Getting out of debt

I love to read articles that tell me how I can get out of debt or save money. I don't know why I continue to be drawn to them. The truth is I find very little useful information. I read things like:

• Don't buy junk food (okay this is good advice but lets face it the healthy treats I love cost more than the junk food so although I love this advice, its not saving me money maybe calories but certainly not money)
• Don't eat out at lunch - take your lunch to work. Okay who can afford to eat out and where do you find all that money to go out to eat for lunch. Eating out is a treat for a date night or a celebration not a lunchtime activity. And for that matter, lets celebrate getting out of debt. Save eating at the fabulous restaurant for a reward when you pay off a bill, not as a daily activity.
• Give up an addictive habit (hmm I don't drink, smoke, or play the lottery). 
• Negotiate a lower rate on your credit cards. Come on, its those dumb cards that got you into trouble in the first place. Stop using them. Cut them us and ban them from your life. 
• Cut your cable bill. Seriously you have a cable bill. You are broke, struggling to pay your bills and you are at home watching cable. Something seems wrong with this picture.

And the advice to get out of debt can be just as helpful interesting.


So I have decided to post my own advice here for everyone to read, or at least those who manage to find my blog in its obscurity.
How to save money

• Use the library (if you decide you love a book and want to reference to it repeatedly then go ahead and buy it, but most books can be enjoyed and returned to the library)
• Shop at the thrift store. We love this, we find so many great things shopping at the thrift store, but its important to buy just what you need at least until you are out of debt. Don't buy things just because they are a good price.
• Trade services. Its great if you can find someone you can trade services with like babysitting for piano lessons. However if you can't try other avenues like learning from the internet. 
• Get rid of your cable bill and for that matter any bills that you don't need. Come on you know what they are.
• Take advantage of free music lessons if you can. The public schools often offer Choir, Band, Orchestra and sometimes other music that your kids can learn at the school for free or an extremely reduced rate compared to private lessons.
• Have family game nights instead of vacations for a while. 
• Take advantage of free community events. Actually if you want to go to a good concert or play you might actually enjoy one from the local high school.  There are lots of free (or super cheap) community activities that you can enjoy when you are taking a break from Vacations and getting out of debt.
• Plant a garden. Well this can be interesting. Here you must set a spending limit. The first time we ever planted a garden we spent $100 on supplies and didn't get anything out of it. Last year we buried a few seeds on a family night and reaped a whole lot of food.  The idea was we just planted a few seeds and didn't spend a lot of money. If we hadn't gotten anything, we wouldn't have been out much. However the first time we spent $100 and got nothing. 
• Work, work, work. I can't say this enough. I am a stay at home mother, but there are dozens of things I do a week that save my family money because I am willing to work and so something myself instead of pay someone else to do it. 

How to get out of debt
Stop buying things you can't afford.

• For most of us this means don't use credit cards EVER because if you don't have the cash for it, you can't afford it.
• Don't buy a car without cash.
• Don't buy a house that is more than 25% of your take home pay.
• Don't take out a second mortgage.
• Don't spend more than you make. Tell everyone NO when they invite you to do something that you just can't afford. And lets face it when you are getting out of debt you can't afford just about everything because to get out of debt you need to one stop spending and two put extra money on the debts until they are gone.
• Don't buy anything that isn't necessary until you are out of debt (with the exception of small rewards that you pay for with cash built into your getting out of debt plan)
• Do pay extra on your debt.
• Do pay extra on your debt.
• Do pay extra on your debt.
• DO PAY EXTRA ON YOUR DEBT.

However the best advice I can give is just as follows. Stop spending money on purchases that are wants not needs. Too often we are plugging along and someone tells us about a great sale, a fabulous book or an amazing once in a lifetime vacation we just have to take. Here I like to apply the advice of Dave Ramsey. Live like no one else so later you can live like no one else. There has to come a time when you tell yourself NO until you can afford to tell yourself YES. And finally, DON'T GIVE UP! If you have kids, love them enough to teach then how an adult is supposed to act. That is be responsible and stop spending money you don't have. Its a terrible thing to teach them by your bad example to spend money you don't have. Your really teaching them how to live a life of bondage to debt and your not happy there, why would your kids be. Rather work hard at getting out of debt and show them a better way. And there you have it.

