How To Save Thousands of Dollars Per Year With Housesitting

Sneak Peek:

Nicole:    00:00:00    For a while I'd always wanted to travel and live nomadically, but I couldn't afford it. And I discovered this thing called TrustedHousesitters maybe like two, three years ago. I was like, wait, I can like travel the world with free housing and I get to hang out with people's pets, like it was like a win-win for me.  

Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests.

Kristin:    00:00:37    Hey there, Kristin Wilson from Traveling with Kristin here and welcome to episode 259 of Badass Digital Nomads. If you've ever wanted to travel the world, but you were on a strict budget or you weren't sure if you had enough money, then this episode is for you. My guest is Nicole, who's also known as the nomadic activist. She's a digital nomad, a traveling pet sitter, and a political activist from the US who was currently living in beautiful Vancouver Island. When she sat down with me for this podcast and you'll hear how she was actually afraid to become a digital nomad and didn't think that she had enough money to do so, but when she discovered House sitting, it has now taken her all around the world, including to some very expensive destinations such as the beautiful mountains of Switzerland. If she can do it, you can do it.  

Kristin:    00:01:36    And in this episode we'll share lots of tips for house sitting and how she does it to travel the world while saving at least $15,000 per year. Before we start, I want to thank Dizzy Blonde from the UK for leaving a five star review on Apple Podcasts. She says, love this podcast. I've been thinking about becoming a digital nomad for a while and I'm currently trying to learn everything about it. Kristin's podcast is so informative and it's fab listening to all the episodes. Thank you so much Dizzy Blonde, and to all of you who have left us five star reviews, wherever you listen, I read all of your reviews and I try to shout out everyone who leaves a review for the podcast. So we definitely appreciate it. If you like this or any episode, please leave a review for us at your convenience. And if you're looking to try out TrustedHousesitters after listening to today's episode, then I will leave our referral link in the show notes below and you can apply to be on the site and start searching for homes to pet sit right now. And also if you are looking for a house sitter or a pet sitter, if you need someone to watch your house or pets while you're traveling or you're out of town, then TrustedHousesitters is also for you. So we'll link to that in the show notes and enjoy my conversation today with Nicole.  

Podcast Interview:

Kristin:    00:03:08    Nicole Greenfield is with us today. And welcome Nicole to Badass Digital Nomads. Where are you joining us from?  

Nicole:    00:03:15    Hi, thank you so much for having me. I am currently on a Vancouver island and a northern part of the island in Campbell River. I am currently house sitting at the moment and I'm watching two cats, so just chilling here and it's just, it's beautiful here.  

 Kristin:    00:03:32    <laugh>Amazing. I've always wanted to go there. I love Vancouver. It's one of my favorite cities in the world and Vancouver Island and Vancouver in general are extremely expensive places to rent. So tell us a little bit about where you're from, how long you've been house sitting, and how you found a place to stay over in Vancouver Island.  

Nicole:    00:03:53    Yeah, so I am from the US uh, born and raised outside of Philadelphia in Reading, PA and I discovered this thing called TrustedHousesitters maybe like two, three years ago. For a while I'd always wanted to travel and live nomadically, but I couldn't afford it. But then when I was like, wait, I can like travel the world with free housing and I get to hang out with people's pets, like it was like a win-win for me personally. So I started traveling full-time while house sitting about a year and a half ago, but house that a little bit before, so probably been house sitting for about two years. But you kind of start building up your portfolio reviews on Yeah, exactly. So,  

Kristin:    00:04:32    And what were you doing before you went nomadic? What was your life like in Pennsylvania? Where were you working?  

Nicole:    00:04:40    So I, I was born and raised in Pennsylvania, but then I went to university in South Carolina. So I actually lived in the south for a couple years. I went to Furry University, studied there, and I graduated into the pandemic. So I wasn't technically in Pennsylvania, but I did end up, after I graduated, I was really lucky and I got a remote job and I lived in North Carolina at the time. I was living with my partner at the time now ex and I was working remotely while Covid was going on and I was thinking like, oh, I really wanna travel. Like I finally got that um, remote job. So it was a lot of like, you know, as I'm a young person I guess still post grad. So a lot of my life was, I started working remotely, you know, right out of, out of college. So like, I guess it's been the same. But then I think early 2023, late 2022 I started uh, the full, the full sun there.  

Kristin:    00:05:34    Okay, so you, do you still have your remote job or are you doing activism full-time?  

Nicole:    00:05:41    I still, my remote job, yeah, the activism stuff that's like on the side I wish, um, <laugh> if I could, you know, fund myself and do that, that that's a good long-term goal I have. But right now I still work remotely full-time. I do survey research for an opinion polling company. My team's based in the US so I am, I'm kind of tied to uh, east coast time zones ish. So, but yeah.  

