In the Meantime...

Life on the farmstead is creeping by, slowly but surely.  We're learning to do things differently with more and less! The lack of internet (a temporary adventure) is a pretty significant change.  I'm remembering things that I seem to have forgotten, like books, newspapers that you can touch, and figure-it-out-yourself-ingenuity.  We're also making do with less space.  Much less space!  We're learning things we should have figured out a long time ago because if one person drops their clothes on the floor or leaves their lunch dishes on the table, the whole house is a mess!
We also chose "less" on a few areas that we hope will really pay off later.  In an effort to speed our plans to build a solar water heater, we installed a massive 2.5 gallon water heater in the camper.  You read that right!  Two and a half gallons of hot water.  And then water fresh from the Antarctic Mountains flows through my shower head.  My first shower was a lot like the trip from a hot jacuzzi to the hotel room in December, but I survived it and have since nearly perfected the turn-the-water-off-to-bathe technique.  Another area we decided to "skimp" in was to skip the clothes dryer installation.  We moved it, mind you.  It's in the cabin.  It works.  If I fold and wimp out, we can always wire it in and plug it up, but for now, it's a lovely floor ornament.  The clothes dryer (like the water heater) is one of the most expensive appliances, so to follow our theme of less, we decided to try life without it.  I've done this before for months at a time, but I always had the dryer at my instant disposal.  Now, if I change my mind, it would require about three days planning.  In the meantime, I am hanging my clothes, all of them, to dry.  I'm a huge fan of line drying, but the rain and pollen haven't given me that option.  So, for now, I am thoroughly enjoying the drying rack that my handy-man of a husband installed for me.  (I've talked about laundry savings before, check it out if you want to catch up! Click HERE to get the nitty gritty on laundry savings! )
Lastly, we've been doing a lot less sitting, a lot less watching TV, and a lot less wasting time.  Now, when Tim gets home from work, we don't veg out in front of the TV.  Instead, we hike and look for adventure!  During a recent afternoon walk, Tim shared how much better he feels already.  He comes home with energy and purpose instead of dread and exhaustion.

We'll leave you with a few pictures to tide you over until we have internet access again!  Until then, I'd love to hear your tales of More or Less!

An old dutch oven that we're restoring slowly but surely!

Tim repurposed old crib rails into an indoor drying rack.

The two youngest enjoying a game at the kitchen table.  They're doing a lot more of this lately!

 

 

The Conversion: More or Less

MORE or LESS?

That has been the driving question for our life-changes.  Do we want more or do we want less?  Will "more" make us want less or will it feed our desire for "more?" Is "less" the opposite of "more" or is it in the eye of the beholder?  Could it be that what we're really searching for is "less," and that the "less" is actually the "more" we've been looking for? 

It's a lot to answer, but we're trying.  And in just a few weeks of trying, we've found some pretty amazing answers.

LESS sometimes really is MORE. 

Sunday, after a super busy weekend of working on the farmstead, I stood at the sink of my camper and washed every dish in the joint.  I finished this task, from start to finish, from dirty to dry, from sink to cabinet- in less than 15 minutes.  I smiled.  Less is more!

 When it came time to lay our sewer and water lines, we stood on our property and looked at the length we'd have to dig to bury the lines.  It was a daunting task.  And we're not talking shallow ditches, either.   We toyed with the idea of renting a ditch-witch or a trencher to make the work easy.  A few phone calls told us that renting the equipment for the appropriate time would cost us right at $400.  So, we decided to try to dig it ourselves.  With post-hole diggers, shovels, pick-ax and spade in hands, we set out to find out why parents didn't want their children to be ditch diggers. 

It wasn't easy, but doing it ourselves saved the big bucks.  And, we learned a lot about our own strengths, too.  My kids are rock stars!  And Chandler's dog is the best.  I'm pretty sure she's an advocate for geo-thermal cooling because she couldn't keep herself out of those cool holes we dug!  We traded a $400 bill in for a $19 pair of post-hole diggers.  I'd definitely say that the "less" beat the "more" on this one! 

While we're on the topic of more or less, do you know how much people (even friends) will charge you to do a job you can totally do yourself?  Seriously, we need to teach ourselves to ask, "Can I do this myself for less?"  And more importantly, "Can I pay myself more and get the same service?"  A reputable, honest plumber (in the plumbing business, or in other words, feeding his family by making a PROFIT plumbing) would have come and connected our camper's water and sewage ports to the water line and septic tank on the property for an estimated cost of $625 (using his materials, but not taking into account any unexpected expenses.)  That sounds like a really good deal, doesn't it?  I mean, anytime you can have a major home repair or installation done for under $1000, we've trained ourselves to say "Praise God!"  But, before we shelled out the cash, we pulled out a calculator.  Tim estimated that we could run the same lines and pipe for about $200, including all supplies.  So, we jumped at it.  It only took a day and we ended up spending even less than we thought!

You see that?  That receipt says $108.36 where my checkbook could have said $625.  That's the "less" I'm looking for!