The Essential Life

In February 2015 I began working on another aspect of our self-reliance goals. Although I greatly appreciated our modern medicine and the ability to go to a doctor when we were sick, I also wanted to not go to the doctor if I didn't need to. I wanted to start learning about herbal oils so that I could use natural remedies to help heal our family. I had to do this in two parts. (1) Acquire oils and (2) learn how to use them.
I decided that adding an automated purchase plan and allocating a portion of by monthly budget towards buying oils would allow me over time to acquire oils for my family. However a step I skipped at the beginning was purchasing a good reference book. A few months ago I was given a reference book that our family has found extremely helpful.

We have really loved the information and the easy use of The Essential Life.
However before we got this book we were left to discover for ourselves what oils we would use and when. I started with a kit that had several oils in it. Then I started purchasing the oils that weren't in the kit and learning when and how to use the oils. When my daughter was born 6 weeks early I started using Onguard daily to keep from getting sick as I was  in and out of the NICU daily. When my son cut the tip of his finger and stitches didn't work the end fell off. A friend suggested we try Helichrysum and his black finger began to heal and he started getting feeling back to the end. When my 2 year old son had a yeast infection on his diapered bum I was able to use Lemon to bring comfort and healing to his sore bum.  When I  suffered from an infection on my foot from a cut I was able to use Lavender. All of these times (and more) I was able to use natural herbal oils to help heal and comfort my family.  We still go to the doctor if we need to, but I have really enjoyed the ability to use the herbs that our Earth holds for the benefit of my family. As I have we have become a little more self-reliant.

Self-Reliance is about helping others

A large part of our homesteading goals have been focused on becoming as self-reliant as we can. Recently I have realized that this often means working with others. Self-reliance is not a solitary life, rather one in which we work as a community to survive. As we become more self-reliant we obtain more ways to contribute to our family's survival and that of our community. In this way building our skills and knowledge are extremely important and valuable. When we started our tiny house build our first focus was to get a home finished that would provide a shelter for our family. Since that time we have realized that helping others do the same is extremely valuable. I now look at our tiny house as a canvas for learning and sharing.

Progress we have made
Recently we were the recipients of a large amount of reclaimed wood. It has been a joy finding various ways to use this wood in our home. Here are some of our projects that we have been working on. Please keep in mind that most of our projects still need work to be completed. Almost everything in both of the pictures was built using reclaimed wood. The one exception is I cut out the city chair rail on the located on the right of the barn door and installed it before I got my reclaimed wood. However I would have loved to do that project with reclaimed wood. The bookshelf, the ceiling above the bed, the white painted wood on the walls in the bedroom, the barn door and the wall the barn door is installed on are all done with reclaimed wood. I have really enjoyed building these things for our home, and I enjoy coming up with fun solutions for our spaces in our tiny home. When I first started looking for wood that was free I saw many posts on using shipping pallets. Not only are these difficult to retrieve the wood from but most of the wood we found from these pallets was in terrible shape. I applaud anyone who is able to create beautiful furniture and builds from this wood. However I have yet to be able to do anything but build some really ugly enclosures for my animals from pallets. However, I was blessed to get some wood that was destined to be tossed after its use as an enclosure for some large signs that were installed. I felt really blessed to receive this wood, and I went to work as quickly as I could when I got the wood to use it in my home. I didn't want the sun or weather to damage the wood as much as possible. Although I love how my projects turned out, I feel that I have learned a lot; as I work on future projects I hope to refine my skills as a builder to make more beautiful pieces for my home.

