209: Implementing Minimalism with Sandra and Paul from “Minimalist Journeys”
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Summary:
Have you ever felt overwhelmed by not only physical clutter, but also perceived obligations and expectations? Minimalism is more than just getting rid of “stuff” and decluttering. It’s a way of getting more connected with your “why” and acting in your values. Paul and Sandra, from Minimalist Journeys, share their journey into minimalism and travel house sitting. They help break down what minimalism is, and isn’t. They also tell stories from nomadic house sitting and how to get better at receiving feedback!
Topics on this episode:
Going nomadic
Finding our values
Implementing minimalism
House sitting in New Zealand
Receiving feedback
Main take away? We only have one life, so don’t try living someone else’s. Actions follow values, values follow your ‘why’.
About our guest:
Farewelling their well-paying corporate careers in Sydney in 2016, Paul and Sandra have made it their mission to help others experience more by living with less. They are passionate about intentional, minimalist living and mindful, sustainable travel. As Gen X digital nomads with no fixed abode, house-sitting has allowed them to get their animal-fix, experience different communities and reduce their living expenses.
With high-speed internet at most homes, both work on business projects, including their travel and lifestyle blog. Their lifestyle audience tends to be people who are at turning points in their lives, who are wondering what's next. Paul and Sandra help them find new inspiration and direction to create the life they love - by sharing their and other people's journeys on their website and more recently through online courses and by speaking at events. The couple’s travel audience is looking for affordable travel experiences that are gentle on our planet and contribute to the communities they visit. Paul and Sandra help them truly experience a destination with well-researched travel guides and tried and tested itineraries - all easily accessible on their website.
Links:
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Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
homeowners, animals, house, people, important, minimalist, new zealand, life, business, dog, pet, nomadic, website, values, terms, backpack, review, talking, paul, point
SPEAKERS
Collin, Paul, Sandra
00:17
Hi, I'm Megan. I'm Caitlyn. And this is petsitter confessional, and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter
Collin 00:24
brought to you by time to pet and pet sitters International. We are really excited today to have Paul and Sandra from minimalist journeys, where they talk about their passion for minimalist living and mindful and sustainable travel and equipping people to have more experiences by living with less. And today they're going to share some of their experiences from travel housesitting, and dealing with pets along the way, and give us some mindset tools as well. So Paul, and Sandra, thank you so much for joining us today. Please tell us a little bit more about yourself.
Sandra 00:57
Um, thanks, Colin, for having us. So we are Paul and Sandra, as you introduced us already, call us. Kiwi is from New Zealand. I'm from Germany. And we both met in Australia and Sydney, where we both worked for about 10 years or so. We have left. We had we had copper careers in in Sydney until 2016. Paul worked in it. I worked for financial institution, long hours. And at some point we decided to give up on those corporate careers and follow our heart. And that was in 2016. And we've been nomadic or location independence since then, and started housesitting, officially, probably 2017 or so a year later, after we left our corporate career sounds like
Collin 01:47
quite the transition from corporate careers to nomadic house sitting and traveling and having no home base. What was that transition like for you? And what really spurred that on?
Paul 02:00
Well, in 2012, we took a sabbatical from our employment, and we spent three months traveling overseas, we got back from that trip, and realized there is more to life than actually work and corporate life and working for somebody else. So over the next few years, we dedicated our time and resources to saving as much as we possibly could, to the point where in 2016, we were both able to give up jobs, quit our jobs, sell our house, sell our possessions, and actually move to the life that we actually want to live.
Sandra 02:36
Yeah, it took a while it wasn't it didn't happen overnight. I mean, the 2012 chip kind of was the starting point. In 2014, Paul and I got married. And we wrote a commitment statement in terms of how our life how we wanted our life to live our future life together. And that was I guess, the starting point for our minimalist journey. And from that point onwards, 2014 to 2016. So it's like a period of two years, where we would use the four bedroom house down to carry on backpack. So you know, every weekend, slowly reducing our possessions garage sale, giving away to friends going to pop shops, thrift stores, to to give stuff away, etc, etc.
Collin 03:25
So it's not something that just woke up one day. And the next day you were in a backpack, right? It was this very intentional process of working into was that was that because you had to become comfortable with just the backpack lifestyle? Or was it just so much that you had to pare down that you had to slowly work to it?
Paul 03:46
Now, in fact, it was the opposite. The fact that when we went away on our big three month trip in 2012, we actually had very large backpacks, we had 70 liter backpack, we had everything we thought we needed for the Justin case in the Amazon, I took my tripod just in case, there was a tiger sitting there and I wanted to take a photo of the tiger and the tiger, I wouldn't stand still and tigers on Amazon, and there wasn't even a tiger in the Amazon. So How bad was that? I didn't even know. So it was a point where there was things that we didn't want as opposed to things that we needed to have. So we peered down of things that we that that held us back things like the house and the big backpack, the travel and the need to go to exotic places that everybody else goes to. So our our intention was and is to do things that society doesn't expect of us, which is including, you know, going down to just having a backpack full of opposition's and that's all
Sandra 04:47
Yeah. Or at least questioning kind of the societal norm for us that the trip in 2012 kind of opened our eyes. You know, we returned to our corporate life and realizing on these first four problems that we're trying to solve that are not real problems, nothing, you know, really important. And then on the other hand spending, you know, 10 days, 10 hours a day, 12 hours a day in a role where we found or realize, so I at least realized that they didn't align with our values
Collin 05:16
do you had that transformational trip where you are away for three months hunting, not hunting, but tracking down Tigers that didn't exist in the Amazon. And you've come back and you decide that you want to be nomadic. And I know when people here nomadic, and especially in the house sitting world, there are a couple different ways that people can go about house sitting, there's there's the four PE version, and then there's the value based house sitting. So which one of those options do you guys ascribe to in why
Sandra 05:45
have assets to value space, so you don't get paid for hosting services. And we prefer it that way, for various reasons. Number one, they are always legal and tax implications. And in our case, if you do, how could overseas also immigration, things that we need to consider. So we don't want to get into trouble and being you know, risking that we are being expelled from the country we are in, that's just not worth it. And the other point, as well as we actually enjoy being around animals and spending time with MBB, because we have such a nomadic lifestyle, we, you know, can't really have animals would complicate things way more. And so that's for us kind of our animal fixed, having having the houses. And plus also, I mean, for example, we've been doing more transits lately. And we found that they hugely appreciate the farmers, you know, working hard the whole whole year, and then having two weeks off, they're so appreciative of us, you know, giving them the respect and the insurance that they can go away and their animals are looked after. So it's for us and that kind of that part of giving back as well. Yeah, and that's also, I mean, we found that about a third of our costs of our expenses are accommodation costs. So just by doing the houses, we already have a benefit. So it's a win win for both the home home owners or pet owners. And for us, you know, we save, save when accommodation costs as well.
