134 | Van Life as an Affordable Housing Option with Bob Wells
Our guest today on the pod is Bob Wells. Bob is the founder of CheapRVLiving.com and the President of Home On Wheels Alliance. In 1995, during a divorce, his finances forced him to move into a van. He soon found he loved the freedom and financial independence. He started a popular YouTube channel that millions have turned to for learning more about this lifestyle.
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Van Life as an Affordable Housing Alternative: Interview with Bob Wells
SPEAKERS
Paul Zelizer, Bob Wells
Paul Zelizer 00:05
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer and welcome to another episode of The Awarepreneurs Podcast. This podcast is all about three things, conscious business, social impact, and awareness practices. Each episode, I do a deep dive interview, the thought leader in this intersection, someone who has market tested experience, and it's already transforming many lives. Before I introduce today's guests in our topic, I have one request. If you could go over to iTunes or whatever app you're listening to the show on, and do a rating and review it helps tremendously. Today, I'm thrilled to be introducing you to Bob wells. And our topic today is van life as an affordable housing option. Bob wells is the founder of cheap rv living.com. And the President of Home on Wheels Alliance in 1995. During a divorce, his finances forced him to move into a van. He soon found that he loved the freedom and the financial independence, he started a popular YouTube channel about van life that millions have turned to for learning more about this lifestyle. So I am thrilled to be here with you, Bob, welcome to the show.
Bob Wells 01:10
Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here.
Paul Zelizer 01:12
And this is not a theoretical topic. You're literally in your band right now as we're doing this interview, right?
Bob Wells 01:18
Yep, I'm sitting on my bed in my van, my back windows behind me and blowing out all the white and yeah, this is the real deal.
Paul Zelizer 01:26
The real deal all thanks for sharing, I've been following you for years. And this whole topic, we're gonna unpack like van life and alternative living and how you've been building this community and teaching about this for years. Now, before we get into that were called aware printers. That's the name of the podcast. What's one awareness or wellness practice that you personally do, Bob, that helps you bring your best self to this work day after day, week after week, year after year.
Bob Wells 01:57
I follow a spiritual path. And this spiritual path that I follow makes recommendations, no orders, but some recommendation. So one of the recommendations it makes is that every morning you go through a certain amount of meditation and think about your day to calm every evening, you think about the day that has gone past and one of the one of the things that recommends that I have made it tried to make it a policy to do is every night ask myself if I was loving and kind towards all. And of course I one of the great things about living in a van is a lot of times I'm not around people. So I can just say yeah, there was no one around. So I was loving and kind to know. And sometimes it's not easy. There are people for whom I have not been loving and kind and then the next question is do I owe an apology? Do I need to make something right? The awareness that my life is not about me that it's about. It's about my impact on the people and the places and the things around me. That's that's the number one awareness that I always try to maintain at the forefront of my mind.
Paul Zelizer 03:02
So let's let's talk a little bit like you found yourself in band life. It wasn't quite, we have to go back a little ways. And it wasn't like there were Instagram hashtags, making van life be this beautiful, sexy thing. You wound up in a van during a really challenging time in your life. Talk to us a little bit Well, what were the circumstances that people get a sense that how this came to be?
Bob Wells 03:25
Well, it was 1995. And I was going through a divorce. And the my divorce settlement had been settled. And she would my my ex wife was getting exactly just worked out that way exactly half of my take home pay. And so whereas we had run one household pretty well on my income, we could not run two households on it very well at all. And so I didn't have enough money to live on. I didn't know where I was going to live and sleep. And so I had a little cabin about 60 miles away and I've been driving to and from every day to that cabin to have someplace to sleep and that was not a viable option. And so I I drove to work every day in and drove past a business with a whole beat up cargo box fan, sitting outside. And I I'd been a backpacker and a hiker All my life I know how to live in and out of a tent easily. I looked at that and think wow, that's huge compared to a tent, I can live in that. And I'm smiling now I wasn't smiling then. And I walked in one day after work and said, Hey, is this thing for say these things for sale? How much What's it run like? said it was ran perfect. They maintained it mechanically, but it was so ugly that the boss hated that one day gone. And I gave him 1500 bucks and drove drove it away. And I started living in that van within that van for the next six years. And at first I hated it. I hated every second of it. I felt ashamed. There's just Northern way to look at I'm going through divorce, we're fighting about the kids. It is a really horrible, especially when you're fighting about the kids. It's a really horrible place for human beings to be. And I was I felt like a total failure in life. And, and, and now on top of it, I'm literally homeless bum living in a van. So as a really bad time, but little did I know that it was the beginning of the very best thing that ever happened to me. And I look back at it now with great gratitude, not like, I don't look back at the pain that I felt and that I caused others with gratitude. But that's something wonderful came out of them very grateful for that.
Paul Zelizer 05:46
And it's not exaggerating to say through your YouTube channel and through cheap RV living and Home On Wheels Alliance, all this we're gonna unpack, but you've literally touched millions of lives. We've have one video on YouTube alone that more than a million people have watched, and you have hundreds of them. So there's a lot of people who have found their selves leaning in and learning from you about how living in a van can be a sustainable option that maybe they didn't think about before. And then when they're scratching their head saying, How do I do this? And can you actually live? Well. If you go search the internet about some of those questions, your content is likely to come up because you've been doing it for so long now.
