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Teran Sands : Barndominium Living on a Family Compound
34 Plays1 year ago
Teran is an MBA, author, & Mom of 3. She is the owner of Sands CPA and co-host of the What Your CPA Wants You to Know Podcast. Teran and her husband Carson live in their barndominium on a family compound in Texas.
You can follow her personal account on Instagram at @modernbarndo, and her CPA firm's account at @whatyour_cpa_wantsyoutoknow.
Teran and her husband's podcast can be found right here on Spotify as well! It's called "What Your CPA Wants You to Know."
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Transcript
Introduction to Taryn Sands
00:00:00
Speaker
BAM!
00:00:28
Speaker
Today I spoke with Taryn Sands, a mother of three, co-business owner of a CPA firm, an Instagram influencer and sister among four. This woman truly does it all.
Transition to Country Life
00:00:40
Speaker
Several years ago, Taryn and her husband Carson were overwhelmed with city life in Texas. They had had their first child and had slowly come to realize the extent to which the rat race was interfering with their ability to live the lives they wanted.
00:00:54
Speaker
Today, the couple lives in a gorgeous, self-commissioned Barned Dominion on a 15-acre piece of land in the country in Texas, alongside Taron's sisters and mom. Their home is a real example of how you can successfully incorporate office space and a fabulously accommodating family home into one structure without breaking the bank or making significant compromises on what you want in any sense.
00:01:18
Speaker
Now this is a really wonderful conversation that touches on family compound living, tips on managing construction projects for beginners, how to go about designing the life you want if you're starting from a less than ideal place, and so much more.
Instagram Influence and Lifestyle Goals
00:01:33
Speaker
Go ahead and follow Taryn on Instagram. Her personal account is one that I was immediately drawn to and the reason that I initially reached out to her for interviewing. Not just because it's a great display of her family's ultra-intentional lifestyle, but also because of its authenticity and thoroughness in tip giving if you're looking to accomplish similar things. Enjoy the episode! Seems to be... Are you okay to die, Brayden?
00:02:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Anything to keep my mind off of it at this point is probably good. Okay. Well, what you're doing is still so incredibly impressive, and I admire it so much, regardless of what's going on with Instagram. Just goals, goals everywhere, honestly. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Tell us, tell us your story, wherever you want to start.
00:02:23
Speaker
Sure, I can start from how I grew up. That's the first question on your list.
Return to Roots and City Escape
00:02:29
Speaker
So I did grow up in a very, very small town as in it didn't have like a gas station or anything. So it was just, I wouldn't even call it a town because it doesn't have a zip code. So it's in the country and
00:02:43
Speaker
I lived in the same house for all 18 years until I grew up and graduated and I went to college. And I think my biggest thing was like, I'm not coming back here, right? So I'm done with this. Like I want to be in the city. I want to be around all the things.
00:03:00
Speaker
So I did go to college in a bigger city. It was very overwhelming at first, but obviously I loved it. I loved having everything so close and just a completely different way of living. And I graduated and of course didn't want to come back here to a smaller town. And so my husband and I, we did move to Fort Worth and Dallas area and we were there for a while until we had our first child.
00:03:28
Speaker
And that's kind of when it all started being like, you know what, this really isn't for us. It was more like keeping up with the Joneses and we couldn't get her in daycare because we should have been on the list like two years before that and all of the traffic and the fact that we weren't really getting out and doing all the things that we were surrounded by. We had a baby like we really wanted just to be around our family. So
00:03:53
Speaker
That's really whenever it first started popping into her head. And then I think really just the turning point was whenever we just didn't have any time off to be with her. So she was sick a lot and we were taking days off. So by the time Christmas rolled around, we just didn't have any vacation days. So that's kind of when we were like, let's make a change. What needs to happen?
00:04:16
Speaker
And we did, but it happened very quickly. So we just decided to open our own business and that we needed to take all of those steps to finally get to opening that business. And we basically wrote it on a piece of paper and started that day and we got the ball rolling very quickly. We put our new house up for sale and it sold within like a day or two. And then we had to move in with my mom and our toddler.
00:04:42
Speaker
I was going to say that's so awesome that it sold fast. But yeah, I'm not sure how much you enjoyed the other process. No, the living with the mom, not so much. But we didn't have like, we didn't have much of a plan after that. We just were like, Oh, we didn't have step two yet. So we were like, Mom, can we live with you for a little bit? Yeah, yeah. So you and your husband are both CPAs, right?
00:05:08
Speaker
My husband's a CPA. I just have my MBA, but I have a lot of background and higher education and accounting. So I'm not an MBA yet. Sorry, I am not a CPA yet. Got it. And so before you guys move to the compound, you were working W twos as accountants or what was your professional background like up until that point?
00:05:30
Speaker
Yes, right after college, I was in mortgage for a little bit because I always knew I wanted to own my own businesses because my family were all entrepreneurs, but I just didn't know what yet. And then once we got into the accounting industry, I took a job at a CPA firm and then my husband was working at a CPA firm as well.
00:05:49
Speaker
It kind of dawned on me that not only could we do this, I had a whole list of ways that we could make it better and that we could provide a better service. And we could also start this business basically by just buying computers. There wasn't a huge initial investment.
00:06:05
Speaker
Once I had that idea, it took Carson quite a bit to just feel like, Okay, we can probably do this. But I think he had been a CPA for about five years when he was like, Hey, I feel confident that I've been trained enough and that I could just go out on my own and not have the support from other CPAs. So that's, that's kind of whatever he was like, on board with my crazy plan.