Collin 07:15
Most of our listeners, run businesses where they may do house sits where they owners will pay for their their services to come and sit there but they're not usually for long term stays like you do. So someone's listening to this, and they're going, what, how do you make money from this to still travel and to do all of these things? You
Paul 07:34
know, you mentioned that you had worked some time to save and build up to that. But you know, you've been doing this for several years. Now, what does that look like for you if you're not being paid to sit these houses? Well, I guess the good thing about our lifestyle is that it doesn't cost a lot. And so therefore, we don't have to earn a lot of money to be able to pay for that lifestyle. In fact, we've worked it out over the last few years that we've we've been nomadic. And no matter which continent we're in, whether it be Europe in 2019, or New Zealand or in the Americas before that, our annual budget is around $55,000. New in Australia. So that's about 40 something $42,000 us, for the two of us to live the life that we live, which covers things like accommodation, and leisure and transport etc covers everything from our business expenses. So we know what it costs to live the life and so therefore, we just need to work out how do we make that amount of money to be able to be able to cover up. So what happened before we we finished our corporate roles and leading up to that we knew that we were going to be nomadic. So therefore, we worked on saving, developing and developing a strategic plan for our investments. We sold a house in Sydney, which at the time was was a great capital gain for us and a windfall in terms of the house prices in the market. So those things have all helped us in terms of having passive investments to be able to cover a lot of the expenses during the year.
Sandra 09:13
We also had a bunch of recently before COVID, or we sold an investment property recently in a short term rental, which we couldn't or didn't want to sustain, because we didn't know how long COVID would impact visitor arrivals here in New Zealand and a large part for international visitors. So it was a place in Queenstown which was kind of the adventure capital of New Zealand. So yeah, we sold that but up until we did that. We obviously had some income from from those visitor arrivals as well and I guess it stayed with us what else every now and then I mean it's also the opportunity for us to earn some extra money for the odd jobs in there.
Paul 09:56
And and our website and obviously through our website. As we promote minimalism and promote values based living, we have courses on there that we promote. And we have affiliate marketing. And obviously, we were asked to review certain services and products. And it's a little bit difficult for us because obviously, the niche that we're in, we're all into promoting products that we don't need. So there's a bit of a catch 22 here,
Sandra 10:25
we're only we're only talking about reviewing products that we actually used, and I've been would be happy to recommend, you know, to friends and family. So that obviously limits it on fr website doesn't earn as much as we'd like to. But that's okay with us. You know, I mean, we don't, we're fortunately not in a position that we have to do everything and kind of sell also, because that's what we not would want would not want to do
Collin 10:49
that gets back to your why for doing this, you wanted to live the life that you wanted to. And so this is kind of integrated in everything that you're doing, even when it comes to how you earn your money and where you travel and how this works. Is that okay, we need to stay true to ourselves, whenever we are putting this these pieces of the puzzle together.
Paul 11:08
Yeah, that that's, that's an intrinsic component to the way we live our life. And if we don't live our life, truly, then how can we talk to other people about that? This is this is a core component to our value system that we have. And and it's nothing more or less than what other people have we just really strong in terms of our conviction to what is important to us. Yeah, you
Collin 11:34
mentioned the term value based living. How does that manifest in our lives and and how we operate? And I guess it gets backing way up? Like how do we even find our values to start from and living according to them?
Paul 11:50
Yeah, and it's interesting, we've done some analysis in the last little while about the term values, because I think in America, you see values as being a, maybe a term that's used more at the at the family level, or conservative level or religious level, in terms of what, you know what when you start to talk about values. So maybe if we talk about intentionality, living with intention, living or having intentional intentions and selves. That's what we're talking about, like, what is true to you? what is important to you? What will you not compromise on? And so it's a matter of, what are your wires? How do you live your life, and it's not so much working out? What you want to be, it's all What is it? What is important to you in the future is what are you doing right now. Because when you look at what you're doing right now, you can see what your values are, it may be something like honesty, there may be something like integrity, or fun, or you might like going partying. And so before going out there and partying as a 20 year old, may be really important to you. And that's part of your value system, that's important, and you don't want to give that up.
Sandra 13:07
And values change also, through our lifetime. We just mentioned, you know, in your 20s you you'd like fun and and that's all fine, you know, I guess what's important is that people look back at different stages of their lives, that if what's important to them, or what they thought was important to them, you know, 10 years ago is still important to them now 10 years old. A good exercise to do is actually to think about you know, write down words what is what feels important to you, is it family is it is it your house, you know, write it down but also equally think about kind of when you answered situations what what causes your your Tommy to kind of nod up and what are you not happy with what what is the situation you don't want to have in your life and talk to often so kind of you you figure out what is important on Flipside what you don't want to have in your life this way. So it needs a bit of self work. And one of our free have a free course that we put on our website is exactly a values exercise, how you can determine what's important for you. Yeah, as I said, it requires a bit of work, but it's so important tool to do that exercise or to do to do that self work, because we only have one life. You know, we shouldn't be living someone else's life just because you know that this is what everyone else does. You know, buy a house, have a job, have children, etc. That might not actually suit you. You know, it's important for you to work out what's important in your life and how you want to live your life.
