Jason Moore had a $20,000 student debt and a dream to see the world, so he worked as a “glorified carny” and traveled all over the US and overseas—for over a decade! He eventually bought his first property and turned it into a rental for passive income. Now, he’s based in Norway with his wife and kids, helping others achieve that same location independent lifestyle he’s created.
Whether you live on the road or at home, there are always going to be ups and downs, so start living the life you want today. Tune in to get an idea of how you can build a business around the lifestyle you want (instead of the other way around!).
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A Nomad’s Unusual Road To FI With Location Indie Founder Jason Moore
What’s going on, Z?
I’m starting to grow on me the Z Money thing. Maybe I’m going to have to do something with that.
You’re going to patent in. I’m sure no one has ever said that before. How’s life been? How’s the Hawaiian culture?
I wish I was doing more hanging and less working but it’s this funny thing that as soon as I get a little bit of money together, I’m like, “I need to put this into an investment.” Instead of just being cool. I got money in the bank and I chill. I buy stuff and then I’m hectic. That’s what I’m doing. 2022 has been a buying frenzy for me. I got six units already. What the heck, Craig.
You’ve got six units in months. You’re crushing it. Good for you. Wheeling and dealing Zeona McIntyre over here. I wish I could say the same. That’s why we call you Z Money. I put on a halt my investing for a few months because I was waiting for my tax bill. I’m hoarding all my cash, assuming the government is going to take a lot of it.
Better planning wouldn’t make it so I didn’t have to do that but 2021 is my first year as 1099 non W-2 employee, so I don’t want to take any risk of having to take out a loan to pay the government. Fun stuff, tax time. We’ve got a super cool episode with Jason Moore. Z, he’s a friend of yours. His story is quite compelling, especially if you’re looking to start living the FI lifestyle much before you think you could.
I love that he’s showing the example of living the life now, rather than putting it off and saying, “I’ll do all these cool things in ten years.” He’s like, “I’m going to go do all the cool things and then figure it out later.” You can do it both ways.
He goes into the business he created that promotes that. I highly recommend you check it out. It’s called Location Indie. It teaches people how do you have independent businesses while traveling or doing the things that you love to do. That way, you’re not stuck to your 9:00 to 5:00 job and saving for 10 or 15 years so you can have a million dollars, you can achieve the 4% role and all that stuff.
You can maybe enjoy the next 10 to 15 years. Make the same or even slightly less, maybe even more money than you would otherwise, but at least you live the life you want now versus waiting. That was a crazy great case. He’s just got a good story. Make sure you listen about the Meow Mix Mobile, which is funny.
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Jason Moore, welcome to the show. How are you?
I’m doing wonderful. Thank you for having me. It’s an honor. It’s nighttime here. I’m based in Oslo, Norway. You guys are in different time zones. This is always wild to be spanning the globe. It still blows my mind that we can do this in some ways. Maybe I’m old school like that, but anyway, thanks for having me here.
Isn’t it always nighttime in Norway at this time of year?
Certain parts. I haven’t gone up to Northern Norway yet, but you’re right. In the winter, the sun never comes up for months. In the summer, it never goes down. I’ve yet to experience that on a 24-hour cycle, but it’s definitely on my bucket list.
You’ve got a cool story. You’re in Norway. We’re going to have to get there. Why don’t we start from the beginning? Tell us how you heard about financial independence and how you got started on this journey.
I didn’t hear about it for quite some time, unfortunately. I wish I had heard about it earlier. I first heard about it on Mr. Money Mustache’s blog. What I came to discover as I started diving into it a bit was that it aligned with a lot of the values that were already a part of my life. It made sense to add some of the financial components in and have a number to shoot for. Even if you don’t retire early, the idea of going through the exercises and figuring out what that might look like, reverse engineering it and looking at your life and your career, the way you live and everything in a different way. It puts everything through a different lens.
It’s a great exercise for anybody, even if it’s something that you don’t necessarily want to participate in some ways. Zeona has helped me a lot. Once I got into it, I didn’t know anybody doing it outside of the blogosphere or whatever. I didn’t have a person to talk to. I started working with Zeona on my Airbnb, which we can talk about later. She offered up because she’s cool like that. She’s like, “Do you want to talk about this?” She helped in answering some of my questions. That was cool. I want to give her some props here on the show.
