How We Paid for a Homestead We Couldn’t Afford

[00:00:00]going to start again here. Um, all right.

[00:00:05]Welcome back to the homestead, guys.

[00:00:07]Today we're going to be talking about how we paid for everything on our homestead. How we built our house and the greenhouse and all of that kind of stuff. How do we pay for everything, man? Well, there was a method to our madness. You know, in an earlier video, I talked to you guys about how we had very little money when we started this thing. And then we went through and looked at all of the various expenses that we had in building this. And you know, some of you were probably thinking, he had very little money. How did he pay for that? It was like over a million dollars, right? To pay for everything and run the business that that we have. And so [sighs and gasps] today, that's what we're going to talk about. How did we actually do that? And so the first thing I think that we probably ought to touch on is revenue streams because I noticed that I was talking with a gentleman the other day and he said that he wasn't even aware that you could make money on YouTube, right? That that was even a possibility.

[00:01:11]And so I figured that there are probably other people out there, right? Maybe not you, but maybe you who who aren't aware of that. And so let's go through this and talk about different revenue streams. And so as we're talking about revenue streams, right? All that means is is different avenues that money comes into your family, you personally or your business, right? So let's just say, you know, if you're retired, which a lot of you guys are, you probably have two or three revenue streams, right? You might have your pension from the the state or the county or the city or the business that you worked for. So you have your your regular pension and then you might have put some money away into an IRA. So you have IRA distributions. That's your second revenue stream. And then you have social security. That's your third revenue stream. And so you have three revenue streams. Now like a regular person that's just working the nineto-ive job, right? They have their paycheck that they get from the company they work for. They have one revenue stream. And so with that one stream, if that job goes away, they get fired, they get laid off, they get in a car accident and can't work, that one revenue stream is now gone. And so some people, right, they have their regular job, their one revenue stream, and then they have a side hustle or side business that they do on the side. And so they have two revenue streams, a primary and a secondary. And so those are what revenue streams are, right? Just ways in which money comes into you, your family or your business. One might be the husband, one might be the wife, right? All right.

[00:02:55]So for our YouTube, for a YouTube business, there are some common revenue streams. And so one of those is YouTube AdSense. And what YouTube AdSense is is um you know how maybe while you were watching this video there was an ad that played maybe it was an ad for Liberty Mutual or maybe it was an ad for who knows what, right? There's all kinds of ads that are on there. And when those ads play on somebody's video that you're watching on YouTube, well, that that revenue that YouTube charges for that ad is split between the creator of the video, such as myself, and YouTube. And I think it's around 55% to me, and um 45% to YouTube. It might be 6040, I forget, but it's right around there. And so, you know, there's a there's an ad market out there and companies say like Coca-Cola or Liberty Mutual or Mint Mobile, right? All of these different companies, ads that you see on YouTube, they go to this marketplace and they purchase ad time on YouTube and then so YouTube charges them so much for those ads.

[00:04:12]Then those ads play on other on people's videos like myself. And so then every time that ad plays, that company pays a little bit to YouTube. Well, it comes out of like their their account basically that they've set up. And so every time that plays, a little bit comes out. And so you watch an an ad on one of my videos or any videos on any of the creators that you watch on YouTube and they get a couple pennies. I get a couple pennies, right? So, it takes a lot of views to generate revenue from YouTube AdSense. Plus, there is a threshold in which you can start receiving this. I think it is now that you have to have a,000 subscribers and um 4,000 hours of watch time, meaning that people all around the world have watched your videos at least 4,000 hours worth in the last 365 days. plus you have a thousand subscribers, then you can qualify for monetization, it's called, and start receiving YouTube AdSense revenue. All right, so that's one. And then another one is sponsorships. And so, um, sponsorships, um, also some people call them brand deals. What that is is say say like on my videos, right? we do we're we're just going through a regular project video and we take a break like a twominut break and we talk about Squarespace as an example or we talk about delete me and so or you know you'll see people do like one or two minute sections in their video for AG1 or those you know meal box things all kinds of stuff out there right and so that's a brand deal or a sponsorship and that's what's called an integration in the video, meaning it's it's integrated into a little piece of the video, one to two minutes, and the company that that creator, such as myself, say we're doing one for Squarespace, then Squarespace is going to pay us to put that twominut thing in there, that two-minute little ad that we actually say. Kind of like if you remember, if you ever watched Rush uh listen to Rush Limba, right? Um he always did those Snapple commercials.

[00:06:30]that was an integration, right? Um he would talk about Snapple for for a little bit and Snapple would pay him a lot of money for doing that. And so that's one of the ways in which creators make money. Now there's also another type of sponsorship and that is what's called a dedicated video, which means the whole video is about whatever that company is doing, right? And so some of our examples of that would be a dedicated video for um Ankor or EcoFlow where the whole video it's maybe like four to 8 minutes maybe up to 12 minutes just depending on the video is all about that product maybe how you use it how you install it uh Mr. Cool would be another example of dedicated videos that we have done, you know, showing how you install it and the whole video is about Mr. Cool, right? It's all kind of central to that product or that product being installed in a home or being used.

[00:07:32]Well, that's a dedicated video. And companies pay a lot more money for a dedicated video because the whole video is about their product. So, those are kind of two of the um sponsorships or um brand deals that creators have as a revenue stream. And that's one of the revenue streams that we use. All right.

[00:07:56]So, let's see. Fan funding. This would be something like um Patreon is an example of fan funding. if you um donate or contribute to a YouTube channel and it's through Patreon or maybe it's you're a member of their channel on YouTube or maybe you donate to them through their own website like like we have a website for our other channel called the downto-earth Christian. I'll tell you about that in a little bit. But we have a donation page on there where people can contribute to our ministry on YouTube. So that's fan funding, right?