Collin 14:44
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14:48
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Collin 15:05
if you are looking for new petsitting software, give time to pet a try, listeners of our show can get 50% off your first three months by visiting time pet.com forward slash confessional. When we're running our businesses, we have to struggle with how we structure our businesses, how we set our time up during the day of Am I going to be operating from 7am to 7pm? Am I going to take breaks? Am I going to take weekends off? Am I going to have time for my family? So these things that you're talking about? I'm going okay, what are what are you want? What do you want in life? What do you want? And then every time you have to make a decision, does that get you closer to those? Or does it take you further away. And and when you have that aligned, like if it sounds, you know, when you guys put your why together, it led you down the path of nomadic house sitting and traveling full time. Other people may do that. And it may align with something completely different. And I think what's beautiful about that is that's totally fine. It's just that that's on us. That's our work that we have to do, and aligning not just our personal lives, but our business and everything that that that entails.
Paul 16:14
A lot of that comes down to what you know, and what you don't know. And so you don't know what you don't know, you don't you know, things that you know. So it's really important that as individuals, we've we've come through our life with different histories, we interact, etc. So there's no judgment, what other people do, at one point in time is important right then, and in five years time in 10 years time, they may change. I'm sure that 20 years ago, Chandra and I would not have got together as a couple because we'd have been very different back then. And as we change over time, it's quite an important tool when it comes to things like work. And in small business working particularly. What's important right now is it may be the fact that you want to get your name out there, or you want to make sure your reputation your five star reputation, or you want to get as many clients as you possibly can. So it's all priorities, or what's important. But as long as it's aligned to that values system that you've got in place already. So actions follow values, values follows the why. So without the why it's very difficult to actually achieve an end result,
Collin 17:23
your website is titled minimalist journeys. And I love that because I think it means a lot of things for different people. So what does that mean for you? And why did you decide to name it that
Sandra 17:32
I answered that because I came up with a name. I think for different reasons why, why minimalist journeys, this the we as with a 2012 trip, we'd like to explore the world, learning about different cultures, improving our language skills, trying different cuisines, all that sort of thing. So the Traveling is a huge part of our life now and to some extent was also in the past. So that's kind of the the the journey was kind of coming out of the the result of us minimalizing or minimizing our, our lives. So that's kind of the minimalist journeys. If you're looking at our logo on our website, the journey is the the bold part, and the minimalist is the normal regular font part, because we're reducing to, you know, achieve more, our logo is also experienced more by living with less our catch line. So that's that part. The other part is many journeys of people to end with minimalism are always different. So everyone has a very unique journey. And we also write about it on our website a bit. What people, you know, got started on their minimalist journey. And it's an ongoing part of process. It's not kind of something that, you know, you declutter your home. And and, and then that's it, you know, it's, it takes different turns as you can discover, you know, your home is cleaner, suddenly, I've got more time to do other things, etc. And so that part, he also wanted to reflect on our name, you know that it is such a journey, that it is an ongoing process that it is different for everyone.
Collin 19:12
Well, you touched on it there because I think when many people hear the term minimalist or minimalism, they think I need to do some decluttering or I have 100 books, and I'm going to get rid of 90 of them. And now I have 10 books, but it's more about it's more than just getting rid of stuff. Right. So what why, why is the process of reducing the stuff
Paul 19:35
so important? Yeah, that's an interesting one. And that's certainly the case. We've found in America and in most Western societies, that that decluttering is the first component of minimalism that people think about. And that is a pretty important one because decluttering whether it be in a home environment or digital environment, or at work or your your friends How many Facebook friends you've got, etc. All those things you need to consider decluttering. And it's to remove the clutter, the things, so therefore you've got time for the more important things in life. So without actually removing those things, you won't have time or headspace to be able to think about what's actually important. So having 100 books in your house, may actually be really important. And it's the sort of thing that we say that they will don't get rid of those books, if they actually provide value to you, if they are important to you at that part of your your thinking that having a book in the house and having a physical book in the houses is important. Because we don't want to see people remove things that give them happiness and give them contentment and contentment. So it's important that they actually understand the why they want to remove things or be a minimalist, before they even start the journey. What are you trying to achieve out of it? Yeah,
Sandra 20:57
it's certainly not about living with a certain amount of things, or depriving yourself and having a home that kind of has nothing in it. If the home if your home and having a comfortable home is important to you, you know, memorabilia have things on the walls, you know, it's not about an amount of things, it's about what is important to you and, and aligning your life with that, that perspective. Yeah.
Paul 21:27
It is actually interesting. It's one of the things that we talk to homeowners about when we're doing the interview and talking to them, when we're going to be looking after their pet. It's the question of, if there was a fire in their house, or if there was an emergency in their house, one of the things that you want us to grab out of your house before we leave the house. And obviously, the pet, obviously, the number one thing is is as my as my, my pet poodle, or my, my little fluffy cat. And then they go are my photos or, or my documents, etc. But in fact, you know, with proper insurance, as long as you've got people and the animals out of the house that has been burned down, it shouldn't really matter what's actually in the house, because you've you brass, again, it's a lesson we try to try to help people with and encourage is, you should be able to not come back to your house, you should have your things digitized, you'd have your photos in the cloud, your they shouldn't be that many physical things in your house that are that important there, we've got to go back in there and rescue in a fire.
Sandra 22:29
Yeah, I mean, sure, that sounds a bit harsh. But if it's something to consider, you know, and that asking yourself those questions, you know, in terms of what's important to me, if you really bring it down as you know, your loved ones, and your animals and, and maybe a few things that that really are irreplaceable in terms of, you know, physical things, but that's it, you know, a lot of the, you know, your big couch and your big car and whatnot is is not actually turns out that important.
Collin 23:02
Right? Yeah, no, I'm sitting. I'm sitting here looking over here. And I've got a couple typewriters. So that were like my grandma's and my great grandpa's, and like things like that was going, you know what? Like, those bring those do bring me joy. I like having those around the house? Would they be the first things I save in the fire? Probably not. But we all have those things in life where we don't even have to think about it. We just know, you know, if you have if you have a pet, and someone calls you and say your pet just got hit by a car, you don't have to pull out your list and go, Well, let's see, where's that priority today? And oh, I'm pretty booked. And I don't know, like, you don't have to go through that process. You just you just know that, right. And that's where, when we're talking about minimalist here, we're talking, minimizing it's not minimizing everything, it's minimizing the things that prevent us from gaining access to our why and living in more alignment with that, so that we are not distracted by that. And I love Paul has said even headspace two of the things in life that clutter our mind and keep us distracted and and even reducing those so that we can be living in the moment, or with the people that we want to be
Sandra 24:06
how many people work really, really long hours and don't get to you know, enjoy what actually is important to them, in most case for me. But then you also don't have the opportunity if you work long hours and are always exhausted to actually think about how you want to live your life. So yeah, start with removing the stuff that's actually not important.
