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RE: You Can't Buy Freedom, But You Can Grow It!
My husband and I are on a similar path. The rat race is not the life for us anymore. We are stressed and not loving life! Although my husband talks about quitting every single day we have a plan in place and have bought a property on where we plan to build a Tiny house within the next year. The land is calling us. ❤️ Congrats on doing what you love.
You sound like a mirror couple of us! Quitting was hard and scary. I was lucky to have some savings for cushion and a partner who supported me. We are working on Matthew's escape now but feel confident in our plans.
We are all too familiar with the call of the land! What type of tiny house are you planning to build? Our tiny house took longer to build than we expected, about a year and a half in total.
-Aimee
Our perfect home would be 400sqft ft on foundation with a huge separate garage. We are almost ready to battle the municipality on the minimum sq ft by-law. Not sure what we’ll do if they won’t allow the variance. We plan on doing it debt free and doing most of the work ourselves. We’re building a small 9x12 bunkie to stay in while we work on things! 😁
We can definitely relate! We are staying in our tiny house (200sqft. Plus 2 lofts) while we build our next house, though that one is looking to be closer to 1000 sqft. Our county also has a minimum size requirement of 800 sqft. Are you chronicalling your journey here on Steemit? I would be interested in following along.
-A
Yes @canadianrenegade I plan on starting a series of posts in the spring when we get back at it! Here is a post about what we’re into https://steemit.com/homestead/@otterbeme/our-property-project-to-freedom-45-we-are-not-crazy
Thank you! I am looking forward to following along.
-Aimee
Wow so the "minimum square footage" thing is real? The town's building inspector (where I ended up getting property) thought I was crazy when I asked him if we had a minimum size requirement.
He answered: you can live in a box for all I care.
It's because of a hunter's cabin thing in the code, and this is in NY state...where usually regulation rules the land.
I didn't realize there was a minimum either until Matt started investigating. I think the reasoning is two-fold: one, neighbours in the suburbs want to keep a certain aesthetic and maintain their property value by having new houses be equal or larger. Which is unfortunate because rural properties fall under those same guidelines. And two, bigger houses means higher property taxes. Leave it to the government to weasle as much money out of your pocket as possible. LOL at living in a box! -Aimee
Yea, I think you're absolutly right about the property tax and the neighbors. It's a shame...
Property value is for sure a double edge sword. On one side you can leverage the value for whatever and on the other more regulations are demanded "by some neighbors" in order to keep that value on the up and up...to get more leverage, to have more buying power to chase the illusion
At leaset your is set at 800 which isn't too too aweful.
They leave you alone with the tiny house?
A double edge sword is right. The tiny house is currently parked at my in-laws where there is an existing house so no one questions it. We were planning on towing the house out to live in while we build 2.0 but now we are thinking we will get the shell of 2.0 up first so we don't raise any suspicion with the county. -Aimee
Good idea. Sometimes playing it safe is best!
About that quitting thing, I meant to ask you. Dis you quit the next day after Matthew put rhat sees in your head or what?
Not exactly @senorcoconut. He had encouraged me to quit for a while but I just couldn't imagine how I would ever pay the bills without a job. My parents well-meaning advice was to line up another job before quitting the first but I had tried that route for years without success (many factors).
Eventually, I just stopped talking about work because it was so toxic. I was really upset one day and finally burst into tears as I relayed my recent struggles. I felt so defeated. That was the conversation that lead to my resignation the following Monday which was both terrifying and exhilarating.
-Aimee
Yea, it's a hard thing to do. Nothing of that magnitude is simple as black and white, everyone is different, in different situations and goes through different struggles.
I am happy for you guys it sounds like you're well on your way!
Been looking at the videos of the tiny house build when I have time. It's inspiring.
Thanks for sharing
Thank you! I am glad to hear we are inspiring somebody! You sound like you're on your way too. The Steemit community has so many like-minded people on board that inspiration and support feels easier to find. :)
-Aimee
Yea very true it does seem that way. I have found many like minded people and much more eager to help eachother than facebook for example!
And by the way, I'm sure I'm not the only "somebody" you've inspired.