When it comes to setting goals, it’s easy to simply dream about things you would like to do or achieve.

If you don’t make the goals realistic or manageable, they just stay dreams.

I’ve always set SMART goals to turn dreams into reality.

SMART goals are:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Relevant

Time Bound

In May of this year, we set a big goal to pay off our mortgage in 5 years (by May 2020).

This goal fit with the SMART goals formula:

Specific – We want to pay off our mortgage in 5 years.

Measurable – Pay off the balance of the mortgage.

Attainable – We knew discipline, frugality and a bit of creativity, this was a realistic goal for our family.

Relevant – We feel like this is a very relevant goal since our mortgage is our only debt and we want to be completely debt free.

Time Bound – We want to do this by May 2020.

We started out very excited and felt like we were working towards an achievable goal. However, since it was such a big goal (knocking out thousands and thousands of dollars in debt), it felt like we weren’t making any progress.

So, we broke the goal down further. In July (2 months into the process),  I divided the amount we owed on our home by 58 months (the time remaining until May 2020). This gave us a monthly goal to work towards.

Having the monthly goal makes our big goal very doable. Each month, we have a specific amount we’re working towards paying off. Reaching this amount each month is still a bit of a stretch but we hit the monthly goal in July, August, September and October!

Working towards the monthly goal keeps the momentum going. Each month that we reach (and sometimes exceed) our goal, we are excited which encourages us to keep going. While it’s fun to see the big number go down, it still seems to move slowly so it’s more fun focusing on the monthly goal than on the total principal that we still owe.  

Do you have financial goals you want to achieve?

Maybe you want to pay off debt, save an emergency fund or start a college fund for your kids. Or maybe you need to finally sit down, create your budget and set financial goals.

One of our desires for our children is for them to become financially wise. We hope by being honest about our finances and teaching them about how we manage our money that they will have a desire to stay out of debt and use their money wisely.

At 4 and 5, our boys know that we follow a budget and that our budget helps direct our spending.

We started talking about money and giving them small amounts of money at very young ages. We also try to point out how we save money by buying things used over buying them new.

Both boys were given some money for Christmas this year. We put some of it in savings but they both ended up with about $12 in their wallets. Money in their wallets is their spending money that they can spend, pretty much however they choose.

Our 5 year old, Paxton, is a spender and our 4 year old, Weston, is a saver. When Paxton has money, he starts thinking of ways he can use it. Weston prefers socking his money away in his piggy bank and lately has been telling us that he’s saving his money so he can buy a tractor when he grows up. (The saver in me LOVES this!)

On New Years Eve, while we were out eating Chinese food, our 5 year old discovered the wall of vending machines full of candy, toys and stickers. He saw that one of these machines contained NFL stickers (he loves football) and he had to have one. We explained that we thought spending $.50 for one sticker when you didn’t even know which team you were going to get seemed like a waste of money to us. Then we told him that it was his money and he could buy a sticker if he wanted to.

He chose to buy the sticker and was satisfied with the team he got.

Then, he tried to talk his brother into buying a sticker too! Weston stood firm in his resolve not to spend anything.

With money still left in his wallet, Paxton was itching to spend more so he started asking to go shopping. He finally asked, ‘can we go thrifting for jerseys?’ (I love that he appreciates thrifting!)

One afternoon this week, we went to Salvation Army and started looking for jerseys in the kids section. We found a red Georgia Nike jersey in size 6 that fit him and he liked it pretty well. We browsed around the store and came back to the kids section to double check and then Paxton spotted a black Georgia Nike jersey in size 7. He got really excited about this black jersey and we were starting to hang the red one back up when Weston asked if he could buy the red one.

We stood in line and they both purchased their jerseys, pulling their $3.20 out of their wallets, excitedly handing the money over and then proudly walking out with their jerseys that they purchased with their own money.

I was tickled that we had such good thrifting luck and they both found something they wanted.

Once we got home, I showed them that similar jerseys were selling for $40+ each online and that they could not have purchased those jerseys brand new with the amount of spending money they have.