Bob Wells 06:34
That really is true. Yeah, there's just no no question about it. When you said millions. I thought, Oh, that's that's an exaggeration. And then you said, Well, I have, I think five videos with over a million views. And so maybe it is millions. But yeah, it's it's really I never set out to do that. But yeah, that definitely has happened.
Paul Zelizer 06:58
Part of the reason we're here about there is a quote, on the Home on Wheels Alliance this will be in the show notes. If you're listening here. You have a quote that
Bob Wells 07:07
correct, you know, Homes on Wheels Alliance, I'm
Paul Zelizer 07:10
sorry, Homes on Wheels Alliance. All right, hold on, we all and you have a quote where you say, I fear the next recession will make 2008 look like good times. This is in a part of where you're describing, you know, you started all this in 1995. And then you started to share some content on YouTube and on the internet and your site. And then in 2008, things really took off. And that was because there was a recession. And people were suddenly finding themselves in very challenging circumstances. And that was a time when you got a lot of traction. Tell us about that time. And then I want to ask about this time we find ourselves in.
Bob Wells 07:48
Well, I initially hated living in the van very quickly as I solved all the problems, how do you go to the bathroom? How do you cook, how do you have cold food, you know, there's just a lot of little problems that you you have to deal with. But being a camper and a backpacker, it was easy. I just figured everything out. We went to the gym every day and got healthier and, and to shower. So I found I solved all the problems. And and then what I discovered was the first of every month when I didn't have to pay rent of any kind, no utilities. I love that. I really, really well. And in fact, after most of the the alimony and things have been paid off, I had more money than I've ever had in my whole life. That was amazing. For here, I was doing the opposite of exactly the opposite of what society had told me to do. And for the first time in my life, I was happy. I had extra money, worries dropped away. I was working this spiritual program that's all concurrent to to go together. And everything about my life was was improving. As I looked around the people I worked with, I realized that everyone I work with was just as unhappy as I had been. And we all just went to work because we had to go to work. And we didn't like most of us. I didn't know anyone that I worked with that liked their job. Some of them thought it was as good a job as they could get. And so they were happy to have it paid well, good benefits, but none of them liked their life. None of them liked their work. And this was just seemed to be the universal among all I just blue collar guy. We're just we're stocking shelves in my life in a grocery store. And the people I worked with were just blue collar people. And and I just thought moving into the van, so revolutionized my life and made me so much happier. I wanted to tell people so starting in 2005, I started the website started telling people about this amazing because no one knew who would have thought I never would have thought of it. I was forced into it. And then so I was in place in 2005. I had a fairly active website, fairly big audience, not very big in 2008 when the economy collapsed. I was there when you went and read how do I live in my car. Are How do I live in a van? How can I live really cheap? How do I budget because this was the first time in their lives, many people were starting to budget for a budget, I cheap RV living, I think the first page is budgets a $500 a month and $1,000 budget, a month budget. And so if you were looking at that kind of a budget, you came to my page, and I it exploded, my website just exploded, the traffic, the email, the comments, the views, everything exploded. And so I put more work into it and built it and did more. And it grew and expanded and became more. And since then people have said, Oh, this is the best economy ever. I mean, President Trump brags about it all the time. And it is does by the numbers appear to be a very good economy. So how I knew what had happened in 2008, was I was flooded with emails, I give out my email address, and I wrote a book and the book has right at the end, this is my website, this is my email address. And if I can help you email me. And so I got tons of emails, and I get just as many emails today. And so that's why I'm saying and believe that.
Bob Wells 11:12
We're going to face things as bad or, or worse, because the fundamentals of the economy are so terrible and have not improved. We are a high rent, low wage nation. And that's just simply a fact it's not open to debate or wondering, we are a high rent low wage nation. But we're also a nation of incredible wealth and riches, compacted into the very top. So what we have become is a capitalism is an incredible wealth producing system. No system has ever produced been as capable of producing wealth as capitalism or ever will be. However, if you're not careful, what happens is, you're allowed to scoop the wealth out and put it in the hands of the few. And that's exactly where we are and what we have become an incredible machine to produce untold wealth. And so you look at the economy and say, Look at all this wealth, it's astounding. And it is it's an amazing system. And yet, you look at who has the wealth and who does not have the wealth. The Federal St. Louis Federal Reserve put out a poll, they do polls, all of them do pretty regularly, last year, and it said, The results were that 60% of Americans couldn't put together $1,000 in emergency. And here we are going through this thing now with quarantine and pandemic. And people are devastated because they can't put together $1,000 in emergency, they need help now from the government because we've scooped up this enormous amount of wealth and put it in the hands of you. That's just what America is. And it's just what America should not be. And now, something comes along, whatever it is, there's always something coming along every eight years, 10 years, we'll get a recession. It's just historically a fact. There's no debating it. Amazing that we've gone this long without one because we've just this enormous wealth is being created and scooped off the top. And so all that money goes into the to the stock market. And so we're a very high rent, very low wage nation, we're third world, for the vast majority of Americans, we're third world. And the only reason we live like first world people is debt. We all are enormously in debt, the government is deeply in debt. And so there's going to be a day of reckoning, it just that's just the way it works. That's what history teaches over and over and over again. A day of reckoning is come is coming. So yeah, I do think there's going to be another recession at some point. That will dwarf 2008. I the analogy I use and I use often is the Titanic. The Titanic is going down. It is they didn't know what when they left port they didn't know is going down. But recklessness and foolishness they he would not slow down there was no icebergs and he wouldn't slow down, want to set a new speed record. So I ran into iceberg and even then they thought it's unsinkable. And then of course, as they all were dying, they realized that it was definitely sinking. The illusions did not change facts. So are the Titanic going down? And I happen to have a lifeboat concession. And my job now in life is to get as many lifeboats in the water as I can and get as many people as I can in them. And every day that's what I wake up thinking and every night, that's what I end up evaluating. How many people did I get in a lifeboat today, or what I work hard enough to get people in a lifeboat today?
