The line between dreaming and doing often gets blurred by the weight of our possessions. For Penny Rose and her husband, that weight was measured in square footage: 1,640 square feet of their home plus another 1,400 square feet from his house, both packed with belongings they couldn’t even reach. When they combined households after marrying later in life, they faced a truth many homeowners avoid. They owned so much unused stuff they literally couldn’t access the things they actually wanted to use. Five years ago, on New Year’s Eve 2019, they took a radical step toward freedom: they slept in their newly purchased RV on the dealership lot and never looked back.
“My husband and I slept in our RV the first night when we bought it. We slept on the lot of the RV dealership on December 31st of 2019,” Penny Rose said, marking the beginning of their transition to full-time RV living.
Their story isn’t just about trading square footage for mobility. It’s about the intersection of financial strategy, personal freedom, and the courage to disconnect from the physical and emotional anchors that keep us rooted in one place. As insurance costs spiraled in Florida and code enforcement dictated their home maintenance schedule, they realized the American dream of homeownership had become more burden than benefit. What started as a throwaway comment about RV living evolved into a two-year planning process that would fundamentally reshape their lives.
From Throwaway Comment to Calculated Decision
The seed of change was planted casually, almost accidentally. After another round of homeowners insurance cancellations and code enforcement notices, Penny Rose made an offhand remark to her husband about living in an RV full time. His silence wasn’t rejection—it was contemplation. A month later, he echoed her words back to her, signaling he’d been processing the possibility.
This wasn’t impulsive decision-making. For two years before buying their RV, they researched and prepared. They watched RV families thriving on YouTube, studied the logistics, and calculated the financial implications. The motivation was multifaceted but clear: they wanted freedom from the responsibilities tying them to one location, the ability to travel extensively, and most importantly, to become completely debt-free by selling their home.
“The biggest one was finance. We are, my husband and I are both personal finance nerds. And we knew that more than likely we would be able to free ourselves up to travel much more if we weren’t weighted down with the house,” Penny Rose said.
Their approach demonstrates a crucial principle for anyone considering a major life transition: dreams need time to develop into actionable plans. The two-year runway allowed them to shift from fantasy to strategy, addressing practical concerns while maintaining their regular lives in their community.
The Liberation of Letting Go
Downsizing from over 3,000 combined square feet to an RV required more than packing—it required a complete psychological reset about possessions. The couple faced belongings they’d accumulated over decades, items so numerous they’d become obstacles rather than assets. The reality check came when they admitted they couldn’t even reach things they theoretically owned.
The process of eliminating possessions became almost mechanical in its necessity. They sold what they could, donated items to charity, and discarded the rest. COVID-19 complicated the timeline, but they remained focused on the ultimate goal: everything they owned had to fit in their RV, period.
“We obviously weren’t using our space for very much besides storing stuff, stuff that we couldn’t even get to,” Penny Rose said, acknowledging the dysfunction of their previous lifestyle.
Penny Rose offers practical advice for anyone facing similar downsizing: avoid storage units at all costs. Once items go into storage, the monthly fees become an ongoing drain, and the stored possessions rarely return to active use. Instead, tackle the project room by room, making firm decisions about each item’s utility. The process isn’t quick—it took them about six months—but treating it systematically makes the overwhelming task manageable.
Surprisingly, the emotional attachment to belongings proved less challenging than the logistics. When questioned about whether releasing possessions felt difficult, Penny Rose emphasized the practical reality: most items were unused “stuff” that had already lost meaning through neglect.
Severing Ties Beyond Physical Possessions
Full-time RV living requires cutting more than physical clutter. Penny Rose and her husband had to address employment, community connections, and family proximity. The timing aligned with a critical career transition: her husband’s retirement from the FBI.
After 25 years of federal service, he accepted early retirement, which provided crucial benefits including continued health insurance—a significant consideration for pre-Medicare age adults. This retirement timing was pivotal. They’d been planning the RV transition for about two and a half years while still living in their community, allowing them to gradually shift their mindset and logistics before making the final leap.
The financial strategy underpinning their decision was deliberate. By selling their home, they achieved debt-free status, which made early retirement financially viable. This sequencing matters: becoming debt-free enabled them to accept early retirement, which in turn freed them to travel full-time.
“We knew that when we sold our house, we would be debt free,” Penny Rose said, highlighting how the domino effect of financial decisions supported their lifestyle transformation.
Community reactions ranged from supportive to envious. While some expressed concerns about safety on the road, most people responded positively. One particularly memorable piece of feedback came from someone who noted that Penny Rose “followed through,” recognizing that many people dream about radical lifestyle changes but few actually execute them.
Creating Structure in a Mobile Life
Five years into full-time RV living, Penny Rose and her husband have developed rhythms that balance work, travel, and community. They maintain Florida as their domicile—a technical term in the RV world referring to their tax home—and spend about half the year there. The rest of their time involves trips lasting four to six months.
Their travel pattern avoids the common pitfall of moving too quickly. Rather than constantly relocating, they typically stay in locations for a few weeks at a time, treating these periods as “living” rather than perpetual sightseeing. This approach allows them to establish temporary routines, explore areas thoroughly, and maintain work productivity.
“We like to joke that we’re not traveling. When we’re not back in Florida at our domicile, we’re just living in a different place,” Penny Rose said.
The concept of domicile carries strategic importance for full-time RVers, particularly those running businesses. Popular domicile states include Florida, Texas, and South Dakota, each offering tax advantages for mobile entrepreneurs. As someone who shifted her career focus to helping nomadic creators with tax strategy, Penny Rose understands these implications intimately.
She now works with travel creators—YouTubers, bloggers, and influencers—helping them structure their businesses for tax efficiency and financial sustainability. Her mission extends beyond tax preparation to education, ensuring creators can maintain their nomadic lifestyles long-term. She’s developing a tax education course and launching a micro podcast called “Penny in Your Pocket” to share financial literacy specifically for the creator economy.
