent was maybe more so around $300. So let's say $300. Utilities were never more than 100. If you're talking water and electric, that kind of thing. And then of course, whatever you're going to spend on food and the rest of your life. But I would say all in all, you're talking under $500 a month to be able to live in a tiny home like that, just because it is smaller, what you have to eat and cool and utilize is much less. That said, the amount of time that it took to upkeep a tiny home and especially a motor home in the winter where you actually have to be concerned about pipes freezing, it did take more time and energy and know-how and problem solving than I think the average person realizes. It's not for the faint of heart. I wouldn't recommend just anybody do it. And to be honest, I don't know that I would have done it on my own if it weren't for Eric. He had a lot of that know-how ability to fix things in the middle of the night, problem solve what might be going wrong with the AC or this or that. So there are things to consider with it. At the end of the day, I'm so pleased for the experience, glad we had it. But that is more so the cost, I would say, is the cost of time and repairs and problem solving than necessarily the finances. So if someone's up for that challenge then it was a fantastic experience.

Yeah.