And that's just a few examples.  Sunday night, we built a small fire with some garbage wood we'd picked up on the property.  Just as the wood took fire, a few friends pulled up to say hi.  Instead of inviting them in for a meal or a show, we took a walk to the bluffs, watched our kids enjoy God's creation, marveled at Chandler's dog and her great love for rushing water and dreamed outloud together.  It was less than what we're used to when it comes to entertaining people we love, but then again, it was also more. 


I'm falling in love with "less," my friends.  

Give Yourself a Big Fat Raise: SAVE!

In order to give you a good view of the whole picture, I need to back up a year or so and tell you how we saved, shaved and cut our budget.  Change means change, some good and some bad.  Here's a list of the corners we cut to be able to afford "The Farmstead." 

Cable/Satellite TV: 
We turned our Satellite off over a year ago.  Now, before you screech in terror, that doesn't mean that we don't watch our shows anymore.  In fact, we've come to prefer the way we get to watch TV these days.  Rather than subscribe to a monthly cable provider, we subscribed to a different way to watch the shows we love:  HULU Plus.  We've also subscribed to Netflix Streaming during the year, but for now, have chosen HULU as our entertainment hub.  With HULU, we are able to watch all of our favorite shows, plus a ton of shows we'd been missing out on.  We can watch them when we want, too- no more missing shows because life happened.  We also get to watch old series back to back instead of waiting.  And we even get to watch our newer shows just a few days after everyone else does.  We purchased Roku's at Walmart and hooked them up to our TV's, but you can do the same thing with a laptop or desktop computer.  We also have an antennae and pick up over THIRTY channels of local, HD television!

Bottom line:  We went from paying $71 a month to $7.99 a month.  First year savings:  $656 (that includes the one-time costs of the Roku devices.)  Yearly savings after that: $752


Haircuts:    I taught myself how to cut my boys' hair a long time ago, but the savings are too great to go without mention.  I have three boys if you count my husband.  If they only got their haircut once a month (can you say Shaggy?) and only spent $10 a piece on the haircuts (can you say Cheapo?), then I would be spending $30 a month on their haircuts- and that's before we touch my daughter's or my own!  I have always cut (and now colored) my daughter's hair and I've always colored my own.  The savings are huge.  There are plenty of youtube videos that will teach you if you're nervous.  Go ahead and try it!  It will grow back! 

Bottom line:  Yearly savings:  $560

Laundry Detergent: I have been making my own laundry detergent for several years now.  It's fun, it works great, and it means girlfriend time!  If you want the skinny on how this is done, check out my other blog:  You Can Make Your Own Laundry Detergent, Too!

Bottom line:  Yearly savings:  $336


There are so many things you can do to save money.   Don't be afraid to start small!  The little things really do add up!  Here is a list of other things you could try to introduce in your budget!  If you have great ways to save, leave a comment!

Replace an "out to eat" meal with a picnic made from home.  We do this very often and on average, we save $40 each time we do it!  The kids love it and we're making great memories in the process!  Even if you did it just once a month, you'd save  nearly $500 a year!

I wouldn't recommend this for everyone, but we changed our auto insurance policy from full-coverage to liability with uninsured/underinsured coverage.   We don't finance our vehicles, so we're free to make that choice.  We understand that if we're at fault in an accident, that we might actually lose a vehicle, but for us, it was a choice that works.  When we added our 16 year-old to our policy, it more than doubled because my vehicle carried full coverage.  Now that we've scaled back to liability coverage,  we see a savings of more than $1,675 a year!

Another decision we made was to allow our cell phone contracts to expire.  Over the past decade, our cell phone bill had crept higher and higher until we were paying over $125 a month for cell phones- and that's if we didn't go over and we paid the bill on time.  Finally, we shopped around for contract free phones.  Contract free phones are just that- no contract!  That means, if you can't afford to pay a bill, you don't rack up late fees and reconnect fees.  Instead, you just can't use your phone until you have the money, which is how things are supposed to work, anyway!  Tim and I chose Straighttalk from Walmart.  With  6 month unlimited cards, we enjoy unlimited everything, including data- FOR LESS.  We save over $600 a year on two phones and enjoy extras we couldn't afford with a contract.  



 See?  It's not that hard to save!  With just these few changes, we're able to save $4200 a year.  The savings don't seem like much until you add them up!  So, how are YOU saving for YOUR DREAMS? 
 

Face Dirt and Free Labor

Forgive me in advance if this post isn't flowery and wonderful.  I am tired.  Even my fingers are tired.  But, it's a really good "tired."  Tim and I talked last night about how good this "tired" feels.

We have had a productive week.  In 8 days, we've cleared the top side of the property, dug the trench to lay the underground power, dug the trench to tie the camper in to the water line, dug the trench to connect the camper to the septic tank, set up and leveled the camper, cleaned the camper, prepped the home site, cut down and burned at least 2,345,764 briars, played in poison ivy, met the neighbors, set up the cabin, installed the power pole, and transplanted  four of the cutest cedar trees you've ever seen.

Whew!  That's a lot!  And we did it ALL BY OURSELVES!  No big equipment, no ditch witches, no dollars wasted.  In the culture we live in, it's easy to forget that bodies were meant for work and better than that- they are quite efficient!  Our family of five (3 on some days because our 2 men work full time jobs) literally tamed our home site with our own hands.