Maintaining Connection While Mobile
One concern potential full-time RVers express is losing community. Penny Rose addresses this through intentional relationship building, both online and in person. She’s connected with finance communities and RV business networks online, creating a distributed support system that exists independent of geography.
Their travel routes often include deliberate stops to visit friends and family, treating relationships as destinations rather than afterthoughts. Some friends even coordinate their own RV travels to meet up, creating mobile social gatherings that honor both parties’ nomadic lifestyles.
Amy Stone asked about managing boundaries between work and leisure while traveling. Penny Rose acknowledged this challenge, noting that working from your home, which is also your vehicle, requires conscious separation. The key is recognizing when you’re “traveling too fast”—moving locations so frequently that you can’t establish any routine or complete meaningful work.
They’ve also developed favorite spots and traditions. Alachua and St. Augustine in Florida serve as regular touchpoints, places where they return not just for logistics but for the comfort of familiarity. These recurring locations provide anchors in an otherwise mobile existence, proving that nomadic living doesn’t require complete rootlessness.
For anyone considering full-time RV living, Penny Rose’s advice is straightforward: avoid storage units, downsize systematically, and ensure financial readiness—particularly debt-free status—before making the leap. The lifestyle offers extraordinary freedom, but that freedom comes from careful planning, not spontaneous abandonment of responsibility.
This article was inspired by an interview with Penny Rose and Amy Stone on The Art of Imperfect Adulting podcast.
https://imperfect-adulting.captivate.fm/listen https://www.youtube.com/@imperfectadulting
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House and Home: Interview Transcript Penny Rose with Amy Stone | The Art of Imperfect Adulting | January 2026
Amy Stone [00:00:05]:
Penny Rose, welcome to the art of imperfect adulting. I’m happy you’re here. Are you ready for a fun chat today?
Penny Rose [00:00:12]:
I am. I am so happy to be with you today, Amy. And I’m so excited to talk about this topic and this is a great opportunity to share the crazy moves that we made in our life.
Amy Stone [00:00:28]:
I love it. I love it. So I begin every interview that I start asking people where they call home in the world. I love to ask people this question. Share with us where you are today.
Penny Rose [00:00:38]:
We are just outside of Orlando, Florida and we call this our domicile. So we’re here about half of the year.
Amy Stone [00:00:47]:
Very nice. So this people who are in this space of nomadic living will have picked up on that word domicile. We’re going to come back to that in a second, but one more warm up question before we dive into the topic of the day. This episode is going to go live right at the start of the year. And so I thought it would be fun to ask you whether or not you have any New Year’s Day traditions that you are willing to share with us.
Penny Rose [00:01:11]:
Yeah, my husband and I have always had a Jeep wrangler and our New Year’s Day tradition, you know, barring any bad weather, is for us to, to ride around with the top down.
Amy Stone [00:01:26]:
Very nice. I love it. I love it. So new. That’s. I love it. I love the whole Jeep culture. And I was so where there’s the thing where people leave each other the ducks in the Jeeps and I don’t know why, I can be sort of prickly. I don’t even have a Jeep. I have no dog in this fight. But I went, I was in a parking lot recently and there was a Ford Bronco, which is also a very cute car, right? But this Bronco had all the ducks lined up in the dashboard. And I was like, no, no, wait a minute. That’s not how this go Jeep thing. You can’t. What do you. I was. Let me tell you how not involved I was. It wasn’t my car. There was no one in it. I wasn’t involved in the situation. I still was emotionally involved in the social correctness of this ducking. Anyway, that’s the kind of person I am. Not the topic of the day. What we’re going to talk about, actually what we’re going to talk about today is a shift that you and your husband made where you got rid of a lot of your material stuff and you started living life in what we call a full time RVing adventure working. This is something that I think a lot of people have dreams of and hopes of. It’s on the to do list for a lot of people who are in the audience today. So I’m excited to talk about it. Let’s start with this. How long ago did you guys make this change?
Penny Rose [00:02:43]:
We’ll talk about a New Year’s resolution or a New Year’s habit. My husband and I slept in our RV the first night when we bought it. We slept on the lot of the RV dealership on December 31st of 2019.
Amy Stone [00:03:00]:
2019.
Penny Rose [00:03:02]:
All right, so we’re going on five years.
Amy Stone [00:03:05]:
Five years. All right, very good. So you bought it all and you slept in it. There was. All right, so I have lots of questions. Let’s dive in. My mind just went with all of the questions. How long did you guys dream of this or play plan for this change before you, like, put it into action full time?
Penny Rose [00:03:26]:
It was about two years. And it. It was. We were watching RV families on YouTube, just thriving and living an amazing life. And we were somewhat stuck in our, you know, in the RV space. We call it sticks and bricks is where you live before you live in an rv. And we were having trouble in Florida. I don’t know if there’s any. If you’re familiar with Florida, and homeowners insurance. We were getting canceled every other year, and the insurance company was basically telling us what to do and when we’d get the homeowner’s insurance resolved, then code enforcement would come around with, you know, some other idea. And I just, you know, had kind of a throwaway line to my husband, hey, wouldn’t it be great if we lived in an RV full time? And he didn’t answer or say anything at the time, which I’m very thankful about. And then about a month went by, and he said to me, kind of a throwaway line, hey, wouldn’t it be great if we lived in an RV full time? And I knew that he had been processing over that month that, you know, the possibility that we would make a change.