Innovative Home Solutions
00:06:28
Speaker
this is okay so exciting so you guys are ready to start a business you've convinced Carson to do this both on board you've sold your house you have a new kid you're living with your mom what do you do like what's the initial what's next
00:06:43
Speaker
Well, our thought process was we could either buy like an old house downtown and convert it to a CPA firm and then also live like maybe upstairs or something like that for a while because at the point we obviously had not like a lot of income coming in. So we knew we couldn't like buy an office and buy a house. Sure.
00:07:05
Speaker
So then my mom had this piece of land that was behind her house and she kept saying like, you guys can build a house there. And we kind of dawned on me that we could build like a cheap house, which is a Barna Minium, and then put our office there because like a main road goes right by a part of that. And I was like, we could just have an office and have our door right there and our clients could come to our house. A lot of people thought that was absolutely nuts.
00:07:35
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think when you think of a CPA firm, you generally think of like a fancy building or like we were in high rises in Dallas. So it was very different to have like a home office. So after like a few houses downtown didn't work out, we really got into the idea of building on my mom's property.
00:07:53
Speaker
And then we would just put a separate door and make sure that it worked since we were able to create the space. So we talked to a few builders who told us it would be ridiculously expensive to do that. And we almost scrapped the idea until we saw a sign on the side of the road for a contractor. We called him and
00:08:15
Speaker
He actually came out and talked us through it and we ended up using him to build our house and he was able to do it exactly how we wanted it and it fit in our budget.
00:08:25
Speaker
How was this guy able to do it at a margin that was so much lower than anything else you'd been quoted? Did he have like a strategy where you guys were using certain materials right off the bat or he was just like really ingenious when it came to winning or how is this possible? Because Barna Minium is like, I would just want to put in real quick that I did initially find you on Pinterest.
00:08:47
Speaker
I was super interested in this idea, and I don't think it was your account, but somebody had reposted a link to your Instagram. I love the look of your home, but they are extremely expensive. When I started looking up comparisons, I mean, we're talking about millions of dollars just to build one.
00:09:05
Speaker
Yeah, and we did build at a time where it's not as expensive. So we built the home in 2017. So before this huge inflation that we're seeing now. But what we did was we just kind of made a budget, obviously we're accountant. So we kind of knew the at least like the range of what like putting a septic would be putting a well and we
00:09:28
Speaker
added all of that up based on just things we found. We're like, there's no way we couldn't do it for this price plus the contractor. Now we could have been off, we've never built a house, but everyone was telling us like two to three times that amount, which we were like, that's just outrageous.
00:09:44
Speaker
So I think what we did initially was we met with all the really big builders in the area that had a lot of people that had used them. And that was where we shouldn't have started there because they didn't want to build a barn dominion. So they just told us an outrageous price.
00:09:59
Speaker
They were trying to get rid of you guys Yeah, and they didn't like the concept like they wanted to build like these like very fancy homes And they told us that they would never put concrete as the floor in the house So just things like that we kind of got discouraged but this guy was able to do it for a couple of reasons obviously he wasn't a giant company and
00:10:21
Speaker
So his profit margin was a little bit lower and then he also did a lot of the work himself. So he was able to do a lot of those jobs and get paid for that. And then sometimes like he came to us and he had a trailer full of supplies and he was like, Hey, I have this tile like in my trailer. Is this okay for the master? And I'm like, absolutely put it in like, don't care. So I think we were very open minded and a lot of people probably couldn't have worked that way.
00:10:48
Speaker
Yeah. And so why were you initially into this notion of a barn dominion, like as opposed to something, I don't want to say fancier, but just like a regular three bedroom, single family home, you know,
00:11:00
Speaker
So the idea was to build something very large that we could grow into but in like very vanilla. So make it very like super plain but have the space. And the only way to do that was with a barnominium. So basically draw like a rectangle and fill it in. And we knew at some point we can change tile, we can put down wood flooring, we can
00:11:24
Speaker
do like better trim if we wanted to, better bathrooms, but just to get in. So we knew that our family would grow and we wanted at least like four to five bedrooms to like, so we could have more kids and stuff. And really the Barned Dominion was the only way to get that much square footage with the prices that were. So we were able to get, I think our house is about 3,700 square foot of living space. And we weren't able to get anywhere close with a traditional home.
00:11:56
Speaker
So when it came to actually designing the house itself, were you and Carson like in it together, just kind of marking up blueprints and going on Pinterest and coming up with the whole floor plan yourself, or did you trust this builder or contractor guy that you found to really help you lay everything out?
00:12:14
Speaker
Well, we had seen a picture on Pinterest and it was just like a box, but it was cute. And I was like, I'm OK with this. Like I can do this. So we created a rectangle on a piece of paper. I used a ruler and we kind of just mapped out how we wanted the layout to be.
00:12:29
Speaker
And we weren't sure like, do we need to get this drawn up like with an architect or what do we need to do? So when we took it to him, he said, I actually have a program and you did a good enough job that I can create this into usable building plans. So he actually did that for us based on a drawing that I had and like a picture of the exterior. So I was blown away that we didn't have to pay thousands for an architect to draw up the floor plan. Wow.
