Paw Paw Creek Homestead

We'll be moving on down the hill from our current rental to there starting February 1st. Until then we have a small list of things to do to bring the camper in to liveableness. 

​

We aren't taking this monstrous leap of faith to meet the status quo. We have deeply felt this mounting need to buck against it, in fact, joining a movement of the new "American Dream." Call it an underground movement, a fad, a micro culture, or what have you, but we are surrounded by it and it has even started stretching it's edges to touch mainstream America. Gone are the baby boomer dreams of a big house, and many toys and things to fill that space. My generation is starting to feel the acute impact of that dream as we will be the ones to acquire all that "stuff" when our families bodies leave this world to move on to the next. 

​

But we already have enough of our own stuff. Actually, David and and I have been continuously decluttering every year, especially during each of our 15 moves we've been through together in the last seven years. But it never fails, every time within a year we have let the clutter creep back in. But with less space comes less clutter. That's the theory anyhow.

No, our goals to define this dream are much simpler:

1. Eliminate our debt within 10 years or sooner so we can have financial freedom and not place burdens on our daughter. 

2. Build a homestead investment that is reasonable in acreage for privacy and maintenance but has an affordable, sustainable, and manageable lifestyle to live simplistically and in as much self-reliance as possible (also utilizing the strong community we are surrounded by here).

That's the basic gist of it. To do this we knew we had to change our lifestyle radically. No more $1200/mo rent or mortgage payment. cut out as many luxuries as possible. We set a budget for a reasonable land payment (no more than $500, ideally less), with the objective to build our own smallish house (600-800 sq ft) paying as we go so as not to take out more loans and go in debt even further. All while living in a camper trailer on our land so we can live where we build.
 

You may think we are crazy or radical, but this is the new norm where we live. We have at least 10 close family friends who are following the same trajectory as us. And we all help each other, like in the old days. And David helps new people looking for land here all the time to do the same.