Kristin:    00:06:03    So where were some of the first places that you traveled as a nomad? So you signed up for TrustedHousesitters, which of course we'll link to it in the show notes and everything. I talked about it before on a few videos and podcasts, but what was your first house sitting job and where are some of the places that you've lived in the past year and a half?  

Nicole:    00:06:22    So I started local. I always recommend when people start off just kind of do it local, wherever you're at. So I started in North Carolina. I did like, I sit in Asheville, I really love Asheville, North Carolina. If you haven't been highly recommend, did like a weekend there. And then I spent a time in uh, Raleigh, 'cause I was in eastern North Carolina. I did some house sitting there. And then when I started doing it full-time, I did like the first three months I was like out west. So I spent like three weeks in Denver, Colorado and then I was in Montana and then I went to Portland, Oregon, spent like two, three weeks there too. And then last summer I did kind of like a Europe stint where I got to house at. I spent a month in the UK and I spent a month in Italy. I was a Milan, I found a house sit there, I was watching a cat. And then I spent almost two months in Switzerland. I had this incredible place like on Lake Geneva and I was watching this like adorable dog and it was like, it was a dream, honestly. Like it was a dream come true. Like I, it was like one of those pitch me moments.  

Kristin:    00:07:21    How much do you think that house would cost to rent per month?  

Nicole:    00:07:24    Oh so much.  

Kristin:    00:07:26    Probably like 10,000 euro.  

Nicole:    00:07:28    Yeah, it would've cost like so much money, like  

Kristin:    00:07:32    Could be that much per week in some places.  

Nicole:    00:07:35    Yeah. So I've been very spoiled with this. And the only cost is, you know, you just watch the animals and there's like an annual membership fee, so that's always the caveat. But like, like you said, it could be like $10,000 I saved like, you know.  

Kristin:    00:07:48    Oh yeah. I mean have you calculated potentially in the past year and a half, you know, how much money that used to go to rent that doesn't go there anymore. And plus the quality of the places that you stay, let's say you're paying, you know, a thousand dollars a month or $2,000 a month for rent, you could be staying in places that cost $20,000 a month or whatever, $8,000 a month.  

Nicole:    00:08:11    Yeah, I haven't calculated it myself. I've been like wanting to though, but it's probably been like easily like $15,000 like at like a minimum that I've saved  

Kristin:    00:08:21    In the first year?

Nicole:    00:08:22    Yeah. Like, but like given the like Switzerland place, that might also like make it more I guess. But like given like my average, like I spent, because I was splitting my rent before it was like around a thousand a month, so that's already like $12,000 a year, you know, like, so yeah, it's insane.  

Kristin:    00:08:39    Now some of that money is gonna go to buying food in Switzerland, which is pretty expensive and your plane ticket. But you've still been able to live in on a budget.  

Nicole:    00:08:49    Yeah, I got really good at tracking flights too. So I'm usually like my flights, if anything are like a hundred dollars a month I guess if you averaged it out. Like I know my flight to Europe was around like 200 when you fly outta like JFK and stuff, I usually keep that down, but that's still like a lot like yeah, it's money, but it's also like a lot less than I would be paying rent. So like you know,  

Kristin:    00:09:08    Plus your transportation in the US as well is a lot. Did you have a car in South Carolina?  

Nicole:    00:09:17    Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I did have a car, so yeah. Yeah, so I'm saving money on those costs too. And sometimes actually with these houses sit, like I know I always wanted to go to Colorado, but it's like, oh, I'd have to get like a place to stay and then I'd also need a car to get places. But a lot of the houses sits, not all of them, but some of them let you use their car. That was like a huge, also like saving where it's like, oh I could go to Denver and like go on all the hikes and stuff, you know?  

Kristin:    00:09:41    Right. Because in a lot of places you're in a rural area or in the mountains or something. And I calculated when I was in Denver, or not in Denver, but I was snowboarding, what is the veil? It was at least a thousand dollars a day to be there. And of course it was the winter, but it's just so expensive. So if you could be house sitting in these beautiful places that could cost, you know, tens of thousands of dollars per month, I mean that's amazing and great for, well, for any age. I have some relocation clients that also house it full time and they're retired, they just don't wanna pay rent. And so it doesn't matter if you're just out of college or if you're retired or if you're a professional in between, I would love to do it, but when I travel or live abroad, I'm always traveling to other places to film videos so I can't be pet sitting all the time. So otherwise I would do it, it would be great.  

Nicole:    00:10:41    Yeah, no, I totally got you.  