Frontier House

It all started several years ago with Frontier House, a show featured on PBS. We weren't the only ones. I have actually talked to a lot of people who have been inspired by this show that was its own experiment. Three families were chosen from a group of applications to be on a show that would set them back to the days of the Homestead. It was in fact, a failure of sorts. They lived on their homestead in Montana for a summer. One summer is just barely a vacation, hardly enough time to  One of the families cheated and none of them lived on the actual homestead for very long, but it got to us, a lot of us. We started thinking could I do that? How would I respond to that particular situation? And there were lots more questions with only one way to get the answer, and that way was to start our own Homestead. It was rough on those families and it was apparent that homesteading was definitely not for everyone. However, it was so intriguing for some of us that the ideas just took root and grew for years until the opportunity presented itself to find a way to start our own homestead.

I remember watching one episode and the commentators on the show mentioned that one of the families cheated. They weren't supposed to trade with anyone outside the make believe community. However on a real homestead, you need to trade with anyone and everyone that you can. It is very important to establish your homestead community. This may include other homesteading families or it may be people or businesses outside of the homestead community.  As a homesteader we need to make a life for ourselves utilizing our homestead as best as we can. If I look back to the fictional series Little House on the Prairie we see that although the Ingalls family lived on a homestead where they were able to raise animals and grow food that they harvested, they still were dependent on their community for a lot of their needs. They more they skills they possessed translated directly into an increases ability to survive especially during financially difficult times. Likewise, any time we become more diversified or our homesteads become more diversified it increase our ability to survive with the ups and downs of any economy.

Homesteading can be a difficult life, and the more self-sufficient you want your homestead to be the more difficult it can be because you are working to create an environment where you are the provider. That means that you do the work instead of paying for food or consumer goods that someone else has created or provided. You are the person going out in the cold or the heat and taking care of the animals and the plants.

It can be difficult to understand a homesteader. Many of us are beginners. A rancher or a farmer often has generations behind them that led to their current lifestyle, however most of the modern day homestead are turning back the clock just a little and changing the course and direction of their lives. They are putting their course on a different path then the one they were raised on.

It is more difficult and that makes some people wonder why we homestead. Although there are a lot of similar answers out there, you will also find that each and every story is unique. I have talked in other posts about some of the reason why our family choose a homestead, but its important to understand that this life (this homesteading life) isn't one level. There are multiple reasons why we and other families do this. And despite the difficulties and the struggles there are also multiple levels of rewards.

It has been a very long time since I have posted on this blog. I did update my status after I gave birth to my last baby. I am super happy to have 10 beautiful children. Also this spring we paid off our tiny house, but we decided to purchase another building to accommodate our growing family. We have also added 2 pigs to our homestead. We hope that our goats and pigs will both reproduce next year increasing the size of our homestead yet again. In the meantime we are trying to quickly make our new addition as close to winter ready as we can as soon as we can and with our cash pushing our budget as much as we can as I am also trying to get ready for Christmas and this holiday season at the same time.

I am so thankful for all we have however trying to do so much with such a limited income has been very stressful for our family. We recognize that we need to find a way to relax a little more and make things work.

It is easy to get caught up in things that don't matter. I guess we really need to ask ourselves what does matter.

I hope Judy doesn't mind, I found her message on a post I was reading about a 31 day challenge on living on Zero which was actually just paying the basic necessities and for nothing else. My heart was touched as I read what she wrote:

Try doing that because you have no other choice. I lost my job and am only wage earner. Mississippi only get up to 211 a week to cover expenses. Have no phone at all about to loose my car food is down to nothing rent is month behind. About to be 2 mos. the up side I start my new job tomorrow an hour and a half away. I’m happy you did this. I thing everyone should for a month or two. You will really understand what others go threw these days. Honestly didn’t think I would find a job I’m 55 it’s not easy. I only hope I can get bills all caught up and this has taught me to not be so frivolous. I gave my children everything and anything paid for cell phones bought cars. Out of all that. When I needed the help only one of them did what they could to help me. I think we all need to be more realistic and allow our children to make their own mistakes. It’s the only way they grow up.

After reading her message I decided that I was going to write more about my personal journey to get out of debt and to stay out of debt. 

