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That's FijiAirways.com. From here to happy. Flying direct with Fiji Airways. I'd like to pivot now to talking about some of the nuts and bolts of technology because you're a real expert in that. And I think that'll be of help and interest to my audience and to me personally. It also it's a fascinating world in which we live.

My audience is hearing our voices right now through a technology that's been developed 15 years ago, but really today, and it's really come into its own in the last five years, ever since the iPhone started automatic wireless downloading of podcasts. That's where this world has come into being. I know you don't identify, you don't listen to a lot of podcasts, you don't read a lot of blogs, but there's a huge community out there who does, who's interested in your knowledge.

So let's start with techie for hire. What is techie for hire? Well, I, as I often say to people, if you don't absolutely need it, I probably specialize in it. In other words, I really do the kinds of things that a lot of the luxury items I do, you know, everything from satellite dish, rooftop satellite dish installations.

I do a fair number of television retrofits, like you can see here, home theater style sound systems in RVs. I do solar installations. I do inverters, batteries, a lot of it's, you know, the solar has been quite big in the last few years. There's been, I can't even remember how many years it's been going on now, but there's been a 30% tax credit on not only solar panels, but everything related to their installation, the wiring, the solar charge controller, batteries, the labor, everything like that.

You get 30% back on your taxes. So that's the last, probably the last three or four years I've been doing, you know, a fair number of solar installations. Internet access. Thank you. Yeah, that's huge. And that ranges from, I do directional wifi antennas for people that are at parks that have wifi, which tend to be mostly the private parks, but I've got good directional antenna solutions for them that make a huge difference.

And basically my philosophy is that with an RV, that when it comes to connectivity, that, you know, you set up your own local area network in the RV and then you make just one connection to the outside world, as opposed to, you know, some people come into parks and they've got four or five, six devices and they're connecting each one individually to the campground.

My approach tends to be to connect to your own internal router that puts you behind a firewall and gives you all the, you know, kind of nifty things that you can do when your devices can talk to each other. So I mean, something as simple as a, as wireless printing, you know, can really only reasonably be accomplished when, when your, your device that you want to print from and the printer itself are both connected to the same router.

Typically campgrounds block that kind of thing, doing client isolation. So you can't connect your printer and your, your laptop to the campground router and expect to be able to get your print job through. So anyway, I mean, so a lot of it's luxury items, but then again, you could also say, well, for people who like this kind of camping, some of this stuff is relatively, you know, I mean, if you're for people like me who, who I wondered earlier in the interview, I was talking to you about any changes and one of the thoughts that I, and I don't know whether this is an exposure bias in the world that I am exposed to.

I see a lot more younger people, a lot of people who's knit, who the nature of their work allows them to do things like this. I don't see a lot of younger families who are pursuing things that previously they wouldn't have done. So I see this exposure bias, the world that I pay attention to versus what actually is, but I could, I can't go on the road without some form of connectivity.

And that can range from with my job. Thankfully I can, as long as I touch data once a week or so I can do things reasonably well. Some people don't need that. They need Monday through Friday, nine to five East coast time. They need to be available on chat with their office.

And so they really need that. But it's very doable in today's world to adjust your level of connectivity. So you can be very present even though you are traveling and that's what you really specialize in, which is really incredible. Yeah, absolutely. And again, that's, that's gotten so much better since, even since we started RVing.

I mean in, in we bought this rig in 2010 and you know, at that point in time, I mean cellular internet connectivity was just, you know, just happening to the point where you could think about using it for, you know, for something significant. But still, I mean, you know, we're talking about, I mean, I originally, I was setting up people with three, you know, three G types of connections, which were okay for, you know, for, for the kinds of things people wanted to do at that point in time.

But really the, the kind of interesting thing that's going on with, with the internet and with, with our ability to connect to it is the requirements of the internet have gotten so much bigger over the years. It seems like every year I get calls from people who, you know, they're kind of accessing the same websites and doing the same things that they were doing the previous year and can't understand why they're using more data.

