Save Money by Living in an RV | Motorhome Living For Minimalism & Frugality

But also, why did it take so long? I had to be sure you were really in this for the long haul because I didn't want you to get a big head like at first. Right. Yeah, no, that's a good thought. Yeah yeah, I'm really excited about this. I finally feel validated that I get to talk about my lifestyle. But let's be clear, it did take a year and a half. I see you, I hear you, and I'm apologizing to you. But let's not dwell in the past. Let's talk about Okay, present sponsors, so we can get

into this. Let's not waste any more time getting into this. Also brought to you by Genie in a Bottle not the Christina Aguilar version, but the Alatin version, reminding us of phenomenal cosmic powers. Eighty pitty living space, You too can experience all the financial cosmic power of small spaces while living every pitty genie in a bottle, don't have one, b one. I had to go far away from the mic. When you said that, I saw that you were prepared

for that. Clearly you didn't. You didn't read my notes before we started. I didn't read it. I tried to go in with as little information as possible to these things, and I'm always pleased when I do that. Oh man, it's fun for us. At least I don't think about it too much. But I kind of thought about that, like space. I am so excited to talk about your

adi bitty living space. I met you when you were living in your first motor home that you renovated, and literally I didn't know what to expect when you were like, we live in a motor home, and I was like, okay, and then why are we hanging out? Right? You invited us into it and I walked in and my mind

was alone. It was gorgeous and so cute, so perfect, And then you did it again you I've seen the pictures of this one, I have not been in it, but it is just as beautiful and I am so excited for you to share your wisdom on it so that people know all of the things that are available to them if they choose to live in an r V.

Thanks Jen such kind words. So yes, we have lived in an r V. Both of them are r vs, but a motor home first, which was thirty six ft and did some other non traditional living which you've heard me talk about in other episodes. And now we are in a camper trailer, so this is the kind of you have to hook up to a vehicle and pull

it around. So I'm excited to share what I've learned through this and if other people are interested in some version of tiny living or specifically r V living, this is the one for you, even if it isn't though, I'm really hoping that we can make some of these tips uh feasible for those who are living in more traditional setups that might help you to just live more intentionally and still get at some financial goals regardless of

the space that you live in. So hopefully this is one for everybody, but definitely really for you that are thinking about doing this. So we will still go through our articles, but then I'll also give some feedback from my experience. So the first article comes from accel addict talking about can you save money living in an RV? And I really do love Their answer is it depends.

So at first glance you would assume, of course you'd save money, but there there are ways to spend a lot of money in r V living, just depending on what kind of our V you buy. You can buy a motor home for a million dollars, so it's possible that you could spend a lot of money. And even if you're not going crazy with it, you could spend a hundred hundred fifty hours on an RV, so that that definitely depends. But there's some other nitty gritty things

that we can go through. This one. It begins by talking about if you're considering doing this, if it's something

that you're wondering, hey, could I do this? There are some simple ways to begin, and so one thing that they tell you to do is to set up a cost comparison, and you can do this by first making a list of every expense that you currently have and then going back through making another list of what expenses you anticipate will remain in living in a tiny home or an RV or a camper, and then obviously subtracting

and looking at what's what's left over. Will you actually save from what you were spending to what you think you will be spending and will it actually save you money? So that's a great place to start, is just looking at the finances. Yeah, I was surprised about the camping fees. There are different prices, like per area you're in, Like the area we're in is pretty expensive, so not really

conducive to full time r ving. But there are other places where you can stay for completely for free, and they change depending on how often you move right, Yes, so another thing to consider and they make some good points in this article is where you park. So a lot of r V parks will charge you either a nightly, weekly, or sometimes monthly rate, and usually you get your best deal at a monthly rate, but it still can be

quite a lot. This of course depends on the area, but I know in our area you can spend as much as eight hundred to a thousand dollars a month just to park at an RV park. And and that's not even including sometimes utilities or whatever you might be paying on your actual home if you have gotten a loan out for it or whatever the case is. So in that case, it may not be cost effective if you're gonna park in a trailer park or an RV park that's charging that amount versus what you might be

able to rent an apartment for a condo for. So that also is something to be looking into, is where can you park and how much are those fees going to be? So some other important considerations. Again, if this is something that you're considering, another thing to ask yourself is the type of RV. So there's all sorts of options. There are the tiny homes, right, which is what you see on h G TV with the beautiful siding. They literally look like small homes that have been built onto trailers.

