Meet Jim & Rene
In 2007, their dog Jerry was diagnosed with cancer and lost one of its legs as a result. Wanting to give him the best possible life, they sold their home and business, bought a small 5th Wheel and hit the road.
Jerry has since passed on, and now three legged companion Wyatt roams the USA with them. Over the years, Jim & Rene have adapted to find their own unique grove. Some of their income sources include their community for three legged pets, consulting to others wanting to form home based business and workamping.
They also decided to buy property in Colorado as a summer home to return to – but spend the majority of the year out on the road.
This video interview was done in 2010 when we first met them at the NuRVers Gathering in Texas. Below the video you’ll find a 2-year follow-up interview we conducted with them recently.
Follow Live. Work. Dream:
Travel Website: LiveWorkDream.com
3-legged Dog Community: Tripawds.com
Agreda (their business): Agreda.com
Their e-Book: Income Anywhere!
Two Year Follow-Up Interview
Describe your life now, as compared to 2 years ago:
We are still loving life on the road as much as we were two years ago, if not even more. We’re busier than ever as we expand our websites and have started a new home business consulting service helping others achieve financial freedom while living remotely. The only major change is that we now have a small place in the Rockies where we go during summer. Although last year we only spent two months there, so we still consider ourselves full-timers!
What has been the most surprising change for you?
Aside from skyrocketing fuel prices, the biggest change is that we’re mentally more able to adapt to the unexpected surprises and uncertainty that comes with living a life out of the box. After five years on the road we’ve realized that as long as you look at everything as a learning experience, it will always bring some sort of benefit to your life. Our dog Wyatt is also much happier on the road now that our bond has developed and the pack has grown more stable.
You guys have made a lot of changes in your business model since we spoke 2 years ago… tell us what you’re up to now.
Our Tripawds three-legged dog community continues to grow but it’s still more of a labor of love than an income generator. With most of our members joining because their dog has cancer, we understand they’re already facing large vet bills so we don’t monetize the site nearly as much as we could. We are currently duplicating the WordPress multisite infrastructure that powers Tripawds, and adapting it to a couple other niche markets. We have also begun a handcrafted jewelry design business that caters to the this community.
Our biggest news is our product marketing business we began growing since discovering a company called Melaleuca. Last year we workamped on a ranch and the owners introduced us to this company’s eco-friendly products. At first we were skeptics but when we investigated the company we found that its a legitimate way to enjoy healthier living while making money by referring customers. It’s a great way to supplement our income and we love telling people about it. Starting this business even encouraged us to overhaul our company website that we hadn’t touched since selling our graphics shop in 2007.
You guys have a new eBook out… pimp it out!
After working for ourselves for more than 15 years, and spending the last five years working from our mobile home office, we decided to share what we’ve learned in our new e-book, Income Anywhere! This 58-page PDF is filled with proven methods we have learned for earning an income while working from home, wherever that may be. In addition to practical advice about generating multiple revenue streams and staying out of debt, we’ve included plenty of resources for learning more about workamping, selling online, finding remote employment opportunities, and much more. It’s targeted at full-time RVers and soon to be travelers, but is ideal for rural residents or anyone who wishes they could work from home.
We encourage anyone skeptical of home based business “opportunities” they hear about online to download our free sample chapter that discusses the warning signs of MLM schemes and how to identify legitimate revenue sharing businesses.
How’s it been working out having a summer home base in CO and snowbirding during the winter months?
We love our place in the mountains, but we really enjoy spending our winters in West Texas. The people we have met in the Big Bend region especially are amazing and we definitely plan to return. The stick house is nice, and just when we start getting too comfortable the ol’ feet start getting itchy anyway and it’s time to hit the road again. Most people get to spend a month away from their home each year, if they’re lucky. We consider it a vacation when we return to ours!
Project out 2 years from now – any guesses to what your life might be like then?
Enjoying the Now is all that really matters. There’s no telling where we might be in a couple years. But one thing is certain, it won’t be back in a cubicle working for the man again. We left that life years ago and have no intention of going back. We will more likely still be enjoying the back roads of America while enhancing the lives of others we introduce to our lifestyle.
Any new lessons learned in the past 2 years that you’d like to share with others contemplating a similar mobile lifestyle?
One of the most important lessons for living a happy life on the road has to be learning to budget accordingly. Staying out of debt and spending within your means is a must. Developing passive residual income from multiple revenue streams certainly helps. But from a more spiritual standpoint, it’s imperative to enjoy what you’re doing. And if you can’t enjoy what might be happening to you at the moment, that’s OK, but at least accept it for what it is so you can easily move on.
What’s on the horizon for you.. near term and long term?
Next season we plan to visit the East coast again since our first trip around the country in 2007. We have a speaking engagement in Virginia, so we’ll take our time and see some of the few remaining states we’ve missed. We will likely return to Vickers Ranch for summer work as long as Jim is able to heft a hay bale. And we hope to continue helping others build their own home based businesses as long as there are dreamers out there in need of a little encouragement and lots of support.
Share anything else you’d like (or not)
The Live Work Dream site we started when hitting the road to share tips about full-timing, has evolved into quite a lifestyle design blog lately. But we continue to write about awesome people we meet and places we’ve seen, and unexpected repairs we’ve made to save money. We definitely plan to keep it up since there is plenty more to experience on the road ahead of us and lots of biscuits and gravy out there to review.
Meet more Ramblings
Meet some of the other nomads we’ve interviewed in this series:
[catlist categorypage=yes orderby=rand numberposts=2 thumbnail=yes thumbnail_size=50,50 excerpt=yes excerpt_size=150 excludeposts=this morelink=”View all of the Ramblings”]Stay tuned.. more nomads coming soon!
Ramblings: Tales from Nomads is intended to introduce you to some amazing people who are living life on their terms by traveling full time.
In this video series, you’ll be meeting and hearing the stories from a wide range of nomads we’ve met, with one thing in common – they’re not waiting for a traditional retirement to pursue their dreams of perpetual travel.
The entire video series will continue to grow at: https://www.technomadia.com/ramblings
We’ll be soon introducing you to more nomads, aiming to release 2-3 videos a month until we run out of content. Make sure you’re subscribed to our RSS feed to be automatically notified when we post.
Would you like to be featured in this series? Let us know when our paths might be converging and let’s hang out – and we’ll be happy to film you in person too.
Want to be a Nomad too?
Inspired to explore a nomadic path yourself? We created a series just for you! Check out our free blog series: No Excuses: Go Nomadic that addresses many of the logistics such as – income sources, affordability, pets, family, mail, healthcare, connectivity, community and more.
We also offer the same series as a ‘pay as you wish’ eBook, for those wanting the convenience and/or tossing us some thank-you bucks (Thank you!).
Study study, before hitting the road? Wisdom comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment? At my age, and non techie, got to look at manual work to supplement the little we have. enjoy reading on how many are doing it at younger than us.