Let’s Talk Money

Savannah and I have been nearly broke most of our friendship. All of our basic needs were met, so I don’t want you to think we’ve been impoverished. We have just never had a lot of money jangling in our pockets. That changed in the summer of 2020 when our stock tank pool business took off, and with all of that extra money we bought the land we are living on today. That started a new season of broke-ness because any money we had we poured into this land.

Thankfully that has changed due to the last two years of our growing success on YouTube. As our financial circumstances have improved, Savannah and I have been reflecting on the last 15 years of our friendship and our mutual broke-ness. While we are both relieved to have better finances now, we recognize that a lot of our creativity and good ideas in the past sprung from our lack of resources.

I want to stop here and acknowledge our privilege. While neither of us are trust fund babies, we both have families and people in our lives who would never leave us without a place to live. If we needed money to cover a bill, someone would step in and help. Not everyone has that. We don’t have children or husbands to worry about and this certainly gives us more financial freedom, but that’s not a privilege- it’s a choice. However, that choice has set us apart from many of our peers.

Part of our lack of money for all those years (and even before we were friends) came from my having Type 1 diabetes. I used to feel really bad about not being a better place financially, but one time I met with an accountant, and another time with a financial planner, and when they ran my numbers, there just wasn’t much left after I paid for everything I needed to survive. And at those times I had zero debt. I even had a good jobs, but Type 1 diabetes is expensive! So while I do have privilege, I also have a huge financial burden that will be with me always.

We certainly haven’t always been responsible with our money either. Some of that irresponsibility surrounded traveling. As previously discussed, travel has always been a priority to us. But when you don’t have a dime in savings, should you take a trip to Portugal just because you found an incredible deal? Many would say no. However, we said yes and now view that trip as one of the highlights of our lives. I don’t think our lives would be better had we saved that $1200 instead of spending 2 weeks in the Azores and Lisbon.

Same with the John Muir Trail trip that ended with us traveling around California. We didn’t have the money for all the gear that we needed but we hustled and made deals with brands and a local outdoor store to get free gear in exchange for promotion. We figured out how to leverage what we did have to get what we wanted.

We have taken that mentality with us as we have lived on our homestead the last nearly 5 years. And one of our primary goals of moving here was to create financial freedom. Most people think that comes from making more money, but it can also come from needing less money. One of the biggest ways we reduced our spending was by not having a mortgage/rent payment and not having a car payment. Instead we opted to live in a shed and we bought the biggest one we could afford. We did finance the shed purchase through a line of credit with our bank which was significantly less than a mortage or rent payment. I also drove around a paid for beat up 2011 Honda CR-V for years. When she had to be replaced because she was rear-ended and thus totaled, I replaced her with a 2014 Honda CR-V instead of financing a new car. Now that our finances have improved we could get a mortgage for a nicer house with land, and we could afford a new car payment. However, doing so would defeat the purpose of everything we’ve been working toward.

We also earn income in a unique way as we are full-time content creators. We’ve been doing this long enough to know that there is often an expiration date on this career. Creators either transition into something bigger, burn out, get canceled, or simply lose their audience over time. Some of this can be controlled, some of it can’t. We have no plans of going anywhere, but we also aren’t ready to make big decisions assuming, we’ll always have this income.

When you share your life for the world to see, it’s pretty funny to see how different people view your financial status. When we have a video go viral on Instagram, people come out of the woodwork talking about how it must be nice to be rich and afford to live the life we do. On the other hand, in real life many people think we’re destitute because we live in a tiny home, have a bathroom outdoors, and our newest car is 12 years old. (The van is 30 years old!) I drove around with a cracked windshield and a car door with a large dent for years. We just don’t care about that stuff, as long as it serves the main purpose. Of course, other people’s opinions don’t really matter, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sometimes curious about how people perceive our lives.

The truth is, we’ve never been particularly interested in looking like we have money. We’ve been much more interested in what money can give us: freedom, security, and the ability to do the things that matter to us. Which reminds me of something my old boss used to say, “Money doesn’t buy happiness, but being broke doesn’t either.” Ain’t that the truth. Obviously, we need our basic needs met and we need a sense of security. We need to plan for the future but we also need to remember that we aren’t promised a tomorrow. We try to maintain a balance of taking the trip and also being somewhat financially responsible.

All this to say, I am grateful for the tension that our lack of money created in our lives. I am grateful to now not feel that tension as much. I am grateful that we took that trip to Portugal when it was ill-advised (I did buy a years supply of insulin on that trip for $200 which would have cost me 30x as much with insurance in the US). I am grateful to live in a home that is mine and not the bank’s. Lastly, we are truly grateful that we get to have this job that allows us to live this life and that you guys want to watch it unfold. Sometimes I can’t believe we get to do this for a living. So thank you for being here!

-Casey (&Savannah)