Right. And it's like, well, that's because... You went from 360 on your 360 pixels. Anyway, you went from low def to high def on your, on your, on your videos you're viewing. And that makes a big difference. Exactly. In terms of bandwidth use. Exactly. Yeah. The photo, the photos that they're seeing on those websites, the images are all higher resolution.

Yeah. If they're doing anything with video, it just, you know, I mean, everything that's going on behind the scenes with, you know, you access one individual webpage, you feel like you're, that's all you're accessing, but there might be, you know, there might be a dozen servers behind that, that are, that are all providing data to that, feeding data to that webpage.

So let's begin, let's focus on the technology that would be helpful for somebody who's seeking to go on the road in some format and still be able to work. So they need access to communications and some data connection for their virtual work. What's the low hanging fruit? Where do you start in terms of making sure that you can establish and maintain a connection?

Yeah. I, you know, I think that you probably have to, I mean, I just went through this exercise with somebody that I was setting up. We were over by a great sand dunes national park in Southern Colorado. And you know, they, they just knew they needed to improve their, their ability to use their, their devices, but they didn't really know how to go about doing it or what would be the best approach.

And you know, with them, I really needed to start by talking about voice versus data and what was, what was important to them because there are a lot of really good ways to improve your data connectivity that will do absolutely nothing for your voice connectivity. So in, in a lot of the, a lot of the best installations that I've done and, and most effective have probably been, have probably been data oriented because there aren't quite as many things you can do to improve your voice, your voice connection.

I mean, you can use a, you can use an amplifier like the WeBoost Drive4GX and Drive4GM are good recent examples of, of devices that have an inside antenna, an amplifier and an outside antenna that allow you, I mean, they will help both with voice and data, but they're not definitely not the ultimate solution for data.

So they're, they're probably about the best thing going for voice. But but with, you know, if you have a really good, I'm going to have to go take care of that here. Go ahead. Do you want to pause for just a second? Yeah, absolutely. We got the wind kicking up and we need to go and put the awning in.

I put mine in this morning because I was concerned about it and it's not nearly as strong. Did it break it? Did it flip up? It flipped up, but it's, it should be okay. It's not broken. Okay, good. Good. It's a, it's a, it's a known issue when it's windy.

You have a beautiful rig here. This is, I mean, have you redone anything? Is it? Yes. Redone a lot? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We, we took down about four walls of mirrors. Okay. Which I guess were great sales tactics back in the, in the late nineties to make it look bigger, but they drove us crazy.

So, so we took down a lot of mirrors. We redid the upholstery. Um, yeah. Very nice. Yeah. Yeah. It's supposed to gust to 30 today. Wow. Step over the top here for a second. I'm glad I took mine down when I did. You use these screens and just whenever you stop, you put these screens up and that helps with solar shade as well as it does.

It's privacy. Yes. And you have them custom installed, installed the little snaps and then made. So if you ever run into Todd and Renee Sealy, you should definitely interview them because they, uh, they make these. Okay. Because it's their business. Yeah. Okay. They're on the road business. What other types of on the road businesses have you seen?

Like, uh, well we have some good friends that have, uh, that run a website. They had, they actually each have their own business. One of them has a website called go pet friendly.com and her whole thing is, you know, trying to communicate with people about the best ways to, to travel with pets, where to go places that are, they're friendly towards, uh, having dogs on the trails and that kind of thing.

And he's got a, um, uh, evaluation. He's a, an accountant and he does business valuations and a few different types of coaching. I guess that is probably the way that I would describe it. They need constant internet connectivity. And I've done, I've, I've upgraded. I mean, that's, that's a, that's another interesting thing about when it comes to internet connectivity.

Last year's best solution is not this year's best solution. And you can, you can typically go, you know, you can, you can skip. It's not like you have to upgrade every single year, but generally when you're on the road, I mean, if you haven't changed the way that you connect to the internet in a couple of years, it's probably time to at least be looking at it.