It's nice to know that to win the game, you can actually set yourself up to win a game as opposed to just being on a loop where it never ends. Share on XI love Jason and his family. It’s easy to get all smushy about it. What I want to highlight about what you said is the number. Having a number is so important in FI and just in retirement planning in general. Many people get overwhelmed by this idea that like, “I need to be saving like $5 million.”
Some of those retirement people like Suze Orman or Dave Ramsey, sometimes they give you these crazy things that like, “One day you’re going to be spending $300,000 a month.” You’re like, “What do I need for that?” When you break it down and you talk to somebody like Mr. Money Mustache, you can see like, “It’s a doable thing once you have a number and you work backward.” I love that you brought that up.
You can start piecing together what that looks like. There are a lot of different ways to do that. It also frees up your mind a little bit to be like, “If this is a particular number, how can I get there faster? Maybe I can add a stream of income here. If these investments are working for me here, what can I do now?” It puts you into an abundance mindset as well, which is also super helpful.
Another thing that’s super helpful with having a number is that you know when you’re done. It’s so easy to get into that lifestyle creep and keep wanting to get more and more. If you hit that number of, let’s say, $5,000 a month of passive income, which tends to be a lot of people’s base number. If you’re set, you want to retire then, at least, you can with your current lifestyle. You can always increase that if you want to. If you want to put more work into it. I like that. Z, I wanted to ask you a question. What was your number when you were first starting out?
When I was first starting out, it was low. It was $2,500 a month because I was spending $2,000 and thinking, “If I could have a little extra,” and doing what I called when I was FI. I was doing like 3 to 5 hours of work a week. I was still doing something, but it was so minimal. It was so automated that it felt like I was pretty done. To your point, Craig, a lot of people have that $5,000 a month number. If you have that number and you get to $3,000 a month, you go, “Maybe I can be part-time now.” It allows you to adjust your life based on that number. It’s really cool to have.
Jason, what was your number to start if you had a number? To see the evolution of that.
Like most people, you can get to a number, but then, things shift and change. I have two small kids. Things have changed since I first found out about it. I’ve also moved to Norway, which is one of the more expensive countries in the world. I’m doing it all wrong guys, when you can work from anywhere and have that flexibility go-to like Southeast Asia or something.
I’m kidding. It’s cool but there are other trade-offs that you get here. It’s more expensive, but you don’t have to pay for your healthcare, for example. It’s a different culture. There are other things that you’re not maybe spending as much money on. A lot of people aren’t eating out as much. It’s a laundry list of things. We’re not getting into the ex-pat talk maybe too much.
Even looking at all of that, I’m still more of a minimalist. I own more stuff than I’ve ever have owned pretty much in my adult life. That’s more of a consequence of settling down and not traveling. At the same time, it doesn’t own me. I’m very careful with what I bring into my life. I also don’t feel like outside of maybe travel expense or wanting to go see my family, wanting them to come to see me and things like that. I don’t have any major, big needs besides wanting to feed my kids and pay for the house that we have here. That isn’t too much.
If you’re looking at actual numbers, I’d say it’s probably between $3,000 and $4,000 a month. My wife also works, so we have dual income. I could be totally cool with that. I love what I do. I’m not looking to get to that number and stop working. It’s manageable. I think about that number and I think, “If we were doing the 4% rule and I had $1 million in stocks, that would be $40,000 a year in passive income.” I’m thinking about a less monthly and more yearly because I could pretty easily find ways to supplement that without doing too much.
In the beginning, you talked about how FI was a good fit for you because of the values that you already had in place. It sounds like one of the values would be minimalism or even frugality. What are some other values that you aligned with when you heard about the concept or that you were already putting in place?
I heard about it through Mr. Money Mustache. A lot of the things he was talking about and already doing were already the things that I was doing as well. Maybe not to that extreme, but I moved to Boulder, Colorado at that time, because I wanted to live in a place where you could easily bike around and you didn’t have to get in your car for everything. It’s saving money, but it’s also generally a good thing to do for your health, for the environment and things like that.
