Ultimately, we pay for things/afford things, the same way most people do…we work, save, spend, we have A LOT of debt AND we had help (more below).

It’s also worth noting that our house(s)/lifestyle have been much more affordable than people probably assume.

In fact, we dramatically lowered our cost of living while being off-grid compared to our old “traditional” lifestyles. Over the span of 3 years, we bought two small off-the-grid fixer upper houses in the middle of nowhere (with home loans), which is much more affordable than purchasing real estate in civilization (in the suburbs or urban environments). By off-grid, I mean they were not connected to standard utilities like the electric grid, or town/city water or sewage, which also made them WAY cheaper than traditional homes.

Our cost of living off-grid ranged from $1000-$3000/month over the 3+ years that we were remote off-grid homeowners.

Our first house was only 760 sq ft including a loft main bedroom. I extensively cover the cost of our first home and all of our individual off grid living expenses in this blog post (which are probably much cheaper than you’d think).

The second off-grid 1.1K sq ft house on 40ish acres that we moved to in November 2022 and lived in for 1 year, we bought with a second home loan WITH my mom (since she lived on the proprerty in a 12 x 20ft shed which we turned into a tiny house). In order to make this happen financially on our end, we rented out our original house which was enough to cover the mortgage for that house and our mortgage on the second house (that we lived in).

Once we had a baby, we felt the need to move closer to civilization, and unfortunately that meant a house that cost more than our two previous houses combined, so we had to give up our financial freedom in exchange. However, we sold both houses for a significant profit, thanks to my husband fixing them up and the market shifting in favor of sellers.

Now, we live in a rural house on 35 acres (sometimes with my mom in her tiny house when she’s not living in her Arizona house or traveling). Our current farm house is on a well and septic and is connected to the power grid, but we installed a 10kW solar array to become more self sufficient in December 2024. My mom initially took on the mortgage, so we didn’t have to immediately sell our first house, and we pay her rent. We eventually renovated and sold the first house, and rolled that into the farm.

In general, we do the labor ourselves for home renovations, and building and land projects (which saves a ton of money). And we do things very slowly. So when we have extra money, we buy materials for projects, and when we don’t, we don’t.

In 2017, I bought my first used 2016 Ford Transit low-top cargo van that I lived and traveled in for 4 years for $24K (for the empty cargo van) on a travel credit card. I spent $3500 converting it into a camper.

Then later, I had a high top added and the whole thing remodeled. That conversion was worth about $48K, but I got a huge chunk of the labor cost sponsored by leveraging my blog and social media following that I built while living on the road.

In 2021, I sold it for $68K and bought a 2008 Ford E-350 shuttle bus that was already converted into a camper for $50K. We then fixed that camper up, traveled in it for a few years, and sold it for $55K.

In 2023, my husband and I used the money from the shuttle bus sale to buy a commuter vehicle and a pull behind travel trailer for $21K.

In 2024, we sold the travel trailer and bought a school bus with a partially started conversion for $7K from a family friend.

Our hydroponic vertical garden is called a Farmstand by Lettucegrow and it’s an all-in-one system that I’ve been using and loving since the summer of 2021! It is self-watering and self-fertilizing and uses 95% less water than traditional farming. It literally only requires 5-min of maintenance a week to grow up to 36 plants in 4 sq. ft. I paid full-price for mine, but reached out to affiliate with them after I fell in love with the system. So if you use my link to purchase one, I get a small commission at no extra cost to you 🙂 I made a non sponsored review video about it if you want more info and I also have a $125 off Discount code: FRIEND-G7RD *only 3 available per month

The short answer is that both my husband and I work and we host short term rental accommodations.

For our freelance remote/online work, and advertising/managing our rentals, we have high-speed satellite internet (Starlink) at our rural house (and previously at our off grid houses), which allows us to do pretty much anything online that you would be able to do in a city.

I have had one main freelance remote nonprofit client for 3 years that I do communications work for. I personally created an online business as a digital storyteller via my website/blog and my social media platforms, which allowed me to become location independent and have multiple income streams. I have made money through brand partnerships/sponsorships, affiliate marketing, and Google ads. After a few years of teaching myself those skills, I became a remote freelance social media manager, videographer, and communications consultant. If you want to know more about that, I go into detail about all the ways I make money online (and you can too) in this blog post.

My husband Ryan is a freelance graphic and web designer. He has also done random jobs here and there like handyman work, construction, and trail maintenance.

Finally, we have made money off of renting out our land and former properties. Formerly, we rented out a section of our land long-term to people in self-contained tiny homes/RVs, then we built a glamping (glamorous camping) bell tent accommodation that we rented out short-term, and rented our first off-grid house on Airbnb for short-term getaways.

We’ve also rented out our current basement, and are in the process of slowly building a detached short term rental farm stay on our land.

The short answer is I have used cost-saving travel hacks (to travel for free or on an extreme budget), and I typically work(ed) for 6-months to a year non-stop (save money), then travel(ed) for extended periods of time, or I simply work while I’m traveling (remotely or by doing in-person work).

Over the years, how I travel, and how I pay for travel has evolved a lot. I traveled A LOT independently in my twenties on a shoe-string budget. I have been to 53 countries on 6 continents, and all 50 U.S. states.

While I was living in a van solo and traveling around North America, I had a very low cost of living (typically under $1000/month). So traveling was cheaper than when I was living a stationary life in NYC and paying $1100 just for rent in a tiny room in a tiny apartment.

Now my favorite cost-saving travel hack since we have so many animals is TrustedHouseSitters. It’s a REALLY cool membership-based website that allows you to travel on a budget by helping you find FREE accommodation in exchange for pet sitting OR it can help you find FREE background-checked pet sitters while you travel!