[00:08:32]Another revenue stream. And then there's affiliate marketing. So affiliate marketing is different than sponsorships. Um with affiliate marketing, you don't really have a a relationship with the product possibly that you're selling. As an example, right, I have uh it's over there. I'll grab it. Hold on. [snorts] As an example, right, this knife. Um, this is my pocketk knife and I carry it with me everywhere except for when it was on the coffee table cuz I was using it for something, you know, but but this is my pocketk knife and there could be a link in the description below. There's not, but there could be.

[00:09:19]And if you were to purchase this knife through that link, then I would receive a commission on that sale. And so there's a lot of different products that have what's called an affiliate link where the person who shares the link gets a commission of the sale, but it doesn't actually cost the viewer any more money. So some examples of that, right, is Amazon. If you you can join Amazon, you can become I think it's called an Amazon associate and then you can share your affiliate link from Amazon and you'll get a commission on whatever anybody buys, not just that product. For an example, let's say I say this is my favorite pocket knife. I carry it all the time. There's a link down description below if you want to check it out. you click on the link down in down below and you go to Amazon and you look at the knife and you're like, "Oh, that's a cool knife, but you know what?

[00:10:16]I don't really like it. I I think I want to get a different knife." Well, if you buy a different knife, I would still get a commission off of the different knife that you bought. Or maybe you you look at it and you're like, "Wow, you know, I think my my knife will do me just fine, but while I'm here, I need to buy a year's supply of toilet paper." And so you purchase a year supply of toilet paper. Well, I would still get the commission on the year supply of toilet paper because I was the one that brought you to Amazon through my link for my knife, right? And so people buy all kinds of stuff on there. I don't know who buys it, but I can see the list of everything that gets purchased every month. Everything everybody orders, not who the person is, it's all anonymous, but I can see all of the products that are purchased. And so there's all kinds of stuff on there. Regular household stuff, um, swimming above ground swimming pools, you know, like everything, anything that's on Amazon, people have purchased because they have they have gone to a link from the description of one of our videos. And so that's really um helpful to to the creator in funding their business and helping them to continue to create free videos for you. because this is all free to watch on YouTube, right? But of course, the creator needs to get paid for his work. So that's one of the ways.

[00:11:41]So basically, every major company store, right, has an affiliate program. Walmart has one, Home Depot has one, Target, right? Um Cabela's, Bass Pro Shop, all of them, almost all of them have an affiliate program and you can link to products in their store. also certain companies, right? Specific companies have one. And so, say like we link to um My Patriot Supply as a survival food company. And so, when somebody goes to My Patriot Supply through our link and purchases, you know, a bucket of survival food, well, we get a commission off of that. And so, not only like the big box stores, but also smaller kind of specialized companies, they also have affiliate programs. And so that's that's one of the revenue streams that many YouTubers use and uh that's a revenue stream that we use. All right. So the next one is um products and services.

[00:12:41]And so let's just say well we have a product that we sell, right? We sell plans for our chicken coupe and um people buy them off of our website. They download the plans and they build their own chicken coupe. And so that's a product that we sell. We also sell um right some t-shirts um coffee mugs some things like that as merchandise for our channel and so all of those kind of things you can sell which is like you don't actually have to ship it you don't have to handle it there are companies that do all of that for you so say like we sell our t-shirts and our coffee mugs from a company called spring teespring it used to be called they print it, they ship it. If it doesn't fit, you ship it back to them. They take care of it, and they ship it back out to you. Right? All of that is handled. All of the customer service is handled by Teespring, and they do it all. We just show the product and talk about it. It's our product. We designed it, but they print it and ship it for us. And then the um the plans, well, that's sold right off of our website, which is called um the Downear Prepper.

[00:13:52]And those are a digital download. So, we created it one time. We uploaded it to our website behind a payw wall. You go, you pay for it, you buy it, and it gets emailed to you, and then you can either just use it as a PDF, or you could print it out and build your own chicken coupe.

[00:14:08]But there's nothing that we have to like, you know, roll up and put in a tube and like seal it up and go to the post office and mail it, mail it. It's all digital products or physical products that are provided by somebody else. So, those are products and services, at least part of them. Uh, some YouTube channels, let's say you're a realer, right? And you will use YouTube then as kind of like a marketing arm of your real estate business. And so, you're not really concerned about making money from YouTube itself, but through YouTube. Meaning, you're trying to find people who want to buy homes in your area. And so you're using YouTube to find those customers and that's a service that you're providing as your real estate service, but your marketing arm is YouTube. And that works with all kinds of different businesses, tire shops, you know, doughut shops, um, craft places, um, what are those places that sell flowers, florist, all of those. You could have a a YouTube channel that really just drives people to your your real like brickandmortar business and um then YouTube is is part of your marketing strategy for that business.

[00:15:24]If you are um like um some kind of coach, right? There's a lot of people that coach people on how to how to do YouTube. Well, that's a service that they provide and they charge for it. And so that's kind of products and services.

[00:15:39]So those are the main the main revenue streams that many YouTube channels use.

[00:15:46]And so if you kind of pay attention to the channels that you watch, you'll probably start noticing these revenue streams being utilized on their channel.

[00:15:55]All right. So I mentioned before, right, that we have another channel and that is the um the downto-earth Christian with Martin Johnson. We've got 150 videos on there. They're all about the Bible and um answering biblical questions so that you can then take those answers, study them out for yourself and then share them with other people to be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in you according to what Peter said. So anyway, if you want to check out that channel, it is the down-to-earth Christian with Martin Johnson. If you're into biblical stuff, I think you'll like that channel.

