DIY/Homesteading/Life on a budget

[BlessedCountry6]

Thank you for all the info in these posts!!

 

[pinusresinosa]

I have seen some similar threads but they have gotten so many responses that I don't want to but in with comments/ questions on the original message.

So here it is. My husband and I are buying our first house, we should close in about a month and the house was built in 1975... it is complete with wood paneling and all; needless to say I have a lot of work to do on the house, a lot of DIY projects planned.

In addition to remodeling the house I'm planning on starting homesteading with gardening, chickens, ducks, quail, and meat rabbits.

I'm also trying to do ALL of this on a semi tight budget. We have a monthly budget that allows $150 for misc and $100 for me...

We are going to try to build all of the pens/cages or pick them up second hand. I have seen a DIY PVC pen that someone built for an iguana that I thought might work for quail. I'm have also read about getting free wood scraps and free pallets for use.

How are ya'll living, remodeling, and homesteading on a budget?

Oh I also saw turning the wire cubby organizers into rabbit cages! ANyone have experience with that?

I remember a time in our lives when a $250 discretionary section of the budget was a pipedream. Today, that's about what we have too, plus I work very part time from home making about $500/month, which goes to all of the funsies. It adds up fast and goes quick, but we've worked hard to get here, which still isn't much so, I don't feel bad about that one bit.
And savings is included in the budget, this had to come after that. I have friends that don't even add savings into their budgets, they go straight to the spending... I'm too much of a worrier for that.

We're living within our means because we literally say no all of the time, choose to drive old cars without payments and low insurance, and bought a cheap place for a few examples. We've "remodeled" this place by cleaning it and painting some rooms, but in our 2 years of living in our first purchased home, we have yet to remodel anything serious other than redoing the electrical and installing a new well system. Nothing we have or do is fancy, extravagant, or brag worthy in typical mainstream social circles, and I think some people feel bad for us because of it. We're debt free with a great roof over our heads, although ugly, it's our ugly and our home and that's all that matters. We spend about less than 1/4 of what we were spending on renting a spot less than half the size of our current home without a yard to speak of.. now we have two acres. So, there's some savings there.

Recycle materials, build it or make it yourself if you can, help neighbors when you can so that they help you when they can, stuff like that. I gave my neighbor tomato, eggplant, onion, and starts of flowers for her garden last year because I started waaay to much, and she just gave me 18 free hatching chicken eggs because she had too much. We both saved money and benefited, for example again.

 

[nayeli]

@pinusresinosa that descretionary income is about to drop... My husband is air force guard, he was on active duty orders but now he is back to just guard duty and his old job soon, who doesn't want to give him his old position back because he has been gone a year and they have institute changes, in spite of him being a really hard worker and the fact that legally they HAVE TO! So he is really stressed out!

Our monthly payment has dropped $40 but now we have gas so I expect the utilities will probably eat up that $40 difference. We have bought a new mirror, light fixture, and faucet for our master bath, we took down wallpaper and are painting it. Then we had a privacy fence put up, and we have been here less than a month. Oh we also bought a new toilet, we plan to do the install on all that this weekend.

I am also jel staining all our kitchen cabinents. It would cost too much to buy new ones but they look awful so this is my under $100 fix, I bought the stain (had to order it online for the general finishes kind).... but i'm going to wait a little while before tackling that.

 

[pinusresinosa]

I don't know politics in the Air Force... my brother in law is in the Army and he gets every expected raise and promotion like clockwork. Well, my sister makes it sound that way anyway. I don't know the exacts... don't really care to I don't think. I'm sorry you guys are stressed about that though.

We have two bathrooms. One, the toilet works great.. my husband likes it because it does a better job handling his waste than the other one does, but I want it gone because when you flush it, a splash pops out sometimes and gets on the lid and stuff. GROSSES ME OUT!

 

[nayeli]

New toilets are cheap. We got one for $100 that is energy effecient, its also a kohler so its a great brand.

 

[olifactory]

If you're getting rabbits that are New Zealand sized breeds, then the wire cubbies won't work, especially moms with litters.

 

[nayeli]

We got cages for all of them. No cubbies.

 

[RichnSteph]

@pinusresinosa that descretionary income is about to drop... My husband is air force guard, he was on active duty orders but now he is back to just guard duty and his old job soon, who doesn't want to give him his old position back because he has been gone a year and they have institute changes, in spite of him being a really hard worker and the fact that legally they HAVE TO! So he is really stressed out!

