Some of you are asking right now, where is here? Well, allow me to tell you. We are moving to Missouri in roughly a month! I have written before about why we are moving and what we plan on doing, so for this post, I want to address some of the financial decisions we have made as a married couple with shared views. Please do not take this as an opportunity to say, "You should have done so and so!" Believe me, I am aware that some of my decisions have not been the best financially, but they have allowed us to get where we are, so please, let me share...
Our Land!
You see that photo up there? That is the 8.5 acres of land we purchased in Missouri. We currently live in Lansing, Michigan, on roughly 0.09 of an acre, and have been doing our best to begin living a homesteading lifestyle for the last 8 or so years. We have 3 dogs, 3 cats, 7 chickens, one of which is a rooster we are not supposed to have, 4 rabbits, and 2 honey bee hives. We also have 19 fruit trees and a bunch of perennial plants potted, overwintering in our garage. We have a 6-panel solar system with a wind turbine, a methane digester, water filters, a 10-hp sawmill, and about all the tools I could think of over the last few years.
Man! You Must Be Rich!
No, I am in debt. We got married 5 years ago, and yes I know I said 8, but that is how long I have been working towards my goal, I only met my wife 5 years ago, and thankfully, we had that goal in common, so we have worked together. When we were married, we moved into the home we had purchased on a land contract immediately after we were married. In August of 2023, we sold this house for a $22k profit and cleared our credit at the time, which was about $17k, most of which had gone to purchase tools and supplies. You may be wondering why our debt was that bed, and the answer is this, both my wife and myself come from rough backgrounds. I was a heroin addict who got his life on track about 8 years ago, and when I met her, I took her out of her life and brought her into mine which was well-ordered, while hers was to put it simply, not.
House Bought - Now Credit!
When we met 5 years ago, she had a car loan co-signed by her father, while I had been working on my credit for a few years. I was working at a local college, and right after we met, I got her into the cafe there as well. When covid hit, we started a business, and that did rather well. The whole time we were working on our credit. The life happened. We ran into a rough spot and separated for about 8 months...
Man That Sucks!
Yes it did, but God was watching us and we got back together and have been a little over a year and a half. When we got back together, that is when we decided to pull the trigger to move. At that time, I was technical services coordinator at a public venue, and soon after, my wife started working there as well. I started looking for properties in states that were friendly to homesteading, as that is what we wanted to do. We are both from this city and we are both ready to leave, and eventually we found a property that fit our needs and we were able to make a deal on it.
But How?
Well, our credit was decent, but the lines of credit were run up. We had tools and things but were in debt. We had the house, which we had bought on a land contract pre covid, and we knew had equity, but the move was the issue. Then, a friend of mine went through a divorce and needed a place to stay. He ended up buying our home from us and we now rent from him until we leave, again, in about a month. Our property is also on a land contract, mainly because it is nothing but trees, and it is very hard to get loans against raw land. We have been paying both to live here in Michigan, and on the property in Missouri since June of 2023.
Expenses Moving Forward
So now, we are back into debt of about $10k, but we also had needs that needed to be filled. For example, the solar system, biodigester, and just inflation have caused most of this. We have a $5k credit line at Home Depot we are going to use for fencing, nails, and other homesteading needs when we get there. As to the current expended credit, our expenses are going to decrease so heavily, I will be able to pay down those lines quickly. Also, I can go cut down an oak tree, limb it, take it to one of the local sawmills, and sell it for anywhere from $500 to $2K. The hardest part now is just getting all of our stuff there. I also need a wood splitter and a tractor to move trees, but I will get there...
