Chelsea from Michigan

[Chelsea2258]

Hi everyone! My name is Chelsea. I'll be 24 in September. I'm from Michigan but currently in North Carolina because that's where DH is stationed. I'm excited to go back to Michigan in the next couple of months. We are going to buy a house with a good chunk of land and then start a garden. We are going to eventually have chickens and goats also. I don't do much in the self sufficiant department yet. Just cloth diapering and making some foods from scratch (like bread). I'm excited to start this adventure of self sufficiancy!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Welcome Chelsea! Sounds like you'll be getting a good start.

 

[Smart Red]

Chelsea, thank you and thank your husband for your service to our Country. It is true that the whole family serves when a family member is in the military.

It is good that you start learning and thinking about what you want before you find your land. It can be an exciting adventure, but take it in workable chunks. You have a beautiful young'en there. He will want and need a lot of attention so getting him involved in what you want to do is important.

Unless your spouse will be working along with you every day, start smaller than you think you want with your first garden. Try to learn how to preserve your harvest before it sits on the kitchen table demanding to be done. Don't try to do everything at once! Becoming self-sufficient is a process not a race. Good luck!

 

[Denim Deb]

 

[Chelsea2258]

Chelsea, thank you and thank your husband for your service to our Country. It is true that the whole family serves when a family member is in the military.

It is good that you start learning and thinking about what you want before you find your land. It can be an exciting adventure, but take it in workable chunks. You have a beautiful young'en there. He will want and need a lot of attention so getting him involved in what you want to do is important.

Unless your spouse will be working along with you every day, start smaller than you think you want with your first garden. Try to learn how to preserve your harvest before it sits on the kitchen table demanding to be done. Don't try to do everything at once! Becoming self-sufficient is a process not a race. Good luck!

Thank you!
Yes, we are going to go slow with it. We'll do a few things for the garden the first year and also start a compost pile. Then maybe get chicks sometime next year and goats a couple years after that. I don't want to overwhelm myself mentally or finanically. I know trying to get equipment for all of that at one time could cost a lot. I do tend to look up thrifty ways to do certain things, like homemade chicken feeders, so hopefully that'll save us some money when we get to that point.

Thank you, Denim Deb!

 

[Marianne]

Welcome from Kansas! And good for you with the cloth diapering and cooking from scratch! Most of us here know how much work that can be some days -- like Red says, it's not a race. Don't forget to have fun along the way!

 

[Chelsea2258]

Lol! Yea, I get lazy with washing diapers sometimes and I try to cook everyother night and there's usually food left over for the next day. I can't wait to be able to freeze a lot of stuff and can fruits and veggies to save money on our grocery bill! At this point we live paycheck to paycheck (that tells you military doesn't get paid crap!) and we mostly just spend on nessecities! I wish we would have stayed in off base housing because we would have been able to pocket some of the housing allowance but when we lived off base before, our house got broken into so that kind of made us run to base housing! :/

 

[Hinotori]

Welcome from western Washington. We've done the military stuff here. It's amazing how much more money we have now that my husband is out and he's doing the same thing as a civilian.

 

[Chelsea2258]

Welcome from western Washington. We've done the military stuff here. It's amazing how much more money we have now that my husband is out and he's doing the same thing as a civilian.

That's great! Gives me hope that he'll be able to get out and be able to get a job pretty quickly in order to make us stable enough to buy a house!

 

[Britesea]

Welcome Chelsea! What branch of service is your DH in? I was Navy (looong time ago). Hooray for cloth diapers! I did that, and I also remember what wonderful dish towels they were when the kids didn't need them anymore.
Cooking from scratch takes more time, but it's amazing how much money you can save. Same with canning etc. I just finished canning up 3 loads of carrots (9 pints dilled, 9 pints glazed, and 9 pints regular)... considering that I haven't seen canned carrots for less than 70 cents a can (and the dilled ones are outrageously high), and I paid $7.68 for 25 lbs of carrots for this- I figure I saved a minimum of $6 even with the can lids counted in.

Anyway, looking forward to hearing more of your story!