Collin 24:26
Many of us are not in the stage of life or we're not ready to or we're not able to be fully nomadic and minimalist living out of backpacks. So what are some ways that we can start experiencing more with less right now,
Paul 24:40
the first thing is look at the circumstances that you're in right now. being present is probably the most important advice we can give you being mindful of your surroundings and the people in your life. So no matter whether you've got small kids or mini dogs or huge amount of positions, it's actually stopping and not worrying about out what happened before what happened in the future as the right here and now, and taking that time on a daily basis to just being present, the breathing the thinking about your life right now appreciating what you have right now, at the end of the day, those are the things to start off, because then you can start moving forward from there. But other very, very tiny things as a habit level that you start off doing.
Sandra 25:24
Another thing that, you know, in any situation you could apply us in particular with COVID now and people being restricted in their movements is to think about, okay, well, how could I, for example, have a nice, a nice day out when it's sunny with my family and do something we all enjoy, but it doesn't cost very much, you know, you'd be surprised how much opportunity there is in your neighborhood or in you know, in an hour's car drive away to do something that either costs nothing or costs very little, you know, maybe an entrance fee to a national park. But it doesn't have to be always you know, the elements talking about travel, for example, the visit to Disneyland, or, you know, a big cruise ship to cruise ship, to or big overseas trip, you know, start small, and realize actually can really enjoy yourself, even with small things to to Paul's point in terms of the the actual presence, there's so much beauty around us just, you know, by by enjoying it and stopping it and smelling the roses, you actually realize how much there is and, and also over time, I realized that, you know, at home cleaning, you know, cleaning the kitchen or keeping the big house clean and all the stuff that's around that distracts from that, you know, maybe I don't want to spend my weekend doing that, but rather be out in nature and kind of get the ball rolling that way
Collin 26:47
very reminiscent of busy days, long hours. You know, as pet sitters and dog walkers we put in sometimes 1214 hours a day, back to back to back to back to back visits, especially right now things are booming. Tons of people are traveling, and we're just busy, right and that buisiness can start making us feel a little bit claustrophobic. Not just because we are now in a box where I can't do the things that I want to be doing because I might might I'm very time constrained now, but also mentally I don't have that time and no standard, you said that I don't have the time to think about these things I don't have time to do to address my why. And so what I hear both of you saying is is to start with just very simple things to start being intentional about it to be intentional with my time and my actions and you know, start start little start really small with you know, how am I planning my breakfast? How am I planning my breaks? How am I planning my phone usage? How am I planning my purchases? All these little habits that will build up? Like it's a it's a muscle that we have to learn to start working?
Paul 27:50
Yeah. And and also with that, once you've actually got that heaven face for yourself as making sure you celebrate it that you know if the fact that you're able to to say meditate, you know, seven days in a row or even just a one day, you know, appreciate yourself. And so it's almost a double whammy, you're actually achieving something. But then you're also going, oh, I've actually done something for myself. And that's the really nice thing. It's actually a two pronged attack. And that helps you keep that habit going longer and longer. Because you're actually achieving the double whammy.
Collin 28:23
Yeah, I mean, we do that same thing when we focus on weight loss or becoming stronger or running marathons. Or when we focus on our physical body. We do that all the time, right? We'll post the pictures on Facebook, or we'll share them with friends and family and like look at how much weight I've lost. But you're right, how rarely do we actually sit there and go, you know, what I was able to meditate, or I was able to pray for 15 minutes today isn't that for some reason, that kind of achievement really isn't as held in as high as esteem as other things in our world.
Paul 28:54
And this is a particularly important one. And as part of the philosophy of how to build up the habits that you that you want to have is to be able to pull yourself celebrate yourself could be a high five to yourself or a chair or a poor or eyebrow raised. Yeah, once you've done it, or whatever it is. But celebrating internally is is more important than your social media posts. I've done it so so if you need to actually appreciate what you do before other people appreciate what you do, but always helps us
Sandra 29:25
by example before you go to bed. I look at the back in the day. And you know, there may have been experiences before that was not that was not you know, that didn't work as planned. But then if you really think about it, there would have been also occasions where you know, good things happened on a day and rather than leaving on an odd when going to bed where you're just focusing on the negative focus on the positive and say thanks for those and then go to bed and hopefully sleeping without having dorsals negative thoughts in your mind.
Paul 29:53
In fact, we do a little of that when we when we've got the animals and looking after the animals. It's it's Probably the day after we've finished with a pizza. We're like, wow, it's just an appreciation of what we've just had. It might be a two week thing or, or or week set. That is just that whole thing of like, what was important with that dog or a cat? Or what do we like about it is just reinforcing the message to ourselves. But it's also been part of the review process, more research that we're doing, but it's just that whole thing of like, wow, that was so cool. And what do we like about them? is that there's something to like about everything, you just gotta find it.
