Owning a homestead is wonderful. Paying for it is not. When Bre and I first started planning on buying and building a homestead, we had a target budget of $60,000 for land. We spent almost twice that, and that’s when we realized how challenging this would be.
Now, don’t get me wrong – I love our land. I’ve been in love with it ever since I was a child. It still gives me goosebumps to think of the odds and coordinating events that had to occur to place us in the perfect time in order to allow us to purchase a property that happened to come on the market when we could afford it. Oh, and that property also happened to be my favorite piece of land that I knew from afar as a child. AND I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THERE WAS A RIVER ON IT.
Now that we’ve had time to explore OUR land some more, I simply cannot explain how grateful I am that we’re allowed to exist on it. The field offers us a chance to view our property as well as future opportunities for gardens and crops. The forest provides us timber and wildlife sanctuary. The river provides us with ample swimming and picnicking. Our property is a blessing, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
What does bum me out is simply how much things cost. Our little house, with septic and well will end up costing us about $80,000. We need to buy a tractor; the one I’ve selected after research will cost us $35,000. The sawmill we need to purchase will cost $13,000. Our barn will cost another $35,000. And then there’s paying off our $160,000 in debt we currently have as well as paying for a wedding, children and a future home. The costs add up, and they are exorbitant.
Because I can do math (sort of), I’ve added up our debt as well as our future needs. I’ve determined that with the $1,000 a month I can afford to pay towards our debt and/or savings, it would take me 18 YEARS just to pay off our debt and buy the tractor, sawmill and barn. That is unacceptable, and I needed to take a look at our finances to squeeze every extra penny out of them.
This is where I found Qapital. Qapital is an online bank that is used via a smartphone app. (Total side note here, but we’re looking to get far, far away from our Wells Fargo accounts, so this is part of the first step). What’s awesome about Qapital is that they help you set up “rules” for your savings. As an experiment, I set up this account with the goal of funding for our tractor. That’s right, $35,000 coming from this simple app.
Now, to be fair, this doesn’t include my current savings plans. I already contribute to a monthly savings account, IRA, and retirement accounts. This was just an experiment to see if I could do more for a specific goal.
I love Qapital because it helps me set “rules” to transfer money into a separate savings account when conditions are met. For example, the rules I have set currently are:
Round up, where you link a checking or credit card and any time you spend money, Qapital automatically rounds up to the next dollar, two dollars, etc. and transfers the difference into your savings account. Spend $2.95 on a coffee? Qapital rounds up to $4.00 (if you have it set to round up to the nearest $2 like I do) and transfers $1.05 into your savings account.
52 week challenge; this one is awesomely compounding in that it starts off by transferring $1 the first week, $2 the second week, $3 the third week, etc. By the end of 52 weeks of the year, you’d have saved $1,78.
Walk or run distance, where you transfer a specified (by you) amount to your savings account when you hit your target walk or run distance. I am not a runner, so I set mine to 2 miles. I figure that for every day I walk two miles, I should be ok with transferring $5 into my savings. Again, you can set the amount as well.
Set and forget, where you set a specific amount to transfer daily, weekly, or monthly. I have mine set to transfer $50 every week.
There are many more rules that you can set for your savings, these are just the ones that I’ve chosen for the time being.
To be honest, I was a bit skeptical of how Qapital could help me save money. I mean, I already had savings accounts and I was already contributing towards them. Once I realized how much it was going to cost to pay for homestead necessities, I knew we had to tighten up the belt and pour EVERY cent into our savings if we ever wanted to complete our goals. Going into further debt is not an option. I am happy to say that with the goals I’ve set with Qapital over the past 6 months, I have saved just over $800, and that’s a lot more than I thought it would be.
Now, if you’re thinking that money should go towards paying off our debt, I sort of agree with you. Normally, paying off debt interest is much more prudent than any interest you would gain in a savings account. However, as we’re almost 1/35 to the way of our tractor goal, I really wanted to see how this account would generate.
I have to be honest, I’m pleasantly surprised at how well Qapital has worked for us. I haven’t even noticed the extra contributions to our savings. By that I mean, I haven’t looked at my checking account and been shocked to see no money. By contributing smaller amounts with multiple goals, Qapital has allowed me to save over $800. That’s money that I would not have transferred to my savings; it would have gone towards beer….or candy (I have a weak spot for skittles).
If you’re looking to start saving money towards a specific goal, or you’d just like to save a little more for no reason at all I HIGHLY encourage you to try out Qapital. As a special promotion to get you started, Qapital will deposit an extra $5 in your account if you sign up with this referral code ($5 to be deposited once you’ve made your first transfer).