We've been so blessed by the upvotes all of you have given us and now we are turning that Steem into tangible books to further our homestead knowledge and journey.

Building with Steem

I didn't sign up for Steemit to earn money. Based on my non-existent understanding of crypto, I thought it was a site limited currency, much like in a video game.
I've come to learn that it's not and also that it's a good thing I didn't come for the money because It's not like I'm getting rich monetarily. I'm getting rich in other ways though, I've come to meet some wonderful people and I've learned so much already from them.

A couple of months ago I started to look into getting some Steem out to buy Christmas presents with, but it turned out almost impossible and certainly not worth it with all the fees. Then a good friend helped me out in a win-win deal and I found myself with a good amount of money in gift cards to Amazon. Sadly, no one asked for anything I could reasonably get from Amazon (without having to pay crazy postage fees).

After a couple of failed attempts to find gifts, my husband told me to spend the money on me, and to me that means homesteading books!

Growing a homestead library

I've been working on growing our homestead library for years and for the past year or so I've wanted to round out our library because we had some very obvious holes in it.

If you're interested in what books we already have in our library, you can see them here and here

So far, I've been able to order 5 books fully paid for by Steem. My goal is to grow our library at no (out of pocket) cost to us since our finances are tight and our current focus is our downpayment fund for our future homestead. Thus the Steem has to cover not only the price of the book but the postage as well. I'm going for the cheapest option every time, so some books will be used, but as long as they are in a decent condition I don't care.

The first arrival

I'm hoping all five books will get here before Christmas, they should be here by the 19th but you never know with the various dealers on Amazon.

The first book to get here is one I've wanted to read for years but haven't bought because I'm not at all sure if I will like it or find it useful.

That book is Surviving Off Off-Grid by Micheal Bunker.

I've gotten through the introduction and the first chapter and so far it's an interesting read, much in the vein I expected. Needless to say, I won't pass any judgement on it, as I'm only 58 pages into it, but so far so good.

More to come

I have another 4 books presumably in the mail making their way to Denmark as I type this. I also have 28 GBP in gift cards still and hopefully more to come.
I'm debating whether to keep growing our library or to save up for some bigger purchases in the future like a Berkey (which we do not currently have room for) at around 300 GBP or use it for smaller purchases like a gorilla pod (I'm playing around with thoughts on doing some videos of certain projects) or a flint and steel firestarter set and other 'survival-minded' things.
I'd love to hear what you'd do...

Have you used your Steem for anything yet?