The Mayes Team Blog

The Journey to Clear Skin and Better Digestion

Wed, 18 Oct 2023 17:10:11 GMT

Today I wanted to share a deeply personal part of my journey to clearer skin, higher energy levels, and a happier gut. It wasn't an overnight transformation, but rather a tale of exploration, trial, and ultimately, success.

Let me take you along this journey, sharing not just the products, but the struggles, insecurities, and victories that came with them.

1. The 5 Day gut reset

This was my entry point into the world of gut health, and boy, was it an eye-opener! The 5 Day Drop from Modere is a 5-day gut reset program that offers clear guidance on what and when to eat. It's all about optimizing the gut-brain axis, shedding that uncomfortable digestive bloat, and boosting your energy levels.

The truth is, for the longest time, I struggled with a bloated stomach. It made me feel insecure and uncomfortable, especially as an adult. But, with the 5 Day Reset, I finally found a way to address this issue.

With pre-portioned gut health products and an easy-to-follow guide, this program provides you with the tools to kickstart your wellness journey. It even includes an optional Facebook group for support because we all know a little encouragement goes a long way.

What truly sets it apart is the selection of powerful ingredients that work together to release toxins and excess water weight, allowing your gut to rejuvenate. This product was the first step in reclaiming my vitality.

If you're interested in trying out the 5 Day Reset, click HERE . When you purchase you will receive a free Meal Plan!

2. collagen

The second hero of my story is Liquid BioCell Life, a multi-patented supernutraceutical. This gem combines the award-winning benefits of Liquid BioCell collagen with 13 phytonutrient-rich superfoods and resveratrol, all working together to improve joints, skin, and the aging process.

My skin had been through a lot. Painful breakouts left me feeling like a teenager, and I longed for a solution. Liquid BioCell Life was my answer.

The power of Liquid BioCell lies in its clinically proven Collagen/HA Matrix® Technology. This technology not only improves joint mobility and reduces discomfort but also supports healthy cartilage and connective tissue. But there's more to this superhero supplement.

It reduces wrinkles from the inside out, increases your skin's collagen content, and enhances its hydration, firmness, and elasticity. Plus, it battles the enzyme that can prematurely age your skin.

But Liquid BioCell isn't just about skin. It also promotes healthy hair, nails, gums, eyes, and even supports cardiovascular health and vitality. It's like a one-stop-shop for overall well-being. Try it HERE .

3. MODERE GO

Last but not least, there's Modere GO, my secret weapon for maintaining peak performance throughout the day. It's not just an energy supplement; it's a holistic approach to brain health.

Modere GO incorporates natural caffeine from green tea and 24 robust support ingredients, including 8 brain-boosting nootropics. The result? Balanced, clean energy that doesn't end in a sudden crash. Say goodbye to ordinary energy supplements filled with synthetic caffeine, sugar, and artificial flavors.

Modere GO provides balanced energy, mental focus, alertness, and supports healthy cognitive function. It assists memory, learning, and mental clarity. It even increases alpha waves for a mindful state of zen-like concentration.

With Modere GO, I've managed to achieve so much more in my day, ticking off tasks and having time for what truly matters. Click HERE to try it!

To get these amazing products, simply click on the links above. They've been game-changers in my journey to better skin, more energy, and improved gut health.

Remember, health is a journey, not a destination. Here's to embracing every step of it! If you're ready to try all three just click HERE !

Embracing Neutrality for a Cozy Modern Home

deb.bie@maisey.co (Debbie Mayes) — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 00:59:07 GMT

Welcome, friends to the start of an exciting journey towards creating a modern minimalist haven infused with warmth and style. In this first part of our series, we'll unravel the power of neutral colors in transforming your living space into a cozy, serene retreat.

The Allure of Neutrals

When we think of minimalism, the mind often conjures up images of stark black and white interiors, and while those can be striking, they may not always capture the essence of comfort and coziness. Enter the world of neutrals – a palette of soft, soothing colors that can bring a sense of serenity and warmth to any room.

Neutrals encompass shades of white, beige, gray, and muted pastels. They create a versatile canvas for your home, allowing you to layer in textures and accents with ease. The beauty of neutrals lies in their ability to evoke a feeling of tranquility, making them the perfect choice for those looking to simplify their living environment while maintaining an inviting atmosphere.

The PSYCHOLOGY of Neutrals

Neutral colors have a profound psychological impact on our emotions and well-being. They promote a sense of calm, making them ideal for spaces where you seek relaxation and respite. Here's a brief look at the psychology of some key neutrals:

White: Associated with purity and clarity, white opens up spaces, making them feel airy and spacious. It's a classic choice for minimalists seeking simplicity and light.
Beige: Beige exudes warmth and timelessness. It's a grounding color that pairs beautifully with other neutrals and provides a sense of security and stability.
Gray: Gray is versatile and can range from cool to warm tones. It symbolizes balance and neutrality, making it an excellent backdrop for various design styles.
Muted Pastels: Soft pastels like blush pink, pale blue, and mint green add a touch of color while still maintaining a neutral base. They infuse a sense of serenity and playfulness.

CREATING DEPTH WITH Neutrals

One misconception about neutrals is that they equate to a lack of visual interest. Quite the opposite! Neutrals provide a sophisticated backdrop that allows other design elements to shine. Here's how to create depth and interest with neutrals:

Texture Matters: Introduce a variety of textures through textiles, such as plush rugs, cozy throws, and tactile cushions. The interplay of different textures adds depth and dimension to your space.
Layered Neutrals: Don't be afraid to layer neutrals of varying shades. Combine light and dark neutrals to create contrast and visual interest. For example, pair a soft gray sofa with creamy white accent chairs.
Natural Elements: Incorporate natural materials like wood, stone, and jute. These elements bring warmth and an organic feel to your modern minimalist home.
Art and Accessories : Use artwork and decorative accessories to inject subtle pops of color or pattern into your neutral space. A strategically placed piece of artwork or a vibrant vase can become a focal point.
Greenery: Introduce indoor plants to bring life and vibrancy to your home. The green foliage contrasts beautifully with neutral backgrounds, creating a fresh and inviting atmosphere.

NEUTRAL LIGHTING FOR A SERENE AMBIANCE

Neutral lighting plays a vital role in enhancing the tranquility of your space. Opt for soft, warm-white LED bulbs that emit a gentle glow, creating a cozy atmosphere. Consider pendant lights or floor lamps with neutral-toned shades to complement your decor seamlessly.

MAKING IT YOUR OWN

The beauty of neutrals is their adaptability to different design preferences. Whether you lean towards Scandinavian simplicity, coastal charm, or rustic elegance, neutrals provide a versatile foundation for your style to shine through. Personalize your space with meaningful decor and accents that reflect your personality and values.

As we embark on this journey towards a cozy modern minimalist haven, remember that simplicity doesn't mean sacrificing comfort or style. Neutrals offer a world of possibilities to create a space that embraces you with open arms. So, whether you're starting from scratch or looking to refresh your current home, neutrals are your allies in crafting a welcoming, tranquil, and thoroughly modern living space.

Ready to explore a curated selection of neutral home essentials? Visit my Amazon Storefront filled with our favorite picks to elevate your home's tranquility and style.

In the next part of our series, we'll explore the art of decluttering and simplifying your home, a crucial step on the path to minimalist bliss. Until then, embrace the serenity of neutrals, and let their calming influence transform your living environment into a haven of peace and style.

Neutral Lighting Amazon Storefront

8 Things To Consider When Renovating Your Home For the New Year

Tue, 01 Feb 2022 19:34:02 GMT

The new year is the perfect time for a fresh start with your home. Whether you're doing a complete overhaul or revamping your place for the new year, you must have a plan in place before you start. A plan will help you stay organized and ensure everything is done well and in good time. Here are eight things to consider when renovating your home:

1. The overall look

The first thing you should do is decide what style you want your new year renovation to be. Once you decide on a style, stick with it throughout the entire renovation. This will help create a cohesive look. If you like traditional decor, go with a classic look for your home. If you prefer modern designs, opt for a more contemporary style. Whatever your preference, be sure to incorporate it into your renovation plan from the beginning.

2. Budget

Renovating your home for the new year can get expensive quickly, but it doesn't have to break the bank. It's important to be mindful of your spending when renovating. Determine how much money you want to spend on the entire process and stick to that number. It may mean making some sacrifices, but it will be worth it in the end. Use a renovation estimating software to track your renovation so you won't go over budget.

3. Renovation timelines

Renovations often take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, so it's essential to plan accordingly. If you're doing a full overhaul, it's important to allow enough time to complete the work. If you're just making a few small changes, you may not need as much time. If you're working with a contractor, be sure to give them enough time to complete the work. If you're doing the renovation yourself, make sure you allow enough time for each step of the process. Make sure to factor in any holidays or special events that will take place during the renovation.

4. Nature of renovations

The type of renovations you're making should also factor into your renovation timeline and overall plan for the new year. If you're doing a complete overhaul of your home, it's essential to plan ahead and make sure everything is completed on time.

5. Renovation materials

When renovating your home for the new year, it's important to consider what type of materials you'll need and how much they cost. If you're working with a contractor, provide them with all the necessary information, so there aren't any surprises later on. Even if you're doing the renovation yourself, planning ahead will help ensure that everything runs smoothly from start to finish. If you're using traditional materials such as wood, be sure to have the necessary tools and know-how to complete the job. If you're using more contemporary materials, such as metal or plastic, less work may be involved.

6. Working with contractors

It's important to factor in how much work needs to get done when deciding whether hiring someone else would be beneficial or detrimental during renovations for the holidays. If you're hiring a contractor, make sure to get references and reviews before hiring anyone. If you're doing the work yourself, be sure to have all the necessary tools and know-how.

7. Permits

Some renovations may require permits from your local municipality. Be sure to check with your city or town hall to see if any permits are needed for the work you plan on doing. If permits are required, make sure to apply for them well in advance of when you need them, so there aren't any delays.

8. Staying organized

If you're doing a full renovation, it's important to have a plan and stay organized. This will help keep things running smoothly and avoid any costly mistakes. Make sure to create a timeline for the entire project and break it down into smaller tasks that can be completed each day or week. This will help ensure that everything is done on time. If you're working with contractors, provide them with all the necessary information, so there aren't any surprises later on. Even if you're doing the renovation yourself, planning ahead will help ensure that everything runs smoothly from start to finish. Using a calendar or planner will help you know what needs to be done and when.

Renovating your home can be a lot of work, but it's well worth it. Take time to factor in what needs to get done and plan accordingly so there aren't any delays or setbacks during renovations. By planning ahead, you can ensure that your home is ready for the new year in no time.

The Best Time to Post on Instagram for Your Business

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 16:00:04 GMT

As you start to build an online presence for your business, you’ll soon realize just how powerful Instagram can be. A consistent Instagram presence will be invaluable in strengthening your brand and expanding your customer base. We used our Instagram to document our family of six’s journey across the United States in a renovated school bus and our story resonated with so many people! As you begin to find your feet on your business Instagram, you’re going to start wondering how to optimize your posts for maximum impact and engagement.

So you’re probably wondering - when is the best time to post on Instagram? It’s pretty simple: the best time to post on Instagram is when your followers are on the app and ready to engage with your content. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question because every audience is different.

Why is the best time to post on Instagram important?

Why is it so important to know the best time to post on Instagram? Isn’t getting content out in the first place the most important thing?

Yes and no. Posting regularly, no matter the time will be more effective to help you gain followers and promote your account rather than posting sporadically at the ‘perfect time’. You should absolutely emphasize creating relevant content and getting it out there with consistency.

But figuring out the best time to post on Instagram is important because it will affect how many people see your post. Instagram doesn’t automatically show your posts to every single one of your followers. It uses algorithms to organize everyone’s feed in order to show them the content they are most likely to interact with. This is determined according to a variety of factors, but a big one is the initial level of engagement a post gets.

How timing affects your post

Ever posted something amazing, only to be surprised by how few likes it got? It could be a timing issue! If I post on Instagram, the algorithm will put my post towards the top of some of my followers’ Instagram feeds. If people start to engage with the post – liking, clicking through to our profile, saving, and sharing – then the algorithm will continue to show it to more of my followers. If engagement is low, the post actually won’t show up to as many people.

That’s why you want to post at a time when your followers are likely to see your photo and engage with your content.

So how do you find the best time to post on Instagram for you? There are a few steps that you can take.

How to find the best time to post on Instagram

A quick Google search will show you that there are all sorts of answers to this question online - each of them offering a prescription to help you post at the ‘best’ time. The thing is, many of them offer very different times!

The idea of some kind of magic bullet for optimizing Instagram is a tempting one – it would be so easy, right? The reality, though, is that it took us some trial and error to figure out how to ‘do’ Instagram in a way that worked for our business and our family. It’s going to be the same for you.

#1 Know Your Audience

Who is your audience? Instagram insights will help you break down basic categories for who is seeing your posts – age, gender, and location. But think beyond this: who is your business’s target customer?

You want to identify two things: 1) time zone and 2) rhythms of life.

Make sure that you are planning everything to the time zone that most of your audience is living in – and if you have a significant spread, plan to post content at several different times.

6 am is often cited as the best time to post on Instagram on weekdays because many people check their phones early in the morning when they are getting up for work. But is your target audience working a 9 to 5 job? For example, if you’re producing content for youth and young people, mid afternoon may be more effective because that’s when high schoolers are getting out of school.

The best time to post on Instagram is when your audience is already on their phones, so figure that out and start to craft a plan around those times. Make sure you include a few different time slots to start out with so that you can compare them to find which has done better.

#2 Analyze the Data

This is where the trial-and-error part comes in – after you’ve posted according to your plan for a month or two, it’s time to assess. Make sure you have a good few weeks of posting at the same time to ensure that no flukes are affecting the numbers. Look at the engagement data that Instagram business accounts have access to and notice trends – what time slots are doing well? What isn’t working?

You might want to try a new time to post to see if it does better going forward compared with the ones you’ve been using. You might scrap one of your time slots altogether – don’t be frustrated! This is exactly how you learn what the best time to post on Instagram is for your business.

#3 Use a Scheduling Service

Using a scheduling service to post automatically is a lifesaver when you’re trying to figure out the best time to post on Instagram! Services like Hootesuite and Buffer let you schedule your posts in advance so that you’re not panicking if your planned time slot passes you by and you’ve forgotten to post (it happens to us all!)

Most of these services have a free version that you can try out, but if you are planning to grow your business using Instagram, it’s worth it to upgrade to paid versions to get access to the analysis they offer. These services can help you determine the best time to post on Instagram by showing you more in-depth information on how your posts perform.

Final Thoughts

There might not be one single guaranteed best time to post on Instagram, but now you have a game plan to find the best time for your business. It will take a little research, but pretty soon you’ll have a schedule that gets your amazing content right to the audience who love it.

For more about how to win on Instagram, check out our post How to Find Your Instagram Niche and Grow Your Profile .

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Why You Need a Pinterest Marketing Strategy to Start Growing Your Business Now!

Wed, 07 Apr 2021 16:00:02 GMT

Pinterest is a massive social media dark horse that has continued to grow year after year: in 2020, Pinterest had over 450 million active users ! Do you have a Pinterest marketing strategy? If not, it’s time to get one! Read on to discover why marketing through Pinterest can be such a lucrative and important part of any marketing strategy.

Over the last few years, Pinterest has become increasingly popular, not simply with independent users but also among businesses, big and small. One of the key reasons why it is such an important tool is that, out of all of the most-used social media platforms in the United States, Pinterest is the one with the most natural focus on product promotion. In fact, users actually head to Pinterest to find products and services! This means that, with the right strategy, this platform gives you access to a wide array of low-hanging fruit.

So let’s get into all the reasons why it’s important for you to have a great Pinterest marketing strategy! We learned some of this stuff from our friends over at Second Fiddle - so if you’re looking to get your Pinterest marketing strategy to the next level, check them out.

#1 Pinterest Lens Shows Us the Future of Search Engines

One of the most exciting things about Pinterest is that it has developed a feature called Pinterest Lens . Instead of matching words in a search bar with results, the way that Google does, the Pinterest Lens search function compares photos in its vast library of images to bring you a match.

Pinterest has capitalized on the commercial potential of this feature by building a ‘Shop’ function directly into the search engine. This means that if you take a picture of a pair of shoes and search for something similar, the page of results will be full of links to websites where you can buy your own.

Take advantage of this feature! By Pinning images of your products on Pinterest, you make it easier for people to discover your business.

#2 Pinterest Directs Traffic to Your Website

This is one of the biggest reasons to develop a Pinterest marketing strategy! If you’ve spent any time on your marketing at all, I’m sure you’ve created a beautiful website with strategic touchpoints to help your future clients or customers to engage with your products or services.

But this only works if you actually have people finding your website, right?

This is where Pinterest can really help. The format is particularly effective because each and every Pin has to be connected to a webpage - so your website is only ever a single click away. A solid Pinterest marketing strategy will create Pins that reach a wide audience and funnel people into clicking through to your website.

#3 Pinterest Allows for a Multifaceted Brand

Pins can act as mini-advertisements for what you offer on your website - whether that’s services, recipes, portfolios, products, or informative blog posts just like this one. The bite-sized nature of a Pin on Pinterest means that the format is best suited to highlight one thing, clear and simple.

This means that you can market all the different facets of your brand without worrying about how they all fit together! This is hard to do on an Instagram grid, but with the way Pinterest is designed you are free to highlight a host of very specific and different posts: in fact, the more niche, the better.

For example: as a couple, Debbie and I are passionate about helping other families discover the power in simplifying their lives, so we share our journey with minimalism . We are also content and digital marketing experts who help businesses reach their full potential - plus, we renovated an old school bus and took our family on the road!

These are diverse strands, but Pinterest marketing means we can bring all of these aspects of our expertise to the table without contradictions. In fact, the more specific the Pin is, the less competition there is for it to come up in specific searches! If you are offering several different kinds of services, a Pinterest marketing strategy will help you to add strength and draw attention to every element of your business, not just the ‘main’ ones.

#4 Stop Wasting Your Energy with Haphazard Pins

Perhaps the biggest reason to have a Pinterest marketing strategy is that if you don’t have one, you are wasting time and energy on Pinterest without ever really building momentum.

Pinterest uses a variety of algorithms in order to decide what Pins it is going to show to its users. The aim of a good Pinterest marketing strategy is to get your Pins promoted by Pinterest to increase their reach. To help this happen, you need to be giving the algorithm the right kind of information, so that it can categorize your account and begin to show your Pins to your target audience.

If you don’t have a strategy, you’ll be sending mixed signals - far less efficient and less likely to get your Pinterest marketing where you want it to go.

That’s why having a strategy that guides you as you create Pins and re-Pin other content is so important. A good strategy means that everything you do on Pinterest is building towards the bigger goal of growing your business.

Final Thoughts on Why You Need a Pinterest Marketing Strategy

There are many reasons why a Pinterest marketing strategy will help you grow your business, but we’ve covered some main ones here. A thoughtful strategy will get your Pins promoted to your target audience, who will click through to your website and end up generating bookings and sales. What’s not to love?

I hope this has inspired you to learn more about what you can achieve on this unique platform - it has the potential to get you to new levels of success!

Interested in starting your own Pinterest marketing journey? Don't be afraid to reach out !

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How to Become a Minimalist Mom

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 12:00:02 GMT

If you’ve been around here for a little while, you’ll know that when I look back on our decision to downsize and simplify our life, I’m pretty sure that it saved our family. Before our dive into minimalism (and the closeness and adventure it allowed us!) Gabriel and I were disconnected and unhappy. We felt stuck in a life that wasn’t built for us. Simplifying our family life and becoming a minimalist mom and dad was exactly the shift we needed!

That’s why when people tell me that they’re considering minimalism, I tell them to go for it! But as a mom of four kids, I know how weighty a decision like this can feel. If you’re worried about how a lifestyle change will affect your kids, you’re not alone! Let me reassure you though: becoming a minimalist mom has actually brought me closer to my kids. If you’re on a journey towards minimalism, check out our blog on How to Become a Minimalist.

Being a minimalist mom is all about clarifying your values and explaining them to your kids. When your children understand the ‘why’ behind your decisions, it joins you together and you can empower them to join in on your process.

Creating Mental Rest

Being a mom inevitably means that you have a hundred and one things on your mind. The joy of minimalism isn’t simply about decluttering your space, but also decluttering your life and the ‘background noise’ in your brain! Becoming a minimalist mom starts with an assessment - not what parts of your life could be simplified, but what parts need to be.

Think about the life you want your family to have: What does it look like? What does it feel like? What things would you do, if you only had the energy (or the time)? As you shift towards becoming a minimalist mom, it’s important to keep your vision in mind. You are making changes for the sake of something you want to create.

Once you have a vision for what you are building, take a step back from your week and ask yourself – what decisions and activities are unnecessarily stressful for you? Where is your energy sapped? Take these as opportunities to simplify your life and begin to free up energy and create peace of mind, or mental rest.

Let’s dive into a few areas for you to consider on your journey towards becoming a minimalist mom:

Reducing Decision-Making

One of the things I’ve done in our family’s life is reduce the amount of decision-making I do around meals. We have the same salads for lunch most days of the week, and I know of many moms who cycle through the same meals for dinner every week too. It’s a small thing, but I love how all the energy I used to put into deciding what to make is now freed up for other things!

Another way I’ve created mental rest as a minimalist mom is through the clothes we buy as a family. If you follow us on Instagram , you might notice that we only really dress in neutral colors. This started because on the Skoolie, we only had room for tiny capsule wardrobes – so it made sense to be able to mix and match the whole wardrobe. Now we still do it because getting dressed in the morning is so quick for all of us - I love it!

Toys

If you have kids, you know that there are basically endless options for toys and gifts! Before we moved into the Skoolie, our house was stuffed with them. But what we found was that the more we had, the less we enjoyed.

(And that’s not to mention the stress from all the clutter!)

When we moved our six person family into a 250-square-foot school bus conversion, our kids understood that there just wasn’t space for them to bring everything with them. We gave each of them a box, and they could choose to fill the box with whatever could fit inside it. The rest was either put into storage (this was the minority) or sold or donated (much more common!).

This is one of my top tips for becoming a minimalist mom: involve your children in the process. Helping them to make decisions about what is important to them gives them agency and stops them from feeling like you’ve just stolen all their toys (a fear that mothers face!). Encouraging them to make their own assessment about what toys and belongings matter the most to them helps to cultivate the same mindset that you are growing in yourself: a way of life that eliminates the unimportant to focus on what really matters.

Toy rotation is a great way to keep that sense of excitement you used to get through new purchases. Put some of your toys in storage, and cycle them out every few months!