They are mobile, but they're not something that you're going to be constantly carting around down the road. The idea is to move it to a location and basically have it stay there. Uh, then you've got your motor homes, which is the vehicle and the home combined and all different sizes Class A, class B, class C. Then that just kind of talks about what size it is. Then

you've got your trailers or your campers. That would be a pull behind, that could be a fifth wheel which kind of comes up over the cab of the truck, or more of a camper that is just like on the hitch and it doesn't come up over all different sizes, And then you've even got your mobile homes, your park models,

and you can do all this research. Those are all kind of the different types at a glance, but all of them are different sizes, require different types of vehicle or no vehicle at all, So there's all different types of points of entry here. But another thing to consider is what size would I want? What kind of vehicle would I would I want to have with it? And this article links to another article that can help you kind of figure out what type would be best for you,

So if you free to check that out. Another important consideration that I agree with is knowing how to repair and maintain. And this also depends on whether or not you're trying to do this to save money or if you're trying to do this just for adventure. But if you're doing this to try to save money, and be important to know how to do these things to make it as economical as possible. I would say that is one of the biggest things for us. I'm not sure that I would be able to do living in an

RV or a camper without Eric. He does a lot of the repairs, He's got a lot of the know how, not that I couldn't learn, but I just don't know that it'd be worth it for me. Uh So that's something to consider that it's not your typical apartment. There are things that you have to be doing and paying attention to that are different from home ownership or living in an apartment with a landlord, and we'll get into that.

Of course, you cannot have a conversation about living in an RV without talking about septic I will give you a warning if you are sensitive to those kinds of conversations. But that's part of this And if that's something that you don't want to be a part of your regular conversation, then then this is definitely not for you. If you can't marry rich Mary capable and exactly make Eric take out the step, don't let him handle that affordable parking.

We've already talked about that. So they definitely have some great considerations. They also talk about safe driving habits. I mean, okay, who wants to get a speeding ticket at their house? That's true, Yes, that's kind of a no brainer. And then they also list which I don't know how important this is, but putting your RV close to shopping and other services that are convenient. I don't know. That's sure, but doesn't really matter to me. You can drive, You

could drive to what you want or get it online. Yeah, you had a little vespa that you took around when you had the motor home, which is the one that you drive. But now it's much easier. You have the trailer that you can just unhitch from the car and and go just normally. Yeah, exactly. It was fun when

we had our motor home. Rather than tell a car, we just put a little scooter on the back on on the hitch, and so we went from driving the biggest thing on the road driving the smallest thing on the road, which was fun and allowed us to get around that way. But yeah, now we just have normal vehicles and our home is parked. We don't we don't drive it around places. That's a common question that we get is, so where are all the places you're going to go. And we literally are doing this to save money.

That's the first goal. It's it's not to travel a lot. So I know a lot of people will buy campers or motor homes to travel. That's the goal, and that's perfectly fine, and and I would say a great idea, but for us, it primarily stays parked. But it's nice to know we can take it wherever we want. Yeah, like you can take it to Florida in the winter exactly. I'm really looking forward to that. Actually I am as well. Yeah, it's nice to know that I can change the view

outside of my window. If I don't like it, I'll just go find another one. And then another good thing that they point out in this article. There's plenty other things that they point out, so feel free to check it out in our show notes. But limited possessions equals lower expenses. So I will say, regardless of your point of entry into our v living, whether you get a big one or a small one, it is going to limit the amount of possessions that you have. And so

that's something that I have found. I know that in previous episodes, I've talked about how I love to go thrift store shopping or hit up yard sales, and that has shifted in tiny living. I don't go really ever or as often as I used to, because I don't have space for anything else. I feel as though I've gotten I've collected the things that I need to live well in my tiny space, and beyond that, there isn't room to collect more unless I get rid of something.

