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That's FijiAirways.com. From here to happy. Flying direct with Fiji Airways. Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, the show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.

My guest on today's show is Nate Dodson. Nate, fascinating guy who is an expert at building a lifestyle of independence. He's here today to share with us some of his ideas and tips surrounding how to save money and how to live a low-cost lifestyle, but also, and perhaps more importantly, how to build an entrepreneurial endeavor online in a way that's perfect for you.

He's an expert at using some of the new tools, and today he's here to share some of his experiences with you. Nate, welcome to Radical Personal Finance. Nate Dodson, Radical Personal Finance Thanks for having me. Hey, man. You're a longtime listener to the show, and I brought you on today to talk about some of the micro-businesses that you have been able to build.

I think some of the content will be helpful to other listeners of Radical Personal Finance who are interested in pursuing similar paths. As we begin, could you share for a few minutes your path to the businesses that you now participate with? Nate Dodson Yeah, absolutely. I've basically been creating micro-businesses since I was in fourth grade, and nothing that really caught on steam besides selling weed in high school.

Hold on, I've got to ask. Was this a long-time financial strategy of yours, or was this just a short-term side gig? Nate Dodson Well, it was just one of the first ones that caught on. I mean, I did ... like fifth grade, I was selling candy and did a school newspaper, and in high school I got into marijuana and mushrooms, and that was the only thing that started actually making me money for a business.

So, how did you get started in a drug-dealing business as a high school student? What was that process like? Nate Dodson It actually just came out of working at a skate shop. I was working at a skate shop and got to know some guys that had the connection to good marijuana in my little small town and didn't have anything like that, so I started giving it to my friends.

And pretty soon, you know it, I was working at McDonald's. I was 15 and a half to 16, and they would always say, "Nate, you have like 10 checks waiting to be picked up." I would never pick up my checks because I just didn't even care about the money I was making at McDonald's.

Dave Boll How much money did you earn? Nate Dodson I don't know. I've never been one to really keep track of how much money I've earned, to be completely honest with you. I just had money just coming out of my pockets. I didn't have any bills. I was living with my parents.

I was just a teenager. Dave Boll Did you waste it all, or what did you do with the money? Nate Dodson Well, I know I've reached a point where I didn't have any, so I guess I did waste it at some point. Dave Boll Did you get caught, or how did you get out of that business, assuming that you have?

Nate Dodson Well, I just got out of it. I came down to school at IU, Indiana University, and just kind of got out of it from then. Just grew out of it. This wasn't something I wanted to be risky anymore, and just got interested in other things. I get interested in something new every few months.

Dave Boll Sure, sure. Well, go for it. Continue your story. I just couldn't resist asking about that business, but keep going with your story. Nate Dodson Yeah, so that was one of the ones that worked. I had many years when a business didn't work, and I went through college and had several jobs out of college.

I did actually did some handyman work in college by just putting an ad in the paper, and that made me a little bit of money. But then ended up back in Bloomington, where I went to school. I lived in Portland, Oregon for a little bit, Michigan for a little bit.

Ended up back here, and got a job as a restoration ecologist, which is a fancy word for kind of a laborer. I sprayed a lot of herbicide, and worked out in the woods, and did forestry work, cutting down trees and stuff. I just started to not feel that healthy.

I was newly married, and I would go out of town a lot, and I would get covered in herbicide all the time. I've just always kind of had this entrepreneurial background, or entrepreneurial tendencies, I guess. I was exploring stuff on the side the whole time. Then in, I think it was 2012, my wife got pregnant, and I knew I would have a daughter, or I didn't know I was a daughter at the time, but I knew I'd have a kid in nine months.

I just started to think about the fact that I would not have time to spend with her if I was working 55 hours a week, and going out of town all the time. I just like, I need to get serious about this. So I started to read a bunch of business books, and looked online, and Etsy just seemed really easy.

There's a lot of things that make it a really easy kind of gateway business for someone to get into. Basically, there's numbers on there, so you can see what people are purchasing on everyone's site. So you can see kind of what's in demand just by going through there. So I just started looking on there, and I saw, "Oh, I make stuff kind of like that already, just for the fun of it.

So I'll put my stuff online and see if it sells." Stuff started selling, and it grew into an Etsy business. I've done a few of them actually since then, two of them which I still actively manage. >>Steve: So is Etsy now your family's full-time income? >>Jay: No, it's not our full-time income.

I mean, it actually covers our full-time income, because we live really cheap. We're really into just radical simplicity. Our goal for next year actually is to live under $15,000 a year. >>Steve: That's awesome. >>Jay: And that'll be for a family of four when my daughter comes to end up, or my new child comes to end of March.

