Homesteading on one income | A big change!

This post was originally published on August 8, 2018 on The Red Rock Flock.

Hello all!
I have some exciting and scary news… I quit my job.
*insert nervous screaming here*
I enjoyed my job, I really did. But I didn’t enjoy the commute, being away from home and constantly worrying about things I needed to accomplish, working for a company that clearly didn’t value me as much as they pretended to, etc. etc.
The biggest stressor for me that led to this change was that Dusty and I were both gone from 6:30am till 7pm at night and sometimes even later. By the time we both returned home from our long day of work and hour long commutes, we were mentally and physically exhausted. The house needed cleaning and we needed dinner. The animals needed to be fed and watered, and puppies played with.

I have some exciting and scary news… I quit my job.
*insert nervous screaming here*
I enjoyed my job, I really did. But I didn’t enjoy the commute, being away from home and constantly worrying about things I needed to accomplish, working for a company that clearly didn’t value me as much as they pretended to, etc. etc.
The biggest stressor for me that led to this change was that Dusty and I were both gone from 6:30am till 7pm at night and sometimes even later. By the time we both returned home from our long day of work and hour long commutes, we were mentally and physically exhausted. The house needed cleaning and we needed dinner. The animals needed to be fed and watered, and puppies played with.

The amount of time taken out of my life and money I spent gassing up my car to drive to work (~45 miles each way), was just not worth it for my position.

So let me get into a little background about this:
My family has always valued hard work and has an entrepreneurial track-record. My grandfather worked his way up the corporate ladder and became president of a large company and later started his own financial company. My dad has always worked really hard to make sure our family was well taken care of and comfortable. Being the oldest (of 2 kids) in my family, I was the first one to go through college and go out into the world of full-time jobs, which was the only path I really considered. Great things were expected of me and I felt a lot of pressure to not let anyone down after so much family support.

From my family perspective, success is defined by graduating school, working full-time, and working your way up the ladder to higher and higher positions. (Full respect to my family and all the support they’ve given me in my life – I’m not trying to devalue this type of career path at all. I just don’t think I’m cut out for it.) But that is what I intended on doing with my earth science degree. When I started full time work, however, I felt tired, unfulfilled, trapped… I didn’t have any time to do the things I truly enjoyed. But knowing that a 9-5 career path with a salary and benefits and all the trappings of a corporate job meant my parents would be proud and I would be considered “successful” kept me going on that path.

I would ask my employers for more responsibility and more money, while deep down inside all I wanted to do was run away. That made me feel cowardly and I knew I would be a ‘failure’ if I gave up. I had to keep telling myself, “This is what adults do. They commute, they work 40+ hours a week. They support themselves and their families. Stop complaining and grow up.” I thought that my family would be so angry with me for trying to pursue anything else, so I was scared.

After moving to our house in Red Rock, which allowed me to have all of things I had always dreamed of, I felt so torn. I would be ecstatic when I was at home on the weekends taking care of all the animals and tending to the garden, and felt like I would completely hit rock bottom Monday morning when I was pulling up to work. Every day was a rollercoaster and I knew the commute and emotions weren’t sustainable. I was reaching a breaking point.

This has been such an emotional decision for me because I really do enjoy working and I feel totally lazy quitting a stable full time job. I can always find purpose in a job I’m doing so when I’m immersed in a task (even if I am generally unhappy about my job) I’m distracted and driven to complete my project which does bring some sense of fulfillment. It’s hard to explain. I always have to be working to feel purpose.

So I had a crazy thought a couple of weeks ago: How about I turn that hard work towards the things I REALLY enjoy doing?? Maybe growing tomatoes, or canning, or hatching chicks doesn’t make a millionaire, but what if I could actually be excited to wake up in the morning? That’s worth all the money in the world to me. It sounds soooo corny and I hate being the person to scream FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS! as I slide away on a glittery rainbow, but honestly who cares. I only get to live once and I really don’t want to spend it missing out on the things I love to do.

So here I am, a week-and-a-half left of my ex-job, and I don’t really know what direction I am going to be taking. I’m going to take 6 months to research, do some farmers markets, hatch some chicks, and see if I can make at least a little bit of side money homesteading. If it’s a total failure and things get really tight financially, I’ll find something close-by that I can do part time.

With Dusty by my side being a total enabler (thanks DUSTY!!!!!) I’m plunging into unemployment/possible self-employment and being a homesteader on ONE INCOME. Gasp!

We took a good, hard, and honest look at all of our finances. We made sure this would be feasible (even if it was a little scary) and are prepared to make a few changes to our lifestyle.

