So I finally completed the first set of building plans, and I’m pretty excited about it. Seeing as though it’s the wintery months right now, I have plenty of time to contemplate how we’re going to situate our homestead, and the outbuildings that we’ll construct. After the cabin is up and we put in a big fenced yard for the dogs to play in, the first order of business will be to construct a shed for storing firewood. Our principal heat will be propane, but we’re also going to have a wood stove in the cabin. (more…)
It has been quite some time since my last post, and this one won’t be easy. I had been sick for a couple of weeks before the holidays, so that was my excuse for not writing. Things changed pretty rapidly after that, however, when my father passed away unexpectedly the day after Christmas. I have never experienced a loss like this, and it’s hard to imagine that I will ever again. My father was the most important and influential man in my life, and we were very close. I have taken a month off from work to cope, and I quit my extra jobs. In my grief I have been unable to do much for the last month, and working certainly was not high on my priorities.
I started this blog because I wanted to document our journey and experiences with creating and maintaining our homestead. I wanted to be a source of information for other like-minded people who were interested in similar things. I also wanted it to tell a story to our future children. When I was deciding whether or not I would in fact create this blog, the one deciding thought that I had was the thought of our children reading back on the stories that we encountered. I thought that would give some credence to the work and toil that we are about to undertake so that they can understand everything that we’ve gone through- and maybe learn something along the way. (more…)
So we’ve already covered how to set your NEEDS vs WANTS, and how to compare them against each other when trying to find the right land to buy for a homestead, but now let’s get into the meat and potatoes. Just a heads up, this process may get frustrating. Try to keep that frustration in perspective, and don’t sacrifice anything that you’re not comfortable with. You might end up looking longer than you had anticipated, but that just gives you more time to save. (more…)
By this time, I had already accomplished step #1: paying off my debt and step #2: saving for a down payment. While I still wasn’t quite certain what my total amount needed for a down payment was, I was satisfied that I was contributing towards that savings. Now all we needed to do was find the perfect land to buy for our homestead. (more…)
In the previous two posts I discussed where we were at when we decided to take the necessary steps in order for us to buy a homestead. I outlined the debt that I had at the time and how we overcame that. Now we’ll move on and focus on step #2 which is saving for a down payment. (more…)
In the last post we discussed our goals and how we got to the point of realizing that in order to build a homestead, the first step was to get out of debt. Again, this is where Bre saved me. If I were a financial advisor, I would have a lot of broke and unhappy clients. I’m just not very good at managing my income. I used to be a bartender, and I found myself living paycheck to paycheck. After rent and utility bills, there wasn’t a lot left over. Once I got hired for my career job, I expected that to change. I would be making double the salary I was used to, and there surely would be some extra money left over. Yet that was not the case. After buying a new truck and buying the house, those increased payments reflected in my net salary. I was still living paycheck to paycheck. (more…)