And I mean, I mean, I, I upgrade our system basically every year in some form or fashion. Um, just so that I'm on top of what the, you know, the best and latest ways to connect are, um, and, and to get the best performance. I mean, this, this, uh, you know, this, this whole thing with, with, with LTE advanced, which a lot of people don't even know about.

I mean, it's been sort of a soft transition. I hear more people talk about 5G than they do about, about LTE advanced, but yet LTE advanced is, which has, um, carrier aggregation. So you've got multiple connections to the cell tower, uh, simultaneously, and also the ability to support, um, uh, MIMO antennas, just like you see on a router where you used to be, you'd get a router and you'd have one antenna on it.

Right. And then now you see them and, you know, three is common and you see them with five and seven and each one of those antennas is able to do, you know, one could be sending and the other could be receiving and one could be operating at one frequency and the other at a different frequency and, um, and just, you know, doing more work and less time.

And the same thing is going on with, uh, with cellular connectivity. So I mean, I've, I mean, I can't believe the, some of the numbers that I've been seeing, uh, in the last few years. Personally I've, you know, I've, I've topped out at about, uh, just short of a hundred megabits per second.

This is the fastest that I've seen, but I have the equipment now, uh, with, with what's called a category 12 data modem. And um, I'm in touch with people on some of the forums that I'm active on that are able to, to get, uh, in the neighborhood of 200 megabits per second over a cellular data connection.

Yeah, exactly. Wow. I know. So let me just simplify. I want to, we, we threw out a whole bunch of jargon there, so let me just simplify real quick. So thank you. First, when you make a distinction between voice and data, specifically what you're talking about is the ability to speak over a cellular connection, which is using in essence, the old phone systems.

It's still piggybacked on, on the old phone systems. It just goes through the cellular connection. So that's a voice connection. And there are certain things that you can do to improve your ability to do that. So if speaking on a voice connection is important, probably the best solution there is some form of a cell phone amplifier, right?

Right. Okay. And a cell phone amplifier from my understanding is a device that takes, uh, usually has two antennas. It takes an external antenna that you put outside of your home, outside of your office, outside of your vehicle, wherever you are, you as a, some kind of antenna that is a, an antenna that's optimized for more gain in the cellular bandwidth, uh, which then it takes that antenna passes the signal through an amplifier, amplifies it to a small internal antenna.

And then that small internal antenna produces a signal that your actual cellular device will read, will listen to, will communicate with, and it will use that signal. So as long as you have some form of cellular connection, some week, at least a week cellular connection that's being served by the Verizon towers, the AT&T towers, et cetera, the sprint towers, then that amplifier will take it and amplify it.

And you can speak on your phone using the actual built in cellular connection, uh, more reliably. And the best solution there is a cell phone amplifier. Right. Good. Okay. And, and also in that I should, I should probably just, just add on one thing to that. And that's that your phone needs to be very close to that inside amplifier.

And the reason is, is because, uh, and this is a problem unique to RVs. You just don't have the ability to get the ideal separation between the inside and the outside amplifier. And um, uh, I think you can use the analogy of a microphone and a speaker where you can actually create feedback.

Right. And so the inside and outside, if the antennas, if they're too close and the inside antenna is too powerful, then you can just end up with, with a loop with oscillation. So as a result, they, they make the inside, uh, antenna a very short range device to try to avoid reamplifying the signal from your outside antenna and creating that loop.

So the best solution there is use some sort of wireless, uh, Bluetooth connection to your phone and then place the phone near the end indoor amplifier and use that to speak on. And Hey, I mean the very most rudimentary, um, if you're ever in an emergency, take your phone, put a strip of duct tape on a, on a pole, stick it up in the air and use a Bluetooth to speak to it.