Paul Zelizer 14:55
Yeah. So 2005 you start sharing this content and it takes off. You can go to Bob's website to see it, it will be linked in the show notes. But it's everything from like, how do you get solar in a van or RV and you go to the bathroom, different setups, examples, you do tours of different people's setups. And where do you find a place to park? And how do you cook when you're living as a nomad? Right, all these very granular things as well as some of the I saw an inner video you did some of the inner parts of living this lifestyle, like you did one sort of the personal development aspect of being in quarantine. And how do you use it as a time for growth as opposed to a time of being locked down or fear or so the inner and the outer part of living? This alternative lifestyle? 2008 comes along and takes off, right? And you've been sharing content ever since then you're incredibly regular. One of the things you've done two videos for? I don't know you do a couple of weeks now, right? Sometimes as many as a couple of week.
Bob Wells 15:59
I yeah, I have scheduled two videos a week and I do a live video just because it's easy. Just it's my assistant. That's all the work. Yeah, she turns everything on, and I blather away.
Paul Zelizer 16:12
So I like to joke about my spiritual highlighter, right? So entrepreneurs who are listening, how do you build a successful social enterprise, one of the biggest suggestions we hear over and over again, when we interview people, is be consistent about sharing valuable content. And you've been doing that since 2005. Do the math, we're in 2020. 15 years of reliable, steady, useful content, which by no millions of people have watched over the course of these past 15 years. So it's not like rocket science, or the beautiful logo, or the one title on YouTube that took Bob like to where he is now. But 15 years of showing up and now it's three times a week, you just do that steadily and people come to know you and trust you in a way that any one time decision you might make like what to call this video? Or what to call that video? or What color should I use on my website or the logo? Is that fair to say, Bob that that steady, valuable content is if anybody wants to understand how you got to where you are? That's how you got here, right? It's not fair to say
Bob Wells 17:14
It is. But I'd say that that's the foundation stone, I would absolutely say that is the foundation stone. But the next layer above that, my advice to anyone who says I want to be involved in social media, and and build an audience, what more content is king. That's the saying that was around when I started years ago. And it's something I have, I have lived by ever since content is king. Like you said, it isn't colors, it isn't titles, all those are important. picture quality is important and all that support, not demeaning it, but content is king, Lord master. But beyond that, what is content, what is good content that will bring people and my view is and has always been that if I get if I sit down to the keyboard, or I get in front of a video camera, or I pick up my camera and take a picture, if my goal is always to bring value to my audience member to an individual, if I am, my determination is that I will in some way, make your life better, I will entertain you, I will teach you I will inspire you, if your life will be better from our little interaction together than I have been a success. And if you make that your goal every moment of every day, and you don't always do we drift away from it fall into, you know, pride and anger and frustration. But always it's always the overriding goal. Above all those things when they do sneak in. I need to provide value to this person I need to make their life better. And it can be entertaining, you can just make full on yourself, and their life will be better. You can teach a whole lot by bad example. And sometimes you I tell people about my bad examples. Look what I did, this was a really bad mistake. what's valuable, that's valuable, and people. And so people figure out those who are there to really make their life better and who are being honest and transparent. And those who are there to make a buck. You just can't hide that it's going to come out eventually they're there to make a buck off me and I'm just not interested in that. So content is king and knowing that content is above all else providing value to the people who graciously watch you and give you their time.
Paul Zelizer 19:46
Nice. So cheap RV living Let's stay with that. We're going to talk about the nonprofit which is a newer development but let's stay with cheap RV living who is the ideal person that you're trying to help? Why did you start it and what are they looking for around van life and other topics that they're still finding 15 years later (and three videos a week).
Bob Wells 20:06
I kind of have a mixed audience. When I started, my idea of my audience was my coworkers. You know, here were the people I worked with. Well, I was in my 40s, then I was in 1995, I was 40 years old. And so 10 years later, I was 50. So my audience, my guess I'm just talking to myself, people who have worked all their lives, and just, they are either one unhappy with their life, because it's so boring and tedious and monotonous. And there has to be more life than this. Know, it, there has to be more to life than this that isn't at a cry of the heart, I always try to answer. And so but the second, and and now, that is very young people, even young people are saying that to themselves now 20s, and even 30s 30s, for sure. But even in the 20s, people are looking at our life, looking at 2008 and the lessons of it, and saying there's got to be more to life than this, I'm not going to follow that path. So that's the first audience, there's got to be more to life than this. And the second audience is, I'm going under, I got to have help, I got to figure out how to survive today. And I think a very large part of my audience are women in their 60s and 70s, who lost their husbands death or divorce. And now they're on social security than ever worked much. They don't have much Social Security. And they can't survive. I have, I've got half my audience makes $1,000 or less on income as seniors. And so my answer, I have an answer to them. If you move into your van, you're going to give up an awful lot, but you're going to gain at the end of the month, you'll have money left over, you'll get to travel, you'll get to meet people, you'll have adventures, new won't always be easy, you won't always be pleasant, but and you'll be alive, you won't be sitting at home and in a TV in a rent support, support an apartment barely surviving, at the end of every month wondering, can I eat? Can I go to the doctor? So you're I think people's lives are going to be much better. So I'm answering the question, how am I going to survive? Those are my two audiences. And I think age groups have expanded. So I have two answers to two questions. There must be more to life than this, I want to find it. And I don't know how I'm going to survive another month, how I'm going to pay rent and how I'm going to keep eating. So those are the questions that I try to answer.