Here are some steps we have taken to make this transition work for us, and I hope it gives you inspiration to make some lifestyle changes as well…. (I’m going to insert some corny stock images with fun captions so be prepared)

• Know your budget! Sit down at the end of each month and painstakingly go through each transaction, categorize everything, and make a totally dorky excel spreadsheet totaling everything (Or use Google Sheets). Dusty and I basically start off with our income, subtract all of the month’s transactions off that, subtract off the amount we want to put into savings + spend on groceries, and end up with what we call “fun money”. Fun money is what is left over after bills and essentials that we can use to go out to a restaurant for dinner, go to a movie, go shopping, etc etc. You can also budget in any home improvement projects that need to be done. If there is a project we want to tackle we will just put less into savings for that month. Fun fact: the past 2 months we have had $0 fun money because we have spend all our extra money on fence building. The past 2 months have been ZERO FUN. Just kidding, it’s always fun around here, but we just have been really good about cooking at home and not buying random things. If it is your first time actually looking at all of your expenses you might be in for a shock at little things can add up so dramatically. It’s made me so mindful of any random little transactions I might make – like… do I really need to walk into Homegoods? Probably not. Target? DEFINITELY NOT. Don’t go into Target.

• For one – look at all those random subscriptions and bills you have. I never thought I’d be able to live without satellite radio and TV, but honestly it’s just noise. I’m rarely actually paying attention to what’s on TV and usually have it on in the background as I’m falling asleep or cleaning the house. As for the satellite radio – I realized that now I won’t have a commute I’ll rarely be making long drives and need that distraction. So DirecTV and satellite radio got the boot. Oh also, after our 1 year deal was finished with DirecTV our bill doubled. I think last month we paid over $100 which is insane. We were in a 2 year contract, but Dusty is a smooth talker and got out of our contract which will be terminated August 20th. (If you need tips on how to get out of your contract just Google it. There are a bunch of ways) Dusty told DirecTV that he will be traveling for work for the next year and won’t be home at all. There were a few other random subscription services I had (Barkbox, chiropractor) but before signing up for anything I always make certain that I can cancel at any time. I refuse to sign up for anything that I will be locked in for so these cancellations were smooth and will be done by the end of the month.

• Plan your grocery shopping/meals. This seems pretty obvious, but how many times have you had the intention to look for coupons or write a grocery list – then just haven’t because you’re busy or tired or whatever? Now that I’m going to have a lot more time on my hands, I’m always going to sit down the night before our weekly grocery haul, go through all my coupon apps and recipes, and make sure I am making a super efficient grocery trip. Bonus points if you can buy some ingredient and use it in multiple meals through the week! Try to make ‘venn-diagram’ meals (as I like to think of them). I always hate having to buy 10 separate ingredients for each recipe and only using a tiny portion of each ingredient. If you live in Texas and go to the best store ever H-E-B their app is incredible and there are even mobile coupons sometimes for free stuff with no purchase necessary. One time I got a free bag of dog food, free toilet paper, and free queso just for adding the coupons into my app. Super random purchases, but hey, free stuff!

Oh and there’s a HILARIOUS story about the fate of that free dog food. I opted for the salmon variety for Ellie and was mixing a little bit of the free salmon food into her regular food. The bag was open and in a low cabinet that doesn’t close very well. You can guess what happens. Ellie finds the bag and eats the ENTIRE thing. I’m talking a solid couple pounds of salmon dog food. Before I had realized what happened, I was looking at Ellie thinking how round she looked. She was lying on her side on the floor barely moving and just groaning and grunting. I was like what the heck. Then I saw the empty bag and could not stop laughing. That dog ate the whole bag of food and was so full she couldn’t move. She looked so uncomfortable and fat. Dusty and I still make fun of her for that.

• Sell your car, boat, jet ski… whatever random luxury item you have that you really don’t need. Like yeah that espresso machine looks bitchin’ on your counter (and honestly I’m jealous) but also you can probably sell it for a couple hundred bucks and buy groceries for the week. It helps! Look around and see if there is anything you can improve on. I’m not saying sell your car and ride a horse to work (honestly having a horse might be more expensive than a car anyways). Just look at your lifestyle and see if there are any changes you can make. For example, Dusty is still going to have to commute for work and is currently driving a 1990’s Mazda truck. Although the truck is super useful and he loves it (it actually gets decent gas mileage), he is probably going to sell it and switch to a used hybrid car and save a boatload of money on gas. I think he currently spends like $250-300 a month on gas. Also the TOLLS in Texas are killer. You start taking the tolls because it will save you 10 minutes here and there, then you get the toll bill and crap your pants. Dusty was also spending about $250 a month on tolls commuting to work because it saved him a little bit of time each morning. We realized that tiny bit of extra time really wasn’t worth it so we both stopped taking tolls anywhere.

I’m also being such a hypocrite because I have a 2016 Honda HR-V with a car payment. I could probably trade it in and eliminate my payment but I love my car so much I don’t want to get rid of it. It’s so reliable, I get great mileage, and I can transport almost anything in the trunk. It’s way more spacious than you’d think. So sell your car, or don’t. But just consider it I guess!

Those are a few super simple tips I can give you for trimming your spending habits a bit. We’ve only just begun this transition so I’m sure I will run into other helpful things I can share in the future. I’ve never really paid that much attention to how much I’m spending and on what, since my paycheck has been steady and predictable, but I guess it’s always a good idea to be mindful of spending regardless of your situation.

If you’ve had similar experiences working then transitioning to one income or homesteading full-time I’d love to hear your stories and tips. I’m super scared but also SO excited I can finally try to make my dream a reality. I’m sure there will be a lot of fun blog posts and hopefully vlogs soon!!

-Olivia