Collin 30:31
I absolutely love that of where does the our validation come from as individuals. And you know, for running a business many times, we may feel like we're not legitimate, right? We're not good enough. We were constantly failing, but taking these few minutes of mindfulness practices and reflecting back on things that we did accomplish, or maybe it's just the growth that we've had over the past five years of doing this and going, Oh, my gosh, I can't even imagine that people, you know, let me within a mile and a half of their pet 10 years ago, when I started or whatever, right? Like it's, you can take those to appreciate that growth, because I love how you said that. Before we can start sharing it to others and seeking their validation, we have to make sure that that we prize our validation above and beyond because what if you didn't share it with somebody? Is it any more legit? Is it any more legitimate? Whether you share it or not? Like if a tree falls in the forest, and nobody's gonna hear it? Does it still fall and same thing with our our personal accomplishments? Yeah, I absolutely love that. Now, you are both currently in New Zealand house settings. So I would love for you to tell us about the house sitting community in New Zealand and
Paul 31:34
what that's like pre COVID. Certainly, it was quite busy. The Kiwis that go away on holiday, they normally go away for two to three to four weeks at a time overseas, because they won't be able to visit other cultures and other countries. So we found that the length of time for the sets was a lot longer. During COVID. In during lockdowns, obviously, there was there was no work at all, there's no there were no house sets. And everybody pretty much stayed at home stay at home, as in place, but certainly in the last six months or so when it's opened up. We've found we've still got restrictions in place and New Zealand at the moment where it was difficult to go overseas and come back without having to do the quarantine 14 day quarantine. So the Kiwis would go away and explore their own country. And it's not a very big country, but it's we've certainly explored there and country. So the house sets were certainly shorter. And more often, obviously concentrating around key public holiday periods, school holidays, etc. There'd be a lot of demand for houses. And during the other time less so
Sandra 32:45
yeah, between five, five and seven days, or maybe five to 10 days is kind of the norm. Currently, it's getting a little bit longer, since the border with Australia has been opened. But yeah, that's that's kind of what we find. The good thing is how sitting is very prevalent in New Zealand, which it isn't, it isn't in some other countries. So there are heaps of opportunities once kind of the world returns to some degree of normality. But, for example, as a whole to do, you have to be fairly quick to apply for assets because it is a lot of competition, you know, once said lots of overseas travelers in the country again, the competition will increase again. For house it's what else, and it's not common here to pay either. So if someone came here with the intent to earn money from the house City, New Zealand wouldn't be a country to attend that.
Paul 33:47
But said there are there are professional pits that as a New Zealand as a smaller market and a much smaller market. And you'll find that they're not so much kids selling but they might be more dog walkers type of thing. So you normally find the dog walking service is here. Absolutely. And in the bigger towns or cities. But in terms of overall pet serving during the day, you'll probably find that the is more of the kennels. Or the professional ones have actually got the places where you take your animal for the day and then come back for doggy daycare. I don't know what they call them over on the side. So doggy doggy daycare in New Zealand is equivalent to
Collin 34:28
when you were looking for, for for housesit opportunities. Where do you turn to? Do you have things that you look for that are red flags that immediately turn you off for something?
Sandra 34:39
Yeah. Yeah, I mean when we when we look at it, advertisements Emilio, use a website called qb housesitters. Over here. We know the trusted house it is for example, it's quite often used in the US and internationally. But we find Kiwi house sitters is the website where we find more our hostess here in New Zealand. So when it is an advertisement, we look at the photos, we look at the advertisement itself in terms of what does it say about the animal? How many animals are there? You know, can we realistically manage that? Even if one of us say got sick, which we had recently, where Paul had to look after the animals for a period of time himself? and those kind of things, is it is it actually something that we would be enjoyed doing? Is it in a region that we have, say, I haven't been to and would like to explore? Or is it somewhere where we happen to have other commitments, and I just would like would would work nicely to to, you know, have that be me at location and say, save on accommodation costs. So all those aspects kind of play into our selecting a house. And as I said, we have to be fairly quickly then apply. And, and underpin or point out kind of why we would be a good fit for that house. In terms of red flags, we had some, some not so great experiences of black flea infested house, for example. But we've learned from that, in the sense that we now either meet the people in person, or buy the house, you know, meet the homeowners meet the meet the animals beforehand, or do that via a video call. We didn't do this. In their case of the flea infested house, we just had a phone call, and it was our mistake. You You live and learn. You have those experiences. And we always question ourselves afterwards. Okay, how could we have prevented that experience? What is does that mean for future house? It's kind of what questions do we need to ask? Or how do we need to change our approach accordingly, so that we don't have that experience? Again?
Collin 36:51
How do you do that review process? Because I feel like that's super important, not just when you finish the house it but I'm also thinking of, in when we're running businesses, and we're taking on clients or some mishap happens, like, how do you do that, that personal review and reflection on that experience and turn it into something that is going to benefit you moving forward? Yeah, I
Paul 37:13
guess the biggest thing for us and again, it's this conflict of values approach is the honesty component isn't sometimes very hard to be upfront and honest with your clients, and talking to them about their, their badly behaving animal or their house that doesn't suit or is not equipped enough for the animal or the yard that isn't fenced off, but they still expect the DNR to be able to guard outside for today's business. So, you know, we look at it initially from the, from the animals point of view, in terms of, you know, can we keep the animal happy. And if we can't, if we've got to do things that are beyond our experience, beyond our control, we would certainly pointed out to the homeowner, because it's not just a review for the homeowner to let them know of how we've how they can do things better. But as for the next house that are set up in the future, we're letting them know, what's what they can look forward to. And we what we would want the same thing because we look at reviews quite intently when we're choosing a house. So it works both ways forward and forward. And back.
Sandra 38:25
Yeah. And also we have every now and then we have people approached us homeowners approaching us, you know, they're going away for conference when they want us to look after a dog, for example, we had recently we met the house, the homeowner, we met, prepared, I talked to her for a walk, it was a dog. But we felt that their approach to the idea of us looking after the dog for that conference period, would have not been in the best interest of the dogs dog had anxiety issues and whatnot. And so we basically pointed that out and declined, you know, politely declined and told them you know, we don't think what you're planning to do with us looking after the dog is the right thing to do for the dog because of x y Zed and and we'd be happy to look after though at some stage but not under the circumstances. So we try to be you know, as upfront and honest with people, some people don't like that. And you know, don't talk to us afterwards anymore, but it is also fine. You know, I mean, we don't want to do something Firstly, that is doesn't sit right with us. That makes us coming back to that stomach feeling that makes us feel uncomfortable. But it's also not right for the animal animals.
Collin 39:39
And when you're caring for somebody's home and for their furry family member, you'd never want to have to be apologizing on the back end. You always want to be honest and saying no upfront, right? Say that honest? No. Instead of having to apologize later because it was over your head or because things did get out of hand or because it you know these things came up.