Paul Zelizer 22:33
Thank you for that. Our audience are people who want to make a difference and earn a living to live a decent life, not the internet, like marketers who are like, you know, the fancy castle with a pool in the backyard and the seven sports cars in the garage, they they don't care about that. They want to drive a reliable car or some vehicle, they want to be able to eat healthy food, and they want to have the time to live a good quality life not be working 100 hours a week and feel like at the end of the week, they were of service. Not just got some money in the bank to buy the nice food. Right? And what would you say there's two questions I have for you about knowing our audience and how it intersects your audience. Number one is how does living in a van free up time and attention and open opportunities for somebody who, you know has that inclination of wanting to do meaningful work?
Bob Wells 23:31
Well, there are really two ways to increase the quality of your life, a one, which is the normal American solution is to make more money. So the more money you make the home, supposedly, the more time you'll have to do the things that are really valuable to you, you won't just spend all your time making money. So you can either increase the amount of money you make, or you can decrease your expenses. And they should both end up giving you the same thing, more time for what's actually important to you. And my solution, everything that I offer revolves around the simple idea, the less money you need. The more you own your time, the more you can make your choices based on your values about every minute of the day. So if you if you have to work 50 hours a week to support yourself. You don't have many choices or options in life, your 50 hours a year week are determined for you. And then you're tired and you're driving and then you have your normal chores and household things around your house. You have no life. But if you can get it down to you can only work you only need to work 20 hours a week. And even then, not 20 hours a week every week but 20 hours. So 40 hours a week, six months out of the year and six months out of the year off well then only opens up options you would never have considered in your whole life, I can work six months out of the year, and then six months out of the year devote myself to whatever is of true meaning and value to me, whatever that may be, maybe it's politics, that's perfectly valid. Maybe it's working with the homeless, six months out here, whatever it is, or maybe you can work 20 hours a week, the entire year year round, and then have your whole time free to you to make your own choices. The way to do that is to drastically reduce your income. So either you're going to increase your income, or you're going to decrease your expenses. And my solution is to decrease your expenses if you look cheap enough, and you can find some way to turn your life's choices. I have a friend who went to a, an astrologer took an astrology course, and she's hoping to make because that's meaningful to her. It isn't meaningful to everyone, but it's very meaningful to her. And so now she wants to and she lives in her car. And so now she wants to make her life purpose, her job match her meaningfulness. And she will be an astrologer on the road living in your car, I have another friend that creates little art. And she used to live in a car now she lives in an SUV she's moving up. And she creates these little artworks and puts nice sayings on them. And she's selling them and she has a an avenue to sell them through. That provides her life with meaning. Because some of them are she's a Christian woman in her case, because some of them are Christian. And some of they're not, they're just natural things we would all enjoy. So that provides her what provides her with meaning, and what puts food on the table have now merged. And the only way that's possible for the majority of us because we're not going to be big successes, is if we reduce our, our expenses, these two women have reduced their expenses to nothing, they live in their car. And one was an SUV. So that's my answer is that to to find the meaningful in life, is to adopt either to get really rich, which is not an option for most of us, or to drastically reduce your expenses, which in fact, is an option for everyone involved.
Paul Zelizer 27:19
And I just want to say those principles apply. I thought seriously about doing van life, and I may pull the trigger, I don't know. But, when my daughter went off to college, rather than going van life, I moved into a tiny home. I live in a tiny house in Albuquerque, New Mexico, one of the more affordable cities in the US that I can imagine living in so not quite a $500 a month expenses, but my overhead is very low. So I Just the principles of what you're teaching Bob is what I want people to pay attention to, and then find something that works. As an entrepreneur, what I want to encourage our audience to listen to is many of us have had that experience while you were talking about Bob, somebody might be leading with something that sounds like a real values driven venture that they've got. And then you get close to them. And they're like pushing you to buy something or you know, some really expensive thing that isn't really a fit for where you are. And it's being driven by their need. Right, rather than an opportunity to really listen and like create things that are valuable for your audience. Some of them might be very affordable, some of them might be higher price points, but that it's not my knee driving or Bob's need driving when you have an expense, monthly expense number that you can meet in a reasonable way. Not only do you not have to work, God knows how many hours every week in your business, but you also can be much kinder and not have to have that energy of push, and you hear in entrepreneur words, the hustle, right or the grind. And we can really focus on being of service in a deep way, without biting our fingernails Am I gonna have enough to eat this month, when social entrepreneurs are starting, that's not a conversation that many people will have. But if we just bring over our thinking from our previous work life where we you know, had a certain kind of car and a certain monthly rent or mortgage and bought certain kinds of food and wore certain kind of clothes and bought certain kind of toys, suddenly your monthly not is really high. And that puts a lot of pressure on you as an entrepreneur. And you might not enjoy your life as much as if you took a look in a what fits me kind of a way and then you can start your business and grow your business in a very patient and compassionate way that's focused on being of service as opposed to how do I make enough money to meet this lifestyle? That may not be what I need to be happy and that's what I love about what you're saying and what you've done by for so many years.
