Oh shit! Did we really just paid off 60K of debt!?

This is a tough post for me to write. I couldn't figure out why it was so tough for me to write but I realized recently why and here it is.

Because paying off $60,000 worth of debt in less than a year is…. Unbelievable.

See, I still don't really even really believe that we just did this. I keep all the numbers written down on a huge dry erase board in my bedroom and each times the numbers change, I erase and update them. I have a starting column and a current column. The board is telling me every time I look at it that we paid off $60k of debt.  But I still don't believe this.  I really don't.

So I clearly need to work on this new reality we just created which is basically this:  we no longer have debt. We still have our mortgage but it is lower than what most other people have at $135,000 (home is valued at $300k or more).  We own all of our cars and we have no debt. And if we keep going at the rate we are going, we could own our own home in less than two years or we could have a quarter million dollars saved away for an early retirement.

Hang on a minute while I let that sink in. We could own our home in less than two years or retire early.

Honestly, this scares the shit out me. And I had a hard time figuring out why but now I know. Before we only had one place to put the funds. And that was towards debt. It didn't require a lot of thinking or planning. Just transferring the money to the highest interest rates cards or loans and whacking them down. But they are gone now. And we have been playing this game of paying down debt ever since I started dating my husband almost 20 years ago. Many people play this game so you likely know exactly what time talking about.

You see, he and I have had this dance we played throughout the years. Pay off the debt every time we got a bonus or some windfall. And then rack it back up again slowly throughout the year. Rinse and repeat. But each time we did, I was sad and hurt and broken-hearted. Instead of putting our Christmas bonuses towards something we really wanted. Such as a three week trip to Hawaii or a summer long road trip on our motorcycles. The credit cards or the car loans were getting them each time.

Almost twenty years of this of this dance. And the result has been this: I don't feel safe or stable or secure. That has been the story playing over and over in my head for the last 20 years. But now we have a chance to do something different and it scares me. We have a chance for a brand new story and yet... I feel tremendous anxiety to the point where I lie awake at night thinking “what are we supposed to do now?” 

Before we had only one place to put the funds and it was easy. No thinking about it. It was a very well practiced dance. But now…. well now we get to decide where to put the funds. And the choices are endless. Now instead of looking at one door, I'm looking at dozens. Do we put the money towards retirement?  An IRA?  In savings for emergency cash?  Do we pay down our mortgage or save instead?  All of this is leading to decision fatigue. It is a very real thing. Decision fatigue is a result of too many choices, and anxiety (am I doing the right thing?) and fear (what if I make the wrong choice?) and feeling a weight of responsibility (this affects not only me but others too).

We did meet with a Edward Jones financial advisor. And it was helpful for us. But I realized that a lot of what they offer, we can do on our own. However, you get the peace of mind of not having to think or worry about it while someone who's very in touch with the financial market babysits your money for you and maybe brings in 12% return rather than 8%.  And you get the benefit of a more experienced guiding hand. Which may just be the thing to help me with my decision fatigue. So there's yet another choice facing us. Do we outsource or do it on our own?

As I write this, I am realizing that I will be struggling with this for a while. That being scared is a good thing. And that my anxiety over a new way of life is probably something I need to address.  I also need to work on this dread of “when will the shoe drop?” It is all growth. Growth and change: It can feel like coming to the end of the landslide and now you must sort through the rubble one rock at a time.

But the thing I have got to work on the most is this new mindset: “wow, this is real. WE DID IT!”  A friend told me, “do something to celebrate!”  But that goes everything we have been doing for the last 20 years of our life. Celebrate?  Doesn't that cost money?  Celebrate?  People do that?  But I do think she has a point and it can be something as simple as going out to dinner with my husband and toasting each other to acknowledge all that we just did.

So here's my toast:  “we did it!  We paid off $60k of debt in 2016. And 2017 will be the beginning of a brand new life and brand new way of thinking.  Cheers!”

PS:  Coming soon… how did we pay off so much debt?  For now, I will tell you it was a mix of immersing ourselves into a minimalist lifestyle as well as my husband becoming an independent consulting and making more money. It's important to note that while my husband made more money we could not have done this if I had not adopted the minimalist lifestyle. Earning more money often just leads to spending more. We did NOT increase our level of spending with my husbands increased income. So important!

Homesteading Truth #2 Isolation

Isolation. It is one of those areas that is rarely talked about or acknowledged in the world of homesteading. And it was one I was unprepared for. I also did not realize how much harder it would be to homestead with small children and babies. Interestingly, I'm a self proclaimed hobbit, an introvert. I love to be alone. I love to be in nature. But I really underestimated how much I would need civilization as a new mom of small children. In hindsight, I think moving 60 minutes away from the city and 30 minutes away from the nearest town (that actually has a grocery store, not a tiny trading post) would have been better reserved for a different period in our life. It is not uncommon to hear me tell other families that homesteading is better with older children or after your children have flown the nest. I would absolutely love living in my home if it was just my husband and I here. But with two small kids, I feel overwhelmed, overworked and…. Isolated.

When kid #1 was born, my world literally turned upside down. Let's first start with the fact that for the first six months, she hated her car seat. And I mean full on hated it. As soon as we would strap her in, she would lay on the tears and screams, and would not subside until we removed her out of the car seat.  Considering that it takes at least 30-40 minutes to get to our Doctor appointments on a good day, these easily turned into 2 hour trips as I would of frequently stop to check on her, rock her, comfort her, bite my nails, pull my hair out…..  It wasn't until I shelled out the money for a nicer rear facing car seat with better padding and materials, that she finally stopped. After that, I never bought or borrowed cheap car seats again. Sometimes sanity outweighs being frugal.

Even when the every single car ride screaming stopped, trips to town were still difficult. And it became more difficult due to the fact that my daughter needed physical therapy for the first 2 years of her life and most trips revolved around that. It became impossible for me to decently buy groceries or run errands or cook a meal. I remember pre kid days being able to stop on multiple stores to take advantage of sales at different locations. Being able to cook….  Now, I was frantically putting the baby in a baby carrier (because you can't push a stroller and a cart at the same time) and taking full advantage of stores with one stop shopping features such as Krogers or Walmart just so I wouldn't have to go through the car seat ordeal multiple times. Pre kid days, I was quite the budget queen. Now I was buying Papa Murphy pizzas and pre cooked whole chickens at Kroger just so my husband and I could eat something that night. I have also become an Amazon fiend.

My limit to this day is still just two location when I have the kids with me. For example, I might get my oil changed and pick up groceries. But all my other errands have to wait till another day. Occasionally I will do more but I often pay the price in exhaustion meters later when I get home.  As a result, I find myself staying home a lot. I rarely go into town unless I really need to. Which at this point in time is two days a week since I take my oldest child (who is now six and into playing her leap pad patiently on the long car rides now) to a homeschool co op on those days. While she is in school, I try to do at least one productive errand but often I find myself driving around while kid #2 sleeps. Because funny thing happened with kid #2. She actually likes to sleep in her car seat. As long as I'm driving.  Once in awhile I will get the bright idea to park and read a book while elder kid is in school. Big mistake. As soon as I set that parking brake, the screaming and crying commences and the only thing that calms her down is if I take her out and carry her around until my back is sore.

