Our patch of earth

[baymule]

Great life! (So far and it only gets better) Plant fruit trees! It will take them 3-4 years to bear, so get started! Plant Apple, pear, peach and fig. Plant grapes and berries. We planted plums(died), peaches (1 is loaded the other one is meh) apricot (nothing yet) pear(first blooms and a dozen little pears) grapes (rabbits ate them, died) and a loquat.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Congrats on all the positive moves you've made towards self sufficiency. Hubby and I built our home, and have lived at the bottom of the financial ladder for most of our lives. Yes, it CAN be done. When we moved into our house:

The shell and interior studding were in place. Insulation in place. Plywood floor, no sheetrock. Minimal electrical. No plumbing in kitchen or baths. For that matter... no bathrooms! The space was there... so we used a spackle bucket with RV chemical in the water. Kitchen resources: sheet of plywood on sawhorses for table and counters, crock pot, electric fry pan, toaster. Oh... it was January 28. Our winters are typically sub zero for weeks at a time, with LOTS of snow. Our home was on a dead end dirt road, we were the only home on that road at the time. Our heat source was a wood stove. Neither of us had experience using a wood stove. Our wood pile was mostly green wood. We had to knock the snow/ice off it before bringing it in to burn. When weather permitted, our showers consisted of backing the truck up to the front steps. One of us would stand on the tail gate with a bucket of warm water, and provide the "shower experience" for the other who was standing on the front steps.

Yep, it can be done on the "cheap". And I commend you for making it happen instead of sitting around and "wishing for it".

One of the ways we saved a bundle of money: I would shop the sales. Go to each of the 3 chain grocers in the area and pick up only the items each store was featuring during their weekly sale.

As for burning wood in your trailer... I have to wonder why they say that. If the ceiling height is appropriate, if you have adequate clearance to combustible surfaces. And your chimney is tall enough... And if you have smoke alarms. And if you have adequate safety exits, all things should be equal to installing a wood stove in a stick built home.

I agree with you: often the perceived benefit of 2 incomes does not match reality. The added stress, tax burden, and expenses may outweigh the savings realized when one partner stays home. Especially when that stay at home partner is committed to "making do", cooking nourishing meals, and growing/raising some of that food. Add to that: the benefit of re-using, re-cycling, re-purposing, and you will find that you live BETTER than many dual income families.

 

[baymule]

We are great enablers and will gladly teach you how to can, freeze and dehydrate the proceeds from your garden. I will say this, buy GOOD equipment. You will have it for the rest of your life, so get the best you can. We'll have you raising feeder pigs and butchering them in no time!

 

[Lazy Gardener]

In addition to advice by @baymule , keep your eyes open for good buys at yard sales and such.

You will find that a lot of folks get the notion to "homestead" but don't put their hearts into it. So... they then sell or give away their equipment. I've heard of folks buying a pressure canner, then never even taking it out of the box b/c they are "afraid" to use it.

Same with live stock and equipment. Folks enamored with the idea of owning a back yard flock. Free eggs... gotta love that. Then, they find out that they have to tend those animals... EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. And those cute little chicks don't stay cute and little. Then... when they experience their first experience with mites, predator attack, or when their chickens start cannibalizing each other b/c that cute little doll house coop they bought is not big enough for the flock, they are looking to dump the birds and all the supplies on the cheap!

I actually do some of my best shopping at my town dump. (affectionately dubbed "my town" mall.) I pick up free building materials, sewing materials, canning jars and other kitchen ware, doors, windows, all sorts of compost and mulching materials, even free plants. Brought home a solid maple night stand that had been tossed on the burn pile. It was Moosehead. The only thing wrong with it was a tiny cigarette burn on the top. It sanded down nicely, and was re-painted to match a bedroom remodel.

 

[Reice]

Thank you all for the warm welcomes and encouragement.

Oh hey, yeah, already a few apple fruit trees producing on the place, some blackberry bushes, and a couple nut trees that I can't remember. Want to add a few more, for sure!

Wow, Lazy Gardener, that is inspiring. Now I'm wondering what the heck I'm waiting on, lol. Maybe the only thing holding us back at the moment is having the stepson move back in for the summer from college, probably his last summer here, and just the ease of having everything at current house already working. Full kitchen with utilities for a boy that eats like a horse, lol.

We have been scraping some dollars together to get a temporary power cord setup ran from the pole to power a few things, which will help tremendously. Poor hubby spent his weekend off working like a dog ripping roofing off for extra dough to help buy some things, now we gotta wait til his next day off to put it to use. My 71 y/o dad has been helping here and there, he likes tinkering, and now has his own key to come and go as he pleases. Me thinks he likes 'having something to work on' with the bonus of getting away from mom ever so often, hehe. Dad is awesome and has helped a ton already, he pretty much did all the reflooring in the big bedroom. Heck, even mom has got right in there with trash bags ready right when we found the house and helped clean up a ton. They are our biggest supporters. They even hauled the kitchen cabinets we got out there when our truck wasn't working.