It was hard.  And, yet, it was wonderful.

Because we've been working so hard, we have taken to drinking spring water right out of a gallon container.  Every twenty minutes or so, one of us will yell, "Where's the water jug?" and another someone will come running with it.  Last week, one of my kids turned up the gallon container only to stop short of swallowing when they thought they saw something in the water.  My other kid didn't miss a beat, "It's just face dirt," he said, convincing the other child that the "dirty" water was perfectly acceptable to drink.

And of all we've accomplished this week, my absolute favorite part is being able to witness my children SEEING what they can do.  They're amazed, actually, that THEY can make a difference, that THEIR labor changes things, that THEY are laying a foundation for their future homes.   They are far more powerful than video games, culture and television led them to believe.

So, we're tired.  We're achy.  We're even sporting a few minor injuries.  But we're content, at peace, and excited about the next leg of our journey.


 Getting our education while we get our education.  I love life!

          Sing it with me, "Poison Ivy, Poison Ivy...."



 Our 40 foot cabin that will serve as our cozy sanctuary while we build.  We'll live in the camper until the cabin is finished out.  We are planning on making some beautiful memories here!


Is it more?  Or is it less?  You decide. 

The Testing (Just call us the Armadillo family!)

There are days when I think my Heavenly Father waits until I'm tested to show off His unceasing ability to make the seemingly impossible happen before your very eyes, or in our case, right under your feet.


When we discussed purchasing the property, we were told that at one time, there had been a home on the land.  There was also a septic tank, water lines and a water tap.

We knew that locating the septic tank would simply require some knowledge of the homesite, which we had, and some diligent digging, which we did.  Boy, did we dig.  And our efforts were rewarded!

As for the water, I made a call to the local water company.  Three of them, actually.  And the news got worse each and every time I called.  The ladies on the phone all told me, "Oh, I pray your property isn't in "this" jurisdiction."  Well, guess where the property just happens to sit?  In "that" jurisdiction.  A twenty minute phone call with them told me:

1.  Tapping into their waterline carried a fee that starts at around $2500.

2.  There was a meter on the property at one time, but it had since been removed by the water authority.

3.  We could try to find the old tap, but it was likely covered by years of dirt.

4.  And finally, if we were able to locate the old tap, we would simply need to pay a $50 deposit to get a new meter put in.


So, I hung up the phone and whispered, "Twenty-five hundred or fifty dollars..."  And immediately, I was determined to find that old water tap.  Turns out, wanting to and being able to sometimes run on different tracks.    After a full day of digging, we located an old schedule 40 water line and assumed that we'd hit gold.  For the rest of the day, we tried to follow that pipe back to the road, but it always ended in a dead-end. 

Then God sent our friend.   The day after we dug what felt like 7,213 holes, our friend George met us at the property with a shovel.  In what seemed like no time (keep in mind, I wasn't holding a shovel), he had found a newer water line.  He and Chandler found several sections of it and were mapping a line back to the road when Tim eyeballed their line, walked to the road, took a step and STEPPED ON the old meter box.

          Can you hear all the clapping and celebration? 


So, yesterday, we carried FIFTY DOLLARS, (not $2500) to the water company and today, they are installing my water meter.

And Tim and I are in awe of God's desire to help us with the itty-bitty-makes-no-difference-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things-details of our lives.

It won't always be easy, but we won't soon forget when it was!

The Ink Is Dry!

It's official.    I have piles of boxes, a stack of papers and an empty checking account to prove that the Taylor family is the new, proud owners of a beautiful homestead along the Calvert's Prong in Cleveland, Alabama.    It's six riverfront acres with some pastureland and an old, empty home site.  By the weekend, it will be the home to my camper trailer, 2 adults, 3 kids, 3 dogs, 2 cats and a Betta.   And we, animals included, will be walking away from the rat race.

This is the top side of the property where we'll be planting gardens, transplanting fig trees, putting in fruit trees and making a home.

 This property came with built in therapy.   A beautiful piece of the Warrior River, called the Calvert's Prong, rushes past our backyard. 

 There are also beautiful bluffs just waiting to be camped under. 

And this is our 500 square foot (actually, very large for campers) temporary home.  Believe it or not, it is blessed with a master bedroom, full bathroom and bunk room.


Come and join the adventure as we transition from 5 bedrooms to 500 square feet.  Follow along as we break ground on the cabin, build the garden beds, put bees in boxes, enjoy some Scripture around a bonfire, build a cellar, play with chickens, and bake fresh bread.


If you've ever wondered if a simple life is still possible, use me to find out.

We'll walk you through every step of the American Dream- well, everything but the 30 year mortgage, that is.  We're here to prove that FIVE YEARS of living like nobody else will allow us a LIFETIME of living like nobody else! 

Taylorjourey: Sneak Peek

I think it's only fair to warn you- I'm dropping out of the rat race.  I've decided it was never meant to be won in the first place.  I no longer want to live in a world where portfolios, IRA's and power bills are more important than fireflies, swimming holes and car rides.  So, we forfeit. 

Want to see how?


Stick around.