Paul 39:59
Yeah, it was It was interesting, we had a situation a few months back where we had, we had to look after eight dogs. They were working dogs on a farm. And the owner had given us a instructions verbally, when we were doing the handover. Luckily, I'd actually recorded it, I'd taken a video of him telling me which dog ate which food at which time. And so the dogs had a had a variety of, of dietary requirements and had a puppy to look after as well. And it was in that sort of situation for even a review point of view, when we're when we're communicating with them 24 hours later, or 48 hours later, reconfirming the instructions that were given, because at that point in time, I didn't feel comfortable that I understood exactly what he meant. He lived one of the dogs off in terms of his his regime, so I didn't know what food to give him. And so that whole thing of like his clarification and making sure I understand those instructions really well, so that it's I'm doing what, what they want. And even though they may have thought that they'd given me the instructions correctly, instead of whole thing of really confirming the position, because the last thing I want is that dog do you get the wrong dog food, and they're getting sick, I'm getting sick or not getting any dog food at all, because they left them off,
Collin 41:13
outlining expectations and clarifying if you have any questions again, like just being upfront, like I didn't quite catch that, could you go over it one more time? Because you're right, when homeowners, and when pet owners are going through their process, their methodology, it is literally second nature to them, and they barely Think about it. Right? I I don't know how many times this has happened to you, when you say how much do they eat? And they give you this blank stare like, well, they just eat how much they eat, right? I don't understand the question even and you're like, Okay, I need you to like, oh, because it's raw line on a cup. Or they say, oh, it gets it gets. I love this where they say he gets a cup, you know, like, is that a measuring cup is that a drinking cup, where too many times it's Oh, well, we got this one cup it from this restaurant in 1992. And that's just what we feed our dogs with, right. And here's like, I have the drawer with all the other cups. And there's so there's no harm in double checking with the client. because our goal is to give them peace of mind make sure their pets are well cared for. And everything runs smoothly and without error and issues. At the end of the day, right? That's, that's what we want. Yeah,
Sandra 42:25
it's not, it's not bad intent on their side, you know, often times they are kind of on the way to doing a holiday. And they need to pack in and kind of think of 1000s of other things and forget then about the animals providing detailed instructions for those.
Paul 42:41
And it's kind of funny, it says that the owner goes away, and we're looking after their house. And when we come back, our relationship is with the animal. And so therefore the homeowner is an hour beforehand and an hour afterwards. And that's that's our relationship. That connection that we have is is never with the homeowner, it's always with the animal. And sorry, Ford said
Sandra 43:02
they in they can't tell the owners. Yes, they've been great or not. Yeah, like if they're still happy reading their tail or, you know, that is kind of an indication that they've been treated well and and looked after? Well,
Paul 43:13
yeah, although we found a lot of spam with with when we've done the dog walking the dog running. The dogs are a lot better at the end of the time with us. And the homeowners have always commented on this site. You know, they say to us, you know, can you please take the dog twice a day for five kilometers. And it's like, you can tell after the first day that the homeowner never ever takes a dog twice a day for five kilometers. It's just so funny. So when we do it, because the dog is so fed up the entire time. Yeah.
Collin 43:50
You're right. It is it is outlining those expectations. And it is so interesting to hear that kind of that kind of like what they say versus what's actually happening. And sometimes you're right, they again, they just just ask questions to clarify that because what you don't want to have is at the end of it, then be frustrated with something that happened that you didn't clarify. Are you a member of fetters International, psi is the largest Educational Association for professional pet sitters and dog walkers with a mission to promote petsitting excellence through education. After the tumultuous past year. Having the support of a strong community and direct access to educational resources and business tools is more important than ever. As we rebuild our businesses. psi is here to help with a free monthly member toolkit, monthly bonus resources online trainings private member Facebook group and more. Along with group rates on insurance and background checks, psi is one stop shop for everything you need for your petsitting or dog walking business. As an Educational Association psi believes that if you know better, you'll do better and invites you to join 1000s of other like minded professionals who are committed to offering the best possible pet care services and elevating our industry. If this sounds like you Visit pets.com slash PSC To learn more, our listeners can save $15 off your first year membership by using promo code PSC 15. at checkout. Do you get feedback from homeowners about their satisfaction with your service and
Paul 45:16
what they liked or didn't I guess the first part is, is during the the state itself during the during the home set is our communication process is quite strict 24 hours after we are there with the animals, we will always give them an update the homeowner via text or or messenger or send a photo of us with the animal. Just know that after 24 hours I still live. And then we sort of spread out to anyone how long were there for so that communication through the text is quite important. And then talking about the good things and the bad things in terms of the animals being good or behaving well or settled in nicely. So our communication to them there to this to us is obviously Yeah, we're on holiday, the sun shining, and we're sitting on the beach with a pina colada. And it's great, thank you so much Don't disturb us again.
Sandra 46:07
We always ask how much information they actually want and kind of
Paul 46:11
make it because you know they're on holiday. We don't necessarily want to bamboozle them with their animals stuff happening at home. That's not important. Yeah. Only if they want to. Yeah. And then as a matter of making sure that that afterwards from from the review point of view, yeah, you got the information, right. So just just good communication. And part of that starts right from the beginning of the interview. How did you get on with the homeowners? Do they like our philosophy of things? And so therefore, we can sort of see what they're like as homeowners as well, if there's if there's some sort of synergy there.
Sandra 46:43
Yeah, and we get obviously reviews after so always try to get reviews from them, written reviews that are either on the on the housing website, to share on our own website, so that we can use it as references for future for future houses.
Collin 46:59
Have you ever received a negative review? And if so, how did you process that and deal with with that kind of feedback?
Sandra 47:07
No, we haven't. Question I don't know. I mean, I think probably if we were to forget the negative review, we would think about, okay, what does that mean? And maybe if it's something we disagree with, or don't understand, to ask me to get a better understanding and ask them, okay, how could we have done it better than not necessarily in a forwards and backwards in writing, but maybe even giving them a call and say, okay, you were not satisfied with this, or this was a problem? How can we improve that going forward?
Paul 47:40
We call and to be honest, we've only ever had five star reviews. We've never heard anything less than that. So we don't we don't know what it's like to get a negative review. And to have to deal with that. But what I think we would know, in our own heart if we didn't feel if we weren't doing the right thing, or if something had happened and incident had happened, perhaps we've never actually no, we have had to say we've never had an animal diagnosis we have had. But there was an animal that was born on our board. We were looking after sheep, but we had 18 sheep look after in the middle of the winter, and the baby lambs weren't meant to turn up until spring. But they they did turn up. And so we had lanes being born on our shift.