So there have been times where I think something might be a bit more functional for me, I'm gonna purchase that thing and then get rid of something else. But otherwise it has really trained me in contentment and not purchasing new things. That, of course is as much as you let let that happen. But there is limited space,

so you can't just collect. And I'm not doing all the different decor for the different seasons, And there's a part of me that's like, oh, I wish that I could buy some mums and put some mums out for fall or pumpkins. But then I'm like, I'm glad I'm saving the money. I have a three bedroom house and I have no holiday decor, so love it. You could

just be a grump and not celebrate holiday. I'm thinking for Christmas about just taking a picture of my favorite pine tree and putting it as the background on my phones and that'll be my Christmas. I saw a picture of one RV that was like do it yourself RV fireplace and it was like step one, search YouTube for fireplace, step two hit play exactly yes, and it'll train you

in contentment. So those are longs to consider if this is something that you honestly would want to do, and feel free to check out that article anything else here for you. Jen that stood out I want to point out because this is not something I knew before, but you are actually on your in laws proper. That's where you park, so that's like free free you. So that's an ideal way to spend money is to have a

place where you can park for free. Um ye. So, or there are some campgrounds that if you do some work, maybe like twenty hours a week, then you can get discounted or free stay there. So that's another option because parking that RV is usually is one of the biggest expenses. Buying it, renovating it, if that's what you're gonna do, and then parking it are the Biggins great point. Yes, So if you could find somebody's property to park on, that's great. If you can find an inexpensive RV park,

that's great too. I know that I mentioned some parks are eight hundred to a thousand dollars a month, but you can find them between three hundred to six hundred dollars a month also, So again that just depends on the area that you're in, and they they do often provide a lot of perks, and like Jen said, sometimes you can work there and then you can park for free. So if you've got flexibility and time, that's a great option.

Another thing that we did that this depends on your comfort level, but we did post on a local Facebook site, facebook group site that we were looking for a place to park. I think it was on the yard sale our local yard sales site that we were looking for a place to park. Listed out the things that we would need in order to park, which is basically a twenty amp outlet, garden hose, and accept it clean out within a hundred fifty feet. Most places will have that,

most homes have that. And so we received quite a lot of feedback. There were about fifteen to twenty very viable options of of people responding to us through direct message saying hey, you could, so we did check out a few places. They are still on our list of possibility is if we ever decide to leave my in

laws property, so just so you know, you can get creative. Again, depends on comfort level, but it's possible to even find somebody who's looking for an extra two to three hundred dollars a month, so it's less than what an RV park might be. But yet the people's property that you're staying on, they get a little bit of money every month for basically doing nothing, so there's options as far as parking goes. And moving on to our next article. So this one comes from Heath and Alyssa, So they

motor home full time. They looks like from their blog that they travel quite often and that's kind of one of their main goals with living in an RV. But they go through twenty one questions that everyone asks them about living in an r V. We're not going to go through all twenty one, but we've picked out some of our favorites and also some of the questions that people often ask me in living in a camper, so

we'll kind of go through those. The first one that I like, and I do also get asked a lot is do you ever get tired of living in a small space? And I like their answer and I agree with it. They say no, they really enjoy it, but there are luxuries that they miss. So for the for the guy Heath who is writing this article, he says that he misses baths, that he really enjoys them, doesn't care what people think about him. He misses bathtime. So for me, similarly, I think, well, the shower is great,

and I think it's a great size. But I will say that when we go stay at other people's houses or when we're in a hotel room, I do notice the difference. So there are times when those experiences will highlight that, oh, this is a little bit nicer have a shower than what I have in my home. But on a day to day basis, it's not something that

I'm regularly thinking about, and I'm fine with it. Eric found an amazing hot water heater, so that's worked out perfectly for us, and we'll talk about that a little bit later in the episode. But little luxuries I would say I miss, but overall, I really enjoy tiny living and if this is something this is just a side tip. If this is something that you are heavily considering but you're not quite sure if it would work for you and your family, I would encourage you to try it out.