Gifts

In our family, for birthdays and celebrations, we tend to emphasize experiences over physical gifts. When my oldest turned 13, we spent the weekend in San Francisco (a few hours away from where we live) just him and Gabriel and I. In a big family like ours, these one-on-one memories with our kids are priceless!

We’ve explained to our children that every family is different - that some families choose to buy lots of gifts, and that mom and dad have decided to use money for fun experiences and amazing memories. It’s important to us that our kids understand that all kinds of choices are valid - we don’t want to teach our kids to judge families who do things differently - but we also help them to understand the rationale behind our decisions.

Technology and Screen-time

The way your family engages with social media and technology has massive repercussions for your day-to-day life, and only you can decide what guidelines are right for your family. As a minimalist mom, think seriously about the role you want it to play in your life and the lives of your children. Remember, family culture starts with you.

Our kids aren’t old enough to afford their own phones, and so we’ve made the choice not to give them their own devices for now. They do have access to screen time in measured amounts, and they all have chores to do before they get to use it.

This is simply what works for us now - you may feel that screen time is only enhancing your family life and that there is no need to change. It’s important to remember that no minimalist mom is exactly the same.

Final Thoughts on Becoming a Minimalist Mom

There’s no formula to becoming a minimalist mom - and that’s because every family is wildly different. Whether you are looking to simplify your life in the pursuit of a specific goal - like we did with fitting into our Skoolie - or if you’re aiming for a more holistic change, the areas you decide to transform and your ‘progress’ along the way is going to be totally unique to you. Welcome to the journey!

On a journey of becoming a minimalist mom? Don't forget to check out our recent blog post about how to become a minimalist !

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Tour of Our Modern Skoolie Interior

Wed, 03 Mar 2021 13:00:04 GMT

Downsizing a family of six from a 5,000 square-foot home to a Skoolie conversion with 250 square feet of living space... well, it doesn’t happen without a lot of planning and hard work! When Debbie first pitched the dream of taking our family on the road, I knew that the lifestyle could suit us, but I’d never seen a Skoolie that felt like it would work for our family. Together, we poured ourselves into designing the perfect Skoolie interior .

Take a Tour of Our Skoolie Interior!

Our style is very modern and clean, with lots of white, greys, and black. We took a lot of inspiration from Scandinavian minimalism as we dreamed up our perfect home-on-wheels.

During the design process, we drew up floor plan after floor plan - and after we settled on one, the reality of actually doing the renovations meant that certain things about the Skoolie interior inevitably changed in the process. One top tip for designing your own Skoolie interior is to tape your floorplan onto the floor - this was super helpful for us to get an idea of the flow.

Living Area

We knew from the beginning that we wanted to have an open-plan living space and kitchen. You can tell from our Skoolie interior inspiration Pinterest board that having an open space was a high priority for us!

With a family of six, plenty of seating was needed so we went for two couches : keeping them running along the bus meant that the living space flowed naturally into the kitchen space. We also reduced the depth of the couches to make the area feel as spacious as possible.

We love hosting, and we didn’t want that to stop just because we were living on a bus! The living space couches folded out to create a full bed so guests could even stay the night.

One nice thing about this set-up was that when I or Debbie were at the wheel, we were close enough to where the rest of the family was hanging out that we could still chat and feel connected. Family time was a huge reason we made this lifestyle leap in the first place, so we definitely kept it in mind as we designed the Skoolie interior.

Kitchen

When I was looking at other Skoolie conversions, most of them seemed to keep the center-aisle structure. You could stand at the front of the bus and see the whole Skoolie interior. But, nope! I didn’t like that idea, both from a privacy standpoint and for eye rest - so we looked for creative solutions.

Eventually we came across the idea of the L-shape you see here . I love how it divided the bus into clear sections, leaving the sleeping areas private, and allowing us to keep an open-plan in the front part. This meant that when the kids were in bed, Debbie and I could spend time together without waking them up.

Our kitchen had a fully functioning stove, oven, sink and fridge. We knew we wanted enough counter space to be able to cook properly, so getting the balance of counter space and appliances was tricky - but in the end we created a space that we really loved.

We debated over what to do with the backsplash. Ceramic tiles were our first thought, but a little research showed that these can end up running into issues on the road. In the end, we went for peel-and-stick tile, which is a choice I didn’t see coming but they stood the test of time. I like how they add texture to the room without it being too busy.

Bathroom

When we set out on our Great American Road Trip , our kids were young enough that we knew a bathtub was a necessity so we installed a mini one. As they grew, we used the shower and bathtub less and less, because RV parks normally had pretty good facilities. So, if you’re thinking about designing your own Skoolie interior, it’s worth considering what you’ll really need in your own tiny bathroom.

Kids’ Room

Bunk beds were a no-brainer for us - the easiest way to make use of the space, plus our kids thought they were super fun! The ones we installed are actually narrower than a typical bunk, which helped to increase the aisle space.

We made sure to have closing doors installed on either side of the kids’ room so that they could have space from the main living area on one side, and so that our bedroom had privacy on the other end. Breaking up the Skoolie interior like this goes a long way in making it livable!

Master Bedroom

When we set out to design the Skoolie interior, a private bedroom was a non-negotiable. In the end, we had to climb up into our bedroom because it’s perched above the engine. We had a full bed installed and the little space that was left over wasn’t worth keeping as floor space. Instead, every spare inch was devoted to storage. This worked incredibly well - so well, that we actually had more space than we needed!

Roof Deck and Awning

The roof deck was our splash of luxury - the only thing on the Skoolie that was just for fun. But being able to sit up there with the kids and watch the sunset was such a special part of every road trip - I’m so glad we went for it.

The awning was something we wanted from the beginning, but we actually didn’t get it installed until about a year into living in the Skoolie. It was a game changer! Creating an outdoor space really made the Skoolie interior feel much more spacious.

Final Thoughts

If you’re considering designing your own Skoolie interior, I hope this is helpful for you to see what we did with ours! Creating this project was challenging and satisfying like nothing else, and I’m so glad that we took the plunge and did it.

For more information about where we got the furnishings and decorations that turned our Skoolie interior into a home, check out our Mayes Team Shopping Spree . And if you want to get into the nitty-gritty details of what a Skoolie interior conversion like this costs, our guide to how much you should expect to pay is here .

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Our Minimalist Home: Before and After Renovations

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 13:00:02 GMT

After we made the leap to minimalism and packed our family into the Skoolie for a life on wheels , I knew there was no going back. We loved the freedom and peace that a minimalist home gave us. So, when we decided to sell the bus and transition to living in a house, I was already dreaming about how to make the minimalism we embraced on our travels translate into a beautiful family home.

We’ve been in the process of renovating for over a year now, and it’s amazing to see how far we’ve come. This project has been an incredible ride! I’ve learned so much and done things I never would’ve imagined myself doing just a few years ago (laying concrete countertops myself, anyone?!) We’ve run into our fair share of frustrations - as is the case with any renovation project - but I can’t tell you how rewarding it is to have created a minimalist home that feels truly right for our family. I love it!

Check out some of the changes we’ve made to turn this into the minimalist home of our dreams:

The Kitchen

We Knocked Down A Wall!

I knew that I wanted my minimalist home to feel open, light, and full of space - so creating a flowing floor plan was crucial. In one of the most radical moments of our renovation journey, we knocked out the wall dividing the kitchen from the dining room!

Bye-bye, Cupboards

Replacing the upper cupboards with shelves has really opened up the room and helped us to achieve the sense of airiness I was looking for. Now the light from the window streams through the whole room, instead of being shadowed by blocky woodwork.

Installing deep drawers has made storage so much easier. I love being able to pull out the drawers and instantly see everything I’m working with. No more rooting around in dark cupboards!

Unifying Textures

One big step towards creating a restful minimalist home is reducing the number of different textures at play in a room. In the kitchen, that meant that we tore out the tile backsplash and went for smooth walls, chose drawers without knobs or handles, and poured concrete countertops. This last one was an adventure I’d be happy not to repeat - smoothing concrete by yourself is more stressful than it sounds! - but I’m thrilled with how it turned out.

The House Front

With brickwork, boards, and trim, the busy front of our house initially felt like a far cry from any kind of minimalist home. I’m a big believer in white, so that was a given for the walls - including the brickwork - but after umming and ahhing for a bit, I couldn’t ignore the voice of inspiration. I took a risk and went for white trim, too!

Sometimes the popular choice just isn’t the right one, and in this case, I think my little risk definitely paid off!

The Backyard

When we first moved in, the backyard was a wild tangle of vines and tumbled river rocks. Not exactly a picture-perfect minimalist home! The pool was fenced in close and eye-rest was thin on the ground. It took a lot of hard work, but I love what this space has become!

We did have some hiccups on this project, however. One day, we tore up flagstones expecting to find concrete beneath them and we were left staring at dirt! But we found a solution to every setback and ended up with a totally transformed space - serene and welcoming.

We poured a load of concrete and decomposed grani te to extend the pool area and create the kind of peaceful deep breath we were looking for in our minimalist home. Now I love sitting out there under my DIY pergola while the kids play in the pool.

The Dining Space

The dramatic before-and-after shots here just go to show how far a few furniture choices and some paint can go towards crafting a minimalist home. After knocking through the wall to the kitchen, we painted the formerly-beige walls and ceiling moulding white. I can’t believe how much more restful this room has become!

The Bathroom

This might be the room that I’m the most proud of. Gabriel and I took a while deciding if we wanted to take the plunge and go for the completely concrete look, and I’m so glad that we did. It’s a refreshing change from all the whites and woods of the rest of the house!

Replacing the old tiles and sidings with smooth concrete has instantly made this room feel unfussy and sleek. I decided to maximize the sense of space in here by installing a much smaller sink unit than the previous one.

A hot tip to consider in your own minimalist home is to keep as much of the floor visible as possible. Sounds random, right? But having a sink unit that hovers , rather than one that covers the floor, really increases the sense of space! Keeping floors visible makes rooms feel bigger.

Another trick to keep the concrete from getting too oppressive and to make the room feel bigger was the large mirror above the sinks. I love how this acts as an understated focal point for the room (and now Gabriel can’t hog the mirror!).

Living Room

Sometimes it’s the smallest changes that will completely transform a space. For the living room in our minimalist home, I painted the brickwork around the fireplace and, wham! The color balance shifted and the whole room brightened.

Final Thoughts On Our Minimalist Home

Is our renovation process over? Absolutely not! As I look around my minimalist home, I know there are so many exciting ideas I want to try and little projects I still mean to complete. But alongside all the dreams for the future, I am also incredibly proud of how far we’ve come. Together, our family has created a space that is a relief to come home to - somewhere both beautiful and restful, thoughtful and simple. At the end of the day, that’s what creating a minimalist home is all about.

Working on a minimalist home of your own? Check out our Guide to Creating a Minimalist Home here!

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How to Become a Minimalist: 5 Steps for Simple Living

Wed, 03 Feb 2021 13:00:02 GMT

Wondering how to become a minimalist? If you’ve been inspired by our journey of embracing a minimalist lifestyle (which allowed us to downsize into our beloved Skoolie - a renovated school bus - and travel the USA as a family of 6!) you might be thinking, "That looks good to me, but could I actually do it? Where would I start?"

Trust me, when we first started down our path into minimalism, I had all of the same questions and doubts! A complete lifestyle change is always intimidating when you zoom out and look at the big picture. That’s why it’s so important to break it down. To anyone who is intrigued by the prospect of simplifying their life, but feels overwhelmed about where to start, I would say this: minimalism isn’t all-or-nothing. Embracing it is a process that looks different for everyone - but trust me, it’s worth it!

If you’re wondering how to become a minimalist, I’ve put together some simple steps that will help you break down your process into something manageable and, ultimately, freeing!

What Is Minimalism?

If you’re interested in how to become a minimalist, let’s start with the basics! More than a trendy buzzword, 'minimalism' is a set of values that helps you to govern your choices. Ultimately, it works on the principle that reducing the unnecessary objects, decisions, and pursuits in your life will actually release you to make the space - metaphorically and literally - to invest in what truly matters to you and brings you joy!

Minimalism is about freedom. It’s about eliminating the things that keep you from the life you want so that you can embrace the future on your terms. For us, leaning into minimalism unleashed us to pursue a life of adventure! We downsized our life into a renovated school bus and took our family on the road for our Great American Roadtrip .

This incredible experience would have been impossible if we had held on to all of the ‘stuff’ - possessions and commitments - that were making the life we left behind feel so cluttered and stressful. Letting those things go allowed us to live according to what was most important to us - our family.

What is considered the most important to you? To help you find out, here are our 5 steps for how to become a minimalist!

How To Become A Minimalist

As you learn how to become a minimalist, you’ll realize that everyone ends up in a slightly different place depending on the kind of life they want. Some people live out of a tiny capsule wardrobe, but have a kitchen full of appliances that support their passion for cooking. Others have pristinely simple home interiors and a flamboyant sense of style or a shed full of gardening supplies. Here are some steps for how to become a minimalist, your way!

Step 1: Write Down Your ‘Why’

This might not seem like the obvious first step in how to become a minimalist - no Marie-Kondoing towels or rushing to Goodwill - but it might actually be the most important one.

If you’ve ever made a big life change, you’ll know that once the initial burst of enthusiasm wears off it can be incredibly difficult to sustain that momentum. If the slump hits you in the middle of going through every old knick-knack and scrap of paper you’ve got in your attic, it’s going to be pretty tempting to give up. This is why you need to stay connected to your purpose - the reason you want to simplify your life in the first place.

The point is that the decisions you make about what to keep and what to lose will be dictated by your ‘why’: the kind of life you want to live. That may come in the form of practical goals (eg ‘clear countertops’ or ‘X hours a week playing basketball’) or more intangible aims about how you want to feel. So, decide what these are and write them down and return to your vision to guide your decisions on how to become a minimalist.

Step 2: Use It Or Lose It

As you begin to simplify your life, you probably have some clutter to clear out. For us, that looked like getting rid of (or putting into storage) everything that couldn’t fit with us on the road. A key principle here is to keep what you need and not what you might need.

If you’re anything like I was, you have cupboards and drawers full of the ‘what ifs’ and the ‘one days’. These things may seem like good ideas - but the truth is that, realistically, these things sit there, unused, far longer than we like to admit.

One easy step in how to become a minimalist is to round up your duplicates. Anything you have more than one of (the same novel, the same spatula) could likely be more useful in someone else’s home than yours. Here’s a helpful list of the best ways to donate your old possessions.

If you’re undecided, a good test is to put things in storage for six months. If you don’t need them during that time, the odds are that they aren’t adding anything to your life.

Step 3: Rules For New Purchases

This is one of the simplest and most effective tips for how to become a minimalist! Regulating what you are bringing into your life is a huge way to live simply and to make sure your money is going towards creating the life you want to live.

Everyone’s guidelines will be different, but figure out some ground rules to abide by for a set amount of time and then reassess how helpful they’ve been. You might decide that you want to spend one month considering any purchases over $100, or you might give up online shopping, or only buy things you will use at least once a month.

Whatever you settle on, your guidelines shouldn’t simply be restrictive - they should be building towards new habits and fresh mindsets.

Step 4: Selective Nostalgia

Sometimes people are intimidated when they look into how to become a minimalist because they worry about parting with sentimental objects and memories, but minimalism doesn’t require you to get rid of absolutely everything non-useful.

When we simplified our life , we gave each of our kids a box that they could fill with sentimental or favorite things. This helped us to choose the objects that meant the most to us, and part with the things that were nice, but we never actually looked at or used.

You might decide to scan your photos instead of printing them, or display a few special things instead of having boxes of items you don’t ever delve into. The point isn’t to eliminate all sentiment, but to keep only the things that really enrich our lives.

Step 5: Narrow Your Choices

Every decision you make requires energy. When you reduce the number of options you have to choose from, you actually free up energy to invest in things that matter most to you!

One thing I discovered when I was looking into how to become a minimalist was that simplifying the choices in my wardrobe was very helpful. In our family, we chose to dress in a monochromatic color palette because it made choosing what to wear and how to dress the kids really easy!

Pick a few areas of your life to start out with and begin to eliminate the options. Your wardrobe, your snacks, the shows you watch - all of these could be places to narrow down the available options and make things really simple. You’ll be surprised at how much this can impact your sense of wellbeing.

Final Thoughts On How To Become A Minimalist

I hope this has helped give you some ideas on how to become a minimalist ! This has been an incredibly rewarding journey for our family and I would encourage you to take the plunge towards a simpler, more purposeful life.

For more ideas and inspiration in your own process of minimalism, follow us on Instagram and check out our blog, ‘A Minimalist Lifestyle: 6 Things You Need To Know.’

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How to Find Your Instagram Niche & Grow Your Profile

Wed, 20 Jan 2021 13:00:02 GMT

There are so many reasons to start an Instagram account. With more than 500 million active users on the platform every day, it is the perfect space to curate and share information, build a following, and engage with an audience. This incredible threshold of traffic also means that as a content creator, it becomes vital to build a profile that stands out and to take strategic steps to build your following. One of the key ways to do this is by intentionally narrowing in on an Instagram niche and building out a content strategy that intentionally leans into that niche.

Today, we’re going to explore how to find your Instagram niche in order to grow your profile.

Know Your Audience

If you are building an Instagram account from scratch, one of the core questions to ask yourself is, ‘Who is my primary audience?’

Answering this question will differ depending on the angle of your account. Let’s start with the basics: is your account a Personal or Business account?

A Business Profile vs A Personal Profile

If your account is primarily a business profile, focused on the products or services you offer, this will guide your follower’s expectations. Suddenly posting about your personal life, for example, may feel completely out of place. Some of the best business accounts, however, use a personal connection to create loyalty with their followers. Therefore, we're not saying to never talk about yourself, but in a business account the primary focus isn’t personal.

In a personal account, however, the opposite is true! Your followers expect you to post and talk about yourself, sharing the ins and outs of your personal life. Perhaps your Instagram account is a blend of both - business and personal. This type of account is a combination of both marketing your particular product or service integrated into an account that has a lifestyle edge (like ours!). Be aware that different emphases will bring in different audiences: accounts based on personal content will appeal to different demographics than something more focused on services or products. Your ideal audience should drive your Instagram niche since you want to build an account that you know they would want to follow!

If you are using Instagram to promote your business and service, then your primary audience should be your customer demographic. Check out our blog, ‘How to Make Money on Instagram ’ for more information on how best to utilize Instagram for your business. Alternatively, if you're running a lifestyle account, you want to hone in on an audience that shares the same interests and values as you.

The Mayes Team: Discovering Our Instagram Niche

As far as businesses go, we’ve had a fairly unusual journey navigating Instagram. When we first started growing our account, we were packing up our family and hitting the road, committing to two years of adventure and travel on our Skoolie . This was the season that our Instagram following initially exploded. Our Instagram content echoed our journey: documenting our life on the road, the realities of living minimally , and what it’s like to live as a family on a converted school bus .

Our Instagram niche was a blend of travel, family, and lifestyle. Our followers were joining in on our journey because they were genuinely interested in our unconventional lifestyle and wanted to share in the adventure. Our audience was fellow Moms and Dads, adventurers, minimalists, and those living with wanderlust.

The Evolution of Our Instagram Niche

Since then, our lifestyle and, therefore, our Instagram niche, has evolved. We’ve settled in Northern California, bought our dream house, and spent the last year working on renovations.

Our Instagram has naturally followed this progression in our lifestyle. If you’ve been following along, you’ll have watched us as we’ve documented the saga of our concrete bathroom, helped us pick out the perfect furnishings for our living room, and watched our kids grow as our family has settled back into the throws of a normal family life, not on wheels!

Our Instagram audience has naturally evolved too! We’ve picked up home model enthusiasts, those looking for renovation tips , mompreneurs, and so forth, all of whom have joined along for this next stage in our family’s adventure.

Despite these subtle genre changes, our overarching Instagram niche has always been Lifestyle. We document our everyday family life and stay true to whatever season we’re living in - Skoolie or no Skoolie!

We are an interesting case study. As business owners, we know that our core demographic and customer base are actually young professionals and freelancers looking to enhance their digital marketing. Our primary products are our website domain site, Maisey , and our educational courses that seek to empower entrepreneurs with the skills they need to get a digital marketing campaign off the ground. That being said, we have made the decision to stay consistent within the lifestyle niche, sprinkling in educational content as an added plus that drives traffic to our website and products.

Visual Consistency

The evolution of our Instagram niche has been slow, strategic, and intentional. While pursuing this transition, we’ve been highly aware that ‘consistency’ is one of the most valuable attributes of a successful Instagram account. While our Instagram niche may have changed over time, we’ve continued to remain focused on our consistency. From our visual aesthetic to our use of hashtags ; to our caption copy to the way that we document and share about our family - we’ve created a consistent brand that has withstood the changes in our Instagram angle.

With this in mind, once you’ve honed in on a consistent content niche, you will then want to develop your visual aesthetic in order to build out a feed that is easy to recognize and feels appropriate to your brand. When you scroll through our account, you’ll notice our monochromatic pallet with only a few neutral accent colors. You’ll see a consistent photographic quality and similar filters and edits on every photo that we post. We stay up-to-date with Instagram’s latest updates and best practices and learn how to adapt and transplant our visual niche onto Instagram’s latest and greatest features, including IGTV, reels, and so forth!

Will Your Instagram Niche Sell?

Instagram is a marketplace. It’s competitive - a landscape where you fight to create a unique voice and build a following that suits you. Here is a rundown of the eleven most profitable (and most followed) Instagram niches of 2020:

Travel
Beauty
Fashion
Health and fitness
Lifestyle
Parenting
Business
Music
Photography
Food
Animals

If you are carving out your Instagram niche for the first time, you want to make sure that you are honing in on an interest that Instagram users are already passionate about. Do your research and development! Follow leading accounts within your sphere. Analyze what works and what doesn’t work within these accounts. Ask yourself the following questions:

How regularly do they post?
Which of their posts receive the most engagement?
How do they engage their audience through Instagram features?
What other accounts within their Instagram nice do they follow?
What hashtags are they targeting to grow their following?

Educate yourself and become an expert in your specific Instagram niche until you feel confident of the landscape that you are walking into! Once you’ve done your research, take the next step, and position your account within your Instagram niche! We can’t wait to see you boom and flourish within your niche! We are confident that knowing your Instagram niche is going to help anchor and steer your Instagram growth in a strategic direction and attract your ideal audience!

Ready to use Instagram and take your business to the next level? We recommend starting here !