Amy Stone [00:04:54]:
Very interesting. So I am also. I am also in Florida. I’m in super South Florida. I live in Miami Dade County. And so I am intimately familiar with that cycle of insurance and code enforcement that. That you talk about. It is definitely something that I think that people who are outside of this geographic region may be aware of, may not fully understand the cost and the pressures that go with it, because it is just so crazy. It is just so crazy. So there’s a joke when you do renovations on your house, like how slowly the contractors work and how they’re on timetable. This is an old story. This is from over a decade ago, but we were replacing new windows and things like that. And the building code, Miami Dade county updates every 12 to 18 months. And so your permits expire. You have a finite amount of time between you pull the permits for windows for when they have to be installed. And we had. It was an old house. It was like there was. Nobody was doing anything wrong. Nothing was going on. But it took a while to get these windows installed. And then we hit a point where, like, every contractor that I’d ever talked to in my life was in my house all the time. And I was like, what is going on? And the GC was like, we have to finish this or get new code approval if we don’t do this by this certain date. You’ve never seen people move so fast, which is hilarious because they like, we do. We will do anything to not have to meet the new building code, like, because we don’t even know what it’s going to say. You know, it’s just like, I mean, I’m not in construction, so it’s not that. That is the thing. But yeah, it is a whole thing down here. And so, so this is then, if you pulled the trigger six years ago, this is eight years ago that you guys are bouncing this around. You’ve got the reality of the American dream and the. The, you know, the. The nuts and bolts of upkeep on a house and l. That’s in hurricane path. That is in there. What. Tell me a little bit about. You said family. I am curious, like, what was the family like? Do you have kids, like school age kids that are in this package? Or is it you and your husband who’s involved in making this decision?
Penny Rose [00:06:59]:
So we were watching RV families, but, you know, and, you know, families with, you know, two to three kids. We’re just in it with our pet.
Amy Stone [00:07:10]:
Okay, so adults. Adults and fur kids.
Penny Rose [00:07:14]:
Yep. Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:07:14]:
All right. Very good. Okay, so I have a couple questions about mindset before and planning. Mindset and planning that I was thinking about that you might have gone through before you actually hit the road with this. The first is if you can go back to that timeframe like between six to eight years ago before you made the change. Talk to me about the motivation. You mentioned insurance and getting out from underneath the sticks and bricks house that you lived in. But let’s talk a little bit about more about like, what maybe were the motivations that were driving you guys in making this change.
Penny Rose [00:07:52]:
So the biggest one was finance. We are, my husband and I are both personal finance nerds. And we knew that more than likely we would be able to free ourselves up to travel much more if we weren’t weighted down with the house and we weren’t weighted down with, with the, you know, the responsibilities and, and, and having to be in one place. So it’s kind of like the intersection of travel, you know, being other places, leaving other places basically is the way that we look at it and, and the freedom because we, we knew that when we sold our house, we would be debt free.
Amy Stone [00:08:42]:
Okay, all right, so you had some financial investment. I have a question, a very specific question about, because I didn’t know when, before we talked, whether or not you were an owner or a renter. What was the square footage, if you remember, of where you were living before you went into RV life?
Penny Rose [00:09:00]:
So that, that’s even funnier story. So we were in 16, about 1640, 1,640 square feet. But we, my husband and I were older when we got married for the first time. And my husband had a 1400 square foot house that was full of stuff. And I had, I had the, I had the 1640 square foot house that was full of stuff. And we, we, you know, when we got married and combined we had to get rid of stuff just, just to even combine. But the 1600 square foot house was so full of stuff that, that if we couldn’t even get to the thing that we wanted to use, we thankfully never got to the point where we went out and bought something just because we couldn’t, you know, like, crawl back into this space. But we, we obviously weren’t using our space for very much besides storing stuff, stuff that we couldn’t even get to.
Amy Stone [00:10:04]:
Okay, very good. So 1640 plus a thousand square feet of other stuff was what you were doing. All right, so before we talk about the stuff, which is like actually getting rid of the stuff, I want to talk about the other things, the other ties that you had to your location that you needed to sort of resolve before hitting the road full time. So like ties to brick and mortar jobs. I don’t know if you guys had that when you were going like, so office, office commitments, extended family members who were in the community clubs, gym memberships. What were some of the things that were also on that? Because we’ll talk about the actual stuff, the furniture and things like that. But what were some of the other things that came up that were cutting ties to A physical location that you had to deal with before hitting the road or right after you hit the road, Things that came up.
Penny Rose [00:10:59]:
Yeah, yeah. The biggest, the most significant thing that was a tie that, that was much more easy to break because we were, we had already moved out of our. We were already living the RV lifestyle. It was our physical location, jobs. My husband and I are both retired from the FBI.
Amy Stone [00:11:23]:
Okay. Wow, that’s cool. Okay. Don’t get to talk to people who are retired FBI every day. Sorry, it’s caught me off guard. Love it. Keep going. So you’re retired FBI. Coolest thing I’ve said so far today.
Penny Rose [00:11:36]:
So when we initially moved into our rv, something. Moving into your RV and still being able to go to work in the same city is something that is much, much easier to do in Florida than it is other states because we just moved from one part of town to another part of town, and we were still able to, you know, basically at that point, keep all of our ties. You know, basically we only moved out of our neighborhood. And so, you know, we, we didn’t. We don’t have any family in Florida, and so that was an issue. But, you know, we had churches and we had personal finance club, you know, memberships in person that we met with. And so during the two and a half years that we still, you know, lived in the community and lived, went to our jobs, we, you know, people had seen the dramatic change that we had made in our lives and they understood that, you know, that time period was precious with us and that, you know, they would only have us for that time period. And so we, we spent basically that two and a half years to say, hey, we’re not, we’re not going to be here, you know, past this date. And my husband, we, when we initially moved into the rv, we were thinking that, that we would still be working even to this day. I wasn’t scheduled to be able to retire until I think maybe like next August.
Amy Stone [00:13:22]:
Okay.
Penny Rose [00:13:23]:
So I, I’m. I’m on some free time here that, that we never anticipated. And then my husband wasn’t scheduled to retire, like, for another year of January, so he wasn’t going to be able to go until January of 27. And so the fact that we had already made the move into the RV meant that when my husband was offered early retirement for the FBI, meaning his pension started right away. And FBI employees, as most government employees do, we can retire with our full health insurance benefits for the rest of our lives. And as soon as, you know, we were able to Accept the offer because we were already debt free. And so he went five years early, and I went as soon as he. We knew he. It was, you know, definite that he was going to get this early retirement that we wouldn’t have been able to accept if we’d still lived in our house. Then we started looking for ways for me to leave my job, and I left my job just, you know, almost three years early.