You could either airbnb a tiny home and see what tiny living is all about for a week or two, or even consider buying a trailer off of Craigslist or Facebook marketplace for two to six thousand dollars and live in that for a short time and see do I want to do this? It's a low cost investment to try it out and then maybe work your way up to something that's a little bit nicer or a little

bit more expensive. You could also if you're looking for like an Airbnb type for r vs, rv share is exactly like Airbnb, but it only has all types of r vs, So you could probably negotiate like a month rate with someone and give it a try for a month and see how it works for you. Awesome, good tip. I have a question on here that I wanted to ask you. Go for it, Jen, How do you get your mail and internet, TV and phone service? That he'th answered this one in here, but I want to hear

it from you. How it differs are similar, sure, so similar to what they say in this article. They get their mail to their in laws, so we do that also, but that's because we live here, so this is our home address. And if you are living at a campground or on somebody's property, you can just have your mail sent there. Especially campgrounds and r V parks, they will have a system for mail. If you are on the road a lot, you can forward your mail or get a p O box. So they list a great resource

in there of escape ees. It's a RV motor home magazine and website, which is kind of funny that it's called escape Ease, but they talk about that as well, So you can also check out their article and their links, but information on how to get mail forwarded if you are going to be on the road a lot, or like I said, doing a p O box. So there's all kinds of options as far as internet goes. As they mentioned in the article, a lot of campgrounds will have WiFi. It may not always be the best, so

keep that in mind. For us, Eric did a lot of research and we've got a really awesome set up. So he told me that I have to give a shout out to this guy on YouTube. His name is David Bott and he is a full time RV and I will link him in our show notes. He's got a ton of resources on the types of things that you can do in an RV, different text stuff that

can help make it as feasible as possible. But through him we learned about this high power directional antenna that supposedly can pick up Internet within a five mile range. That has not been our experience, but we haven't needed it to go five miles, so we do pick up Internet off of his parents. So you do have to know the the Internet code, so it's a bit better than just a WiFi extender, and so you could do

that in whatever area you're in. So if you are parking on somebody's property and able to give them a little bit of money for the Internet and get their their pass code or pick up free internet, if there is such a thing within that five mile radius of wherever you're parked. So I will link David in the show notes, but also which he'll tell you about this specif a thick high power directional antenna. And that's about as many nerd words as I'm going to use. I

probably need one of those in my bedroom. Yeah, our internet is shoddy in our bedroom, so it's install antenna, so a WiFi extender would probably be all that you would need. Jen, This thing is pretty complicated, but it is. It's working like a champ, so I'm very grateful for it. That's awesome. Yeah, and as far as TV goes, I mean, we just use our internet, but usually we don't do cable.

A lot of millennials don't. I would encourage everybody not to do cable anymore since there's so many other options. But you can use phone, we use our laptops. We also do have a TV that we just connect to Roku, Roku, do Amazon Prime, Netflix, all that, so I really have not missed out. I think it's very similar to what it would feel like in a home. Yeah, that's awesome. So then the next question that stood out to me too, which I think I hear a lot of people asking,

is r V versus tiny house. I call my little camper a tiny home because it is, it's my home and it's tiny. I think it throws some people off. And then they picture HDTV, which I'm fine with that, you know, I'm trying to Yeah, exactly, looks pretty great, thank you, and I love what they say about this, and I would agree is it really depends on what

you want to do with your tiny home. So if you are planning on primarily being stationary, then a tiny house is great, as in, you know, the one that actually looks like a house but it's just tiny, versus the more vehicle looking option. So if you're going to be traveling a lot, definitely go for something that's built

for that, like a motor home or a camper. I will also say that tiny houses are a lot more expend if you're going to build one or buy one off of somebody, you're looking at spending at least sixty thousand dollars, if not all the way up to a hundred fifty thousand dollars, especially if you wanted to look really beautiful and like your home. Whereas r vs and motor homes campers, you can buy them used for as

low as five, six, seven, eight thousand dollars. Certainly you can get higher than that, but you can get a really nice one in the thirty to fifty thousand dollar range. And then of course you can do renovations, which we did on both our motor home and our camper, which

I'll also link that in the show notes. We've got a little walkthrough video on YouTube of our motor home that we lived in a few years ago, and I've just got some pictures of the current camper that we live in, so I'll put both of those in our show notes. But i will say probably the biggest benefit of a tiny home is the potential for installation value. So if you are parking in a colder climate area, tiny homes you can make more insulated like a house.