Being isolated with small kids is really tough. It is a period of your life when even the most qualified hermit needs other people. I mean I seriously need my mom more than ever but we are now one hour apart. And let me tell you, you think prior to buying your homestead that one hour will be nothing but I was so wrong. She has commented a few times how she wishes she could swing by after work and check on us.  I increasingly wish for this too. My husband is also one hour or more away from all of his jobs. Because of this, he is often gone two extra hours a day and over the years I've come to resent it. Not him of course but when I think about how it would be nice to see him at six o'clock for dinner as opposed to 7 pm which is nearly bed time for the kids… Prior to moving to our homestead, I used to be able to meet my husband for his lunch hour. With the added difficulty of traveling with kids, that happens once in a rare moon or so. My poor husband.

Speaking of my husband, for the first few years I would greet my husband at the door each evening and rattle off my bits of insanity to him. Not intentionally but when your husband becomes the only adult you see or talk to for days at a time, you cannot help yourself.  I literally could not at times stop myself. I would start talking and just would not stop even when his eyes glazed over. I had all my new mom worries, concerns about the homestead and an increasing honey-do list for him. After a while I stopped because our evening talks would become stressful and I trained myself over time to wait until the end of the week to talk to him about the really important things. But come Friday and I would unleash. And not always in a good way. Being a new dad and the sole provider for our family as well as commuting as much as he was AND caring for the homestead, he was exhausted too. This was tough because my husband and I had a completely different relationship for ten years in our pre kid and pre homestead days. Not a better one but a less complicated one. And there are times I really miss that…..

The other tough thing is being away from other moms. What I didn't realize moving out here to the country is that everyone and their mother already has friends. They already have a community. And considering that my husband and I are not church people, we eliminated nearly 90% of our potential friend group right off the bat. If you join a church, become republican and believe in the raptor, you probably won't run into the same isolation problems I did. So it may be worthwhile to find religion. Truly. Back to being away from other moms. All the moms I continuously relate to or become friends with all live in town. Because of my distance, I've missed out on a lot. I still do. For example, at my daughter’s school , all the moms have a complex and unique carpooling system which allows the moms to drive less and stay home rather than driving all over creation. Because of where I live, I cannot participate in this and must relegate to driving all over creation.

My own mother once made a comment to me that in her medical profession, all the stay at home and homeschooling moms that she sees are all on anti-depressants and meds. Many of them have immune system issues from being overworked and the sole caregivers for their tiny beings. At the time I took offense to this as I had just had my baby. It was a tender moment for me. I know she was trying to warn me, to kind of put a hand out there and prevent what she herself had gone through and what so many moms have gone through. But oddly enough now six years later, I can honestly tell that you in my diverse group of friends that the ones that homeschool their kids and kind of do everything are the ones with the most medical issues, depression and anxiety. My friends who have part time jobs, kids in schools, well…  They are doing much better.  And really it comes down to the fact that our culture and society has a better social infrastructure for busy plugged in moms than for stay at home homeschooling moms. I hate to even admit it because it goes completely against the original vision I had.

I also underestimated how social my daughter would be. Being an introvert myself, it never occurred to me that my kids might love being around other people and crave this. But unfortunately we miss a lot. She currently wants to play soccer this Spring but we have to turn it down due to finances and the crazy logistics of commuting. I had this crazy idea that living in the country would keep her busy. That being in nature would satisfy our needs. That having farm animals would be enticing enough for all of us. Well, yes it does. Five months out of the year. Summer time, we love living here. We are outside every day. We have local trails and rivers and lakes we frequent.  We frolick through our meadows with our livestock and two dogs. But come late September and I find myself perusing apartment rentals in the city.

I could go on and on but then I would just be ranting and whining. It is tough because I love our home at times too. Especially in the summer when the sun is out and everything is green and fresh.  But we have had serious talks about whether we should stay here or move. My husband has no desire to leave. He loves it here. But he also gets all of his socialization and creative outlets with his work and for him, our home is a get away. At this time because of the equity in our home (we own over half our home), we are more likely to rent this place out and either buy a home closer into town or rent an apartment where we can fully take a break from homestead ownership duties.

So let's talk about ways TO COMBAT ISOLATION:

- Be open to childcare. Whether it is babysitting or finding a daycare you can use one day a week. We did not find a babysitter for five years. And it wasn't due to lack of trying. Now that we have one, I pay her twice what everyone else does. And not because she asks but because I want her to pick us any time she has a choice between our family and another. Tough market, I know. She. Is. Worth. Every. Penny.

- Look for free child care. With my first I did not take advantage of this. I was too freaked out to leave her in anyone's care. Another homeschooling mom was telling me how she drops her kids off at the free two hour daycare in the grocery store and then goes and has a cup of coffee right in the store’s coffee shop. Genius!  I am so doing this second time around. The store doesn't take kids until they are two years old but my kids look older than they are, ha ha ha!  Another free childcare option may be at your local gym. I definitely plan to look into this as well. Just to go and sit in a steam room for half an hour…. backstroke in a cool pool…. Tan in their tanning bed….. Walk aimlessly on a treadmill and watch, gasp! adult TV.

- Eliminate some of the projects. When you own a homestead, the to do list becomes increasingly long. Our first five years here, we compounded that by adding more projects such as gardening, chopping wood, raising livestock, prepping and more. If you commit to projects such as milking a cow every morning and night, you will have less time for some of the things you may really want to do. The more projects you take, the more you box yourself in. In the last year, I really scaled way down on our projects going so far as to sell all of our livestock except a few pet goats and our two dogs and one cat. Anytime we go on a trip, we always had to hire a house sitter to watch our animals and put our dogs in a kennel. It would cost just as much to pay for animal care as it does to go on the actual trip at times. Now we just pay for dog boarding. I had these grand ideas of traveling with our kids and dogs. Let's just say when you have four suitcases in the back of your truck along with coolers, and more as well as huge car seats taking up the tiny footprint, you find that there's not room for Rover anymore.

- Get a great car with great gas mileage. I envy my friends with mini vans and SUVs but I could never own one. My car currently gets 45 mpg and I am so grateful because if I had to worry about gas costs, I probably would have further isolated myself at home.

- Consider bottle feeding. With my first I didn't do this and was very severely limited in how far away and how long I could be gone for almost the first two years. Incidentally with my second I am doing both breastfeeding and bottle feeding due to a health condition I have. Initially I fought this tooth and nail (we spent over $1000 on medical and lactation care) but now I see it was a godsend. Yes, we pay $200 a month on the best formula in the world, but I am okay with it. There's so much conflicting information out there on nipple confusion (which by the way is not well substantiated if you research it) that it was a very dramatic and emotional decision.  But once we got over the other side of the hump, our life became calmer. We nurse at night and bottle during the day. Really this has been really great for my sanity in more ways than one.