I don’t own a car here. A lot of people that live out where I do, but it’s about a 12 to 15-minute walk to the T-bane, which is like the subway that you can take into town. It’s down a pretty big hill, up a pretty big hill on the way back. It’s a bit icy in the winter, but it’s good for the soul. You take a nice long walk. It takes a little extra time to get to places.
My wife works for the public transportation company here. We have free public transportation. We could use that as an argument to get a car. be like, “We can’t have a car because we get free public transportation anyway.” We’re not looking at it like that. We figure, when we want to use a car, we can rent one, we can do car share. It’s that type of thinking. I love to walk. Maybe that’s a bonus. I love to walk places. I’m always blown away by how difficult it is to walk most places in America.
I remember I was walking from like my mom’s house outside of Philadelphia. She lives in the suburbs. To the little downtown area to go have a beer or something. It’s like a mile. Nobody walks that mile. Nobody’s going to leave that subdivision and walk to town probably. To the point where you have to cross a major intersection, there’s no crosswalk. There’s actually a sign with a person walking, like Xed out, the Ghostbusters thing, no walking.
You will die at this crosswalk.
I was so pissed because you have to cross. There’s no way to get into town without crossing this major highway situation thing. There’s traffic there and everything. It says no walking. I’m like, “I dare you, cops. I dare you to come to try to arrest me for walking to town. Come on, bring it on.”
We’ll see you in jail in a couple of years.
Walking slows you down. During the pandemic too, a lot of us have learned to slow down and appreciate the simple things in life. You don’t need to have a lot of money to enjoy a lot of those simple things.
It sounds like you inherently align with the five values before you even consider any monetary advantages that it has. Walking is financially better than driving. Minimalism, you’re not spending your money on stupid stuff you don’t need. You must have related to Mr. Money Mustache in that way. When did you start thinking about it from a monetary perspective, if you ever did?
It immediately made sense because that was the other piece that you’re like, “Okay.” You can have this savings goal too, or this direction when it comes to your investing and your approach to your personal finances. It goes hand in hand. I like to invest, save, and make money like anybody else. Again, going back to that idea of having something to shoot for, instead of having an endless road ahead, changes the game a bit.
It is a game when you play it that way. You can look at things and you’re playing this financial game. How do you win the game? It’s nice to know that to win the game, you can actually set yourself up to win a game as opposed to being on an endless loop where it never ends. I connected with that pretty quickly.
The gamifying life is what makes it so fun for me. It’s the life hacking, the travel hacking that everything is something I can definitely relate to. I feel like we would be doing a disservice if we didn’t talk about your extensive travel story. A little bit of a highlight of what was your lifestyle when you were hearing about it? Were you already traveling the world a lot? Were you already working from different parts of the world? Can you give us a little bit of a snapshot of that lifestyle and what you were doing there?
I spent over a decade living on the road without a home. I’m voluntarily homeless. In that way, I was doing these touring jobs. I was working as a touring professional. I will manage these touring events if you’ve ever seen the Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile, the giant hot dog that drives around the country.
Craig loves it.
A hundred percent.
I did jobs like that. I drove the Meow Mix Mobile once, for example, which is a giant cat car. It was shaped like a cat. We drove around and did some promotional events. In that case, we were doing a jingle contest for the Meow Mix Jingle in different cities across America. It was like these events where you go city to city and you put on a show essentially.
Think of Disney on Ice, they travel around and do that, except to a much lesser version of that. Various promotional things, I could give you little examples of random jobs that I’ve had, from working on a makeup bus, doing makeovers at Walmart, to pedaling allergy medicine at zoos across the country. A couple of random examples, but it kept me on the road.
I had this dream of traveling but when I came out of college, like most people, I had student debt. I had like $20,000 of debt and a dream to see the world and no clue as to how I was going to do that. I thought I had to get a regular job and do things the regular way. At one point, I did. I had planned this trip to Europe, but I hadn’t booked a ticket or anything.
I felt there was like an early choice. Should I do the regular thing or should I throw caution to the wind and try to figure something else out? Thankfully, my mom was like, “If you don’t want to take this job, don’t take it.” I started thinking and looking for jobs that required me to travel because I wanted to travel. I didn’t care.
