While we’ve been converting our 1961 GM bus into a home, we’ve been renting a fixer-upper in the countryside. It wasn’t in great shape when we arrived, so the owner of the home agreed to let us work off the rent and bring the property back to life.

Although the place had seen better days, we could picture what it could become with a bit of love and care. We removed a great deal of garbage, completely renovated the kitchen, fixed and painted the upstairs and downstairs decks, made plumbing and roof repairs, did yard work and the list goes on. There’s so much more to do, to really fix this home up, but it feels good to see the progress that has been made by our hard work.

So far, we’ve been able to trade rent from March 2020 to November 2020, which represents thousands of dollars we got to keep in our pockets and put towards living and converting our bus. As many of our family, friends and followers know, we’ve been using the art of bartering for years and this way of working together is something we believe in wholeheartedly.

We’ve traded design work for new cabinetry in our ’78 VW bus, for plane tickets and to stay at houses all over the country and in Puerto Rico. We’ve traded for food, vet visits for our pets, clothing and we even traded our design skills for the 1961 GM bus, the shop it’s staying at and expensive body work to it, that we otherwise couldn’t afford.

While it seems the world is in disarray and there’s no telling what tomorrow could bring, the two of us have honed in on our bartering skills, to try and trade for as many things as we can. Doing this, along with keeping our expenses down, we’re keeping on track and continuing our simple life with big adventures. See our #1 Travel Tip video below, explaining how we have traded our skills to to stay in beautiful homes.

The state of the world can feel super uneasy these days, but we believe a lot of good change can come with it, by becoming more self-sustainable and creative in how we live and work. We believe there is even more change coming and rather than fighting it, we can adapt, hone in on our bartering skills and get educated on becoming as self-reliant as possible.