Amy Stone [00:14:43]:
Very cool. So you already mentioned that you were personal finance fans, students, aficionados. This was a big part of your money. It wasn’t your job, though, because you were working. Unless. Unless you were accountants for the FBI, which maybe it could be, I don’t know.
Penny Rose [00:15:01]:
But.
Amy Stone [00:15:02]:
And I also don’t know where the line is, what you’re allowed to ask people who used to work for the FBI. Like I say, I don’t know if it’s secret or not. So anyway, you can tell me if it is or not. But the. It sounds to me like a couple things are clear. One, you guys are very logistically oriented and you make a plan and then you execute on the plan, which I gotta say, I find that a respectable skill from anybody who’s affiliated with law enforcement, just lines right up with the things that I think are good skills. And so you make a plan. You’ve got two years. Then I think I’m understanding you guys were living in the rv, but in your home community for a couple of years, and you had a deadline, you set a deadline, so you were notifying all of your communities. You’re like, this is our plan, so on and so forth. And it looks like that’s what I understand. You’re nodding along.
Penny Rose [00:15:47]:
Yep, yep.
Amy Stone [00:15:48]:
A big part of this, though, sounds like it’s the awareness that your freedom and your mobility as an ability to be able to do things really hinged on being able to reduce your month to month expenses so that you could have. Yeah, that’s. That’s an interesting thing, because I have not gone through retirement yet or any of these things, but I talk to people about this. I think it’s something that surprises people is the process of thinking about what do I want my life to cost in the future when I no longer have a salary. And. And one of the things that you highlighted that I’ll call out for the audience, is that you’re aware that you had what is an amazing perk, which is that you had health insurance that came transported from your job. And not everybody has that these days. They have to go out and figure out how that’s going to happen. And when it switches, I have not had to do that. But I think it’s even more complicated than the home insurance market is my understanding. All right, so very good. Now let’s talk about what you guys did with all of this stuff. So you downsize from having a very, very full 1600 foot brick and mortar house and you move into an RV. What’s this square footage of your RV?
Penny Rose [00:17:12]:
It’s about 250.
Amy Stone [00:17:14]:
It’s so small. It’s so small. 250. What did you guys do with your stuff? Did you sell it? Did you give it away? Did you throw it away? How did you. How did you do that?
Penny Rose [00:17:23]:
We did all the things. So we had the extra fun opportunity to do this during COVID Okay. And normally people who work for the FBI aren’t allowed to work from home. And thankfully, because of COVID we had the opportunity for six months, the first six months of. Pretty much the first six to nine months of our full time RV living, we had the opportunity to work from home, which meant we were supposed to be in our house anyway. So we did not sell our house for almost a full year after we moved into the rv.
Amy Stone [00:18:07]:
Oh, so you were living in the rv, but you still had sort of like storage in the house?
Penny Rose [00:18:13]:
Exactly, exactly. That’s helpful. It was, it. It took. It. It took a lot of time to get rid of things. And the first thing that we did with the RV is, you know, we get a brand new RV where we start taking stuff out of the house. Does this fit? Does this fit? Does this fit? And. And we brought what fit. And then what didn’t fit, you know, was, hey, let’s, you know, let’s figure out how to get rid of this. So we, we, you know, we basically did all the things and it was harder to do, I think, during COVID because, you know, there were some donation centers that were shutting down and people were a little less likely to, you know, to meet at your house to buy something or to. But we, we went through everything multiple times, and I think that’s kind of the secret for us. We had gotten really good advice that was, number one, do not plan to have a storage unit plan. You know, storage unit needs to be the last thing on your mind, because what we’ve seen other people do is if they have a storage unit, they’ll. They’ll just start filling the storage unit and stop looking at their stuff, and then they’ll get half of what they think they need to go in the storage, and they’ll have filled the storage unit, and then they’re, you know, going to a new storage unit and, you know, emptying the old storage unit and filling up the new storage unit. And so our thought, the. The next piece of advice that we got that was really good was to just focus on one room and plan by the time you finish that room for, you know, for this iteration, that 50% of the things in the room are gone when you’re done.
Amy Stone [00:20:13]:
Yeah.
Penny Rose [00:20:13]:
And then if. And then you just keep moving around the house until you get back to that room and you go back to that room. And again, the second time you hit it, 50% needs to come out.
Amy Stone [00:20:26]:
Did you guys. Was it hard. Was it hard to release the stuff that was in the house? Like, was it emotionally challenging?
Penny Rose [00:20:32]:
No, actually, it was more logistically challenging because we got to a certain point, and we didn’t want to look at it again, and my husband wanted to call for a dumpster.
Amy Stone [00:20:46]:
Yeah, I can see. I can see that. Yeah.
Penny Rose [00:20:49]:
And then I think once you’ve gone through every room of your house and looked at everything, the first time it. I think the next time you look at, you realize it’s just stuff, and you can’t remember the last time you used it, and you really wish that you hadn’t bought it. And, you know, especially being finance nerds were like, oh, so much money.
Amy Stone [00:21:16]:
Yeah, no, I, I. Some people get very emotionally attached to things, and I respect that. And it can be a very, very emotional process for people. But there’s a. The flip side of that, which is people who deal with the processing of stuff and the emotions of change and things they do. Pretty much everybody is like, once you release your attachment to this stuff, you just. It’s like you. You are ready to let it go, and then you don’t have to maintain it. But getting through that, getting through this is all the stuff we have, and it’s very important to us, and letting it go can be a long process. So you sold it. You got rid of it. You did not put it into storage. I am like you. I’m not a fan of people having storage units. There’s a story I tell about my family in storage units with a move from years ago, which is that we put stuff into a storage unit and we did not look at it for a year. No one went even once. Like, not even once. Nobody went. And then the renewal came to renew the storage unit. My husband was like, oh, we should renew it, and the rate goes way up. And I was like, no, no, we should not. He’s like, we should go and look at what of this we want. And I was like, I can tell you we don’t want anything because we. I. We don’t even know what’s in it. We haven’t needed it for an entire calendar year. Just throw it all away. You know, give it. Have it picked up. Give it away. Have you ever seen that? There’s a show on TV which is people who bid on empty, like, unclaimed storage units. Oh, my. That is such a wild concept. Very creative. Okay, so you didn’t have any family in Florida, but when you were planning this move, when you were in that period of thinking through, or even just those two years before you hit the road full time, when you told the people who were in your community that this was your plan, what did they think? What was the feedback that you got?