- Consider public schooling. Homeschooling is awesome. We actually are very immersed in a great homeschooling community. But I never have any time to myself. No creative outlets, no brain space to really just do my own thinking. I'm always driving.  I pretty much am a chauffeur these days. In hindsight I wish I had picked a home with a great school district. Our school district is very heavily populated by all white religious families that have strict beliefs such as the girls only wear skirts, and anyone who doesn't go to church is going to hell. Soooo….  Really probe your realtor on this area. I hate to admit this but our realtor actually tried to talk us out of buying our place but we ignored her. - Maybe I should have listened to the seasoned 68 year twice married with four kids matriarch a little more closely…..

- Become insane about your alone time. Currently my alone time is a 2 hour bath once or twice a week when my husband is home. While this is nice and relaxing, it is not really a creative or social outlet. Unfortunately, we are not set up in a way where I can invest more time in that. Which is why the only time I can blog is when I can't sleep at 3 AM as was the case this morning. But don't let your alone time drop to the bottom of the list.

- I wish I had more advice but I don't. It is 5 AM and I'm tired. The only other tidbit of wisdom I can impart is to really think  about homesteading and if it is the right choice for your or even just simply the right time. Screen the community closely and maybe infiltrate it before you move into it. Go to a few of the churches and see how you like the people. Many small towns have monthly meetings with the town mayor. Attend it and see what the current issues are. Is there hostility towards certain lifestyles?  Are they a bunch of NRA doomsday preppers or are they actually people you want to hang out with?  Get a vibe for whether or not these are your people. When the power goes out or the first severe winter storm wipes out the road with fallen trees, you and your neighbors will be the ones out there with chainsaws cleaning it up. It helps if you like them and they like you.

I think the only other person who ever really fully talked about the element of isolation that comes with moving to the greener side of the earth and the isolation you endure is one of my favorite authors, Betty McDonald in The Egg and I. She wrote a true accounting of when she and her husband moved to Vashon Island to start a chicken egg farm. During the time she wrote this, the island was remote. Incidentally, years later I would grow up on this same island during a much more populated time so it was fascinating reading this account. I read this book prior to moving to our homestead and I highly recommend it. I wish I had taken it a little more seriously instead of brushing off that this would never happen to me too. Ha ha ha.

Whatever you choose and decide, always remember it is okay to say later "this isn't for me after all" and be willing to move on and embrace a different type of life adventure. 

When Everything Breaks

Since my husband was fired in 2015, we've been ultra conservative in our spending. When it comes to money, we are finally on the same page. Only buying what we need and selling most of everything we don't need on Craigslist and knocking off debt as we go. At first we were gung ho, like "yeah we can do this!  We have everything we need, working cars, stocked up food, good health, yada, yada, yada....."  Well, we should know better because the Universe likes to prove us completely wrong just as we get a bit cocky. Right?  If you're walking along and living the perfect zen life:  It does one of two things. It either takes you out like an expired banana or it throws you something you can barely handle. Ha!

I couldn't make this up stuff if I tried. I was feeling artistic this morning and decided to draw what happened in the last week instead of write about it.  Click on it to enlarge it.....

All in all, even though I had my "crap, why me?" moment in the midst of everything breaking down, we have  forged ahead. Mr Monkey has been working his tail end off each day to bring in cash whether through selling items or working on salvage projects or on side projects he's hired for. And he's doing amazingly so far. We are paying bills AND paying stuff off. But we are also determined to cut costs by fixing things ourselves or doing without rather than buying new and I gotta say, we are being challenged for sure!

A few days later after all of the above happened, my oldest kicked the drain on the bathtub which means we can't take baths anymore, only showers. Now my rare leisurely baths I look forward to have gone kaput too. These baths are sometimes seriously the one thing that give me will to go on. As a stay at home mom, there's nothing nicer than locking myself in the bathroom for a few hours while Mr Monkey takes on Mr Mom role so I can have my own brain space. So now what?  I'm proud to say that all hell is breaking loose but I'm standing strong. There are worse things that could happen. Much worse. I've known friends who lost their entire homes in landslides and even in house fires. This is nothing. Mr Monkey will eventually fix everything once he has the time so in the meantime, we just take it one day at a time.  "It's that season of life" I told him. "We've been through this before where all of a sudden everything starts breaking."  He remembers. Frankly, it is hard for me to stay depressed and down in a rut when finally for the first time in a long time, we are really exactly where we want to be: working together.

Yeah, because up to this point, Mr Monkey and I were on opposite collision courses. At least now we are on the same collision direction even if we are colliding. And that feels good.

Colliding together. It is the best feeling ever.

Homesteading Truth #1 - Wood Heat

Truths about homesteading no one ever talks about.  I'm writing this series to help others. It has taken me six years to finally admit some of these truths as I was in quite a bit of denial and we had sung quite the praise about it in a previous blog (300+ praise posts to be exact). When I first started out, I had a lot of romantic ideas. In fact, I suspect my husband is still in denial himself as I write these. He's bound and determined to stay here forever where's I'm ready to move on and start over. That's another blog post. To bring you up to speed, we bought ten acres with a cottage on it with 40 acres of wild woods behind us. The cottage needed "repairs."  I put that in quotes because those repairs finally led to a full home renovation that we are still paying for in loans three years later. More to come on that later.

You know I think this is likely a lot more common than we realize but no one is talking about it. Much like my family member who one day announced they were retiring to travel around the world and came back nine months later broke and had to go back to work world. It happens to the best of us even with the most well laid out plans. I think it took me by surprise because my husband and I are over planners. You know, the kind with spreadsheets and data and stats and lots of research to back it up. We are also savers and frugal whores with retirement accounts so we thought we were safe. But nothing prepared us for homesteading. Nothing.

Homesteading Truth #1 - Wood Heat

Sometimes, I relate to the pioneers that traversed to the West and died.  Yes, the ones that died because I really think had we been pioneers and didn't have access to all of the food and water and instant firewood we were able to buy our first three winters here... we would have died.  Although, I will say that with Mr Monkey working full-time for those first three winters, it was near impossible to really live sustainably.  Living sustainably is well... a full time job.  But then my husband took a full year off and we still never caught up. I think it might be because we were minus twelve kids for free labor. Although, I can see why the mortality rate for kids was 50% at times. So I do think about those Pioneers a lot and how tough it was.  They had to arrive at bare land, build a home, cut firewood and store enough food to get through the long winters.  And some of them only had a few months to do it.  I can't even imagine....

We're heading into our sixth winter here at the homestead and it took us four winters before we had enough firewood.  In fact, we now have enough for three years.  Making up for the last three years?  Possibly.  After three winters of scrambling to buy firewood mid-winter, we'd had enough.  We thought we might be able to cut down enough trees on our property to have enough firewood but with our other projects needing attention - it didn't happen.  Instead, we found someone with a logging truck that brought us three loads of logs for a very VERY good deal. Much better than the typical $250 per cord that the locals charge.  All we had to do was cut it up and Mr Monkey bucked up most of it the first week it was here.  Nice dry, seasoned firewood and as I type... I am warm.  Thank you honey!