We hope that talking with them through their spending and making wise purchases as children helps them become financially independent adults.

Paxton was beyond thrilled that his jersey has a Capital One Bowl game patch sewn on it!

And, it should be noted that John David and I are Tennessee fans. Paxton likes Tennessee and Georgia college football, he says ‘I was born in Tennessee and live in Georgia so I can like both.’ And, we’re not sure where Weston’s allegiance lies just yet. (Now, we’ve got to thrift a couple UT jerseys to even things up!)

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting about our progress as I’m reading through ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up’ and sharing some of the things I’m learning along the way.

Here’s our story about our path towards a life of simplicity and minimalism so you have an understanding of where we are at the beginning of our KonMari journey.

We’ve been simplifying for what seems like our entire marriage. Our first home was a tiny 572 square foot apartment and the possessions we each owned coupled with wedding presents more than filled up that space. (And there were still items left in our parents homes.)

After 2 moves, only 7 months apart in 2008, I realized how much I really wanted to simplify. Packing up all of your possessions and putting them into a moving truck makes you realize just how much stuff you own.

I started really decluttering in 2009, trying to weed out as many items as I could that weren’t useful. In August 2009, I found out I was pregnant! I was determined to keep things simple for our baby. In fact, we only purchased one item, an outfit the day we found out we were expecting a boy. Everything else, from our crib to our changing table, to bedding, books and toys was either handed down or given to us as gifts for baby. We were so blessed by generous people but also a bit overwhelmed with how much stuff our 8.5 pound baby brought into our home by the time he arrived in April 2010.

In September 2010, my husband accepted a new position in Georgia and we were once again loading up a moving truck. Again, I was astounded and even a bit embarrassed with the amount of stuff we owned. We moved our little family into a 3 bedroom condo with a single car garage and we filled it up. The closet in the extra bedroom was full of stuff and so was the garage. In the 6 months that we lived there, we never were able to park our vehicle in the garage.

When we purchased our home in March 2011, we actually downsized (our first home and condo both were around 1,500 square feet). Our new home was 1,300 square feet. While it didn’t have an attached garage or basement, it did have a detached garage so there was ample space to store stuff.

In the almost 5 years that we’ve lived in this home, we’ve added 2 more children to our family. In that time, we really have simplified our home, changed our consumption habits and live quite minimally.

My husband has adopted a simple ‘uniform’ consisting mainly of jeans, black button ups and t-shirts. I don’t own many clothes or shoes, neither do our children. Our kitchen is small, therefore we keep our dishes and kitchen gadgets very simple. And, our children really don’t have an overabundance of toys. But, there’s still a lot of stuff in our home and some of it is never used, played with, worn or read. 

Trying to live without a lot of clutter can be quite challenging for 5 people in 1,300 square feet . We’re choosing to live in our ‘small’ home because it makes the most sense for our family financially but we don’t want to feel cramped in our home. Living with less stuff makes our home feel like there’s more than enough space for the 5 of us. 

After Christmas, (and the influx of stuff that comes with this holiday), our home was in need of major decluttering.

Instead of decluttering how I typically do, I decided that we’re going to try following the KonMari Method. I read ‘The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up’ last year, nodding my head in agreement with most of her decluttering and tidying philosophy and even adopted the KonMari way of folding. However, I didn’t actually follow the method in terms of going through our belongings category by category and only keeping those items that ‘spark joy’ or those that are necessary.

We’re beginning our KonMari journey now and hope to simplify our home and only surround ourselves with the things we love or absolutely need.

I’ll be posting about things I’m learning and what’s leaving my home in the weeks ahead!

Have you read ‘The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up’? Have you followed the KonMari Method? 

*I do not agree with all of her writing and philosophy. However, there’s a lot of good content in the book and I just take what’s helpful and ignore the religious parts I disagree with.

With the The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up in hand, we started KonMari-ing our home last week.

We’re following along with the method so we worked on clothes and books during this week. Even though we already live simply, I was surprised with how much we were able to let go!

