RPF0317-Shane__Julie_Good
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00:00:15.320 | Today on Radical Personal Finance, I have a fun and lighthearted
00:00:18.320 | adventure story for you.
00:00:20.200 | Here's the question.
00:00:21.280 | Do you have kids?
00:00:22.280 | I do.
00:00:23.160 | Sometimes it's easy as parents to think that kids mean the end of adventures.
00:00:29.480 | After all, it would have been so easy if my wife and I had gone and backpacked
00:00:33.960 | to the world when it's just the two of us, right?
00:00:35.600 | Well, how do you do it with kids?
00:00:37.080 | Today, my guests on today's show have seven kids and they live part time in a
00:00:47.120 | converted school bus with their seven kids.
00:00:50.600 | And they live the other part of the time in a tiny house with their seven kids.
00:00:58.400 | And they've cobbled together this fascinating and flexible and mobile
00:01:03.760 | lifestyle that I think you'll find fun and inspirational.
00:01:09.240 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance podcast.
00:01:27.520 | My name is Joshua Sheets.
00:01:28.680 | I am your host, your fearless leader in the pursuit of the good life today,
00:01:33.760 | while also building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.
00:01:37.120 | Today, we're going to talk about living the good life and financial freedom.
00:01:40.360 | Frankly, I don't know what to say about this interview.
00:01:44.360 | I just said it all.
00:01:45.240 | I think you're going to enjoy this because it's inspirational to see how life is
00:01:49.040 | just more fun and financial freedom is more fun when you incorporate family into it.
00:01:53.760 | I'm not usually caught flat footed with something to say there.
00:02:01.360 | The music trudges on, but today that's the case.
00:02:04.520 | But my guests today are Shane and Julie Good.
00:02:07.400 | They have a website called goodnewsbus.com.
00:02:10.280 | I found them from surfing around a tiny house website.
00:02:13.800 | I, like many people have a fascination with this tiny house thing and I found
00:02:17.400 | their bus and it was just a beautiful bus.
00:02:19.040 | And then I figured out they have seven kids in this bus.
00:02:22.600 | And I just said, man, this is perfect fodder for radical personal finance.
00:02:26.120 | We talk about their story.
00:02:27.520 | We talk about the conversion.
00:02:28.760 | We talk about just what their lifestyle, they built together this lifestyle that
00:02:33.200 | is really, really flexible and gives them a lot of freedom while still providing
00:02:37.200 | for their needs.
00:02:37.720 | And they've got a lot of tips and tricks and tactics to share.
00:02:41.120 | And I think it's very, very valuable to see, you know, many of us think, oh, I've
00:02:44.520 | got to be old and rich to live the good life.
00:02:46.480 | Well, that may not be the case.
00:02:49.400 | You might be able to do it even when you have seven young children to care for and
00:02:53.040 | provide for.
00:02:53.720 | So I think you're really going to enjoy today's interview.
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00:03:57.040 | Shane and Julie, welcome to Radical Personal Finance.
00:04:01.080 | Hey, great to be here.
00:04:02.800 | Hi, thanks for having us.
00:04:04.040 | So I stumbled across your bus on some, I think it was a tiny houses forum.
00:04:11.320 | And I've always loved these, what do they call them, schooly conversions, right?
00:04:15.280 | Is that the right nomenclature?
00:04:16.760 | Yeah, yeah, that's good.
00:04:18.800 | So I've always thought these things are awesome.
00:04:21.520 | And if it weren't for the fact that I'm six foot six and I can't fit inside of a bus,
00:04:26.080 | so I don't think it's the right route for me, I would probably do something similar to
00:04:31.800 | what you guys have done, which is take an old school bus and just convert it into just
00:04:36.160 | an awesome RV.
00:04:37.480 | And looking at your website, I thought it seemed like you guys have an interesting
00:04:42.040 | lifestyle at least, a little bit unusual.
00:04:44.520 | And I thought it'd be fun to have you on and see what you've learned.
00:04:47.280 | So how did you wind up in the situation where you decided it was a good idea to take an
00:04:53.880 | old school bus and transform it into a house for you and all your kids?
00:04:57.080 | Well, this probably started back when I was about five years old, believe it or not.
00:05:03.800 | My parents, I was born in Washington State, Seattle, and my parents were looking to move
00:05:11.880 | down to the Pensacola, Florida area.
00:05:15.600 | My mom's family, she's from Washington State.
00:05:18.160 | My dad's family's from Florida.
00:05:19.760 | So they've kind of done this back and forth thing.
00:05:23.120 | So they looked into the cost of getting a U-Haul and driving it all the way down there.
00:05:29.960 | And after calculating the cost, I think it was my dad was thinking, "Well, shoot, why
00:05:36.200 | don't we just buy an old school bus?
00:05:39.160 | Put a divider about halfway back, pack all of their belongings in the back half of the
00:05:46.000 | bus. It's just me and my sister and my mom and my dad.
00:05:50.160 | And put a set of bunk beds in, a little Coleman stove, and hey, we'll camp on the way as
00:05:58.600 | we're moving." And so that was kind of the very beginning of, as far as remembering back
00:06:05.800 | and kind of the excitement surrounding, I don't know what it is about a bus, all getting
00:06:12.320 | in a bus and you have your bed in the bus and it feels like camping on the road.
00:06:17.560 | Personalizing it too.
00:06:20.360 | Yeah. And the ability to personalize it to what fits your lifestyle the best.
00:06:25.240 | So that's kind of where it started.
00:06:26.800 | And so we used that same bus to move, I think it was three or four times.
00:06:34.280 | We moved down south, then we moved back up.
00:06:41.640 | I'm making this really short, back up north.
00:06:44.040 | And then when we went to move back down south again, this is about when I was, I think,
00:06:48.000 | 15.
00:06:48.920 | This would have been like in 1994, 93, something like that.
00:06:56.920 | The bus, as we were leaving, we'd gone through, we were in eastern Washington and we
00:07:03.960 | were in a town called Pasco, Washington, and the bus broke down.
00:07:08.360 | And my dad at that point, it was going to be $5,000 to fix.
00:07:15.440 | It needed a rebuilt engine or something like that.
00:07:17.760 | And me and my sister, we could not fathom the thought of losing the bus because it
00:07:25.080 | just became a part of the family.
00:07:26.680 | And so we begged my dad, don't do this, don't send her to the scrapyard.
00:07:32.640 | So my dad actually, after appealing to his sentimental side, we convinced him to keep
00:07:42.480 | the bus and to get it fixed.
00:07:43.880 | So we actually lived in Pasco, Washington for about, I don't know, it took about a
00:07:50.160 | month, I think it was, to get the bus fixed.
00:07:53.560 | And then after that, after it was fixed, we brought it all the way down, back down to
00:07:59.920 | the Pensacola area.
00:08:01.600 | And then that's where it sat till years and years later when some guy came and picked
00:08:07.480 | it up.
00:08:08.000 | So my dad forked out all that money.
00:08:11.240 | Here we are on a finance show, all this cash for something that's just going to sit
00:08:17.560 | there.
00:08:18.080 | But it was for his kids, I guess.
00:08:20.720 | He knew how we felt and we just we had so much fun and memories traveling in the bus.
00:08:27.960 | So that's kind of where all of that started.
00:08:31.160 | I was just going to say, we'll just call that an investment into the love with your
00:08:34.720 | family, that your kids know that you love them because you listen to them.
00:08:37.520 | Right, exactly.
00:08:38.960 | Now, the remarkable thing is that you not only travel with you and your wife, because
00:08:44.160 | that's relatively easy, but you guys are traveling in this thing with seven kids.
00:08:48.280 | Is that right?
00:08:48.800 | Yes.
00:08:49.480 | Yes.
00:08:50.000 | Seven children ranging from the ages 13 to one.