Penny Rose [00:22:59]:
So, for the most part, it was very positive. And, you know, I had one friend who was very concerned about us, you know, during hurricanes. And, you know, we said it were just going to leave it. You know, we’re just going to go to a hotel that’s not in an evacuation, and we’re not going to worry about it, because everything we take with us when we go to the hotel during a hurricane is everything that’s important, and everything else is just stuff because we’d already gotten rid of so much. And then other people were saying, you know, I could never do that. But, you know, I. I really envy your ability to do that. And. And then I think the really, the biggest feedback moment for me was when we actually did it. And people said, oh, my goodness. You know, it’s never that we bet against you. It’s just that it’s so nice to see that. That you’ve said you were going to do this and you just did it.
Amy Stone [00:24:07]:
That is really interesting. What did it. So I think that this is a really interesting thing that happens when people make changes. I mean, it is not. How do you not think it is unusual for people to consider being nomadic? Maybe that’s just my perspective, but I do think that it’s very interesting that a lot of times the first round of feedback you get from people is about safety. Like, are you worried about your safety?
Penny Rose [00:24:33]:
And.
Amy Stone [00:24:33]:
And I think about that. I just think it’s really interesting that that’s the thing that comes to people’s mind. How did it make you feel when people, you know, voice that concern for you? Like, what was the feeling when you got that feedback?
Penny Rose [00:24:46]:
The first thing I thought was, wow, this person really cares for me and they. They are, you know, they’re. They are. You know, this person is not going through it. She knows I’m the one that’s going through it. And her first thought is about my safety and she really cares for. And you know, as with it, anything like this, it, you know, it was a little frustrating to try to assure her that, you know, that it, it was all going to be fine. And in the end, I, you know, I quickly understood that this was more of a her problem than a me problem.
Amy Stone [00:25:29]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don’t think I would feel safe if I did it. So there. How. How could you be safe?
Penny Rose [00:25:35]:
And then, so then I just, you know, it mirrored back the concern and the care that she had for me towards her.
Amy Stone [00:25:43]:
Yeah, that’s. I think that’s very smart and I think you picked up on it and I think it’s very interesting. But. Yeah, so I thought I’d ask how you felt about it. All right, so. Very good. So. And. But it’s true. Met, you know, meant with love. And then people who are, I guess the word is surprised, but not in a disbelieving way, more of a, you know, it’s like, it’s nice to see that you made it happen. Okay, so two years ish, where you still have the brick and mortar jobs, where you’re tied to the location for a while actually, it’s like you’ve got two homes. While you get rid of the brick and mortar house, at some point you go on the road full time RVing. And so did you. How did you. How often when you hit this? So I guess now that I know more of the story, I have a couple. This is a more complicated question. When you hit the road, were you guys still working in any capacity or whether were you able to do full time travel?
Penny Rose [00:26:41]:
So we’re able to do full time travel because any work that we do up until. Up until this month, I do have a caveat for what we’re doing this month, but I was a forensic accountant for the FBI and so I did financial investigation and my specialty within financial investigations was reviewing tax returns of people to identify criminal activity where I would see their bank activity and know how much money was flowing through their bank account and I would see what they reported on their tax return. And I was able to say, you know, they. There, there’s a lot more money flowing through the bank account than what they’re. They’re reporting. And so it was somewhat natural for me to become a tax strategist. And that is what I do in that was being able to open my own solo CPA practice doing tax strategy was how I was able to leave my job three years early.
Amy Stone [00:27:52]:
Okay, so, but when you guys hit the road, you were very financially set to be retired and then you also had set up your own business to be able to do that. Okay, so the next question I have about hitting the road is when you started, how often did you change locations? And has that shifted then over the time as you’ve been doing this for a couple years?
Penny Rose [00:28:18]:
So we have, as I mentioned in the beginning, in the introduction phase, we domicile just outside of Orlando, Florida. And so we travel about 50% of the time. And when we are not here, we are on a four to six month trip. And then when we come back here, we are here until the next trip, so starts. And when we are traveling during that four to six month period, there are maybe two or three days where we, where we move every day. And then there are times where we spend one to two weeks in basically the same place. And then we, you know, a year ago now my husband said, hey, let’s go to Michigan on our next trip. And so we slowly traveled up to Michigan, you know, made the most of our time in Michigan, and then slowly traveled back to Florida. And the best part that, that I should have realized this, but I never did is that we, my, my husband is the trip planner that is this, you know, I’m working on people’s taxes and he’s planning our trips and I look at where we are staying and then I reach out to all of my contacts and say we are going to be in say, Louisville, Kentucky, from this state to this state. You know, is there any way that, you know, we can, you know, my husband and I can meet up with you for you and your wife for dinner. And so we are spending time with people that we love, that we would never get to see because we just happen to be driving through their city and spending a couple of weeks there. And we do the same thing with family. You know, we, I look at the, you know, the schedule and say, okay, you know, while we’re there, we’re close enough to this family, you know, let’s, let’s make plans. And that, that is, it shouldn’t have surprised me. And yet it did. It’s so, it’s been so sweet the number of people that we see when we’re out for that time period.
Amy Stone [00:30:42]:
That is amazing. Okay, so before we go into the next question, I want to touch on this word domiciling that you use, which I have heard. And Florida is not the only state where you can domicile. But for people who are in the audience, who are listening and watching, who have like a vision of nomadic life in their future, funny things happen. There are things that you need an address for. Things that you need an address for. Explain a little bit about what domiciling means for people who are looking to travel.