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Living on a Bus Full Time: What It's Really Like

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 13:00:02 GMT

How to discern between Instagram and reality? That truly is the question! When we decided to uproot our family from life in Texas and live together on a school bus, we had no idea what was in store for us. The dreamer in me was immediately attracted to the whimsey and adventure of it all. I wanted my kids to grow up with a unique experience that would forever define how they view the world (and valued each other). I wanted us to dive head-first into memories and endless possibilities. However, in my romanticized mind, it was easy to overlook the practical realities of what it's like to live on a bus as a family of six.

Would we do it again? Oh, 100%! Do I wish someone had peeled back the veil on the realities of living on a bus so that I could have readied my expectations? You bet!

250 Square Feet: The Realities of Tiny Living

One thing I’m grateful for in our Skoolie experience, was that, as a family, we’d already been exploring the realities of minimalist living for a couple of years. That being said, there is really nothing that can fully prepare you for living on a bus full time. Our process of downsizing and simplification was relatively easy. Some of the practical ways that we scaled down our life was through a rigorous process of shedding unnecessary possessions.

We had to compromise! We had to make some hard decisions. I’ll never forget the horrors of Gabriel having to rigorously examine and re-examine his shoe collection in order to pick the perfect ones (it is fair to say that more than a few tears were shed on this occasion!).

The rules of minimalism became a core tenet of our parenting style. Our kids understood that the joys of living on a bus came with some sacrifices! You can’t display every paper mache dinosaur when you house four kids on a bus. You can’t say yes to every gadget and gizmo, and you certainly can’t live with the clutter of a playroom all over your living room floor! Just as we downsized our wardrobes to the key essentials, we worked with our kids to empower them to make some bold and strong choices about which toys and games were coming with them for ‘bus life!’.

Living On A Bus: The Practicalities

There are endless practicalities to think through when you transition to living on a bus. So many tiny and crucial details that people neglect to tell you!

The first gut-punching reality check came shortly into the first leg of our journey. We were off - out to start living our glamorous vagabond dream. Things came to a screeching stop just as quickly as they had started! Before we had even left Oklahoma, it became apparent that our brake light wasn’t working and our toilet and hot water weren’t connected. We were without basic road safety and basic hygiene - not exactly ideal for a home on wheels! We found ourselves making the most out of RV Parks and familiarizing ourselves with the tricks of the trade when it came to living on a bus with a sustainable lifestyle!

Not Compromising On The Essentials

When you are living on a bus, you need to cultivate a lifestyle that still feels like YOU. With so much transition and some huge sacrifices, it was important to create a home that felt like us - that felt like The Mayes. Some of the homey essentials that carried me through the transition included:

Mimicking the monochrome aesthetic of our Texan home in order to create something that stylistically felt like home.
Ensuring that there was a door (with a lock) between the kids' bunk beds and Gabriel and I’s own master bedroom. We needed to be positive that we could escape and have some privacy even with us all living in such close quarters.
We made sure that we were set up with a business model that could fully function even with us taking life on the road. Despite living on a bus, we were committed to growing our business, taking on new clients while on the move, and being able to financially support our family and our adventure.
Our Skoolie had all the trimmings. From our stylish matte black bathroom faucets , to our ceramic kitchenware, we made sure that we had all of the comforts of a traditional home (albeit on a slightly smaller scale!).
We needed to keep some of our family systems in place in order for life to go on as usual! Sunday chores for the kids were still very much on the books!

Living Spontaneously vs Having A Plan

When you’re living on a bus, you learn pretty quickly to say ‘yes’ to spontaneity. We learned to lean into making fresh plans, exploring the wonders of the west coast, and holding our schedule lightly.

It sounds cliche, but when you’re living on a bus, life stops being about the destination and truly becomes about the journey. For me, that journey involved watching my kids grow, watching us adapt as a family, and learning how to re-prioritize our life. We learned how to get sentimental about experiences and the memories to be made, rather than about possessions and things that are temporary. We learned how to take risks - both in adventures and in business. Without the Skoolie, we might never have garnered the Instagram following that empowered us to take our digital marketing dreams seriously - and to watch Maisey explode as it has.

Without the bus we wouldn’t be where we are today: very much flowering as a family, and renovating our dream home in California. Without living on a bus we wouldn’t be living with the same freedom, flexibility, and joy for adventure that I live with right now.

Ready to say yes to the spontaneity of living on a bus full time? We recommend starting here !

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Losing Followers on Instagram? Do This to Start Growing Your Account Right Now!

Wed, 16 Dec 2020 13:00:02 GMT

Are you losing followers on Instagram?

Don’t fret! We have been there. Yes, it is frustrating, but it is not the end of the world. Here are some top tips to get you back on your feet again!

#1 Check If You Have Been Shadow Banned

There could be several reasons why your account might be rapidly losing followers on Instagram with seemingly no explanation. One of the key culprits to this issue is ‘Shadow banning’. In this process, Instagram will ‘shadow’ or hide your posts within hashtags that you use regularly.

If your Instagram strategy involves using multiple hashtags on each post then the chances are that a large majority of your daily followers have found you through a hashtag search. When your content becomes shadow banned you no longer show up under the hashtags that you are using, thus eliminating your prospective audience and ultimately decreasing your follower frequency.

Have a search through a hashtag that you have recently used. Try and wade through the explore page and find your posts. If you have no luck finding anything then the likelihood is that you’ve been shadow banned. There are several reasons why you may have been shadow banned:

If You Had Been Using A Bot

If you had been previously using a bot, then you are a prime target for Instagram’s shadow ban policy. Bot’s function through a follow/unfollow process in order to gain the attention of fellow accounts with the hope of securing a follow in return.

You Have Been Using Repetitive Hashtags

If you have been spamming hashtags and using the same ones time and time again, then you are likely to raise a red flag to Instagram.

Your Content Has Been Reported

Have you posted anything that might not abide by the Instagram guidelines? If so, there might be grounds for your content to have been reported, which would result in a shadowban of your post and ultimately run the risk of your losing followers on Instagram.

Rectify Your Shadowban

Receiving a shadowban is not the end of the world, although it will take some time to rectify. If you lay low from your account for at least a week, delete any inappropriate posts, and commit to not hashtag spamming in the future, then your account should be back in business in no time!

#2 Readdress Your Instagram Strategy

If you have been losing followers on Instagram, it might be time to calibrate your Instagram strategy. The chances are that your follower base has not been engaging with the kind of content that you have been providing, and it might be time to try a new strategy and a change of direction.

#3 Address Your Creativity

Maybe it's time for a creative upheaval? Evaluate the following questions:

Are all of the photographs you are posting clear, crisp, and optimized for Instagram?
Are you posting text-based images as well as photographic content?
Do you have a consistent aesthetic that clearly communicates your brand?

Maybe it is time to bring a professional designer on board and to optimize your brand direction by taking things in a new direction. Maybe it is time to book a professional photography session and book new headshots or product photographs for some variety on your feed!

#4 Clarify Your Brand

If you are losing followers on Instagram, it might be because you are not clearly communicating who you are. People want to follow accounts that they trust and support. Are you clearly communicating your products, your services, your value propositions, and your personality to your potential audience? Make sure that they know what they are buying into. There are several ways to do this:

Make sure that your bio is clear and specific, giving people an immediate overview when they follow you!
Make sure that your copy language is consistent and you are developing a strong sense of your brand tone with every caption that you post!
Try to follow accounts that are on-brand for you - you want to stay in association with accounts that you admire by engaging with them and aligning your brand to theirs.

#5 Utilize All Of Instagram’s Features

One way to avoid losing followers on Instagram is to utilize all of Instagram’s latest features to ensure that you stay ahead of the curb and perform well within Instagram’s algorithm. Make sure that you update your app regularly so that you don’t miss out on new features that Instagram is unveiling.

Create a compelling and try to use the following features when telling your brand story:

Instagram Lives - Better yet, schedule an Instagram live interview with an individual or a company who supports your brand. That way, you are optimizing their follower reach as well as your own.
Instagram Carousels - Share more information on a single post through Instagram Carousels. These are a great way to present multiple photographs or graphics and tell a story with a single post.
Instagram Guides - Do you have educational content? Instagram Guides is one of Instagram’s latest features and it allows you to share more text copy with your audience. Use this space to educate your following about your brand identity and encourage them to check out your services.
Instagram TV - Instagram is the new hub for long-form video content. If you aren’t utilizing this content then you are missing out!
Instagram Filters - Want to create a bespoke filter to advertise your brand? Creating an Instagram filter is an ingenious way to build brand awareness and add a playful touch to your marketing campaign!
Instagram Shopping - If you have a product or service, why not sell it directly from your Instagram page . This is a great way to put your products directly in front of your audience and make immediate sales.

Bonus Tip: Try A Paid Promotional Post

One way to counter losing followers on Instagram is by creating a paid promotional post, which guarantees to put your content in front of a new audience! By tailoring a bespoke target demographic audience, you can create sponsored posts that directly target accounts that should be following you! This is the best way to expand your reach and maximize your growth potential!

Don’t Be Disappointed if You're Losing Followers on Instagram

If you do find yourself losing followers on Instagram, my biggest advice to you would be to not get disheartened. With the ever-evolving algorithm changes, there are so many reasons that you might experience a follower lull - it happens to the best of us! Instead of being discouraged, focus your energy on researching and exploring whether other accounts are experiencing a similar issue. The chances are, it isn't you - it’s them!

Part of the joy of a platform like Instagram is committing to the changes, the research, and the calibration involved in creating a marketing strategy that is adaptable to weather through these kinds of changes!

Searching for all things Instagram when it comes to your business? Check out our blogs about How to Make Money on Instagram and 6 Things That Are Killing Your Instagram Posts .

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A Guide to Creating a Minimalist House

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 13:00:02 GMT

If you’ve followed our family’s journey for any extent of time, you’ll know that three years ago we packed up our life in Texas, dramatically downscaled, and spent two years living as a family on a converted school bus, affectionately known as The Skoolie . Since then, we’ve been renovating our dream minimalist house here in Northern California.

Choosing to live minimally has been a wild adventure - especially as parents! We often get asked for our advice about how to create a minimalist house - and I think it is important to note that minimalism is not only a lifestyle it's a practice.

It is rhythm - one that takes time (and practice!) to evolve into. If you are looking to create a minimalist home, then our hope is that this blog can pinpoint you through some of our key takeaways and learnings from our own process!

What Is Minimalism

Minimalism is a practice of intentionality. It is a commitment to live simple, with an awareness of one’s possessions and their necessity. In terms of living decor, designing a dream minimalist house became popular in the late 1950s. However, the reality is that the concept of living minimally is an ancient practice - one that we see in early Buddhist and Christian monastic traditions, where men would live in scarcity, within the bare necessity of need!

Nowadays, creating a minimalist house has been popularized by tidy-experts who demonstrate an enviable care for detail, simplicity, and clean countertops through the inspiring home improvement methods of Marie Kondo and The Home Edit , making dreamy, uber-minimal homes feel within reach!

Creating a Minimalist Home: The Steps

Undergoing a minimalist house make-over is no simple feat! It takes time, it takes dedication, and it takes a commitment to scaling down and saying goodbye to items that one might otherwise have deemed essential.

Step One: Start With Furniture

In taking the steps into minimalism, it can be easy to start with a manic process of decluttering: diving in head first and rummaging through every box in your attic; sifting through one’s clothes and saying an enthusiastic farewell to every item at the back of your shelves; wading through the boxes of nostalgia and throwing out old knick knacks, old pieces of paperwork, old artwork that the kids did years ago…. And after a few days you come to the surface and realize just how looming and large the act of decluttering truly is. It can be overwhelming - trust me, I’ve been there!

Here is my advice: start with your furniture. Rather than scrutinizing every old box in your basement, start with the largest pieces in your house. The furniture. The things that occupy the most space. The statement pieces. Analyze them. Ask yourself: ‘Does this item serve a specific purpose in the room? Is it truly necessary… or have I just grown used to it?'

One of the boldest decisions you’ll make in creating your minimalist house is to scale down your furniture. Use tools such as Facebook Marketplace, Offerup, and Craigslist to sell some of your furniture - you might end up making a healthy sum of money that you can put back into your minimalist decorations.

After scaling down your furniture to the key, essential pieces, you’ll already see a heartening improvement towards your minimalist home! Soon you’ll be appreciating floorspace you didn’t know you had - and the most daunting step in the minimalist process will be over!

Step Two: Clear Your Surfaces

The next step in the minimalist process is to clear away all the clutter that builds up on your surfaces. The key to this process is by finding strategic storage places for those items that end up occupying space on your counter tops.

Start with your kitchen. What can be put away in your cupboards and drawers? If you have a juicer, a nutribullet, a crock pot, and a magi-mix all taking up space on your kitchen counters, ask yourself whether you truly need to keep all of these individual gadgets, or whether you might be able to store (or get rid of) some of the pieces that you use less frequently!

Step Three: Create Strategic Storage Solutions!

The key to clearing your surfaces, is to build strategic storage solutions to get those objects out of sight and out of mind!

Over the course of a week, try to take a mental inventory of your house. What are those bits and bobs that always seem to wind their way onto your surfaces. Perhaps it is the car keys that get thrown onto a side table: consider getting some key hooks nailed into the wall by your front door in order to store these tidily. Perhaps it is newspapers and magazines that somehow find themselves spread across the kitchen table: consider a small paper basket to store those neatly and intentionally.

Step Four: Finding Decor For Your Minimalist House

As we ventured further down the road to minimalism, we found that our style and taste in decor was naturally changing and evolving. The more we stripped back and leaned into simplicity, the more we became attracted to sleek and clean works of art and decor details.

In step four, you want to do a thorough comb-through of your house. What are the ornaments and objects that don’t serve a specific purpose. You might not want to get rid of anything: there may be items that have sentimental or nostalgic value. Create a system of storing the items that you might be thankful for in the future and be prepared to rid yourself of some of those ornaments you’ve gotten accustomed to, but don’t necessarily serve any purpose to your living arrangement.

Try and practice a strict rule. Say "no" to buying yet more candles and more plants. Invest in Kindles for the family, and take your reading digital, rather than buying more hard copy books, magazines, and newspapers.

Step Five: A Minimalist House Calls For A Minimalist Color Scheme

Your minimalist house should not only be minimal in terms of the amount of ‘stuff’ that you fill it with, but minimalism will ultimately impact your entire home design. Most minimalist houses, such as ours, lean into soft or muted color schemes. You might notice that our whole family dresses in monochrome: this is a highly strategic decision - one that came from our days on the Skoolie, where each of us had a designated ‘clothing capsule’ of clothes to wear. Keeping a monochromatic color scheme helped to simplify our look - and keeps our closets looking beautiful and uniform.

Try to limit yourself with a centralized color scheme. Consider 2 to 3 core colors, and an accent color for a pop of flare. If you are investing in new pieces for the house, if you are painting a room, purchasing new cushion covers, or hanging new curtains - ensure that you keep strictly within your color palette in order to create a clean and cohesive design that runs throughout your entire home! This is the cherry on top of the minimalist cake!

Start Creating Your Minimalist Oasis Today!

Creating our dream minimalist house has been the project of a lifetime. Waking up in a home that is simple, clean, and mess-free has profound impacts on one’s stress levels. Many people express feeling such a freedom when they commit to living minimally - and I know exactly what they mean! The process has been a gift to our family - one I am so grateful for and would recommend to ANYONE who is curious to try it!

Now that you know how to create a minimalist home, check out our blog: A Minimalist Lifestyle: 6 Things You Need to Know for everything you need to know for pursuing a minimalist lifestyle!

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Our Modern Small Kitchen Remodel

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 13:00:03 GMT

When we first moved into our home in Northern California, we couldn’t wait to make our mark on it! Undergoing a small kitchen remodel was a key part of my agenda - and I can’t believe the transformation that we were able to pull off! This has been a wild and wonderful season for us: balancing our four kids, our business, and a home remodeling project - all in the middle of a pandemic - has been no easy feat.

But this will always be a season that I’ll look back on with such pride and such a huge sense of accomplishment!

What We Were Working With...

In order to understand the extent of this project, you need to understand what the kitchen was like when we bought it. We loved the house from the get-go - it was the perfect size, the garden was a hidden oasis (complete with an orange tree), and it was brimming with potential!

There was a cute old fashioned stove, and quaint tiles around the countertops. We love that we get to live in a home with so much history, but it certainly didn’t feel very ‘us’. We also knew that space was a priority! After two full years of living on the Skoolie , our dream was to have an open-plan kitchen, living room, and dining area so we knew we were committing to some demolition work to see our small kitchen remodel dreams come to life!

Small Kitchen Remodel: Open Space

We ended up knocking down two of the four walls of the kitchen in order to create a beautiful open plan area. With the addition of our breakfast bar countertop, the kitchen still has the illusion of feeling separate from the living space - but I love that I can chat with the kids about their days at school while we cook a meal together in the evening. We have managed to create a bright, open space that feels warm and welcoming. It is everything I had imagined!

Since we’re living in an older home, we needed to work around the infrastructure of the house that already existed. We married the old with the new - for example, did you know that we blended original hardwood with new wood in our kitchen? With a little bit of Pinterest inspiration , I started to dream up ways that we could incorporate a new beam structure into our breakfast bar.

Our Pine Beam Process

The pine post is one of my favorite elements of the kitchen. It feels natural, earthy, and pure amid our modern white decor. I love this juxtaposition - it feels so characterful and so true to who we are as a family of adventurers!

It wasn’t an easy process by any means! It was important to us that the pine beam meshed well with the white washed red oak floor boards. If you follow us on Instagram then you would have been well aware of this process. We even invited our audience to help give us feedback through the polls - this was HUGE in helping us hone in on making decisions. Sometimes remodeling can get overwhelming and Instagram helped make the experience interactive and communal every step of the way!

Finishing the raw wood beam was a 3 step process.

We had to make sure that the wood was duly cleaned.
We needed to stain the wood to take down the color tone. We settled on using Minwax USA golden oak, since it wasn’t too orangey, and it kept the white / grey tone of the pine that we loved.
The final stage was the sealing. We did so with Minwax white wash pickling in a thick layer over the top of the stain.

I love our beam. It isn’t perfect: if you look closely you can catch grey stains and freckles that didn't come out in the soap or sanding processes. But we’ve learned how to lean into a “done is better than perfect” attitude with our remodel. We aren’t professional renovators. Choosing to do this ourselves meant choosing to say ‘yes’ to imperfections along the way. We’re just grateful for the opportunity and experience to truly make our house a home.

Our Concrete Countertops

Embracing our minimalist, modern look has been key to the process of our renovation. Our concrete master bathroom is one of my favorite rooms in the house, and I love that we chose to nod to the concrete theme in our small kitchen remodel too! By this point in the renovation, Gabriel and I were concrete experts - and I’m so proud at what we have been able to accomplish.

The Breakfast Bar

Creating our breakfast bar was one of the most high-risk and exciting moments of the entire process. We initially constructed beams and frames in the shape of our countertop, which would serve as the moulds for the countertops themselves. Each side had a one inch overhang that would allow us to create beautiful, straight, sharp corners! The forms were lined with a thin fiber-glass mesh and horizontal rebars that helped to create a structure that holds the concrete together (and ultimately prevents it from cracking).

We then covered the entire kitchen in plastic to make sure that every surface was safe before we started the process of pouring the concrete. We used Kwikrete Concrete, which was a system from Z Countertop (two friends of ours had actually recommended these to us!).

This was another three part process. One that Gabriel and I tag-teamed over two long and exhausting evenings while the children were asleep. These are the stages:

Screed - This involves using a leveler to push and pull the concrete so that it is smoothed into a straight surface top. It's okay to still have bumps and small divots at this point in the process.
Floating - We used a magnesium float for this portion of work. It is a flattening technique for when the concrete is nearly dry.
Steel Trowel Finish - This is the final step in the process, and will make the concrete beautifully shiny and smooth. This is the final opportunity to make sure that there are zero lumps and bumps! (Tip: Make sure that you are regularly cleaning your trowel off so that you get the full effect of the smoothing!).

The concrete countertops took two full days to dry. This process was fascinating - we were watching eagerly as the concrete was settling into the stunning pale color that we wanted. We could literally see the impact of the heat throughout the house affecting the drying rate of various sections.

Once dry, the slabs could be sanded and sealed, after which we were able to take off the forms and stands and let the countertop stand freely. To say I was nervous was an understatement! The sense of pride and achievement when we took the final stand off, and the counter top was suddenly very real in front of us, was stunning! Despite the stress and the intensity of the hard work, this was such a pivotal and key project for Gabriel and I.

Once the forms were off, we went about a final process of sanding off the concrete, and filling any tiny air bubble holes that had appeared on the counter top sides with small rubs of excess concrete to make them less noticeable.

Our Small Kitchen Remodel: Final Details

Hanging Shelves

Our family’s style is truly minimalist. We love simple, elegant objects, in muted or monochrome colors. This was true on the Skoolie, it is true of our fashion sense, and it is absolutely true in our new home!

One detail that I absolutely love in our small kitchen remodel are our floating shelves. Initially, when we first put the hanging shelves up, I was a little freaked out. They were a later addition, and I had got so used to the space above the sink being clean and bare. Now, I’ve come to love them. They are the perfect height, super stylish, and they help keep our clutter up and out of eye line, which makes the kitchen feel clean and open at all times!

Cabinets

We built our cabinets out ourselves. This was an exhausting process, but one that I’m so grateful for. You might remember from our Instagram Stories, the painful measuring process, ensuring that every 45 degree angle was precise and that everything held together in a way that was perfectly aligned.

Faucets and Details

I’m a HUGE fan of Vigo sinks and faucets (you might remember that we had these on the Skoolie too!). They are sleek and stylish, and I adore the matte black finishings - this has been a common theme in our decor. Within our small kitchen remodel, I’m most pleased with our:

36 inch Vigo Sink
Matte black Vigo tap faucets
Our matte black silverware
Our beachy, alifornian light shades from Anthropologie
Our four blade matte black fan (This was a steal! Typically retailing for $200, but we found ours on sale on Amazon for $150!).
Our black aluminum Counter drawers

Biggest Lessons

Our open plan kitchen / living space is one of the most integral areas of the house. It is our key communal space. For this reason, it needed to be a space that we were proud of, and wanted to spend time in.

It truly is my favorite room in the house. It is a room I’m proud to host in. A room I love getting to sit around a table with my family in. A room I catch myself smiling in every morning as I make my coffee and start the day right. It is a room that I look forward to building many memories in. I can’t wait to celebrate birthdays in this space, to cook Thanksgiving meals, to host our visiting relatives, to watch the kids grow (until they’re old enough to be cooking dinner for me!).

And I love that Gabriel and I will always get to have the memories of creating this perfectly imperfect space together through the years to come. I don’t think I could have ever imagined our small kitchen remodel turning out so perfectly.