My husband and I have taken an extremely drastic approach (as some of my other posts show) to get out of debt and to own our home and live as self-reliant as possible. One day my mother asked what our driving force was and I had to do a little self-examination to figure that out. I realized that for me the driving force was my husband losing his job over and over. The first time he lost his job it was because the company he worked for went out of business. It was actually becoming common at the time. Several stores were either closing or reorganizing in an attempt to stay open.  The second time he lost his job his department was eliminated after a merger with another company. The third time he lost his job it was also from the company downsizing with the economy struggling, and since he was new to the company he was one of the first to go. He got another job after that, but he knew immediately with their financial practices that his job was only temporary.  Later he managed to get a good job that lasted 9 years, but during the last year that is when we made our move. We bought our homestead and started working really hard towards our goal of self-reliance. 

We had already ended our credit card use a couple of years before. We decided that spending money we hadn't earned yet left a bad taste in our mouths when we spent months paying for purchases that were ofter short lived. We also learned that there was always another way besides credit cards to take care of emergencies and our number one go to became prayer and our second go to was patience. If we couldn't get something we needed then we had to pray for help and be patient until a solution presented itself. 

However above all else we had to sacrifice. If we can't afford something we go without. Additionally we live in our tiny house that we have been building over the past two years. Sometimes our house feels really small, but most of the time it is big enough for all our needs. We have more than just our tiny house, we have 36 acres that we will eventually have fenced in and use for multiple uses when it comes to growing food and raising animals but right now we just have a few of those acres fenced in and that is enough for us to get started. In addition to our tiny house we also have two more sheds that we use. One has been converted into additional storage and living space and the other is additional storage. 

After my husband and I purchased our property and started our homestead a series of events led to a search again for a new job. This search lasted 8 months. We were able to use our tax return, a part-time summer job, and unemployment to get buy during those 8 months and finally he got a new job and we got a stronger than ever determination to get out of debt as quickly as possible. When we bought our property we purchased a shed for the outside of our tiny house, and that was our first goal (pay off the tiny house). Although we had cash flowed the building of everything inside we didn't have time before our first winter would hit to cash flow the outside. If we wanted to have it ready before the first winter hit we needed a jump start and would have to add two debts. The first was the shed that would become our tiny house and the second was our property.

I also want to mention that our surviving for 8 months was possible because we had already eliminated car payments and credit cards.

That first summer I woke up with the sun and worked until after the sun went down and collapsed in bed exhausted. My kids learned to work alongside me and together we got the house ready for winter. The second year we moved fences most of the year. We were able to do come work on the house but since my husband didn't have a full-time job we couldn't spend money on the house, but there was plenty of work still to be done. 

After my husband got a job in the fall and we recovered financially we started working on the house again. This time my teenage son became my right hand helper. It was so good to work with him and he began to grow emotionally as he helped more. Having my children work along side me during this process has given them learning and growth opportunities that I wasn't able to give them before. 

We still have a long ways to go and our goals is to pay for our property in the next few years and then to begin getting rid of our last debt (our student loans). We also want to add on to our home or build a new home that is a lot bigger but we want to cash flow all of that project and getting out of debt so that we can free up all of our income is a big part of being able to cash flow a big building project. In the meantime we have lost of work to continue to do on our homestead including a green house and summer gardens. We have animals we are raising and we have our property to tame. But most importantly we have a beautiful family to raise and I am so grateful for my children and this experience we share together.

I feel extremely grateful despite all our trials we have been extremely blessed. We have a daughter serving a mission and a new baby girl and we have our home paid for. We are only left with two large debts. One is our property and the second is those terrible student loans that we only have ourselves to blame for taking them out. However we continue to press forward and make progress even if it is slower than we would like.

It amazes me how I can have a wonderful productive day that is also a stressful day. I am so grateful for my home and our homestead, but how is it that I can look around and see all we have and all that is left to finish at the same time. Why can't we just enjoy the moment a little more often. Perhaps that is a gift and for those that don't have that gift, perhaps it is a learned talent.
I also think that Gratitude (like our testimonies) is something that needs constant nourishment.
I am grateful for so very much.