This was my clothes and accessories pile, including my spring/summer clothes. This is not a shocking amount, I don’t own a lot of clothing but I picked up each item and asked if it sparked joy or not.

In the end, I was able to let this stack of clothes go. It’s not a huge pile but I really was surprised I was able to find this many items I really didn’t care for.

One of the things I let go was a purple pajama set. I purchased it to wear after Cecilia was born as a comfortable sleepwear/loungewear option. It is very comfortable but I never have loved it. I’ve been wearing it but feeling frumpy each time I wore it.  It felt great to let it go!

Here’s a glimpse into my casual, everyday clothes drawer. I love the way my shirts looked folded using the KonMari method of folding.

During the middle of last week, I received a surprise package from my mother-in-law containing Marie Kondo’s Spark Joy. I was excited to receive this and have it accompany me through the rest of this journey. My favorite part of this book so far is the illustrated pictures showing how to fold various clothing items.

We spent last Friday working on my husband’s clothes. We were able to let this stack go.

I also went through all of our kids clothes. I went through all of the clothes in their drawers and closets as well as the clothes in their bins they have to grow in. I ended up with a decent pile of things that were outgrown, worn out, didn’t spark joy and we had too many of (I think Weston had about 20 t-shirts that should fit this spring in his bin…where does it come from!?) I’m handing down some of the items to friends with kids younger than mine and donating the rest.

This was the declutter pile hanging out in my room for a few days. I was glad to see it leave the house!

And, here’s what we loaded up to drop off at Salvation Army last week. Not all of this was a result of this week’s KonMari-ing of our clothes and books. Most of it was clutter that I had boxed up that I was holding on to because I viewed it as ‘valuable’, thinking I might try to sell it or at least put it in a yard sale sometime.

Just looking at those boxes that were taking up space in my home was mentally draining. I decided the space they would free up in our home and in my mind was worth just donating them. And, I was right. It felt great to drop off this load and our home seems so much more open with all of this stuff out of our home.

All in all, week one was a success! I doubt the following weeks will see this large of an amount of stuff leaving but who knows.

If you KonMari-ed your home, did you think going through clothing and books was the easiest part? 

I’m following the steps outlined in Marie Kondo’s The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up and I’m finding that my thinking about possessions is changing as I go.

While letting things go is pretty easy for me, I am conscious of the value of the items I no longer need or want.

Finding value in my clutter is my biggest challenge.

Over the past few years as we’ve deliberately simplified, we’ve sold everything from outgrown baby clothes and books to electronics and furniture. We’ve gotten clutter out of our home and brought in some extra cash in the process. My frugal side loves bringing in money from selling our unwanted items!

I try to sell items that have a value greater than $5 and have successfully sold quite a few things via Facebook pages and Craigslist in the past couple of years.

However, it seems like we always have a ‘for sale’ pile somewhere in our home. And, our current ‘for sale’ pile has some items that have been in it for at least 6 months.

I donate items quite regularly but sometimes it’s hard to donate things that could potentially be sold and sometimes I feel guilty for just giving ‘valuable’ items to thrift stores.

Marie Kondo writes, ‘To get rid of what you no longer need is neither wasteful or shameful.’ How freeing this statement is for me. 

One of my biggest takeaways from ‘The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up’ has been breaking free of my guilt of giving away ‘valuable’ things.

And, as an avid thrifter, I am thankful that people donate nice, ‘valuable’ things (like my boys’ Georgia jerseys) so we can benefit from purchasing them and support a charity in the process.

Within in the past year, I’ve thrifted a smocked dress and a pair of Matilda Jane pants for Cecilia, a set of Duplos for my kids, a Marmot pullover for me and a Camelbak bottle, paying no more than $2 for any of those items.

My mindset has shifted from feeling guilty to being excited that someone is going to find our former possessions in a thrift store, find value in them and get a thrill from thrifting.