Travel was the thing. I thought, “If I can get a job traveling, then I can pay my bills and I can travel and get paid to do it.” I’ve randomly stumbled on one. This is like the late-‘90s, so dating myself. The next thing I know, I was on tour doing a charity event for a lawn tractor race at different Kmarts around the country and Kmart parking lots.
A lot of my friends worked in the touring industry like that. We called ourselves glorified carnies, maybe so. We got to travel around and see a lot of amazing stuff. We didn’t have the traditional bills that most people had, like paying for gas. You had a car because you were on tour. They paid for gas. They paid for hotels. I didn’t have rent or anything like that. I did these contract jobs.
There comes the point in your life where you want to be able to control your own time and make a bigger impact. That’s why a lot of people turn into business owners. Share on XIn between, I would go traveling overseas, visit family and friends or whatever. I did this for over ten years. It was a pretty crazy life. In the end, I started doing music touring and sleeping on the tour bus. It was like a whole touring thing. I finally got off the road and because of that, I was able to save cash. That’s what allowed me to buy my first property, which was a condo in Boulder, Colorado. I also made a bad investment that went south but luckily, the condo didn’t go south.
You’re giving us all kinds of little treats. We’ll definitely have to go into your deals. I want to put one little point that we can plug Location Indie. Was it because you had lived off the road and also got to do some fun travel in between that, you said like, “People should know that they can be location independent.” What was that idea for this site that you created with Travis?
At that point, I had the entrepreneurial itch, but I didn’t know what to do with it. For a long time, I felt something. It was after I got off tour and I was in Colorado for a while. I started working regular jobs in a way. If you could call them regular jobs. I did have a regular outside sales job for a couple of years in Colorado. During that time, it was never going to be a long-term thing.
I was like, “What am I going to do?” I can’t live a normal life. I was hanging out backstage in Coachella last 2021, having fun and being on tour. I feel like I can’t go put on a suit and be in an office. It’s not going to work for me. I was used to traveling and being around exciting things all the time. Maybe I got a bit spoiled in that way. I almost lost track of your question.
What gave you the idea to start Location Indie?
I went to a conference and I heard the term location independent for the first time. It was this idea that you could have a business that allows you to work from anywhere. My mind was blown. I was like, “That’s the thing I want.” I want to be able to control my time and do something for myself, make a bigger impact on the world and have a lifestyle that fits with the things that I want to do.
That took me down a whole rabbit hole that thankfully, I stayed down. I started figuring it out and we started doing projects. I started working with my buddy Travis. I did the digital nomad thing for a while and started the Zero to Travel Podcast, which has been running now for years. This is years of doing it. Things started happening.
Like everybody in the business, you just figure it out as you go. What we realized was there was a community aspect that was lacking. As I was meeting these entrepreneurial friends, living this unconventional lifestyle, digital nomads and all these people that are using this work from anywhere philosophy to do cool things with their lives. They were hard to find and we couldn’t figure out ways that we could all easily connect with each other.
We decided to start a community Location Indie so we could bring other people together who were really interested in travel, interested in this idea of building a business you could run from anywhere and having a community where we could all gather. Fast forward to now, COVID has accelerated the remote work movement, as you guys know.
Maybe location independence doesn’t seem as much of a novelty as it was then but because of that, we have now transitioned a little bit to mentoring, coaching and helping people start a side hustle. They can eventually quit their 9:00 to 5:00 jobs. They can guarantee that they’re going to have that freedom moving forward. That’s where we went with that because not everybody wants to work remotely for a com. A lot of people still want to do it for themselves.
We want to help people do that because we think that’s people that want to live in a certain way. They want the lifestyle first. It makes sense to build the business around the lifestyle you want instead of the other way around. We’re not like the, “Let’s start a company and have a hundred employees and get series funding and all that stuff. ‘That’s the opposite of what we preach.’ We’re like, ‘Let’s figure out your ideal lifestyle.’ Let’s find a business that fits with that, so you cannot trade a 40 hour week job for an 80-hour week one.”
I love to hear that story. To take it back from the beginning, when you graduated college, it was great that your mom and dad supported you. You’ve got this nice cushy job and probably had a pretty decent salary. It was a safe move. Your mom was like, “If you don’t want it, don’t do it. Go take this risk of being a travel carny or whatever.” I’m sure that didn’t pay all that much.