00:08:54.120 | So down.
00:08:55.120 | Yeah.
00:08:56.120 | Yeah.
00:08:57.120 | So that is awesome because it's really hard to find.
00:09:00.400 | I mean, maybe that's a little bit of an overstatement.
00:09:03.200 | Most RVs are not tuned to fit nine people and sleep comfortably.
00:09:08.960 | So when you get to the place where you have seven kids plus two parents, is that why you
00:09:13.320 | guys chose to make this custom design?
00:09:14.960 | Yeah, that's definitely one of the reasons.
00:09:17.600 | When it came time for us, because my wife and I, we do ministry work and the house we
00:09:25.400 | are living in was owned by the ministry that we are working for.
00:09:29.480 | And so when they sold it, they basically said, look, we'll, because we do basically
00:09:35.240 | volunteer work for them.
00:09:36.320 | And they were like, look, we'll invest into helping you guys get to where you need to
00:09:41.400 | go and traveling around and continuing doing the, we do ministry work.
00:09:46.160 | We do music ministry and different things like that, outreach ministries and stuff.
00:09:51.880 | And so we were able to, and that's one of the questions we actually get a lot is, why
00:09:59.320 | didn't you guys just go buy an RV?
00:10:01.120 | I mean, you certainly could go find an RV.
00:10:03.200 | And really it's basically what you touched on that we have a large family.
00:10:07.640 | We didn't have as many kids then, but we kind of knew where the trend was going.
00:10:11.520 | The school bus idea was kind of planted in Shane's heart since he was young.
00:10:18.240 | So I'm like, Hey, let's, let's get it.
00:10:20.200 | Let's find a school bus and let's convert it.
00:10:22.720 | But we took it up a notch.
00:10:24.360 | We didn't just put a sofa and a Coleman stove in and some bunk beds.
00:10:29.480 | We really wanted to make it a place that we could live for a long period of time.
00:10:36.240 | If we were going to be say building another house or traveling a lot, whatever we were
00:10:42.160 | going to be doing, we wanted to be comfortable while we were living there.
00:10:45.700 | We have lived in it for up to eight months.
00:10:47.960 | So yeah, having it built the way it is, and I'm sure you've seen pictures and maybe our
00:10:53.960 | video.
00:10:54.960 | So yeah, it's important.
00:10:55.960 | So spread out over the time of about, I think three years, we are sorry, about five and
00:11:01.160 | a half years now.
00:11:02.920 | We've lived in it probably a total of three years.
00:11:07.320 | And that, you know, well, I do, I do carpentry work as well.
00:11:11.920 | And so, you know, if we built a house and are selling it, we'll move back to the bus
00:11:16.360 | and we'll live in the bus while we're building a house.
00:11:18.680 | Or, you know, if we're on a trip or traveling, you know, we'll live in the bus.
00:11:22.720 | So yeah, it, it, it actually has made things a lot more convenient because we always in
00:11:28.800 | a sense have a fallback.
00:11:30.600 | You know, we always have a house we can fall back on.
00:11:32.800 | It's our, it's our own little home.
00:11:34.320 | It's small, but you know, it's got everything we need.
00:11:37.160 | Yeah.
00:11:38.160 | And we didn't have to, you know, take out a loan to build it.
00:11:41.840 | We built it cash.
00:11:42.840 | We just, you know, so it's something that is just ours.
00:11:49.840 | We don't have to have, I guess the extra fees and mortgages and that you would have on a
00:11:56.920 | house and yeah.
00:11:58.240 | Yeah.
00:11:59.240 | One of the, one of the, I guess, major benefits I see of, of it, I would love to see, and
00:12:06.200 | I want to move to your tiny house as well, but I'd love to see most young people start
00:12:11.840 | their life with a tiny house and a trailer, one of the houses that's built on a trailer.
00:12:17.120 | Because if you can start with your own dwelling place, that's small enough to go on a trailer
00:12:21.640 | and you can just hook it up to your truck or have somebody truck it for you.
00:12:26.000 | And you can know that you always have that as a fallback plan.
00:12:28.320 | You can always park it in somebody's driveway or in somebody's backyard.
00:12:32.120 | It provides a sense of security and a sense of safety for you.
00:12:36.600 | And I think a lot of people are looking for that sense of security and they find it difficult
00:12:40.480 | to find.
00:12:41.640 | But if you have a little cozy place to live that doesn't have any ongoing monthly payments
00:12:46.520 | associated with it, that can be really, really powerful.
00:12:50.680 | Yeah, exactly.
00:12:52.560 | The funny thing about it is that our son Ashton, he's 10 and he's already dreamed up these
00:12:59.320 | ideas of he wants to have a restaurant.
00:13:02.040 | And so he wants to do it in a tiny home and do one of those, I guess you'd call them tumbleweed
00:13:08.680 | style houses, but make it a little restaurant and travel around.
00:13:14.760 | So tell me about the tiny house and let's define because a podcast is an audio only
00:13:19.440 | format.
00:13:20.440 | So let's describe a little bit of what we mean by a tiny house.
00:13:23.520 | It's not a tumbleweed plan on a trailer, but it's still relatively small.
00:13:28.560 | So describe the house and what's the story behind it.
00:13:31.800 | Okay.
00:13:32.800 | So our tiny home or...
00:13:35.000 | Okay.
00:13:36.000 | Yeah.
00:13:37.000 | Actually, we lived down south for quite a long time and in the south, New Orleans style
00:13:44.600 | homes and beach style homes are a big thing.
00:13:48.680 | And so when we moved up north, no one has houses such as that.
00:13:53.840 | And I've kind of always made it a little bit of a hobby of mine, building and designing
00:14:00.680 | houses.
00:14:01.680 | I like to build them as small as I can, but really functional.
00:14:04.800 | So a lot of time you see people with these large houses that aren't functional.
00:14:10.460 | They have wasted space and they aren't organized well.
00:14:15.540 | They don't use their cabinet space well and they find they just pile up their things rather
00:14:21.200 | than having specific places to put them.
00:14:24.040 | And so I like to design a small space that is extremely functional.
00:14:31.580 | And so that's kind of where it started.
00:14:33.400 | So I would as a hobby design these very tiny homes and then we had an opportunity to build
00:14:41.000 | one.
00:14:42.000 | And so to kind of give people an idea, most tumbleweed houses and tiny homes, they'll
00:14:48.520 | fit on a, like what you were saying, on a trailer.
00:14:51.480 | You may have an 18 foot or 20 foot trailer.
00:14:55.400 | The tiny home we built, we call it a tiny home for us because we're a family of nine.
00:15:02.560 | So it's, I think, about 1150 square feet.
00:15:07.360 | It's got a dining room, a kitchen, a mudroom area where you can hang jackets.
00:15:13.680 | It's got a decent size living room, two bedrooms and two full baths.
00:15:17.600 | So we fit all of that into a 14 foot wide by 40 foot long two story house.
00:15:27.480 | And the number one comment we get from everyone is when they walk in, it's like, "Oh my gosh,
00:15:34.000 | it feels so big in here."
00:15:36.040 | Because Julie, of course, she does all the architectural designing of these houses and
00:15:40.800 | she's really good at organizing the space and making sure there's no wasted space anywhere
00:15:45.880 | in these houses.
00:15:46.880 | And we'll both sit over a program, a plan and we'll just go back and forth with ideas
00:15:53.800 | and change things until we feel like it's like, "Yeah, that's perfect."
00:15:59.480 | One thing we did do is we put nine foot ceilings in the home upstairs and downstairs.
00:16:06.120 | And that really opens up your space because people are vertical, most of us, some people
00:16:13.520 | are.
00:16:14.520 | But for the taller people, when you have your space go up, rather than creating a large
00:16:21.400 | room, it opens it up.
00:16:23.480 | It makes it feel larger than it is.