Kristin:    00:10:43    What are some of your flight hacks? Are you just flying on low cost airlines? Are you getting flight alerts? Are you using points and miles or what's your strategy there?  

Nicole:    00:10:52    So mainly just like low budget airlines and tracking. I use Google flights, like I'm actually not like a points per like I do sometimes, but like that's not like my main thing. I just like use Google flights and I like set up those alerts and I like check it. Like if I, I know I'm going somewhere in a couple months, like I'll like set up that like tracking for like see when like the price dips and stuff. And then also just like looking in general like how prices are looking and I just like track prices. I'm like when it dips I'm like, all right, like done. Like usually in like 45 days before is usually like the sweet spot, but definitely varies. But like I know with like flying to uh, Europe, it's like I could fly outta Philly but it costs a lot more but I could save like hundreds of dollars by flying out of New York City and like, yeah, it's like a little bit farther but like I would much rather like drive an extra hour or two to save like $500 personally. So yeah. So it's like a lot of like knowing like the airports near you and like kind of where the cheapest hubs are and  

Kristin:    00:11:56    Yeah, I've heard of people who fly from Nashville and Austin and places to other hubs like Dallas or Orlando, Miami to, to fly out somewhere cheaper and they could save even buying an extra plane ticket, they can save money. So that's another good budget travel hack. And then, so you're here in Vancouver Island. Have you met any people there? How long are you there for and what has your lifestyle been like?  

Nicole:    00:12:24    Yeah, yeah. So I'm here for a month. I've been here about like two weeks and I have like two more weeks. So I usually try to stay in one place for at least a month. So I just look out for those sits and it's been great. I have met some people. I usually like go on like sometimes a MeetUp.com's like a really great thing. But this is like more of like, not like a big city kind of thing, it's just kinda like a smaller town. So a lot of Facebook groups. I actually went on a hike, like there was like some like Campbell River like hiking and something group and they're like, oh yeah, we're all going on like a little hike or a walk on like Monday evening. So like I joined them last Monday and that was a lot of fun and I met some other people just around, but it's been a great life lifestyle. Like I just, you know, I have the two cute kitties. One of them will probably come and visit <laugh> at some point during this interview and they're adorable. Like, you know, I just wake up feed them, you know, <laugh> do my thing. I have my regular breakfast work so I I, since I work east coast like nine to five, I work like six to two when I'm out here. So like that's kind of just like, I like that 'cause then I get a whole afternoon to do things.  

Kristin:    00:13:28    Oh definitely.  

Nicole:    00:13:29    Yeah, It's really great And you know, and I get some cats who cuddle with me, which makes it like so much better <laugh> in my opinion. And then afternoons might go on a hike or see what's up or like the waterfronts not far from here and it's like the views of like the mountains in the back, the white, it kind of reminded me of Switzerland for a bit. I was like, oh man, like I'm a big like mountains gal so it's a really beautiful picture rescue. I would highly recommend it.  

Kristin:    00:13:53    It's been at the top of my bucket list for so long. I need to just go. There just hasn't been a good time where I'm like, you know, it's, it's good time to go spend a few months in Vancouver Island 'cause it's so remote but it is so beautiful. And how's your internet there?  

Nicole:    00:14:09    Great. Yeah, no problem. Well here's the other thing about house sitting is almost everyone like has someone who works remotely <laugh> like in their house or like they have the setup for like working remotely. So it's like never an issue. Like where I go, like I know there are some times where I like look for Airbnbs and then it just gets really stressful 'cause it's like, oh what if I get this Airbnb for the month? The wifi actually sucks, you know? 'cause you can't like trust like what the Airbnb's telling you. 'cause like they don't actually live there but like people in these houses actually live here and need like good Wi-Fi <laugh> to work, you know, from their homes and stuff. So it's like a huge like benefit. And I also have like as I work in data, like I love having like an extra monitor when I work. So usually houses like they'll have monitors that I can use. So like that's like a huge like bonus.  

Kristin:    00:14:54    Yeah. Yeah. You said when we started that usually the houses that you're in have other tech gear like microphones and things, so that's amazing. And do you have any idea of what your hosts do or where they are? Are they remote workers traveling around as well?  

Nicole:    00:15:10    Usually they are. This one they're not. It's actually they're two doctors and they're in South Africa. The guy, he's from South Africa and they're like, we're gonna go spend five weeks in South Africa. So they're in I think like Cape Town or ca one of those um, places. And um, yeah, so they're chilling doing their thing and  

Kristin:    00:15:31    It's a great exchange. And then it's so much better to have someone staying there than having people just come over to feed the animals and leave all day. 'cause the animals can get really lonely. And then where do you go after this? Do you have any other sits lined up?  