Penny Rose [00:31:13]:
So it means you are essentially establishing your tax home for IRS purposes. And that matters if you have a business, because when you are doing business outside of your domicile state, some of your expenses become a tax deduction. And so domicile is. It’s not. It doesn’t have to be your residence.
Amy Stone [00:31:48]:
Yeah.
Penny Rose [00:31:48]:
It can be where you claim your home. And in the RV space base, the three states that are most popular and most accommodating are Florida, Texas and South Dakota.
Amy Stone [00:32:05]:
South Dakota is the place where you can go and set it up in 24 hours, right?
Penny Rose [00:32:09]:
Yes. All you have to do is spend the night in a hotel and they.
Amy Stone [00:32:13]:
Like, they have that set up. I have not done this, but somebody sent it to me and I looked at the website. This is my full expertise on this. Looking at a website for five minutes. But they have set it up like a concierge service. You come, they book you in, they make your appointments. They, you know, it’s like, it’s like they, they have turned it into an easy thing to do.
Penny Rose [00:32:34]:
Yes. Yeah. And that is part of, so part of what I do for work in the. In tax strategy for people that are. And primarily I get this from people that are in high tax states. Like there’s one on the West Coast, I won’t name it. But people need to very carefully look at all of their attachments to that state because that particular state is considered to be very sticky.
Amy Stone [00:33:11]:
Yeah. They pass through if they find out that you’re trying to. So the state, the state is California, and they will claw back taxes. The example that I used to know, you used to be able to buy a car in Montana and avoid the tax on the car. But the very smart people in some of the western states figured that out and they’re like, no, if you come back and we find out that you’ve got the car, we’re going to retroactively charge you all these fees. And I am not an accountant, but my lifetime experience is that paying retroactive bills is much more expensive than actually just paying them the first time around in most cases. I learned that with parking tickets. Just pay, just pay it the day you get it. Like, don’t even chance it. Don’t set it on your desk. Don’t put it where you think you’ll remember. Pay it right away. Don’t. Don’t deal with the fees. That is so very good. So you are a forensic accountant. That is very. And that ties into your business, which we’ll come back with in a second. One of the things that I want to touch on that you led into Penny is about this, how you maintain your sense of community while you’re traveling. Because I think that that’s a thing that for a lot of people is, is connected to their brick and mortar location. It’s often correct. Connected to their brick and mortar workforce. It’s definitely a thing that’s changing in modern times because we are so much more mobile. But talk about. And you figured that out. You figured out to reach out to the people who were your connections in these states. How do you, how do you maintain a sense of community and connection as you are traveling and doing all of these things?
Penny Rose [00:34:43]:
So in two ways, two big ways is number one. I mentioned a couple of times, you know, we’re personal finance nerds, and I was a member of an online membership community for other people who are personal finance nerds. And when, when the, the founder of IT decided he didn’t want it anymore, he said, hey, would you please take this over?
Amy Stone [00:35:15]:
Okay. And so this is like an online community.
Penny Rose [00:35:18]:
Yes.
Amy Stone [00:35:19]:
Okay.
Penny Rose [00:35:19]:
Specifically for people that, that go to a personal finance conference every year. And the second way that I do that is I’m a member of another online community called RV Queens.
Amy Stone [00:35:35]:
Okay.
Penny Rose [00:35:35]:
And it, it is for women who live in an rv, either part time or full time, and have businesses so that they can. Can travel. And it is specifically about that. You know, those two, you know, communities are specifically about maintaining contact with your community. And, and once I meet someone, I’m like, we met during an entrepreneista event, and there’s another entrepreneurista lives in her ambulance full time. And I, we had a quick chat and I said, oh, you might be interested in RV Queens. And she joined at that very moment. And so I am. Am not only maintaining contact, I’m growing the community as I meet more people.
Amy Stone [00:36:33]:
So that is like, okay, that is really good. So I remember that conversation, although I had not tied it together until you brought it up, because that is very good. One of the reasons, the question about how often you move is actually inspired. I traveled, I took a personal trip for most of the month of October, I wasn’t in an rv. I was just in a rental car going from Airbnb to Airbnb. But I had. There were two things that came up in my trip which inspired these questions that I was asking you. One is that I realized how much effort it is to change locations and how much of a disruption it is. And you know, people have all kinds of guidance about this. So I had read the two nights in every, you know, like that was the thing. But even that’s fast. That’s fast. That’s considered fast travel. And then there’s others that are doing the more slow and figuring out how it works in to your schedule for how often you travel, that’s one thing. The second part of that is that for me, what came up and I’ll ask you about this is when you are relocating and traveling but also working, how do you create boundaries and separation so that both of those things can happen in the same time? Because I realized very quickly, I was like, oh, this is a place for me where I need a whole new set of boundaries. Like, are we traveling and touristing or are we working? And how do these things go together?
Penny Rose [00:37:56]:
And, and it’s, that is such an amazing question. And, and there’s a concept around it that, that people that, who don’t do what we do haven’t even ever tested it. It’s hard for them to, to grapple with. But there is such a thing called traveling too fast. And so many people that, that travel all kinds of different ways are, you know, after the first year, they’ll say, wow, I, we really, we really travel too fast. And, but to, to bring it down to your specific question is that we look at where we stay. If it’s more than a night, we actually look at it as if we live there. Okay, we, we are, we are living. And so we may be someplace for a week and we may only set aside a day to do the touristy things in that area because, you know, we, we are, we’re choosing to live there. And so it’d be the same as, you know, we’re outside of Orlando. This is, you know, our domicile, this is what we consider to be our home. Home. We wouldn’t necessarily do touristic things three to four times a week. So when we’re on the road, we, we, we keep that same pattern that, that, you know, I haven’t, I have a, a happy hour scheduled for tomorrow with some RV queens who are in Florida. And, and that is something like what I would do when we were out on the road.
