Five years ago my family and I moved to Barnstead, NH; everyone thought we were crazy moving to the middle of no where. We had lived in a few towns in NH and we just were sick of society. We wanted a better place for a children to grow up. We wanted to try to shelter them from all the drugs and violence that was happening all over.
I remember the day we first looked at this property, it was winter and there was snow everywhere. We arrived at the house before the realtor. My husband and I were just standing in the driveway talking, when all of a sudden there was nothing! There was a break in our conversation and that is when we knew this was our new home. There was no traffic noises, no sirens and no people!
We were not thrilled about living in a double wide trailer, but it cane with over 12 acres of land. The property was beautiful, it was nicely wooded and there was babbling brook our back. It was every thing we wanted in a property. So, the five year plan was to buy it and live in the trailer until we could build a house.
The problem was that banks do not like to finance trailers even if you tell them you want to build a house on the property. We started going to banis maybe a year or two into living here. We were told we would need to pay down our mortgage by $30,000 before they would even consider giving us any money to build.
We went about our lives trying to pay down the mortgage. We couldn‘t decide how we wanted to spend our time and money. Did we want to just live in this trailer and spend out money on trips with the family? Did we want to penny pinch and build a new house quickly? We changed our minds several times and went on a few trips. Which gave us a ton of great memories with our kids. However, the trailer started to fall apart and things started needing fixing.
We decided we were going to fix up the trailer. That way when the time came we could either rent it out or sell it. That is when all the home improvements started like: new windows, expanding the bathroom, buying new kitchen cabinets and installin a wood stove in.
Then we decided that we didn’t want to sink anymore money into the trailer. We are so sick of it at this point that we cannot wait to tear the damn thing down. So, all the unfinished projects like the bathroom and the windows will never get finished. We are saving all our pennies to build a new house.
We don’t want to rely on banks. We are going to build the house ourselves and just pay down the mortgage on the trailer while we do it. At least the high mortgage payment we send in every month will be worth it in the end. Yes, we will still have a mortgage on this shit hole. However, we will be living in a our brand new homestead, so it will be worth it.
I am so excited because we may be able to break ground this Spring or Summer. It has been a long hard road living in this partially remodeled home, but it the thought of having a nice new home, keeps me going.
I think it has been the hardest on the kids. As you know, kids can be very cruel. There have been comments about us living in a trailer and how we must be poor. I know that sometimes my kids are embarrassed to have their friends over and that breaks my heart. We have talked to the kids and they are on board with our plan to save money and build a house on the property. So, they will eventually be proud of what we built and want to show it off.
To all the people who have made stupid remarks and judged us for living how we do, you can all screw off! We are going to have a nice new place soon and this trailer will just be a stepping stool on our journey to building our dream homestead.
Follow Along As I Start My Homesteading Journey 