What do you mean? That first gig, I was making like $500 a week and I was making $30 a day per diem. I was swimming in money.
A lot of your expenses were covered, I’m sure. If you were driving around the Meow Mix Mobile then you probably didn’t have to pay for transportation and housing. That’s how you got to save. That is an incredible and a super different way to achieve financial independence. Whether you’re there or not, you are doing something that you have created that you absolutely love. Financial independence doesn’t necessarily mean your passive income exceeds your expenses. It’s as long as the work that you’re doing and you love allows you to exceed your expenses. You’re happy.
One thing that might be underestimated in financial independence is doing something unconventionally might actually get you there faster. A lot of the traditional paths can work. That’s why I like entrepreneurship because you could have like seven bad years and then do it all in a year. That possibility is there. I’m not a super fan of the, “I’m going to work at this job for 25 to years and not do much and save.” To me, it’s just the same thing, but you’re trying to do it sooner.
I’m glad I didn’t discover that early because I don’t think it would’ve appealed to me. I would’ve lived my life differently. Not dissing anybody who’s doing that, that’s reading this. Everybody’s got to take their own path. I wanted to point out that if somebody’s reading and they’ve thought about an unconventional path, but they don’t think it’s going to get them there, you shouldn’t have that limiting belief.
A lot of people go through that journey. Let’s say it’s 10 or 15 years in terms of like the 4% rule to save $1 million being super frugal. They look at that 10 to 15 years as the struggle. It doesn’t sound like your 10 to 15 years of working, traveling and stuff was a struggle. It didn’t sound like it was a struggle. It sounded like you had fun getting there.
I’m not there yet. I wish I was. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It was a wonderful time. There were certain challenging parts of it as anybody else. You live life, whether you’re on the road or at home. There are going to be ups and downs, but it was an awesome experience.
Thanks for sharing that. Let’s get into some of your deals. I know you’re not super real estate heavy, but did the bad deal come first or the bolder deal come first?
Well, the bad deal wasn’t a real estate deal. I invested in a restaurant in Los Angeles. I usually pick a one-word motto for the year. I haven’t done it for this year yet. My one-word motto that year was a risk because I wanted to take more risks. I certainly did. I took a risk, but it didn’t pan out. The condo was great because I got it during the last year of the Obama tax credit, where you got $8,000 cash for first-time home buyers. Even though maybe I was late to the game if you’re thinking about when people traditionally buy homes. To me, we all have limiting beliefs. We have to battle.
One of my limiting beliefs was, “If I buy real estate, then I’m not going to be able to travel. I’m not going to be able to go anywhere. I’m going to be stuck. I’m going to have this responsibility. I’m not going to be free.” I had to work to flip that and go for it. Through that lens, it also informed the place I was going to buy. I ended up getting a place that had a garage. I’m like, “I’m allowed to rent this out. I checked with the HOA. I know I’m allowed to rent it out and that I can store my stuff in the garage.” I needed to know that I could take off and travel pretty quickly if I wanted to. Otherwise, I would’ve felt like I was trapped.
At that time, I wasn’t looking at it as an investment vehicle. It was more like, “I need a place to live. Maybe I should invest some money.” I wish I had the foresight and the savvy to get into real estate earlier and be that way. That was my mentality at the time, honestly. That’s changed to an extent. It is a responsibility, but for the most part, I changed my attitude towards that. I don’t look at it as limiting anymore, but that’s how I felt at the time.
I hear that from people all the time. They’re like, “I don’t want a house to be a ball and chain or hold me back.” Honestly, I had a very similar experience that having a home as a traveler made me feel really grounded. It was like, “I can have these roots.” I had the same thing where it wasn’t a garage, but I had a storage unit.
That was enough to be, I can throw my stuff in this storage unit that came with my condo. I did the Airbnb path, but my home allowed me to leverage to travel. It allowed me to be financially independent and have that cash flow. For me, when I hear that from people now, I’m like, “You need a place. That’s going to be way better than you ever thought.” I love that you brought that up.
I love that you brought that up because that’s a very healthy way to look at it coming from somebody like you who loves to travel and travels quite often. I’m sure you’re out there because you’re helping people in that way. You’re able to get in the position to do the same thing. That’s wonderful.