Although a lot of motor homes and campers come with winter packages and have some great insulation value. So we we just chose to go this route because we felt like it's already built for being able to be on the road. They are less expensive and we can do the renovations to make it look like how we want. So on the inside it looks beautiful. On the outside it looks like a camper. If that's important to you, the aesthetic of the exterior, then of course you might

go to tiny house route. Any other questions here, Jen that you, I have one. So their question that they got was what do you guys do for groceries and cooking? Mine is similar but like do you meal plan like I guess it's the same, Like what do you guys do for groceries and cooking because you have such a small refrigerator. We do have a small refrigerator, but I

have not lacked for space in that regard. Now it's just Eric and I, So even when we lived in an apartment or even when we house that and had a large size refrigerator, we never used the whole thing. So I know that that would be different for families and you'd probably have to be a bit more creative or buy a model that allows you a more full size fridge, which do exist. So we have not lacked for space, but I have had to be a bit more creative in paring down what we choose to buy

the condiments that we want to keep on hand. So I am not buying some of these one off ingredients for a specific recipe, which I think even our episode gen that you and I recorded where we did the interview about a minimal kitchen cupboard and kind of how to decipher what are my staples and what am I not going to keep around that that was very helpful

for me and pairing those things down. I will also say that in our renovations, we focused a lot on trying to get as much space as possible, which is really fun for me, like creativity in organization. So we took out our microwave. I realized that the only thing I used the microwave for is to reheat my coffee. So we just got good thermosis and that's how we keep our coffee warm, and otherwise we heat things up

in the oven or on the stove. So that got me a lot of extra space for some dry ingredients and otherwise r vs, particularly you know your motor homes and campers, they come with a lot of cupboards. It's it's shocking, actually, and I have empty cabinets in my hundred seventies square feet. That might sound a little extreme, and I will say I love minimalism, but we really have everything we need, and so I think some of this is just trying it out to really see how

much do I actually need or use. So we we do have everything that we need and use, and I have not lacked for space, but I will, like I said, it's I'm not purchasing random ingredients and keeping a ton of extras. I am buying and I'm not. I'm not buying in bulk. I am buying, you know, the medium sized bags at the grocery store of rice and pasta that can fit into the large ball jars versus. Yeah,

so I'm not doing the wholesale clubs nice. And then last question that I know has been on everyone's mind all episode, what do you do with your poop? You went there? Oh, and as I told them that we would warn them, I'm I'm sorry. You must have cut out for that part. I didn't hear it. Maybe your your internet isn't as strong as you thought. I don't know. Yes, so septic, I will call it septic so it can

sound a little bit like it's not what it actually is. Yeah, we have a toilet that goes into a tank that the tank does need to be emptied. So this is another thing to consider with where you're parking. If you park at a campground, a lot of times you can have your septic directly connected to a septic clean out and rarely have to think about it. You don't ever have to do anything with it. It's already going into the ground. That's fantastic. We do have to clean it out.