Bob Wells 29:56
Well, really everyone has to reevaluate, reevaluate their own values, what is a value to me? And what I've discovered, you know, I was never happy in my whole life. And then when I was forced to move into a van, I felt like a total failure and deeply ashamed. For the first time I was happy. And that made no sense. That just made no sense. I had done what society had told me. And what I realized, the lesson I learned from that is that society had simply lied to me. And it was just sold me a sale of a hat just simply lied to me. And so society, we're constantly bombarded with, from from birth, to death, we, we are constantly bombarded with the propaganda of be a good productive citizen, and be a follow the American dream. And so those are our values. And yet, you know, what all of us, anyone who's watching this podcast probably has is bubbling up from within. So those values come from without society imposes those on you be a good productive citizen, follow the American dream, get lots of stuff, buy a bigger house, get a big, bigger car, fill a fall, buy a bigger house, fill it fall, get a storage unit, fill it fall, buy a bigger house voted for and buy two houses,
Paul Zelizer 31:13
Don't forget the vacation house,
Bob Wells 31:18
Yeah. So those are values that society imposes, and your audience and I hope my audience are people who have values that are bubbling up from within, and they conflict. And that's just the bottom line, the values of buy more stuff, work more to buy more stuff, make someone else very, very rich conflict with the values that are bubbling up from within me. And so the whole goal now in life for you, and I and for a lot of people, is to reconcile these exactly opposite values, why values are not to buy more stuff, and to buy a bigger house. But I have many values, and they're my values, they come from within me, they were not imposed on me. And so what has to happen? First, is that we have to look at our values, and see what are my true values and goals in life? And then say, How am I going to make them happen. And the path is not necessarily going to be easy or pleasant. For my friends, it's living in their cars or doing van life. So we have to find our own values and make a determination that whatever the cost will live by our own values. And that's what I offer, I offer people a chance to develop a new set of values, their own values.
Paul Zelizer 32:43
So getting into the particulars of what what it looks like now. So we're 15 years into your journey. As a social entrepreneur. We might even call it an accidental entrepreneur, right? You didn't know in 1995 that you were going to launch a business on all this stuff, or social enterprise on this. But here you are. And you search, like Baba said to search van life or living in a van or how to live cheaply, you're going to pop up and somebody is going to find this YouTube channel to find your website. And there's all kinds of great stuff. There's things that have been that have grown. There's the YouTube channel with hundreds of educational videos and mindset videos about living this way and simplifying life and finding your values. Two things you've been doing and the Coronavirus has paused them but one you also over the past few years. I don't remember the rubber tramp rendezvous. Tell us a little bit about that. I know it's on pause. But that's a incredible community building and service oriented gathering. Tell us a little bit about what that is.
Bob Wells 33:46
Well, one of the things I realized right away was that my values were people. And yet this it tends to be and can be and a very lonely life, you know, a very hermit like life. And personally, I tend to be a hermit. Given my choices and my preferences, I'll be alone. But that isn't, those aren't my values. My values are people. Always first and foremost. My values are people serving people. So yeah, to be around people. I we all need people. Human beings are social animals, even those of us who are introverts and hermits, we're still social animals. So starting in 2000, I think nine I had a small gathering. There were 13 people we met in the desert. And it was just great. We will we just hung out and we got to know each other. I like put it out on the website. I'm having gathering Come join me. And so there were 13 people that came and we just became friends became lifelong friends. There's still some of them are still my best friends to this very day. And then the next year, I decided, well, that worked really well. I bet I can, I bet if I really promoted it on the website, I had enough of an audience then. So this was 2000, either 10 or 11. I forget. I can, I can gather a lot of people and I can connect people. And that's what we're missing. We're missing connection. That's a value that I have not lived up to. And so I started the rubber tramp rendezvous. It's named after the, in the early 1900s 1910 2013. There were traps there were hobos, those, you know, there was a culture a subculture. So back then there were groups, different groups, there were the hobos, of course who lived by riding the rails. There were leather traps, who simply wore leather leather on the bottom of their shoes. And there were rubber tramps who lived in vehicles and traveled around vehicles. So rubber tramp is an old saying, look, going back to the early 1900s and the itinerant workers. And so I adopted the rubber tramp rendezvous as the name rendezvous comes from Mountain Men rendezvous. I'm a big, enormous fan of Western culture and the Indians and the Native Americans and the cowboys and the Mountain Men. And here were these extreme naturalist hermits who have the whole year alone, but gathered in this great big rendezvous and had this great big blowout. And so that's it's named after them. Rubber tramp rendevous.
Paul Zelizer 36:32
And the last one you had before the Coronavirus. There were thousands of people there.