Thanks. What about the numbers of your deal? Do you remember what it cost and what you put down and all that stuff? Could we go over it a little bit?
I remember it. I put about $180,000 for the condo. At the time, it seemed like a lot of money. I put down $40,000 or $50,000. Hold onto it, lived there for a long time. It was really home and then it became a rental because my lifestyle changed. I did the digital nomad thing. I met this lovely little Norwegian girl in Brazil. We started dating and then now, I live in Norway.
It was a rental for a while, and then we did the Airbnb thing with Zeona. She came and helped us with that. COVID hit and we were living in a small apartment in Oslo, which is one of the more expensive cities out there. This was a battle for a while too, because we couldn’t stay there much longer with two kids. I’m not the one that’s like, “We need more space. We got to upgrade.”
That’s almost like anti-financial independence. The reality was it’s 600 square foot apartment. A one-bedroom turned into a two-bedroom with two small kids. We were going to go insane. We need one to upgrade our lifestyle here. I ended up selling the place in Colorado so we could invest in a bigger place here. We live right next to the woods, near a lake in Oslo. It’s an awesome place. I’m really glad that we did.
You bought it for $180,000. How many years did you have it before you sold it? What did you sell it for, $335,000 or something like that?
It was $352,000, I think.
How many years later was that?
One thing that might be underestimated in financial independence is doing something unconventional might actually get you there faster. Share on XIt was last 2021.
When did you buy it?
In 2008, I believe. When was the last year of the tax credit? I believe it was 2008.
Obama took office in 2009.
Maybe it was 2010 then, I can’t remember exactly. I’m terrible with years.
Ten years appreciate, and you didn’t do anything to it. It naturally appreciated $180,000. What were you renting it for when you had it as a rental? What was your mortgage payment on that so people can get an idea that when you travel, what it can look like?
I refinanced when the rate was pretty low. I got a new rate. I don’t know if I remember exactly, but it was like 2.75% or 2.85%, somewhere around there when I refied. I refied to a fifteen year because I loved the idea of having more equity in Boulder. I like having positive cash flow and a low monthly payment. After I did that, I was paying around $1,100 maybe including the HOA fee. The HOA was around $225. It was fairly low for Boulder. It was around $1,250 to $1,300 a month, somewhere around there. I was renting it out for about $1,600.
A couple of hundred bucks a month and you’ve got a property in Boulder. That’s pretty nice. That’s going to also appreciate 180 grand or so in the next ten years. That’s a good little nugget you got.
It was good. It’s gone now. Hopefully, it appreciates for the next person.
Somebody’s happy with it. But when we did Airbnb, probably our average was around $3,000 or so There were months that were almost $5,000. There were months that were over two or something like that. Airbnb can give you a good buffer over that if that’s something that you’re able to do.
COVID hits and then, we had to make some decisions.
It was a good time for you. Knowing what a gift that you were able to get that place and get that tax credit. After all those years, it appreciated for you. Seems like not such a bad deal, got you a bigger place in Norway.
It feels super fortunate. Maybe there was some luck involved too, but after traveling all around, I handpicked Boulder because I loved the area and the place. When it comes to special places like that, if you hold onto it long enough, you almost can’t go wrong. It’s desirable in a certain way. They’re always going to be desirable places to live.
A lot of real estate people talk about luck because real estate is one of those industries where things just happen. You get appreciation. You didn’t do much for it, but luck is also being prepared. It’s being in a place that you believed in, that you knew people would want to live in later, and certain things of planning ahead. Your luck was also something you created.
That’s a whole other podcast probably, just talking about luck versus strategy versus mindset around that and everything. I agree. It’s good to put yourself in a position where you’re thinking in a certain way. Anybody reading this show is probably already doing that. They’re like, “I’m already thinking this way.” If you’re thinking about financial independence, for example, that allows you to see different opportunities. As you said, you could say it’s luck, but also, you’re seeing the world through a certain lens. Those things become more noticeable.
It seems like everybody in real estate tends to get lucky.