So it's not a full-time income. My wife works 10 hours a week as a dietician, give or take. And then we have the farm. We earned a little income off of last year, should earn a little more off this year. And I have a rental house as well. >>Steve: So you've got a diverse series of income streams, which is awesome.

So what makes Etsy – you mentioned that Etsy is very accessible, and you mentioned because you can go on there and see what's selling. So is the trick just to go on Etsy and see who's selling stuff and copy them and rip off their stuff and create your own?

Or where does somebody start if they're interested in creating an Etsy business? >>Jay: Well, you probably really could do that if you wanted, but you don't really need to do that. You can just kind of – it has an existing audience. It's a platform. It's got the infrastructure. It's easy just to put stuff on there without having to go through the trouble of building a website or source stuff from China.

I mean, it's just really low risk, and it's a rapid reward. It doesn't take a lot of upfront things to build out an Etsy store. But yeah, you can go on there, and I encourage people just to browse around just forever and find stuff that you think is cool.

And you can look. There's a number down the side. You can see how many sales they've had. When you click on the sales, you can see what actual products they're selling. So I'm not necessarily advocating that you just copy people and rip them off completely, but just go on there and get inspired and create something that resonates with you.

And also, the thing about Etsy is that they do allow outside manufacturing. So you can find products on there that you think are cool that are selling. There's a proven demand. And then you can put up an ad on Craigslist and find a local person to make it for you.

And as long as it still has a profit margin, you're good to go. What types of products do you sell on Etsy? Right now, my two main ones are prints. I sell artwork, and I'm getting ready to build those out into more products, actually. And then I also sell a luxury wedding guest book that sells for $150.

So those are my two main ones. But I also have experience selling skateboards, custom skateboards, and teepees, like children's play tents. And then I've helped a couple other people start Etsy businesses as well. So one of my goals here, as we record this, is the beginning of 2016. One of my goals in 2016 is to bring more income opportunities to the listeners of Radical Personal Finance, to help people diversify their income streams, to help people build a backup source of income, and just basically more ideas about side hustles.

So talk about if you were advising me and I said, "Hey, I want to start an Etsy business," walk me through the whole process. I've got some ideas on maybe some things that I can create. I've looked around. I've got some ideas. Walk me through the process of doing that.

If you've already got some ideas, I would go onto Etsy and search for what your ideas are and see if people are making something similar that's actually selling. Otherwise, you might want to just scrap that idea and go with something that has some proven demand. Etsy's been around for a while, and the customers have already decided what they're in the market for.

When you're starting out as an entrepreneur, you're either an inventor or an innovator. The inventor part's really hard. It's hard to get it right. Innovating is just seeing what the market is already out there in the market and making it a little better or making it a little appealing.

That's what I would do to start. The competition on Etsy is pretty weak, I would say. I've been really successful on there, and I've given it pretty low effort, to be honest with you. Both those businesses were a couple months of going at it a little bit hard, and then now I'm just working on them less than 10 hours a week.

If you can dedicate large chunks of time and just create systems and build a brand and a sales funnel and do all the legitimate business stuff, you're going to be successful on there. That's for sure. Do you have to, on Etsy, do it all yourself, or is it possible to set up this as a more passive type of business?

You don't have to do it all yourself. You're allowed to have a company. You don't have to be just a solopreneur, just building a product yourself. You definitely want to. I think any business, you want to make it somewhat scalable and passive. If you're going to pick a product, I would definitely recommend picking something that you can create systems that either through human labor or just something you create once and sell over and over again will still bring you a profit margin, which is what my prints are.

My prints, I create a print one time, and some of them I've sold hundreds of times. That hour I took to create that print, if you go out through the rest of my life, I made $6,000 an hour when I made that print. Definitely picking something scalable is important and somewhat passive to some degree.

What's not necessarily important, if you love just making necklaces all day, then go for it. If you want to free up your time to just follow your passions or tinker, which is pretty much what I do with all my extra time, then that's what I would recommend for sure.

>> Any other examples of micro businesses that you've built that have worked well? >> Most of them have failed. The farm is actually catching on. I've got an urban farm going here in Bloomington, and it's catching on and brought in a little bit of income, and I think it should bring in 10 to 20 grand this year.

That's just a rough estimate. I'm not trying to go too hard on it, because I have another child coming at the end of March. Most of my stuff I've done has failed. The Etsy thing, it's so easy. I was successful, so it had to be easy, because I'm not all that smart.