00:16:26.280 | And of course, we always put lots of windows and tall windows.
00:16:30.360 | So it opens up your space.
00:16:32.920 | - So that's really cool.
00:16:34.440 | And the pictures look cool as far as having that New Orleans style, that tall two story,
00:16:39.640 | long, narrow and deep house design.
00:16:43.400 | But on the lot, why did you choose that place to build it?
00:16:49.000 | Because it seems like the lot is so large that the natural decision would be to increase
00:16:54.120 | the footprint.
00:16:55.120 | Am I wrong?
00:16:56.120 | - The lot actually for that house is only 25 feet wide.
00:17:00.560 | - By 125 feet deep.
00:17:04.480 | - So that specific lot that that house is on-
00:17:07.080 | - There's six lots there total.
00:17:09.280 | - There's actually six lots there that sit side by side.
00:17:13.280 | So it's got a...
00:17:15.480 | The front yard is very, very small.
00:17:18.120 | I mean, you can...
00:17:19.120 | I actually went out there one day and we hadn't bought a lawnmower yet.
00:17:24.480 | And I had a razor blade, it's called an Olfa blade.
00:17:30.960 | And kind of as a joke, because our grass was long, so I just sat down and just started
00:17:34.800 | kind of like cutting it.
00:17:35.800 | I actually cut the whole front lawn with a razor blade.
00:17:40.240 | - But the funny thing about it is I actually videotaped it.
00:17:43.200 | So we'll have to put that on YouTube.
00:17:44.720 | - I don't know, I've kind of been holding that video back.
00:17:49.920 | So the reason I'm probing on this is here on Radical Personal Finance, we talk about
00:17:54.360 | a lot of strategies that will allow people to build financial freedom in a relatively
00:18:00.320 | short period of time.
00:18:02.200 | And one component of that is income.
00:18:04.800 | Another component of that is expenses.
00:18:06.920 | And what stands out to me is because of your design capacity, you've built a really beautiful
00:18:13.240 | space, but two beautiful spaces, the house and the bus, but on less cost than many other
00:18:23.360 | people would face.
00:18:25.080 | And many people are intimidated by the idea of having seven kids because now I've got
00:18:28.640 | to have an 8,000 square foot house.
00:18:32.160 | What was the path to making these decisions?
00:18:34.440 | Have you guys always been weird like this or what was the journey?
00:18:39.240 | - Probably, we know we're different than probably most people and we're able to just get up.
00:18:48.480 | One thing we like about what you're talking about, the financial freedom side of it, is
00:18:53.920 | when you live small, you're able to do more.
00:18:59.080 | In the sense like we can just go, "Hey, let's jump in the bus and we're going to go down
00:19:03.120 | south."
00:19:04.120 | Or someone's invited us to go visit and minister at their church over here.
00:19:09.360 | We can do that because we don't have these enormous home payments.
00:19:18.520 | Actually that house that you're looking at too, the tiny home, we built that cash as
00:19:22.240 | well because we were able to sell another house and we've slowly just gotten debt-free.
00:19:29.360 | And then we built...
00:19:30.600 | And you asked the question, "Why did you choose this small house?"
00:19:33.080 | Well, we were able to build it debt-free.
00:19:35.240 | That's the biggest reason.
00:19:36.240 | We were able to build a really beautiful home that feels rich inside, but it's small and
00:19:44.080 | we're debt-free.
00:19:45.080 | - Another thing we've discovered is when you have a smaller space, you can buy or invest
00:19:53.360 | in maybe the nicer things because you don't have to buy as much of it.
00:19:57.920 | Say you want to have really nice hardwood floor.
00:20:00.760 | Well, in a large house, that might be totally out of your budget.
00:20:04.440 | But if you have a smaller space, you can have really nice wood floors or invest a little
00:20:10.960 | bit more money into say a really nice set of cabinets where...
00:20:18.120 | You know what I mean?
00:20:19.760 | You can get nicer windows and in a smaller space and really make a rich environment where
00:20:28.480 | if you have say a large house and you have to kind of lower the cost on some things because
00:20:33.800 | you have more carpet to buy or more flooring to buy, more sheetrock, more trim.
00:20:38.280 | - Yeah, the list goes on.
00:20:43.480 | - I agree with you.
00:20:44.520 | And it's one of the things that people often forget that if you are careful with the things
00:20:49.480 | that you choose, you can choose to have the things that you want.
00:20:54.960 | And as my friend Paula Pant says, "You can't afford everything, but you can't afford anything."
00:21:00.560 | So if you clarify what's more important to you and prioritize that, you can do it.
00:21:07.000 | And it feels better.
00:21:09.120 | It's better to live in a small luxurious bungalow on the beach than a big ramshackle giant house
00:21:16.000 | in the suburbs of some cold city you don't want to be in.
00:21:19.880 | - Exactly.
00:21:20.880 | - It's not so much the size.
00:21:22.680 | It's the choice.
00:21:24.520 | It's better to have a small wardrobe of clothes that you love and that you feel good in than
00:21:28.440 | a closet packed full of things you don't want to wear.
00:21:30.920 | - My motto is, "If I don't love it, I don't buy it."
00:21:35.000 | I come across things that I kind of like.
00:21:38.600 | In the past, I've gone and bought items because they're on sale, not necessarily because I
00:21:43.960 | really liked it.
00:21:45.800 | And whether it's clothing or shoes or pillows or whatever, I find if I don't love it, it
00:21:53.400 | sits in my closet.
00:21:54.400 | I never wear it.
00:21:55.400 | And then I eventually get rid of it and I revert back to the things I really like.
00:22:00.120 | So especially with so many children, if I don't love that item, I just don't buy it.
00:22:06.360 | - If you don't love a child, you get rid of them.
00:22:09.080 | - As long as we have so many children, we can't just go in and buy everything we see.
00:22:19.040 | Even with kids' clothes.
00:22:22.040 | - I'm just kidding.
00:22:23.040 | I always, my favorite...
00:22:24.520 | - You're teasing me.
00:22:25.520 | - I am teasing you.
00:22:26.520 | One of my favorite jokes, it was a little bit funnier before he fell into disgrace,
00:22:31.560 | but Bill Cosby always used to say to joke to his kids, one of his jokes was, "Better
00:22:36.080 | straighten up because I can get rid of you and make another one look just like you."
00:22:41.440 | I just thought that was funny.
00:22:43.280 | - And actually, one other thing I wanted to mention, when Shane and I first had Isaiah,
00:22:51.040 | he's our oldest son, that we, the typical thing is when you have kids, you start holding
00:22:59.160 | back on things that you normally want to do.
00:23:01.460 | You don't travel as much, you don't go to restaurants because you now have a baby, and
00:23:06.760 | we're like, we do not want to live that kind of life.
00:23:09.360 | So from the get-go, we would bring our children to a restaurant and teach them how to behave
00:23:16.280 | in that kind of environment.
00:23:19.120 | And the important thing about that is, for one, we can go out into public and our kids
00:23:25.000 | will be well-behaved.
00:23:27.200 | And then the other thing is living in a small space, the children have learned to respect
00:23:33.080 | our authority, and from a young age, we started that.
00:23:37.120 | So whether we're in a small space and we need them to behave, because that can be a stressful
00:23:44.760 | environment, they've learned to respect our authority and respect us and what we ask.
00:23:52.360 | - And another thing, too, is you retain your sanity in the sense of, so many times, like
00:24:00.320 | what Julie was saying, when people start having children, it seems they almost put their life
00:24:06.040 | on hold.
00:24:07.040 | And one of the things now is if we go to a restaurant or something and people will see
00:24:13.040 | us walk in with this huge family and, "Oh my gosh, they're seating this huge family
00:24:20.960 | next to us," and you kind of see the looks.
00:24:25.440 | But usually, it never fails.