You can get, I've tested it. You can get some gain, a little bit of gain and signal that way. I mean it, it does make a difference if you have to. Yeah. Now on the data side and data can be used for voice connections. So for example, I try to almost exclusively use some sort of data application for voice communication and many of us do, whether that's Facebook audio, um, uh, FaceTime, Apple's FaceTime, uh, audio or FaceTime video, whether that's something like Skype or many other applications and encrypted app like signal or wire, those all work over the data network.

So many times, like I actually, I don't really care about the phone connection. All I really care about is data because I don't use the phone connection. I just use the data connection. So now when data connection, you're saying there's a whole range of other things that's available, right?

And you, you threw out a bunch of jargon. Uh, you said, yes, cell phone amplifiers can help a little bit, but really what you want to look at is going to multiple, uh, what was the word you used? Uh, MIMO. MIMO. What does that mean? Multiple in, multiple out.

Okay. So the ability to have multiple, uh, several antennas in an array, either omni directional or directional. And with what you said, LTE advanced, that's a communications protocol that allows you to use a router or a switch of some kind with multiple antennas. And it can actually draw the signal from different carriers using the LTE protocol.

And by aggregating those signals from different carriers is basically in my layman's understanding, splitting up the data packets and spent sending little bits of data packets over different networks, which allows you to maximize your speed. Is that accurate? Yeah, exactly. I mean, they're the, um, I think from an engineering standpoint, there, there are a lot of efforts going on to figure out how to get the most out of our existing LTE network.

And so these are some of the developments that have happened to say, okay, well, we're still using the same LTE technology, but now we're able to have two streams going to the cell tower at the same time instead of just one. And it provides, it's amazing. I mean, um, I'm not really sure of the technical reasons for this, but, but my experience has been that it's, that it's typically a fourfold increase in performance.

So if you have, you know, say you've got, uh, you know, 10 megabits per second on the download with, uh, without carrier aggregation, you know, with just a modem with a single antenna, you go to a MIMO setup with carrier aggregation and suddenly that same location, everything else, the same, you could be seeing 40 megabits.

So if I wanted to set up on my own rig, my own MIMO setup, where do I start? What brand names do I look at? How do I figure that out? Yeah, it's, um, I wish it was a little bit, uh, uh, easier to put these systems together. I mean, I suppose you wouldn't make as much money as you do.

I'm glad for your sake. It's still a little bit hard. Yeah. So, so, um, anyway, it's kind of interesting because the, the, the cell phone industry in a lot of ways maybe is going in, in a little bit different direction. I mean, cell phones themselves have actually gotten quite a bit better in the last few years.

I mean, it's not unusual for, uh, for a high end cell phone now to not only have carrier aggregation, but have something called four by four MIMO, which means that, uh, you've actually got four antennas built into a cell phone and, you know, you think of the size of a cell phone, what difference could that possibly make?

But it does make a huge difference. So having a, you know, having the kind of the best possible phone that you, technology available is, is helpful. But anyway, back to your question about as far as data, um, the, uh, for a long time, the USB modems were, and there's, there are, uh, there's a company called cradle point and another one called a pep wave that make, um, uh, routers that are specifically designed with USB ports that are designed for cellular USB modems.

Unfortunately the, between people with phones and, and, uh, the ability to hotspot their phones and also with these little my fi devices that, uh, that are just easy for the stores to deal with and sell and explain USB modems have been kind of fading away a little bit, but the good news is that there are still some, some, um, standalone modem devices.

Uh, Sierra wireless is a company that makes, that makes some really good ones and they're, they're targeted more at the internet of things world where, you know, with the idea that you could say like having, you know, an ATM manufacturer could just have a place where they can plug in a modem and then that, that, that ATM machine can talk, you know, over their encrypted network to, uh, and, and, uh, you know, back to the bank or, or whatever, whatever clearing house is being used.

But anyway, those same modems, which have, you know, which have gone from sort of category three category four modems now to, um, uh, category 12 technologies online, category 16 is coming and those little card style modems can be put in a USB enclosure and then that USB enclosure can be connected to a router device.

