- 5/1/2025
Discover how house sitting transformed our finances and saved us over $550 every week! Broadcasting from our van in Australia's Flinders Ranges, we share the complete financial transformation this lifestyle choice delivered.
Our biggest financial revelation? We eliminated housing costs completely while still earning rental income from our property! Beyond that, we've cut utility bills, avoided maintenance costs, eliminated subscriptions, and revolutionized our spending habits.
Living with limited space forced us to evaluate every purchase: "Is this functional? Multi-purpose? Worth moving?" This naturally eliminated impulse buys on clothes, gadgets, and single-purpose items that were draining our accounts.
We share practical minimalist techniques from storage reduction to the "33 item wardrobe" challenge. For digital nomads, we discuss connectivity solutions for remote locations and how to maintain work capabilities anywhere.
Most importantly, we explain how this lifestyle helped us recover from previous financial challenges and get ahead. Whether you're looking to save money, embrace minimalism, or explore alternative living, this video offers honest insights from our journey.
Join our Australian adventure! Comment where we should explore next and support us with a like and follow!
*Timestamps*
0:00 How We Saved $550+ Weekly - Our Housesitting Money Saving Journey
0:10 Our view for the afternoon
0:35 How Housesitting helped us identify ways to save money
1:18 Our biggest saving to date
2:17 Eliminating the cost of utilties
2:39 The cost of insurances
3:17 Changing our grocery purchaing habits
4:17 The cost of commuting to and from work
4:32 Eliminating subscriptions
7:07 Avoiding spending on unnecessary things
11:24 How we have been able to recover from previous financial challegnes through housesitting
12:38 Where the road is taking us next
Linked video: https://rumble.com/v6qlu9a-how-house-sitting-transformed-our-lives-forever.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp
*Music*
Speak The Truth - Go By Ocean - Ryan McCaffrey
#savemoney #livingcosts #vanlife #rentfree
---------------------------------------------------
Follow us on
🌐 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lifewithnoanchor/
🌐 Facebook https://www.facebook.com/LifeWifNoAnchor
🌐 X (Twitter) https://x.com/LifeWifNoAnchor
Looking to become a Housesitter or a Petsitter?
Want to connect with a Sitter?
To get *25% off* your membership on Trusted Housesitters go to https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/refer/RAF582519/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=refer-a-friend&utm_campaign=refer-a-friend
Our biggest financial revelation? We eliminated housing costs completely while still earning rental income from our property! Beyond that, we've cut utility bills, avoided maintenance costs, eliminated subscriptions, and revolutionized our spending habits.
Living with limited space forced us to evaluate every purchase: "Is this functional? Multi-purpose? Worth moving?" This naturally eliminated impulse buys on clothes, gadgets, and single-purpose items that were draining our accounts.
We share practical minimalist techniques from storage reduction to the "33 item wardrobe" challenge. For digital nomads, we discuss connectivity solutions for remote locations and how to maintain work capabilities anywhere.
Most importantly, we explain how this lifestyle helped us recover from previous financial challenges and get ahead. Whether you're looking to save money, embrace minimalism, or explore alternative living, this video offers honest insights from our journey.
Join our Australian adventure! Comment where we should explore next and support us with a like and follow!
*Timestamps*
0:00 How We Saved $550+ Weekly - Our Housesitting Money Saving Journey
0:10 Our view for the afternoon
0:35 How Housesitting helped us identify ways to save money
1:18 Our biggest saving to date
2:17 Eliminating the cost of utilties
2:39 The cost of insurances
3:17 Changing our grocery purchaing habits
4:17 The cost of commuting to and from work
4:32 Eliminating subscriptions
7:07 Avoiding spending on unnecessary things
11:24 How we have been able to recover from previous financial challegnes through housesitting
12:38 Where the road is taking us next
Linked video: https://rumble.com/v6qlu9a-how-house-sitting-transformed-our-lives-forever.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp
*Music*
Speak The Truth - Go By Ocean - Ryan McCaffrey
#savemoney #livingcosts #vanlife #rentfree
---------------------------------------------------
Follow us on
🌐 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lifewithnoanchor/
🌐 Facebook https://www.facebook.com/LifeWifNoAnchor
🌐 X (Twitter) https://x.com/LifeWifNoAnchor
Looking to become a Housesitter or a Petsitter?
Want to connect with a Sitter?
To get *25% off* your membership on Trusted Housesitters go to https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/refer/RAF582519/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=refer-a-friend&utm_campaign=refer-a-friend
Category
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Welcome to our van. You're in the van with us. Yep. Tell you what, give me a second
00:04I'm gonna spin it around and I'll show you what our view looks like and you can be as jealous as you want
00:21We are going to talk about house-sitting again and although we're not house-sitting right now
00:26it's what got us to where we are at this point in time and one of the things I
00:31suppose that we really feel is worth sharing based on a lot of the questions
00:35that we've had is how house-sitting helps you reduce costs and we've been able to
00:41reduce our cost quite a bit haven't we Chris? We have, yes. Where's the biggest area that you've
00:46noticed that put flies in here with us? This place we're in the Flinders Ranges
00:51and flies are pretty full on even though it's the the colder time of the year
00:56I'm gonna shut the door because we just had some noisy people rock up next to us
00:59so let's we'll keep it intimate. Make it intimate.