Ready to tackle your own home remodeling? Before you start, check out our recent blog: Home Remodeling: 7 Tips Before You Start!

Our Great American Road Trip!

Wed, 04 Nov 2020 13:00:02 GMT

Before the skoolie, life looked completely different for us. We were living in a 5000-square-foot house with Gabriel working multiple jobs and running on little sleep. We had filled our lives with “stuff” and spent our days cleaning and organizing all the stuff we had!

Our “stuff” had started to govern our lives and we became consumed with the idea of finding a way to escape it. And from that, our dream of a great American road trip was birthed...

A Change of Pace

Gabriel and I were trapped on the hamster-wheel of life. We had become really disconnected in our marriage and knew that if we weren’t happy as a couple there was no way that we could grow a healthy and happy family. We needed change, badly.

One day I saw a YouTube video of Expedition Happiness and instantly knew we would rock the tiny-house-on-wheels lifestyle. Gabriel was a little skeptical at first. We knew that part of the change we were after involved a move to Northern California and it seemed like an American road trip was the perfect way to get there!

We had a family meeting where we went over the pros and cons of living on the bus versus renting a ‘normal’ house. We told the kids they would have less clothes and toys but that they would gain traveling and seeing the country through an epic American road trip. They were all on board with making the decision to move onto the school bus and we hit the road!

Getting Ready for Our American Road Trip: Building the Skoolie

We quickly hired a company to build out our school bus and within 6 months it was complete! We debated on redoing an RV but because there were many things that we wanted in a floor plan, we knew that a custom-designed school bus was the right decision for our family.

The floor plan we laid out was different than any other bus that I had seen, which was the beauty in being able to design it ourselves. It was a fun process because it was like designing a house, except I could pick out the most expensive upgrades because we only needed a tiny amount of it!

Besides the physical preparation of getting the Skoolie ready, we needed to get our business in order so that we could take it on the road with us! As digital marketing experts, Gabriel and I are lucky to have a line of work that doesn’t require a specific geographical location. The beauty of digital work is that since it is virtual, we can handle it all remotely. Check out our blog How To Make Money On The Road to learn more about how we managed to generate a sustainable income while traveling!

Getting Through Disappointment

Having someone else build the bus was tricky because we had to have faith that they were building it the way we wanted it, and we wouldn’t know until we picked it up to drive it home! There wasn’t much time for changes after that point and this ended up being one of our biggest mistakes.

The company we hired was relatively new and there were a lot of mistakes that were made in the build that we didn’t know about until further down the line. If we were to do this whole journey over again, we would’ve definitely given ourselves more time to check out potential problems with the bus and have the company fix them before we drove away.

When we got the bus back to Oklahoma, we realized that the right brake light and blinker were broken and the toilet and hot water were not connected. Not the ideal start to an American road trip! On top of that, the Skoolie had botched plumbing and a leaky roof! We got those things patched up enough to drive, but within hours we broke down on the side of the road!

We ended up spending three days living in a diesel garage while they fixed the engine. While we were living on our skoolie in the repair shop, unbeknownst to us, our sewage tank filled to capacity and began to leak out into our living space! Somehow, though, nothing could dampen our excitement of traveling to California! This was all a part of the great American road trip. We were having issues and tackling new problems, but at least we were doing it together !

Building Connection

The best thing about living on the bus was how connected our family became. We used to find ourselves all spending time in different rooms of the house, but on the bus the kids would read to each other in their bunks, go on biking adventures, and we’d all curl up together on the couch and watch movies.

Being in such a tiny space can be stressful, but we had so many more opportunities to talk things through and connect. If a kid had a rough day at school I could see it because they were only ever a few feet away. When we were in a big house, they would go off to the playroom and I would never know that anything was wrong.

Life became so much simpler. Stuff was not as important to us and we spent much more time outside and having fun experiences as a family. We became more in tune with our emotions and the emotions of the other members of our family. We were also able to use our time on the Skoolie to get out of debt and save money so that we could build our forever home.

The main struggle we faced was the difficulty of having friends over for dinner. We love to host other people but trying to add four more people to our already tiny space was tricky, so we found ourselves going out to dinner with our friends instead.

Our Biggest Lesson

People think that we must have been so brave to go on an our own American road trip with four children, but we actually felt so blessed to have had this season in the Skoolie. It taught us so much about who we are and what is important to us as a family. The benefit of getting rid of all the other distractions in our lives has allowed us to focus on enjoying the small pleasures in life and choosing each other over our possessions.

If I could give any advice to someone wanting to switch up their life completely, I would just tell them to start! Do not waste time worrying about what other people will think or if everything is perfectly planned. We get so many emails and DM's from people who are miserable with their current life and want to do something similar and there is always a BUT (a well-paying job they can't leave, a family that disagrees, etc.). I say, if you are unhappy with where you are at, you are only ONE decision away from changing everything and you will find so much freedom when you start living your life the way YOU feel called to live it!

Loving the idea of living on a skoolie or a great American road trip? Check out what life on the skoolie was like from the very beginning !

How to Make Money on the Road (Living on a Skoolie)

Wed, 21 Oct 2020 12:00:02 GMT

Before our life took off in the Skoolie, I used to get so inspired by other individuals, like Expedition Happiness, living their road trip dream.

It can be easy to scroll through an Instagram like ours when we were traveling, and think, wow - it must be fun to be on full time vacation! But that was so far from the reality of our experience. We would never have been able to venture out in our Skoolie if we hadn’t learned how to make money on the road.

Why Learn How To Make Money On The Road?

Do you have the travel bug? That itch? That yearning? To experience the world and get moving in life? Do any of the following thoughts resonate with you:

You want to sell everything, live on the road and go on an adventure but you have no idea how it could all work.
You’re tired of the daily 9-5 grind and you want out ASAP!
There’s a dream house you’re wanting to make a down payment on and need cash!
You see others doing the things you’ve only dreamed of doing and you want to know how in the heck they’re doing it.

Perfect! This article is for you. We spend way too much time dreaming the dream rather than living it. In this blog, we want to get you set up with all of the practicalities so that you can start acting on your dreams right now.

3 Top Tips to Discover How to Make Money on the Road

We want to share with you some of our most valuable tips for making money on the road. Without these, we would never have been able to give a full YES to the skoolie lifestyle!

The reality is, there is no such thing as a ‘get rich quick’ program. But, there are ways to set up sustainable and manageable streams of income that you can manage while living a remote lifestyle on the road. In this blog we’re going to discuss:

Creating an online business as a service.
Creating and selling a physical or digital product online.
Affiliate / Network Marketing.

How to Make Money on the Road #1: Create an Online Business that Offers a Service

When we were on the road, we ran a business called (drumroll): Site Metropolis. The basic premise was that we offered our services to small cities and businesses and helped to revamp their websites. We discovered that there were tens of thousands of bad websites out there in need of a makeover - which was exactly our expertise!

We brought our design skills to old, clunky, city websites, and brought a fresh flavor to their sites. Check out The City of Blackwell and The City of Fairview - we brought that sophisticated Mayes Team touch and revived these websites back to life! It was a touch of genius on our end and here's why: life on the road meant endlessly passing through small and random cities. This gave us plenty of inspiration to research small cities, find the ones with a clunky, ancient website, and pitch them our services. We found our niche and we were truly going for it!

We started the business in September 2016, and pulled in $83,309 in our first year! And the brilliant thing about web design as a service is that over time, you are bound to need maintenance and modernization. That meant that we were creating long term, sustainable customers every time we scored a new client!

How to Make Money on the Road #2: Sell a Physical or Digital Product Online

Do you have a talent? A hobby? A skill?

Something you could package or teach? Perfect, then you are qualified for this. If you’ve followed us for awhile, then you’ll know that Gabriel and I are passionate about teaching folks how to get found online by boosting their local SEO.

This is a real skill for us. It's something we have mastered first-hand and have a wealth of experience with that we realized could be packaged and sold to other young businesses that were looking to grow.

So, I set out to record myself teaching all the best practice SEO tips! I created an online course that we could sell as a digital product. Our original course was called Photographer Local , and you can still check out the website.

It is one thing to have a skill and film a course, but it is another thing to take that course and know how to make money on the road. This is where ClickFunnels came into the picture. We bought an account with ClickFunnels and hosted our course on their platform. They function via a membership program, where you can build your sales page and offer your course to an audience within your niche.

Next, we attached an online merchant service so that we were set up to receive payments online.

Once we advertised the course to our email list of subscribers, we were in motion! The rest is history.

E ven though we're no longer on the bus, we've stayed in the game of offering digital courses. We love this side of our business. If you've never taken one of our courses, now would be a great time to check out our Instagram Master Class! Of all our courses, this is one of my absolute favorites - and if you are looking to learn more about the ins and outs of earning money via your social media accounts, then taking this course is a no-brainer!

How to Make Money on the Road #3: Brand Relationships

Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs are a great way to create a second or third income stream. We’ve partnered with some amazing products and software companies to represent their brands - and we get paid for doing it!

Did you follow the link above to check out ClickFunnels? Well, if you did, then you’ve already experienced an affiliate link first hand! ClickFunnels pays us 40% of the monthly recurring revenue from each person that signs up for their services as a result of our exposure to their business. Mathematically, this means that if 100 people pay $99/mo for ClickFunnels and we get 40% of that. Each and every month. That’s $3,960 of MRR.

Network Marketing

Network Marketing (also known as Multi-Level Marketing, MLM) is a perfect means if you are looking to learn how to make money on the road. You partner with products that you believe in and give a free sample of the product to someone. If they love it then they’ll buy it - and this repeats, again and again.

This is our criteria for choosing a product or business that we want to partner with:

It needs to be new. We don't want to join something that is already saturated.
The Recurring revenue or “comp-plan” needs to pay very well!
We look for a product that doesn't require someone to change their spending habits.
The product needs to be something we've used and believe in.
The product also needs to have a money-back guarantee.

If you think this is a good option for you, you can go to Google and search for network marketing companies and you’ll be sure to find all kinds of different products out there. There are a lot of really good ones to choose from!

Stop Sleeping on Your Dreams

We truly believe that ANYONE can learn how to make money on the road and say YES to a new and adventurous lifestyle. It's easier than you think. The upfront costs are manageable and once you’ve figured out how, you’ll have generated ongoing revenue streams that can last for years (trust us!).

How to Make Money on Instagram

Wed, 07 Oct 2020 11:58:15 GMT

If you’ve been following our family adventures since the Skoolie days, the likelihood is that you found us via our Instagram account @themayesteam ! When we downsized our house and took life (and our kids!) on the road in a converted school bus, we knew that this was the perfect platform to document the journey and share our adventures on.

But, for us, Instagram has always been about so much more than just photos and a visual aesthetic. Our business credibility and expertise as digital marketers rests on our ability to make money on Instagram. Today, we want to teach you how we do just that!

Three Ways That We Make Money on Instagram!

1. By Selling Products or Services That We’ve Created

The primary way that we, and many other online brands, make money on Instagram, is by selling products of services that we’ve created.

We’re digital marketers. That is the corner of the marketing industry that we have learned, studied, mastered - and our position as Instagram influencers who have first-hand experience in growing an audience enables us to credibly package and teach our tips of the trade, to help fellow online brands scale their businesses.

For us, this started organically. As our Instagram following blossomed, we’d receive more and more DMs, reach outs, and questions from our audience, wanting to know how they too could grow their following. We had discovered something that was highly desirable to people - the key to audience growth, and we soon realized that this was something that we could monetize. In our Instagram Masterclass , we equip people with the tools so that they can learn how to grow their follower audience to 10K in 90 days, just like we did!

We put effort into creating beautiful resources to package up our knowledge, and we began to monetize our online courses and classes. Initially, we started with two digital programs, our Creator Academy and The Van Layout Guide. As we (and the world of digital marketing) evolved and grew, we realized that we’d need to be constantly updating and elevating our material, hence the launch of our Brand Builders Workshop, our Masterclass , and more.

If you are looking to develop your own product or service to sell through your Instagram account, we’d encourage you to take the time to ponder what the top 3 questions that your audience wants to answer?

What are the areas of your particular market or niche that people are most curious about?

That information is valuable, and, when packaged correctly, is a product that can be sold.

2. Through Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is a brilliant way to make money on Instagram while you sleep! Through strategic promotional partnerships, you leverage your audience by directing them to specific brands and make a commission on the sales price. Many major corporations such as Amazon have an affiliate program that you can join and promote on your social channel, blog links, and website.

The key to affiliate marketing is to partner with brands that make sense for your audience. You want to build affiliate relationships in a way that makes sense, both for your business and for the demographic that you are targeting.

3. Through Paid Partnerships

Paid promotional partnerships are a brilliant way to make money on Instagram, by directly advertising products in your feed. The key is to collaborate with brands that suit your style, your aesthetic, your core values, and your business goals. If you are going to be putting your personal name behind a brand, you want to make sure that it is something you truly believe in!

From our experience on the road, we found that brands were far more likely to reach out for paid partnerships that involved a product exchange rather than being a directly paid service. With that being said, the opportunity to receive FREE products from brands that we LOVE is never something I want to pass up on!

We’ve learned how to navigate paid partnership offers and only say yes to ones that will truly benefit us (and our family).

4. Understand the Monetization Thresholds - And Grow Strategically

Different social platforms have different monetization thresholds. An example of this would be Youtube, where one can typically make $1 for every 1,000 views on your content. However, you need some numbers behind you in order to justify these benefits. The requirements for YouTube monetization are:

1,000 subscribers
4,000 watch hours

On Instagram and Twitter, the opportunity for branded partnerships are typically dependent on your follower count. Many brands are looking to build strategic partnerships with micro-influencers within their sphere or niche, that is, accounts with a follower count ranging between 1,000 - 100K.

5. Through Thoroughly Understanding the Platform

The best way to learn how to make money on Instagram is by thoroughly understanding the platform, and to ensure that you are implementing best value practices as you seek to grow your following.

If you are in need of a deep dive into all things Instagram, then our Instagram Masterclass is for you. At the time of the writing of this blog enrollment is open, so why not check us out today and take the first steps to transform your online business!? We’ll be sharing industry secrets and our personal strategy behind the following areas:

Measures for strategic growth including:
Ensuring your photo content is top quality.
Learning how to get the most out of hashtags.
Learning the best practices for posting.
Trade secrets about the Instagram app itself.
Lessons in engagement:
Understanding who your current followers are.
Strategically following others.
Getting the most out of your Instagram Stories.
Specifics about how to make money on Instagram:
Our personal secrets on how we make our bread and butter from Instagram.
Learning how to reach out to brands directly.
Everything you need to know about influencers and branding.
Baiting brands.
Promotion.
Scripts and media kits.

Learning how to make money on Instagram has been one of the most pivotal and important elements of our business. We owe so much to the app itself - not simply the ability to make money, but the gift it has been in helping us to build community and be able to connect directly to so many of you! We’re excited to see your brand take off and fly as you start to utilize these best practice tips and learn how to monetize your own account.

Interested in more tools that will make your business successful? We've got you covered! Check out our previous blog about the 3 tools every successful business has and so should you !

Home Remodeling: 7 Tips Before You Start

Wed, 23 Sep 2020 11:59:00 GMT

Since buying our home and fully committing to the art of home remodeling, I’ve been on a process of self-discovery.

I’ve discovered (once again) that I have the most uncomplaining family in the world. I’ve discovered that I have awesome friends who will drop their Saturday plans to help us clean our fence or pool. I’ve discovered that I have a passion for hosting and curating spaces that I can gather my community in. But I’ve also learned some serious renovation realities the hard way: I’ve learned that you really can’t skimp on a pergola roof and that sticking to your budget can be so challenging!

Before You Even Lift a Finger:

1. Where Will You Live During Your Home Remodeling?

As a mother of a pack of children who value adventure and play, living through a renovation has come with its challenges. While each family comes with unique and specific needs, it is vital that you consider the reality of living off-site vs. on-site during your renovation.

Knowing whether you can handle family life surrounded by the chaos of a building site, is crucial. The reality might well be that you need to consider housing with a friend, or renting a long-term Air BnB to accommodate you throughout the duration of the project.

2. Create A Realistic Budget

Creating a budget that accommodates your renovation realities can be tricky. It requires some scrutiny and foresight, to ensure that you are accounting for any plausible contingencies. Check out our article “Renovating on a Budget (8 Tips)“ for more information!

3. Is Demolition Your Strong Suit?

Depending on the scale of your home remodeling project, it is likely going to involve some demolition work. The question is - are you up to the challenge?! One of my most eye-opening renovation realities was realizing that I absolutely LOVE a sledgehammer. Who knew - it turns out that I completely thrive in demolition work. Maybe there is something cathartic about it…. (You might want to consider looking into construction insurance before you take any hasty steps though!)

That said, it certainly isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and there is absolutely no shame in that. If you choose to bring in contractors to help you break ground, but handle the rest of the home remodeling as a DIY venture, you won’t have lost any respect in my book!

Home Remodeling: Our Most Valued Lessons

1. Commit To Becoming A DIY Student

One of the most joyful elements of our DIY project has been the opportunity to challenge me and push my boundaries by learning new skills. I had to fully dedicate myself and commit to becoming a student of my project.

I bought the books. I made the Pinterest boards. I watched the Youtube tutorials. If there was a DIY show, you bet I was watching it. I feasted on every resource available to me and empowered myself to become an expert in DIY construction in just a few short months.

2. Make Sure You Understand Your Permits

This might seem like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised how many people make groundwork on their dream construction projects, only to have their work shut down after a few days.

We live in Northern California, an area with severe weather conditions (seriously, we can push 110 degrees in the Summer, yet sometimes have snow on the ground during winter). Our California permits tend to be weather and terrain-related - and since we’re still new to the State, we’ve actually found them to be invaluably helpful!

3. Find The Right Tools

Preparation is everything! As an Enneagram 5, I have the preparation part dialed by now! But let’s not forget the time that I glued our door number on, in place of finding the right hammer and nails...

While I got lucky in that instance, my biggest advice to you would be to limit your risks, do your research, and invest in the appropriate tools to get the job done!

4. Find Creative Shortcuts

Finding creative shortcuts has been one of the most life-giving and fun elements of undergoing our home remodeling project. We have a wooden fence that encircles our pool area. This fence is old! We’re talking stained, grubby, and covered in a layer of unattractive grime. It was doing our yard no favors.

I was stomaching the cost of a new fence as one of the unfortunate unforeseen costs of our home remodeling project - and, frankly, was daunted at the prospect of spending a couple of grand on a new fence. I decided to get my creative juices flowing. I dreamt a little. Dallied around on the internet. Called a couple of friends. And managed to get my hands on a power washer.

After a full Saturday of fun (I let Gabriel take the lead in getting absolutely drenched by the soaker!), we had managed to totally transform our fence , powering through the grime, and restoring it to something fresh and beautiful.

There Is No Such Thing As Over Prepared

One of the biggest renovation realities that I can bestow to you during a home remodeling is, there is no such thing as over preparation. The more time and careful planning that you can put into your upfront prep, the more you eliminate the potential reality of unplanned costs and unexpected hindrances in the future. Plan through as many details as you can. Give yourself a realistic timeline, with room for hiccups and plot twists! Do the research, seek advice, and don’t stop asking questions.

Thinking you want to tackle home remodeling but have a few more questions? Feel free to reach out to us here or leave a comment below!

Traffic Hacking Your Competition (use this cheat sheet)

Wed, 09 Sep 2020 12:23:32 GMT

If you are new to the concept of traffic hacking, then have no fear. Today we’re going to take a deep dive into exactly what this term means and how to get started. Trust me, it’s not as scary as it sounds!

Make It Happen

We have an expression in our household. A mantra, if you will: Make. It. Happen.

For years, we’ve been throwing around this phrase and using it to motivate our kids and ourselves. We care about getting started, about giving things a shot, and about valuing experience over perfectionism. Have we ever told you about the time I proposed to Debbie? Wow - that truly was a Make It Happen moment!

Debbie and I had been dating throughout college. Since she was an international student from England, by the time graduation rolled around, the pressure was on to find a way to keep her in America. Either we were going to need to do long distance or Debbie and I needed to get married and continue building our life together! I knew Debbie was the woman that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, so I knew that this was a KEY Make It Happen moment for our relationship.

So, I went full throttle into a crazy plan. I did my research, recruiting some of her close girlfriends to find out exactly what Debbie would want in a dream wedding. I bought a dress. Bought rings. I flew her Mum out from England. Then I got down on one knee and proposed.

Thank goodness - she said YES (Come on!) - and then I presented her with an envelope that contained an invitation to her own wedding, which I had planned to be just three days later. Can you imagine that?? Debbie was in for the wild adventure and we ended up getting married later that week.

I share this because I want to empower you to go for it. Take the risks. Shoot your shots. If you’re diving into our content and materials, but you are still not putting these principles into practice for your brand, then we’ve failed you.

We want you to ‘make it happen’ - don’t be afraid to get it wrong, just take the first step and start building that momentum. You’ve got this!

Hacking Traffic 101: When to Start

Have you built a brand ? A website? Got a lead magnet on your website homepag e? Are you starting to build out your email address and build up a warm audience?

Perfect. Now it is time to start traffic hacking.

The aim is that once you ‘make it happen’ and build the infrastructure of your brand, your business can start generating an audience by being discovered organically. Once you’re in motion and being discovered, you will literally start making money in your sleep. Just this morning Debbie and I have already passively made $2000 - why? Because we’ve learned the tools necessary to hack traffic.

What Constitutes as Organic Traffic?

Organic traffic is the ultimate aim here. Where paid traffic is driven by paid ads and promotions, organic traffic is the audience that genuinely and organically finds you. It is the audience who might be using Google to find a product or business service similar to yours and find you in the process. You want to be getting found, all the time, based on your specific industry niche.

At the end of the day, the more traffic you generate, the higher the value of your website. During the last year, Debbie and I haven’t paid for any traffic to our site, again, because we have learned the art of hacking traffic.

What Do I Need To Start Traffic Hacking

Let’s start with the basics: What is a ‘Hack’? The definition is ‘to gain of unauthorized access to data in a system or computer’.

When we talk about traffic hacking, we’re not talking about illegal activity. Rather, this is the appropriate way to tap into a competitor’s audience and get your business in front of theirs. The process entails discovering who your direct competitors are, discovering where their traffic flows from, and intersecting their traffic to your page rather than theirs. Consider it more a process of diverting traffic, rather than ‘hacking’ it...

Let’s dive into the three core steps you need to take in order to start traffic hacking:

You need to determine who your competitors are.
You need to find out how they are getting traffic and then hack it.
You need to create your cheat sheet.