Sandra 48:22
And we tried to bottle feed one off supplementary feed, and it didn't make it through the night. Yeah, it was not we tried our best.
Paul 48:30
so far. Apart from that one, one Little Lamb who was a day old or two days old. We've never lost, we've never lost one on our chef knock on wood. Well, I
Collin 48:38
think part of that, too, is credited to your process in screening the clients and screening the homeowners, right of being again, we've talked about intentionality, being intentional of that asking good questions, seeing if they are going to jive with your philosophy, and in really working through that process, being very intentional through that entire thing, and not just being flippant about it, but I'll say yes, and we'll figure it out on the back end, like we have these processes there are meant to, it's meant to make sure we're a good fit. It's meant to protect us, it's meant to protect the homeowner. And they're there for a reason I feel many people can get frustrated with having processes in place like oh, it's too structured, or Oh, there are too many steps. steps are good. steps are good, not just for the for your client or for the homeowner that you're bringing on. But they're good for you so that you don't get ahead of yourself or you don't start saying yes to things that you shouldn't be saying yes to
Paul 49:24
Yeah, we found them in the beginning without, without lack of experience. We put too many processes in place. And that was quite unfair. I think we had a we had a three step written process for them to fill out. And in the end, we condensed it down into the one document, which is the questionnaire application form. And we use that as a handover document as well. And we find that with that handover document. There are questions that are raised in the air through our experience we've so we've had to put the question and then it asks you to find out this information. Yeah, but we've also found that in providing them with this structured questionnaire, they have a greater degree of confidence in us knowing what we're doing because of this structured process, we have in place all of these questions that we asked that other house sitters hadn't asked them in the past, it does kind of help sell yourself to them when they are looking for, oh, wow, these
Collin 50:18
people are taking this very seriously. This is this is very meaningful for them, I can trust these people, or I can learn more about them. It does, you, it's part of this, you know, communicating or this marketing that you're doing. It's not just in the bio that you have, or the photos that you have posted, or your website, it's in the process is it's all part of that experience that they're having, you're selling them throughout that entire time about, you know, to pick you over somebody else.
Sandra 50:44
And it's also about, you know, we taking on a responsibility. And we take that responsibility, very serious. And, you know, by having those processes in place and asking those questions, we signal that, that seriousness about, you know, taking on that responsibility
Paul 50:59
and the importance of there. Exactly. Now,
Collin 51:02
I know you have these processes in place, but things do happen. You've already mentioned a few of them. So what are some of the houses that didn't quite go, according to plan?
Paul 51:13
I suppose, with COVID, it's an interesting one, isn't it? Recently, at the end of a one month, set, two days before the end, we went into lockdown again. So we'd had a lot of freedom in New Zealand and the ability to move around. But just before the end of once that in five days before the next the country had a spike in community cases. And so the area that we were in, had to go into lockdown the next morning at 6am. So this was a situation where we're two days before we finished one, we're five days before the next one, and the next one was six hours drive away. So we had to very quickly ask our current homeowner, can we leave the property now to be able to escape and at two o'clock in the morning, we drove for hours to get out of the the region that we're in where the lockdown was happening, to be able to get out of this region, just be able to get down to the next homeowner, because they were a little panicky. They booked their trip, they made all the plans, etc. And they were like, Oh, no, our house better isn't gonna be able to get through to us. So they, we had to work with both homeowners. I think it was 10 o'clock at nine o'clock at night saying, Well, you know, we've been told the lockdown at 6am. Next morning. What do we do about it?
Sandra 52:26
Yeah. And in this instance, as well, it was actually the homeowners of the house that we had done that contacted us immediately when it was announced on TV, the restrictions. Because we had, they had actually asked us if we wanted to a female okay to extend our stay by two days, he would have finished the following morning anyway, don't get mad, we said we have we stay two days longer. But we couldn't now do that anymore. So they said don't worry about it, we get a neighbor to look after those animals, you go out, you make sure that you can make your other commitments and we worked it out from there. So it again it comes down to communication and we had a good communication level and good connection with the with the owners where we at the house would bury our plate over their head. It's just a tough drive at two o'clock in the morning drive for hours to try and escape the time to get out of the press. They will put you know barricades and place roadblocks in place that people get out of Auckland.
Paul 53:25
So it's not like in the states where you can walk across your your state boundaries quite nicely. In New Zealand. We have similar sort of areas or regions. But they This is probably the first time that actually put roadblocks in place stopping people from leaving, leaving the area. If you weren't going home to your house. And when when when I met I we don't have a house. They don't have an address. We have to say we're going to the next place. Yeah, we don't have anything like that. Yeah, so there was certainly a an interesting situation for us.
Sandra 53:53
Last year we had with COVID as well, we had a house set where people took a cruise ship trip around New Zealand and and across to Australia. And it was like literally in the midst of all the lockdown starting to happen on all the border restrictions to kick in. And after a week of their trip. They decided at the last stop and utillian now we're not going to head to Australia, because then we have to go into quarantine over there. We stopped our trip now. And then suddenly, in the morning, they told us now we're turning up this afternoon. They did offer us to stay longer, but the house was too small for us to you know, sit it out the other week that we hadn't been able to do. And so we were without accommodation suddenly within hours and had to find, okay, what are we doing that now we need to book a flight back to you know, to Auckland and things like that. So those kinds of things to happen, but we just take them on our chin and then figure out how do we solve that.
Paul 54:49
I guess from that point of view, we're quite lucky in the fact that we're very, we can be flexible, we've only got backpacks. So the ability to move from place to place is quite easy for us to do. So in how we how we deal with accommodation. In an emergency we've we've got down pat as well, again, another process also has
Collin 55:06
the last year changed how you approach housemates or how you plan for them in the accommodations at all.
Sandra 55:14
Firstly, as we said before, they're shorter. So we have to coordinate more or plan more, because we have more little bits and bobs to sort out rather than one little one long. One long set of those, having said that, we are actually going to start a four month poulsard next week, which is repeated, we have looked after the cat before. So yeah, that that has changed. We had a period where we didn't have any houses at Coleman, as Paul mentioned. So that's for us was then reverting back to Airbnb, where we stay more short term rentals where we stay in between households. What else has changed over the last year, that's pretty much it.
