Let me be the first to say congratulations in your epiphany that having a lot of junk can't make you happy. What you are doing has ramifications far beyond you and your family. Not only does conventional debt enslave you, it empowers those who enslave us all.

My son and I bought a forested parcel in 2003. He's built two houses for his family and I've just about finished my log cabin that has taken 7 years of hard work to build. So far I have a bit over $5000 of pay-as-you-go into it.

We did have to borrow the money for the land, but we borrowed it from a person, not a bank. Our interest payments help somebody we know, not some faceless financial institution. If we miss a payment here and there there is no penalty nor threat of foreclosure. Win-win all around.

All of my son's friends tell him that if simply logged the place he could not only finish his house, he could pay off the property and be out of debt completely. But then he'd have a house built out of particle board in the middle of a cow pasture. Instead, he bought a small band mill. His first cabin took about 10 trees.

This place was logged 60 year ago or thereabouts, so the second growth trees are immense and the forest fully restored. The value of the land is in its beauty and pristine ecology. Destroying that would be a crime.