00:12:56
Speaker
And so you mentioned concrete floors. That's something that I have always paid attention to on your Instagram because it is uncommon, like in the living space. So I'm wondering, first of all, what was the thinking behind that? Like what are the pros of having concrete floors in a living space? And second of all, what kind of other design features did you have to come up with and incorporate into your home to make everything budget friendly, but also beautiful, kind of like
00:13:22
Speaker
more off-the-wall things in the vein of concrete floors. Which, by the way, how cool is that off the wall? I think it's an awesome idea. Yeah, obviously lots of people have concrete floors, especially in Texas, but usually people do stained concrete, and that's just not my vibe, like the brown and mixed look. So at the time, and I know there's a lot of concrete floors now, I could only find one or two pictures on Pinterest where they were concrete colored.
00:13:51
Speaker
And I guess that was just like, people don't like that. But I asked the builder about that. I said, I don't want it to be shiny. I don't want it to be brown. I just want it like this. And he was like, this is super easy. I just put a sealer on it so nothing spills. And I was like, yeah. And he's, are you sure you don't want it to be shiny? And basically buffed, because they have to buff them to make them very shiny.
00:14:15
Speaker
And I was like, no. So he thought it was crazy. But he was like, whatever you want, I'll do. So he was very flexible with us on that. And then some of the other weird things we did, we have IKEA vanities in all of our bathrooms. And our builder once again was like, I've never done this before. I don't even know what you want. So I actually bought them. And I put together all the vanities. And then he just installed them. So that was very easy and very inexpensive.
00:14:43
Speaker
And I also got all of our light fixtures at IKEA, some of them more like $20. And he was also like, Oh, okay, like, if you want those, that's fine. So that I'm trying to think of some other ones like we use the cheapest store you could get at Lowe's.
00:15:01
Speaker
It was like $20 and I had him paint them all black and so it's a very cheap looking like maybe apartment style door but they look actually very like more fancy that they have that they're all black so just little things like that. I had him paint a few things in our house black like a touch of black
00:15:21
Speaker
Because I was like, hey, on the staircase, can you just paint this trim right here black? He's like, I mean, paints, paint. I can paint it whatever color you want. So I just tried to be creative making something, like I said, very vanilla, have some character to it. And then slowly we've been adding to it. So we just had to.
00:15:41
Speaker
Basically say, here's the three cheapest things. What's a good quality one that we won't regret using? And then pick out of those. I didn't have like five or 100 choices. I literally could only pick like two or three things from Lowe's. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So working under constraints, but you did know exactly what you wanted aesthetic wise. So it was just kind of a matter of finding a budget friendly way to make them look the way that absolutely.
00:16:08
Speaker
Got it. I love that. So creative. So you guys do have a bunch of kids. Obviously that was a huge consideration in the way that your house was laid out. But how about integrating the whole office portion into your living space? What were your considerations there?
Integrating Work and Home
00:16:23
Speaker
Like how do you work inside of your house?
00:16:26
Speaker
Right. So first and foremost, my sister lives by us and her house is turned one way and our house is turned the other way. And people always ask like, why are your houses facing different ways? So the reason we faced ours that way was because we wanted our office door facing the road because they didn't want anyone driving down to like our front door or anything. So the first thing that you're going to see when you drive on onto our property is our office door. So we had to put a separate exterior door
00:16:55
Speaker
And then we also had our builder make like basically a
00:17:01
Speaker
I don't know, I don't know what I would call it, but like a reception counter when you walk in to make it look like an office. And then we had to put one of our bathrooms right there in the hallway so that if our client was like, hey, I need to use the restroom, there would be one right there so that they didn't have to like go through our house. So that part of our house always had to be like kept neat and tidy. So those were really the only the things that we made. We made sure that it was very easily accessible. It had an exterior door and that there was a bathroom.
00:17:31
Speaker
Do you guys do the majority of your business in person then or is it mostly virtual and you just have the office space if it's convenient to use?
00:17:40
Speaker
So actually last year we did build a separate office. So we had been in business for about five, six years. So we do meet clients in our office, but since we work with clients all over the United States, a lot of it is virtual. So the whole point of us like building one last year was so that we could hire some help. Okay. That's awesome.
00:18:04
Speaker
Yeah, I was thinking that if the intention is of course to create a business that also grows, do you want to have a whole bunch of people near your kids and the rest of your living space? Like it's fine if you're a smaller operation, but that's not the way you intend to be forever. So it makes sense. You're scaling the actual real estate of your business as well.
00:18:24
Speaker
Yes. Got it. So let's talk about the family aspect of this. You mentioned your sister.
Family Compound Dynamics
00:18:30
Speaker
You live on a compound, right, with your sisters and their families. How did that develop? Like were they there before you and your husband built yours?
00:18:39
Speaker
So I think we were always very close. There was four girls and we've always been just super close. And so once we all started getting married, we joked with our husbands, like, we're going to make this compound. We'll have a gate that says like the compound and, you know, we'll just be with each other all the time. And they absolutely were like, no, we were not doing that.
00:19:01
Speaker
So I think it all kind of changed when we had kids. We all were wanting to be around each other more because it just worked out that we all started having kids about the same time. And then whenever we just up and decided to move in with my mom, my sister actually was like, hey, we were just talking about that we want to build and move to Decatur on mom's land. I'm like, well, that's crazy because I'm going to live with mom. You can't live with her.
00:19:31
Speaker
And I'm also going to build so both of us built at the exact same time which was crazy because we had talked about it for so long and so many knows from our husbands that how did it possibly all of a sudden we change our minds at the same time.