Good idea on keeping eye out for people unloading their stuff when it didn't work out for them. Hubby is kind of in the perfect job spot to find such things. He's a people person and has found some things just by working where he does. One of his customers had a used dual fueled generator he wanted to offload since he got a bigger one, not a thing wrong with it, for $100. Another guy had some tree trunks he needed to get rid of that we are using to fill in a hole in a washout created by the last great rain dump (whole nother story.. neighbor up the creek wanted a pond, illegally dammed it up, dam broke, washed out our road). Another customer was offloading some used tin. Another sold us a used sink. Seems if we put the word out we find things. A co-worker of his was getting rid of a couch and love seat, it's better than our current one, and it's sitting out in the country house now, gotten free.

Hey, my dad used to find all kinds of treasures at the city dump. It's almost criminal that they fenced it up and added security, no longer allowed to trash pick it. But yeah, I've been down alley's many a time looking for treasures. Shocking what people discard.

Oh yeah, I'm a big sale shopper at the grocery stores, I make a game of it, haha. The sale ads are on my favorite bars on this laptop I use em so much. It was a sad day for me when the bakery thrift shop closed it's doors.. like, WHY would you do that?!! lol There's only a few thrift shops around here, but only one I really like, they know me, lol. I do all these things, and am able to by not having a 9-5'r. You're right, the cost of someone having a second income sometimes can cost the same if not more because of the things you lose out on not having the time or energy to implement some of the money saving strategies. And then you get the conundrum of if you get to where you depend on that dual income to pay your expenses and one of them is gone, eek!

Think the next post I'm gonna run some percentages on income to expenses of current living, on future living, and future extremely frugal living.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

I do hope that when you have that step son around this summer, you put him to work. If he's not holding a full time job this summer, he would be great. You could give him "ownership" of a project at the homestead. Or simply have him help with the many things that need to be done. Think of the valuable life skills he'll learn. These days, high school and college grads may graduate with a degree or certificate, but they are sadly lacking in life skills. Many adults don't even know how to sew a button on a shirt. Let alone, repair a leaky faucet, re-wire a light, frame up a wall, or any of the other (IMO) necessary life skills.

That's great that you have your dad around and that he's willing AND able to help. This gives him pride and a sense of purpose. My dad will be 94 this month. He's lost a lot of steam in the last few years, but he's been a life long inspiration to me.

As for the local dump, I'm blessed. There is a recycle building for household things. And a huge parking lot dedicated to compostables, with mountains of wood chips, leaves in various stages of decomposition, and used stable litter. I've brought home plenty of all sorts of material from there. But, there are signs up all over the place about "no dump picking allowed". However, we live in a bit of a red neck area, and the employees are kind enough to "look the other way" when I'm doing my most flagrant dump picking. Last weekend, I hauled a baby gate out of the huge demolition bin, as well as some wonderful 1 x 4 boards. Baby gate will be perfect for building a broody area in the coop. Add a couple hay bales, with the baby gate over the top, and it will be good to go. I also collect wire refrigerator and freezer shelves for the same purpose. Hubby is somewhat embarrassed by my trashing ways, but... he's learned to just look the other way. He's figured out that if I don't get it for free this week, I'll most likely be spending the money to buy it next week!

 

[Reice]

For sure the stepson is put to work, along with also holding a full time job. Me thinks he's grateful to go to his air conditioned bank job 6 days a week cause his dad would have him doing something, haha. But yeah, sure is lacking some life skills which hopefully he'll have some gained after this endeavor.

Okay, one of my fun past times is running numbers. I dunno if it's cool or not to post actual numbers, so will post percentages instead.

Current monthly single income minus expenses leaves 37%.
Future same income minus expenses leaves 64%.
Closer to home minimum wage full time less-stressful job minus future expenses leaves 52%.
Extreme frugality combined with closer to home less stressful part time minimum wage job minus future expenses leaves 33%, or 84% if full time living extremely frugal. If same current job.. living extremely frugal.. leaves 89%, holy moly!!! haha.. man I love playing with those numbers!!

I like looking at different scenarios. Hubby's current job is okay, and he's got some great contacts there, but it is a further drive and he's management so the highschool drama crap that goes on every single day gets to him. Severely. So I looked at how we would be if he worked closer to home at a minimum wage 'leave it at the door' less stressful job to see how the numbers went. Also looked at same job, but part time, living really frugal would be in case he wanted to devote more time to side jobs that he could some day turn into his only 'job', to see if we could make it.