Truths you need to know about heating your home with a wood stove:

• You realistically need 7-8 cords for each winter. My husband estimated we need three when we first moved. We were off. Way off.
• It is messy. Really messy. I'm constantly cleaning and dusting my home between the ash dust that floats out every time we open the door to the wood chips that are always tracking their way in each time we bring a load.
• If you are an allergy sufferer, you probably don't want to do this. Pollen spores love to travel in firewood.
• Air quality is bad with a wood stove. Even with the best wood stoves on the market, you will be breathing in a lot of ash particulates. Read below how I finally figured out it was causing my chronic winter cough.
• Firewood is not cheap. The locals here charge $250 per cord for dry seasoned wood. Times that by the 7-8 you need.
• It takes freaking forever to chop it. You quite literally need to chop it every single day in the summer. Every. Single. Day. Hire help if you're gonna do this.
• It can take two years to season. Don't assume it will be ready your first winter. And don't attempt to burn partially cured wood. It is a fast track to poor air quality and clogging up your wood stove pipe.
• It doesn't matter how efficient your home. It really doesn't. We even have water piping heated by our wood stove in our concrete floors and it still gets cold.
• You better love bugs. Because they love to hijack in on your wood.  Whee!
• Mice too. Oh yes, occasionally they will burrow into a hole the size of a pencil and enjoy the free ride into your warm abundantly stocked home. And they have babies every 12 minutes so…. Yeah.
• Expect to be cold a lot. Aww… The cozy wood stove is so wonderful until you wake up the next morning and realize you didn't bank it well enough and it is now 55 degrees in your home and it will take about three days before all the nooks and crannies finally warm up again.
• Expect to be too hot. Yes, this too. I know so weird. Wood stoves don't provide constant stable temperature conditions. So one moment when you're too cold, the next day it will be 85 degrees and you will be cracking your windows.
• Expect it to get old. In our sixth year of using a wood stove, I'm ready for normal house heating. I still love it but I'm over the romantic ideas.
• Embrace sleep piles. Now I understand why pioneers all slept in one room houses. All it takes is one time to wake up and feel the cold freezing hands of your babies and you won't hesitate to keep them with you every night after that. 

Things you need to be able to live in a wood heated home:

• A chainsaw, seriously spend the $800-$1200 for a Stihl chainsaw.  We bought a couple used chainsaws that had been abused by previous owners before we finally said f#*< it and bought a new one.
• An ax and splitter and small hatchet for kindling.
• A Stihl chainsaw repair shop. We are best friends with the guy that runs ours. Not by choice by necessity to survive. You're gonna use the heck out of these things. Get intimately familiar with your machine.
• Dry seasoned wood, this basically means evaporated cured wood. The more sun exposure it gets, the better. It takes us two years to cure ours. But keep in mind that the hot days in August that you think are so wonderful likes to surprise you with a suddenly wet day in September.
• A house for the firewood. Yes, your firewood needs shelter to stay dry. And considering that you need about 5-6 cords of wood for one winter and ideally you store twice as much, you will need a building to keep it dry.  Our building is 20x20 with side protection from rain and pallets on the ground. Plastic covers do not work. When we attempted this, this yielded in moss, mold, mushrooms and more unidentifiable items that begin with the letter M.
• A few strong bodies to chop, carry, chop, carry, hack, carry some, stack, chop, carry some more wood. And woebegone to the ones that throw their backs out. With both my husband I working together, it was still never enough.  These are likely the pioneers that died each winter.
• A space heater. Heck a few of them. Sad but true. You will find yourself buying a few of these for those occasions when you need to leave for a few days and you don't want  your house falling to sub zero temps while you're gone. Or maybe for those times when the fire keeps going out or for when you can't quite get it warmed up enough.

All in all, we have roughly 20 cords of firewood.  Finally!  After six winters, we now know that we go through about 7-8 cords a winter.  And we also know that it MUST be dry wood.  When we first discussed buying the pre cut logs, we both balked.  We really felt like we should be able to cut enough from our own woods and we hate spending money.  But our memories of cold winters past and the constant struggling with green wood, not having enough wood and so on…. finally won through.  Plus, I kinda want to preserve my woods now. Keep in mind it still took us two years to cut and stack and manage those logs. So it wasn't without a lot of effort and labor.

Wood stoves and lungs don't mix well…..

So now we have enough wood to heat a house but don't sigh a breath of relief yet because here is something else we discovered in the midst of all of this. My chronic winter cough I get every winter…. Well, it is cause by our EPA super efficient wood stove. I almost cried when I found this out because we have no other way to heat our home. But I dug around and sure enough Pioneers had something else to contend with:  chronic lung issues caused by wood heat. And the scary thing is that infants and children are the most affected. I discovered that children who grow up around wood heat have more allergy and lung issues later on as adults.  Well… I grew up around a wood stove and I have one currently and my lungs are crap. Great.

Before Mr Monkey and I sold our 20 cords of firewood to buy a home heating system, we decided to try air filters. I bought the Rabbit Air and Whirlpool Whispurer. If you're wondering why I picked them, I picked them because they were the safest for our kids and had very decent ratings. It was almost $1000 for both. Yikes. Then I went through and systematically cleaned my home with a shop vac. It worked. My cough went away in about two weeks and finally I have a winter where I don't sound like I have tuberculosis.  I still cough occasionally but I'm not breathing in as much particulates as I used to and the air doesn't look like we are living in ash world on sunny days when the sun shines through our windows.

I have visions of myself still living here as an old lady with Mr Monkey. Honestly I don't see him having a desire to chop and split wood for 45 days straight every summer. So our long term plan is to get a heating system in a few years and use the wood stove as an enjoyable way to heat our home rather than a must-do.

Stay tuned for Homesteading Truth #2. 

Raising Money Smart Children?

The other day my six year old daughter made a comment about her allowance, “mom, if I don't do my chores or I am not well behaved - I lose my allowance don't I?”

I had thought about this quite a bit before she asked and already had an answer. My husband was standing by in the kitchen also awaiting my answer which was this:

“No honey, no matter what you are getting $6 each week for your allowance. Why?  Because it is important for girls and women to always have a source of income and I want you to grow up with a strong sense of that. If we attach emotional conflict, or power struggles and petty disputes - it will muddy your ability to learn about money and budgeting with a calm and clear head and when it comes to money, we want you to be one smart cookie.”

My husband nodded his head in amused agreement and my daughter simply walked off missing the very important message I was trying to convey to her. I said I didn't want to make it personal or emotional, but in fact: it was VERY personal for me. When I was 31 years old, I cashed out my Roth IRA. For a few years, I harbored resentment against my husband for talking me into it but the truth is, we BOTH made the decision and I know now to next time say no. I opened this Roth IRA when I was 18 years old all on my own with no help or coaching from anyone. Considering that none of my peers were doing this, I was a smart cookie. At 31 years old, there was roughly $8,500 in it. That may not seem like a lot to some people but I worked very hard to send in the minimum $50 whenever I could in those 12 years. Had I not cashed that, it would likely be closer to 20K today. Still may not seem like a lot but by 55 years (assuming I sent in $50 per month), I would have had closer to 200K. A sizeable safety nest egg. 