01:03How are we? Flies!
01:06So money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, saving money, house-sitting
01:12the questions you've been asked Chris, how the heck did we get here and how have we saved money?
01:17Well our biggest savings has definitely been on accommodation and previously we were living in
01:26Darwin we owned our we do own our own apartment in Darwin and we've rented it out so to give you
01:33some perspective it is fully furnished and currently renting for $550 a week so straight
01:40up we're saving $550 a week. Well yeah we are because we're not paying rent but at the same time
01:46we've still got a mortgage to pay out of that so yes we're not getting $550 a week just keep that in
01:52mind. We're talking about our savings so if we were renting we're saving $550 a week and when we were in
02:00Melbourne a $550 a week rental property gets you a very small place. One bedroom. Probably a one bedroom.
02:09Probably someone's balcony. If you can get a rental Melbourne and Sydney you're looking at well over
02:15$550 a week and then of course you've got your utilities so obviously it's a little bit different
02:21for everybody we're a two-person household rather than a four-person household so this would vary
02:27depending on your circumstances but you need to think about okay well there's gas, electricity, water,
02:34body corporate fees in our case. And if you're not renting and you're the owner of the property you're
02:39probably gonna have things like council rates and insurances. If you're renting insurance is also for
02:43your contents that's a really clever idea but you don't need to insure the building if you're renting
02:47if you own it. A bit reckless to not insure the building so that's another cost and I suppose we've
02:51kind of transferred those insurance costs because we've insured the van and we've insured the stuff
02:57inside the van so we've kind of moved a bit from column A to column B but it's a less of an amount
03:02that we're paying in relation to that. What other areas do you feel that we've cut back on and how
03:09has house sitting and van life helped us reduce how much we're spending? What are other habits that
03:16have changed for us? Well for me I've identified because I tend to organize a lot of the grocery
03:22purchases I feel that we don't buy as much stuff we only buy what we need because we do not have an
03:30abundance of space to just throw it into a cupboard and it getting lost in the vortex.
03:35We only have a limited amount of space to put things and therefore we are literally buying
03:42what we need for probably what would you say about two weeks of food at a time? Typically if you take
03:49the condiments and stuff like that out of the equation and really if we consolidate all our condiments
03:54into one area it's probably the size of a shoe box and that's pretty big for the space that we've
03:58got. That's generous yeah I don't think we would fill up a shoe box. We really only go for probably
04:04about a two-week shop-ish unless we're like we are at the moment we've grown bush so we've got some extra
04:09stuff hidden in a few other cupboards and bits and pieces. What else are we saving on? Oh I think
04:14that's really the majority of it can you think of anything? Well we're not commuting to and from work
04:19and if you're house sitting that's going to be something that you still will probably need to do
04:23because we work remotely so that's just our set of circumstances. Subscriptions. What subscriptions
04:29do we not have now that we probably would have had when we were living in a house? Because of our
04:34circumstances we tend to not do a lot of subscription stuff but because we're house sitting we get access
04:42to things like Netflix, Stan, Disney Plus. We don't have to pay for internet which is can be pretty
04:50costly. Admittedly while we're vanlifing we are paying more for internet and that's predominantly
04:56because we have chosen to go with the Starlink roaming. Yeah Starlink unlimited roam. It's an unlimited
05:04for now we're currently in the Flinders ranges. If we were not on Starlink we would just not have any
05:09access to any mobile data or telephone or anything so that has for us has been a really good lifesaver
05:19because we do need to work remotely. There have been some houses that we've been at where their
05:24internet is downright awful. Not necessarily due to the type of internet that they've chosen but because
05:34the infrastructure is not necessarily all that great and or just non-existent so that's something to
05:41really be very mindful of when you're choosing a house sit. If you're going to be house sitting in a
05:46remote location and you need to work you may need to look at either a service provider that will definitely
05:55cover that area or invest in something like Starlink Mini which we've found to be invaluable. So the
06:03other thing which I've just realized is a massive savings is we don't have to pay for the maintenance
06:10of the property. Now I understand if you were renting you probably don't need to worry as much about some
06:16of the maintenance because you would likely contact the owner or your rental manager in the event that
06:26something went wrong with your hot water service or whatever and so that's probably not necessary. If you
06:31own your own home obviously that's your responsibility but when we were renting we would have to mow the
06:37lawns it's all those cleaning products and petrol for the lawnmower and bits and pieces like that so
06:44we're saving a lot on time too so that's something else to consider it's not just monetary side of
06:51things that you're saving you're saving time. We still when we're at a house that we will still live in it as
06:57if it was our own place and look after it and clean it and all that sort of stuff you cannot neglect that
07:02but we're definitely saving time in the sense that we're not having to do that as frequently.