There's a lot of different options. I'm just going to cut to the chase on what we have done because it's fantastic and if you are living in an RV 're thinking about it, this is especially for you. I'll put a link to what we use. But we have a mass rator pump which we hook up to the septic tank and it grinds everything down to a garden hose and that can shoot to a septic clean out, which is basically like I don't know if you've ever noticed on people's properties they have these little pipes kind

of sticking up out of the ground. Assuming you know what I'm talking about, that's the septic clean out. But definitely don't go like shoving stuff in there if you're not sure what that what that pipe is that's sticking up out of the ground. But on most properties, people have them in their front yards or their backyards, and so that allows us to just hook it to a garden hose and shoot it through to the clean out, so you don't have to get your hands dirty, um,

but you do have to think about it. So Eric cleans that out about every other week and it takes maybe thirty minutes. Yeah, it's not as intimidating as I thought it was going to be when we had our v and Travis did it, it was you didn't even really see much. Yeah, there was a time when we had a suitcase. So that was devastating, needing to shop

for a suitcase for our excrement. That he literally would empty it into this plastic suitcase looking thing on wheels and card it across the property to the septic clean out and tump it in. And at that point he did need to wear gloves and it was scary. Um. Eric, he did it. I never had to touch it, but that was bad. Um. So we have found a much

better solution. Just the thing you need to think about when you're going into this, Like you don't think about how the poop goes out, and there are multiple ways, some are better than others. Yep. And then you know you've got your gray water and you can either dump that you know, figure out for that. Yeah, that's like sink water and all that. We use all eco friendly plant based soaps so that we are able to just

put directly onto the ground. Cool. Yep. You know what else, I'm gonna put in a suitcase and carry with me all the time. Oh, I know that was a horrible transition. I loved it, though. No better way to transition to the bell. That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, maybe your car died, and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. That built buffalo bills, Bill Clinton,

it's the bills of the week. Hi. My name is Emily and I'm from Anna Hunt, California, and my bill of the week is I speaking in the month. And I went to pay my credit cards because you ain't paying them off each month. And I went to go pay my second credit card and I looked at it and I had and maybe the balance of like three d dollar. I panicked his first so I thought maybe I made a payment before and I didn't realize. And then I was picking through my bank statements and things,

and I looked out the credit cards. Himmith yet again, and I realized that my husband, who is volunteering at a campus summer, they refunded the money because instead of helping out just one weekend, he was up there aw summer long. So essentially we got paid for his volunteer work. Yea, and we got paid so much. They paid off the whole bills of a credit card for the month. Plus we have a credit of over three dollars, so my bill of a month is one that I didn't have

to pay. So yes, amazing, Emily, thanks for sharing that story with us. We love bills that we think we have to pay that we end up not needing to pay. That's amazing. I'm so glad that that happened to you and that he got paid for volunteer work. That's great. Sounds like unexpected, I know, so fun. I've never been to like a real summer camp, and so I always have these ideas and so it just sounds so fun. Eric and I went to an adult summer camp. I kind of want to do that. It was the weirdest

thing I've ever been a part of. Okay, I mean, go for it, Chen and report back. But I feel like we feel like we talked about this before. Actually we probably did. I think we did. Yeah. Eric was playing music at this adult camp, That's why we were there, and I was just like, what is happening? But I mean it was carefree, summer, fun, summer fun. I don't know if that's what your husband did, Emily, it sounds

like more traditional summer camp for kids. So that's great that he volunteered, and then was that they took care of him financially. That's fantastic. Awesome. If you have a great bill of the week or month, one that you paid or didn't pay, we want to hear about it, and you can submit it to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash bill and leave it for us. We are so excited to hear them. Did you go to a summer camp where they drank or where they did not drink?

They were drinking? Yeah, because I feel like both have their downtown. They were drinking, Okay, I feel yeah, it was weird. I feel like that can make it, but that can also break it. Yeah. I mean, thankfully no one got too too crazy, but it was definitely weird. Yeah. The ones where you don't drink seemed like they could be just as weirdly. I don't know, you can't win either way. I don't know which one I would pick. If you've been to an adult summer camp, let us

know about it. Tell us what they're like, what your experience was like, whether it was like really good or really weird. Yeah, I really want to know. There's only two options, yeah weird or good. That brings us to our next segment, soightening round, mind blown? All right, that's literally is actually brought to you by me, Jill and Eric. Yes, I took myself out of the Lightning Round, so every single point is Jill's in a aim. I'm not on here um and I'm just gonna make snyde comments that

will be helpful. Yeah, we're all gonna love that. You're still welcome to be part of this, Jen. So I'm gonna go through some top tips for r V living, but hopefully this can also be helpful some of them for regular living, normal people living. So we've already mentioned the macerator pump for our septic because we are more