And I've been also moving away from the kind of mainstream manufacturers like cradle point and I've been, uh, the last half dozen installations that I've done have all been, uh, where I've put the solution together with individual pieces using, um, using a really inexpensive project computer called a Raspberry Pi that can actually be turned into a router, combining a Raspberry Pi with one of these, uh, uh, card style modems, connecting the two of them together and then connecting the modem to, uh, to two antennas, external antennas.

And the performance has been unbelievable, uh, compared to, you know, it's been a, it's been a, uh, a significant jump, you know, from, from what I was doing to, to what I've got going on now with those setups. And also the other great thing with this open source router software that I'm using, you really get great visibility to, to what's going on with the modem.

You know, it's, it's much more transparent as opposed to the industry trend, which is towards sort of opaqueness with, you know, the real kind of nuts and bolts. So for people who don't care about that stuff, they don't have to, you know, they don't really have to pay attention to it, but for people who do want to know, well, geez, what, you know, what is my real signal strength right now?

Uh, what, you know, what are my, uh, in the, in the three G era, it was something called RSSI in the, in the LTE era, it's called RSCP, but it's just a, a measurement of the quality of your signal. Um, you can get real numbers off of, you know, off of this kind of setup.

You can tell what band you're connected to. You can actually see when, when you've got two bands that are aggregating together. Um, and, uh, you know, there's, there's lots of configurability. So it just, it allows everything from sort of the just person who wants a good setup that's going to work well for them to sort of the power user that really wants information to, uh, to be able to, you know, get what they're looking for out of a setup like that.

So you're a power user and with your setup, which is admittedly advanced and admittedly you're, you're a geek, you're dealing with this, you're on the cutting edge. So with your setup, however, given that you spend a lot of time in rural areas, if you had a job that was nine to five that required you to be accessible with reasonable speeds, chat, little bit of video conferencing, you know, multiple times per week is the current setup in the United States sufficient that you could do that and work full time on a nine to five schedule with the type of advanced setup that you do?

Susan's shaking her head. No. And she's right in that you can't do it everywhere. Okay. Okay. So, um, I mean, there still are places in the, I mean, this is the thing, which I'm really glad there are places like that because I don't want, yeah, I don't want everywhere to be on the grid.

I really don't. I want to be off the grid myself. Right, right. So, yeah, I mean, there still are, there still are lots of places in the country where, you know, you're, you're absolutely challenged to get a decent cellular signal. It's been, it's pretty rare these days when we have no cellular whatsoever.

Once in a while it happens, but, but generally we've got at least, you know, the kind of can do the basics, you know, we can, we can send and receive a text messages. We can check our email, we can, you know, we can order something if we need to, we can look at the news, that kind of stuff.

But that next level, which I think, you know, if you're, if you're a remote worker, you know, typically you need, you need more than that. Maybe not every day, but I mean, you certainly need it. Like, I mean, you were saying you needed to, what, every five days or something, you've got to have a decent connection.

So, but the, the situation has changed dramatically in terms of, I mean, we just came from, from a place above Steamboat Springs at about 9,500 feet. I was talking about that earlier called Rabbit Ears Pass. And there was a review on there from, I don't know, last year, maybe where the guy was saying that, you know, there's a whiff of Verizon and that's about it.

We were getting 10 megabits on, on Verizon. So with 10 megabits, I mean, you know, we were streaming, we were, we can do everything. We did team viewer. You can, I mean, there's, there's no, you know, anything above about three megabits, maybe four megabits, you're really up into the territory where you, most anything I can do.

Right. So I'd say I'm amazed at how many places are like that, where you can do that in pretty remote places. When we were in Breckenridge, which was kind of just before Rabbit Ears Pass. I mean, that's, you know, it's a small kind of vacation skiing community. And I mean, we had, we had performance as good as, as I see in, you know, when we're close to any big city, right.