The other thing I want to highlight is that home allowed you to leverage and buy another home because you guys were in that smaller place in Norway and then you couldn’t handle it anymore. You are putting two houses together to make one big house. Your real estate can buy you more real estate. People sometimes get bogged down where they’re like, “I bought one place, but I’m not rich yet. What am I doing wrong?” Real estate wealth is built over time. The earlier you can get in, the better, but also, it stacks if you allow it. If you start moving things around, you can leverage and stack it. It was great that you did that.
I’m so grateful.
Did you 1031 exchange from Boulder to Norway? Are you allowed to do that or you pay the taxes on it?
Unfortunately, you can’t do that. That was a big bummer. Sometimes, I still question, “Was it the right thing?” Part of that was at some point, the condo had to get upgraded and my thought process was, “Am I going to spend a bunch of money on a place I don’t even live that’s 4,000 miles from here or are we going to get out of the small apartment and find a home where we can raise these kids and be for a while.” When I looked at it that way, it was pretty much a no-brainer.
We should go into the Final Four, unless you have something more that you want to add. Is there anything that you want to add, Craig?
No, I was going to do a quick recap because I think your story is cool.
That’s where you shine Craig.
I was good at book reports back in middle school. I’m just kidding. The audience, all you readers understand how Jason and his journey started off, went to college normal. Immediately after graduating college, you decided being normal was boring. Didn’t go for the big job, started traveling full time, basically being a carny. Is that how you say it?
A glorified carny. We were working in the experiential marketing industry. We were actually professionals. We consider ourselves, in a way, glorified carnies.
I like that. I didn’t want to offend you. You’re driving around these funny mobiles, probably with a bunch of people that are really fun to be around and living life at the moment, not too worried about the future.
Some of them were.
You were able to save a whole bunch of money. Then you started saying, “I don’t want to travel around the US for these advertising companies. I want to start traveling worldwide.” Z, started to do that. You met the woman of your dreams in Brazil who live in Norway. Now, you moved to Norway, and you started this pretty cool company that is inspired by your lifestyle. That’s called Location Indie, where people can learn how to be location independent and start their businesses or do whatever it is so they can live a happy life.
You pretty much nailed it. We have a little video series that can help people get started with the side hustle. If you want me to drop a link, I can.
We love bonuses. That’s great. Thanks for that.
If you go to LocationIndie.com/FIPod, I can set it up so it goes to that page. We had created a small three video series where you can start basically creating the foundation to build a successful side business. You can eventually leave your 9:00 to 5:00 job if that’s something you want to do. It’s probably not for you if you’re thinking, “I want to have some startup or something.” If the idea of lifestyle business resonates with you and forming a business around the desired lifestyle that you want to have, “That’s our jam,” to use your words, Craig.
Before we jump in the Final Four, what do you think your future in investing looks like? I know we’ve talked about it a little bit. Do you have like a vision for that, that you’re like, “I’d probably like to get 2 or 3 places and have a little cash flow,” or are you not that into the real estate side?
Everybody's got to take their own path. Share on XNo. It’s funny that you ask because I’ve been wanting to pick your brain on this. I’m in an interesting situation where I’ve still got some cash from the sale. The condo sale wasn’t the only cash I had. I’m sitting on a good problem to have. I’m not saying sitting on a ton of cash, but enough where some of it needs to go somewhere. They always say, “Don’t try to time the market,” but I keep saying, “I’m going to buy some standard Vanguard funds probably.” Every day goes by and I’m like, “I don’t know if today’s the day I should put it all in.” Should I hold some back and try to do a real estate thing here?
That was one of the original intentions because real estate in Norway is a lot more tax-friendly than it is in the States. Everything across the board is more expensive. It’s a different market. Everything about it’s different in many ways. It’s a wild trip when you buy a house in Norway. You go to a showing. There are usually two showings. They’re usually an hour each. After that, the day after the last showing, there’s a text message bidding war. That’s it.
Like a text message auction?
You see the house for twenty minutes. There’s no inspection in anything like that because that’s already done and that’s in the report of the house. Real estate in Norway is definitely an option, but it’s also as a foreigner, a little bit overwhelming because you don’t know it as well as you do at home.
Any advice?
I also imagine cash flow is not the same. I have always been heavy in real estate and a big believer in that. I can definitely give you some pointers, some places to go. Let’s move into the Final Four and close this out. What do you think?