00:19:47
Speaker
So our homes went up at the same time, and then there's another space for someone to build if they wanted to. And my little sister was like, I saw what you guys went through, and I do not want to build a house. That's crazy. She had no intention of creating her own house. She's just a person that just wants to buy an existing home. So she was feeling very left out that she was not on the compound.
00:20:17
Speaker
I don't know it was a few years ago my mom's neighbor told her they were gonna sell their house which is connected to the compound land and she was like I think my daughter might want to buy it and so it never went up for sale and she just bought it and was able to move into the compound that way so that just made it a little bit bigger because it's touching my land and it's touching my mom's land.
00:20:38
Speaker
Wow, so this worked out magically. Yeah, it just kind of just like fell into place. There was really no big plan. We just all I think felt like we want to move to a smaller town. We want our kids to go to school in a small town. We want them to be around their grandparents and to be close and just kind of up and decided to move. How many acres are you guys on? So it's you, your mom, two of your sisters on how much land roughly? There's about 15 acres.
00:21:07
Speaker
Okay. So that's like a nice piece in Texas. And we have three acres, which is a lot to me because it's hard to find a house on one acre. And so three for me is like, I don't want any more than that to keep up with. Sure. Are you guys off of a main road? Cause I knew you were talking about your office door facing a road. So customers could find you easily, or is it more remote where like people really need to take a longer track to your place?
00:21:34
Speaker
No, you can see us off of a pretty heavily traveled road. It's not like a highway or anything, but it is a back road that a lot of people in Decatur use. So if I say, yeah, we have a white barn, most people in Decatur will be like, yeah, I've driven by. I love the house. So they know where we are, but it's not like a busy, a super busy street. Got it.
00:21:58
Speaker
And is living with your family everything that you anticipated it would be or are there, like for people listening, I guess, like myself who have similar aspirations, are there things that came up once you were all together that you didn't anticipate being a huge pro or maybe a huge negative?
00:22:18
Speaker
People always ask me all the time and I don't know how to answer this because the things that have come up like the disagreements and stuff aren't really based on the compound. They're just normal family issues. So we do a lot of things together. Like we do a trip every single year together and our kids go to school together. We're together a lot. And as far as like problems on the compound, I would say the only thing is like,
00:22:46
Speaker
my brother-in-law being very opinionated. Why are you all doing that? I don't know if that's going to look good. Probably just normal neighbor stuff there. Then the family drama, if we have family drama, it's usually just family drama that everybody has. It's definitely not compound related at all. I think maybe just seeing each other more is what would bring up more drama.
00:23:19
Speaker
So something that I've read about online can seem to spark that kind of conflict is having spaces in common, but it doesn't sound like that's necessarily the case for your land, right? Like you don't have a big movie theater or gym or like house in the middle of everything that everybody. No, we definitely don't. I think that would cause problems. What we decided to do was just to have something fun at each house. So like,
00:23:39
Speaker
I think that we're pretty good at managing conflict.
00:23:45
Speaker
My mom already had a pool. There's really no reason for me to build a pool at my house and maintain it. And then my sister and brother-in-law, they did like a sand volleyball court. And so just little things like that. We all have trampolines now. And then my dad bought all of the kids like a giant swing set that we put like in the very middle of the compound. He bought that for them for Christmas, which I think he likes because he's like, I can buy something that everybody is going to like and use and
00:24:14
Speaker
It's easy. So other than that, we don't because we're just taking care of our own spaces just like you would in a neighborhood. Sure. It's just a neighborhood that you kind of have more surety about liking. Yes, exactly. Or at least being honest, like I'm like, stop looking at my thing. I don't care if you like it or not. Just go away. Yeah, yeah.
00:24:36
Speaker
Love that. Are you attracting or like is it the goal, I guess, to attract more friends and kind of people outside of the nuclear family to the compound or are you just kind of looking to maintain the 15 acres as it is currently? Yeah, I don't think we're really wanting to add anything just as is. If my other sister who doesn't live on the compound ever wants to join the craziness, there is a spot for her, but we're just going to keep it blank for now.
00:25:06
Speaker
Now, when you were living in the city with your husband and you started telling people, although I guess, I don't know how public you were about this process or your thoughts about, about feeling like a little bit sick of the rat race and overwhelmed with life in the city. Um, what were people's general reactions about that? Or maybe your employer's reactions? Like were they generally supportive or weirded out by the idea or.
00:25:32
Speaker
Definitely weirded out by living in a place that doesn't have a lot of things right by it like a Target or Chick-fil-A. Yeah. But also I think our idea initially was we don't want to work 80 or 90 hours in tax season. That's not going to be realistic for us having family because we felt like we never saw each
Prioritizing Family Over Career
00:25:54
Speaker
other.
00:25:54
Speaker
And I just didn't want to miss out on all of my kids' things in their life. So we were trying to pivot before they got into sports and all of these things that are super important for me to be at. And I think people took that as us being lazy because we didn't want to work the traditional nine to five jobs and really
00:26:16
Speaker
It's not that we are lazy. It's just that I don't believe that I would have to be in my desk from nine to five every single day because it's not flexible. It's not set up for a family. And so I think that's the biggest thing we got was that that's just how it is. Like you have to work that much. And we just felt like there was another way. Sure.
00:26:38
Speaker
Uh, yeah, that is so, I guess it's not the most professional term, but it is kind of gross that this is the choice that so many people come to. Like, am I going to devote my entire life to corporate climbing or to enjoying a just as, if not more valid aspect of life, right? Which is tending to and caring for the people that you want to spend your actual life and days with so ridiculous. Yeah. And it's hard to turn down. Like when my husband tried to leave, they gave him a promotion.
