Homesteading! A Debt Free Life. A Daunting Task!
I have made a few posts about homesteading here on Steemit. I have tried to tell you what it is and what to do in getting things set up and sharing how and when to do things. I think I need to share some of the hardships of starting in the area of homesteading. This is starting from raw land and not on a piece of property that has a house already on it and the land cleared and set up for homesteading. We did not have the cash flow to get an already set up homestead, as I came back from Iraq and was down for two years from surgeries to fix problems that occurred from being deployed and then dealing with physical problems from being deployed. As my family and I had to do a hard restart with very little to work with.
GIPHY.COM
You see many people on YouTube and many other social media sites posting on homesteading and they had something to start with, a savings account, a house they could sell and start over with the cash flow. They are able to get equipment to do all the digging and clearing and make their life easier. We used up our savings trying to keep the house and land we had and still lost it due to hardships. I guess this stems from a trip to Home Depot yesterday where we were told we do not offer a 10% discount to veterans on building supplies anymore because we help all the veteran organizations that help veterans. Which started a rant about the veteran organizations from me and the wife had to tell me to go and look around or take a walk and she would deal with it, anger took over at that point and it was not a good thing. We went the route of talking to all the veteran organizations trying to get help but all we heard was "No Money To Help You".
Ok, sorry I got off the subject for a minute. If you are starting from scratch it will be a lot of work and here are some things that might overwhelm you. We started with a piece of property that was owner financed and had real easy start-up terms we had to have a very small down payment and we had to pay closing costs with was very reasonable and they worked with us and we had some time to save that up. In the place, we bought the land getting the utilities on the property was really cheap and was easy to do, we had the time to save for that also. We rented and could put back money for that like we did the land clearing costs. We put back all we could to get that done.
Now comes the hard part of all this. Getting the well put in, we had some of that money set back but it was more to get the well in than expected and that was all we had left to do before we could move on to the property. With the help of a few YouTube friends and the help of the well contractor we got it put in. The contractor was great and let us finance the balance with no interest and we paid it so much a month. Yes, we got lucky! Now we have to figure out how to live on the property because renting and trying to build was not going to work. We found an office mobile home that needed a remodel (still working on that, getting the stuff done on it but just about done, just the little stuff left.)and we got it cheap and worked to get it remodeled and we moved into it. We had a camper and a motorhome that we found cheap and moved them in and set them up to get us started. Built a pallet cabin on the property and we were off and running.
We have done all of this debt free, except the land, We dug in water lines and power lines by hand as we do not have the money for all the equipment most people can afford. We are now getting the trees moved from where they were piled in the clearing to be burned and getting the brush in the areas that were not cleared cleaned up to be burned. Yes, we are cutting and dragging by hand with a chainsaw. The good part, I guess is the fact they have been down fours years and are rotting and makes it easier to deal with. We will use them to build up the soil for planting when we are done.
I am not telling we this so you will feel sorry for us, that is not the point here, the point is it can be done and we are doing it. No matter what problems you have or come across if you want to homestead you can do it. I can only do so much as I have physical problems. I have had four knee surgeries and they want to operate on back and neck because of the problems from deployment and having been rolled over a couple times in a vehicle from my deployment. I do not want surgeries done anymore because they seem to cause bigger problems, learned that from the knee surgery.
GIPHY.COM
I just want to tell everyone no matter what many people tell you, if you want to get away from the city and start doing things to make your life better and feed your family better, you can do it. It is not easy if you have nothing but if you set your mind to it, it can be done. Never let someone tell you that you cannot do it. It will never be easy and it will be a struggle but it can be done. The end goal is to be able to leave my kids and grandkids with the knowledge to continue and something to continue with and they can be proud of what they built and accomplished. Because it is not just my homestead, it is theirs and hopefully their kids after them. it is a life passed down to many generations to come. Thanks for reading and I hope everyone has a great day/night, whatever it is in your neck of the woods. Always Forward!
@steemitbloggers
Same with us. It's (homesteading) is not what they want you to believe on TV. They romanticize it and I really wish they'd bring back Homestead Rescue show- they would show how people REALLY are handling the problems, unexpected things and mistakes.
Yeah, I have learned some mistakes are hard to fix and you really have to think some things through. I see all the big channels on YouTube with all the equipment and buying new cars and building all these houses. Must be nice to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth. A mistake I see many making is clearing land and burying it, that will leave a hole in the land in a few years. That is another whole post I will have to do later. LOL
EXACTLY! Or the tv shows where they need to move some lumber from Point A to Point B... No, we won't need to walk and haul it... let me get my Bobcat or extended 4x4 pickup truck and we'll do it this way
Believe me I wish I had some equipment right now. It would be so much easier but I don't so we just do what we can. Been thinking of renting some equipment but even that is out of our realm of being able to do.
Wow your post so interesting and exciting .