00:24:27.760 | By the end of the meal, people always will come over to our table and say, "You know,
00:24:32.640 | when we saw you being sat here, we were nervous.
00:24:36.080 | Is our nice dinner going to be spoiled?
00:24:38.080 | But you guys have the best kids and they're so well-behaved and they're quiet."
00:24:44.440 | And that comes from living life with your kids.
00:24:49.320 | You don't have to, just because you have a kid or two kids or three kids, it doesn't
00:24:53.160 | mean like, "Oh, now I have to stay home," or "We can't go and do things."
00:24:58.480 | You teach your kids to do things with you, and then they learn how to respect those environments
00:25:05.920 | that they're in and it just works so much better.
00:25:08.640 | I got to admit, I am a little envious of your family, of a beautiful family.
00:25:13.360 | I got to imagine how much fun a bus trip would be with seven kids.
00:25:17.760 | It would be a lot of fun.
00:25:20.400 | I'm the youngest of seven myself.
00:25:22.880 | So when I say fun, I mean it's a lot of fun.
00:25:26.060 | My favorite memory is growing up or traveling across the country with my family.
00:25:31.160 | For those who haven't been from a big family, I feel bad for families whose Thanksgiving
00:25:38.600 | Day tables are boring.
00:25:42.240 | Our table is never boring and it's even better.
00:25:44.280 | I don't know what y'all's family background is, but it's even better now because now not
00:25:48.760 | only are there seven kids, but now there's grandchildren all around.
00:25:52.760 | So our family gatherings are never boring.
00:25:55.640 | Yeah, well you know, my parents, they only had two, it was just me and my sister.
00:26:02.720 | Looking back, I'm like, "I wish I would have had a brother."
00:26:05.880 | There's a lot of cool things I could be doing with my brother right now.
00:26:08.280 | We do a lot of, we do filming and different things like that.
00:26:12.600 | I'm like, "Man, if I had a brother, he could be helping me right now."
00:26:16.920 | What were my parents thinking?
00:26:19.800 | That's where my sister's husband comes into play.
00:26:24.200 | I don't know if you've seen any of the videos that we have two different YouTube channels.
00:26:28.560 | We have our Good News Boss channel and then we have our Lugnut Film channel.
00:26:33.840 | You can meet Chris on the Lugnut Film channel.
00:26:36.240 | He's the co-host of that with me.
00:26:39.520 | Awesome.
00:26:40.520 | I'll take a look at it.
00:26:42.920 | Practically speaking though, you said your house has two bedrooms.
00:26:47.040 | I would guess, I mean correct me, but as your children are relatively young right now, do
00:26:51.480 | you anticipate moving out and into a different situation in the future?
00:26:55.600 | Right.
00:26:56.600 | We're on the road right now.
00:26:58.600 | We're not in the house.
00:27:00.280 | We've been out of it since December.
00:27:05.800 | What the plan is or was, it just depends on what happens, is we have six lots in that
00:27:15.960 | location.
00:27:17.240 | We were going to build more of these style homes and increase the size, not tremendously,
00:27:23.440 | but the next house would have been three bedrooms instead of two, but still keeping that small
00:27:29.680 | footprint.
00:27:33.160 | What we did in the second bedroom, we have two sets of bunk beds.
00:27:39.560 | Then above the closet, because we have nine-foot ceilings, we made the closet shorter and we
00:27:46.120 | put a built-in bunk bed above there.
00:27:50.280 | We gained a bedroom there.
00:27:53.840 | This might sound bad, but our youngest child just slept in our closet.
00:27:57.400 | It's a walk-in closet.
00:27:58.400 | It's like an open walk-in closet where the door was never shut kind of thing.
00:28:03.840 | My wife and I, we spent the first year of our marriage in a 234-square-foot studio apartment.
00:28:10.160 | We had considered where we'd put the kids.
00:28:12.000 | We had a walk-in closet.
00:28:13.000 | I figured two kids could go in there and then we could put a bed in the bathtub for the
00:28:16.880 | baby if we needed to.
00:28:20.040 | It is funny.
00:28:21.040 | I mean, obviously, we're having fun with the subject, but generally, human beings take
00:28:26.280 | up what?
00:28:27.280 | Let's see.
00:28:28.280 | If they're small human beings, take up about three linear feet by what?
00:28:32.080 | Two feet wide?
00:28:33.080 | About six square feet when they're lying down and sleeping.
00:28:36.320 | They don't need 300 square feet to sleep in.
00:28:39.760 | They need about six.
00:28:40.760 | Maybe eight as they grow.
00:28:44.200 | When we built that, if we would have built it to stay in, I would have designed it in
00:28:48.480 | such a way with built-in bunk beds and even a separate room for a girl's room and a boy's
00:28:53.880 | room, but we were building it for the purpose of turning it around and selling it.
00:28:58.480 | I didn't want to have seven built-in beds and stuff like that because resettle wouldn't
00:29:04.560 | have been as good.
00:29:05.560 | Yeah, it wouldn't have been as good.
00:29:07.560 | Our bus is actually more accommodating than the house because we have a bed for almost
00:29:15.040 | everybody in the bus.
00:29:18.040 | Which is kind of funny when you think about it because it's so small.
00:29:21.560 | It's like 220 square feet and it comfortably will sleep eight.
00:29:29.800 | Then we have the baby, which is nine.
00:29:32.320 | The youngest one, Seth, shares a bed with Kira.
00:29:37.400 | They're our two youngest, so they share a bunk right now.
00:29:41.160 | We get comments.
00:29:43.320 | You can read some of the comments, of course, that people make on our YouTube channel.
00:29:49.240 | Every once in a while, you get a comment from somebody like, "What are you going to do when
00:29:52.680 | they get older?"
00:29:53.680 | Oh my gosh.
00:29:54.680 | We're stuck in the bus.
00:29:55.680 | We've never thought about that before.
00:30:00.680 | Actually, we already have a plan in the works of doing a new bus.
00:30:06.520 | We have an opportunity to possibly get a bigger bus.
00:30:09.520 | I've already done the floor plan and everything that has a bed for everybody.
00:30:15.000 | It actually has a sofa in it, too.
00:30:18.120 | Yeah, a sofa, living room area.
00:30:20.880 | That sounds awesome.
00:30:22.440 | Tell me more about your lifestyle.
00:30:26.820 | It sounds like you guys have built what, from just an initial glance, seems to be a really
00:30:32.720 | fun family integrated lifestyle.
00:30:35.280 | How do you earn your income?
00:30:36.480 | What does your average year look like?
00:30:38.800 | What's your lifestyle like?
00:30:40.680 | A lot of our lifestyle, as far as financially, is very much based on trusting and really
00:30:54.000 | faith that—
00:30:55.000 | Let's say the glue of our life is Jesus.
00:30:59.640 | It isn't money.
00:31:02.240 | We learned a long time ago that finances and having things and having money isn't what
00:31:08.920 | makes you happy.
00:31:10.280 | We can look at society and see that you look at Hollywood.
00:31:15.240 | These people have millions of dollars in the bank and people are committing suicide.
00:31:20.280 | They're unhappy.
00:31:21.680 | The divorce rate, all that stuff.
00:31:23.760 | I think you hear—and you would probably know better on this—but you hear that so
00:31:27.800 | many marriages are destroyed because of finances.
00:31:32.480 | We've had several times in our life where we have had zero dollars in the bank account.
00:31:41.160 | It didn't shake us.
00:31:42.760 | Why not?
00:31:45.120 | I wouldn't say it never has shaken us.
00:31:49.640 | Early on, there were some times where Julie and I originally were managing three businesses
00:31:55.580 | at one point, retail stores.
00:31:59.120 | This was back in 2005, I guess.
00:32:05.400 | What happened was when the economy really started to tank, we pretty much lost.