00:27:07
Speaker
When I tried to leave, they were like, come back anytime we want you. So of course some people just want that notoriety and they want to keep climbing the ladder and it meant nothing to us. And so a lot of people just couldn't relate to that. And we had just built a brand new gorgeous house and a nice neighborhood and people, especially some of our family.
00:27:28
Speaker
We're like, why would you give that all up? You have everything, but we didn't feel like we had everything. We felt like we were trapped in these jobs that were making us miserable and it was taking all our time. We just felt like if we could reduce all of our expenses, like we even sold one of our cars, we did everything we possibly could do to get down to almost like very, very little living expenses. And that first year we just spent so much time together and we knew that we made the right decision within the first month. Sure.
00:27:58
Speaker
Did you have, so your comment about people saying that you had all the right things, I guess gets me thinking about this because I'm sure there are so many people out there who feel the same way and don't even give themselves the permission to acknowledge that within themselves. But did you remember a certain breaking point in the city where you or your husband or both of you kind of sat down and had the conversation like we're going to cut
00:28:25
Speaker
the fat off of our lifestyle and just figure out a way to be happier, like for all intents and purposes? Or was it just a super, super smooth transition with no point, like starting point? Yeah, I think there was just really one conversation. I hadn't seen Carson in weeks and our daughter forgot what he looked like because she was very little and things changed so fast. They kind of have stranger danger.
00:28:52
Speaker
And we put her down to bed and we set out on our porch. And he was just like, this isn't okay with me. She doesn't even know me. And there was nothing in his control to cut back his hours at work. Tax season is tax season. You basically give your soul. And it was bleeding into the times that we thought it wasn't. So it wasn't six months out of the year. It was eight. And that's when he was just like, I'm ready. What do we need to do next to change?
00:29:20
Speaker
After that, it happened very, very quickly because I'm just one of the persons that will just jump off the cliff and figure it out later. And he finally was like, yeah, I'm going with you. I love that. Did he grow up similarly to you, like coming from a small town or is he a city guy through and through?
00:29:40
Speaker
No, he did not. We were raised completely different other than the fact that he lived by his grandma and so did I. So I think that was one of the things having our kids close to family because we both did. But he lived in a city. He went to a really, really giant school and was so different than me. Most of our graduating classes were like 30. So he just
00:30:04
Speaker
He didn't even understand if he wanted our kids to go to a small school like this. But a week that he got here, he went to Walmart and he was like, I saw three people that know you. They were so nice and everyone's so nice here. And I just think he fit in right away, even though he was a little nervous to move here. Yeah. OK. And so like also seeing the way that your kids are living, as you're saying, close to your grandmother and being in a more intimate school environment.
00:30:32
Speaker
Um, is that also something that was kind of increasingly selling both you and him as you started to live on your mom's land or like, I guess my ultimate question is. Is it is the trade off between having more of the lifestyle that you want? I'm kind of compensating for the fact that it's more difficult to get to things like target and chick-fil-a.
00:30:55
Speaker
I think where we're situated is like a perfect place to be because if we want to go into the craziness of the city, it's easy for us to get there. We can take the kids to a trampoline park or pretty much anything Fort Worth and Dallas has for the day and we're only dealing with that for the day.
00:31:13
Speaker
It would be hard if we were in some of these small towns in Texas that are hours and hours away. I don't think either one of us could live like that. We need to be close to like an airport and shopping, but it is nice on the day to day. Like if I need to drop my kids off at school or when they were in daycare, so easy to just run down the road. There's no traffic. So I think after dealing with all of that, we appreciate that there's not as many people. Okay.
00:31:41
Speaker
Got it. And so are your sisters super on board with watching each other's kids? Like did you guys kind of decide moving into this lifestyle that like shared childcare was going to be a big thing? And are they even able to do that? Like I guess I'm wondering about the community demographics, like if people are working remote jobs outside of yourselves or what it looks like in that sense.
00:32:05
Speaker
So we did not talk about this prior to all moving on the compound. I think the idea was that we want our kids to be able to play together because they were babies at the time. And I think most people assume that we have a lot of help, like from my mom. And that's not really the case. She's around a lot, but she's not babysitting a lot.
00:32:28
Speaker
And I think the benefit for my sisters, because I own my own business, and both of my sisters own their own business, we're busy moms, we don't have a lot of time to offer free childcare. But now that they are in school, they're in the same school, they have a lot of the same schedules, it's very nice to have
00:32:45
Speaker
Oh, can you pick them up today? They're all going back to the same place. So we definitely rely on each other for that because I know that my sister is going to be at pickup or drop off. And so if I get into a bind, I will rely on them and they will rely on me. But I'm definitely not putting a lot more on their plate because they're just as busy with their kids and their families as I am. But
00:33:07
Speaker
I do know that if something comes up, like one time we had to take my son to the emergency room and my brother-in-law immediately came over and stayed with my kids. So I know that if I'm in a bind, I have somebody. Right. Honestly, what you're describing sounds so ideal, like even to somebody I think who's living in the city. I've spoken to somebody else who is, or a pair of sisters who are living in somewhat of a similar situation, living in
00:33:36
Speaker
rural Canada, but their families are much more almost integrated, I would say. I'm not sure what the word is. Your situation sounds a lot more independent. Your kids are in the public school system. Your families are existing somewhat separately, which is appealing for people who I think would hesitate to move to a family compound in fear of having to become a homesteader, essentially, and to really rely on and be constantly kumbaya with their neighbors. There's a lot less
00:34:06
Speaker
or it seems as if there's a lot less pressure to coexist if you guys are living independently with each other. Oh, absolutely. And we're so different as anyone has a sibling, I'm sure you can relate that we are completely different people and people always assume that we homeschool, I think maybe because we live on a compound.