The next time I messed up is when my husband worked a job that netted him almost a quarter million in five years and I squandered most of it. I honestly don't have much of an excuse for this other than I just simply wasn't paying attention. Our daughter came into the world and her needs pulled me away from paying attention. Sometimes babies are born with medical needs that require a lot of time driving, paying cash for appointments and more. Parenting a newborn is already challenging but add other unexpected needs and most of your prior focus slides out the window pretty fast. Most of the rest of the money went into homestead renovations, our daughter's needs and our farm animals.  We had c mostly underestimated how much it would cost to own property and homestead.  It wasn't so much that we wasted it as much as we became married to projects that really created a vacuum effect with our money. In an effect it was the movie Money Pit meets Groundhog Day. It was never ending and we found ourselves throwing money in the same way one throws gasoline at a fire. We spent 2015 putting all of those projects to bed. For good. 

But it is okay, we are still young. We a in our late 30s and now I know myself better.  I know now I am good with money when I want to be. I enjoy investing, tracking and watching debt decrease and investments increase.  I like websites such as Lending Club where I can be more hands on with my money. I know my husband better too and understand his own relationship with money as well. He's less attached to it. To him there will always be enough.  But my husband smokes, he's older than me. If he dies in the next ten years while I have two little kids - it won't be good. Yes, we have life insurance but that my dear is putting all my eggs into one basket. If I die, what will he do?  What about kids, at this rate - the burden of their parents will be on them. I'm not okay with that. So it is time to reignite my love affair with investing money. 

Using an allowance to nurture the mind…..

I have another reason for not attaching conditions to her allowance. Our daughter is a math genius. Surprisingly so. The girl barely knows how to read but she knows the times table by heart, understands fractions and is able to calculate some fairly complicated financial math in her head that often blows bystanders away. I must admit that WE DID NOT TEACH HER THIS so her dad and I cannot take credit for this.  Sometimes certain things come naturally to kids and this is one of those things you are blessed to witness when it happens. Her allowance each week yields the following scene in our living room: a little girl with her awkwardly handwritten money ledger, all her coins and bills in an organized fashion while she faithfully counts and recounts everything out loud for her dad and I to watch. She's already figured out how much she will have in a year, two years and so on. Her goal?  To buy her own house at 18. It makes a parent proud. 

Last week when she bought gum, she recognized that one was on sale for 30 cents. So instead of buying her usual $1 watermelon kind - she opted for the one on sale to get three for under a dollar.  On another day, she calculated how many weeks she would need to wait until she had enough to pay for a three day trip to Great Wolf Lodge. The day before that, she perused all the toys in the store, wrestled decision fatigue and calmly said “eesh, they cost a lot” and walked away. She also understands the concept of how the bank owns our home due to a mortgage and because of this is determined to save as much as she can to avoid debt in life. 

I consider her weekly allowance an important part of her education. The cash is simply nothing more than a tool comparable to a ruler or a textbook. We don't become emotional or restrictive over school supplies so why do we with allowances?  Yes, she could blow it all on candy or even lose it or have it stolen, but that's part of the lesson.  I also believe that all people have an emotional relationship with money and that they learn this relationship while they are young from witnessing their parents own relationship with money. If parents are constantly stressed with funds, children learn that money is a determining factor in happiness. Yes, happiness. If parents never talk about money, well money doesn't exist and stuff magically appears with the swipe of a card. The list of possible dysfunctional scenarios is endless. 

Oddly enough my daughter has inspired me to go back into managing and investing our money again. Helping her learn and track her funds has reminded me how much I enjoy it. And it reminds me how when I was young, I thought I was bad at math - but looking back, I realize I was pretty good with money.

I recently started an Etsy business for fun which surprisingly started getting sales in the first 48 hours and my daughter was thrilled by the concept of her mom “running a business”. We both enjoy checking it daily and it adds to her own learning about finances as well. I also reignited our monthly payments to our investment accounts again (including our children's college funds) even though the current balances are so low. But it's okay, I'm stoked to watch them grow. Additionally, I signed up with Lending Club for the first time. And I decided to be more active in supporting my entrepreneur husband in his endeavors as well. Each day I renew craigslist ads and manage some of the smaller details so he doesn't have to. It also helps that all of us have committed 2016 to being a Buy Nothing and Sell Everything year. Even our money whiz daughter is own board with it. 

Instilling a sense of building wealth vs entitlement….

I've heard discussions among parents about allowances. Let me tell you, it is very hotly debated.  Some parents feel allowances add to the already growing problem of entitlement among kids. I suppose that could be true depending on the circumstances. But in our case, we live a minimalist life. We don't buy items we don't need or even want at the store. I’ve turned down requests to buy items, candy and toys for so long now that my daughter no longer asks me to buy them. We also talk a lot about money at home the same way some people talk about religion or prayer. We talk about what it means for us (stability, freedom, success) and what it doesn't mean for us (happiness, love, success of other kinds). We talk a lot about material items vs valuable life experiences. We are more apt to spend our money on horse back riding lessons or a family trip to the beach rather than material items. 

As they get older, I'm hoping to help instill more of an entrepreneurial spirit in our children. In other words, the concept that working a nine to five job is not the only way to build wealth. If our children want to follow the script of graduating from college and applying for jobs, we will be proud. But I also want them to know how gather their resources to create wealth if those jobs go away down the road. I want them to know how to sell, barter, trade and so on. Including our kids in our own business discussions is already doing this. My husband sometimes pays our six year old one dollar if she helps him sort materials. She loves it. It is very high reward for her and gives her a sense of work ethic. I include her in other small tasks such as helping me photograph items for my Etsy shop or even simply turning all the lights off when we leave. The key for us has been to keep all interactions around money not positive…. But calm. And steady. 

Another question my daughter asked recently is if she would still get an allowance after she moves out someday. My answer?  “Oh honey, I think by then your old mom and dad will need an allowance from you with how well you're managing it.”  She grinned satisfactorily and walked off. 

PS: 

For kids, I recommend checking out Warren Buffets Secret Millionaires Club.   

Another great article on allowances from a parenting guru I love to follow:

http://www.positiveparentingsolutions.com/parenting/all-about-allowances

Getting fired equals better life?

My husband was fired in 2015 after over 20 years of faithful work when I was one week away from having a baby. It is a long story but I will say that the person behind it makes me hope that karma is truly a bitch. My husband is completely fine with it and thinks it will be the best thing that ever happened to him. He's practically gleeful.  I agree with Mr Monkey as it looks as though he's off to make three times as much money.  But watch out for any woman you scorn, I'm ready to put my death laser eyes on ANYone who jeopardizes the safety of my family and mothers never forget this. Never. This person will be on the receiving end of my subconscious Kung fu ass kicking for the rest of their life.  Having nightmares?  Oh that was from me. Having a bad day where everything is going wrong?  Also me.  Suddenly broke out in pimples and your mental patient dog has mange? You're very welcome. The love of your life drove off a cliff in Mexico?  Okay I wouldn't go that far, but you'll be wondering. 