obsessed with it than we should be. But again, i'll link that so that if you are all because no, you don't want that, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna help you with that, just so people can see it, Okay,

so people can see it. So also, quality over quantity is super important when living in an r V or living tiny, but I would also encourage you regardless of your living situation, that to find what is helpful, what is functional, even if it means spending a little bit more money, because it's going to be more quality versus having a ton of stuff. And I don't know why I always use knives as an example, probably because it's my pet peeve when I'm working in the kitchen and

knives don't work. I've had this experience and living in other people's homes, like living with my grandmother or how sitting and you've just got this drawer full of knives clanking around, none of them working. All I wanna do is slice some bread or cut up a tomato, and you just get shot with juice and it doesn't work. So I've really loved that I've been able to find some really good This is this is not even a plug. I know this sounds like I'm like I'm reading off

the sponsor. I'm not. I am. I'm just so pleased that I have found two really good knives that work, and that's it, and I take care of them. That's the other thing. You're not supposed to have your knives clanking around in drawers with other things. I will link my knives just for you. Guys, but other things too, like we have four cups before we go on, I just want to let I just want to remind everyone that on a previous episode we dubbed you the knife Ninja.

So your passion for knives this isn't new. It like Jill knows her knives. I mean, I'm not that much of an expert, but I mean you could call me a knifeer. Oh goodness. There's other things that I choose quality over quantity on, but I really this is part of I think why I like tiny living is that I love everything I touch and look at because it serves me. A purpose is quality, it's functional, uh, And being able to have that in a small space I have found so vital and also cuts out the clutter.

Like I think my mind is more free because I'm not so overwhelmed by all by just a drawer full of junk and none of it works. No, I've got a drawer full of a few things and all of it works, So you're welcome. Also, moving on to some more technical things are tankless water heater has been phenomenal, So I know in the one article that we referenced earlier, the guy said that you know, he has short showers. It doesn't have to be that way in an RV, so i'll also link to this. We found a fantastic

water heare. It's not a normal water heater, but it's great. Once you get used to it. It never runs out. I know sometimes with tankless they can be spotty. This one has been great. It just you you have to set it to a certain temperature and it will only get to that temperature. It won't fluctuate, which is really nice, but um might require some finagling to get it to the temperature that want. But once you do that, that is the temperature that it's always going to heat too.

So again we'll link that. That's been great. I can take as long as showers as I want. What temperature do you like? Well, lately, as it's been getting cold, I said it to one third team, but in the summer one eleven was where we had it. But Eric also installed it right outside of our shower door, so that if it is at a temperature that's not comfortable, we can easily readjust so that's also a thing. Depending on where you install it, you can get to it

more easily. Nice and also another tip less technical make it beautiful. Again, this can apply for anybody living anywhere. But I will say I don't think I could live in a small space if it was ugly or dingy or felt really gross. So us having done our renovations, I like being in this space because I find it beautiful and making it useful along with that, so organizing, getting at some minimalism, figuring out what you use, what's functional.

If it can be beautiful and functional, Holy emoly, you've found the mecca. That would be another tip for any space that you have difficulty being in. Make it beautiful, whether that's your you know, we talked about that with cooking for doing the Cooking Challenge this month, or or maybe your laundry room or wherever it is. Find ways to to make it beautiful so that you can enjoy being in that space more. Yeah, and it doesn't take

a lot of money to make it beautiful. You use the least expensive flooring, which is vinyl, and you just put up some white paint, some thin wood paneling like you're using all of the inexpensive materials. That's the beauty of an o V. Right, Yeah, exactly, And you're not doing that much. It's not that much square footage, so even if you are getting an expensive product, it's not gonna be nearly as much as doing it in a home. And lastly, again on the more technical side, and all

in one washer dryer, so we did my mind. Yeah, it's amazing. We did not have this in our motor home, but we found space for it in our tiny camper and that has helped us to be more self sufficient rather than needing to go to a laundry map or go to friends or families houses. And people who live in Europe you're probably a bit more familiar with this. It's again it's all in one. It's what it sounds like. Once it's done washing, it switches over and starts drying