I have ADD. I can't stick with an idea for more than a couple months for sure, and it's done well, so if that tells you anything. >> You don't seem to be very bothered by the string of failures that you described. >> Oh, no. Not at all. It's going to be crazy to show my kids one day all of the folders on my computer of the 150 business ideas I've had.

I was always trying to just invent a new wheel and build something life-changing, but I think it's really a better strategy to just build something that brings some cash flow. I don't work for the company anymore. I'm just home, and it doesn't take me very many hours at all to create a livelihood, especially since I've cut all our costs down and everything.

I have half the day to be creative and hang out with my family, and that's what it's all about to me. I don't think you need to be a millionaire to be happy. I don't know how I got on that tangent. >> What are some of the major strategies that allow you to live as a family of four with a baby soon to be born on such a small amount of annual expenses?

>> Well, we have the farm here. When you have a farm, you have food waste, which is paid for by your business, essentially. There's a certain amount of product you can't sell, and instead of composting it, you're allowed to eat it. >> Right. >> One can tell you can't.

Food is a huge thing. I got into hunting. I've got a bunch of venison in the freezer. That was one of our big expenses, and then we just don't buy stuff. We have a thrift shop just down the street if we want something, or we just do it ourselves.

Let's see. What else? I don't have internet at my house, and I make my living online. That's the whole thing. Our house has crappy carpets. There's lots of stuff that we're not doing to impress our friends, basically. We get on our bikes when we want to go somewhere. We do have a car, actually, but it's got 220,000 miles on it.

Actually, I just got a new van, too. Anytime we're going to make a purchase, we just delay it and decide whether we can avoid it, basically. >> Are you and your wife on the same page? Do you guys find it easy to both desire to live this frugal, relaxed lifestyle, or does it bring conflict in your relationship?

>> Yeah, I would say we're on the same page, where both of us have desires, and then the other person talks them out of fulfilling their desires, basically, if that makes sense. We've talked about how we want our life to be centered around connection with our friends, with each other, with our family, and with nature, and not about becoming millionaires, having a housekeeper, having a mansion, and having a Mercedes.

We both know that, but with advertising and technology, we both have stuff we want. We just talk about it. We're around each other all the time. I work from home. She's only gone an hour or two a day, so we have a lot of time to talk. Whenever we're in the car, our one phone that we ...

I'm getting rid of my phone. It gets shut off, actually, tomorrow, because I thought maybe you might call, but I'll have no cell phone and no internet at the house besides this patchy connection I get off one of my neighbors, which I wish they would cancel, so I didn't have internet at home.

We just set up our lives. Obviously, we look at our expenses and see where we're spending money and just work at it, cut it, build skills, stuff like that. How do you run an online business without internet in your house? Library, coffee shops. When you have it at your house, it's just too tempting.

You're just always on there, or you're just goofing off. If you have to go somewhere ... I'm riding my bike in the freezing cold, and I'm sitting in a coffee shop on an uncomfortable wooden chair, I want to get my work done fast. I want to get it done in three hours.

I used to have a business building websites, and I didn't know how to build websites, and I didn't have internet at my house. These are the kind of things you can do if you're just a little bit creative. I ran these businesses for the first year and a half, working full-time and going out of town.

I had products I had to ship. I started working at home, and I didn't get any more done. I freed up an average of 65 hours a week, and I didn't get any more done. A lot of the time we spend, people say they're working. If they're working from home, they're just goofing off.

>> Don't you feel like it might be easier just to go and get a job and make a little bit more money and be able to save a little bit more money and have a little bit of an easier lifestyle? >> I'm not opposed to getting a job. If it's something that I somewhat enjoy, and I loved the people I worked with at my old job, that was definitely the best part about it.

I'm not opposed to getting a job, but I don't want it to interfere with this whole other part of life, like family and creativity. When it starts intruding into those areas of my life, then I'm definitely not for it. Then it starts to feel like slavery. It starts to feel depressing.

I don't know if that makes sense to you. >> Last couple of questions. Obviously for you to be able to live on that low of annual expenses, like you said, next year you think you'll be under $15,000. Do you have any guess of what you spent in 2015? >> About $24,000.

>> Major strategies that have allowed you to save money on housing, what are they? Do you own a home? Do you just own an old home? What are the major strategies that have allowed you to lower your housing costs? >> We have a rental property that's just four blocks away.

Then we have our house here. It's a three bedroom. It has a master bedroom. I actually turned the master bedroom into a tiny house. The bedroom beside it now, I'm getting ready to build a wall in the hallway. It'll be a two bedroom, tiny house, and then another house.