00:34:28
Speaker
We don't. We do like that the school is very small and we know everybody and we love that aspect of their school, which is why we moved here. But none of us are speaking for everyone good homeschool because we all work. We have, you know, regular lives. The only difference being we work for ourselves. So we do make it a point to be at all of the kids things and be a parent just as much as being an employee of our business. I love that.
00:34:57
Speaker
In that same sense, so you guys have an Instagram for your business and you do also for your Barned Dominion lifestyle.
Sharing and Inspiring on Instagram
00:35:04
Speaker
And so before I really get into what you're doing there, I'm curious, did you start your at least personal family Instagram because there was little guidance, I guess, for people looking to do the same thing when you started? Did you have any role models, mentors in that sense when you were embarking on this journey?
00:35:23
Speaker
I really had no one. So I think that so many people thought it was such a crazy idea. I wanted to document it some way. And then most recently I realized how crazy people thought the family compound was.
00:35:39
Speaker
either just very interesting or the fact that they wanted to do that. So I have helped a lot of people build their barn dominions by offering advice and how you can do your concrete floors yourself. And now there's a lot of homes that look like mine. And I'm happy that I was able to share that and get people rolling on it because I think that it is very appealing. Like people are kind of moving away from, oh, I need this, like,
00:36:06
Speaker
house with all of these nice finishes and the best rock and the best this or that to this like simplified version that works for us. I think they're just scared to do it and I didn't care what it looked like. I really didn't. People kept telling me it looked awful and I was like, well, hope it works out. I've never once thought that it's looked glorious. Like seriously, every post I've seen of it, like I'm ready to move into your house.
00:36:33
Speaker
I appreciate that. We did get a lot of negativity in the beginning because when they framed it, it's just a giant rectangle and people are like, what is that? It will be better, but trust me, I will put my spin on it and it will be fine. Now that we have our landscaping in and just all those little tiny touches, it takes years to do. Now people are finally like, oh, I love it, but at first, not so much. Yeah.
00:37:00
Speaker
It's really a personality thing as to whether somebody has the imagination to see your vision in construction before it's actually there. Like some people do it all the time, like the HGTV obsessed people, my crowd, and some people just don't see it until you've been living in the structure for three, four years, right? And you've put up all the crotch keys and you've done all the decor and it's like, that's when it comes together for them.
00:37:22
Speaker
Exactly. I definitely have that brain. My husband does not at all, but he, I guess, trusts me enough because he told me years later, yeah, I wasn't sure about it, but I just thought, oh, well, we'll see. Yeah, I can imagine being that chill, but I do definitely appreciate that it's a good partnership that you guys have. And that's awesome. It works well because he's like that. Yeah. Do you have any tips for dealing with project management as somebody who doesn't come from a construction
00:37:50
Speaker
Background like when you were dealing with this builder working with him he seems great but i'm sure things were stressful and you were working your w two right while this process was going on so how did you keep track of everything make sure they were going as planned.
00:38:07
Speaker
So when we were building the house, we lived at my mom so we could see every day what was going on. So we were at the site daily to see if they were staying on track and making sure that they were doing what they were supposed to do. And everything went very smoothly, honestly. I've heard so many horror stories. My sister actually used a different builder and same thing, it didn't go very well.
00:38:31
Speaker
So I think we got lucky, but we did when we built the office. We hired a contractor who stole our money. So my advice when people are doing this is to, if you can, if you're kind of building something like we are stage by stage, just to pay the contractor yourself. Don't pay the project manager so that you can make sure that your money is not in his hands.
00:38:56
Speaker
So we learned that the hard way. We just got lucky the first time that we had an honest contractor. But now since then, of course, when I share this, so many people have done that and had that happen to them that I'm trying to share and make sure that you're just paying the contractors. And if they're not okay with that, it's because they're telling you a different price and they're just, you know, trying to get a little bit more money out of you. So that is my number one tip now that I've basically again,
00:39:26
Speaker
Well, I'm so glad things worked out because yeah, there are so many places where people can rob you or cut corners. And it's even worse, right? When you don't realize until the project is done and there's nothing you can do about it because the team is nowhere to be found. Exactly. Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit about your Instagram because
00:39:46
Speaker
Not only did you embark on this huge lifestyle change, but you really had the courage to document it. And, you know, not just to take photos and post it, like post them, like, here's what I'm doing. You are actively serving as a guide for a lot of people to do similar things. As you said yourself, you've informed the construction and design of a lot of houses, people who like what you've done. Was that difficult for you or something that came supernaturally?
00:40:15
Speaker
I find that your angle is very tasteful. There's that stereotypical family vlogger personality that can be, I think, easy to fall into, but you definitely don't. So how did that process come about?
00:40:29
Speaker
I think when I initially started it, I used it as a creative outlet. I'm an accountant, so that's a very boring job, in my opinion. I also was a new mom. I wasn't getting out much, and I needed to just share. That kind of turned into more than I was anticipating.