[00:16:30]All right. So, let's look here at the revenue percentages on all of these different things here. Okay. So, when we're looking at this, we've got the blue 29%. That's YouTube AdSense. So, for our channel, 29% came from YouTube AdSense, meaning the ads that play on our videos before, during, or after our videos that we don't control, right? You don't see my face on there. It's somebody else. it's some other ad. It's just those ad. They had the little skip button. Usually you can skip it. Those ads right there. 29% comes from that. And then 43% of our revenue comes from sponsorships.

[00:17:13]Um affiliate marketing is 26%.

[00:17:16]And then um products and services is uh the red up there that's 1%. And then I skipped over fan funding for some reason. I don't know why. fan funding is 1%.

[00:17:30][sighs] So you can see here we have basically three main revenue streams.

[00:17:35]YouTube AdSense, sponsorships and affiliate marketing. And you know, one of the things that I think is important for YouTubers or any any business, if you can, if it's at all possible, even in just like within your family, if you can diversify your revenue streams, then it doesn't hurt as bad when your revenue stream goes away, right? So, we have YouTube sponsorships and um affiliate marketing. Well, let's just say that that we made a video that YouTube didn't like and they demonetized us. Maybe you've heard other channels talk about that where they've been demonetized, meaning that YouTube will not allow them to make any more AdSense for whatever reason, some kind of community violation or some political reason, they don't like them anymore, so they demonetize them. And that happens sometimes. It's never happened to me, but it happened to other channels that I know of. And so that would be only 29% of our income that's gone. I mean, that's significant, but it's definitely not 100%, right? So, you don't want to you want to try not to rely on just one revenue stream if possible. So, ours are like three main revenue streams. All right. So, let's just kind of review here. The total cost, we talked about it in the last video. If you missed it, then go back and check that out because here we're just kind of talking about the broad categories. And um if you go back and watch the previous video, then you'll get like a breakdown of each of these categories. But for land for site, land, and infrastructure, it was around $100,000. Um for the permits to build and all of the permits that go into that, around $2,400.

[00:19:23]And then for the structure, um that's the house, the assets that we have out there and equipment was about $530,000.

[00:19:33]And then we've got the um operations and labor, which is the actual running of the business, right? And if you were just building an off-grid homestead and you had your own funding and you didn't have to you didn't have you didn't you didn't want to do that through say a YouTube channel, well then the operations and labor part right there probably wouldn't apply to you because that is all for running the business itself.

[00:19:59]So then that brings us up with a total of about a million dollars, right? To do all of this over the last um six to seven years.

[00:20:11]I mean, that's a lot of money, right?

[00:20:12]When you think about it, that's a lot.

[00:20:14]So, how then did we pay for this?

[00:20:17]Because you remember in our first video, we talked about why we chose to buy raw land, why we chose to live in tents as we were getting the the house kind of dried in. And then why we chose to live in an unfinished house for years before we had it finished, right? And like most sane people wouldn't want to do that.

[00:20:39]Well, that's because we had a lack of funds in the beginning and we couldn't afford to do anything. Um, we couldn't afford to to just like buy a house in town and and build this. We couldn't afford to rent a house in town and build this. We couldn't really afford to buy an RV and um and live in that while we built the house because we needed those funds that we would have spent on an RV to get the house dried in. Right? So, that's kind of that's the why behind that. And so with that being the case, how were we able to pay like a million dollars to do all of this when we started off with $600 a month? Well, this is how we were able to do it. All right. Um, not at all, right, trying to trying to brag or anything like that.

[00:21:31]These are just I'm just trying to be helpful, right, to you guys that are that are thinking about doing something like this. And um or to you guys that are just curious like how do all of these YouTubers do this, right? Like how does this channel buy a new tractor? How does this channel, right, buy a new piece of property and just start building again and right? I mean, everybody seems to be doing this stuff that takes a lot of money, but how are they able to actually do it, right? And and from what I've seen, most channels don't actually share the financial side with their viewers very well, right?

[00:22:10]They don't really So, viewers just see them doing this and and they don't really know how they're doing it, right?

[00:22:15]So, well, this is how we were able to do it and hopefully it'll be helpful to some of you and encourage you and motivate you to, you know, to follow your your dream. If this is what you want to do, it is totally possible. I'm nobody special and we're just regular folks here. Um, and so here we go. All right. YouTube ad revenue or AdSense.

[00:22:39]Whoops. YouTube AdSense. There we go.

[00:22:41]Um, so this is from the ads that play before, during, and after our videos that we don't control, right? We just we just they just happen. And so that's that was um $453,947 over that time period. Now remember when we started this this journey here on our property, we had already made like I don't know maybe a thousand videos on um some on this channel, some on a different channel that we had while we were in Indonesia. And um we had a lot of experience. Th those channels weren't making hardly any money, $200 a month when we moved here, but we did start with 70,000 subscribers when we moved on to the property. Although they were all from Indonesia pretty much, which means they weren't interested in off-grid homesteading. They were interested in what we were doing in Indonesia. So it was kind of like starting over. We had to retrain the algorithm so that it would show our videos to the right people because before it was all about stuff about Indonesia.

[00:23:50]So it was kind of like starting over.

[00:23:52]But nonetheless, we started with a lot of experience. And so um YouTube AdSense, we had 453,000.

[00:24:00]And then brand deals and sponsorships, we had around $667,000, right, worth of brand deals and sponsorships over the years. Affiliate marketing was around $400,000.