I mean, just absolutely top, you know, LTE type performance. So the, the you don't have to limit yourself much. I mean, the couple that I was talking about earlier that have the, the GoPet friendly website and do the valuation business. I mean, they, they need a good connection pretty much every day.

And and, and they, for, for quite a few years, they were, you know, they would stay really focused on the areas that, that where they knew they would have really good connectivity. But I, but I know with the installations that I've done for them three, four years ago, and again, this last year, I mean, they've, they're now able to expand out into places that they wouldn't have considered before because they, they, they know they can get the connectivity they need.

If somebody were going to hire someone like you for just a good setup and then fund it with the appropriate lines that you would recommend, how much does it cost to install some good current gear and how much does it cost per month? Yeah. Okay. So the, I mean, I, so I charge $65 an hour and you know, something like the setup, a couple of the recent setups I've done, I, I suppose between the hardware and, and the labor, they tend to run up around $700, maybe something like that, seven, $800, you know, for me to do all the work and for me to show them how to use it, that kind of thing.

And probably half of that is labor and half. So about a thousand dollars. Somebody has a budget of a thousand dollars. Oh yeah. They can get a good strong setup. Yeah. And then how much does it cost with the plans, multiple SIM cards, et cetera? Sure. How much does it cost in a month to maintain a good connection?

Yeah. So you kind of have to jump on the good, the good data plan options when they're out there and they, they, they tend to come and go. The I, we used to only have Verizon, but in the last couple of years we've expanded down to where I have SIM cards from Verizon, AT&T and Sprint.

And we just, you know, we've been able to get good deals along the way, but we just, we just redid our Verizon plan as an example. And we put, we put one, one of our phones on the, what Verizon now is calling their above unlimited plan, which, which is, you know, there was unlimited and then they went to beyond unlimited and now they have above unlimited and all three of those exist simultaneously.

Above is their top connection. But, but, but the above unlimited plan gives you 70, it gives you, it's unlimited data, but up to 75 gigabytes a month before there would be the possibility of being deprioritized. And it gives you 20 gigabytes of hotspot data. And then that, that's a, that's basically your, when you get to that 20 gigabytes, they drop you down to pretty much of an unusable level.

But the nice thing is, is that you can add additional for 20 bucks per device. You can add additional devices to that. And each one of them gives you another 15 gigabytes a month. So you can, you can pretty much go from there. We just signed up for a $160 a month plan, which is the most we've ever paid for, for cellular, but I'm actually pretty happy with it.

I mean, we've got, you know, we, so we've got that, we've got that phone plan and we've got three additional data device. Each, you know, each of them able to do another 15 gigabytes a month. So you're looking at 15 plus 45 pluses. So 65 gigabytes a month for $160.

And each, you know, each device can be on a different, at a different level. You don't have to, not all of them have to be on above unlimited. You can have one phone if you have multiple phones. So anyway, I mean, I think, I think that, uh, and it's not a contract, which is great.

Right. And the point is that with that plan, you're using that as functionally your TV service. I would assume you have just a high definition broadcasting, but you also are using the data for internet streaming, TV, entertainment, Netflix, that type of thing. That's also your work. So you're using it for all of your work, internet connection, and then also just your normal personal browsing of the internet and your personal connectivity.

So if you were to take $165 a month, if that's sufficient, plus the gear, and you were to compare that to many people's monthly budgets, that's in line, even living on the road, that's in line and perhaps less than many people and their monthly budgets for all those services for home internet, for home TV, for home, right.

For cellular service. Yeah. And at the same time, not being particularly limited, right. You know, having, having an, you know, equivalent type of service. Right. And that, that I think is a huge change from, from when we started RVing. I mean, there was a clear difference between what you could do in a residence and what you could do in an RV.

And I think those lines have really blurred. That's exciting. Yeah. So where do you winter? And if somebody wants to hire you, how do they get ahold of you? Okay. For you to work on their rig. Because certainly having seen your setup, I'll affirm, you know, Scott's designing his own equipment.