00:40:50
Speaker
And I did feel like I had a community of people that were like-minded. So sometimes, you know, you feel like, Oh, is there anybody that's like me? And I felt like I found those people. So it wasn't until just a couple of years ago that I was like, Oh wow, like this is growing very quickly and I should probably plan to do something with this because at first it really was just for me. It was to like, maybe
00:41:16
Speaker
Cultivate some adult conversations that I was not having because I was like feeding a baby or changing a diaper. And then sharing our house like I love that I have that process now. I think it's just like our modern day blog so that you're sharing all of these things and
00:41:33
Speaker
I don't know. I'm very good at being an open book. I can share with pretty much anyone anything. Honesty is something that comes easy to me and being myself. So I think a lot of people get wrapped up in trying to be someone else. And I think it's just a personality trait that I have that I'm just going to be me. You can take it or leave it. And I'm not going to try to be anyone else because then I wouldn't feel like myself.
00:42:01
Speaker
Do you have a difficulty dealing with criticism at all? I know something that really bothers my friends on Instagram, and of course it's a completely different demographic of college grads who are really out to do that whole
00:42:14
Speaker
perfect curation of their lifestyles as young people, but there's a lot of fear of judgment and like not to be critical of them, but they're not even doing anything different, you know, whereas you are. So do you come under fire often just from random people online who tell you what you should or shouldn't be doing or are people generally very kind and positive on there?
00:42:38
Speaker
I would say for the most part it's kind and positive and then of course you get people that say like my house is ugly or why did you shop at Target or you're you know doing something wrong with your kids because I'm posting just everyday moments in my life and they'll take something out of context and that really just doesn't bother me that much I don't know I feel like
00:43:02
Speaker
I'm used to people thinking my ideas are very crazy, so I'm just used to it, I guess. But I think a lot of people try to be perfect. Instagram, at first, when I was starting, it was very just perfect homes, perfect pictures. I even posted a lot of pictures like that. That was really hard because my house never looked like that. It never was perfect.
00:43:27
Speaker
I think the more that I'm real and share the real things, I always post videos of my house completely destroyed by my kids. And people love that way more than seeing a picture that's completely put together because that's just not real. Right. Who wants to live in a museum anyways? No, I can't. If I wanted to, I certainly can't because I have four people working against me. Right. Realness is so authenticity. I mean, it is something that people increasingly talk about, but
00:43:56
Speaker
I don't know, like you really can't fake it at the end of the day. We all have a sense for calling people out on BS, right? Like you see somebody on Instagram. So I don't know if you want to delve into the recent Instagram situation, but I mean, if not, I do have a bunch of questions about your CPA account. So totally up to you what direction we go at this point. Either way, whatever you think would be useful. Tell us about the hacking situation.
Challenges with Instagram Security
00:44:24
Speaker
Yeah, so I have found out so much information in the last week. Last week, I did get an email stating that someone had tried to get into my account and I didn't get it till later. And then when I did finally log in, it told me my account had been suspended due to violating Instagram's terms.
00:44:43
Speaker
I was very shocked considering I'm a mom I don't really share anything bad and I think it said nudity and something else like I knew I hadn't done that so it said to give it three days and I did contact meta support because I was verified.
00:44:59
Speaker
And they basically said, yeah, we see what you're talking about. It looks like you violated terms. And I said, I'm telling you though that I did not. So can you just fix the block on my account? She said, no, unfortunately I cannot fix it, but in three days you'll have your account back.
00:45:16
Speaker
I was a little annoyed, but that's fine, three days. After that, when I tried to log back in, it never gave me the email stating that I was good to go. So after that, when I tried to log in, it told me that they had permanently disabled my account. Sure.
00:45:34
Speaker
Obviously, I was devastated. I've been working on this for years and just sick to my stomach. And I thought, I'll contact Meta, they'll work it out. Well, there's no way for me to reach them. That whole being verified really doesn't... I've talked to so many people now and everyone just says it's a scam. So basically, they're collecting all this money from people and there's no support other than that chat that that lady said, I'm not even sure if it was an actual person. It might have been a bot.
00:46:04
Speaker
Yeah, after lots and lots of research now and just trying to connect with people that I know on Instagram that have big followings just to see, this is happening to a lot of people. The hackers aren't necessarily getting into your account and changing your information like that. They are just getting bots to flag your account. And then Instagram, their computers are the one taking it down. So it's not like an actual person.
00:46:30
Speaker
And then there's so many that are coming in like thousands saying, this account is horrible. Like take it down, take it down. And then they suspend the account. So then they turn around and are like, Hey, I can help you get your account back. And then
00:46:45
Speaker
they have you pay thousands of dollars to get back in. And so I've talked to probably 25 Instagram girls that have had that happen. They all did end up paying them. So it's a cycle, but what are they going to do? I mean,
00:47:03
Speaker
they had like thousands and hundreds of thousands of followers and it was their actual, you know, means for their family. So if this is their only option and they're not able to contact the company in any way, shape or form, they're doing that, but it's just creating more problems because then they do it to like a friend of theirs. So then their friend says, what did you do? Well, I use this guy. So, um, probably predatory.
00:47:29
Speaker
Yeah, it just keeps happening. There was a very big account in Dallas called the Dallas Esthetician and she said that he did help her though after she was getting threats to her family and that he needed more money. So it's just a very nasty situation going on that I'm not really sure Meta is on top of quite yet because they're only used to your account being hacked by like changing your password or changing your picture.