This change in thinking is getting things out of my house much faster and it’s so much easier than taking pictures, posting items for sell, storing them until they sell and arranging to meet up with a buyer once someone is interested.

Instead, I load items into bags and boxes, place them in my car and drop them off at The Salvation Army at my convenience.

During this season of life with 3 small children, it’s so much easier to donate. Yes, the extra money is nice when we do sell things but since we’re debt free (except our home) and living comfortably within our budget, it’s not necessary for us to sell everything that has some value.

Do you ever feel guilty about donating ‘valuable’ things? 

*In full honesty, I probably will still *try* to sell items that have a value of $10 plus but if they don’t sell within a week or two, I’ll just give to a friend or donate!

Related Posts:

Beginning Our KonMari Journey

First Week of KonMari

Living a frugal life is a fitting way to describe our family. We’ve been frugal since the early days of our marriage.

In many ways we’ve mastered the art of frugal living.  Over the years I’ve couponed, shopped clearance racks, consignment sales, yard sales and thrift stores. I’ve rarely purchased boxed or convenience foods, preferring to cook from scratch, have made many of our own beauty products, our laundry detergent and use very few disposable products, preferring reusables (cloth napkins, rags, diapers, etc.)

We married young, lived in a small campus apartment and had a very modest income. We’ve lived simply and frugally our entire marriage but the reasons why we live the way we do have changed.

In our early days of marriage, we wanted to avoid debt. We were committed to living within the income we had. We saved quite a bit for a house downpayment but we also enjoyed consuming. Now, we weren’t able to go buy the latest and greatest or pay full retail for the things we wanted so we consumed frugally. (One of our favorite activities was browsing the local Goodwill.) We weren’t exactly consumeristic but we did enjoy shopping and bought things just because we liked them and not because they were needed.

Now, we’re still frugal. As a family of five living on one income while trying to pay our home off early, frugality is a necessity. We enjoy stretching our dollars as far as they’ll go. However, the focus of our frugality is not so we can consume as much as we possibly can on as little as we can. The focus of our frugality is to live contentedly on the income we have, focusing on our needs and not so much on our wants.

Many of the frugal things we do now are not simply to save money, we do them for environmental reasons. Saving money is just a bonus!

I try to buy as many things as possible used to avoid buying new products that require new resources to produce. I cook from scratch to avoid the excess packaging that comes with convenience foods. We have cloth diapered our babies because each diaper was used over and over (many of them on all 3 of our babies) and they are not sitting in a landfill after one single use like a disposable diaper. I have reusable menstrual products (DivaCup and cloth pantyliners/pads) to avoid single use disposables (and as a bonus they’re so much more comfortable!)

We live on a planet with finite resources. Many Americans give little thought to the fact that each thing they consume and each single use disposable item that gets ‘thrown away’ is using resources and destroying our planet.

We’ve been having conversations with our kids about landfills, how there is no ‘away’ when you throw things away and how cheaply constructed toys and items break quickly and are a waste of resources as well as money.

We’ve been working on reducing our waste by buying less, trying to avoid items with excess packaging (I saw single bell peppers at the grocery store wrapped in plastic!?!), recycling and reusing things we can.

We’ve been only buying things we need (we keep a running needs list) and we’re not shopping as a leisure activity (even when thrifting, I go with a list).

We’re focusing more on needs than wants and as a result, we’re living more frugally than ever.

Related post: 10 Ways to Change Consumption Habits

*Disclosure – There are affiliate links in this post.

As our children grow, it has been such a joy watching their personalities develop. It’s amazing how children who have the same parents, live in the same home and spend almost every day together can be so different. Our boys are complete opposites, especially when it comes to money.

Paxton (6 years old) is a natural spender. If he earns or receives a money, he wants to spend it. Over the past year, he’s purchased several small Lego sets, random items at thrift stores and even vending machine stickers. Saving his money for a larger purchase is not something he’s naturally drawn to.

