Financial/Self-reliance Goals for 2017:I am going to try to write more specific goals for this coming year. Although the list for this year is long, I wanted to put everything on the list that I wanted to work on.
- Continue to live without going into any new debt including cash flowing the kids college classes and the car repairs.
- Make extra payments on our property.
- Build up an emergency fund.
- Launch our home business.
- Finish fence for the goat paddock.
- Add trees to our orchard. (As of right now we have one apple tree in our orchard and one apple tree in the perennial garden we fenced in during 2016.)
- Fence in orchard.
- Add ducks to the orchard.
- Build Duck coop.
- Add raspberries and strawberries to the perennial garden.
- Add pergola to the perennial garden.
- Add more shade trees to our garden. (We added 3 shade trees to our homestead in 2016.)
- Build a cold frame.
- Work on our greenhouse.
- Paint our shed.
- Paint the old chicken coop.
- Build a windmill.
- Paint the house.
- Build steps for the house using bricks we got for free in 2016.
- Get a water tank.
- Hook up the water heater to the large propane tank.
- Finish the bathroom.
- Skirt the house.
- Put wood panels in the family room ceiling.
- Insulate and panel the library.
- Build bookshelves in the library.
- Add bees to our homestead.
- Start paddock for the chickens.
Move the t-posts from the unsuccessful raspberry garden to help finish fencing in the goat paddock and to fence in the orchard.Completed January 2017
Continue to live on cash onlySuccessful- Save money for future projects
- Build a green house for our homestead
Add more perennial plants and trees to our homestead.SuccessfulContinue to work on a home business.- Continue to add to our food storage and learn how to eat more long term storage foods.
Pay off the addition out our tiny house.Completed- Continue to climb out of debt with a focus on paying down the debt on our property. We were able to make two extra payments. Every little bit helps.
Add more animals to our homestead.Successful- Fenced in perennial garden and added many plants to the perennial garden.
- Connected the two buildings making one house.
- Built a new chicken coop.
- Fenced in a chicken yard.
- Painted the office.
- Started planning our home business.
- Started fencing in a new goat paddock.
*items in red were accomplished in addition to the goals we set for 2016.
In 2015 we didn't make additional payments on our property as we added an additional building to our homestead to double the size of our tiny house. This we did because 384 sq ft is really small for a family of 12 (we also added a member to our home in 2015). Because of this a goal for 2016 is to pay off the addition we added and to once again try to shorten the pay-off time on our property as much as we can. Additionally we have realized that a huge hole in our self-reliance plans has been savings (or a lack of). Because of this I realize that this needs to be an area we address in the future. Every financial book I have ever read has stressed the importance of having an emergency savings. I guess I just felt like I was doing so much with our resources that I was stretched too thin to work on this specific area. I also have struggled as any money set aside always seemed to be required for something soon after (like a flat tire or such). But I now realize that success for our homestead depends on our ability to find a way to save money for emergencies.
I find it interesting that we haven't really changed our goals over the last few years, but we have made progress. Although I didn't list it last year, we did want to add more animals to our homestead and we did add some more animals last year, and then we lost some and now we hope to add some more. Right now we are focused on adding animals that we can obtain resources from. This includes chickens, goats, and pigs.
WHAT
Financial/Self-reliance Goals for 2015:
- Continue to live on cash only.
- Make double payment on our property to reduce this debt faster.
- Add more perennial plants and some trees to our homestead.
- Continue working on a home business.
- Continue to can foods.
- Continue to live on cash only.
- Put together emergency fund.
- Cash flow kids school/college funds.
- Prepare as many foods as we can from staple items that we can buy in bulk. These include foods like beans, oatmeal, wheat, rice. etc.
- We will take less trips to the store.
- We will use cash only at the store for pre-determined budget items.
- Carefully use all money that comes into our home to work on our goals. (i.e. tax returns, outside jobs, etc)
- We are using cloth diapers, making our own laundry detergent, and hang drying our clothes.
ORGANIZE OUR HOME MORE TO MAKE THINGS MORE PEACEFUL AND TO HELP SAVE MONEY.
Long-term goals:
1, 2. Be completely debt free by December 2020.
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