00:32:12.760 | All of our stores were paid for.
00:32:14.440 | They were debt-free, but we had put hours and hours of work and time into these stores,
00:32:21.800 | and then we had to just shut them down.
00:32:25.440 | That going through that, it never affected Julie and I's relationship or our marriage
00:32:33.200 | or anything like that.
00:32:34.200 | It was a time of like, "Man, all of that time, all of that building and stuff."
00:32:42.000 | We learned a lot from going through that.
00:32:45.400 | >> JANICE KATZ: We were fortunate that we didn't have to go bankrupt and we didn't
00:32:50.440 | have to have any debts to pay off.
00:32:55.320 | People say, because we always have managed to stay out of debt.
00:32:59.440 | >> KYLE BASS: Yeah.
00:33:02.280 | Then we just kind of go, "Well, okay, let's just keep moving here.
00:33:06.800 | Let's just keep going on."
00:33:10.640 | I make money by doing carpentry work.
00:33:13.760 | I do carpentry work.
00:33:14.880 | I also volunteer for our ministry, and I do music.
00:33:21.640 | As far as the music side of things go, web design, and we do video stuff.
00:33:28.720 | None of these things are bringing in just tons of cash by any means.
00:33:35.640 | Our family, whether it's through people blessing us or whether it's through a job I get, we're
00:33:41.680 | always taken care of and we've always had enough.
00:33:45.440 | We've always had food on the table.
00:33:48.600 | That's really what the important things are.
00:33:51.920 | If you get a little extra money and you're able to do something fun, then that's great.
00:33:57.600 | The most important thing is that the family's happy.
00:34:00.440 | The kids have a mom and a dad that love them, and the mom and dad love each other.
00:34:07.200 | Those are really the most important things.
00:34:10.880 | Preston Pysh (00:36:40):
00:34:22.640 | You guys live an unusual lifestyle.
00:34:25.760 | Have you ever regretted having so many kids, which obviously they require food to eat?
00:34:31.760 | Have you ever regretted it?
00:34:33.120 | Matt Theron (00:37:00):
00:34:34.160 | Not for a second, actually.
00:34:37.680 | We never planned on having a big family.
00:34:40.860 | If someone would have asked me before I got married, "How many kids do you want to have?"
00:34:45.640 | I'd probably, "Oh, one or two, I guess."
00:34:48.880 | It wasn't anything planned at all.
00:34:51.920 | Rachel Tauber (00:37:22):
00:34:53.000 | I'm actually from Canada originally.
00:34:58.560 | Shane and I had a very long-distance relationship before we got married.
00:35:04.600 | I got married really young, and so we actually had our first child not even a year after
00:35:13.400 | we got married.
00:35:14.400 | We got pregnant right off the bat.
00:35:19.580 | Just the ball's been rolling from there.
00:35:22.280 | We love every one of our children.
00:35:24.800 | There's been times when I'm like, "Oh my goodness, we have three kids in diapers right now."
00:35:30.240 | I've literally been changing a diaper almost every day for the last 12 years, whether they're
00:35:35.940 | a toddler or an infant.
00:35:39.680 | There's always been a diaper to change.
00:35:42.120 | Matt Theron (00:38:02):
00:35:43.120 | I try not to tell myself that I could have bought a brand new BMW with the amount I've
00:35:49.200 | spent on diapers.
00:35:50.400 | I try to tell myself that.
00:35:52.000 | I try to forget those facts.
00:35:53.920 | Have you learned any tips, tools, tactics, techniques, tricks that come to mind that
00:36:01.800 | have helped you guys make the dollar stretch?
00:36:03.720 | Rachel Tauber (00:38:22):
00:36:04.720 | We tried cloth diapers for a while, and I don't know.
00:36:09.960 | The cost didn't seem to outweigh.
00:36:11.760 | Matt Theron (00:38:29):
00:36:12.760 | Honestly, yeah, there are a few tips for saving money.
00:36:17.760 | One of the things that we learned, we did what every parent, I think, does when they
00:36:22.640 | have their first child.
00:36:24.320 | They have a baby shower, and they'll get gifts from that.
00:36:28.200 | Anything they don't get in their baby shower, they'll go out and they'll buy the diaper
00:36:30.960 | genies.
00:36:31.960 | I can't even think of all the ... I know you could have a room full of things.
00:36:39.240 | You can have a cradle, and you have all this stuff.
00:36:42.000 | Rachel Tauber (00:38:56):
00:36:43.000 | I think with Isaiah, we had the diaper genie and cribs and every little thing that you
00:36:48.520 | could think of.
00:36:49.520 | Pretty soon, as time goes on, you're like, "Boy, gosh, you don't even really need these
00:36:56.560 | things."
00:36:57.560 | There's a lot of those things you don't actually really need.
00:37:03.680 | You're told that you need them.
00:37:05.200 | Okay, you have to have this, you have to have that.
00:37:08.760 | We've gotten to the point of just being, as far as parenting, raising young children,
00:37:14.880 | pretty laid back in the sense of not having to have all these things that-
00:37:21.320 | Julia Miller (00:39:34):
00:37:22.320 | I don't even have a diaper bag.
00:37:23.320 | I always just keep a diaper in a little container, wipes in my purse.
00:37:29.960 | I don't know.
00:37:31.640 | I'm probably the worst at being prepared, I guess.
00:37:36.040 | I don't bring a closet of clothes with us when we go out somewhere for my child.
00:37:41.480 | We try to teach the kids, "Okay, when you sit at the table and eat, don't get it all
00:37:47.440 | over yourself."
00:37:48.440 | Shae Giesinger (00:40:05):
00:37:49.440 | Shane can't stand dirty hands.
00:37:51.280 | It was funny, our kids got it drilled in their head so much to keep their hands clean that
00:37:56.160 | they'd go to fall on the ground and they're trying not to touch the ground to get up so
00:38:00.800 | they don't get their hands dirty.
00:38:02.760 | Shane Giesinger (00:40:17):
00:38:03.760 | Now, they still play outside.
00:38:05.000 | They still play in the dirt.
00:38:07.000 | Shae Giesinger (00:40:22):
00:38:08.920 | They're good.
00:38:09.920 | Shane Giesinger (00:40:24):
00:38:10.920 | I guess we've tried to ward off things that we see other people having to struggle with
00:38:21.920 | and deal with.
00:38:22.920 | We meet people constantly and we'll go to Walmart or we'll have moms come up to us.
00:38:28.080 | They're like, "I can't even handle my one kid.
00:38:30.040 | How do you guys handle seven?"
00:38:33.480 | Just trying to encourage them and telling them, "Just have more kids and it'll get
00:38:37.160 | better."
00:38:38.160 | I did find that once I had two or three kids, it seemed easier than just one.
00:38:43.840 | Maybe because I was also a new parent.
00:38:46.400 | Then the other thing is the more kids you have, the more they occupy each other.
00:38:51.680 | If Ethan doesn't want to play with Elisha anymore, he can go play with Ashton or Kira
00:38:55.640 | or Isaiah.
00:38:56.640 | There's always a buddy to hang out with.
00:39:01.360 | I don't know.
00:39:02.360 | Shane Giesinger (00:41:02):
00:39:03.360 | It becomes where they very much occupy each other and help each other.
00:39:09.480 | Elisha for example, he's our six-year-old.
00:39:17.920 | When Julie started, because she homeschools all the kids, when it came time to him start
00:39:22.160 | his schooling, he already knew so much from learning from the other kids.
00:39:26.700 | They would spend hours playing things like Monopoly and learning how to count money and
00:39:31.400 | all that stuff.
00:39:32.400 | So Julie sat down with him one day.
00:39:34.560 | I think it was her first time to go over some math with him.
00:39:37.560 | Julie Schneider (00:41:29):
00:39:38.560 | It was like real school.