00:47:57
Speaker
And the physical authorities likely are no help for that. There's no way they're going to be able to trace this one guy in particular that you mentioned or anybody else who's facilitating a scam like that. It is also under the table. So I reached out to one of them. I didn't know about what was going on originally. They just said, hey, talk to this guy. He'll help you. OK. So he gets you to go to Telegram app. And then from there, sends you to WhatsApp.
00:48:26
Speaker
and needs payment in like Western Union or crypto. So nothing. Yeah, it's all like super, super sketchy. And I think he's in Turkey, the one I had talked to and I had no idea. So that is really the only way to get it back open because it will sit there for years. I've heard of that happening or months and
00:48:50
Speaker
people are just desperate to get back and start making more income. I've heard of one girl that she lost so much money because she had these contracts coming up and she wasn't able to fulfill those. So it's really scary if that's your source of income. What I don't understand, and I know that my take on this is not on brand. This is a podcast about physical real estate, but increasingly your online presence is
00:49:18
Speaker
Real estate, it's an asset that people are using to make serious, tangible money off of that, like you said, entire families depend on. So I don't understand how there's not infrastructure already at companies like Meta to deal with and actively trace people who are very much dependent on these accounts, like seriously. And you know, you can be, I can be as angry as we are, right? And there's literally nobody to talk to. Like you cannot call the local police station. What do you call the FBI?
00:49:48
Speaker
Oh my God. There is nothing to do. You can't call Meta and if you email them, they don't email you back. So what are you going to do? Right. Well, start over like you did. And honestly, that is so admirable too. Like this goes without saying, if you're listening, all of Taryn's information will be in the description. So please give her a follow. Thank you. I appreciate that.
00:50:08
Speaker
was very, very mad and against starting over, but I wanted to get the word out about this happening. So I couldn't just not do anything. So I'm still mad. I'm still very frustrated that I have an account that's so tiny, but I definitely am trying to share what happened to me so that maybe something will happen. I'm sure it won't be fast, but eventually maybe.
00:50:33
Speaker
You also have, on a more positive note though, a pretty sizable following for your business account.
Entrepreneurial Guidance through Podcasting
00:50:38
Speaker
And if I'm not mistaken, you and your husband have a podcast, a CPA podcast?
00:50:42
Speaker
Yes. Tell us a little bit about that. That is awesome. So we kind of got to the point in our business where we couldn't help anyone else because we're just two people. But we want to help people start their own businesses because it's so crazy out there. You want to start a business, but what forms do you need to file? What tax entity should you select? How do you get an EIN? People are coming to us with the same questions over and over and over again.
00:51:07
Speaker
And in order to get this information, people usually sit down with CPAs and pay for a consult over and over and over again. So at first we did make a new business guide that has like probably 20 meetings worth of stuff that we want everyone to know when you get started because the IRS doesn't give you that. So we created that in 2020.
00:51:28
Speaker
And then we just kind of took a pivot. We thought that a podcast would be a great way to get this information out to everyone. And the episode titles would be something like if you're about to hire someone and you don't know what forms to file or how to do all that, you could just pick that episode.
00:51:45
Speaker
So not only are we getting out this information that everyone needs to know, but if someone emails us like our clients, we're easily able to send them a long form version of one question that we've explained over and over and over again. And just say, check out this podcast and you can figure out how to pay your kids out of your business and let us know if you have any other questions. So it's really been such a blessing and just fun. Like I love doing the podcast. Yeah.
00:52:15
Speaker
And I will say too, I can imagine like, you know, if I were one of your clients getting a long form piece of content that is produced by and narrated by you and your husband is, I'm sure comforting to a degree that you just would not get from some old guy in a suit in the city, right? If you pay for a consultation like that, who maybe has never started a business himself or lives
00:52:38
Speaker
like a non-entrepreneurial life. Whereas you do also have this personal brand where they can see firsthand on Instagram or by talking to you that you are somebody who takes chances and you've implemented all of this advice that you're giving, which just makes a world of a difference for somebody who is taking those first steps, I'm sure.
00:52:56
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's why we are so relatable is that we are running our own business. We are not a staff accountant at a large agency. We are the ones that are looking at our margins and our goals. And so we can really relate to the hiring pains and the growing pains with all of our clients. So I do think that we bring that to the table as well. And then hopefully putting a spin on things that makes it more modern and less boring so that people can understand easily
00:53:26
Speaker
get a quick episode when they're driving to their job or just commuting and learn really quickly what they have to know, even though it's boring information, but they do have to know to run a business.
00:53:38
Speaker
Well, that's a thing too. And this is kind of off topic. I've never understood how people talk about accounting as if it's boring. Like if you do anything, if you like live your life as a person who's relatively independent money and knowing how to manage it and how to organize your finances so that you can stay on top of things and not be stressed out and make your payroll is so important.
Importance of Personal Finance Management
00:53:58
Speaker
Like it's one of those things you just have to do. And to conceive of it as a chore is just,
00:54:04
Speaker
creating like a torturous situation. And there's just no point to thinking about it like that. So, major props. Thank you. Yeah, we do see that if someone can't control their personal finances, it's really hard to control your business finances as well. Absolutely. Well, Taryn, thank you so much. I don't know if you have any more insights for my audience about anything really, family compound living, dealing with the nastiness of Instagram, really anything that comes to mind.
00:54:34
Speaker
No, I don't think so. I think we covered most of that. Well, it was really excellent to talk to you and I hope this helped venting-wise a little bit, although I'm sure we've been doing so much of that over the last couple days. Yeah, I need to like take a break and just step away from it for a bit so it doesn't drive me crazy.