07:07Something else that I've found is a really big I suppose motivator to save as well and not spend so
07:12much is because we are living in such a small space and we need to pack up and move from A to B.
07:18I'm not buying as many of the impulse things you know clothes, tech gadgets, little bits and pieces
07:24stuff that previously I would have probably been drawn to because I had somewhere to stick it there
07:29was always a junk room and we just don't have that sort of space and if you're house sitting even if
07:34you're not doing it from a van life point of view packing all your stuff up and then moving from A to B
07:39it really teaches you to evaluate the purchases and decide whether or not it's going to actually be
07:45functional multi-purpose add value in different areas because just the moving of those things from
07:51one place to the next and the hassle of that if it's a nice little gadget that you use for one
07:56particular thing if you've bought a kitchen utensil that does one thing and it's uh like those potato
08:03chip makers where you just sort of put the peeled spot in pull the lever and chips come out yeah they're
08:08great but what else can you use it for and how much space does it take up when if you've got a knife
08:15and a chopping board you can do multiple things with it you're not limited to just making potato chips
08:20so it's that sort of stuff I suppose that for me really is the big value add and I'm not deploying
08:27the economic energy from my work via dollars into buying those things that are going to weigh me down
08:34and just cost money it's a valid point and I think when we started to embrace a minimalist lifestyle
08:40we really had to evaluate why do we have so many clothes I know there's this huge amount of storage space
08:46called a wardrobe where we put all our clothes but we've managed to dial it right back I mean I recently
08:53did a little challenge which was I think it was called 33 and the idea is that for each season
09:00you should attempt to minimize the amount of clothing that you have and accessories down to 33 items that
09:08doesn't include underwear for me I found that quite interesting and without realizing it I had already
09:16started to adapt my lifestyle to incorporate that minimalist approach and what did you find you had
09:24your number was at or below 33 from memory yeah I think it was about maybe 33 35 30 I can't remember
09:31exactly it was some time ago now but you're absolutely right it really really makes you question
09:38how much stuff you have and you even mentioned to me most recently that you're frustrated because
09:45you've only got a limited amount of drawer space and you're struggling to get in and out of it too many
09:50clothes it's a very interesting way to live Matt gets a little bit frustrated with me because he has
09:56one pair of shoes and he thinks they're fantastic I've got about six pairs of shoes and he gets
10:01frustrated because I swap and change all the time three or four times a day they'll be different
10:07footwear they're for different purposes only my flops for the showers because everybody uses the
10:12showers I don't want to get tinnitus or whatever it's called or not tinnitus tinnia tinnia
10:20trust me flops or thongs as we call them in australia is not going to protect you from tinnitus
10:25no that's the air one isn't it yeah whack your ears with your thongs yeah
10:31and then I've got my slippers for when it's particularly cold like at the moment the
10:35Flinders rangers is really cold compared to the type of climate that we normally like to be in and
10:40then when we go hiking I've got a couple of pairs of sneakers for that so and then I've got some fancy
10:46flip-flops for when we're going to a nice restaurant and some other sneakers for not hiking I've got two
10:52pairs of like flat sneakers and then like grippy sneakers more shoes functional too many socks I
11:00don't have that many clothes he's got he can't get into his drawers I know I've got like 40 pairs of
11:06socks do I need 40 pairs of socks probably not could I drop some down at the op shop probably would they take
11:12them probably not throw them in the bin yeah we'll figure it out but anyhow we just wanted to share
11:17with you some of the tips that we had based on a few questions that we had around how how sitting
11:24helps us save money yes and I think that we have sufficiently been able to catch up because if
11:31you'd watched a previous episode where we explained why we're doing what we're doing you'll understand a
11:37bit more but this way of living has certainly helped us to I suppose catch up where we were
11:44once feeling like we're falling behind which is really good find out more about that episode up
11:48there that's almost an origin story so hopefully it gives you who are new to the channel a bit of
11:54context so like subscribe smash the bell button do all those things it really helps us out in fact
12:00it's one really easy free way for you to be able to support us so that we can keep doing this it gives
12:05us a good bit of feedback in relation to whether you like this content or not should we keep creating
12:10this sort of content should we do something else let us know we really are keen to make sure that
12:15what we're doing adds value now we do try to vary our content quite a bit you'll see a little bit about
12:20us speaking about house sitting and there's also a little bit about us doing van life lots of driving
12:26videos coming up we have also done the van reno which is a whole series in itself but if there's something
12:32specific that you want to learn from us let us know we'd love to share with you yeah let us know
12:36if the the location we're at now flinders ranges and where we're heading up through next is towards
12:41darwin where do you want us to go and take a look at where would you like to see we're living our life
12:46with no anchor you should too see on the next one bye