Lots of strategies in there to cut costs if needed. Truth be told, if we were to implement the extreme frugality we could quite literally get by on $200 a month. Not even kidding. How easy would it be to earn $200 a month if you had time and were creative? Heck, a part time minimum wage job around here earns about $615 a month after taxes in my state.

Expense reduction strategies: (some of these might be frowned upon, but there if needed, none the less)
Electricity-
-So many ways to cut down on electricity. We are rural electric so we pay a heavy fee for that and I'm always battling cutting down on this. Last summer in the hot point we did pay $350 a month for electricity. That's atrocious. So, first off, we are moving into a home that's 1/3 less in size, that helps right there. Then: there are tons of shade trees. No more power sucking over-sized central inefficient AC unit, will be using smaller efficient window units just in rooms we will occupy. Will be outside way more. Ceiling fans, box fans. Open windows at night and morning for coolness and closing windows and blackout curtains to sun during hot part of the day. Cool showers. Not using oven in summer, just crockpot, solar oven, microwave, or cooking outside. No more electric hot water heater, getting 2 small on demand water heaters. Wash in cold water only. Hang clothes to dry (already have the pole, got for free, woot!). Power strips to turn off vampire electric use. Not taking desktop computer, just more efficient laptop. Shading over window AC units. Building a trellis to add some climbing vines on the west end of house that gets evening sun. Propane heaters for winter. Closing off or hanging curtains to close off rooms or hallways in winter and heating room you're in. Keeping fridge and freezer full or adding gallon jugs of water to fill it up to run more efficiently. Sealing and caulking windows and doors to stop drafts.
Cellphone:
Already have a decently cheap cell plan, 2 lines with AT&T pay as you go, no data, for $45 a month. Could switch to cheaper plan like redpocket, mint, etc. Or if really frugal, use free apps on wifi or go through the pain of freedompop's free plan.
Internet:
Currently my rural wireless plan costs $66 a month. Once moved (and if they can get me service there) will move down to the lesser package of $45 a month. We don't do cable or satellite so our tv entertainment is streaming. But if really extreme, go without, go to library when needed to use or some places's free wifi. See if antennae picks up anything out there.
Car Insurance:
Currently have Geico and it's the cheapest liablility plan I've found for 2 old vehicles. If extreme, could just insure and use one vehicle.
Food:
It's currently a biggy! We do plan on gardening and hunting to help with this. I do all the money saving shopping strategies already, I'm good at it, but wow, prices sure have gone up. Plus feeding a 19 y/o, ouch. Anyway, if extreme can always hit the food bank to help, or even snap benefits to help supplement.
Gas:
We use quite a bit here, going back and forth to work on place. Hubby comes home every day for lunch, which adds up, but he won't be able to once we move, cutting down some of the gas. If he worked closer, that would also bring it down. Once we live further from town will start implementing batch trips for sure. Extreme is only driving vehicle with better mpg, or even selling current vehicles to get one that has better mpg.
Household items:
Make own cleaning supplies, cut down on paper goods or use alternatives, homemade alternatives or make own like toothpaste, doggy treats, etc, get creative. Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.
Health Insurance:
Hubby gets his through his job, I get mine paid through Obamacare, since we are low income. If he went to a lesser job or part time, he would be able to, as well.
Property taxes:
No way to cut costs on this. My state it's cheap though, I believe it's like $100 a year.

I know some of these are out there, but if ya had to, ya could. Ya know?

 

[sumi]

Great ideas so far! On the flip side you can also look at things you can do to possibly bring in money, from your homestead, or to pay towards costs. For example selling eggs if you keep hens. Egg sales money can be used to pay for feed. For meat, partner up with someone and raise a pig or two, share costs and meat. You'd be amazed what pigs will eat. I used to raise them for butchering and spent little on feed

 

[frustratedearthmother]

All great ideas! I'm inspired and will hopefully be able to start implementing more of these strategies when retired. My DH just retired and I'm hoping to join him by the end of the year...

 

[baymule]

You can grow a LOT of food in a garden. Start with the easy stuff, tomatoes and squash. Start small and grow bigger as you grow more LOL. If you keep animals, there is the cost of feed. So you have to weigh up the cost versus the benefits. Chickens are great small livestock. You get eggs and meat. I rotate out my layers on their third year. I can the backs and necks with rice and veggies from the garden in quart jars for the dogs. I cut the breast, leg and thigh meat off the bone and can it. I simmer the bones and can the broth.

When you build a chicken coop, better make it predator proof, everybody likes a chicken dinner. We will be glad to share with you how to do so.

I am a scrounger, we built a 36'x36' barn, using mostly used lumber and lumber off the reject rack at Lowe's for half price or less.