Category: Financial

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By the Numbers

We have spent approximately $42,000 these past 12 months. 

For 14 weeks we were “between jobs” aka….traveling. 

We’ve been to 9 national parks: Smokys, Hot Springs, Saguaro, Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, Glacier, Tetons, and Yellowstone. 

Lived for 3 months without cell phone signal or wifi in our camper.

Logged roughly 8,949 miles towing the camper!! 

Averaged 8 miles to the gallon while pulling the camper. 

For 40 weeks lived over an hour to the closest Target…hence we have spent $79.12 at Target this past year.  

Lived in all 4 different time zones. 

Spent roughly $3,500 on gas while pulling the camper. 

Been to 23 different states! 

Never in my life would I have thought we would live a year and have any sort of numbers like these to represent it but I’m thankful for them and the memories we’ve made! 

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How Do We Find Jobs You Ask?!?

When it’s time to find a job it’s looks a lot like everyone else when they need a job… its just that our jobs just aren’t listed on Indeed. We boost the resume, send the resume out, do some people networking, make phone call follow-ups where we’ve sent our resumes, do a phone interview…. all of that typical stuff…we just have to dig a little to find places that need help. 

What we do is technically called “work camping” …there are websites that host this specific type of job. Literally campgrounds just listing what they need. Most often time work camping couples are older retired couples…the lady works in the store/office and the gentleman works outside…. we don’t fit into that stereotype sooo we don’t qualify for most of the positions listed BUT there are others that work for us! So we apply for the ones that let us both work outside, let the kids be around, and isn’t in North Dakota in December. 

We mainly look at:

-workampingjobs.com (This is our main go to!)
-coolworks.com
-landseaadventure.com

This go around there has been a bit of word of mouth as well…..we know some fellow camper people here and there. We just put feelers out and pray over it all and wait and see what happens! 

This time we applied to a ranch in CO, a pioneer settlement in FL, a petting zoo farm in IL, a berry farm in MN, multiple campgrounds in FL, two in AL, two in OK, multiple in TX, one in MI, and one in TN. This was over a two week span or so.

Ideally we would take a job that offers a free site and we both get paid hourly wages on top of that. We had offers at a few but they just didn’t feel right and then we got a call and have found our next spot. We’ll be spending the fall in Gattlinsburg, TN! 

It is a bit crazy when we are in the transition period and have no idea what’s next but we can look back and see how He has provided and are always excited to see where He will lead us next! 

If you wanna come see some pretty fall in the Smoky Mountains….I know a spot 😉!!!

Last November we visited the area for a few days and were about an hour away from Gatlinburg, these are a few pictures from that visit….cant wait to be there for all of fall!

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Renovations 2.0

When you buy a gallon of paint and your living quarters are roughly 320 square feet, that one gallon of paint can go a loooooong way! I’ve used it here and there to spruce up this space and that space. Moved a decoration here and swapped it there and its been great!

In the hallway area

In the bathroom a touch of paint and a few little extras added. Hanging baskets above the toilet…..that I got from the Dollar Tree and used to be hot pink….and the little towel rack inside the shower. Now all the wet swim suits have a place to go woot woot!

Some paint in the kitchen too. We got a little weather station that tells us the temp inside and outside, the wind and the rain amounts. Really like it up and off the counter top!

We splurged a bit and got some peel and stick wall paper! This is in our bedroom (and a tiny left over piece is in the bathroom if you noticed it!). We got two rolls and got the two walls done and then did it over one door. Now we are on the fence about doing the other door. What do you think, should we get another roll and have a whole wall of this? (seriously we would love to know what you think). It was fairly easy to put up and has held up great! We’ve really liked how much it added to the space.

I used the same paint and painted the wall behind the bed. Then on the lower half of the wall I used the left over peel and stick white brick to update it a little bit. We moved a few decorations here and there. We had the “never stop exploring” sign in our Air BNB at the house and I love it here now!

I used the left over peel and stick white brick to put around the TV area, just brightened it up a little bit!

Cost:

$2 hanging baskets

$3 spray paint

$2 towel rack in shower

$2 shelf for weather station

$46 wall paper

Total: $56 dollar to spruce up every* room in this tiny space!

*more still to come on the boys room. I haven’t touched it yet but I’m thinking we will soon….?!?!?!

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Diapers

When pregnant with our first, we mulled over the cloth vs disposable diapers option and decided to pull the trigger on cloth diapers (Chase was skeptical but came around pretty quick). You can get a more expensive cloth diapers for $20-$30 per diaper or you can get cheaper cloth diapers for $4-$5 per diaper. Since we didn’t know if we would actually “do” cloth diapering and we were just trying it out, we went the frugal way and man oh man was it amazing. The 25 diapers we bought for Big M are the same ones we used for Little M (that’s five years of the same diapers being used). $125 for five years of diapers….yes please! We were not a hard never use disposables ever type of cloth diaperer….we used them on occasion and used “normal” diapers at night. We bought roughly a pack of 30 disposable diapers a month during that time.

Per Google it costs $750 a year to diaper a child which is $3,750 for five years. Our pack of Aldi diapers was $10 a month, for easy math let’s say we spent $150 a year on disposable diapers which is $750 for five years. If you add the $750 we spent on disposable plus the $125 we spent on cloth that’s a total of $875 spent on five years with of diapers vs $3,750. For a little extra work, we saved almost $3,000 compared to the Google average plus that’s way less that are now resting in landfills!

We would make the same decision again in a heartbeat, but the other side of the story is you have to clean those bad boys. When you live in a house with a washer and dryer you simply put the poo in the toilet and the diaper in a laundry basket (with a lid). When said basket is full you put them in the washer (for two back to back cycles) and then put them out to dry in the sun or in the dryer depending on weather. Very easy very simple, its purely just another load of laundry. But when you don’t live in a house with a washer and dryer and you live in a camper… you go back in time to a bucket and plunger. Since August our cloth diapers have been cleaned via plunging and rinsing and plunging and rinsing. A lot more work but again its way cheaper and we do have time on our hands. In more exciting news…. we believe we are DONE WITH DIAPERS! When the first poo is at a gas station, when we had over a six hour drive with no accidents pulling over only two times to go to the bathroom we are feeling pretty good about the whole potty training thing! You know you are a travel family when he’s struggling a bit to master the poo-ing aspect of things and you ask him where he wants to do said #2 and he says “gas station” bahaha!

(Anyone who has questions about cloth diapering I’d be happy to chat. It did seem daunting at first but we figured it out and you can too!)