Paul 55:56
We're, we're very fortunate in New Zealand, in terms of we have very low cases, we've had 23 deaths in total in news and 26, New Zealand. So we've kept COVID in control. And so therefore, our freedoms that we have in the country are very much appreciated. And we're able to move around. Yeah, there are there are times when we have had locked down and they've been very serious and very short, sharp, have locked down. But as a country, we've we've adhered to them and, and benefited from it.
Collin 56:28
Now if somebody's listening to this, and they are maybe interested in the world of travel house sitting and what that looks like for them, what would be your biggest piece of advice for somebody looking to get involved and get started?
Paul 56:42
I think for us, it's it's like, start small. And you know, if you can house it, or if you can look after your your friends, animals, or your relatives, animals, getting some references, whether it be from a neighbor or community member, or from our point of view, we had our real estate agent at the time, give us a review. So if you don't have reviews, the very first time that you're trying to do a house that get reviews from reputable people that talk about your character, as opposed to the experience that you have with pets, and having those available, as well as maybe the police check as well, at least gets you started at least gives you that confidence that people vouch for you. That gives you some sort of credibility, because otherwise, otherwise, what credibility Do you have when you first start off in that business? Or in that particular house? When you have zero experience at all?
Sandra 57:40
Yeah, it's also we spoke about it earlier, think about your why why do you want to house it? You know, why? Why is that something that you'd like to explore and really think about it? Is that something that is the right thing for you to do? If it's about you know, saving money. There are other opportunities out there is it you know, that shouldn't be kind of, I guess, the main driver, but it's really giving some thought to that. And also, as Paul said, when you start without having any reviews or references. Think outside the box, as you mentioned, you can also get people to talk about your character, look at experiences said that homeowners might appreciate, you know, have you volunteered in your community? You could give it a go if you don't know how to think for example, is volunteer any animal shelter, things like that. So get experience small experiences beforehand and then have a think about the why. And then also kind of when you put yourself into their homeowners shoes, what are the things that you can tell them about you that makes them say yes, this is would be a good person that to look after my animals, because after all, you're complete stranger to them, and then trusting you with their most precious, you know, the animals and their and their property to look after?
Collin 58:59
Yeah, and it's, it can feel a little daunting to try and communicate all of that in website and or profile. So what are some what are some things that homeowners are looking for, or keywords that people should make sure that they have in reviews, or that they point out specifically on their profiles? Yeah, that's
Paul 59:14
a good one, the the, the photos, obviously, it's a little bit like dating, it's a little bit like your LinkedIn profile or your, your, your Facebook profile, you know, making sure that that your your single photo that that's there is appropriate. It's not you at a party with with lots of alcohol around the place or it's not you doing things in appropriately, it's the two of you, as you would want to be when you're talking to the homeowner, particularly the fact that if you're going from a stage of having a photo and then having an interview, you want to make sure they're sort of aligned between the two. So the photo is unfortunately one of the things that as you scroll through and look at parceling profiles, you know, you see The people.
Sandra 1:00:02
And also what you know, a smile goes a long way, you know, people seeing you as a happy person rather than, you know, at your at your status. That'd be good. From a photo perspective. In terms of keywords, I don't think it's really about keywords is about talking about why you want to house it in your profile. And as I mentioned, talk about your experiences as you build them. Over time. When we started out, obviously, we only looked after friends and families, animals, but we had we were house owners, we were homeowners, we had animals in the past. So we talked about that, you know, that we did have animals in the past, and why we don't have animals now and why we house that, you know, to have this in the animal fix, as I mentioned earlier. So basically, try to represent yourself in your profile as good as you can answering kind of those questions. And, and then, yeah, as I said, Don't worry about keywords. Because it's not, it doesn't need to fit into Google search engine adjustments to speak to the homeowner that looks at it.
Paul 1:01:11
Certainly that's the case. If it's on a on a platform, if you're talking about at your own website, different story SEO kicks in and yeah, we haven't explored that. Yeah, I mean, we we have our house sitting page on our website, but it's certainly not that the place that people go to, or when they're trying to find us, that's for sure,
Collin 1:01:31
Paul and Sandra, I am very appreciative and so thankful for you taking us on your minimalist journey and encouraging us to be more intentional in our lifestyle and sharing some of your housesitting stories, and then what you've learned from them, right, and how to keep moving forward and always be looking for something to better yourself and to better the world around us. So I know we there's so much more to cover here. And you both do a whole lot. So how can people get connected with you and follow along with your work? welcome. And thank you,
Paul 1:02:00
thank you for the invitation to talk to you today. So the way that people can contact us is generally through our website. So it's minimalist journeys.com, or through social media and men journeys. Or you can look up minimalist journeys on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, to put a
Collin 1:02:17
perfect and I'll have links to all those in the show notes people can get connected to you right there. So again, this has been a real pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you, it's actually talking to you too. There's a phrase that Paul said early in the interview of actions, follow values, values, follow your wife, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about this. Since I recorded this with Paul and Sandra. In business, we talk all the time about understanding your why. Why are you in business? Why are you passionate about this? Why do you do what you do? This simple way of thinking about it is exactly why we say that all the time. Because our y influences our values and how we perceive the world what we hold dear what we find important. And that was the key to the point of the conversation of minimalism, minimalism strips away all of the distractions and boils down to the essentials, of what we actually want in life, and what we are willing to put on the line and what we want. Then when we take those values, we have actions that flow from them to protect those values. We live out our values, through the actions in our business and in our personal life. And it's all linked back up to the why to whether you're going to go fully nomadic and live out of your backpack and travel the globe, or offer the best possible pet care service that anyone has ever seen. It all starts with your why. And I hope that you're able to find that and if you want to share what your why is and how it's linked to what you do in your business. Send us an email at feedback at pet sitter confessional calm or better yet, share it out with your clients this week in a video explaining who you are and why it is that you do what you do. We'd love to see those attack us too. We want to thank our sponsors time to pet and pet sitters international for making today's show possible. But really we really want to thank you so much for listening. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. And we'll be back again soon.