Determine Your Competition

As long as the internet exists, there will always be a flow of traffic. You just need to work out where it is. The first step in this process is to determine your competition. Here are our golden rules of what NOT to do:

Do Not Use Your Own Mind.

This sounds crazy, but hear us out. If you’ve been developing your brand for a while, you might have a rough gauge of who your competitors are. You’ll be aware of similar products or services within your niche. You’ll have a rough idea of where you stand in relation to those brands.

However, when it comes to hacking traffic, we’re not interested in who your market competition is, instead, we’re concentrating on who your SEO competition is. In short: who ranks higher than you for a particular Google search.

Think of a keyword or phrase in your niche. Something that describes your business. Something that your audience might Google, in order to organically find your brand. Okay, got something in mind?

Now, Google that phrase. Where does your website currently rank? See those top searches in the highlighted box at the top of the search page. You’ll notice that these are ads, meaning that these are brands that are paying to be strategically placed at the top of that keyword search. These are not your organic competition. Your organic competitors are going to be the first three or four websites that rank under this ad box.

Find Out Where The Traffic For Your Number One Competitor Is Coming From.

Now that you’ve identified your top competitor, it is time to investigate where their traffic flow comes from. For this, I use a tool called SEMrush.c om. SEMrush has a monthly fee, but I highly recommend trying out their 7-day trial. It shouldn’t take you more than 7 days to get all of your research in order, anyway.

When you put the URL of your top competitor into SEMrush.com, the tool draws up an overview of their organic searches and their backlinks. It is an amazing and thorough examination of exactly what their organic traffic looks like. You are going to want to focus in on what keywords or phrases they have been using on their page that is bringing them the most web traffic.

Create a Cheat Sheet.

Build out a cheat sheet that lists every significant keyword on your competitor’s website. The most valuable keywords or phrases are those that are:

High in volume
Low in competition

Finding keywords that are low in the competition is crucial! If a word is low in competition it typically means that your competitors aren’t utilizing it much. This means that if you start to incorporate this word into your website, you’re going to start appealing to the Google algorithm and potentially ranking higher.

Competition is ranked 0 - 10 (0.0 - 1.0) so if the competition is at a 0.5 then it is fairly hard but not impossible to beat. If it is at 0.8 then there is literally no point using the keyword since it is going to be SO competitive (and crowded out by websites that are using ads to target it!).

Ideally, you want your cheat sheet to only list words with a competitive rating of 0.20 or less.

Using Your Competition Research To Hack Traffic

But what is this all for, I hear you say! Good question. The reason behind this research is that you are strategically mapping out how best to use SEO and bolster your Google ranking. Goggle doesn’t take you to a website, it takes you to a specific page within a website. This means that you need to take your keyword and use it all over your specific page and make that page an authority for that particular keyword.

For best in class SEO performance, try to use your keyword in all of the following places within your webpage:

Page title
Page description
Menu
You’ll notice that our Mayes Team website menu contains the word ‘Skoolie’ is the keyword that we were trying to go after!
H1 Title + H2 Titles
One of our main features of Maisey is that our text widgets tactfully use H2 titles, to help you place your keywords into the page in a way that makes sense.
First Sentence
Image Alt Text

The trick to using keywords is to weave them into your copy in a way that feels as natural as possible. Google can tell when brands are trying to spam their pages with keywords. We also know that Google’s ranking values freshness. This means it is important to continuously update your website and make changes (tweaks to your images or copy) in order to improve your domain authority. Finally, be sure to get your website SSL certificate installed!

Building Your Look-Alike Audience

Have you ever viewed a product on a website? Maybe you’ve been browsing clothes. Maybe you added some to a cart, but never went through with the payment. Then, have you ever had these exact products appear as an ad on your Facebook or Instagram feed? Funny, huh?

Your online movement is being constantly tracked, in order that companies might be able to present the most appropriate products possible to you. The reason that brands you’ve been exploring can gather information about your browsing habits, is due to Pixel.

Now, as a business, imagine how powerful it would be if you could gather information from every browser that came to your website, in order to target them later down the line. It would be great right? You know they are a warm audience because they’ve already shown interest in your website. Now, imagine that you could pull the information of a look-a-like audience - one with the exact same user habits as your current audience base, who hasn’t yet discovered your business.

This is what a Pixel does. It finds audiences that are just like yours, and it puts your product in front of them. Here is what you need to do to install a Pixel into your website:

Go to Facebook.
Create a business manager profile for your business.
Create a Pixel.
Install this Pixel into your Maisey website.
You’re going to manually install the Pixel code, and place this in the website header. Then go to your settings within Maisey, and edit your Header HTML with this Pixel code. Super simple.

Once you’ve done that, people are going to start visiting your website, and your Pixel is going to snatch and store that web-visitors information. You can then mirror this group: Mirror their demographic (their age, location, internet user habits) and get your business in front of an audience that has not yet discovered it.

The beauty of this is that it means you never need to pay to put your business in front of cold leads ever again. Since this look-a-like audience is already warmed up to similar products, they are far more likely to make a purchase. It is perfect!

Coming In To Land

This has been a lot of information. But I cannot emphasize enough how learning the basics of traffic hacking is going to revolutionize your business.

Don’t be overwhelmed.

Remember that all you need to do is to ‘Make It Happen’!

You’ve got this.

Looking for more inspiration for growing your business? Check out our blogs about How to Make Lead Magnet Landing Pages in Just Ten Minutes and How to Build A Product that Will Make You Over $100K in Online Business .

Renovating on a Budget (8 Tips)

Tue, 01 Sep 2020 12:00:02 GMT

If you follow us on Instagram, then you’ll know that this year we have been renovating our house in Northern California. It has been a full-on adventure and a mammoth project. It has taken teamwork, it has taken a lot of late nights, it has taken enthusiasm from helpful friends who have surrendered their Saturdays to get involved, and it has been a whole lot of fun! We’ve been able to complete our renovation on a budget and are amazed at how cost-effective the process has been!

If you have the resources to make your renovation project fully DIY, then we cannot recommend it enough! In our experience, not only have we saved money, but we’ve been able to gain incredible new skills, been able to learn, been able to overcome new challenges - and commit to doing so altogether as a family. We’re going to look back at this house in years to come and know what a labor of love it was. Every room and detail is already filled with memories - and we’re so proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish!

Planning Your Renovation On A Budget

Here are our top tips on how to complete your own renovation on a budget. From your pre-planning stages, all the way through to the finishing touches, these thoughts should inspire you to scrutinize every cost and always make the effort to find cheaper and more cost-efficient alternatives where possible.

1. Create A Realistic Budget, And Stick To It!

Making a budget is a two-part process... There’s the making it, and then there’s the sticking to it! The latter is easier said than done, but staying accountable to your budget is going to be one of the most important elements of your renovation.

When it comes to drawing up a budget, research is key! I’m a natural researcher, so for me it became almost second nature to spend hours on HomeAdvisor , making price comparisons and ensuring that we were always choosing the most cost-effective route to build our future vision.

2. Create a Plan, And Stick To It!

Fulfilling a renovation on a budget takes more than a financial plan.. it takes a well thought out plan! For instance:

What is the aim of this project?
What are all the details you need to configure?
Are there any areas that you would be willing to compromise on?
Outline these now and STICK TO THEM ! Compromise is going to be the biggest threat to managing your budget!
What would you be willing to splurge on?
Have you factored contingencies into your budget?
Realistically, what can you DIY?
Have you outweighed the cost of various models and brands when it comes to features and finishes?
If you are undergoing a thorough renovation that might impact your bathrooms, kitchens, and sleeping areas, have you considered the cost of finding an alternative temporary housing solution until the work is finished?
Have you weighed out multiple contractor bids to ensure that you’re working with the right people to support your vision and financial plan.

3. Small Changes Go A Long Way

That is absolutely right! While your head might know that you’re trying to achieve a renovation on a budget, the heart can often desire to max out on HUGE and dramatic changes. But why go full demolition on your house, when a lick of paint and a few new additional features might be just the transformation that you are looking for!

Create a linear list of all your dream renovations and order them in terms of size, ease, and cost. Start small. Start by revamping the more discrete (and likely cheaper!) details, and see where that takes you. Small changes can go a long way, and you might find that making a manageable change, such as changing out your cabinet hardware, might be just the facelift that your kitchen needed!

4. Expansion Isn’t Always Worth The Cost: Bright and White!

One of the primary reasons for desiring a renovation is to expand your property. We get the appeal! Creating open spaces really can have a huge impact on your property. As a family who has chosen to live minimally for the last few years, we can speak from experience that space isn’t everything! It is what you do with that space that matters!

The key is using your space to create a home that feels light, bright, and open - and never claustrophobic! Rather than starting from scratch, we chose to give our house exterior a coat of white paint to give it new elegance and serious curb appeal. Our walls are white and we’ve used our windows and mirrors strategically to cultivate a space that feels far more airy and open than it actually is. Let me tell you, a bucket of white paint is far cheaper than knocking down a wall!

5. Think About Long Term Benefits

You’ve got to factor your long term resale plan into your budget.

If this is your first time budgeting for a renovation, then HomeAdvisor has some great tips. They recommend the 5-15% rule as “the gold standard in helping homeowners estimate and budget the correct amount for remodels”. This means the entire cost of the remodel should be somewhere in the range of 5-15% of the cost of the entire house, in order to hit the sweet spot of inflating the resulting home value.

6. Respect The Infrastructure

If you really want to do a renovation on a budget you’ll think twice about doing demolition work on your core infrastructure. Consider the inner workings of your property. How can you work around the water piping and electrical wiring? If you can compromise by working around these details, you will save yourself a great deal of money (and hassle!).

We had a great example of this in our renovation. We discovered that three different types of concrete had been used in our outdoor patio and pool area, making it three different colors! I first thought this was going to need an entire demolition and re-pour to resolve, but we soon realized that we could repaint the concrete for a super-efficient solution!

Sometimes the most cost-effective might be temporary. You might want to seek inspiration from rental solutions, such as installing floor installation OVER carpet and peel and stick temporary wallpaper .

7. Upcycle and Recycle

Rather than buying all of your materials afresh, why not try re-cycling and up-cycling second-hand materials. Check out your local Habitat for Humanity ‘ReStore’ and you’ll find a whole heap of homeowner treasures, including floorboard, cabinet details, carpeting, and more! It is a total myth that custom finishes always look better - you’ll be so surprised at the treasures you can find amongst second-hand standard features.

Furthermore, if you are gutting and stripping out your house, rather than sending off all of your old features to the scrap heap, you could even make some money back by donating your used furnishings to the ReStore!

8. Get Involved (Even If You’re Using Contractors!)

According to HomeAdvisor, contract labor might well eat into 20-35% of your budget. If you are willing and ready to learn some new skills and put your back into it, this doesn’t have to be the case. While we appreciate that not everyone has the time or lifestyle to take on a full DIY renovation project, here are some ways to compromise on contractors that might suit you.

Handle all the upfront demolition work yourself, and give your contractors a clean slate to work with.
HomeAdvisor estimates that in terms of time, roughly 5% of your contractor budget goes towards the daily process of cleaning up. What if you committed to handle the cleaning and shaved this off the final cost?
Go to the source. Find out where your contractors order their fixtures from, and make the order yourself. This isn't always possible, but when you can do this you can count on some great savings!

Give it a go - Sometimes we didn’t feel the most prepared to take on our own renovations. But slowly, with a lot of research, we learned what we could handle. Insulation? Painting? Sanding? You’ve got this! Don’t be afraid to ask for help, but also don’t be afraid to find your own solutions where needs are. (After all, never forget the time that I glued our front door numbers on , rather than using a hammer and nails!)

Have questions about what renovating on a budget was like for us? Don't be shy.. reach out to us here or leave a comment below!

Every Successful Business Has These 3 Tools...and so should you!

Wed, 26 Aug 2020 14:08:28 GMT

Today, I’m going to be talking about how simplification can transform your business. If you follow our materials, are part of our Brand Builders Community on Facebook, regularly read our blog, and are on the journey of learning to grow your online business with us, then you’ll know that we are all about Simplicity.

We want to help you strip back the excess, and get down to the root of what it really takes to build a successful business.

Our Journey with Simplicity

The other day I was going back through our photo archives and I came across one of my favorite memories. It was a photo of the beloved Skoolie, parked against a stunning Arizona skyline at dusk. The kids look so happy. Gabriel and I are beaming. It was taken one week into our mammoth adventure across the country and brings back so many emotions as I remember just how magical that season of our life was.

The more I investigated the photo, the more it made me think. I could make out a flurry of tire tracks, which nudged me to remember what a struggle it had been to position the bus in the perfect place to catch that exact shot! The environment around us looks like something out of a storybook, but it was a wrestle to get it right.

…. And while this adventure was everything we were looking for, I had to pause to remember the crazy journey we’d been on leading up to this moment ...

The Process of Culling

See, in the months building up until that point, Gabriel and I had made the wild and fabulous decision to reduce our 5000 sqft home into a 248 sqft school bus. This meant that we had to get rid of A LOT of stuff. It was a grueling process. To help you get a mental picture, the entirety of our Skoolie could fit inside the living room of our house - that is how extreme our move was. And it took a lot of work to get there.

The first couple of rounds of culling were easy. There were simple decisions, duplicate items, unnecessary junk that, honestly, we were happy to be rid of! But after the sixth, the seventh, the eighth round of culling, things get a lot tougher!

I was going full-on Marie Kondo on the kids, getting them to hold their toys and asking them whether they ‘sparked joy’. Anything to ease the process of saying goodbye to some beloved items. Bidding farewell to sentimental or valuable items was emotional to say the least.

Living Simply: Life Lessons

The process of down-sizing and choosing a minimalist lifestyle has taught us so much. We walked away with a new belief: That less is more.

Our ‘less is more’ mantra plays out in a variety of ways in our family life:

We have made a commitment to choose experiences over materialism.
We stress way, way less than we used to.
We realized that when we had more ‘stuff’ cluttering our world, we didn’t place much appreciation on what we had. Now that we live with less, it makes us live with a higher value and appreciation for what we do have.
Living with fewer options makes it quicker and more streamlined to make decisions.

Grow Your Online Business With Us: The Simple Way

When we first started The Mayes Team, we had no idea what we needed. So we got all the things.

We stockpiled on everything we thought that a successful brand or online business needed. Organization tools such as Trello and Monday? We got ‘em. Social media planners and scheduling applications such as Later? Check. Domain names? You bet. Free online marketing toolboxes that had all the right plugins to monitor our conversion rates and pull analytics? We had it all.

When I look back at our first brand, Englexis, I sometimes joke that we really had all the gear and no idea.

If you are looking to grow your online business with us, we don’t want you to make the same mistakes that we did in our early years as a company. Maybe you are stuck at the same point that we were: all the gadgets and gizmos but still not seeing any growth. Or maybe you haven’t got anything off the ground yet. Maybe you are exhausted by reading business blogs informing you about ALL the various tools you need to make a splash - and it all just feels too overwhelming!

As you grow your online business with us, the best advice I have for you is to declutter. Wean away all the excess, and strip your business back to the bare essentials. The more we have grown as a business and the more that we have studied other successful online businesses, the more we’ve become convinced that there really are only THREE TOOLS to see your business flourish:

A place to host your product(s)
A way to gather information
A portal to collect information

Grow Your Online Business With Us: The Information Exchange

When you are shopping at Target, or Rite Aid, or Nike - or any major retailer - do you notice how they will always offer for you to join their rewards scheme at the checkout? Maybe they offer a credit card, perhaps a loyalty program, maybe an insider’s discount. Let’s break down what is actually happening here. At the checkout, you are being offered a discount on products that they already know you are interested in. In fact, you are literally a guaranteed sale at this point, mere seconds away from handing over your bank card. So why offer a discount now?

What is actually going on in this transaction is that the store is providing you with a quick and sure-fire way to hand over your contact information. They’re looking to gain your first name and your email address, and are willing to give you a discount in the process. That says everything we need to know about how valuable they deem your contact information to be!

This got us thinking. How do we create the same valuable information exchange in the online space? If you are trying to grow your online business with us, then you want to make a note of this. We realized that the three essential tools that we listed earlier, ultimately translate to the following:

Website
An email service provider
A merchant to collect money

Keep it Simple!

The aim is creating an online site that functions so simply that you can guarantee this information exchange. This means simplifying the website to make it as easy as possible for people to make their purchases. This might mean establishing automatic monthly payments, creating a truly passive income where your customers need only provide their information once and you can start making money in your sleep.

You also need to make that information exchange as simple as possible. Check out our blog Learn How to Make Lead Magnet Landing Pages in Just 10 Minutes for a deep dive into our strategy. Remember, the all-important information that you are looking to acquire is their email address and their first and last name. With this information, you’ll be able to craft email campaigns with a personalized welcome line. We know that personalization is key since emails with a personalized header are 26% more likely to be opened !

Start De-Cluttering Today

If you feel stuck building your brand right now, the reality is that you might have way too much going on in your website and that you need to seriously declutter your brand and take it back to the foundation.

Ask yourself: What do you have going on that isn’t necessary? What functionalities are not contributing to building your email list?

Trust us, you don’t need the flashy items. You need to focus solely on growing that email audience. Perhaps it is time to start the process of decluttering today. For us, the process of decluttering actually involved saying a total goodbye to Englexis and restarting our business dreams from scratch!

It might sound overwhelming, but one of the greatest lessons that we learned from downsizing was to simply take it room by room. One step at a time. Decluttering slowly but methodically until we were dealing with a far more manageable project! You’ve got this. You can do this. And you’ll be so grateful to strip down to the simplicity of three simple tools once you do!

Have questions about this blog or what it takes to launch a successful business? Don't hesitate to reach out to us !

A Minimalist Lifestyle: 6 Things You Need to Know

Wed, 19 Aug 2020 13:06:21 GMT

If you’ve been following our family journey for a while, then you’ll already know that we’ve been steeped in the minimalist lifestyle for several years now. While our initial de-clutter might be in the distant past, the art of living minimally remains a constant discipline that we commit (and recommit) to as a family. Choosing to live a minimalist lifestyle has revolutionized our family life. If it weren’t for minimalism, we would never have traveled America the way that we have. We’d never have ended up in Northern California and built our dream Tiny Home. We’d never have taken the plunge into the adventure of a lifetime.

If you are wanting to take the first steps into living minimally, then here is a list of 6 vital things that you should know. This list is full of wisdom and practical tips that we wish we’d known at the start of our own journey!

1. Family Comes First

Family is always our number one priority. While we have whole-heartedly chosen a minimalist lifestyle, we have foremost chosen each other. This means that we communicate, we listen, and we take steps together. It is a myth to believe that you can’t live a minimalist lifestyle if you have children!

We have four kids who have all thrown themselves into the fun and playfulness of minimalist living. However, it is a team effort. This means we have hard conversations. We make sure our kids are comfortable and understand the ‘why’ behind our decision to live the way that we do.

Family comes with a lot of clutter! There can be pressure to say ‘yes’ to the newest and most exciting toy. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Did you know that U.S. children make up 3.7% of children on the planet but have 47% of all toys and children’s books….

We’ve learned how to make minimalism a fun experience and not a limiting experience for our family. Check out some of our resources such as our Minimalist Guide to Back to School Shopping , to learn how you can make a minimalist lifestyle work for the entire family.

2. Start with Duplicates

If you are anything like me, I like to dive whole-heartedly into a project. Debbie is more of a planner, she’ll read every article on the web, carefully research and strategize and make a foolproof plan based on her discoveries. I’m more of a jump right in it kind of a guy! But when it comes to minimalism, the key is in embracing the long-game. Rather than trying to Marie-Kondo your entire life in one day, create a series of achievable goals and ease your way into it.

My advice: start by eradicating all duplicates. Take an inventory of your entire home, and gather together any item of which you have two. Perhaps you have two sets of the same book. Perhaps you have two sets of salad servers. Maybe you have two throw sheets for a bed that only needs one. Gather up all of your second sets, and try storing these items away for at least 30 days. At the end of the month, ask yourself to assess whether you truly needed any of the duplicates in your storage.

If the answer is ‘no’, then take them down to Goodwill pronto! Start with the smaller, lesser items, and you’ll learn to trust your ability to take greater risks with what you can live without. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up like us, realizing that we no longer needed to live with two living rooms !

3. Automate Your Decisions

Minimalism is so much more than the art of living with less. It is a whole new structure of living: one that desires differently and ultimately experiences greater freedom rather than limitation. A minimalist lifestyle involves a fresh evaluation of the daily decisions in your life and values the art of automating, which is narrowing your options in order to live with less choice and more precision.

For example, when we first moved onto our Skoolie, each member of our family was tasked with reducing our closets into a single ‘clothing capsule’, with a limited number of key pieces that we took with us on the bus. For me, that meant cutting down from 44 pairs of shoes to just 3!

But a reduction of clothes is a fairly straightforward concept when it comes to living a minimalist lifestyle. What we also lent into, was reducing our wardrobe down to only greys, whites, and blacks. Seriously! Just have a scroll through our Instagram and you’ll start to notice that as a family we stick to a very monochrome palette. This is the true art of minimalism: it involves limiting one’s lifestyle down to several automated choices. In limiting our options, we actually limit our potential for decision fatigue - which is a very real source of anxiety for many people!

Take a look at Steve Jobs . His recognizable uniform of a black turtleneck wasn’t meant to be a fashion statement, rather his consistent wardrobe was an automated decision, intended to grant him greater brain-space for the things that really mattered - like designing out of this world technology!

4. Don’t Let Sentimentality Stop You From Living a Minimalist Lifestyle

The biggest roadblock that many people face, when given the option to pursue a minimalist lifestyle, is that they have too many items that are high in sentimental value. Maybe you’ve inherited some family heirlooms. Maybe you’re the kind of parent who saves every single finger painting your kid brings home from nursery. Either way, choosing to live a minimalist lifestyle shouldn’t rob you of the joy of nostalgia.

We’re just suggesting that these nostalgic keepsakes don’t need to clutter your house. Finding an affordable storage solution is a great idea. It helps you in the process of de-cluttering, without saying a permanent goodbye to key pieces or memories that you might wish to cherish again one day down the road.

5. Scrutinize Every Purchase

While the initial de-clutter process is a lot of fun, it is really only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to living a minimalist lifestyle. The real process is in learning how to maintain your minimalism, and regularly commit to purging your house of unnecessary clutter at least once a quarter.

As you get deeper into the journey, minimalism will start to become second nature. Until that point, you might wish to establish some healthy questions to ask yourself as a filter for making new and fresh purchases. Consider a list like this:

Do I really need this item?
Do I own anything that is similar / offers the same function as this item?
Do I have somewhere specific to store this item?
What would I be willing to exchange in place of this item?
If I walk away from this item would I still be thinking about this tomorrow, or is this an impulse buy?