Bob Wells 36:37
Oh, yeah, it started the first one. We had 45. And it doubled every year, every sense. And it grew. So it wasn't a couple hundreds, we had a few hundred. And then I went on YouTube. And I had no idea of the amazing impact of YouTube. So the first year after YouTube started, I started on YouTube, we probably had 1000 or 2000, probably a minimum of 2000. The next year, we had a 5000. And our last year, we had 10,000. And that's that's a real estimate, we that there were 10,000 people there to tell you get 10,000 people scattered around the desert. It's hard to know. But the local police, the fire department came out once a week at least just to make sure that things were safe. And their estimate. And that's what they do is going estimate crowd size. They estimated 10,000 people this there's a lot of people that want to live this way. I mean, think I mean, not just talk about living this way, hacked up, gotten their vehicles, and a lot of them drove all the way across the country to quartzsite, Arizona. And 10,000 of them did. And so it has become much more difficult right now, I'm not sure exactly what we're going to do in the coming year. We may not even gather we don't know. We just no way to know yet. But yeah, so no question that this is a hunger in in America today. real community. alienation is the biggest problem in America today. And if you if you went down the list of the social ills, you will find alienation at the core of all of America's social ills. We are an incredibly divided, estranged from each other, when we're totally lacking in intimacy. The sociologists and psychologists do surveys all the time. And then the number of people who have one friend they call and I could trust on totally, the number of people has fallen, and sometimes it's done. There's no one in their life. You could call and no, they will be there. And humans can't live that way. No, we're not designed to live that way. You're designed to be social creatures. We're pack animals.
Paul Zelizer 38:57
And I love that about what you're doing. But there's the granular specific, here's how you set up your vehicle. Here's how you do a refrigerator either a cooler or here's your check out this dometic fridge that you plug into your cigarette lighter and lighter and is very energy efficient. You know, how do you shower? And then there's the human element of van life. What do you want to pay attention to on a personal growth level? How do you find connections and if you're struggling finding them, here's something called the rubber tramp rendezvous. That's one way you also have these caravans again, it's on pause due to quarantine. But that was really getting traction in the community. Talk a little bit about why you created and what the caravans are.
Bob Wells 39:40
Well, because we live on public land, we have to follow all the rules of being on public land and primary role and nearly all public land public land is National Forest National Forest everywhere in the country. And out west and only out west are is BLM land that's Bureau of Land Management Department of Interior. It's usually desert land or barren land landowners wants. And so you can camp on for free for up to 14 days on national forest, or BLM land and others, they're the places it's called dispersed camping. That's the technical name. That's what we do. But the key thing is you have to move every 14 days. And there's an awful lot of I mean, there's just an enormous amount of public lands. So people would write me and say, I want to find someone, I don't want to go out there and be alone. I'm a little afraid, and I understand. And so I couldn't tell them go here, and you'll find a whole bunch of people, because we're kind of independent, and you have to move every 14 days. So we created for, we created Homes on Wheels Alliance, it's a 501 c three, it's a Nevada Corporation, registered as a 501, c three with the IRS. We're an official legal, you can tax deductible, nonprofit. And so we started the caravans, and we pick, we just started on date, October 1, for October 1 through October 4 14th, we will have three caravans, there'll be here and here. And here. The rules are you have to move every 14 days, you have to like leave the land cleaner than you found it, they can never grow more than 50 people, more than 50 people you need a permit, we don't want to get a permit. So we have rules and a bookkeeping, we the land cleaner than you found it and better condition than you found it. And so you can know at any time of the year on you pick a date, and you can go find on a website, there's going to be a group of people here, I can go join them, I won't be alone. And that's the key that this is a complete radical change of life. It's a terribly frightening time of life, many have come to it because there's nowhere else they're going to live in their car van are going to live in a cardboard box. And so it's a terribly difficult time for many. So to go and meet a group that welcomes you, who understands that he doesn't blame you or judge you. It's life saving. It literally can be at his life saving. And so that's the goal of the caravans, we can't gather this, you know, it's now illegal in most states together. And so we have cancelled them during the quarantine.
Paul Zelizer 42:27
So there's the impact of making a quality, adventure filled life in a very affordable way. There's a social part of it. There's community building, there's giving people the opportunity to like feel into how do I meet my needs? How do I reduce my need, so I don't have to work as hard and be some people are using this opportunity to bring forth a business or a venture or some you know, whether it's astrology you talked about or creating art or helping other people in certain ways to really shift their focus to being of service and living their values in the way you so beautifully articulate. That's all wrapped up in this one. We're actually now there's two, right? overlapping or interrelated. There's the for profit. Technically, it's a social enterprise, right, but it's not a nonprofit, cheap RV living. And then there's a for profit business for profit business, I would call it a social enterprise, right? It's mission driven. But you're not like trying to like drive around in a Lamborghini. But man, I've seen pictures of you as you drive around in the Chevy Express van, because that's what you literally drive. And that's where you literally that's about not trying to, you know, buy 27 Lamborghinis. He's trying to live a quality life but it is a he's paying the bills doing work that people value, and then the nonprofit so from a social enterprise, just like somebody who's trying to understand I like to joke about putting on your entrepreneur glasses or your social entrepreneur, help us understand those two entities and where revenue comes in. So cheap RV living, like how to resources come into CheapRVLiving.com?