Okay, moving on and waving our hands in the air like we just don't care….. Me hold a grudge?  Never. Our goal for 2016 is obviously to Buy Nothing and Sell Everything. However, we also are aiming to have twelve different sources of incomes. Here are some that we've already started. 

1) I opened up an Etsy store. Surprisingly I made $100 my first week.  It has also given me a chance to sell items directly from our farm and land which I love as it keeps me in nature. 

2) Start contributing to our Roth IRAs again.

3) Start investing in Lending Club.

4) Continue our children's college contributions, but increase from $50 a month to $100 a month by the end of the year. 

5) Sell items on Craigslist (so far we have sold a few thousand dollars worth of stuff, so we know this works).

6) eBay. So far this has been a dead end. I remember ten years ago, we made tons on eBay. What happened to it?

7) Salvage jobs. My husband has been finding salvage items (particularly old buildings) and finding ways to reclaim and sell it to other people. He's doing really great so far.  It helps that he has a background in this already. 

8) My husband works as an estimator contractor using his previous project manager skills. Sounds like he will start doing this very soon, in a few days actually. He's incredibly gifted - that's all I can say.

9) ibotta and other coupon apps. Surprisingly, I was able to get almost $30 back in three trips. It is not a lot but still free money. 

10) Don't spend money. This may sound odd but I feel I must put it down. Shopping is practically a career for some women, er people. By not spending any dough, we will bank more of it. 

11) Start our own entrepreneurial dream business. This will likely happen closer to the end of the year and this will be the enterprise that sets us up for retirement. My husband has opted to take a break from it for now but has his calm and faithful business partners waiting in the wings at any moment. It is also giving him an opportunity to see who truly has skin in the game and is in this for the long term, not immediate gratification.  So far two people he thought were trustworthy have gone sideways on him. Better to weed them out now than find out later. 

12) Open for the next dream….  Don't have a number twelve yet. What will it beeee?!

Other goals this Monkey year: 

1) Pay off the HELOC. We borrowed this to renovate our cottage. We seriously underestimated how much it would cost to fix the little rock baby up. Even with us “doing it ourselves,” it still cost almost $40,000 over the span of three years. I will b talking about this in my “truths about homesteading series” at some point. 

2) Pay off the two credit cards. I'm seriously embarrassed we have these debts.  We go through phases in our life of paying them off and zeroing them down and then racking them back up again. I need to come back to this on a later date and explore this dysfunction in a very soul searching post. 

3)  My personal goal which I haven't discussed with my husband (oops) is to save ten percent of whatever we earn in investments. Whether that is our children's college education or our IRAS. We seem to be perpetually in debt and now with both of us in our 30s and 40s, it is time to start setting up our future retirement income. My goal is to one up a Vanguard 500 account (minimum needed is $1000) by the end of the year. It is not something he will oppose but the discussion needs to happen. 

4) Lower our monthly costs. Rather now we need a minimum of $3000 to pay our monthly bills. That does not include gas or groceries. These are bills such as our mortgage, credit card payments, electric bill and so on. Our mortgage and debt is almost $1800 of that each month. The idea being that as we inch closer to retirement I the next Monkey year, our costs to sustain ourselves becomes more minimal. 

Here's our starting point for 2016. First spreadsheet shows our debt. The second shows our assets with our net worth at the bottom. The only real good thing we got going for us is we have more equity in our home than the average US citizen. But we are severely lacking in a source of retirement income. And while my husband and I supposedly will bring in $4500 in social security thanks to the lovely letter we get every year, I don't exactly trust in that 100%. The second thing we have going for us is we own all but one vehicle. 

So that is where we begin for the year 2016. Cheers for us!

Challenge Everything

Inspired by this article: Challenge Everything

Everyday new opportunities crop up for new things to buy. For example, today I opened the last container of formula and my rule of thumb is buy more when down to our last one. $92 more to spend. I could challenge this. Go to a cheap lower quality formula?  Force the discomfort of nursing full time?  There are options. But I think it is important that some areas are left unchallenged. This being one of them.

But and a big resounding but. I can make do with the current bottles I have. I really want to replace them with glass and better nipples. And I still might once we have an income flow. But the challenge is that we can actually make do with the ones we have.

I also realized today that as much as I want to switch to organic compost able diapers - I can't for now. It will cost three times as much than Huggies. So that will need to wait.....

We could also stopped the following:

Cable - $75
Netflix - $9
Cell Phone - $160

It doesn't seem like much but by the end of the year it is almost three grand. Three grand would be enough to sustain a few families annually in Guatemala.....   Heck, I would rather have three grand in both my daughters’ college savings. And thus the imbalance of our daily choices. And maybe why we never really fully reach wealth. Because we don't ever really truly challenge ourselves.  We don't really ever say, instead of paying it here, let's pay it over here or not paying at all.

I will be reading the blog above for a while. The guy now has a net worth of half a million and his goal is to be part of the millionaire club. He didn't get there by justify everything he ever bought. He challenged it. And I know from experience that challenging old behaviors, even spending behaviors can be downright painful. But this is important to note…. It is through pain that we grow and become better and smarter. Nothing worth striving for in our lives didn't have some discomfort involved. And it is in overcoming that discomfort that we end up where we want to be.

Empty half your kitchen today?

One day I was standing in my kitchen and I had this realization that the amount of glassware, plasticware, mugs and more were astounding. I did a quick inventory in that moment:

1) 22 coffee mugs. Why did I have 22 coffee mugs?  Am I a diner?  No. Do I plan to open a diner? No. Do I plan to drink coffee for 22 days without doing dishes?  No most definitely not.

2) 16 glass drinks of various sizes. Do I have 14 kids?  No.

3) about 25 plastic lids and only 6 matching plastic bowls. Why was I was keeping the lids?  Did I plan on using them for something else?  No. Would the missing bowls magically appear?  No.  

4) 22 glass wine and champagne glasses. Will I have 22 people drinking all at the same time in my 20x16 living room all at the same time?  I can't even justify this.

5) 240 mason jars of various sizes. Half of which were empty.  I love to can some of my own food. 

6) various empty canister containers floating through the cupboard partially full with food.

7) 6 stainless steel to go coffee mugs we rarely used mainly because they were a pain to keep clean.

8) 24 spice jars I rarely used.

9) 12 vases of various sizes.

10) about a dozen glass candles holders.

11) a collection of shot glasses given to me by another family member. 21 in all. Do I plan to have 21 people drink a shot all at once?  Hey, that one just might be fun to do.

Okay, so there yet have it. It was an excess and I was disgusted. How did we reach a place where we have to buy all these specialized items for multiple uses and then on top of that, have so many of those of specialized items?  So what do did I do?  I got rid of everything except the mason jars. I did keep six wine glasses and two champagne glasses from our wedding and one large vase. But everything else went. Beside flowers look waaaaay prettier in mason jars.