your clothes. You kind of course stop it if there's things that you want to take out and line dry. But it has been just a life saver. I am also linking this. A lot of people have complaints about these all in one I think they're just not using them correctly. Some quick tips on it for those of you who might have one or be thinking about it. You do have to do smaller loads so that I think sometimes if people are saying it's not drying all the way. It's because you might have it to cram

jam packed. And another thing is we don't think that the that the water heater can keep up, so we just have it on tap water. So that might be another issue is if you are having it on hot water, it might not dry as effectively for that reason. But otherwise it has been fantastic. I don't know why houses don't have these. People just started where Yeah, we're we're so used to big and a lot and maximalism. I

but you can have these in your home. They're they're not specifically for motor homes that I mean, yeah, again, I'll like it in the show notes, but certainly you can have this in your home and save space in your laundry room. Yes, how often do you do laundry About once a week, so nothing crazy and usually two loads back to back. But it's so nice because I mean, I could do it whenever I want, because you can even leave the house and you don't have to be

there to switch it over. Assuming everything that's in there is okay to dry, it will you'll come home and the entire cycle will be finished. I love that. Yeah, I like my favorite thing. It is so nice instant pots all the pots. Yeah, exactly, well, Jill, thank you for sharing all of your thanks for having me on the podcast, Jenks fun please come back again and I'm sure our listeners will love to have you. Thanks, I hope. So we'll see what the reviews say. Yeah, we'll see.

We are reading a book for this month's book club called Retire Before Mom and Dad by Rob Berger, who we recently had on the show, and we're loving it. He's such a great guy, Rob, that Rob. And you also get to to listen to his interview. So if you want a free copy of his book, leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher, Screenshot that review and email it to us at Frugal Friends Podcast at gmail dot com. We pick one winner for every five reviews that's submitted to us at the end of the month,

and then you get your free book. Yes, if you are a winner, winner chicken Dinner. And if you want to know a great example of a helpful review, here's our review of the week. It's from s mh Um, which I'm going to assume does not need so much hate, but is maybe this person's initials shaking my head. They say, new listener, love the show gave it five star ours, and the review says Jenn and Jill are awesome. I stumbled onto this podcast a few months ago, but just

recently started listening. The episodes have been very relevant and encouraging to me on the journey to become debt free. I'm looking forward to new podcasts each week. I'm so happy to have found these great episodes. So thank you s MH. And if you want us to read your review, please write it and send it see it first. You got to write it and then send it. Yeah. Nice, Thank you, See all next week. See on the Road Herugal Friends is produced, edited and mixed by Eric Syrian

m HM. Hit the row Jack and don't you come? No mo, no mo no. So so you're saying I could charge you eight hundred too dollars to stay? You could, I wouldn't park there, Okay, well we'll negotiate. We're having the papers put down for your arrival, well actually for for us, but like also for your arrival. This amazing. Uh, that's gonna be epic, the most epic. Oh my gosh, Frugal friends do Florida. It's gonna be frugal friends live on the same property in Florida? Do you think our

friendship can withstand that? It should be we should live stream it like a reality show because everyone's going to be interested to see how we do? Uh we what else? And we do? We can have a confessional booth um that don't get released until after we're done living together and then be like, I can't believe you said that, And then all of the remaining episodes of our show are just going to be repeats because we can't bear to record anymore. How often are you going to anticipate

that we watch kai um most of the time? Oh, all of the nights that's going to be included in the thousand dollar a month rent. Right, I'm going to just put a pack and play in the trailer and then he's just yours for a few weeks plus utilities. I think we'd be fine with that. He is so stinking adorable and Eric loves him, which that's a feat in and of itself. I loved Eric. I mean they're boos. They were bumping by the end. Um there are bros. Yeah. Oh, you'll just have to wait and see, wait and see

how that goes. See see you soon, coming with coming, bringing our home, bringing everything we own to your house. A