He's designing his own enclosures. He's putting stuff together in a really powerful way. And there's not a chance in the world that I could create something that is just simply as well done. And it's going to last as long as what you're doing. And for somebody who's needs it, definitely they should be hiring somebody like you just to install it and consider it a cost of getting on the road.

Because for many people, if they have that reliable connection, it can make a difference. You know, last week I had some important calls and I had a plan, you know, I went down from where we are to the city that's 45 minutes away to get a reliable connection. But I found what I thought was a reliable wifi connection and it was in the beginning.

But then as more and more people started using it, then my signal degraded and I didn't have a plan and I need to have, yes, I only need it about once a week, but once a week I need to have a reliable connection. And that is a make or break it thing for me.

It makes a difference between my being able to do what I do. And so for many people, this is a, used to be maybe bill pay was an issue. Today many people, this is the sticking point. Can I work from the road? And to do that, they need the connection.

Yeah. So how do they get ahold of you and, and, and sure. Yeah. So, um, uh, so for five months of the year, we're in, in and around Fountain Hills, Arizona, which is a kind of an extension of Scottsdale. Um, and, uh, we're in one of two parks. Um, the, we're in a private park for, for some of that time called Eagle view RV resort.

And the other park, um, that's on the other side of Fountain Hills, they're only about 15, 20 minutes apart, uh, is called McDowell mountain regional park. And that's, uh, that's a Maricopa County park. So they, they have, they have very different fields. The, uh, Eagle view, one of the reasons we kind of got going there and stayed there, um, we used to spend the entire five months there because we actually, they've got a couple dozen sites there that have hardwired internet.

And uh, you know, five, six, seven, eight years ago, that was magic. Um, we could, you know, we could really do a lot with that. And, and when I was, you know, I was doing work for people with their laptops and that kind of, it wasn't unusual for me to have to do a, you know, one gigabyte download just to update somebody's laptop.

And so that was great for that. But anyway, now with, uh, you know, with what we've just been talking about with the fact that the cellular is so good, it doesn't really matter to me. As a matter of fact, last winter, I didn't even sign up for the campgrounds, um, uh, hardwire internet.

I just use sprint. Um, and, uh, it's the least expensive plan that I have. And I, you know, I would get 80 megabits off a sprint at either, at either of those two campgrounds with, you know, relatively, uh, unlimited usage. So yeah. And then as far as getting in touch with me, the best way is probably, uh, my email address, which is techie for hire at live.com.

So that's T E C H I E, the number four and then H I R E at live.com. And um, yeah, for those five months, I mean, I'm, I, I'm working, uh, most of the week and then the other seven months, I mean, I do projects for people in campgrounds.

So, um, if somebody wants to try to rendezvous with me at a place like this, I mean, it's usually the biggest challenge is just getting ahold of the stuff we have to order and where to, you know, I'd say, I'd say that's one thing that hasn't, uh, that probably hasn't improved that much with, uh, with this kind of, of lifestyle is it's still difficult to, you know, actually physically get a package.

Yep. But, um, but you know, you figure it out. I mean, there's, there, there are ways. And, uh, we just, when we were in, uh, Breckenridge, I mean, now that Amazon owns Whole Foods, they've started putting in lockers at the Whole Foods locations. And so we were using that.

As a matter of fact, the only limitation there was the fact the lockers were full. Uh, every other time we tried to use them, we'd have to wait a day for people to pick up their stuff at, uh, at the Amazon locker. But, um, anyway, so that's, that's, that's the only thing about, uh, uh, about, uh, doing projects in the summer is, is just, you know, I mean, I keep, I keep the small stuff on hand.

I've got, uh, a little less than about three quarters of a ton worth of tools and parts in my, in my, uh, lower bays that you saw down there. And I keep all the, you know, the small stuff that you need to, to do a project. But, but when it comes to putting in something like, you know, like a solar system, I mean, obviously there are big panels and, and, uh, that kind of thing that have to show up.