I had someone living in there before that was just working for me for six hours a week in exchange for free housing. Now we're thinking of actually renting the other half of our house. I don't know how legal it really is, but between that and the rental house, it covers both of our mortgages easily, plus a little bit more actually.

>> You've got a traditional rental house. You're renting out or intending to rent out part of your house. Then you're also farming the land on your own property. That's where you're building your urban farm? >> Yep, farming the land on my own property and two other plots in town, two and a half plots in town.

>> These are borrowed backyards, other people, you're just giving them a share of the food in exchange for the use of their backyard to farm on? >> Yep, exactly. I put up ads on Craigslist last year and had 50 people offer up their yards in town. >> That's cool.

You try to keep your expenses on the house low. No internet at home, minimal phone service. Any other special strategies or ideas that you've worked on that have allowed you to keep your housing expenses low? >> Not really. When we were looking to buy a house, we keep an eye on the market and finding a house that provided an opportunity to live cheaper.

We wanted one that was close to town. We could ride our bikes easily everywhere, to the grocery especially, and also had space for gardening. I have a big, flat, south-facing yard. I did see the potential to rent out that room. It has its own little side porch. It's big enough to turn.

It already had a bathroom off of it. That's the kind of thing I would look for if you're wanting to reduce your housing. >> Do you do anything special with regard to energy costs? I'd imagine being in Indiana, it's not a warm state to live in during the wintertime.

Any special ideas there? >> We keep our house cold. Put extra blankets on the bed. I wear long johns and a thermal shirt all winter long, no matter what. I have a beanie on when I'm around the house most of the time, a sweatshirt, thick wool socks and slippers.

It reduces our housing bill a lot. I actually cut a couple extra windows in the south side too to bring in some sun and some warmth. I just think you don't need that heat pumping through your house all day. It's actually better for your body to be in a little cold.

You start to build brown fat. You're more likely to just go outside. When you go outside, it doesn't feel as cold. I think that's the big one, to save on energy costs. >> What about the babies? Don't you get concerned about the babies being too cold? >> Oh no, Josie doesn't get cold at all.

She runs around naked half the time when it's 60 degrees in here. >> That youthful energy. >> Yeah, you make your kids fragile by putting clothes on their whole lives. They naturally, they're born just, I don't know, they're more durable when they're babies. I know that sounds weird, but probably after the first year anyways.

She's not bothered at all by it. Some days I'll be freezing because I'm working in my office for a little bit and I'm not moving around much. That's the other thing too, having your house cold. When we get cold, it's because we know we're not moving. It's the perfect signal to tell you, get moving.

Do some jumping jacks or go outside and get some exercise. There's so many benefits, I think, to keeping your house cold. >> You're hardcore, dude. Next, transportation. You have, I guess, two old cars and you just don't drive very much. Any other unique ideas that might be helpful to other listeners?

>> We have the one old car and then we have a van that I just recently bought. It's a high roof van. We're going to do a bunch of traveling in it, turn it into a van dwelling situation. But no, biking, get a bus pass if you live in a city.

Do whatever you can to avoid being a car clown driving around by yourself burning gas all day. >> Food, you have waste from the farm, which is a pretty sweet setup in that your farm allows you to deduct expenses that are associated with your home and your homestead because it's part of the business.

And then there is going to be waste and so that waste can help some of your personal consumption. Then it also gives you products that you can barter, gives you a greater, stronger network, allows you to have access to the local producer community where you can get things at wholesale prices based upon a barter relationship or an exchange of labor.

And then also hunting, which as long as you don't spend thousands of dollars on fancy hunting gear could be a cost helpful way to acquire food. Any other unique ideas to lower your food costs? >> Just avoid food waste is a big one. Too many people go buy a ton of stuff and they don't have a plan for what they're going to do with it.

40% of the food in this country goes to waste. If you're the typical American, you're blowing 40% of that food budget is just going in the trash. So that's a big one. We also forage. It's one of our fun activities we do. Go out in the woods and you can pick tons of stuff.

We make big batches of nettle soup every year and all that stuff's free and it's fun for the family. And hunting's great. It's like meditation, sitting out there in nature, breathing fresh air. And I got into hunting with, I spent about 20 bucks on bullets. Got an old gun from my dad and that was it.

But this year I'm going to go even more hardcore and learn to build a bow because I don't think you really know how to hunt unless you know how to build your weapon. So I'm going to learn how to build a bow and do some bow hunting. What else are your biggest expenses right now that you haven't been able to really crack very well?

What's been the biggest frustration for you? I blow too much money on domain names, that's for sure. Every new business I get excited about I buy the domain name before I even have something built for it. That's one of the main ones, our healthcare. We have a $6,000 deductible.