Bob Wells 44:18
Well, back to I'm retired, I'm older, and I'm retired. I actually have a pension, I worked one job for most of my life and have a pension. I was a union clerk and so have pretty good pension. So I don't have to worry about money. In fact, I when, when I turned 62, I was gonna start drawing Social Security. But my income is so high. I can't draw Social Security yet. But between my Social Security pension, I don't ever have to work again. I don't need money. So that's somewhat unique to me, that I don't need money. And so if I made money, that's great. Then my question is, I don't need it. What do I do with it and I live van life. And there's only so much stuff will fit in the span. I have explored how much stuff you can get in a band. And it's a lot, but there's a limit. And after a while no more goes in. And, and some of us got to go out. And so that's kind of where I am. So I What do I spend my money on? Well, the nonprofit was what I spend my money on the all my excess money, which I have excess money that I have no useful. I, for the first time of my life, I have money put away for a rainy day. So first it went to that, but um, so again, it goes back to this content is king. Why are you doing this? If because I don't need the money. I don't have to think about how much money is it making. Now all my money goes excess money goes to Homes on Wheels Alliance. That's why we started the nonprofit. So if I want more money to go to Homes on Wheels Alliance than I have to I do watch it, I do make sure it makes all I can I'm I'm a steward of this gift I've been giving too much is given much is required. I've been given much I much as required of me. And so I try to be a good steward of the business and the money it makes. And it goes into homes on wheels Alliance, and then homes on wheels Alliance turns around and does good things and house people. One of my main goals right now is to buy land, when he land, I want to have minimum 100 acres where we can start doing things and get free of the restrictions of public land. That's my highest priority right now. And so I'm trying to access money I'm getting in is going into finding and buying land. As you're aware, living in a tiny home The issue is count is county restrictions is we want to do some weird things. We want to have camp people camping, want to have people itinerants coming and going and a lot of neighbors do not like that idea nl east, so that's our struggle. They're not finding the land, I can buy the land. I can't use the county.
Bob Wells 47:05
so sure. I've lost track of the question. So as a question, a
Paul Zelizer 47:09
The question is what these two things do and how the revenue comes in. And you're in a unique position, right? But so the lot in the money you're making YouTube channel and your Patreon and other things that you do you sell stickers and other things that cheap RV living does, right? So the money comes in. You make product recommendations on Amazon, and a lot of people watch your videos. So if they click on it's not a lot per person, but it adds up I imagine over time, right? So that's that's how money is coming in to cheap RV living. And then you're bringing it over into the Alliance, right and so land organizing the caravans until the quarantine happening, you can have a team that helps you with things like producing videos and wonderful person got on help make sure our internet connection and like just helping you with some of the production issues and the marketing and video editing and things like that, if I understand correctly, so the content, you can keep putting out content that people find valuable. And those folks who are doing really good work. They're getting paid now, right? Is that my understanding correctly?
Bob Wells 48:21
Yeah, the it is a business and I do I do have to treat it like a business, didn't they? I gotta fall through the air, I have to file taxes, and I'm responsible for them. My income mainly comes in from YouTube, YouTube, puts videos on ads. And so they give you a share of the ads. And the way YouTube works is an advertiser actually bids on they have YouTube as part of Google. And those were really smart people down there and so they know exactly how much influence every YouTube channel has. How long do you listen? How do people respond? Once they've watched your video? How do they go spend money? Do they go and do what you say? Are you an influencer? That's the word today. The more influence you have with the more people the more advertisers want to pay. So they actually bid on minutes seconds on your videos. And I've done reasonably well I am an influencer and so it makes good money. I also I also am affiliate through Amazon, I make good money through Amazon I have a Patreon channel and all that money goes to to the Home on Wheels Alliance nonprofit. I don't really need it. And that's a problem. One of the problems you're gonna run into if you don't need money, people, you make too much money, then people get angry. People get angry about you making money. And so it's very important for me to let everyone know that I don't want your money. I don't need your money. I'm taking it, but I'm putting it to good use. So that's how you build money, as through social and because that's what your audience is wanting to do. They're wanting to Do this have their best quality of life, and to turn it into a meaningful life, and that needs money, you're going to need money to do that. There's no other way of looking at. And so that those are the means that you do it. Again, the foundation stone is like you said, consistency, honesty and transparency, but caring about people, you're not doing it to make money, they won't, they won't influence them. If they think you're trying to make money on them. You're doing it because you care about them, and you want to add value to their life. And if you'll do those things, be consistent. Be honest, be transparent. add value to people's lives. I think you can make it be a success of this.
Paul Zelizer 50:46
Yeah. So talk to us about the Homes on Wheels Alliance, that's one of the newer parts of what you're doing. And obviously something you care passionately about, Bob, why did you create it? And other than getting some land like you're referencing it? But little more specificity? What does the Homes on Wheels Alliance do? And why did you create it?