Mason jars?  Maybe not 240 of them if you are not into preserving food the way I am.  But even if you don't preserve food, the potential to simplify your life by only using canning jars is wonderful.  Yes, we now use our mason jars to drink coffee, tea, milk and water. We use it to store food in the fridge and in the pantry. Leftovers?  No big deal, I pop them into a mason jar. I use them to hold our salt and pepper and other extra spices. I even use it hold our butter on the counter at room temperature so I got rid of the butter dish. I highly recommend this move. I managed to free up so much space in the kitchen.  And I when I a done with them, they store so easily together all in one space. 

I could list in details all the wonderful things you can do with mason jars, but in the name of simplifying my life, I will instead list those who have already done this.  

Eating and drinking with mason jars as well as spices:

www.citygirlfarmingblog.com/2013/03/06/practical-mason-jar-gifts-and-solutions/

This one is also amazing, entire weddings done with mason jars:

www.moncheribridals.com/trending/mason-jar-weddings/

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the most useful one of all, 50 ways to use mason jars....

http://www.mommypotamus.com/50-creative-ways-to-use-mason-jars/

The Compulsive Homesteader?

A couple years back, a fellow farmer of mine bought some sheep to add to his already growing livestock collection on his ten acre parcel. I raise sheep myself so I asked him if he and his family loved lamb meat or spinning fiber?  His answer was this, "no, I don't even like lamb and I wouldn't even know what to the with the fiber. But I am buying them, because they are multi purpose and when the shit hits the fan, I want to be able to have access to milk, meat, wool and hides so I can continue to clothe my family."  There was no intelligent or supportive response I could give for this so I didn't say anything. Frankly, I was just too stunned. He already had chickens, turkeys, geese, rabbits, an orchard, a garden bees, goats and pigs. In addition, he was a food hoarder, gun and ammo collector and more. They were also building an underground bunker and hosting WTSHTF meetings at their home (when the shit hits the fan). He and his wife lived in a constant state of chaos. And fear.  I stopped hanging out with him because I would feel my eye twitch nervously when around his family.

When butchering day would arrive, his wife would be so sick of the animals and close to tears. Mainly because they were so disorganized and poorly planned, the end result of raising these animals would be unsuccessful. Often they kept the animals far too long, fed them so little they barely grew yet cost so much in feed to maintain for twice the time. I wasn't surprised when a few months later, they desperately gave away all the sheep once they realized the amount of care they needed (shearing, hay, minerals, supplements, vet care, fencing, ram issues, lambing issues and more). I was heartened to hear that for the sake of the animals but that lasted only briefly when I was told they were now buying a horse to keep on hand for "back up emergency transportation."

Another friend of mine is buried under her homesteading hobbies. When I last visited her home, she had an array of incomplete projects in every room of the house. She was trying to "do it all" based on the premise of "keeping the traditions alive."  She had weaving, spinning and loom projects. She was fermenting every kind of food possible.  Wine and beer making were in another. Cultured cheese, yogurts and more were rotting in her her fridge. Sad looking seed starts littered her kitchen. On another counter, were unfinished projects for making infused oils, balms and candles. Outside she had a wood shop where she was attempting to make several unidentifiable items and she had started a collection of tools she never used but had them in case the power grid shut down and she still needed a way to complete her bird houses.

She even admitted, she was "project addicted" and wished her house wasn't so cluttered.  As soon as she got another idea or saw something neat online or in a magazine, she immediately wanted to do it. Amazon has allowed us to order and buy every possible project out there that we don't really stop to asses or plan it out. I asked her if she felt like she was living out her "dreams" and her answer was, "most definitely not. I thought learning all this stuff was my dream. But my real dreams are on hold."  I asked what her dream was and she said, "to retire early but clearly that's not going to happen.  I'm going to be working til the day I die."

Shocking?  The above scenarios are far too common. I see it all the time in the homesteading and farming community. There's this idea that a homesteader should and can "does it all" when that could be the furthest away from the truth. First, one must explore how pioneers actually lived. This can be explored all the way back to biblical times. One of the easiest ways to explore this are our modern day Amish. First keep in mind that the Amish do not live with the distractions and confines and materialism of our culture. They don't have Amazon, Internet and instant access to items they need. Second, there is no Amish that "does it all."  They live and thrive on a community system of strict rules, gender roles, religious beliefs and more. Each members has jobs they are expected to do to benefit the rest of the community. If one of those members tried to "do it all," he would never get anything done. Third, materialism is not allowed.

As a homesteader myself, I am beginning to see a trend... A building desire to be more self sufficient and able to support oneself and one's own family in case of hardship, disaster or some other potential catastrophe. Is this bad?  No, sometimes and yes. All three answers are correct. So how do we know which one we are falling under?  Where do we draw the line?

Easy, we need to remember our pioneer forefathers were minimalists.

Let me say that again, our pioneer forefathers were minimalists. My father was raised by pioneer parents in a farming community. His family all came from pioneers in Pennsylvania. He still has many of the same traits as he did back then. Here are some examples:

1) He owns one pair of loafers and takes very good care of them.  He also has one pair of heavy work boots.

2) He has one very good Sunday outfit and the rest of his clothes are for work or home.  His closet of clothes is less than a dozen clothing items.

3) He keeps meals simple.  He only uses salt, pepper, butter and and lard to season his food. Nothing more.

4) Coffee is always black. No cream and sugar and most certainly, no Starbucks or dunkin Donuts.

5) He keeps only one set of dishes. This means four cups, four plates and four bowls.

6) He only has two hobbies: fishing and watching TV.  When I was a child, camping was part of that.

7) His pantry has a few bulk of dry basics such as rice and coffee beans.  Everything else he buys fresh each week as he needs it. He never hoards food.

8) He never over commits.  My dad is very stingy with his free time.  When someone invites him to a party or to join them on a project, he waits a couple days before giving an answer.

9) He rarely touches his computer and has no desire to own a smartphone.

10) Every night before bed, he reads whether his bible or a fishing magazine (that a friend gives to him when done).

11) His condo in his retirement community is less than 700 square feet and he feels it is "too big."

12) His other favorite pastimes are talking on the phone with loved ones or visiting their homes on the holidays (he never hosts parties).

13) He shops at the same grocery store, gets his gas at the same gas station, buys the same brand shirts and jeans when he replaces them and so on.

14) He hoards money and abhors frivolously spending and debt.

I think this last one is very key to note about minimalist pioneers. There is nothing more important than stability. Nothing. If you have too much stuff, debt and no savings. You are not free.

So how can we feel "prepared" and enjoy homesteading without falling into the materialistic traps of our culture?

1) Do you love it?  Before you take up a hobby, are you doing this because you really love to and have a passion to do this for a long time or simply just because you "can?"

2) Are you financially stable?  If you have debt or high mortgage, it is better to put off new hobby projects until you are financially free.

3) Make a list of five. Choose five homesteading projects to focus on. An example of this might be: raising goats, maintaining your orchard, building a small barn, training your border collie, and growing herbs. Forsake all other tempting projects.

4) Be choosy about what you hoard. I am very intentional in my food hoards. I only stock up on foods we eat on a regular basis and that are normally expensive. For example, honey. We go through about five gallons of honey every year. So each fall, I buy a five gallon bucket from a local farmer and store the honey in smaller jars in my freezer. I don't stock up on sugar or salt or other common items. It is cheap, readily available year round and easy to access.