Nicole:    00:15:46    Yeah, so after this I'll be going to Salt Lake City. Uh, I've been high on my list. There's a lot of these places I've been wanting to go to for a while. So I'll be going to Salt Lake City for another month and I'll be watching a cat there. I think they're gonna be working remotely in like Costa Rica or something for the month or

Kristin: Oh wow.

Nicole:  Yeah, so they're kind of doing the same thing. And I think they're also house sitting too, so like they're getting a house sitter and they're also going to Costa Rica and house sitting and also working remotely. So it's like a, it's a lot of fun.  

Kristin:    00:16:12    That is very strategic. That's meta <laugh>.  

Nicole:    00:16:15    Yeah.  

Kristin:    00:16:17    And so how, how far in advance do you typically have your next sit lined up? Are you planning about a month ahead? It sounds like  

Nicole:    00:16:24    The first year I did this, I planned out like so far <laugh> in advance. Like I had almost like my year planned out just 'cause I think I've just found a bunch of sits and I was like, confirm, confirm. But then I was like locked into this like literary and I was like, oh I kind of wanna be more flexible. So I've been doing it like about like a month or two.  

Kristin:    00:16:39    And so what would happen if you, you know, had a gap where you didn't have anywhere to go? Would you just go stay in a hotel somewhere or what would you do?  

Nicole:    00:16:48    Yeah, usually I'll try to find like either a friend, like if I know someone in the area, I just have a lot of friends everywhere at this point try to stay with a friend for a night or I'll find uh, like a couch surfing. Like I'll go on couch surfers be like, is there anyone that like, usually that's just a night. But usually I'm pretty good at like making things like overlap. I think I have like a day or two between being here and then Salt Lake City and like one of my close friends like lives in Vancouver so I'm just gonna like stay there. 

Kristin:    00:17:14    Yeah that's cheaper than an Airbnb  

Nicole:    00:17:17    or I would just go and couch surfers and just like find someone, so.  

Kristin:    00:17:21    Are there any countries that you're looking up on your bucket list to go house sit or just whatever's available and closest?  

Nicole:    00:17:29    I have so many places I wanna go to. Like I know Salt Lake City was one, Vancouver was one. I wanna go to Seattle, that's another place in the US but there's also a ton of places in Europe I really wanna do like South America. But the only problem is there's not a lot of house sits in South America. Like it is a international platform, but there are just places where there's just like less people who put up listings. So I probably would have to pay for housing, but I also know it's like a pretty low cost of.  

Kristin:    00:17:55     Right if you go to Peru or Bolivia, it could be $700 a month versus 7,000 if you go to Switzerland. So yeah. Great, well we'll definitely link to that. And how long do you see yourself living this lifestyle? Is it something that you don't really have an end date in sight or any other plans after?  

Nicole:    00:18:17    No, no end date. I'm just kind of chilling, like I'm enjoying life. A lot of people are like, oh you're gonna do it forever. I'm like, maybe, maybe not. I'm gonna do it till I don't wanna do it anymore. You know, something might happen and--  

Kristin:    00:18:28    Yeah, you know I met a nomad in Bansko who did it for 12 years and then she, I think she went to San Francisco and maybe rented something. But I mean imagine how much money you could save in 15 years of not paying rent or a mortgage. I mean if you had a mortgage you would then own the house, it would be a little bit different but still <laugh> you could buy a house, you could actually own houses and house it instead of paying rent.  

Nicole:    00:18:56    Yes.  

Kristin:    00:18:57    I'm going to Miami for a few months this summer and it's like the rent prices there are just crazy. I mean you can't get anything for less than 3,000 or 3,500 a month for a studio or a one bedroom and it's like you could live anywhere in the world for that. So I'm just going strategically for a couple months, but I don't miss the rent there. Well we'll definitely link to TrustedHousesitters in case anyone wants to check that out in the show notes.

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Kristin:    00:20:53    That's with our FareDrop link in the show notes or at TravelingwithKristin.com/FareDrop and save up to 80% on your international flights today. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Nicole today and that it gave you a lot of ideas and inspiration for how you could potentially save thousands of dollars by traveling the world with TrustedHousesitters. One of my relocation clients, Chip, who I helped him move back in 2021, he's using TrustedHousesitters as well and really raves about it. So you can check out TrustedHousesitters as well as FareDrop linked in the show notes below. And make sure to tune in next week for the other half of my interview with Nicole where we're talking about a very big topic. So you won't wanna miss that, especially if you're from the United States or if you have any friends living abroad who are So make sure to tune in next week and I will see you then.