But I just, I did a, an installation for somebody at, on the Mogollon Rim in Arizona at a forest service campground. They just ordered everything. They were at a private campground. They ordered everything. It all got delivered. They threw it in their car, drove up to, uh, the Mogollon Rim at 9,000 feet.

And, and I did the whole installation right there. That's great. Closing words of advice. If you were speaking to your younger selves, somebody listening to this, who's working in Chicago and a corporate job and has said, wow, you know, so interesting. What, what closing thoughts would you give, uh, to such a listener?

Start with you, Susan. Yeah. What do you think, Susan? I would say that, um, you, you should try it. You won't have any regrets. Yeah, exactly. Yup. And even with the fear of not knowing what's the worst that could happen, it's not all that bad, right? You can always go back to work, start a new business.

And we didn't talk in part one, when we talked about RV finances, I'll tell you this, the thing that I have been so interested in with RV finances as a financial planner, a mobile lifestyle, whether it's sailboats or especially RVs, because sailboats, as you discussed, have a lot of costs, but a lot of those costs also are associated with moving.

If you just had a sailboat and you anchored up in a Harbor that was reasonable, you can, you don't need new charts every year. You can diminish a lot of those things. You can scrub the bottom yourself. You know, you can, you can lower a lot of those expenses, but especially in RVing.

One of the amazing things about the RV lifestyle is you can adjust your expenses as necessary. I've talked and read about and talked with people who are living on very low budgets, a thousand dollars a month total, and they just simply have the opportunity to adjust their lifestyle. So most people don't have the ability to eliminate their rent payments when they need to, but people who are living on very low budgets, if they have a big expensive repair, they spend a month out on BLM land.

They don't drive, they don't use fuel. They just spend a month out there and their costs are very low. And then when they save up their money, they get the next social security check. Then they go ahead and they fill their tank and they move on, et cetera. Now, obviously that's not the budgets that, that, that either you or I are living on, but that is something unique to RVing.

So if you try something like that and it doesn't work out, you can always transition back in. I say a lot easier than a lot of people could do. You can pivot, you can pivot very quickly. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Scott, your closing words. I took over the thing, but what closing words would you have?

Oh gosh. Yeah. I mean, I would say much the same thing. It's, it's, you know, I think that you don't, you don't necessarily have to have, you know, a huge plan and I wouldn't, I wouldn't over process on it either. I mean, I think that we've, when I, when I look back at our, kind of our younger selves, you know, we were constantly, we'd go on a, we'd go on a one week vacation to a place like this and we'd pack everything in the car that, you know, we could possibly ever, you know, the rollerblades, the, the bikes, the, you know, golf clubs, you know, we were going to do all this stuff.

Plus we were going to catch up on reading and, you know, whatever else that, that we, anything that we hadn't been able to do because we were working. And I think that, that, you know, it's just amazing when you, when you kind of just, just pull it back a little bit and, and, you know, just go slowly.

I mean, we, we never drive more than about 550 or a hundred miles a day. We were spending the entire summer in Colorado, you know, there's no reason to, we don't have to see the entire US and, you know, in a six month period or something like that. So anyway, I would say just give, give yourself a chance, go out, give it a try and, you know, let the lifestyle, let the lifestyle kind of come to you, you know, cause it, it, you know, it's amazing how transformative I think it can be and, and how much things that maybe you thought you needed or were really important, just wash away, just disappear.

Yeah. Well, techie for hire at live.com. If you'd like to get in touch with Scott, Scott, thank you for coming on the interview. I did twist your arm just a little tiny bit. Scott wasn't looking for publicity. He wasn't necessarily out doing this. He didn't send me an email like so many people do wanting to get on the show.

He is not really involved in reading about this stuff. He's just involved in doing it. So thank you for coming on techie for hire at live.com. Scott and Susan, thank you both. All right. Thanks. Thank you for listening. You've honored me with your time and attention, and I'm grateful for that.

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