5) Does it benefit others?  Do the other members in your family enjoy your hobbies as well?  Are you able to share your excess bounty with others?

6) Have you thought this through?  So many people are so impulsive now and often take on projects and hobbies almost immediately without a clear plan.

7) Buy locally and build community.

The last one is key and how I was able to get out of my compulsive "over homesteading."  I had a realization one day that it is better for me to buy from and rely on other fellow homesteaders. This is a key trait of pioneer homesteaders. My father has shared stories with me multiple times about how his family only ran an orchard. They traded the fruits of their labor for milk, meat, wheat and more from others. They also sold it and used the funds to buy needed items or save it. I don't need to raise bees, I can buy from a local beekeeper or trade. I don't need to grow all my own food. I can support a local CSA. I also don't have to "know how to do it all."  There are others who have fine tuned their skills and will be available to teach me if ever needed.

What are some things I have done as a "minimalist pioneer?"

1) I only own one pair of nice shoes, one pair of sandals and one pair of work boots

2) I own one rain coat, one winter coat and a few vests.

3) My closet is now a "capsule" which means I have less than 30 clothing items: mostly nice jeans, plain shirts, all matching socks, etc. I do have a few nice dressy scarves and pieces of jewelry when I want to "dress up."

4) I only stock up on water, rice, coffee, oats, flour, granola, oil, and sugar in my pantry. In my freezer, I only stock up on chicken breasts, bacon, ground beef, sausage and my lamb meat cuts. I also buy honey, butter and berries in bulk when on sale or in season.

5) I have a list of 33 meals I shop for. Nothing else extra. This has reduced the spices we store and all the hodgepodge extra cans and foods in the pantry.

6) I only have three kinds of teas and one coffee we drink. We stopped "collecting" different kinds of teas.  

7) I only own two sets of sheets for my bed.

8) My daughter has less than 50 toys total.

9) I simplified her wardrobe as well: one pair of jeans, six pairs of leggings, three shirts, six dresses and one coat. She also has one pair of cowgirl boots and one pair of running shoes.

10) I simplified my kitchen appliances. I went through recently and riddled my kitchen of things such the waffle iron we've only used once in ten years. I also narrowed down the utensils to items I use on a regular basis.

11) All of my socks match. I can't believe how much time I spent before trying to find the lost soulmate of sock pairs. Never again!  

12) I simplified the pens and pencils. I threw away all of our pens and pencils and now only the same kind of each.

13) I don't "back up" on items anymore. We once had a dozen flashlights. It was a crazy mess. We got rid of all but our two favorites and instead opted to stock up on the batteries for them.

14) I only have three inside hobbies: crocheting, my house plants and reading.

15) I keep our farming life simple. We raise only sheep, blueberries and apples. Nothing more. I once had six different kind of livestock at one time. It was overwhelming and chaotic.

16) I refuse to impulse buy. And I also rarely bring knick knacks into our house.

17) if I haven't used an item recently, I give it to someone who will appreciate it.

18) I don't feel guilty for not doing projects other moms are doing. If they are scrap booking every moment of their child's life, I can be happy for them because I'm happy doing the things I want to be doing.

19) I am very intentional before starting a new project. I've fallen in love with planning and dreaming.

What is a minimalist pioneer?  Is there a true definition?  No.  

According to the dictionary, a pioneer is a person who is among the first to explore or settle a new country or area. There are several definitions for minimalist, but my favorite is: a person who favors a moderate approach to the achievement of a set of goals or who holds minimal expectations for the success of a program.

So for me a minimalist pioneer: uses a moderate approach. Is first to explore a new area or idea. Holds minimal expectations.

Where Do We Find The Time?

I started minimalising in 2014. When I first started, I was putting a bag a day into my car to take to goodwill. Now I'm down to about a bag every other week as I run out of things to give away more and more. I also drastically reduced my time on media as well. And decided to minimize my wardrobe as well as my meals. I've stopped buying things too. I pretty much only buy groceries and a few necessities such as clean underwear. But that is it. I have no desire to buy anything else anymore.

Here's the result:  I have more time.

I think I was worried about having extra time. Like maybe I would be bored or bland or something. But I am able to see people I really like, sleep more, take long baths and I am starting to become creative. The opposite of creative is destructive. And I didn't really realize before how the things in my life were destructing and destroying my capacity to be.... Creative.

In six weeks, I have done the following:  

1) made my first neck cowl and fingerless gloves with crochet and yarn.

2) made 25 friendship bracelets with my daughter.

3) propagated 100 plants for spring planting.

4) cooked and baked a lot more.

5) hiked and played with my daughter outside.

6) made a scrapbook with my daughter of her baby photos.

7) taught my daughter how to weave on a loom.

8) taught my daughter how to sew.

9) I played several games of solitaire.

I must note, these are things I've been trying to do for almost a decade. A decade!  And I yet I managed to get them done in a few weeks. Just by simply removing distractions. Number nine is funny for me because I have been wanting to play solitaire since I was a kid. I finally made it happen and I keep a deck of cards close by me at all times.

I love crocheting so much I recently ordered more yarn. My husband is very supportive of it and is building me my own custom made shelves to put in the living room to hold our craft projects. These will also hold my daughters art supplies (who is also becoming more creative being around me). We currently have no shelves in our house. Not a single one. So this is a big deal and it feels very intentional for me. I've been dreaming of two corner shelves for a long time. The top two shelves will hold my plants. I have a love for all things green and living. The bottom shelves will hold our current arts and crafts supplies and these will hide behind the furniture so you won't be able to see them. I must put an emphasis on "current projects" because I don't believe in hanging onto unfinished craft projects. I put a lot of thought into the yarn and pattern I wanted before buying it. I wanted to make sure it would hold my interest and that they were colors I loved.  I also picked up crocheting recently because it allows me to be present in a room with my daughter and husband and feeling productive at the same time. I like the behavior it models to my daughter as well. I am eating and snacking less and it keeps me off the internet as well. The Internet provides too much temptation to shop and buy things so this is really a wonderful strategy for me.

But back to having more time. Gone are the days of me secretly resenting other super moms or moms who embody Martha Stewart. And not because I am one of them by any means but because I'm actually more and more satisfied with what I am doing with my time for the first time ever. I'm doing the things I WANT to do.

A while back I sat down and wrote a list of the top ten things I want to be doing in my life on a regular basis. They were not "bucket list" things but very simple things such as "spend more time with my family and people I love," "be kinder to the earth," "travel with my family," and so on. And what I found was that many of the things I was currently doing on a day to day basis (cleaning, organizing, buying things, spending time on the phone checking facebook stats, etc) were not the things I really wanted to be doing. In fact, they didn't even make the top 100 list and yet here I was wasting my time every single day doing them. And not only was I wasting my time doing them, they were taking me further and further away from that top ten list.

Never again will I let that happen.

When I finish my next yarn project, I will come back and share photos.