[00:24:14]And um selling products and services, that's around $12,000.

[00:24:20]And fan funding and community features around $14,400.

[00:24:25]And so total 1.5 million right over six six to seven years. Um that's how we were able to do all of this. Now of course there's a lot of details in how do you do that right?

[00:24:44]Like how do you how do you grow a channel to be able to be monetized? Well there's a lot of strategy and there's a lot of thinking that goes behind that.

[00:24:53]um you know, how do you get brand deals?

[00:24:55]Like how do you get delete me to be your sponsor, right? Well, there's strategy behind that as well, right? Affiliate marketing, how do you choose the right products and all that kind of stuff, right? There's a lot behind this. It doesn't just like happen. You're you we're basically running a a media company. And with that media company, there's, you know, there's a lot of bits and pieces that go on behind the scenes.

[00:25:20]And that's why, you know, when you looked at our our operational cost of the business, it was it was a lot of money, right, to to run this business and to pay the people that that do this stuff for you that find those brand deals for you and negotiate the contracts and all that kind of stuff and pay blog article writers and video editors and all of that. No, you don't need any of that stuff to start, right?

[00:25:49]You just start with your phone. This is on my phone, right? With a an inexpensive little microphone that I've got clipped right up here. And um you just start with that. Just start if that's your dream. And don't you know this is a lot. This is this is um we started YouTube in 2013.

[00:26:10]So this is what this 10 um 10 13 years, right? Isn't it 13? I think it's like 13 years, right?

[00:26:21]13 years we've been doing this and we have made um thousands of videos. And so we can't don't don't ever don't ever compare yourself to somebody that is has this much experience, right? And and you are down here with very little experience. We all start down here, but we can all grow and continue. And I it's like me. If I was to compare myself to these other channels that are way bigger than us, way more talented than us, way better personalities than us, doing way cooler, bigger projects than us, well then I would probably get down on myself, right? I'd be like, I'm just not as good as them. Well, guess what? That doesn't even matter. We are successful at what we're doing and we are happy with what we're doing. And so, um, we just need to not compare ourselves to other people, right? Compare ourselves to ourselves to where where we currently are and try to just be better, right?

[00:27:22]Like, like Sean Kandle says, 1% better with every upload. Just try to get better every time. But the most important thing is is to start, right?

[00:27:31]When was the best time to plant an apple tree? 10 years ago. When's the second best time to plant an apple tree? today.

[00:27:43]When's the best time to start a YouTube channel? 10 years ago. When's the second best time? It is today. And so, if that's your dream, just start. Pull out your phone and just start, right? And then as you go, you'll learn, right? And you'll you'll come in contact with people. Maybe you'll maybe you'll write me an email and you'll say, "Hey, man.

[00:28:05]I'm thinking about this idea. What do you think?" Right? uh maybe maybe I could help you out. But um that's important, man, is to just start.

[00:28:17]All right, so that's how we were able to afford it. Let's look at some of these here. Um and check out what we got. So somebody says, "Reverse your camera." I did. Thank you so much for that. That was a that was a knucklehead rookie move. Um Masibisa Bahasa Indonesia Martin. Yeah, Bisa. All right. So, somebody asked if I could still speak Indonesian. I can. Um, dude, you alive, man? Yes, I'm alive. What is Sarah's new YouTube channel name? Well, as far as I know, Sarah's YouTube channel name is Sarah Johnson. Now, maybe she has a new channel and didn't tell me about it. If she did, then well, I don't know what's up with that. But um Sarah Johnson, I just go Google that. I just search for that on YouTube and that would be her channel. All right. Wanda Wanda says, "I love the dedication of your whole family, the sticktuitiveness it took to make it happen. What was the glue that kept it all together?"

[00:29:29]That's a good question. What was the glue that kept it all together? I think you know the God in the church really you know I mean how does a family function well I think that oftent times it's it's because of their relationship with God as a family and um and then and then there's there but that doesn't mean that there's not examples of families that are that are not Christians right who have good families right, who have good relationships within their families. But I think that's because they're following biblical principles whether they know it or not, right? Um the world and especially the United States has been saturated with um Judeo-Christian values, right?

[00:30:22]Honesty, um you know, not not killing your spouse, right? And I mean like all of these all of these things that everybody thinks is good really comes from God whether they whether they will acknowledge it or not.

[00:30:36]The fact that there are morals comes from God. And so um anyway I think that's I think that's it man. That's got to be it. That's my thought anyway off the cuff off the top of my head. Thanks Wanda for that question. Let's see. Um, there are several video content creator platforms besides YouTube. Do you have anything to say about those other outlets for publishing creator media? Okay. So, in my opinion, YouTube is the best. Not that the other ones aren't good, but I think YouTube's the best. Let me tell you why.

[00:31:16]So, right, if you look at Tik Tok and Instagram, Facebook, those are kind of the big ones, right?

[00:31:24]There's some other smaller ones, but those are the big guys. And maybe I'm missing somebody. Snapchat, I don't know about that, but um so those are good, right? And and people grow audiences and they grow big followings and all of that.

[00:31:40]But one of the things that YouTube has that is a benefit is that people don't necessarily think of YouTube as a social media platform. It is, but people don't think of it like that. They think of it a lot anyway as like Netflix. They they watch it on their TV. They sit back and they watch their favorite creators on their TV.

[00:32:05]Most people don't do that with Tik Tok, right? or Instagram or Facebook, but with YouTube, they will. Those ads will play on there. You can put QR codes on the screen for them to to take out their phone and scan it. Like, say if it's a product, right? You're you're showing your pocket knife, right? On on YouTube, it's on their TV. Well, how do they click the link when it's on their TV?