00:39:39.560 | Hey, we're pulling … because the kids from a young age, they always want to sit down
00:39:42.240 | with the other kids and do school.
00:39:44.400 | This was the first year of him like, "Okay, this is your set of books and we're going
00:39:49.040 | to have a regular schedule."
00:39:50.600 | Shane Giesinger (00:41:43):
00:39:51.600 | She sat down with him and she's going through some math problems and he's popping off these
00:39:56.920 | answers to her.
00:39:58.280 | She's like, "Okay, wait, wait, wait.
00:40:00.640 | How are you …"
00:40:01.640 | Julie Schneider (00:41:54):
00:40:02.640 | Calculating this.
00:40:03.640 | Shane Giesinger (00:41:54):
00:40:04.640 | "How are you calculating this?"
00:40:05.640 | He's like, "Well, this plus this equals that."
00:40:08.440 | He learned all of that from of course …
00:40:10.400 | Julie Schneider (00:42:02):
00:40:11.400 | Playing Monopoly.
00:40:12.400 | Shane Giesinger (00:42:02):
00:40:13.400 | Playing Monopoly or they'll sit down with … they'll play cards together.
00:40:16.640 | They'll invent their own games.
00:40:18.360 | Julie Schneider (00:42:10):
00:40:19.360 | Ashton and Ethan.
00:40:20.360 | Ashton is our math child.
00:40:22.320 | So everything is mathematical.
00:40:24.960 | He sat down and figured out a game to play with speed, but they play with flashcards.
00:40:33.480 | So I'll have one plus five is this.
00:40:37.240 | So whoever has the highest sum would win the pile or whatever.
00:40:41.640 | So it was teaching them to add or subtract quickly.
00:40:47.420 | He invented that game when he was six years old.
00:40:50.120 | So that was the games they would come up with.
00:40:52.800 | But that's only Ashton.
00:40:53.800 | He's special.
00:40:54.800 | Shane Giesinger (00:42:41):
00:40:55.800 | So then the younger kids are encouraged by that and they want to play and they want to
00:40:59.320 | learn and, "Oh, this is exciting."
00:41:01.640 | So really what's cool about it is it's like doing school but not feeling the suffering
00:41:07.600 | of doing school.
00:41:08.600 | You know?
00:41:09.600 | Ashton Silver (00:42:56):
00:41:10.600 | Why do you guys homeschool?
00:41:11.600 | Shane Giesinger (00:43:00):
00:41:12.600 | Well, being mobile, I was homeschooled.
00:41:17.600 | I turned out halfway normal.
00:41:18.600 | Julie Schneider (00:43:04):
00:41:19.600 | I went to public school.
00:41:22.720 | Public school has some great programs too, but there's just, honestly, I think mostly
00:41:28.280 | I wanted to teach the children.
00:41:31.400 | I figured most kids maybe want to be around their parents until they're 13.
00:41:36.840 | And then once they get to the teenage years, they kind of want their own space.
00:41:41.360 | So I figured, "Okay, I have 13 years that I can spend as much time as I can with my
00:41:46.640 | kids and I get to be involved in their learning."
00:41:50.240 | And the thing that's been amazing about it is that I've learned their strengths and
00:41:54.520 | their weaknesses.
00:41:55.520 | And I know the kids will probably hate me for telling you this, but we started English,
00:42:01.480 | I think it was two years ago, and they were doing terrible with it.
00:42:05.440 | And it was grade five English.
00:42:07.440 | And I'm like, "Okay, we're going back to grade three."
00:42:10.360 | So I actually made all the kids go back to grade three and start over.
00:42:15.600 | And we actually have kind of a policy that if they don't get 80% or better, they have
00:42:20.400 | to redo the assignment.
00:42:22.480 | So I figured if they don't get 80% or better, that they didn't learn enough of it.
00:42:29.560 | And it would be better to go back and get it down rather than just keep moving forward.
00:42:35.360 | And so we went back to grade three English, back to English, and they flew through it.
00:42:43.000 | And I found that they improved drastically.
00:42:49.040 | And the foundational stuff was being laid down properly.
00:42:55.880 | So I'm able to do that in a normal class setting in a public school or a private school, whatever
00:43:03.120 | it might be.
00:43:04.920 | The teacher might not pick up on those things or be able to take them back, "Hey, you need
00:43:09.420 | to go back to grade three in English."
00:43:11.880 | If Ashton, he's actually three grades ahead in math, and he wouldn't be able to be in
00:43:20.280 | a normal grade for the other subjects and be in a higher grade in math in a public school
00:43:26.720 | setting.
00:43:27.720 | So I don't know, I'm really flexible with that area.
00:43:30.320 | And I love it.
00:43:31.720 | It's great.
00:43:32.720 | - So Julie's able to really see their strengths, see their weaknesses.
00:43:37.000 | And then, like she said, with Ashton, she's able to say, "Okay, you're good where you
00:43:41.880 | are in English and spelling, but you are just flying through this math.
00:43:47.680 | So we're going to step you up."
00:43:48.800 | And he eventually stepped up three grades in math.
00:43:51.440 | So she's able to keep him where he's doing good in his English and his reading and that
00:43:56.960 | kind of stuff, and then advance him in things.
00:43:59.880 | So he's able to cultivate, in a sense, that gifting he has in math, and he's able to keep
00:44:07.280 | going with that.
00:44:08.280 | And it's not being stifled, in a sense.
00:44:11.760 | - And I know probably a big question people are like, "How can you homeschool seven kids?"
00:44:16.440 | Well, once they learn how to read, they take the initiative and they do the school on their
00:44:23.160 | own.
00:44:24.160 | And I tell them a lot of the time that they will be done their schoolwork before I am
00:44:29.000 | done breakfast.
00:44:30.680 | So they will get up super early in the morning because they want to be able to play the rest
00:44:34.680 | of the day.
00:44:35.680 | So they'll go and they'll finish their schoolwork beforehand, and then I correct it and probably
00:44:43.360 | spend the rest of the day correcting their school.
00:44:46.360 | And then we'll do it on the days that they have a test.
00:44:51.440 | They don't do that beforehand.
00:44:53.520 | I'm the one that supervises that.
00:44:56.200 | So it's neat that way because it's not like I'm sitting down with each kid.
00:45:03.280 | Unless they have an issue, a problem that they can't figure out on their own, then I'll
00:45:08.040 | of course help them with that.
00:45:10.040 | But for the most part, the textbooks have been amazing in explaining things.
00:45:14.480 | There's some really good curriculum out there right now.
00:45:17.880 | - How's the music business?
00:45:21.520 | - The music business is, well here, I'll just sum it up.
00:45:24.640 | We give away way more than we sell.
00:45:27.720 | - We're not in it.
00:45:29.480 | - We're not in the music business to make money at all.
00:45:34.480 | We love blessing people with our music.
00:45:39.280 | And a matter of fact, a lot of it's available for free out there.
00:45:46.640 | But it gives us something to be able to, first of all, when we go and minister, it's something
00:45:54.360 | that we can either give to people or we can have a product available for people.
00:45:59.280 | And then many times, just in meeting people and getting in conversations with people,
00:46:04.440 | I have download cards that give people a free download of one of our latest CDs.
00:46:11.720 | And it gives me something to give to people.
00:46:14.440 | Not only are we talking to them about our family or about the Lord, but it gives us
00:46:19.640 | something that we can give people as well.
00:46:22.760 | And we love doing the music, and we've invested a lot into it, recognizing that we're not
00:46:32.000 | going to necessarily, it's hard to get, if you're not labeled, we're not labeled.
00:46:38.720 | If you're not labeled, it's hard to get your music out there.
00:46:42.920 | And the industry is changing a lot with iTunes.
00:46:47.920 | You've got a lot of these artists that are going independent and things like that.