Our Weston (4 years old) is a natural saver. If he earns or receives money, he wants to save it. He’s such a simple boy, he has very few wants and rarely purchases anything. Most of the items he has purchased he has saved for or he has found an animal to go with his farm. Lately when he gets money, he tells us to just put it in savings (referring to his savings account) because he’s saving up to buy a farm and a tractor. He’s thinking about the future and not worried about material things in the present!

We want to raise our children to be wise when it comes to finances so they hopefully will be financially free their entire lives. And, we also know that just because a person has a natural tendency, such as the tendency to spend, it doesn’t mean that they cannot learn to change their ways.

Around Christmas, Paxton found a Star Wars Lego set that he really liked but it was way out of his spending money price range at $59.99. He talked about it for several weeks and pointed it out when we would look at toys.

We thought it would be a great item to set a savings goal for and encouraged him to save his spending money to purchase the Lego set.

We created a savings goal chart as a visual that we hung up in his room so he could glance at it and see how far he was progressing towards reaching his goal.

We set a goal of saving $70 to cover the Lego set and taxes. Each row on his chart represented $2 but we also allowed him to fill in half a row when he put $1 into his Lego Savings jar.

He had some Christmas money that he decided to go ahead and put towards the goal so he started out with $22 which was a great jump start towards such a lofty goal for a 6-year-old.

At the beginning, he started out slow, putting just a little bit of the money he’d earn or receive into his savings. He preferred putting more of his money into his wallet for spending. Every time he decided he wanted to spend money, we would remind him that he could use that amount of money, even if it was only $1, towards his Lego savings and get closer to his goal. Then, we’d let him make up his mind if he wanted to spend his money or not.

He chose to purchase several small things over the first few months and then he started to get more serious. He received some money from grandparents and great grandparents for Valentines Day and put all of that into his Lego savings. Then he earned some money when he, his daddy and brother helped our neighbor with some farm work and put all of that money (minus his giving) into his savings. After earning that money, he started asking about ways he could make money and we gave him some odd jobs to do to earn a little money.

As his savings grew, his spending decreased and he starting putting more and more of his money towards his savings. With his birthday money, he was able to reach his goal of $70 and he was so excited to finally be able to purchase his Lego set.

We completed the chart and then starting looking for the best deal we could find. We knew the Lego set was $59.99 at WalMart and ToysRUs but we wanted to shop around. We first checked out Craigslist, hoping to find a used set (we always try to buy things used instead of new), then we looked on eBay. With no luck there, we saw that Amazon had the best price online at $54 (it was around $57.50 after tax).

I told him that we could go to WalMart that day and purchase the Lego set for $59.99 plus tax or we could order it on Amazon. By ordering it on Amazon, he’d have to wait 2 days but would save around $6. He decided to order online, save the money and patiently wait. We were a little surprised and very proud that he chose to delay gratification!

We placed the order together and he handed over all that cash. Then we counted up what remained and he had $12.50 that he can apply towards his next savings goal (which we’re not quite sure of at this point).

Paxton was so excited while waiting for his package to arrive. The day that it arrived, the mail ran very early and we were in the middle of our lessons. That was motivation, he’s never done his math faster! He was so excited to open up his Legos and start building.

This was the biggest set that he has received or purchased and it took him a while to get it all together. I sat with him and helped him build for awhile (and he loves when I play Legos with him since his love language is quality time!)

We hope reaching this financial goal will be remembered in the years to come and that he has learned a little bit about the value of saving.

Related Posts:

Teaching Kids About Money

Teaching Preschoolers About Money

If you’re a reader of Intentionally Simple, I’m pretty confident that you’re a fan of simple, minimal, intentional living.

I also enjoy reading other simple, minimal, intentional living blogs that encourage and inspire me. One of my favorites is Becoming Minimalist, written by Joshua Becker. I’ve been a Becoming Minimalist reader for 6+ years now and I thoroughly enjoy Joshua’s writing and practical encouragement.

I have enjoyed reading his previously published books (Simplify and Clutterfree with Kids) and was excited to read his newest book, The More of Less. It is a small book but it is packed with inspiration and encouragement for minimal living. After reading many books in this genre, I wasn’t expecting anything life altering from this book but I was really surprised that I was inspired to let go of even more material possessions.