[00:32:28]Well, you can put a QR code on there.

[00:32:30]I'll just hold this guy. Right. You can put a QR code on there. They can take out their phone. They can scan it and go there. And so that's one reason why I think YouTube's the best. Number two is that um YouTube is the world's second largest search engine, right? Google's number one. People go to Google, they Google something, and they find whatever they're looking for. Well, on YouTube, you do the exact same thing, right? You go to YouTube, you type in there, right?

[00:33:00]How to fix the lawn mower, and videos come up about fixing a lawn mower. So it's a search engine lot of discoverability is there um and people can find you by searching not so much I mean it is possible but not so much on the other platforms and so the other platforms too are geared more for short form vertical content which is good but it's harder to build relationships with people on there. Not that you can't, and there's plenty of people who have, it's just more difficult because you have short a shorter amount of time. And um we all know that to build a relationship with somebody, we need to spend time with them like in real life, right? If you saw somebody for like, you know, 2 minutes, how how deep can you go with them, right? That's like the cashier at the grocery store.

[00:34:01]How deep can you get with the cash cashier at the grocery store? You can't get that deep. And so, you need to spend time with people. Well, YouTube's long- form videos allow you to go deeper, spend more time, share more information with people. And so, I think that I think it's the best. Not that I wouldn't discount the others. And if you're going to make shorts for YouTube, well, why not post them on all the other social media platforms while you're I mean, you've already made the video. you might as well post it on the other ones as well and uh see what happens, see where they grow. Also diff it depends on your audience as well, right? So if you are trying to target young people, well young people are on YouTube, but young people are also more on say Tik Tok than they are on Facebook, right? If you're trying to target middle-aged to older moms, well then Facebook's a good place to do that, right? Instagram maybe. Um, and so depending on your your target audience that you're trying to reach, well, that could help determine too which video platform you might want to focus on. Okay. Um, so anyway, that's what's going on here.

[00:35:17]Let's see here. We got another question.

[00:35:19]If you have any questions, guys, put them in the chat so we can go ahead and talk about that. What would you change if you can on the house build? That's a great question. Um, what would I change if I could? I mean, I could I could change anything pretty much, I think. I mean, it takes some things would take a lot of work though, right? Like, but the one thing that I I think I would change is I would make the house wider, right? So, when we started off building it was 24 wide 20.

[00:35:54]Wait, what happened here? Oh, bummer.

[00:35:57]Dead battery on the computer. It was 24x40 on the um on the foot for the footprint of the house, right? [snorts] And so, I think that I would have done something different there. Man, we just lost that.

[00:36:14]Well, let's go ahead. I'll get back to you, man. I'm going to try to get here back to the back to the chat and see if we can see if we can do that.

[00:36:26]Where oh where is YouTube on here?

[00:36:33]All right. Um, so yes, that's what we would do. What channel are we on here?

[00:36:40]Okay. Ah, how we paid for it all. Let's go right there.

[00:36:45]Make sure the volume's turned down.

[00:36:48]Okay, we're back now. I can see the chat. So, what would you change if you were going to change anything except for that? We don't want that.

[00:36:57]H I don't know. We're just going to have to go like this.

[00:37:08]Okay, we didn't need that anymore anyway, did we? At >> this point, it'd be easier to just This is called amateur hour, I tell you what. All right, so 24 by 40, right? We made it much longer. Well, we made it um see 56 like 72 feet long. The the main like the main living part of the house, not including the garage, but it started off as only 40t long. However, I would have I would have liked to have like I wish I would have made it wider. Not that it's bad. It's not bad, but it would be a little bit better if it was wider. The bedrooms would be a little bit bigger. So, maybe um 8t wider, four feet on each side would have been would have been nice, but I didn't. And so, but that's one thing that I would change. Besides that, I don't think I changed anything. I like it all. Um, let's see. Any other questions here?

[00:38:10]Um, oh yeah, here we go. We've got a question here from Herman. Herman says, "Do you feel like your privacy was taken due to running your build through YouTube?" I don't personally. Now, that is that is a big question, right, for some people. Some people are are are really concerned, which is perfectly fine, right? About privacy and but we're not, right? Like I mean we don't share our address with everybody publicly.

[00:38:41]That would be silly. But we do enjoy meeting people in public. Like that is one of the the best things about having a YouTube channel. Like we were just talking about the money part, right? I mean the money part is important because you need money to run a business. You need money to live. So it is important but it's not the most important thing.

[00:39:05]And so for us, the most important thing was the relationships with people that we got to build in real life, right? Like that we met through our YouTube channel. And then, you know, getting to meet them.

[00:39:19]And like you guys know that in our videos, we frequently invite you to come to church at the Sandpoint Church of Christ because we want to meet you. And that's a great public place to meet, right? If you're interested in God, you're interested in worshiping him, well, come worship with us, man. There's a link down in the description below.

[00:39:37]Check it out and just come and visit.

[00:39:39]Maybe we could go out to lunch or something, right? But through that, we meet a lot of people. We meet him at Home Depot. Also, we meet him at Walmart. I met a guy um we were going out to Oregon to visit with Seth.

[00:39:53]And on Interstate 84 at Bigs Junction, there is a Pilot gas station with a McDonald's in it. Maybe you know what I'm talking about. There's a bridge right there that goes over to Washington from Oregon, right? Like right there in 84 [snorts] at that pilot station. We were just We were there. We were just, you know, getting some snacks, going to the bathroom and uh getting fuel. But I went up to the register and I paid and I was getting ready to walk away and he said he said you are the first YouTuber that I've ever met and like just met this guy like randomly at a Pilot gas station on the interstate in Oregon.