This little list of questions will help you to pause and to healthily evaluate your purchase choices to ensure that you’re making a wise purchase and not a brash one. If you do need to purchase something, try and find a high-quality item - one that isn’t going to break, one that has longevity, and one that is built to last.

6. Continue to Get Inspired and Seek Wisdom from Minimalists You Admire

Even today, we are constantly gold-mining from minimalists that we admire and look up to in the space, in order to learn and evolve in our own minimalist lifestyle. Find resources and dive in. Explore some of our more practical content, such as Debbie’s Minimalist Makeup Tips . Stay up to date on the latest trends in minimalism, such as Courtney Carver’s 2020 book, Project 333 , which challenges you to live with 33 items of clothing for 3 months (it’s a great place to start!).

Remember that every journey into a minimalist lifestyle is different. The key is going at your own pace, and setting yourself realistic goals that set you up for success. Enjoy the process. Savor it and don’t rush it. We can’t wait to see the fruit of it in your life.

Seriously considering the minimalist lifestyle? Check out our previous blog post about what it was like to downsize our life !

What You Need to Build a 6-Figure Brand

Wed, 12 Aug 2020 21:51:31 GMT

Ever wanted to know how to make 6 figures in one year? Well, today we’re holding NOTHING back. We’re going to be sharing the number one secret that we’ve learned from over a decade of building our brand and seeing results. We are talking full disclosure - sharing everything we wish we knew when we first got started.

See, here at The Mayes Team, we care about generosity. We want to share our brand-building tips with you because we want to see you empowered and watch your brand fly! We spent hours - literally thousands of hours - trying, failing, getting up, and trying again. We don’t want you to have to make the same mistakes that we did!

The Secret to Starting

Have you heard of the old expression, ‘Build it and they will come’? So many people have this mentality when it comes to building a successful brand. They strive, putting all of their attention into getting that college degree, into building their following, into perfecting their product.

Is that you? Have you ‘built’ something and are now looking to learn how to market it?

Or, are you starting from square one? Perhaps you have business dreams, product dreams, brand dreams. You have the tenacity and skill to bring those dreams to life, but you are overwhelmed with not knowing exactly which facet of your brand you ought to be starting with.

How on earth do you take those first steps to get your brand off the ground?

If you ask Google you get hit with a barrage of information. Most online marketing educators are touting the importance of your logo, your color scheme, or your product. Debbie is a 5 on the Enneagram, meaning that she just loves jumping into research. In our early years of brand building, Debbie would spend hours researching the latest tips and trends in branding in order to help us build something we were proud of.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Five years ago we built our first brand - Englexis. We loved the name, it was the perfect coupling of my Texan upbringing and Debbie’s British heritage. We slaved over the perfect logo, which combined the Texas state flag and the Union Jack, perfectly representing us both. I loved that logo so much I even got it tattooed on my arm! Yet - however much time, energy, and skill we poured into designing our perfect brand aesthetic, something just wasn’t working for us.

Maybe this is exactly where you are. Maybe you’ve nailed the perfect fonts, designed the sleekest and stylish website, or crafted the most beautiful logo, but you've still run aground.

I’m going to suggest something dangerous here. Something that might feel overwhelming - but I’m going to need you to trust me. Sometimes, in order to grow, you need to take risks . Sometimes this looks like killing your darlings. Pivoting. Redirecting. Letting go of something that you have poured energy and creativity into - and being prepared to start afresh. If you are looking to learn how to make 6 figures then this is the realist advice that I can give you.

You Already Have A Brand

Perhaps you feel nowhere near this point. Your logo is nothing but a faint sketch on a napkin. You don’t have a creative presence yet and nothing about your brand feels set in stone. I want to encourage you that you are in a great place.

More so, I want to encourage you that you already have a brand. YOU. You’re your brand. Your smile, your Instagram - you might not even recognize it yet, but you already have a presence that people recognize. Recent studies around social media trends have shown that people are far more interested in getting to know a genuine personality than wanting to follow a perfectly photoshopped life. You are already establishing your brand, by just being exactly who you are!

Stand In Line

What happens the night before Apple drops a new product? People flock. They set up tents and camp out overnight. Sit on the sidewalk on folding chairs. People wait for hours, all to buy a product that they haven’t ever experienced before. That is what we call buy-in. Apple knows that they can draw in thousands of customers on a presale of a product that hasn’t even been released yet.

There is a strategy to getting people to line up before you even deliver your product. This is THE KEY to understanding how to make 6 figures on your brand in just one year. It sounds almost too good to be true, right? But we did it.

Before we even released our product (our first online marketing course) we made over $45K in pre-sales from 192 customers in just ONE day. How did we do this? We tapped into an audience that already existed. We weren’t starting from scratch: we were selling to customers who were already there.

Want to Know How to Make 6 Figures? Value Your Email List.

So who exactly were these customers? Debbie and I are social media influencers. Through our escapades on our beloved Skoolie , we have grown an Instagram following just shy of 95K. However - we are well aware that our Instagram following was NOT the reason that we hit these incredible sales goals.

Hear us on this one: Your Instagram and Facebook audience is not your most valuable asset. You actually have no control over the Instagram algorithm, which means that you have no control over what percentage of your followers actually get to see each post. You also don’t own your audience.

On Instagram, the average rate of engagement is 2-7% per post. 2% of 95K is nothing! While Instagram followers might look shiny and impressive, don’t get caught in the trap of believing that they are all that matter! Influencers are starting to wake up to this and we’re seeing more articles proving just this.

Your email list is far more effective than your followers. Sure, your email list sounds a little less glamorous. Sure, fewer people are going to know your email list numbers. But, trust us, growing your email list should be far more imperative than growing your Instagram followers!

Here are the reasons why your email list the key to your success:

Ownership - You own all of the names and addresses on your email list.
Engagement - Email open rates tend to be around 20-50% which is considerably higher than Instagram engagement rates.
Conversion - The conversion rate, meaning the likelihood of someone clicking through to your website, is considerably higher than on social media.

More so, your email list is actually an asset to your brand. It’s actually worth money. If one day you are pitching your product to investors, assuring them that you already have a robust email list is going to be important!

Our Journey and Our Process

When we first realized the importance of an email list, our primary intention for building our brand was growing that list. We pivoted away from our logo. Stopped focusing on our brand aesthetic. And instead, we poured all of our energy into doing whatever we could to grow that list. We intentionally tried to push all of our Instagram and Facebook followers over to that list. Even today, we see our Instagram numbers go up and down, but this doesn’t bother us, because all the meanwhile our email list has been growing by thousands.

Think of your email list as your behind the scene sales. You can make considerably more money selling to an email list rather than selling to an Instagram audience. How much more money? Well, the marketing industry standard is this:

For every 1000 email addresses in your email list, you should be able to pull in $10,000 of sale revenue. We know this to be true, because we’ve been able to achieve this year, after year, after year…

So, let’s do the math. If you are looking to know how to make 6 figures then you are going to need Ten Thousand email addresses.

The Secret Is Out

That is it.

That is the number one secret behind building a 6 figure brand. It is all in the power of the email list.

Like we said at the start, here at The Mayes Team, we are all about generosity. We’re going to continue to teach you exactly what it entails to build an email list and how we experienced success in our business. But, for now, we’re leaving you with the hottest tip we have. Trust us, this is going to transform your brand.

Looking to read more about how we use email lists in our business? Check out our blog: How to Build a Product that Will Make You Over $100K in Online Business !

What Does a School Bus Conversion Cost?

Wed, 10 Jun 2020 14:28:43 GMT

When we first started dreaming of moving our life, our family, and our world onto a Skoolie we realized pretty quickly the extent of research and thoughtful planning that it would take to make it a reality. To catapult the pipedream into an actual work-in-progress, we needed to put our heads together and create a strategic financial plan and timeline, in order to set our plan into motion. If I know anything about Gabriel and myself, it’s that where there's a will, there's a way.

One of the magical things about running a business with your spouse is that you get used to taking risks together. Part of saying ‘yes’ to the Skoolie dream, was saying ‘yes’ to the school bus conversation cost. It was saying ‘yes’ to rolling up our sleeves and taking on whatever elements of the conversion we could handle ourselves to keep the cost down. It meant having some misfires (wait until you hear about the rust bucket….) and having to look at each other in the eye and commit to moving forward rather than letting disappointment get us down.

Breaking Down Our School Bus Conversation Cost

The joy of creating a bespoke Tiny Home or Skoolie is that your design gets to be versatile and unique to your needs. It makes sense, therefore, that there is no fixed school bus conversion cost. Rather, the final cost will always differ from project-to-project.

In my online research, I saw huge variations in cost estimates – some articles claiming conversions for as little as $10K, others speculating $30K. Our brilliant conversion company, Skoolie Homes, cites $60K as a broad estimate on their website for a basic floor-plan with solar panels.

The reality is that our entire conversion came to about $35K. That included 2 school buses, plus $2K of materials that Gabriel and I put into craftsmanship and decor, and just shy of $30K for Skoolie Home’s amazing services.

Know Your Needs

While the final total might look different for you, our $35K school bus conversion cost was based upon several unique needs that were applicable for us traveling as a family of four. Let’s breakdown some of our non-negotiable essentials for our 2000 Thomas 40’ Rear Engine conversion:

Technical needs:
CAT3126 Engine
Allison MT643 Transmission
Spatial needs:
"high top" floor to ceiling height 6' 5"
250 sq ft of living space
As much storage as possible
An open-plan kitchen space
Furnishing needs:
2 couches that convert into a full bed
Fully functional kitchen with stove , sink & fridge
Bathroom with mini bathtub & shower
4 bunk beds (72"x25")
1 private master bedroom with a full bed
A table for family dinner
A bathtub for the baby

Then, there were more luxurious or secondary details that we wanted to prioritize in order to build something that truly felt like ‘home’:

A stylish, white exterior paint job
A roof deck
An awning extension for the outside
This is actually something that we added 1 year into living on the bus and always wish that we’d done it sooner! I can’t recommend it enough!
Matte black hardware
Birch plywood countertops
Peel and stick tile

Buying Your Skoolie

When considering your school bus conversion cost, your initial expense is going to be your second-hand Skoolie! There are skoolies available all over America. Whether you buy through a specialist company or through a craigslist posting, one thing we recommend is research, research, research! You should be able to find your potential Skoolie within the $2K - $4K range. We finally found the perfect bus through Skoolie Homes for $3500.

We want to save you the hassle (and money) that we went through. Buying two Skoolies was certainly never our plan….

The first school bus that we bought wasn’t usable. Can you imagine? All that excitement. All that hype. Thinking we’d found the vehicle of our dreams! Only to realize that under the seats, the entire floor was completely rusted through. There was no way it could be salvaged. It was unlivable. What’s worse is that since we’d already started the renovation process, we had already spent $5K before we realized that we needed to start from scratch. Don’t make this mistake! My biggest piece of advice is that you make sure your vehicle has been fully inspected before you purchase it.

The Mayes Secret Sauce

It wouldn’t have been a Mayes Team project without some DIY! While the entire Skoolie Home build took 6 months, Gabriel and I had done our fair share of updates and renovations to our Skoolie over the two years that we lived in it. We estimate that we spent a total of $2K on mattresses (for all 5 beds), décor, hardware, and paint. While any DIY project is hard work upfront, I know that this decision had a huge impact on keeping our school bus conversion cost low.

If you want more inspiration about where that money went, then I’d highly recommend you check out our blog post, The Mayes Shopping Spree , where I run you through some of the amazing brands such as Cotton and Flax, Charm Ceramics, Electric Sun Creative, and Macramama, where I bought our ceramics, our wall hangings, furnishing bits and bobs – everything that made our Skoolie into a beloved home.

Additional Costs and Things to Think About

As with any project, there are always going to be hidden costs or surprise savings that add some ups and downs to your journey. In the Skoolie world, that might look like unexpected rust-buckets, zoning permits, or insurance. Then again, you might have some unexpected wins and make a profit from what you sell during the minimizing process…

After two years of living on our Skoolie, we sold it for $50K. Despite all the upfront costs of the conversion, we still made a profit on the sale. The reality is the cost of the adventure, the cost of giving our kids incredible childhood memories, the cost of the inspiration that the Skoolie birthed – made it worth every single penny.

Interested in more about our skoolie bus conversion experience? Check out our post about Our Schoolbus Conversion aka "Skoolie" Layout !

Learn How to Make Lead Magnet Landing Pages in Just Ten Minutes

Wed, 20 May 2020 19:21:08 GMT

Back when I was a freelance photographer, I had built out my first ever website on WordPress. I found a template that suited my aesthetic (remember this was 12 years ago now!). I built out my plugins to customize it exactly how I needed it. After all these years, 30% of the internet is still powered by WordPress.

The issue was that if I wanted to change anything on my site, it would mean hours of coding. Every few weeks my plugins would need updating. Honestly, I could be a full-blown coder now from all the code I had to learn to sustain my site!

Things are SO much easier nowadays. But you know what that means? It means you really have no excuse but to start executing your vision TODAY. We want to share with you the single most important thing that you can do today to begin building your brand. And guess what - it should only take you ten minutes!

What is the Number 1 Thing You Need to Build Your Brand?

You’ve heard us say it before, but the number one thing that you need to build a 6-figure brand is an audience. Here is our two-step process for doing just that:

Create a single webpage
Add a lead magnet

That’s it! That’s all you need to do to get started and this should only take you ten minutes or less.

How to Build Great Lead Magnet Landing Pages

What is a lead magnet and how do I come up with a good one?

Well, put simply: a lead magnet is a pop-up page or gate that functions like other opt in pages, requesting personal information from your followers. It places an offer - something that you are willing to give them for free - in exchange for their email address and first name. With this exchange of information, you’ll be able to start establishing your own email list.

Maybe you have no experience building lead magnet landing pages. Fear not! We’re sharing our checklist of what makes a perfect lea d magnet, below.

As long as your lead magnet does 1 of these 6 things, you’ll be off to a flying start:

Solves a real problem - If your lead magnet doesn’t solve a real problem that your website visitor has, or if it doesn’t give them something they really want, it won’t work at all.
Promises one quick win - Your lead magnet should promise (and deliver!) one quick win for your visitor. In other words, it should help them easily achieve something.
Super specific - Don’t create a lead magnet about something general. The more specific you are about the benefit of your lead magnet, the better it will convert leads.
Quick to digest - PDF checklists tend to convert really well because they are so quick and easy to digest. eBook lead magnets or lengthy reports may make your prospects feel overwhelmed.
High value - Your lead magnet will work best if it is something that can be delivered right away. People love instant gratification!
Demonstrates your expertise or UVP - When someone consumes your lead magnet, it should demonstrate your expertise or your unique value proposition. This helps turn leads into consumers down the road. If you are creating a longer lead magnet funnel , then you need to start establishing trust-equity with your consumer by showing them your expertise.

Lead magnets have four boxes that they typically fall into:

Checklists

These convert the best because they are so easily consumed! They condense everything that the user needs to know into one manageable list.

Educational

Teach users about a specific topic that is highly relevant to your offering. These lead magnets tell users why they need your products and services, so they’ll be primed to buy from you. The best part about educational lead magnets is that they position you as the authority in your industry. People will remember where they first learned something, so educating them is a really great way to build brand awareness and credibility.

Gated Content

Simply, a blog post that is hidden behind your popup. This is one of the easiest lead magnets to create, since it uses your existing content. One thing you can do is to gate the second half of a long blog post. You can do this quite easily on Optin Forms by using one of the Online Optin Forms templates and our Content Lock Feature (from the Maisey hidden page).

An Irresistible Offer

Giving people the ability to opt-in to an irresistible offer such as a super-sale or to enter for the chance to win massive prizes, is hands down one of the best lead magnets!

What Do I Have To Offer?

When we first started building lead magnets, we were in the Skoolie niche. So this is the card we played. We offered exclusive additional gated content of our Skoolie, that you could only consume after presenting us with the key: your name and email address.

When your learning how to craft a lead magnet, start by asking yourself the following questions:

1. What is your profession?

2. What are 3 things you love?

3. When your friends need help with _________ they ask you.

4. Do you have any content right now that you can repurpose?

These questions help hone you into knowing exactly what you have to offer. They position you to go straight after a niche of people and attack a problem that those people have by providing them with a solution or tips that they can’t refuse.

Getting Your Lead Magnet On Your Website

Once you’ve dialed into your lead magnet, you’re ready to put it on your website. Let’s keep it super simple - no excuses, right?

The three tools that we use are:

Maisey - We made Maisey because we were getting frustrated with the available website builders. We wanted to make something that was affordable, durable, and that wasn’t going to seize up, no matter the size of your website. Maisey comes with a blog, a website, and an e-commerce store. We, and 100s of other people, use Maisey for all our websites! We think you’re going to love it!
Convert Kit - Convert Kit is an email service provider. We’ve literally tried all marketing tools - and we found that Convert Kit was the best tool to use up until the 10,000 audience mark. Convert Kit is the bomb - it is legitimately free and it comes with all the tools.
Stripe - We use Stripe for all our merchant purchases. It helps us keep track of invoices and automatic payment withdrawals.

No Excuses!

All of these tools allow you to sign up and start today, for free. We’ve tried to remove all of the excuses that you might have so that you can get going RIGHT NOW, and start building your audience.

These three tools can run your entire brand, and it won’t take you more than 10 minutes to start today!

Loving this content and looking for more inspiration for your business? Check out How to Build A Product that Will Make You Over $100K in Online Business !

How to Build A Product that Will Make You Over $100K in Online Business

Wed, 06 May 2020 18:46:51 GMT

We never thought it would be possible to make over $100K in just one week. Five years ago that would have been unimaginable. Fast forward to 2018, and it became a reality. We learned how to harness the power of a question and how to build a product that made us $108K in just 7 days!

Creating an Unlimited Belief System

Have you ever heard of Roger Bannister? He was a middle-distance athlete who, on May 6th, 1954, broke the four-minute mile, something that was previously thought to be humanly impossible. He broke a barrier of possibility - and everything changed. And then something crazy happened. On June 21st, a little under 2 months later, John Landy, completed his own 4-minute mile, smashing Bannister’s record.

When the impossible is made possible, your limits change. Perhaps, right now, you’re dreaming of creating one of the next super successful online businesses. Well, we want to give you some insight into our story. After all, if we can do it, you can too.

Breaking Our Entrepreneur Four-Minute Mile

Back in 2016, Gabriel was a State Farm agent, and I was a freelance photographer. We were content and happy, on our journey of learning how to start an online business from home.

Some friends told us that they were preparing something that they were sure was going to make them $100K in one week. We were skeptical - this was such a far-reaching idea for us. But they proved us wrong when they actually did it! This set us on a crazy adventure and gave us a new goal in life: $100K in one week!

How to Build a Product that Works

Now, all we needed was a product. We tried 3 different product launches but each one ended in disappointment as our $100K-in-one-week goal continued to elude us... that was, until we heard a quote that completely shifted our mindset:

“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the right questions to ask.” - Einstein

We realized that we’d been trying to sell products that we were inspired by, rather than asking our audience what product they actually wanted from us. So, we crafted a new secret strategy :

Listening to our audience, finding out what they liked, and giving them what they wanted.

Build Your Audience First

At this point in time, we were in the Skoolie niche. We knew that we needed to build out an audience within the niche that we were a part of, in order to be able to service them with a product that they’d want.

We’d built a substantial following on Instagram, however, if we wanted to listen to our audience it was time to start asking new questions that would help us figure out how to build out an email list. Nurtured email leads are 47% more likely to purchase a product than unnurtured leads. So, we created a Lead Magnet - a series of pop-up questions on our website that offered additional FREE content, in exchange for people’s email addresses.

Use Your Email List to Discover What Your Audience Wants

Once we had an email list established, we were finally able to start harnessing the power of a question in order to build a perfect product. We crafted intentional and direct questions, to gauge which of the following offers our audience would be the most interested in:

Expert’s Essential Travel Tips - ie how to travel the country with four small children.
How to Design your Own Skoolie Floor Plan - a simple tutorial.
Make Money While You Travel - 12 ways to earn cash on short and long-term trips.

The results were loud and clear: Number 3 blew numbers 1+2 completely out of the water! We now knew how to build a product that our audience would love... and that's why we created our ‘How to Make Money & Get Free Stuff with Instagram’ a cash class.

We had also learned that in order to make $100K we needed 10K email addresses. We had our beautiful product, and all we needed to do was to wait until our email list hit that magic number. In October 2018 we hit that number and the impossible was suddenly possible. Without hesitation, we launched our class, and watched in awe as over the next 7 days we brought in $108K!! We were stunned!

What’s more, we knew that if we did it once, we could do it again. Six months later we did just that, making $114.3K in the week of May 23rd, 2019. We don’t say this to boast - we’re sharing these numbers because we want to empower you and your business that you can do the same. We can’t wait to watch you succeed!

Looking for more tips to take your business to the next level? We recently revealed our secret million dollar funnel - check it out here !

My Minimalist Guide to Hair & Makeup

Wed, 22 Apr 2020 23:38:27 GMT

Friends...I did a thing I said I would NEVER do.
Watch the results on IGtv HERE !

Now that you've seen it all, the only way I could think to share all of the links that I know my DM inbox is going to blow up with you is here, I'm going old school friends...on the blog!

Hair Care

Young Living Copaiba Vanilla Shampoo *

Young Living Copaiba Vanilla Conditioner *

Not Your Mothers Heat Spray is HERE

and just in case you were wondering, HERE is my straightening iron!

Skincare

I truly believe in Skincare from the inside out so you all need THIS collagen in your life. In the video I explain why it's the best!

HERE is my facewash* (make sure you double cleanse)

and THIS is the toner* I use everyday.

I like to switch up my moisturization but I use THIS as a base with a drop of Bergamot essential oil *

I also love THIS and THIS Serum from Valjean Labs

And every other day I use THIS microneedle roller and put on the collagen cream from Amazon HERE

It's also crucial to maintain optimal hydration for your skin's health and appearance. Alongside conventional methods, one innovative approach is through NAD IV treatment. NAD treatment plays a vital role in various cellular processes, including energy production and DNA repair.

Brushes

Makeup

This is my favorite, super cheap hair holder thingy and I always use THIS serum under my makeup.