In this book, Becker shares his story as well as the stories of others who are living a minimal lifestyle. He points out through these stories that minimal living doesn’t look the same for everyone. There is no right way to do minimalism, you find what is right for you. There is great freedom in knowing your minimalism doesn’t have to look a certain way or be like anyone else’s.

For us, minimalism is contentedly living in a small home and intentionally living with less by only purchasing things we need and limiting clothing, toys, homeschool related items and such to the space with have within our home.

There is a chapter called ‘The Fog of Consumerism’ where Becker writes about how, in America, consumerism ‘surrounds us like the air we breathe, and like air, it’s invisible.’ This is a very insightful chapter, too often books about living with less never touch on the fact that continual consumption will never allow you to break free from your clutter.

The More of Less adequately explains the philosophy of minimalism as well as practical, how-to advice such as questions to ask yourself about your possessions, experiments to help you realize whether you need things or not and how donating your unwanted items (versus selling) empowers your generosity.

Reading The More of Less, has already inspired me simplify my home even more. The day I finished the book, I filled up two boxes of extra stuff that was lingering in our home and have plans to tackle our garage. (Time to give away more things to friends and donate, donate, donate!)

This is a book I will read again, there’s just so much information, inspiration, encouragement and practical advice that it’s nearly impossible to soak it all up in just one reading. My plan is to read it with my husband very soon and hopefully he’ll be as inspired as I am to take yet another step in our journey of minimalism.

If you’re tired of feeling like your stuff is stressing you out, leaving you overwhelmed and taking over your home and life, I highly recommend The More of Less

*Disclosure – I was provided an Advance Reading Copy of The More of Less in exchange for an honest review. This post contains affiliate links that help support the maintenance of this site.

It’s been so long since I’ve sat down to write anything that it’s hard to know where to start. So, I’m just going to write and share a bit of an update of life with our family.

We’re slowly settling into life as a family of 6 – moving and having a baby in the same month has been hard for me – my personality doesn’t naturally like change. We’ve been in our home 10 months now and I still don’t feel quite settled but this house is starting to really feel like home which I’m thankful for. (I just need to paint, put up pantry shelving, organize several spaces and so on!)

Having a 4th baby has been both easy and challenging. She is a such a sweetheart and we’re all enamored with her – the new hasn’t worn off for any of us! She is a pretty content baby girl but has not been the best night time sleeper which leaves me tired but I know this won’t last forever. The biggest challenge has been adapting to the management of life with 4 children – the laundry feels absolutely endless,  I’m learning to buy and prepare much larger quantities of food and we need more structure in our daily life.

The past 10 months have definitely been a time of growth, change and excitement. We’re still pinching ourselves that we have realized our dream of living on a small homestead and that we have chickens, pigs and sheep, plenty of land to grow fruits, vegetables and flowers and ample space for our children to roam and explore.

The homestead, caring for a baby, homeschooling, adjusting to life as a family of 6 and keeping everyone fed fills up my days and I have neglected some of the things that I enjoy – like writing. But, as I study more about my personality and know myself better, writing/blogging is one of those things that is worth making time for – it recharges me which makes me a better wife and mama. 
Our children are growing so fast. I am in awe of how much they grow and change in such a short period of time. Laura is nearly 10 months old, has 2 little teeth, is standing and cruising and looking more like a toddler everyday. Cecilia will be 4 this month, is such a big helper to me, loves to cook and is full of personality and sass. Weston is 6 and is our resident farmer – he owns several chickens and the sheep on the homestead belong to him. Paxton will be 8 next month, is in 2nd grade and in the past couple of months has turned into an absolute bookworm – I’ve been reading to him since he was a baby and he’s always loved books but since his reading abilities have gotten beyond easy readers, he can’t put the books down. And, I love it! 