[00:40:32]That was that was awesome. It was great to be able to meet you. And then um you know we were driving into Portland and um a guy just you know we were there's traffic on there was a construction on Interstate 84 and um this guy pulls up rolls down the window and he said something like I love your channel. I don't know I don't know exactly what he said but he yelled something about our channel to us while we were just driving. And so you and we meet people in the strangest places sometimes because of YouTube. And for me, that is not a privacy violation. That is a blessing to be able to visit with and and talk to those people.

[00:41:15]On top of that, some of the people that we get to meet, we get to study the Bible with. And some of those people we get to baptize into Christ, and they become brothers and sisters in Christ. That is the most most important thing. And the best thing about running a YouTube channel, putting your life out there, and allowing people in to your life to see what you're doing. So, that's what I think anyway.

[00:41:47]All right. So, privacy not a big deal for me. For other people, it might be.

[00:41:52]Um, Aaron and Karen, they say, "Do you think doing live videos helps? And how often?" Oh, I can't see. Oh, and how often do you think doing live videos helps and how often? Well, [sighs] yes, I think live videos help because one, it allows you, it's more of a community video, right? It's not so much a video that going to go viral probably, right? But it's more for building that relationship with your community, for sharing with people more intimately. And um so it's I think it's definitely helpful for that. And there's a lot of different ways that you could go live.

[00:42:35]Like you don't have to have a TV behind you showing numbers and stuff. You could go live just you could go live vertically too, right? You don't have to go horizontal. So I mean you're just working on something, right? Like you could be you could be just put it out there with you and your bunnies, right?

[00:42:52]And you're feeding your bunnies. You got it on a tripod there. Maybe you're doing vertical or hor either way horizontal, but you got it out there. You got your little microphone plugged in and just go live, right? You got you got Starlink.

[00:43:05]Connect [snorts] to Starlink through Wi-Fi. Go live and just talk to people while you're working with your bunnies, right? While you're changing them out or cleaning them or giving them food. Um, you know, and then just turn it over to the quail and just let it run, right?

[00:43:21]just move it back a little ways so they can kind of get the whole picture and just talk to them and just do your chores while you're doing that. And that's interesting to people like you wouldn't put all of that like long detail into a regular video probably because you know we thinking ah that's too boring and whatever. But a live stream is different, right? You could be out splitting wood. You can be chopping kindling. You could be doing anything and you could be live streaming it and talking to people while they're doing it. And then occasionally, right, you could just come up and you could look at the screen because like I'm using the the backfacing camera, not the front facing um right now, so I can't see the chat on my phone. But um if you use the other camera, then you can you can see the chat right there. you can just walk up, look at it, kind of flip through it a little bit, find a question, all right, that's the next topic, and then you just start talking about that topic with people. Um, another benefit [snorts] to live streams and kind of why we're why we're doing them this way right now is because they don't take any editing, right? I mean, barely any. Like, I will cut the beginning of this video off later um once it's done doing its processing on YouTube. I'll cut the beginning off and then I'll just turn it into a regular video. But there's no editing and so you can do them fast, right? Like usually a video takes hours and hours and hours and hours, not only to film, but to edit and upload and all of that stuff. And so with a live stream, it's done like that.

[00:44:58]As soon as I'm done here, I turn it off.

[00:45:00]I'm done until tomorrow or the next day when it's done processes processing and I go into YouTube Studio and cut the beginning off, cut the very end off and save it as a new video. All right, so speedwise it makes it easy. And so let's just say that you guys are putting out, you know, three videos a week or two videos a week. Well, what if you did a live stream once a week? That's one more video a week that you're putting out there for people to watch. So, I think it could definitely be helpful. Um, let's see. Jason Row asks, "Do you So, if you have any other follow-up questions on that, put it in the chat there, Aaron or Karen, whichever one's typing here." Um, put it in there because I could I could elaborate more.

[00:45:44]I just don't want to bore everybody if if I'm like talking about something that you're not actually asking about. All right. Um, not that that's a boring topic. It's an awesome topic and I love to talk about it, but I could talk about it too long. I want to answer your question, not whatever I think your question was. All right. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's what I'm trying to say. Um, do you think the [snorts] area put the house is better for solar or would you relocate the area on the property? Um, no. I think the the house part isn't necessarily too important for where your solar panels are, right? Because our panels aren't on our house. So, where the house is doesn't really make too big of a difference except for how far you're going to have to run your power to your house, right? So, yeah, I don't think that really matters.

[00:46:42]But the solar panels, that's the important part, right? Where you put your solar panels on your property. And our solar panels are basically in the most the best spot they could be on our property. There's um there's nowhere else that would be better. I could make it a little bit better if I cut down more trees to the south of the solar panels because our solar panels are on the north end of our property, right?

[00:47:05]They're right they're right over there.

[00:47:06]That's the north side. The south is over there. That's where the sun is in the winter time. And so if I cut down more trees over there, it would be a little bit better in the winter time. But I don't know if it would be better enough to justify cutting down those trees. So anyway, that's what I think anyway. But yeah, solar panel placement is important for sure. And you should always think about it from the winter, right? If you're in the northern hemisphere, well, the winter is in the, you know, in December. If you're in the southern hemisphere, of course, that's going to be like July. And so you want to think about that placement for where the sun is in the winter time.

[00:47:46]>> [sighs] >> All right, Jason says yes. All right, that is it, my friends, for questions.

