The Small Life: The Peterson Family

livinlightly-on-the-road

I am so pumped about this post! I love to see how families make living small work for them. Today we’ve got Nick Peterson from Livin’ Lightly. Nick, his wife, and two young children live, travel and work from an Airstream! Take it away, Nick…

livinlightly-morning-cuddlesHello! We are the Peterson family! My wife and two kids (daughter 3 years and son 5 months) live, travel and work in our 1966 Airstream Overlander. We’ve been living small full-time for the past two years.

For us tiny living was never about the space. (At least not entirely.) We chose to live small so that we can live large in other areas of our life. Life’s all about trade-offs.

livinlightly-exploring-mapPre-Airstream the daily grind consisted of work, paying bills then we tried to squeeze in some family, friends and fun. After the birth of our daughter we began to rethink our existence and intentionally plan our life.

livinlightly-stoy-timeFor us this meant trading a steady income + benefits, larger living space for portability, time with family and pursing work we love.

In preparation for this transition we buckled down and cut all unnecessary spending, got on a strict budget, paid off our debt and saved. We purged and sold all our stuff, bought a vintage Airstream and a big truck to pull it. We worked to build versatile and largely passive income streams to pay the bills.

livinlightly-parked-in-woodsNow we have the time, and ironically space to share life as a family, the freedom to travel and explore and pursue what matters to us most.

Here’s to living the small space large life dream!

Aren’t they just the cutest?! You can read more about Nick and his family on their blog, Livin’ Lightly or on IG: livinlightlyAnd remember, If you want to submit your own Small Life, email me asmalllifemelanie @ gmail dot com.

love,
melanie

 

 

5 thoughts on “The Small Life: The Peterson Family

  1. Nick - livinlightly

    Good question!

    For us passive means we don’t have to check into a time clock to get paid. Most of our income comes from a website where we sell teacher resources: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Michaela-Peterson. Once we spend the time to create a unit it is largely hands-off giving us time with our family or time to pursue other projects.

    We are toying with other passive income streams like niche sites. Here is one of ours: http://www.tinywoodstove.com/. The idea is to create a information site, generate traffic then make income off of advertising or selling products.

    Hope this helps!

    -NICK

    1. Mel

      Thanks, Nick. That makes total sense. The question always arises, how can they live on the road and still hold down jobs? Sounds like you put those pieces in place before making the change.

Comments are closed.