I’m doing my best to just soak up this baby girl! Babies are a lot of work but they’re so sweet and such a gift. And, after 4 babies, I know how amazingly fast they grow.

Cecilia is loving having a sister and I love that they have each other. They have a few matching shirts and a pair of matching pajamas and she loves matching her sister. This picture was taken recently – they both were wearing matching pajamas and Cecilia pretended to be a baby in the crib with Laura that morning. 

It’s nearly spring so we have some baby chicks! These babies will grow up to be laying hens. We also have 3 baby piglets that were born last week. If you’re interested in the homesteading aspect of our life, I’ve started a new blog, Arrow Hill Homestead. There’s not much there just yet but I plan to use it as a journal of life on the homestead. 

I celebrated my 31st birthday yesterday. As I’m getting older, birthdays aren’t as eagerly anticipated as they once were but they’re fun – especially with kids who love celebrating. My boys picked out this cake and brought it home after church yesterday – they were so excited about it and I love that they know me so well – it was strawberry shortcake (I love strawberries – my birthday is typically celebrated with a strawberry cake or strawberry pie!) They also picked me daffodils that were growing on the edge of our property. 

When you’re grown up, sometimes you buy yourself your own gifts! I bought these daffodils as a gift to myself because they’re beautiful and I love daffodils since they’re always blooming on my birthday.

Our dream to live on a small farm or homestead goes back to the very beginning of our marriage. We met through the FFA right after high school, married soon after and studied agriculture in college. We both grew up on family farms and had a desire to raise our children on a farm.

While preparing for graduation and entering the workforce, we still had that desire to have a little piece of land that was our own. Our first house was on an acre and we were able to garden there. After moving to Georgia, the second home we purchased was also on an acre. We had plans to garden and have chickens.

We soon learned that it was illegal to have any livestock in our county if you lived on less than 2 acres. After learning this in mid-2013, we were so ready to move. It was frustrating that you could live on an acre and not have a few hens in your backyard!

In 2014, we found a home on 7 acres that we really liked and even put our home on the market. We prayed and prayed and prayed some more but realized it was not the right time. That was hard. Then in early 2015, we found another home on several acres that we really liked and we submitted an offer after much prayer that was promptly refused. We stopped looking and in 2015 and 2016, we focused on making the most of what we had where we were – we gardened, planted fruit trees and did what we could. We still were dreaming of our own little piece of land but we were content where we were.

In early 2017, we felt a restlessness again and started browsing the real estate listings frequently. We looked at a couple houses that fit into what we were looking for but they weren’t right.

Then in late March, we found a newly listed home and property.  It wasn’t perfect, the house was a little weird to me and there was not even a complete driveway but it was in area we wanted to be in, less than 20 minutes from my husband’s office, was in our price range and at 1,800 square feet it gave our family room to grow but wasn’t too big. (We didn’t want a home over 2,000 square feet.)

We made an offer which was accepted and then worked hard to get our house ready to go on the market. We listed it and accepted an offer within 5 days! Everything just seemed to fall into place and we were confident that little piece of land was the place we had been waiting for all of these years.

We closed on May 2nd ( when I was 37 weeks and 2 days pregnant) and started working on making this house and land into our little homestead. Our baby girl was born in our home just 10 days later.

In the 10 months we’ve lived here, we’ve added chickens, pigs and sheep. We raised a batch of broilers (meat chickens) and have processed them. John David has an older tractor for pasture management, we’ve planted a small orchard and have two garden plots. And, we’re having a blast!

We decided to name our place Arrow Hill Homestead inspired by Psalms 127:3-4 “Sons are indeed a heritage from the LORD, children, a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons born in one’s youth.”

I am so thankful everyday when I am able to feed animals and gather eggs – I can’t believe this is our reality, we are living our dream!

If you’re interested in following along our homesteading journey, we’ve started a family blog that will be covering everything from daily chores and baby chicks to butchering pigs and gardening.

Arrow Hill Homestead Website

Arrow Hill Homestead Facebook Page

Arrow HiIl Homestead Instagram