[00:47:55]If there's no more questions, we're going to go ahead and jump off of here and get back to some physical work. Any questions? Give you guys a second here.

[00:48:07]We got chickens running around out there.

[00:48:11]We had deer visiting. I don't know if I told you guys, but we had we had um we have a cat door in the garage so that our cats can come into the garage and we keep their food and water in the garage.

[00:48:23]Um [clears throat] they're outdoor cats, but they can come in the garage whenever they want. They don't really come into the house unless they sneak in, then we throw them out. But um they are our mousers and they do a really good job.

[00:48:36]They do kind of too good of a job because we don't have any squirrels around here anymore. But we also don't have mice at our house, which is really cool.

[00:48:46]Um, but anyway, we were having a skunk kept coming into the garage through the cat door at night getting the cat food.

[00:48:55]And um, and then the other night we had a skunk and a raccoon both in the garage at the same time. They got into a fight.

[00:49:05]the skunk sprayed and the garage still like this was I'm guessing a couple weeks ago now, but the garage still smells like skunk a little bit. Pretty bad. All right. Um, you guys have been doing all the recap videos this summer. Have you been dusting out any projects? Well, busting I think you mean busting out any projects this summer. Yes, we are. Um, the project is almost done and it's it's kind of the final project for the house itself. And so as soon as that's done, I'll [snorts] go ahead and edit up that video for you and get that out to you so you can see like the final big thing.

[00:49:50]And it I mean it's a big thing, big and expensive. Um, but it is uh it's nearly done. It's like it's right there. So as soon as we get that done, I'll get that out to you. But that's kind of the big project. And then I mean we've been traveling a lot, right? Like you know, we've been to Indonesia, we've been to Tennessee, we've been to California, we've been to Oregon, we're going back to Tennessee. Um, and so we've been traveling a lot and we've been enjoying having our home basically finished. And so we're taking a little break on all the work and the projects and all that stuff, right? We're we're enjoying life right now. And I'm sharing with you guys some of this information that we're doing right now because [snorts] because you guys have been asking for it for years and I've kind of just been too too shy, I guess, to share it with you. All right. Um Oh, yeah. Busting. There you go. He fixed it himself there, Luke.

[00:50:47]Yes, busting out. Um, so I've been watching you since the first solar panel setup video.

[00:50:55]It w it has inspired me to install solar panels up for my dad and soon myself.

[00:51:02]Thank you for showing us we can do it ourselves. Hey man, you are welcome. And um yeah, you can you can totally do it yourself. That's awesome.

[00:51:12]Let's see. Are you planning on adding to the house or No, I'm not. I'm not planning on adding.

[00:51:21]There is one way that we could add to it that wouldn't be it would it wouldn't be as difficult. We could add an additional 8 by 8 by 12 maybe 8 by 16 somewhere around there to the main bedroom. Um we could add that by taking up part of the the what's that thing called out there? The porch, right? cuz it's 8ft porch and it runs the whole length of the house. So if we if we expanded out underneath the porch, just kept that room going out underneath there, then the porch would still be super long. I mean, it'd still be like, you know, 40 ft long or longer, but um but then we could make that that bedroom much bigger. I don't plan on doing that, but it could be done. Um, besides [snorts] that, I don't think we're going to add to the house. Mm- No adding to the house. Albuquerque, New Mexico. Back porch. Um, I mean, we have a back porch.

[00:52:26]I think maybe that's what you're talking about. Oh, yeah. I was confused. What do you call that thing? Yeah, I got you.

[00:52:32]Back porch. That's right. [snorts] Thank you. Thank you for helping me out there.

[00:52:37]All right. So, any more questions, you guys? No more questions. No more question. Oh, tuxaroo.

[00:52:46]Tuxaroo.

[00:52:51]He's barking it. Barking at stuff out there. Being empty nesters.

[00:52:56]Is there any reason to make the house bigger? I don't think there is, man. I don't think so. It's plenty big just the way it is. [snorts] All right. Um, Tuxer, what are you doing? Huh? Why are you barking?

[00:53:13]Huh? Why you barking? All right. Well, since there's no more questions, guys, we're going to go ahead and jump. Oh, say, "I've been watching since you guys were missionaries in Indonesia. Would love to see some travel videos from latest trips." Okay, we have those videos. They are on our other channel, The Downearth Christian with Martin Johnson. So, um, go to that channel, the downto-earth Christian with Martin Johnson, and those travel vlogs are on that channel. Um, there should be six.

[00:53:53]So, we've made two trips to Indonesia recently. The first [snorts] trip we went to, um, we went to Jakarta. We went to Pontanak.

[00:54:04]We went which is on the island. So, Jakarta is on the island of Java. Then we went to Pontanak on the island of um Borneo. And then we went to um Joj Jakarta and um Malang on the island of Java. And then we went to um Ambone.

[00:54:26]And so there's videos about those locations and what we did in those locations on the Downear Christian with Martin Johnson. And then on our second trip, we just we went to Bali. And so, um, we went to Bali and and hung out there, celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary, um, visited with the church. I got to preach a couple of times. And so, uh, that is also on our channel. There's I think there's three videos from that trip. Maybe four from the first trip, three from the second trip, or three from each. I forget, but they're on that channel. the down toearth Christian with Martin Johnson. You can [snorts] find them there.

[00:55:08]Let's see. But yeah, that's awesome, dude. And if you do find them there, let me know in the comments of those videos that you that you found them, right?

[00:55:16]Like, let me know that you actually went there and found those videos and watched them. That way I can like see, oh, he made it. Cool.