Bob Wells 51:09
A lot of really hopeless people contact me on a regular basis. People like the women in their 60s who were living on 800 a month, and they just can't live. And now they're going to lose the place they're living, and they're literally looking at being homeless. And so I get a lot of desperate letters, I have always gotten a lot of desperate letters. And so I have to write them back and say, I can't help you. And here's what you can do. And I get letters from people who have men and women, but it tends to be predominantly women, but men and women both. I don't have any money. My car is a piece of crap. I can't live in it. It'll just break down the first week. What can I do? And I there is no answer. There's nothing they can do. If you don't have a reliable vehicle, and you don't have money to get a reliable vehicle. They're living in a cardboard box. And I don't have an answer. And so the purpose of homes on wheels Alliance was to provide an answer. One of the things we do is we buy minivans, get them ready to live in. And then we take application process from people. And we award them, we donate them to people in need. So if you right you don't you don't have a reliable vehicle, you're going to be kicked out of your apartment, you're going to be homeless living on the streets. And if if yours is the saddest story of all the stories we get in and that's a horrible thing to have to do is sit down with a list of 10 people all in desperate need and said, this one will give you a minivan. And so last year were our first last year was our first full year we started in 18. But 19 was our first full year. We gave out I think I remember four minivans, a cargo trailer, travel trailer and a school bus. We built them. We have minivan builds, we build the vans, people come pick them up and go live in them. So that is homes on wheels Alliance is so I can offer people hope. It's still not it's a drop in the bucket. But it's something I don't always write back and say no, I can't help you. A couple of wonderful people, wonderful people, donated $20,000 total to create an emergency fund. So if you write me and say Bob, and I get these letters, I've always gotten letters. I got it, I've got a job, I finally got a job, but I got to get over to New Mexico and get to it. And I just lost all my tires, I gotta buy Frank four brand new tires, we have an emergency fund. And we will arrange for him to go to the nearest town get towed to the nearest town pay for the towing. And pay for the pay the shop directly to put four brand new tires on his vehicle. It's an emergency fund. For those who don't have one. That has been one of our biggest successes. Because there's so many of us out here without any money. And we ask you if you have money, don't get it from us save it for those who really don't. And we do a vetting system, we always try to make sure we are only helping people who really need it, need it the most. But that's been a fantastic benefit. And because we're a 501 c three, and we can offer a tax deduction. These two people, two different people gave us $10,000 each and said make this emergency fund. And then now other smaller donations come in, it's went up to 25,000. And we've now given out 15,000 of it. But steady small donations come in. And I believe that if it gets too low, someone else will step up and say, here's another 10,000 but we can give out a tax deduction. And that's those are the kinds of things that you get by being a 501 c three, you you multiply, I as an individual can do almost nothing against the tidal wave of need. But as a community, we can do a lot and we're doing as much as we can.
Paul Zelizer 54:58
And that's part of the reason I wanted to have you on On the show, you built it through time, Bob that it's not, it's not just you there really is a community of people, those vans. Now again, we're in quarantine time. So I know you had to cancel some things did but those van builds were skilled people who understood what the Home on Wheels Alliance was all about donating their time, some of them very competent professional builders and electricians, and you know, Handy people who have, you know, professional level they get paid. That's how they earn their living, donating their time, because they understand what you're doing and the mission of the organization. So you've, you've built it over time that not only do you like, say, here's a video that might help you. But even if you can't afford that minivan, or the tires, or you're really helping a whole community say we can share this one possible alternative to living a quality life, when you're not some of the Uber wealthy that you were talking about earlier, and how you've built that over time and gone, here's what I can do. And then let me move the just keep moving the flag in the direction of increased service over now 15-20 years, I really honor you for what you've done, Bob, and I'm really grateful that you're willing to tell the story to our audience.
Bob Wells 56:21
Well, thank you, it's been my pleasure.
Paul Zelizer 56:23
Anything, either from like your perspective, Bob of like, what you'd want somebody, maybe they're not necessarily thinking of van life and you know, affordable living in a complicated time. But there's thinking of some social enterprise and wanting to have the kind of impact that has scaled over time, or on this specific topic of you know, how van life or being a nomad can open up a quality of life and opportunities for you that we haven't yet touched on that you think is important?
Bob Wells 56:59
Well, I think I would just reiterate again, that everyone should look at their values, and make sure they're they are their own personal values. They're not the values that were built into them, by their parents and by society. It's not things it's not money, it's not job, it's not power, its prestige, it's my personal values that well up out of my heart. And if you will follow those values. And if you will determine I will live these values, I believe, the universe will conspire to make it come true. You almost can't stop it. That's what I have experienced, that I had. I reevaluated all my values in 1995. And I made the determination I was going to live by the values that were within me that I was learning and discovering for the very first time. And there's no question in my mind, that the universe has conspired to make them all come true. I don't get any of the credit. None of those, none of the credits for any of this is mine. I just obeyed. As to the best of my ability, the values the universe, put my heart interest in the rest. So reevaluate your values, find them with them. Is stuff really your highest value? is a job is power is more things? Is that really your highest value what you will sacrifice your whole life for? At the end of your life? Will you look back and be proud of your choices, and your values. And if not, change them today? Change them today. It's not too late for anyone, you can die, proud of the life you've lived. And if you haven't, do whatever it takes to make sure it happens.
Paul Zelizer 58:58
Thank you so much for sharing your story and your expertise and inspiring our audience to so grateful to you.
Bob Wells 59:04
Thank you My pleasure.
Paul Zelizer 59:06
So we'll put all the links of everything Bob shared in our show notes so you don't have to where do I go to find out about the YouTube channel, this website, the home on wheels, Alliance, all that. And for now, I just want to say thank you everybody for listening and good work that you're doing and all the positive impact that our listeners are having.
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Awarepreneurs is a popular conscious business and social entrepreneur podcast. You can find out more at www.awarepreneurs.com.