00:46:51.880 | >> JOANNA: We do it because we love it.
00:46:54.360 | >> BRYAN: Yeah, we do it because we love it.
00:46:57.800 | My very first CD, which I came out with, that was back in 2001, I think.
00:47:05.520 | That one actually got national airplay here and around the world.
00:47:11.880 | I was doing a lot of traveling then.
00:47:13.440 | That's before Julie and I were married.
00:47:15.320 | I actually met Julie in Canada on a mission trip up there to her church.
00:47:21.760 | And that's how we met.
00:47:24.440 | The music that we've done, we've put out three albums since then.
00:47:29.240 | We came out with an EP with three songs on it.
00:47:32.040 | And then just recently, we came out with two new singles.
00:47:36.480 | And it's one way we always, every once in a while, we'll post and say, "Look, if you
00:47:42.040 | want to support what we're doing, you can purchase our music and you get something in
00:47:48.400 | return for your purchase or whatever."
00:47:51.720 | So yeah, that's kind of how the music is going right now.
00:47:56.040 | >> LEE: Final two questions, one related to the bus and the other just more general.
00:48:00.960 | On your website, you indicate that your guess is that the bus cost you about $30,000.
00:48:05.360 | It's a pretty sizable sum of money.
00:48:09.000 | I'm curious, have you ever regretted doing the bus conversion?
00:48:12.040 | Have you ever wished that you had gone and spent $30,000 on just a used RV?
00:48:18.080 | >> BILLY: No.
00:48:20.040 | We had sold a house.
00:48:23.400 | Like I said, the house was owned by the ministry.
00:48:26.880 | And the ministry actually gave us a certain amount of money to be able to do the bus,
00:48:33.880 | knowing that it would be used often and get a lot of use out of it.
00:48:39.520 | So in that sense, no.
00:48:41.480 | And also that we were able to—I mean, it is still usable for our family.
00:48:48.080 | It's got the bed arrangements and a very nice kitchen.
00:48:52.280 | A couple other things that are unique about it is you're able to design it to who you
00:49:00.320 | are and what your family is.
00:49:01.600 | I knew that we were going to need a hot water heater that was going to be able to keep up
00:49:06.840 | with our family.
00:49:07.840 | And most RV hot water heaters are like a six-gallon or a ten-gallon.
00:49:13.560 | I'm like, if all our kids are out running around playing or we go somewhere and they
00:49:18.800 | get dirty, how in the world are we going to shower all of our kids off with a ten-gallon
00:49:24.200 | hot water heater?
00:49:25.200 | I just don't think that's going to happen.
00:49:26.720 | And so we checked around and we found an InstaHot hot water heater, which are very, very efficient.
00:49:34.480 | And it's a company called Precision Temp that makes them.
00:49:39.080 | And things like that.
00:49:41.200 | So you're able to—if you just went out and bought a used RV, it's not going to have
00:49:46.520 | all these things.
00:49:48.240 | Another thing is the stove that we have.
00:49:50.080 | It's got an oven.
00:49:51.280 | Julie actually bakes—I mean, there's pictures on our Facebook page.
00:49:56.280 | Our Good News Bus Facebook page.
00:49:57.840 | But she'll bake cinnamon rolls.
00:50:00.400 | She's made full Thanksgiving dinners, turkeys in that oven.
00:50:04.720 | And most RVs don't have—
00:50:06.520 | I bake bread twice a week.
00:50:09.000 | She bakes her own homemade sourdough.
00:50:13.160 | This is real sourdough, not made with yeast from the store.
00:50:17.880 | I mean, it's real sourdough.
00:50:18.880 | It's my pet.
00:50:19.880 | I have to feed it.
00:50:20.880 | She has to feed the starter and all that stuff.
00:50:23.800 | And we want to do more videos about that kind of stuff.
00:50:28.080 | So the bus and then the bunks, the bunk arrangements and everything.
00:50:33.800 | Every aspect.
00:50:34.800 | It's wood.
00:50:35.800 | I mean, we have solid oak wood everywhere.
00:50:38.200 | We have hardwood floors and stone countertop.
00:50:43.480 | And to get something that nice, to buy it off of, say, a lot, you're going to pay a
00:50:50.640 | lot of money.
00:50:51.760 | The other thing is it's a school bus.
00:50:54.120 | Not many people have a school bus that they're living in and they're safe.
00:50:59.720 | Yeah.
00:51:00.720 | They're one of the safest road vehicles.
00:51:03.440 | I mean, they're actually designed—because they're designed for kids, they're designed
00:51:07.800 | to actually, if they get in a horrible wreck, they can actually roll over without collapsing
00:51:12.960 | on themselves.
00:51:14.160 | So even that aspect of it with an RV, it's going to be all over the road.
00:51:20.160 | Plus, I have good news for you.
00:51:22.080 | Go ahead.
00:51:23.080 | I'd love it.
00:51:24.360 | You can convert a bus and raise the roof to your height.
00:51:30.160 | That's right.
00:51:31.160 | So you could do it for you.
00:51:34.440 | There's hope.
00:51:35.440 | I always figured I'd need like a Greyhound coach, something that's a little bit taller
00:51:41.160 | if I were ever going to do it.
00:51:42.480 | Yeah.
00:51:43.480 | There's a lot of people.
00:51:44.480 | A lot of people do it.
00:51:45.480 | And it's one of the things we looked at.
00:51:46.960 | It's one of the things I somewhat regret not doing is raising the roof just to give
00:51:52.880 | it that extra open feel.
00:51:55.240 | But yeah, a lot of people will do that.
00:51:57.280 | They will raise the roof on their bus.
00:52:00.860 | You can raise it an extra foot, an extra foot and a half, and it gives you that extra headroom.
00:52:08.520 | Awesome.
00:52:09.520 | Final question is this.
00:52:12.560 | The lifestyle that you have been able to put together, it sounds – obviously, it has
00:52:18.080 | challenges.
00:52:20.920 | We all have challenges.
00:52:21.920 | We all have problems.
00:52:23.160 | We all have difficult days.
00:52:25.720 | But it sounds to me like you've been able to put together a very integrated lifestyle
00:52:31.840 | that allows you to do work that's important to you with the people that you care about
00:52:37.440 | and you did it without coming from – parents didn't leave you tons of money.
00:52:41.800 | You've worked at it yourself.
00:52:44.680 | What advice would you give to somebody who's trying to kind of break free of the normal
00:52:49.000 | humdrum of US-American existence and build a more integrated life?
00:52:54.400 | What advice or counsel would you give them?
00:52:56.320 | Well, I would – I mean, Julie can answer too.
00:52:59.880 | I would say do your best, first of all, to stay out of debt.
00:53:05.440 | From pretty much all the ventures we've ever done, we've tried to do that.
00:53:11.360 | We've tried to completely – whether it's starting a retail store or anything like that,
00:53:17.040 | we always started very small.
00:53:20.000 | One of the businesses we started was in our home and it started with an internet business.
00:53:26.720 | We didn't go and open a humongous store and spend millions of dollars.
00:53:30.480 | We started slow where we would buy a couple pieces of product and sell it and grew that
00:53:35.320 | way.
00:53:36.320 | That's kind of the – I think usually when we're looking, "Okay,
00:53:39.520 | we want to do something.
00:53:41.160 | We don't have the funds to do it."
00:53:43.160 | We don't think, "Okay, where can we get a loan?"
00:53:45.760 | We think, "Okay, what can we sell that's of value that can give us a start and give us
00:53:52.720 | steps into the right direction or a direction that we want to go?"
00:53:57.360 | We're not very attached to anything.
00:54:00.800 | Anything can be –
00:54:01.800 | Our very first house that Julie and I built together after we were married, it took us
00:54:09.480 | I think three or four years to finish because we built it debt free.