[00:55:24]Let's see. Hello, Martin Abakar. Bike bike sa. Yeah. Um tip salam builet.

[00:55:35]Hey Jo.

[00:55:38]>> He wants to tip some solemn for you.

[00:55:43][snorts] >> Come say hi.

[00:55:44]>> Yeah, come say hi. All right, Jose is coming. She'll be here in a sec. Oh, here she comes right now.

[00:55:52]>> Hi. [laughter] >> Hi, Jo.

[00:55:56]>> How's it going, everybody?

[00:55:58]She's [snorts] busy working away. Um, so yeah. Thanks, hun.

[00:56:03]>> Yep.

[00:56:03]>> You're the awesomest.

[00:56:04]>> Hope you guys are having a good day.

[00:56:06]>> I think they are. I think they're all having a wonderful day.

[00:56:09]>> Beautiful day here.

[00:56:10]>> Yeah, man. There's some Yeah, the fires though. Like there's fires like especially over in Washington and Oregon.

[00:56:16]>> Yeah.

[00:56:17]>> Wow, man.

[00:56:18]>> Yeah. It makes really pretty sunsets, though.

[00:56:20]>> Yeah. Yep. But you can see there's a little bit of haze in the sky today.

[00:56:24]>> Yeah. It's not too bad today, though.

[00:56:26]Mm- No, the other day it was a lot worse.

[00:56:29]>> Just depends on which way the wind's blowing.

[00:56:31]>> Yep.

[00:56:32]>> All right.

[00:56:33]>> Okay. Well, there you go. It tumali.

[00:56:38]>> Let's [snorts] see. Uh says, "Thank you.

[00:56:41]Somehow I missed the other channel."

[00:56:43]Very cool. Well, you're welcome. Let's see. Simoga Tuhan Salalu Brian Kahhatan Unukan. Thank you very much. So we said um hopefully the Lord will continue to give you health. All right. So he says you started out as Mr. Riding Java. Are you going to branch out here as Mr. Riding the Pacific Northwest?

[00:57:13]Kind of tongue and cheek. Hm. Wouldn't that be cool? Huh? No, because I sold my motorcycle and so I don't even I don't have a motorcycle anymore.

[00:57:23]Um, you know that Seth and I rode up to Alaska. Was that two summers ago, Jules?

[00:57:28]I think two summers ago when he graduated high school, we we bought two motorcycles, two KLR 650s, and we [snorts] both rode up to Alaska to Anchorage and um and then Jules, she flew up there and then we went around like, you know, went to um uh Seawward, I think it's called, and we went to >> Manusca, >> Manusca Glacier.

[00:57:53]>> Yeah. went to church up there at um Wasilla, the Wasilla Church of Christ, I think it was. Um and then what else did we do? I don't know what else we did. We did stuff like that. And then Seth and I rode back. And then I sold my motorcycle. Seth still has his though. Um how's the garden coming? It's coming really good. Like it's getting super big in [snorts] there. The tomatoes are going crazy. They're not red yet, though. But there's a lot of green tomatoes and the plants are like [snorts] huge. Um the zucchini is way big and like going crazy. Um the strawberries did really good. They're done, but they did really good. I guess we bought I [snorts] didn't know that there were different varieties. Did you know?

[00:58:41]>> Yeah, Jules didn't know either that there were different varieties of strawberries. some that you get all the strawberries like like a bunch all at once and then other ones that kind of like drip them out over the over the season. Apparently, we bought the ones that give them all at once and so we had strawberries coming out our ears there for a little bit, but then no more. Um I really like the snow peas. Those things are delicious. We just eat those right off of the vine. Like as soon as they're popping out, we're just eating them.

[00:59:11]Those things are good. Anyway, there's a bunch of stuff out there. It's all growing good. Thanks for asking. Um, what else? Anything else here? We are We're done. There's no more comments. No more questions. That was the last one.

[00:59:26]And so, oh, Karen and Aaron, say hi. Hi.

[00:59:31]Maybe they're saying hi to you.

[00:59:33]>> Back.

[00:59:34]>> Jill says hi back. All right. So, my little thing. Oh, there we go. It's There we go. It's playing. Okay. Well, my friends, I have no more stories to tell you right now.

[00:59:47]>> What's next >> to keep it? Oh, what's next? Next, we're going to talk about um >> Oh, next we're going to talk about kind of the the det more detailed on the income, right? And like how um how the well did. In other words, like how did we pay for the well? It was like $32,000 to drill, but how do we pay for that specifically, right? Rather than just these kind of broad categories of stuff that we talked about as income streams.

[01:00:19]So, we're going to actually look at I'll put up here like the all the videos that we made about the well and we'll talk about all that kind of stuff and like how the well actually paid for itself by us drilling the well on our property.

[01:00:33]So, we'll look at the details of that.

[01:00:34]kind of a little tiny bit nerdy. And so, um, but I think for those of especially for those of you who are doing YouTube or want to do YouTube, you can see kind of the power of making videos about something and then it actually paying for the project that you just did. We had to pay the money up front, of course, but it eventually paid for itself. And we'll show you how that happened. It wasn't just through ads, but I'll show you all of it. Right. So, anyway, that's what we'll do next time.

[01:01:07][snorts] Let's see. I guess now I'm really out of stuff to say, Jo.

[01:01:14]All right. I'm [snorts] going to go ahead and jump off of here then, guys.

[01:01:17]We thank you for being part of our lives, for hanging out with us here and for being patient, right? Um, with us as we just are enjoying this this whole last year, like this whole year since January, just been enjoying life together, not building big projects right now. All right, thanks so much, guys.