Amy Stone [00:39:37]:
So yeah, that is, I think that is the shift. It’s like are you living there or are you touristing? And the two things don’t always work in the same calendar is what was my exposure to that. And then the other thing that I realized is how many, how long it takes to find the cool things. Any place that you are. Right. Which I think we all know. So if you go someplace and you’re only there for 24 hours, what do you see? You see the highway and you see, you know, the lobby or hotel or whatever place that you’re staying and it takes a while to find, you know, the coffee shop that you like or, or even to find like, like I run as a hobby. To find a place to run that you like, that takes a couple of days. It’s, it’s like hard to do. Anyway, those are my personal thoughts. That was what inspired those questions. And I love your feedback. All right, so we, so you, you change locations based on how long you’re doing. You domicile in Florida, which means that. And in central Florida, which means that every time you start those trips, you’ve got seven to eight hours to even before you get out of Florida. That’s one of the challenges of being so far down in the peninsula. So if you go to a place like Michigan, you’re traveling slowly, meandering your way up and taking time and then you like when you usually stay someplace, you, if it’s a place where you’re going to be, you’re talking about a week or two weeks. How long do you guys like to be in places?
Penny Rose [00:41:01]:
So it’s a week. Either a week or two weeks. I mean there are, there will be a point, I think. Oh, and actually I should, I should take this back. Our very first trip, as you know, once we were, you know, cast off the tethers of our, our brick and mortar job was to Arizona and we spent three months in the same RV park in Arizona. So we have done, we, we have done longer stints and, and you’re exactly right. There are things that we learned about because we, we, we didn’t have to rush to get it all in for the short period of time that we were there. But in the last two years we haven’t spent more than two weeks in one location. And but part of, I mean part of the fact that so we were, and I don’t think I mentioned this, so we started out our full time living. We were employees of the Jacksonville office of the FBI. And so we started out in northeast Florida and then came to central Florida. And so part of what we do on our way out of town is to go spend time in St. Augustine, Florida at the beach or, you know, we’ll go. And, and, and so we look forward to being tourists inside the state of Florida. And there’s, you know, there is. And, and we’ve over time developed RV park favorites that were like, you know, there’s one in, you know, Alachua, Florida, in the middle of nowhere, basically just outside of Gainesville. And they, you know, through work, you know, when we were for the FBI, I needed to, you know, have a place to eat. And you know, one of my favorite restaurants is in Alachua. And so we make sure that we stay, either start our trip or end our trip in Alachua. And you know, we, we go to that restaurant for dinner one night and breakfast the next morning. So we really make the most of, you know, wherever we are, when we’re there.
Amy Stone [00:43:17]:
Stuart, I think that the way I would describe it, let’s see if this resonates with you and then we’ll move on to the business. And wrapping this up is that you’ve created familiarity and community in, and traditions as you travel. These are parts of the travel that are connections that you are taking with you. All right, so I love that I absolutely. Okay, so we’ve touched base on this. You work, you have a company. The work you do is now very aligned with the lifestyle as a full time RVer that you do as a nomad. And that, that did that evolve then once you were on the road or did you already know you were going to do that before you hit the road?
Penny Rose [00:43:58]:
I knew who I was going to work with before we hit the road. I knew that I wanted to be able to give back to the YouTubers that we saw when we’re. When we were still, you know, stuck in, you know, the American dream. I wanted to be able to give back to those folks and help them stay on the road. If you were a travel creator, your biggest fear is that you, your business is not going to be able to sustain your travel and you will have to go back home to a traditional job and a traditional house. And so from the very beginning, I set my business up to help those type of people stay on the road as long as they choose to be on the road.
Amy Stone [00:44:48]:
And so what you do. So when we talk about travel creators, these are people who are creating content primarily on YouTube TikTok that is influencer content. And when I mean, influencer. It’s like they’re like sort of vlogging their own sort of life and experience. Experiences and so very good. And so you work as, as a, as an accountant to help them with that. I think that that’s, I think that’s really interesting because I think that it’s. I think there’s two things about it. One is, I think it’s a very confusing part of like how people make money and how you declare it and what you’re supposed to pay in different places like this. It’s sort of like it’s coming from out of. So not a lot of people are expertise on it. And two is, I think that I’m going to make a global statement that includes, includes me in this summit. A lot of times people who are in the creative space are not the people who should be handling their own accounting. It’s really actually a space where you hear a lot of times people get surprised by it. And so I think that that’s really interesting. All right, so I want to give you a chance to tell the people exactly about what you do and how they can connect and find you online.
Penny Rose [00:45:55]:
Awesome. Thank you so much. I primarily have been up, up until recently, I have been working similar to a traditional cpa, meaning that I offer, you know, a monthly subscription and people have access to me all year long. I create a tax plan for them so that they’re not paying a dime or a penny, as we say, more than they need to in taxes. They’re able to keep more of their revenue. And then I, at the end of the year, you know, in, in April or March, I file their tax return for them. So when a question comes up, you know, they’re, they have access to me and I’ll help them answer it and guide them. But I have recently, at the request of a, of a nomadic influencer agency.
Amy Stone [00:46:53]:
Didn’t even know that was a thing. Nomadic influencer agency. Those are words. That’s very cool. Okay, sorry I interrupted you. Go on.
Penny Rose [00:47:02]:
No, I love it. So the, the, the founders of the agency know that most of the influencers who have, who have signed up to be part of the campaigns that the agency sets up for them, they don’t have their financial ducks in order. And, and you know, it’s just like what you mentioned, you know, people that are, that are creative and artistic are, you know, are, are not maybe as detail oriented as they need to be. And so I have, I am. By the time this episode airs, I will have a course that’s available for people to purchase. And it’s five modules long. It’s specifically designed for people to get through it in a weekend. And it cuts through all of the bad tax advice that people are hearing on TikTok and says, you know, just here are the minimum things you need to do to set up your financial foundation so that, you know, we, we can worry about whether you need to be an S Corporation Corp a lot later. Let’s just get you as a, as a LLC at this point. And, and so that is the, the, I think, you know, on either end of the equation. Basically, this course is for people who are not necessarily ready to hire me for traditional CPA tax services, but they, they’ll be in a lot better position to hire me later if they do all the things they need to do as early as possible. Basically, I look at it like you’re creating a container and for the money to flow into. And, you know, once, once you’ve created it, the money will flow into the container and then later you will, you will want to figure out how to hold on to more of that money. And so I have all. I’m also launching a podcast, a micro podcast, where I will talk about the feelings around why creators and influencers may not have done all the things that they know that they need to do and to try to, you know, help people feel better. That, yes, it’s, it’s normal for you to feel that way, but let’s take a step anyway.