My all time favorite foundation is only $7 HERE

If I only had to choose one makeup item to use it would be THIS palette

My eyebrow gel is HERE and THIS is my favorite mascara

The perfect eyeshadow that's not too sparkly is THIS one from Urban Decay

I use Benetint on my cheeks and HERE is my favorite lipstick (do yourself a favor and get the lip pencil of the same shade)

PHEW!! If any of you clicked on all of those you should get a prize, or a hug because hugs are in shorter supply these days!! Head to my most recent Instagram Post to tell me which item is your favorite!!

*All Young Living links take you to my sign up page and not individual products, if you need help ordering specific products email me HERE

Our Secret Million Dollar Funnel Revealed

Wed, 15 Apr 2020 16:22:01 GMT

This blog reveals one our best kept secrets... we just couldn't hold it in any longer!

I’m about to reveal to you how Debbie and I made 7-figures in online sales in a mere 18 months.

…. it's called a click funnel.

That’s right. We could talk all day about creating premium content, about our Instagram strategy, or what it takes to get a podcast off the ground. But the real secret sauce would be to teach you our funnel builder secrets.

What is a Click Funnel?

As The Mayes Team, we sell products online. In our case, online courses and website memberships . The reality is that 95K Instagram followers won’t naturally correlate to 95 thousand people purchasing a product. We call these ‘warm leads’. They’re aware of our brand, they’re having a browse, but they’re unlikely to make any financial exchanges at this point.

The goal of a click funnel is to turn these warm leads into hot leads. To establish trust. To position our brand as an authority. To build familiarity and momentum, until these warm leads become scorching-hot leads! Think of your click funnel as the handshake, bright smile, and warm introduction before you reveal your product.

The Mayes Teams 8-Step Click Funnel Creation Process

1. Ads / Social Channels

This is where our cold leads start off. Maybe they are Instagram followers, on our email list, or have seen our paid advertisements. Each of these realms drive directly to our lead magnet or "Tripwire."

2. The Tripwire

Our Mayes Team tripwire is a ‘Free Class Opt-In’. In exchange for their email address, we offer potential customers top quality content FOR FREE. We willingly give away some of our expert training for free, because we know that this will benefit us in the long run as we seek to build a flawless reputation with our paying customers. As funnel hacks go, this is essential.

3. Thank You Page #1

When someone opts in for our free class, they’ll immediately receive a personalized ‘Thank You’ video from us. Right off the bat, we’re establishing ourselves as welcoming and personable. We’re winning their attention, gaining familiarity, and building trust. The thank you page usually comes with a surprise gift to wow our new found fan.

4. 3x Free Classes over 3x Emails

They receive 3x free classes, through 3x emails. These classes are filled to the brim with information. Anyone who receives one of these emails is going to immediately grasp that Debbie and I know what we’re talking about - and leave them hungry for more.

5. Class Video + Homework CTA

These emails give them access to our teaching videos. At the end of these classes, we give a homework CTA, calling for active engagement from the viewer. This heats up those warm leads even more!

6. Series of Emails / Retargeting Ads

Following this, we’ll send a series of follow up emails that drive to our main sales landing page. Here, we introduce the main event: our Master Class.

7. Landing Page Selling Master Class

The Master Class is the product that we’ve been trying to sell all along. Notice that it took us 7 steps to get here? We can guarantee that every lead that made it this far is actively engaged with us as a brand, and therefore more likely to purchase our final package.

8. Thank you Page #2 + One Click Upsell

The final step of the click funnel is that we have a ‘Thank You’ pop-up that includes a one-click upsell offer. This is crucial since there is a 60-70% higher chance of making a sell to an existing customer. By this point, the customer has given their card details, making it super easy to add this additional purchase to their order.

This simple process brought in $1.1M for us in the last 18 months. If you are looking to make sales online, then building out a click funnel of your own is non-negotiable. Feel free to steal this step-by-step funnel yourself... it's your to do with what you want!

This 1 Concept Changed Everything For Our Biz

Sun, 29 Mar 2020 22:19:24 GMT

In 2016 a buddy invited me (Gabriel) to attend a ClickFunnels conference. I’ll admit, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. All I heard was ‘San Diego’ and I jumped at the opportunity to lap up the SoCal sunshine and meet some inspiring people.

I had no idea that the conference would forever revolutionize the way that Debbie and I run our business.

The day I arrived I was swept into a whole new world that I didn't even know existed. The conference started off with loud, pump-you-up kinda music which eventually died down right before someone took the stage.

One-by-one people took the mic and began sharing their story of how a 'clickfunnel' changed their life. They shared about their journey and before I knew it... I was crying!

Email Lists and ClickFunnels - The Perfect Combination

I was blown away by the testimonies from entrepreneurs celebrating the incredible ways that ClickFunnels had radically transformed their profits. We’re talking overnight success – astronomical amounts of money. While I sat in the audience listening to these stories, my own entrepreneurial senses were tingling.

That night, my buddy and I started dreaming. We had the perfect marriage of skillsets: He had a substantial email list that he had already been building for some time, and I had the marketing prowess to build out a successful digital sales funnel to create money online. We worked together, built a funnel, partnered it with his email list, and in ONE DAY we made over $100K!

It was then that I discovered the truth: Your Website Can Collect Cash While You Sleep

Sure, the sales funnel is a tool that all marketers should use…But it is the email list that is the key to the treasure chest. I realized I need an email list.

How Email Lists Can Increase Profits In Your Business

Email marketing targets potential customers who are excited to purchase your product. Your email list isn’t purely a communication device. It isn’t solely for news or product education. It is actually a direct means of making money - fast.

This revelation dramatically shifted our priorities at The Mayes Team. Since Debbie and I realized how email lists can increase profits in your business, we started putting energy into building out our own list.

Most people want to know how to build an email list fast. The reality is, it takes time. In the last two years, we’ve built an email list just shy of 30,000 people and seen a transformation in our profits. 30,000 people can easily feel impersonal, but it doesn’t need to be this way. In fact, creating an automated system of personalizing emails delivers a transaction rate that is 6x higher than generic emails .

Flash forward to May of 2019, we had our first launch for The Mayes Team: our Instagram Master Class. In a one week period, we made a little over $115K through our email list alone. The pinnacle of that was one day where we pulled in an astonishing $45K. These email lists are no joke. More so, research shows that 96% of consumers actively enjoy receiving emails from brands and businesses that they’re engaged with.

Getting Started On Your Email List

If building out an email list hasn’t been a priority for your business, then this is the season to make it one. There are so many ways to start:

• Limit access to your website, making some pages exclusive for those who haven’t passed the email signup pop-up wall.

• Promise exclusive email content that your consumers don’t want to miss out on.

• Include a signup CTA on each blog or piece of content on your platform.

• Start a newsletter.

• Organize an Instagram giveaway and require email addresses by means of participation.

If I haven’t persuaded you yet, maybe this statistic will: Every 1000 subscribers equates to $10K in annual revenue. Think about that, and let that drive your focus as you aim to constantly and patiently build out an email list of your own. You’ll see increased profits and transformation in your business in no time at all.

Want to go deeper into this with us? We have a challenge for you! Check out the details and you can learn how to do this for yourself ▸

Yes, Your Website Can Collect Cash While You Sleep

Mon, 23 Mar 2020 00:03:51 GMT

Get Ready To Shift Your Mindset

Whatever you do for income, it’s all a big game of time and money, right? Think about it… each dollar that enters your account arrived in exchange for the one thing you cannot get back.

Time.

And your time is precious and very, VERY valuable. For the first 10 years of our marriage Gabriel and I were both working several jobs and the only way we would get paid was if we showed up. If we chose to take a day off or a vacation, the money stopped coming in and we’d have to count the cost before taking any time to ourselves.

Sound familiar?

Once we started having kids we began to realize more and more how precious time is. We can’t get it back. Every second one of our kids would cross a new milestone… and it all happens so quickly.

We can always create more products, services or offers and yes, we can even make more money... but time? Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

There’s no getting it back, ever, so it’s become one of our top priorities to protect it. As a result, we’ve been working to build up a passive income so money comes in even while we sleep. Yes, we still work 5 days a week however, if we don’t want to show up, we don’t have to. And the money keeps on coming.

No matter what you do for a living or what your day to day life looks like, you can begin making tangible steps to creating an income online.

When you cut through all the “new opportunity” noise that’s out there about making some extra cash from your computer there’s one fundamental thing that everyone must have in order to be successful online.

And That One Thing Is A Website

Everything drills down to this one foundational piece and without it, you’ll hamster wheel around the online carousel going nowhere. After digging around the trenches of the online game for a few years now it’s safe to say, we’ve figured a few things out.

In order to collect cash from your website while you sleep there are a number of routes you can go. Digital products like eBooks, courses, or memberships are top ways on our list as ways to make money from your website but it does not stop there.

For us, one of the absolute best ways we make money from our website is through our online courses. In 2019 our courses brought in well over $300k in revenue. The best part about creating a course is once it’s done, it’s done. Then, you just focus on scale!

These are just a few ways you can make money with your website, even while you sleep:

Pay Per Click Ads
Guest Blog Posting
Monthly Membership (Subscription)
Courses
eCommerce Products
Dropshipping
Affiliate Marketing
Donations
Sponsored Posts
Email List

And The List Goes On and On and On.

In fact, there are 100’s of ways to generate revenue with your website. For us, it’s the only way we make money today and we love the time freedom we’re experiencing.

So, there you go… just a few ideas on how you can start making money with your website… while you sleep!

Our website (and everything we do online) is built using Maisey and if you are interested in starting your website today (or redoing the one you already have) you can use this coupon code to get 50% off your website… FOR LIFE .

6 Things That Are Killing Your Instagram Posts

Sat, 24 Aug 2019 00:13:15 GMT

Do you ever create a post on Instagram that you really love and then wonder what happened when it gets a lot less engagement than some of your other posts? Since we’re known for teaching our followers about how to encourage organic growth on Instagram, we thought we’d take a moment to tell you about 6 things you might be doing to kill your engagement.

#1: Even if it’s painful, avoid editing your Instagram posts after you publish them!

Do typos really bug you when you find them after you’ve posted your beautifully crafted image and caption? We totally understand… and we’re still going to recommend you leave your posts the way you originally published them!

If you go back for a typo or to add in a tag you forgot, that post will have less engagement. Edits can kill the reach of your post! We find mistakes all the time in our captions and, it’s a little uncomfortable, but, we just leave them! We know our Instagram posts have a better chance of being seen and inspiring more people to comment if we just leave them alone!

#2: If you’re using any unapproved apps, your Instagram posts will suffer for it!

In the days of everyone using the “follow/unfollow” method of building an audience, developers started coming out with apps that did all the work for you. We’re actually okay with this issue using Instagram because these bot behaviors were killing the progress of accounts like ours trying to grow organically.

If you’ve ever used apps linked with your Instagram account, you’re going to want to review them and delete ALL of the unapproved apps. Instagram identifies a lot of these apps as “bot behavior” and using them will kill your IG engagement, big time! Search for the approved apps in Instagram’s partner program to make sure you’re only using approved apps linked to your IG.

#3: Your engagement on any Instagram post will crash if you use hashtags in the first five lines of content.

We only break this rule if we’re doing a sponsored post. Otherwise, there’s something about having hashtags, especially if you use all 30 permitted hashtags, in the first five lines of your caption which triggers the algorithm to work against you.

Have a conversation with your followers first and THEN you can add your tags and hashtags. It looks so much cleaner, aesthetically speaking, to your followers and the algorithm will favor your well thought-out post when you don’t clutter it with ALL the hashtags!

#4: Speaking of Instagram hashtags, make sure your content and your tags match up!

We used to use hashtags including the word “skoolie” when we were living on our renovated school bus. If we kept using this hashtag while posting about life after the skoolie, eventually, we might get reported.

People can report posts which misuse hashtags. If you’re not checking your hashtags and something in your list doesn’t match your content, your account could be “banned” from the hashtag. Unfortunately, if you’re banned, you’re not notified; you have to be clever to figure out whether or not a hashtag stopped sharing your posts in a search. Here’s another thing to keep in mind; rotate your hashtags and don’t use the same 30 hashtags over and over again. We recommend you use around 15 per post. We’re not sure how many times it takes using the same hashtags, but, this can also qualify to IG as bot behavior.

#5: If you comment and like comments on your posts too quickly, Instagram might think you’re a bot.

It’s smart to respond to your comments – but, take a pause in between! If you move too fast and make, say, 50 comments too quickly, you could get banned! Yes, on your own posts!

We can collect a lot of comments pretty quickly on our posts and it’s exciting to talk to our community about what we’re doing. But, we try to pace ourselves and move through smaller handfuls of comments in a single sitting. Take a little coffee break, slow down, and show Instagram you’re a human!

#6: If you’re doing all the above when you post on Instagram, their collective impact on your posts is negative.

My theory is doing just one of these things doesn’t get you dinged by IG as much as doing all these things or most of these things every time you post. I feel the algorithm sees this collection of “behaviors” as robotic and, therefore, no good for any of us trying to enjoy the app. The good news is that Instagram is trying to make sure activity on the platform is real – it’s encouraging connection.

I actually think it’s pretty great how making new friends on Instagram and leaving genuine comments improves your posts’ “performance.” When you find new accounts to follow and talk about how much you relate to their material, the door for connection opens up both for your personal well-being and the health of your Instagram account! In the same way you have the option to block someone you don’t want following you or leaving rude comments on your page, the Instagram algorithm created an automatic system for reducing how much you need to do that by at least eliminating the bots. That’s a win for all of us!

Now that you know what to stop doing on IG, here’s one thing we’d recommend you start doing:

You now know to just let your posts stay unedited, delete unapproved apps, avoid using your tags and hashtags in the first five lines of your caption, match your content and your hashtags to avoid getting reported, and slow down when commenting and liking on your own posts. We want to let you in on one little secret about what you can try to boost your Instagram engagement.

Make sure you use ALL the different platforms Instagram offers. Stories used to appear often in searches when Instagram was pushing for its usage. These days, Instagram is looking for everyone to use IGTV. Spread out your content and use the app to its fullest potential to make better connections with your following.

Even though it’s clear Instagram wants us to spend more time on the app, the algorithm is working for us to kick out bots and make more room for inspiration and connection. And, really, that’s sooooo much better than mindless likes!

If you think this blog is helpful for improving your engagement, you’ll love our FREE Instagram class!

These six tips you just learned in this blog are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how much we’ve learned about using this app! You can get access to 3 quick tips to increase your engagement, 2 methods for making money with your Instagram account, and 1 top secret technique for promoting organic growth when you take our FREE Instagram Class . We know it’s not the most typical move for an influencer to share this kind of information with the world, but, we believe there’s room for everyone to succeed! Join us for the class and let us support you on your Instagram Money Making journey!

If any of these tips have been helpful, please share with your friends on social media, and make sure you tag @themayesteam so we can make sure to give you a shout-out!

A Minimalist Guide to Back to School Shopping

Thu, 15 Aug 2019 23:00:33 GMT

If you think it’s impossible to be a “minimalist” with four kids, I might have agreed with you years ago!

Those of you who follow us on Instagram have seen how our family appears in the squares all color coordinated, or, non-color coordinated (I’ll explain that in just a bit!). We get a lot of questions about how we manage that, why, and what it’s like to do our shopping when it’s time for the kids to go back to school.

Let’s get into what we’re up to and it’s all going to make sense!

When it comes to being minimalist when it’s time for the kids to go back to school, your perspective is key

When you hear the term “minimalist,” do you think about strapping young men climbing mountains with all their earthly possessions in a single pack?!

That might be what’s tripping you up!

When we go shopping, we keep our focus on what we really “need.” It’s easy to get lost in the racks of options and honestly just believe you need one of everything and just max out your card on however many of the everything you can buy.

Thing is, when you do that, your kids are still going to have a small handful of favorites and the rest of their haul is just going to droop in the closet unworn. We really try to emphasize as a family how meaningful it is to only own what we need and to make sure we really like what we need!

First thing’s first – get your Marie Kondo on and pull out everything in your kids’ closet before school starts!

It’s so helpful to really look at everything and get a sense for what your kids love to wear and what they’ve ignored. I keep seasonal stuff in containers and we look over everything to see what still feels good to wear and what needs to go!

When you unload the whole closet, you can see clearly, the items with tears or knicks you’ve been meaning to fix. If I haven’t fixed a tear in months, I’m not going to! There’s no point hanging on to a shirt your kid doesn’t want to wear. No one feels good in torn clothing.

I do a check with the kids for what no longer fits, too. If their younger sibling isn’t interested in the item his or her older sibling grew out of, I’m not going to force my kids to wear it!

Think about your lifestyle, the weather in your area, and what kind of clothes will make your life easier before you buy a single shirt!

Since we live in Northern California, I have a list for what my kids reliably need during each season and we usually do a Spring and Autumn shop. If you live somewhere colder than where we live, your kids might need a few more sweaters than ours do.

I keep a Google drive doc of the number of items each child currently has and needs. I only really need to enforce keeping specific numbers of items for the girls (the boys are a lot less picky and get by easily on what I’ve estimated for them). It's essentially my guide to a kids capsule wardrobe!

In case you’re interested, here’s what my back-to-school list for the girls’ looks like (there’s a whole different list for summer):

8 underwear
4 shorts
2 sweat pants
6 short sleeved shirts
4 long sleeved shirts
2 sweaters
2 hoodies
4 rompers/dresses
4 sets of pajamas
3 pairs of jeans (black/grey/blue)
2 pairs of leggings

I have our essential, minimalist closet inventory for the boys, too! It looks like this:

8 underwear
4 shorts
2 sweatpants
6 short sleeved shirts
4 long sleeved shirts
2 sweaters
2 hoodies
4 sports shorts
4 sets of pajamas
3 pairs of jeans (black/grey/blue)
2 other pairs of pants
2 button up shirts

I didn’t get these numbers right away! Your kids grow, change, you move, and all kinds of things can impact your list. Give yourself some time to really get to know what your kids need and don’t sweat it! Just start somewhere and, if you see your kid needs one more hoodie to get through the week, no one is checking your list but you! Go get it!

So you’ve made your list of what you need and now it’s time to go shopping! How do you shop for back-to-school clothes with kids in tow?!

Whether you want to go minimalist or not, here’s one truth you can’t get around – it’s just not easy shopping with kids! Prepare your mind for the task at hand and just get out and do it!

It’s really helpful to take your kids with you at least once when getting clothes for going back-to-school. You want to make sure you know their new sizes – that way, you can sneak away without them and get the other things they might need all by yourself! I usually bring something I know fits them with me so that I can measure it against what I'm wanting to buy...we all know that sizes are not always reliable!

I try to pick out clothes that are easy to get on and off and clearly comfortable to wear. The best way to buy a bunch of clothes your kids don’t want to wear is to skip this important step...they MUST be able to get shoes on without my help ;)

What’s with the monochrome palette? Do your kids ever ask for something different?!

The color scheme I’ve chosen for our family is just a personal preference… and it’s more practical than it looks!

I’ve worn black, gray, and white for years and it makes my life so much easier. How? I don’t have to separate my laundry. Everything goes into the wash together in 3-4 loads one day per week for our family of 6! It gets better! My kids can all dress themselves because everything they wear matches!

Now, if my kids really love something with color or sparkles on it, I’ll cringe for a moment, but, I’m not going to deny them something they love! We've recently added greens to our palette at the kids request! My typical routine is to give my kids options that go with the color scheme and they almost always enjoy picking among the things I choose for them. But if they see something and fall in love, I don't deny them. This happens at least once a shopping trip with my middle daughter! This year we even decided to give them complete free reign on their backpack choice so that they felt a little more freedom.

I’ve heard more comments than I can count expressing concern about the lack of color in my kids’ clothes. My kids live in a loving family, so, relax and get your kids all the color you like! You do you, friends! What I do works well for our family and we’re all enjoying more quality time together and less laundry or clothes picking time.

My favorite places to shop for our minimalist back-to-school wardrobes might not really surprise you!

H&M is the cheapest and they have a great selection of long sleeved t-shirts for going back to school. We also really love Zara and Nordstrom Rack.

BUT, if you want easy access to our favorite things, you can check out our new Amazon Store HERE to help you get started!

The Mayes Team School Bus Shopping Spree!

Mon, 29 Jul 2019 00:31:03 GMT

PAINT COLORS

Sherwin Williams ProClassic — Extra White

ENTRY

Camel Leather Floor Pillow: Beacon Home

Oxidized Walnut Tray: Multiply Made

Brass Bottle Opener: Brand & Iron

Pineapple planter: Dovekie & Finch
Mail holder: Target

DINING ROOM

TV trays: Amazon

KITCHEN

Ceramic Mugs: Corrin Ceramics

Capuccino Mugs: Corrin Ceramics

Pour Over: Peaking Through Fingers

Jar Candle: The Awesome Candle

Tea Towels: Cotton and Flax

Cereal Bowls: Charm Ceramics

Ceramic Spoon: Avesha Michael

Brass Trivet: West Elm

Igloo Under Counter Fridge/Freezer: Amazon

Planter: World Market

Letterboard: Letterfolk

Knife Magnet: Amazon

Kettle: Hario

Faucet: Vigo

Sink: Vigo

Peel and Stick Tile: TicTac Tiles

Closet Pulls: HomeDIY

Paper Towel Holder: mDesign

Ceramic Ring Holder: funsize ceramics

Floating Shelf: SanLem

Drying Rack: Simple Human

Fold up Grill: Coleman

BEDROOM

Bedding: Beddy’s

Throw Pillows: Target , Ikea

Macrame Wall Hanging: Macramama

Gazelle Head: Target

Brass Mirror: Target

Throw Blanket: Happy Habitat

Kids Sheets: Target

Kids Blankets: Target

Kids Book Shelves: Ikea

BATHROOM

Brass Mirror: Target

Sink Stopper: Comllen

Vessel Sink: Comllen

Brass Wall Hanging: Electric Sun Creatives

Macrame Wall Hanging: Macramama

Towel: Cotton and Flax

Toilet: Dometic

Toilet Paper Roll Holder: KES on Amazon

Towel Ring: KES on Amazon

Towel Hook: OnWard

Shower Curtain: Target

Shower Fixtures: KES

Faucet: Vigo

Macrame Planter: Mkono

Toilet Brush: Umbra

Brickyard Buffalo Guest Editor

Mon, 03 Jun 2019 22:01:46 GMT

Happy Monday, everyone! We are so excited to be chosen to be the Guest Editors on Brickyard Buffalo this week! We’ve hand picked items from some of our favorite shops at an amazing discounted price! Check out the amazing items below and follow along on Instagram to see more!

One of our friends have recently launched their amazing business and they've designed a pillow just for us!! Check out the mudcloth pillow that Pillow & Loom designed for us HERE , they've only made a limited number for you!

We've always loved Freshly Picked moccasins, they're so well known for being such amazing quality and have such an amazing range of colors and styles, the Cashmere Grey is our favorite...Jovey LOVES them.