I’m ready. Lay it on me.
The first question is, what are you currently reading? I bet this is a wild card. What do you get for us?
I just finished The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind or something like that. It was pretty good. Somebody might want to fact-check me there on that exact title. I’m usually reading four books at once. I’m never content with one book. I don’t know why. I like to switch between what I’m in the mood for. It’s usually a mix of different things. Almost never fiction, but then I go on these fiction runs and that’s fun.
Thank you, Catalyst. Hopefully, you’re changing minds. Go, Craigy.
Jason, what is the best piece of advice you’d ever received?
I could go back to my mom saying, “Go for it.” Get the thing you want to do. I don’t remember her exact words. It’s not always the piece of advice so much as who it’s giving it and when it’s received, at what moment in your life it’s received. That was a big one for me.
It was like, “Just do it,” Jason’s mom, and then Nike stole it.
They can Venmo me $1 million right now.
Number three, what is your why for pursuing FI?
I’d say family, spending time with family and friends. You can always make more money. You can’t get your time back. Having that time and that lack of stress, I would say around money. You can have that without retiring. A lot of that’s mindset stuff too, but certainly, being able to care for my family and being able to travel and see my extended family is a huge personal motivator. Maybe this is separate from FI, but also wanting to make some impact with your work or with your daily life in some way is always a nice intention to have.
In your travels and in your Meow Mix Mobiles, what are some of the nicknames you have for some of your customers or coworkers?
Nicknames for friends of mine?
Yeah. There’s got to be some funny ones.
Zeona, you know Trav. I don’t know. I don’t nickname him too often, but sometimes he’s T-Money, T-Bone Steak, anything related to T. You can just dance around.
T-shirts.
T-shirts, I haven’t done it on there yet, but I could. We have somebody on our team named KC, whose nickname is Keggers. That’s the nickname that she gave us. I always liked that one. Those are two pretty solid ones.
Where can people find out more about you and Location Indie?
If you like podcasts and travel, you can check out the Zero to Travel podcast. I’ve been doing that for many years. If you go into that, then you find out everything. For the side hustle business and the lifestyle business, stuff like that, we can keep with that link LocationIndie.com/FIPod. We’ll make sure to redirect people to that video series giveaway. They’ll get on the newsletter and find out all the other cool stuff we have going on.
You can find me on Travis’ pod or on Jason’s podcast. I merged you two. You’re like one being to me, Travis and Jason.
Thanks so much for coming on the show and giving us some of your time, especially because in Norway, it’s probably like midnight or something. Hopefully, you’re not waking the kids up. Have yourself a good night.
Thank you so very much. It was an honor and it’s always so much fun. I appreciate the opportunity.
Thanks, Jason.
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That was Jason Moore, everyone. Z, what’d you think of Jason?
I love Jason. I’ve known his family for a while. They’re really sweet people. If you have any curiosity, I will encourage you to check out Location Indie. It’s such a cool opportunity. If you’re going to do a side hustle anyway, why not do it from Bali? Why not live the life of your dreams now? I love that they’re giving you tips to do that. We’re going to include one of his free bonuses with a few videos to get you started.
It’s a pretty cool service if you are in that stage of maybe having 0, 1, or even 2 rental properties, and you’re like, “I don’t want to keep accumulating rental properties. I’m cool starting some of my own business on the side. Maybe it’s making a couple of grand a month and I’m working, but at least I’m doing it from a location that I want to be. Don’t forget to keep saving that money.”
Have those properties getting paid down over time, appreciating and all that stuff. You don’t need 100 doors to be rich in real estate, sometimes just time.
That’s pretty much all we got for this episode. If you don’t mind, we appreciate it when you can leave a review on the podcast, on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you can. Give us a thumbs up, a rating, review. We look at all the comments. We want to make sure that we’re giving you all the best possible episodes we can.
Important Links
- Location Indie
- Zero to Travel Podcast
- The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind
- LocationIndie.com/FIPod
About Jason Moore
Founder, Travel Ambassador and Host of the Zero To Travel Podcast, a multi-media travel publishing company. They create best-selling books, audio courses, dynamic educational products and run an online community for location indies, all to help people travel the world on their terms no matter what their situation or experience.