Amy Stone [00:49:45]:
So. And when you talk about that feeling is that things like, oh, I don’t like paying taxes.
Penny Rose [00:49:51]:
No, it’s. My business isn’t big enough. I don’t make money.
Amy Stone [00:49:55]:
All right, very.
Penny Rose [00:49:56]:
I don’t need to worry about putting. Running my business through my personal checking account.
Amy Stone [00:50:01]:
Oh, well, that. Okay. So, yes, anybody who’s listening who’s got a dream of being an influencer should leave right now and go log in and open a bank account. Like, it’s like. It’s like. That is rule number one. Open a business account. That and maybe once upon a time, it used to be hard to do, but now it’s not hard to do. Open the business account and learn the word commingle and don’t do it. That’s business advice from Amy. Learn what it is and don’t do it. So that’s it. All right, so penny in your pocket is the name of the business, and you’re launching a course and you’re launching a micro podcast. All of that is super excited. And we will put all of the Links to that in the show notes, where everybody is watching and listening to the show. And this is where I encourage everybody who’s in the audience to sign up for the email newsletter, which I call the Village. That’s my community where I keep in touch with everybody. That is the easiest place to get all these links, you guys, because you don’t have to open the app. You don’t have to do anything. It just shows up in your email box, and you can. Can click on it. Penny, are you ready for my final three questions?
Penny Rose [00:50:58]:
Absolutely.
Amy Stone [00:50:59]:
All right, let’s do it. Let’s do it. I realize that I just gave business advice and accounting advice, and I’m not qualified to do any of those things, but I think that it’s a pretty safe thing when I tell people, open a bank account and don’t.
Penny Rose [00:51:07]:
Yes, it is.
Amy Stone [00:51:08]:
Okay, there we go. There we go. Now that, like, I shouldn’t be giving advice, but I give that advice, and hopefully I don’t get in trouble. All right, we talked about you downsizing into. Into the smaller space, and I’m going to make a guess that because it is so small, everything that you have serves a purpose in your RV kitchen. What is a tool or a gadget or device that makes your life easier or better?
Penny Rose [00:51:31]:
So I’ll talk about my new favorite gadget, which is an RV dishwasher.
Amy Stone [00:51:38]:
What?
Penny Rose [00:51:39]:
Yes. It is amazing. And it heats the water for me. And, you know, it dispenses the right amount of soap, and it dries and sanitizes, and I use it every day. And it is very luxurious. And yet something that RVers do that’s different than a lot of people that live in sticks and bricks is that we eat at home most of the time.
Amy Stone [00:52:09]:
Okay. All right. Very. That is. So is it installed or is it like something that’s in a cabinet? You pull it out and turn it on.
Penny Rose [00:52:17]:
Right now we’re able to. We. So we have sink covers.
Amy Stone [00:52:21]:
Okay.
Penny Rose [00:52:21]:
So we. We have a countertop that. That covers our sink, and we’re. And they’re split. And so we’re able to leave the dishwasher sitting on the COVID of the sink. And so we just plug it in, and then it has a hose that comes out of the back, and that’s how it dumps the. The waste water.
Amy Stone [00:52:44]:
Yeah.
Penny Rose [00:52:44]:
And then I just use the sink when we’re, you know, with the. The. The water that you would normally lose when you’re warming up the hot water for the shower. I just capture that, and I fill up the. The Dishwasher every day without water.
Amy Stone [00:53:02]:
All right, that is very, very cool. It’s living in an rv, spending time in a very small space. You’re very aware of what you use and what you don’t use. Like, I have not done very much of it, but that is my lesson there. All right, this is a podcast. You’re launching a micro podcast. If you listen to other podcasts, what is another show that you listen to that you would recommend to people who are in the audience? Like, give us a. Give us a suggestion of something else we should listen to.
Penny Rose [00:53:27]:
So my favorite podcast to suggest to people is Ramit Sethis. I think it’s Couples Money for Couples is the newest iteration of it. And there is so much to be learned about personal finance from Ramit’s conscious spending plan, which he talks about in almost every episode.
Amy Stone [00:53:51]:
All right, very cool. That is a great recommendation. All right, so because you travel with your home, I’m not sure if this is a good question or not. We’re going to find out. It came up. In every show I ask a question that turns out to maybe not be such a great question. Sometimes it works, sometimes it. It doesn’t. What is something that you take with you when you travel that is, makes where you are feel homey or like home?
Penny Rose [00:54:14]:
Oh, my goodness. I love this question. My grandmother, who has been gone for 40 years, made me a quilt. And it was a, you know, I made a special request, and it’s fluffier than the normal quilts that she made. And I’m still able to keep that with me, and I use it almost every day.
Amy Stone [00:54:39]:
So that is the thing that is such a great connection. Oh, I love that story. Very good. That’s it. Penny Rose, thank you so much for being a wonderful guest today in the show. And I have to say, for people who are watching this on YouTube, you can see that Penny is actually outside where she is recording this. And she started. We’re recording this on Halloween, believe it or not. She started this. She’s in Florida, Central Florida, where we’re having a little bit of a. A cold snap that goes in quotations because we’re in Florida, but she started with a jacket. But the quality of your connection being outside has been fantastic. I’m very impressed.
Penny Rose [00:55:13]:
Thank you. Starlink all the way. Woohoo. All right.
Amy Stone [00:55:16]:
Thank you so much.
Penny Rose [00:55:18]:
Thank you.