00:54:14.280 | That's probably the biggest advice because then after you build a house debt free, you're
00:54:19.200 | not tied to it for 30 years.
00:54:22.160 | The amount that you end up – I think I did calculating once.
00:54:24.880 | The amount you pay for just your toilet in your house on a 30-year mortgage is just – when
00:54:32.400 | you start calculating all that stuff, you just kind of go, "Oh my gosh.
00:54:36.840 | I can't believe this."
00:54:38.800 | That would probably be the biggest thing.
00:54:41.500 | Not having debt frees you up a little bit because if you want to sell your house, you
00:54:46.080 | can sell it.
00:54:47.080 | Which, you can do that if you're in debt with a house as well.
00:54:50.560 | But if you want to have a house and you can't sell it and you want to just be able to leave
00:54:54.920 | and go do something else, hey, you still own a house and it's still paid for.
00:54:58.960 | Or if you get in a sticky situation where maybe you are unemployed or you become ill
00:55:05.240 | and you can no longer pay a mortgage payment, then you're not put in an even worse position
00:55:11.360 | where you're losing your house now.
00:55:14.800 | I don't know.
00:55:15.800 | Ben: I know that for us, it's made things a lot freer.
00:55:22.040 | Our tiny home that we have, we don't owe anything on that and no mortgage.
00:55:29.280 | We're able to, "Hey, let's go and do work here."
00:55:33.600 | We don't have that extra amount of money that we have to make.
00:55:36.920 | It's already enough.
00:55:38.520 | It costs a lot to feed our family.
00:55:40.400 | Rachel: If you have a mortgage, you're also strapped with insurance.
00:55:44.880 | You have to have insurance with a mortgage.
00:55:49.180 | Some people might call it risky for us not to have insurance.
00:55:52.400 | There's times that we just cancel our insurance if we don't have the money.
00:55:56.160 | We're flexible to be able to do that because we don't have a mortgage.
00:56:02.160 | So it's another area where we can save where most people can't.
00:56:06.120 | Ben: Great lessons, guys.
00:56:09.080 | I appreciate you guys sharing a little bit of your life and your lifestyle with us.
00:56:13.000 | So goodnewsbus.com is one website.
00:56:16.000 | Share with us your other websites, YouTube channels.
00:56:18.640 | Promote all the different places and ways that people can find you here.
00:56:22.240 | Ryan: Sure.
00:56:23.240 | Yeah.
00:56:24.240 | Goodnewsbus.com has got a full ... We blogged from the beginning of the bus to the end.
00:56:28.560 | You can go on there.
00:56:29.560 | It's a great resource if it's something that you're looking to wanting to do, if your listeners
00:56:33.880 | are wanting to do something like that.
00:56:36.280 | I also just started a forum on there, too, just to communicate with people more.
00:56:41.760 | Lugnutfilms.com is kind of our film side of things.
00:56:48.120 | We're trying to produce more and more bus life with nine videos.
00:56:52.820 | So you can go on YouTube and type in "Good News Bus" and you'll find all of our videos
00:56:59.240 | there, and our Bus Life with Nine videos.
00:57:02.600 | And then our Lugnut Film videos, we have a carpentry show.
00:57:05.840 | We do some tool reviews, and we always add kind of humor and make it fun.
00:57:11.360 | And then we're on Facebook and Twitter, all the usual places.
00:57:15.080 | Yeah, we love to hear ...
00:57:16.240 | Shana: Literally, if you type in shangood.com, that will take you even to our music page.
00:57:23.160 | Kyle: Yeah, shangood.com will take you to our music page, and you're able to listen
00:57:28.640 | to a sample, a lot of music on there.
00:57:31.360 | And our music, of course, is on iTunes.
00:57:33.160 | If you just type in "Shangood," it'll be on there.
00:57:35.920 | And Julie and I do the music together.
00:57:37.440 | I am the lead singer.
00:57:38.960 | I play some of the instruments, and then Julie does backup singing on there as well.
00:57:45.400 | We actually hired professional people in the industry to help us do those projects.
00:57:51.200 | So they are well-done projects.
00:57:53.800 | Dave: How on earth did you manage to be able to do this interview and have a quiet background?
00:58:02.440 | Where are your kids?
00:58:03.440 | Kyle: We actually ran over to a friend's house.
00:58:08.040 | We have some friends in the area, and we're at a very good friend's house right now.
00:58:14.020 | So the kids are with grandma and grandpa.
00:58:16.480 | Dave: That's funny, because I have two kids, and I can hardly get a quiet recording in.
00:58:20.080 | I've been impressed with that.
00:58:22.680 | Kyle: My daughter, Arwen, she actually asked me, she goes, "So are we going to be on?"
00:58:27.000 | I'm like, "Well, not this time, sweetie.
00:58:28.520 | Maybe next time."
00:58:29.520 | Arwen: Yeah, she would have loved it.
00:58:30.520 | Kyle: She would have loved to be on it, too.
00:58:32.200 | Dave: Well, Shane and Julie, thank you guys so much for coming on.
00:58:34.720 | I really appreciate you sharing your story and your life with my audience.
00:58:38.040 | Shane and Julie: Great.
00:58:39.040 | Arwen: Thanks for having us.
00:58:42.040 | I've seen people from every walk of life, from every situation, figure out a plan to
00:58:49.880 | pursue their own family goals, to build and fulfill their own family vision.
00:58:55.320 | I've seen it no matter...
00:58:56.320 | I just said it.
00:58:57.800 | I've seen it from everywhere.
00:58:58.800 | So here's my encouragement today.
00:59:01.840 | Many of you are looking at something in your life and saying, "This is an obstacle."
00:59:05.840 | And guess what?
00:59:06.840 | You're right.
00:59:09.100 | Some of the things that you have in your life are obstacles.
00:59:11.960 | We're not all in the same situation.
00:59:14.800 | But many obstacles can be overcome.
00:59:18.560 | Many obstacles can be destroyed.
00:59:21.280 | And many obstacles can be integrated into a plan.
00:59:25.760 | If you're deeply in debt, you might need to get out of debt first.
00:59:29.720 | That's an obstacle that can be taken care of.
00:59:31.440 | If you have kids, no, it's not going to be...
00:59:34.440 | Everything is not going to be the same as when you're single or with just you and your
00:59:38.800 | spouse.
00:59:39.800 | It's going to be different.
00:59:40.800 | But guess what?
00:59:41.800 | Kids are not an obstacle.
00:59:43.960 | You can figure out a way to adjust to the situation and fulfill all of the goals and
00:59:50.560 | the vision that you have as a family.
00:59:52.660 | Hope you were inspired and motivated by that interview today.
00:59:57.020 | Hope you found it valuable.
00:59:58.020 | I love stories like that.
01:00:00.660 | Check out all their websites.
01:00:02.220 | Goodnewsbus.com, check out their music and all the rest of their stuff.
01:00:05.300 | If you haven't been, go to Good News Bus.
01:00:07.420 | If for nothing else, just so you can see the bus.
01:00:10.100 | It's really, really cool.
01:00:11.720 | So it's really well done, really, really beautiful.
01:00:15.020 | Goodnewsbus.com.
01:00:16.020 | Thank you so much for listening to today's show.
01:00:17.880 | If you'd like to support the work that I do and allow me to travel the world with my kids,
01:00:22.140 | then please consider becoming a patron of the show.
01:00:25.820 | Details on that program at radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron.
01:00:28.020 | Of course, it's not just for me.
01:00:31.620 | I'm not begging.
01:00:32.620 | If you would like to pay me for the work that I'm doing in providing this content for you,
01:00:38.300 | which is part of the pathway for me to travel the world with my kids, then consider becoming
01:00:42.860 | a patron.
01:00:43.860 | Radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron for all those details.
01:00:47.060 | And until next time, get out there and make a plan for living your good life.
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