Lastly, is one of my favorite summer items...every time I wear this romper I get tons of DMs about where it's from and they have an amazing discount for you!

Happy shopping! Follow along @themayesteam to see us in these amazing items! Thanks for having us Brickyard Buffalo , this was so much fun!

Downsizing My Life

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 19:48:52 GMT

In this episode, I unpack what it was like to downsize from a 5,000 sq. ft. house to a 250 sq. ft. schoolbus. It's not as glamorous as you'd think, but it was so worth it. My true emotions come out in this episode!

Ordering Our Custom Maisey t-shirts!!

Thu, 28 Mar 2019 18:42:15 GMT

For the launch of our new Website/Blog/Store platform Maisey , we just knew that we wanted to create our very first swag and give a shirt to all of the amazing people that joined us in Beta testing. But I’m not gonna lie, using good ole Google to find a Bulk T-shirt Ordering company was overwhelming to say the least!! SO many options, where do we even start?! So when I found Custom Ink , I KNEW that all my worries would be over!

Not only does Custom Ink have an amazing selection of t-shirts, they have a wide variety of so many different products that you can print on! One of the most important things to me was that the t-shirt was SUPER soft and comfortable. We decided to go with the American Apparel TriBlend shirt and as soon as I pulled our t-shirt sample out of the bag, I KNEW that we’d found a winner! The t-shirt was completely buttery soft and it fit amazing on both men and women (another REALLY important factor...we didn’t want to go through the hassle of ordering mens and women's sizes, time saver!!)

Next was the design process. In the past when I attempted to order bulk printed t-shirts I gave up in the design process because messaging back and forth designs and trying to get it perfect was SO complicated! Not so with Custom Ink ...they have an online design platform where you can literally drag and drop your front and back design anywhere you would like. They even have a text tool where you can type in what you need and change the fonts and size with ease. Literally all I needed to design my shirt was our logo and everything else was done in the online t-shirt designer and I did it all in under 3 minutes!

The delivery process was my favorite part! I have no idea how Custom Ink managed to get me hundreds of custom printed t-shirts (front AND back) in under a week (expedited shipping is where it’s AT!!) but they worked their magical powers to get us the shirts all neatly organized by size AND even gave us some tiny kids shirts too!!

Not only did Custom Ink take the stress and headache out of designing our t-shirts, bulk ordering our custom printed t-shirts was SO fast and easy that I was able to focus on our launch and getting our t-shirts out to all of our beautiful people!!

Willing To Do Whatever It Takes?

Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

For 5 months in 2016, Gabriel lived with his parents in Oklahoma away from me and the kids and I literally felt like my world was falling apart. He had an affair. This episode uncovers the journey we took towards restoration and the painful heartache we endured to save our marriage.

Downsizing Our Life

Thu, 06 Dec 2018 21:55:54 GMT

Life before living on a school bus looked completely different for us, and we needed to make a big change! Basically we needed to downsize our life! We were living in a 5000 sq ft house with Gabriel working multiple jobs, sometimes working until the early hours of the morning building business for other people. When we had a large house, we felt the need to fill that house with “stuff” and once we did that, I found myself spending my days cleaning and organizing all the stuff we had! I even had an entire day (Friday) devoted to cleaning the whole house. When the kids got home from school we would all separate and go into different rooms of the house. Gabriel and I were both feeling like we were just running on the hamster wheel of life, doing everything everyone else told us would be ‘best’, keeping up with the life we had built as best as we could. We had become really disconnected in our marriage and knew that if we weren’t happy as a couple there was no way that we could grow a healthy and happy family. So we quickly realized we needed to change everything about our life. See the tour of our house below...can you believe we had that much space?!

One day I saw a YouTube video of Expedition Happiness on Facebook and instantly knew we would rock the tiny house on wheels lifestyle. Gabriel was a little skeptical but we were both knew that we were supposed to head to California so thought it would be the perfect way to reconnect as a family and head that way! Before we made such a huge decision, we had a family meeting where we went over the pros and cons of living in the bus versus renting a ‘normal’ house. We told the kids they would have less clothes and toys but they would gain traveling and seeing the country. They were all on board with making the decision to move onto the school bus and hit the road!

The downsizing process was quite emotional for us, I found that most of the difficulty was the sentimental things that we would miss. We separated each room into what we could give away, sell or bring with us, it took quite a few times going through our things to minimize the things that we needed to bring and it just came down to the things that we really loved! We had an estate sale of most of the things that we wanted to get rid of and each family had a ‘memory box’ that they could fill with things that were important to them and we kept it in a small storage unit. We downsized everyone's wardrobe to a ‘capsule’ wardrobe of a limited number of items and when we moved onto the bus we realized that there was actually much more room for clothes than I had thought, we had plenty of room! Getting settled into the bus was easy and we really enjoyed all the time we saved not having to worry about cleaning or our “stuff”, I think we were made for the minimalist lifestyle!

Here is (one of) our living rooms (we had two!!) and our house now...everyone loves a good before and after!!

People think that we must be so brave to live in such a small space with 4 children but we actually feel so blessed to live in this space. It has taught us so much about who we are and what is important to us as a family. The benefit of getting rid of all the other distractions in our life and figuring out how we want to live has any uncomfortableness that we feel from the small sacrifices we’ve made. If I could give any advice to someone wanting to switch up their life completely I would just tell them to start! Do not waste time worrying about what other people will think or if everything is perfectly planned. We get so many emails from people who are miserable with their current life and want to do something similar and there is always a BUT (well paying job they can't leave, family that disagrees etc) if you are unhappy with where you are at you are only ONE decision away from changing everything and you will feel so much freedom when you start living your life the way YOU feel called to live it! Sometimes starting can just mean minimizing what you already have, or not living beyond your means...taking any step in that direction will get your momentum going, you don't have to make a sudden big leap like we did! Trusting in your intuition and what you feel is the best thing for your family will always pay off! Living this way has given us an understanding and appreciation that everyone lives differently. And what works for one family may not work for everyone. We are focused on making the best possible choices that we can for our family in the future and we believe that everyone else should be free to do the same!

Our Tiny Bathroom

Tue, 20 Nov 2018 19:56:59 GMT

The least "seen" room in our bus is the bathroom...and really when is the bathroom ever shown all the time?!

The reason for this is the fact that our bathroom is only 5x5 and almost impossible to take good images of! In every picture in this post I am smooshed up against the wall to try and fit in as much as possible!

When planning the bathroom I knew it would, of course follow along with the white, black and grey theme just like the rest of the bus. So we kept things simple, clean and modern! The links to buy everything in our bus are at the bottom of this post.

In the build of the bus there were quite a few changes made to the bathroom that we weren't happy about.

First of all, 3 inches were added to the bathroom width, leaving an awkward gap between the tub and the sink cabinet (and also shrinking our hallway!!). We also planned to keep the countertop wood to match the kitchen but it got painted over and that was SO disappointing!!

A few of our favorite things...

We LOVE the stool that pulls out from underneath the cabinet...it was a Pinterest idea that I had that was an absolute win!
We're so glad we have a large sink and we're happy with how much storage we have.
We're happy with the fact that we chose to go with a flushing toilet and not a composting toilet.

A few things we would change...

We haven't used the shower as much as we thought we would because of our (many) plumbing issues and because we're living at an RV park, there are plenty of showers for us to use and it's really just turned into our laundry basket most of the time!!

Overall...the bathroom is one of the trickiest areas in the bus! We have to keep the cabinets very organized so that we don't get overwhelmed in such a tiny space and we have storage organization posts coming your way soon!!

As always, ask any questions you have in the comments! The links to everything in our kitchen are below >

SHOP THE MAYES BUS:

Brass Mirror: Target

Sink Stopper: Comllen

Vessel Sink: Comllen

Brass Wall Hanging: Electric Sun Creatives

Macrame Wall Hanging: Macramama

Towel: Cotton and Flax

Toilet: Dometic

Toilet Paper Roll Holder: KES on Amazon

Towel Ring: KES on Amazon

Towel Hook: OnWard

Shower Curtain: Target

Shower Fixtures: KES

Faucet: Vigo

Macrame Planter: Mkono

Toilet Brush: Umbra

If you want to see a more detailed view of the bus you can see the tour of our Skoolie HERE

So, You Want To Live Life On The Road?

Thu, 15 Nov 2018 01:52:42 GMT

Living on the road is a dream for many. We get messages every day from people who have big dreams to travel full time and the two major roadblocks to their dreams are ALWAYS income and downsizing. People are us ALL the time how....HOW did you do it?! And the answer is a lot simpler than you would actually think.

We just did.

Once we decided that this was our dream and we were going to make it happen. We did it.

We didn't let peoples opinions stop us.

We didn't let our own doubts or fears get in the way.

We didn't listen to the "shoulds" or "coulds" that arose.

We didn't let our bank account, or consistent pay check rule us.

You can spend your life dreaming of a goal but doing what's expected of you OR you can buckle down, silence the voices and DO your dream.

Was it easy? No. Did we have to make sacrifices? Yes. Did it take a ton of work? Yes. And still sometimes does! But be encouraged. People are doing it all around you. People are reaching their goal and the only difference between you and them is that you are listening and believing your excuses. You are waiting for the perfect set of circumstances or the right dollar sign in your bank account before you take the next step.

We will be covering those two big excuses in the following posts. Just know that it is possible and you CAN achieve your goal!

Our Tiny Kitchen

Thu, 25 Jan 2018 23:23:33 GMT

The area of our bus that seems to be getting the most attention is the Kitchen...and rightly so!!

It was the area that I had the clearest vision for. You see, one this that is AMAZING about building a tiny home is that you get to build your absolute dream home, with all the fixtures and fittings you've always desired and it costs hardly anything because you only need a tiny amount!!

The original inspiration for our kitchen was this post. I've always loved Scandinavian Modern design and since we had always lived in rentals...I relished the fact that we could make this bus completely our own! I knew from the get go that I wanted the whole house to be white, black and grey (just like my wardrobe!) but added in the wood countertops to break it up a little. The links to buy everything in our bus are at the bottom of this post.

We saved a lot of money by choosing birch-wrapped plywood for the countertops instead of adding a seal (which would inevitably darken the wood) we decided to go with using wood butter to preserve the wood. We chose to minimize the size of our refrigerator and get an under-counter fridge/freezer because we knew that counter space would be a big struggle....especially without a dishwasher!! All the fixtures in the bus are matte black .

We made these additions to the space to minimize what would be left on the counter:

We added a floating shelf to store our plates, bowl and cups and only keep enough dishes and silverware for one meal for each member of the family
We mounted a knife magnet and it is waaaaay cooler than a knife block
The paper towel holder is mounted under the cabinets

A few of our favorite things...

We LOVE t his drying rack and store it under the counter when not in use, we also keep our clean silverware in it
Our 23 inch Vigo sink...we chose the deepest sink we could find and could store dishes for daaays if we wanted to
Yes, we don't have much fridge space (we find the freezer size not a problem) BUT I would not change it one bit, the counter space is SO worth it!
I was really nervous about the tile situation...I was not willing to take the risk of ceramic tiles smashing (since it's such a big space) so we opted to go with peel and stick . It was definitely a chore to get them up and they are by no means perfect! But I do love the look of them

Overall...simplifying our kitchen has been very easy. We got rid of most of large appliances and very rarely do we wish we had more. When you really think about it...a pot and lid can be a popcorn popper and you can get your daily arm workout in when you don't have an electric whisk! The only thing that I would change would be a bigger oven and more organization inside of the cabinets!

As always, ask any questions you have below! The links to everything in our kitchen are below >

SHOP THE MAYES BUS:

Ceramic Capuccino Mugs. Corrin Ceramics

Ceramic Coffee Mugs. Corrin Ceramics

Cereal Bowls: Charm Ceramics

Pour Over: Peeking through fingers

Jar Candle: The Awesome Candle

Tea Towels: Cotton & Flax

Ceramic Spoon: Avesha33

Brass Trivet: West Elm

Igloo Under Counter Fridge/Freezer: Amazon

Planter: World Market

Letterboard: Letterfolk

Knife Magnet: Amazon

Kettle: Hario

Flatware: Knork

Sink: Vigo

Faucet: Vigo

Peel and Stick Tile: TicTac Tiles

Closet Pulls: HomeDIY

Paper Towel Holder: mDesign

Ceramic Ring Holder:

Floating Shelf: SanLem

Drying Rack: Simple Human

Fold up Grill: Coleman

Our Schoolbus Conversion aka "Skoolie" Layout

Thu, 11 Jan 2018 22:51:05 GMT

When we initially discovered the idea of converting a school bus into a home and I went into research mode every bus I found had a center aisle floor plan. every.single.one.

I was NOT a fan of people walking in the door of our bus and seeing our bedroom so originally our plan was to put up a door but I just wasn't a fan of that idea. And then I found this image on Instagram @busnbreakfast .

And suddenly the possibilities for our bus were endless!! I went to work on a layout that would work for our family and here were some of our requirements:

Not being able to see the bedroom from the front door
A door to separate the living/kitchen area from the kids
A door to separate the kids area from our bedroom
An open plan kitchen and living area
A mini bathtub to bathe the baby
As much storage space as possible
Being able to eat together around a table

I pinned like a maniac and went to work trying to put together a layout that fulfilled all of our needs. You can see the board here .

And here is what we came up with:

Things didn't exactly get built to this plan but here is how each section breaks down:

Living Room
Walking in the door we have shoe storage, this has been such a blessing and has helped us to keep the bus organized. Next was the couches. Having 6 people on the bus meant that seating was IMPORTANT, originally we had one couch longer than the other but when there were some space lost in the bus (more about that later) we ended up having to shrink one of the couches. The couches come together to make a bed (a little smaller than a full) and there is storage on the inside.

Kitchen
The kitchen was probably where I spent the most time, it was such a hard balance between counter space, fridge/freezer space and storage and took FOREVER to figure out. Getting an under counter fridge/freezer was a GAME CHANGER. We willingly sacrificed space in the fridge for more counter space and we wouldn't change it for a second!

Dining
This has been the most difficult problem to solve and has caused the most frustration. I thought we had found the perfect solution having a flip up table that we could all sit around but we lost space inside the bus during the build and it has been an epic fail. We then tried a center table that we can sit at the couches and eat, it was also a fail. Our current solution is eating dinner outside at our patio table and we are loving the weather, obviously this is a fare-weather solution and we are working on something for the long-term. We will be following up with a "things we would change" post and this is 2nd on the list.

Bathroom
It was important to me that the bathroom was one area and not split up between two places (which is common for center aisle skoolies). Also, that we could bathe the baby in a mini RV tub. It all fit together pretty well until there were some changes made in the build that increased the size of the bathroom and decreased size in the living/kitchen/aisle space. If I could redo ANY part of the bus it would be the bathroom and is #1 on the "things we would change" list. We do love the amount of storage we have.

Kids Area
We decided to have the kids bunk area in the traditional center aisle way so that they could fit over the wheel wells...I had a grand idea of a four bunk corner system but there was just no way to make it work. We tried to balance size of bunk and center aisle space so they don't have normal twin size beds, but they are comfortable. We also included a hanging closet in their area because we knew that Gabriel and I would need some place to hang up clothes.

Our Bedroom
It was a struggle to figure out the best way to plan the bedroom and it changed probably 20 times throughout the build process. Originally we wanted there to be space to walk around the bed but when walls were put up and the back window was sealed in we lost a few inches which in a tiny space make a HUGE impact...every inch counts! We also downsized to a full bed which actually hasn't been as bad as we thought it would be! Because we have a rear engine, our bed sits up pretty high so we have to climb into it and we put some storage over head. We went back and forth on whether the bed should run horizontal or vertical and we went with vertical so that no one would have to climb over each other the get in and out of bed. I'm happy we did that. Then we took advantage of the space on either side of the bed so that we could have extra storage. Our bedroom has so much storage we haven't even used all of it!

As we mentioned earlier, there is a post coming that will go over the major things we would change now that we live on the bus...stay tuned!

How To Downsize Your Christmas... A Tiny Living Guide

Thu, 07 Dec 2017 23:19:44 GMT

It's that time of year again...the one parents simultaneously love and hate. You are SO excited about the decorations, celebrating the true meaning of the season, spending time with family and giving gifts to the ones you love. Unfortunately, with all the planning, shopping and wrapping comes a whole lot of stress, a whole lot of figuring out how to make the best of the holidays and a whole lot of STUFF.

So how do we do it?

How do we celebrate a holiday where our culture tells us we should bring TONS of new items into our home?

We struggled with Christmas for yeeeeears. We'd spend money on toys that would break within a week, magically disappear or get surpassed by the box they came in. We knew we needed to figure out a different way to do Christmas.

So.... we did!!

Here's how it breaks down for The Mayes Team:

EACH KID RECEIVES:
1. Something they want.
2. Something they need.
3. Something to give.
4. Something to read.

Four gifts.

That's it.

We have celebrated Christmas this way for the past 3 years and it WORKS! Now, we know this may not work for everyone and we're just sharing with you what works for us! Because our kids know that this is how we do Christmas, we avoid the inevitable whining and complaining when they don't receive what they want or not enough.

SOMETHING THEY WANT:

They let us know what they want the most, the number one gift that will blow their mind! Now that we are living in a tiny house we really lean towards giving experiences over gifts. We've all experienced dropping a bunch of cash on a plastic toy that ended up in the trash weeks later so we decided to invest in higher quality gifts or experiences.

Here are a few ideas for a gift a kid these days may WANT:

You can click the names below to check out the details on each of these gift ideas:

1. Lego Star Wars Set
2. Tegu Magnetic Wooden Block Set
3. Fujifilm Instax Mini 8 Instant Film Camera
4. Lewo Wooden Tool Toys Pretend Play Toolbox
5. Plan Toys Tea Set
6. Mantis Folding Bicycle

SOMETHING THEY NEED:

This could be any host of things. One year our son needed storage for his Lego collection, another was hair clips and bows for our girl. We try to keep it fun (avoiding socks and underwear) but it HAS to be something they genuinely need.

A few cool ideas that a Kid may NEED are:

You can click the names below to check out the details on each of these gift ideas:

7. Herschel Heritage Youth Backpack
8. Play&Go Drawstring Play Mat
9. LANGUGU Waterproof Cosmetic Bag
10. Lego Storage Brick
11. Fill-in Journal for Kids

SOMETHING TO GIVE:

We talk as a family about someone that they want to give a gift to for Christmas. They get to choose who it is and what they want to give. It is SO important to teach our kids that the holidays are not just about receiving. We try to have them give away the gift on Christmas Day so they fully experience both giving and receiving.

Here are a few gifts that our kids are wanting to GIVE :

You can click the names below to check out the details on each of these gift ideas:

12. Easy Cross Stitch Patterns
13. Magnum Pocket Knife
14. Speak Out Game
15. Art Lab for Kids
16. Letters to My Grandchild
17. The Puffin in Bloom Collection

SOMETHING TO READ

This one is easy.... We get them whatever the newest book is that they are into. We LOVE to get hardcover books (which last longer) or sets of books so they can collect them all throughout the course of the year. One year our oldest wanted a "real" Bible so he got hooked up! We love, love, love it when our kids beg us for a book! It feels like a good parent move to have them anticipate the gift of a book! =)

Here are a few books that we're considering for them READ :

You can click the names below to check out the details on each of these gift ideas:

18. The Chronicles of Narnia Box Set
19. Rosie Revere
20. How to Code in 10 Easy Lessons
21. God is Really Good
22. Storybook Bible
23. The Little Mermaid

A side note about family members...

The holidays are also a difficult time to navigate receiving gifts from family members. We've been lucky to have parents who fully support this journey but we know that most aren't so lucky. We most definitely ask family members to focus on experience when it comes to buying our kids gifts. One of our kids all time favorite gift has been the storybooks that family members can record reading to you. We also encourage them to be creative with gift cards!

Movie passes, Jump Zones, Manicures, Fancy Dinners...there's so many fun things that can be given as a gift card!

For example:

You can click the names below to check out the details on each of these gift ideas:

24. Movie Ticket Gift Card
25. Recordable Storybook
26. Makeup Gift Card
27. Manicure Gift Card
28. Gift Cards

When it comes to celebrating Christmas as a family the most important this to us is the reason for the season. We talk a lot about the birth of Jesus and how God sent His son to earth on our behalf. We hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas this year and it's filled with tons of laughter, good times and true peace.

Blessings to you all and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Gabriel & Debbie

Life On The Skoolie Has Begun!

Tue, 21 Nov 2017 07:20:15 GMT

Hi all!

Just in case you missed it, we are THE MAYES TEAM! Before we get all up into the lifestyle we live and how the heck we do it, we'd like to take a minute and introduce ourselves and share a smidge of the journey we took to get here.

And yes ya'll... this life is CRAZY!

We are a family of 7...Gabriel, Debbie, Gracen, Darby, Deacon, Jovey and Gideon in heaven. About a year and a half ago we decided to change everything about our life and start fresh. We had accumulated all the "stuff" a family could want (Big Home, Cars, Lots of "friends" and yadayada).

We had gotten to a place where we were miserable, frustrated, disconnected and we knew that we needed change in every area of our life. So what did we do?!? We did what any normal family would do.... we bought a friggin' School Bus to live in. ��

They call it a "Skoolie." And folks, ours is pretty stinkin awesome.

Check it out:

Pretty suhweet right?!?

It's a 2000 Thomas High Top complete with a roof deck, full kitchen and can sleep 8. It's home.

Life before the skoolie was nutso. To say we needed life change is an understatement. We needed to be changed from the inside out so... we buckled down and did some major heart work then through divine intervention found the tiny house movement that we have fallen in love with.

Within weeks we jumped on board, started a new business, designed a skoolie, started the build and have not looked back yet! In August of 2017 we moved all 4 kids in and began the insane journey west towards the coast. Mountains, beaches, rivers and deserts?!? YES PLEASE! ��

Side Note: WE HATE THE SNOW. REALLY, REALLY, REALLY HATE THE SNOW.

Phew, it feels good to get that out in the open.... ��

Before we did all of this we sold most of our stuff and moved out of our 5000 sq. ft house. We have learned so much through this journey and are excited to share all the ups and downs with you! We are passionate about chasing our dreams and encouraging others to chase theirs. It's never too late to create the life you have always dreamed of!

If you've read this post you've joined us at the beginning of our BLOG and we are so thankful that you're here. We are going to be honest, real and vulnerable with all those who visit here and hold nothing back. We hope that in some way you're encouraged by the stories we share, tips we provide and life we live.

Welcome to our Blog.

Blessings,

Gabriel & Debbie