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'Fixer Upper' duo Chip and Joanna Gaines: 'No cellphones for our kids'

The star hosts of HGTV's "Fixer Upper" say they have no plans to let their kids get cellphones.
/ Source: TODAY

Chip and Joanna Gaines may have hit the big time with their “Fixer Upper” empire, but they will never get too big to remind their four young children about what’s important.

"I tell the kids that you are probably not going to get a cellphone," Joanna told Entertainment Tonight. "We want to teach our kids that life happens outside of these devices. It's just a simple thing to go outside and connect with nature, play with your friends and get dirty."

The couple make their home on a 40-acre Texas farm that gives their kids plenty of things to do besides playing games on cellphones. The duo built an empire around their wildly popular HGTV show, but it wasn't that long ago when they lived a much leaner life.

On life before kids

“I remember when we first got married the only money we had was what was in Chip’s pocket,” Joanna told People magazine. “He had this wad of cash, and so if I needed to grocery shopping, if I needed to just go find a new shirt, it was whatever was in his pocket.”

These days, in addition to "Fixer Upper," the couple also run a retail store, a real estate company and a quarterly magazine. They also have a new book, "The Magnolia Story," coming out next week.

RELATED: Chip and Joanna Gaines' latest fixer upper? This classroom!

But when Chip first started flipping houses as a college student, the couple's business wasn't very lucrative. When he married Joanna in 2003, her parents weren’t sold on his unconventional lifestyle.

“Her dad spent the first two years of our marriage asking me if I was going to get a job,” Chip told People. “I was like, ‘I have a job. I really like my job.'”