Hubby and I are in the process of packing up our house and selling it so we can buy some land and build a small house. We plan to build an eco friendly sustainable homestead. When I tell people this they almost always ask the same question… Why?
We currently live in the suburbs in a three bedroom, two bath house that’s about 1,300 square feet. Of that 1,300 square feet we actually use about half of that. The rest? It’s used to store stuff we should have gotten rid of years ago. Which is why the new house will be around 650 square feet. I plan to eventually build a small office for myself and we will have a shop and a green house but the actual house will be smaller.
One reason we’re moving is because we want to be able to enjoy the outdoors more. We don’t want to be stuck inside because it’s too hot to be outside most of the time. So having a smaller house that’s better organized with built-in storage makes more sense. If we don’t have a lot of room to keep unnecessary stuff then we’re less likely to accumulate the junk that we have here. And having less square footage means less maintenance and less time spent cleaning.
Another reason is because we want to build a life we can enjoy instead of spending so much time working jobs we don’t like to pay for a life we never have time to appreciate because we’re working so much to pay for things. It’s a vicious cycle. I don’t have a problem working hard, but I would much rather work hard for myself than for someone else. The goal is to be able to support ourselves off of my writing and the things we can produce on the homestead.
We want a simple life but one where we can go to bed at night with a sense of accomplishment.
Like I told my best friend the other day, I want to create things, to plant something and watch it grow, instead of just consuming things without thought. Although admittedly Hubby will probably be handling most of the planting because I don’t seem to have the green thumb of my grandmother or mother. Hopefully that will change but just in case it doesn’t we’ll be sure there’s enough plants that Hubby is tending to actually feed us. LOL
One of the things I’m really looking forward to is the food. Hubby and I both enjoy cooking and we’ve really started to get back into it after too many years of quick and easy meals, which translates to processed and not good for you food. We’ve always eaten relatively healthy, or so we thought until we really started paying attention to the labels of things. A few years ago we stopped buying processed foods altogether. The exception being pasta because I don’t have a pasta roller and I don’t want to buy any more appliances until after we get moved and have a house. Plus, I don’t really have the counter space for pasta making at the moment. And Ramen noodles because I’m not even sure how I would make them. Although I’ll probably go searching for a recipe at some point because I really do hope to make at least 90% of our food. I would really like a grain mill so I can mill my own flour but that’ll be a few years down the road if I do get one.
Since we’re going to be building the house—as in Hubby and I doing the actual building not hiring someone to do it for us—we plan to do things like grey water tanks, a water catchment system, passive solar heating, and radiant heating. We’re also talking about going off grid with solar panels. But that’s going to depend on budget. Because one of the things I’m adamant about is not acquiring any debt in the process. I don’t want a mortgage or a bunch of credit card debt. I don’t want to have large monthly bills the way we do now. I realize it would be impossible to get rid of all monthly bills but I hope to get them under a thousand dollars a month.
It means we might have to get part time jobs for awhile in order to be able to afford to buy materials and supplies to get the homestead started and the infrastructure in place. But if we’re careful with our money then we should be able to live off of what we earn from the homestead without having to depend on outside jobs. We have short term goals and long term goals for the homestead. We have the must haves and the wish list. We also have several ways to potentially earn an income. I’m a firm believer in not having all of your eggs in one basket, also known as having multiple streams of income. It’s why my books will always be wide unless every other retailer suddenly goes out of business leaving only one option. Even if that means I make less money than I would if I went exclusive with one retailer. Even if it means it takes me twice as long to build a stable income. Because the stability is more important to me than the money. Having only one source of income, no matter how big that income is, isn’t a good idea. Things happen and those things can mean you go from making a hundred thousand dollars a year to making nothing in the blink of an eye because that was your only source of income. I would rather make thirty thousand a year from ten different sources because the odds of all ten sources going away at once is slim to none. And if one goes away then I should be able to continue to live on the others until I can find a way to replace that lost revenue with another source.
I’ve never thought money was the end all be all, but the last few years I’ve really realized there are more important things than money and if we set things up right then we shouldn’t need much of it to survive. I would rather spend money on experiences than things like buying a new car every few years or designer clothes. Or even ridiculously high power bills. ($400 a month at the height of summer is just too much) I would rather travel and see the world, meet new people, and build memories occasionally. I would rather build I life I love, a home I don’t want to escape from, and spend time with friends and family.
That’s why we’re homesteading. That’s why we’re moving out of the city and into the country. That’s why we’re getting rid of sixty percent, or more, of our things. So we can get healthier, be happier, and live a more purposeful life.