We "retired" from our jobs, sold it all and started a homestead

Have you ever wanted to just throw it all away and go live in the woods? Well, maybe not that extreme but definitely reduce your stress and reliance on the outside world. For her and I that is exactly what we wanted. Working 12 hours a day 7 days a week has taken its toll on both of us and we were ready for a change.

Who we are: the typical working family who has just gotten tired of the rat-race. Working at times 7 days a week just to pay bills and stare at things we never had the time to enjoy, especially time with each other. Armed with nothing more than the knowledge gained from forums (such as this one), videos, podcasts and articles we launched out into the unknown and began building our homestead.

Since these forums have offered us such a vast wealth of knowledge we would like to invite any of you to follow our journey, laugh, or possibly cringe at our mistakes and just maybe learn something along the way. Follow along at our blog and YouTube channel on how we go from the typical career couple to off-the-grid homesteaders, build our Earth-Sheltered home, start our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Hope Homestead Farms, LLC and much more.

homesteadjourney.org

I will watch your progress with interest

I have done this as well and it is very exciting!

I have wrote some posts on here on that experience like a post I called the Wire Bridge, which was my way of making an analogy, and encouraging other homesteaders to make the trip across.

I guess if there is any advice I can give you it is to pay attention to the financial topics as farming is so radically different then any other business model out there. I find the biggest thing is prioritizing what I do based around what I can make for money, or how I can save money.

Here is an example, despite me being incredibly busy right now, I prioritized a statement I got in the mail. It was for a medical bill that the insurance company should have paid, but did not. When I worked a real job, I would just pay the bill and be done with it, but it was for $191.82...so about a days worth of farm work. Since I never know when my next bout of money will arrive, I will take the time to reply back to that wrongly billed co-pay because spending a half hour on it, will save me $191.82! That is what I mean by looking at money differently now.

It might be only $191.82, but that is (2) lambs that would have to go to slaughter, no they wrongly billed me, so I am going to ensure they pay for it. But when I was working a real job, what did $191.82 really matter, next week I would get another paycheck.

I just did our budgets for 2019 and the income chart is crazy...up down, up down, up down...you just never know in farming where the next bout of money is going to come from. That sort of cash flow is so radically different from having a steady paycheck.