It's not that expensive I would say. That's pretty much it. I would have to pull up my thing but I can't think of any other big major expenses we have. If you were going to try to share encouragement with someone else, just say a young person, you were going to say about, "Hey, here are the things that are great about my lifestyle and here are the things that are tough," because you obviously don't live a mainstream lifestyle.

To many listeners, the lifestyle you're describing, to some listeners it sounds awesome, but to many listeners there will be a sense of like, "Why? Why do that?" What would be the sales pitch you would give to somebody to just encourage them that they could consider practicing some of the things that you do?

The main thing I would say is just look at the direction our culture's in right now by just this growth mindset. More money and build things bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. It's not sustainable. There's no way it's sustainable. I guess maybe if we start mining asteroids it's possibly sustainable or we find another plant to live on eventually.

If you care at all about, if you have kids or you just care about keeping future generations out of trouble, you should look at your impact. The other thing I would say is all of this stuff, it sounds hardcore because it's so far from mainstream, but just try doing one piece at a time and you'll realize that everything I'm describing, I think, is amazing.

It's all fun stuff. It feels good. It forces you to get exercise, fresh air, movement, connecting more. You start farming, you're connecting with your community. You're building soil, which we're depleting at massive, fast rates. How much frustration do you have by checking your phone a million times a day or getting on Facebook a million times a day?

I know I used to be in that trap and it was terrible. It just didn't feel good. You're working all the time and you're running your kids around to different activities and you don't have time to connect with them. Your kids are growing up and you're not there with them.

It makes me cry thinking about it, Josh. It's so messed up how people are just giving ... I don't know. Kids don't give a shit about how much money you have. They just want your time. Sorry. >>Ted: It's true. It's absolutely true. The time at which they start to care how much money you have, meaning that if you go the normal path and you get into the middle teenage years, that's generally a societally-induced care many times.

There are some basic necessities of life, but many times the concern about what kind of car my parents drive, that's peer pressure. That's where that enters in. >>Josh: Oh, yeah. Your car should just have two wheels. >>Ted: Two or four? >>Josh: Just two. >>Ted: Two. Okay, bicycle. Got it.

I'm having trouble picturing a two-wheel car. Well, Nate, man, thanks for coming on and just sharing a little bit of your story. Websites, your Etsy store, websites, social stuff, anywhere that you'd like people to go to check out some of your projects? >>Josh: Yeah. Just natedodson.com. I just started developing that.

I'll put links to all my stuff. I have a bunch of stores and getting ready to release a new product here in a month that I think could really change lives. It's like a journal that you'll get in the mail every month that has, you've got to say one thing you're grateful for, and you can identify your most important activity, a couple more tasks, and then just kind of do a brain dump every morning.

It'll come in your mailbox every month for a really low price. I'm getting ready to release that. I'm pretty excited about that. So, yeah, natedodson.com. Maybe I'll put a special link, like, let me see, maybe natedodson.com/josh. >>Trey: Do it slash radical. >>Josh: natedodson.com/radical. >>Trey: Yeah, put all your info there for those.

>>Josh: natedodson.com/radical. natedodson.com/radical. Go there and you can subscribe there instead of the standard homepage. I'll send everyone the outline to how I do the Etsy business if they want it. >>Trey: Sweet, dude. Thanks for coming on, man. >>Josh: Yeah, no problem, Josh. I really appreciate it. You're doing amazing work, man.

I'm really proud of you, and it's just awesome. I love listening. >>Trey: Thank you for listening to this episode of Radical Personal Finance. If you're interested in building financial freedom for yourself and your family, please subscribe to the podcast with our free mobile app so you don't miss a single episode.

Just search the app store on your mobile device for Radical Personal Finance and download our free app, which also contains an archive of every past episode of the show. If you have received value and financial benefit from the content of today's show, please consider becoming a supporting patron. Radical Personal Finance is listener supported, and it's your direct financial support which enables me to bring you this content.

In addition to your voluntarily paying for the content you've just heard, as a supporting patron, you will receive a number of member-only benefits, including a private Facebook group, access to our weekly Q&A calls, and discounts on future products and services. Details can be found at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron. Again, RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron. >>Narrator Don't just dream about paradise.

Live it with Fiji Airways. Escape the ordinary with Fiji Airways Global Beat the Rush Sale. Immerse yourself in white sandy beaches or dive deep into coral reefs. Fiji Airways has flights to Nadi starting at just $748 for light and just $798 for value. Discover your tropical dreams at FijiAirways.com.

That's FijiAirways.com. From here to happy. Flying direct with Fiji Airways. (drum beating)