Yes legally they have to maintain his position for him and ensure that any bonuses or pay raises that were awarded to other members of the company (i.e. quarterly bonuses, cost of living pay increases, etc..) are awarded to him as well. I'm in the Air Reserves right now but have been in the Air Guard and Army at differing times in my life. Each time we deployed or were put on orders it was made clear to our employer what his/her responsibilities were. Your husband needs to go talk to the JAG/Legal office on base and get some proceedings started.

Now to actually reply instead of ranting.

My wife and I are in a similar situation in that we are on a tight budget and like you we want to do everything at once.
A short list of what we want/need.
Clear the land (we have an acre that our house is being put on).
Build fence.
Build barn.
Build chicken coop.
Build raised bed garden.
Fence garden.
Build aquaponics.
Plant fruit trees
Pland Bermuda grass and alfalfa patch for sheep.
Build shelter for sheep.
...........

The list is pretty darn long so my best advice is to start your list then scrub it for what is a need vs what is a want. Then scrub the needs list again and prioritize it, twice. Then start at #1 and get it done before going on to #2. This is the one biggest mistake I make. I'll get half into #1 and think "well I can get a little done on #8 right quick...... next thing you know I'm no where near done on any of them.

Keep your eyes open for people taking down privacy fencing. You can build a heck of a lot of things out of it. As an example there is a man taking down 1300 feet of fence near me. I've already talked to him and he just wants it gone from the property. I told him I'd take a day off from work to help him take it down if he'll make sure I'm the only one that gets it. I know it might not sound like much but with 1300 feet of fence I end up with 168 8' 4x4 fence posts, 350 8" 2x4 cross boards, a couple of gates with hardware and something like 3500 6' tall 4x.75 fence slats. (This is just from what the man told me). Now I don't know how much all that would cost but I know for a fact it would be well outside my monthly budget. The plan is to use that lumber to build a small hay barn and the chicken coop and fence the property (I'm using wire fence not the privacy boards). I can also build the raised garden beds and most of the things on our list out of it.

So for us.
1) Clear the land
2) Get the fencing materials
3) Build a large compost bin (we'll be living there this whole time so it's better to start composting now instead of throwing anything away)
4) Sink posts and build the fence

After that we'll scrub our needs list again and see what is at the top of the list. Probably either the barn or chicken coop. Regardless though my advice is to continually cleanse and then scrub your list and finish one thing before you start another.

Oh and have fun. Good luck!

 

[nayeli]

Yes legally they have to maintain his position for him and ensure that any bonuses or pay raises that were awarded to other members of the company (i.e. quarterly bonuses, cost of living pay increases, etc..) are awarded to him as well. I'm in the Air Reserves right now but have been in the Air Guard and Army at differing times in my life. Each time we deployed or were put on orders it was made clear to our employer what his/her responsibilities were. Your husband needs to go talk to the JAG/Legal office on base and get some proceedings started.

Now to actually reply instead of ranting.

My wife and I are in a similar situation in that we are on a tight budget and like you we want to do everything at once.
A short list of what we want/need.
Clear the land (we have an acre that our house is being put on).
Build fence.
Build barn.
Build chicken coop.
Build raised bed garden.
Fence garden.
Build aquaponics.
Plant fruit trees
Pland Bermuda grass and alfalfa patch for sheep.
Build shelter for sheep.
...........

The list is pretty darn long so my best advice is to start your list then scrub it for what is a need vs what is a want. Then scrub the needs list again and prioritize it, twice. Then start at #1 and get it done before going on to #2. This is the one biggest mistake I make. I'll get half into #1 and think "well I can get a little done on #8 right quick...... next thing you know I'm no where near done on any of them.

Keep your eyes open for people taking down privacy fencing. You can build a heck of a lot of things out of it. As an example there is a man taking down 1300 feet of fence near me. I've already talked to him and he just wants it gone from the property. I told him I'd take a day off from work to help him take it down if he'll make sure I'm the only one that gets it. I know it might not sound like much but with 1300 feet of fence I end up with 168 8' 4x4 fence posts, 350 8" 2x4 cross boards, a couple of gates with hardware and something like 3500 6' tall 4x.75 fence slats. (This is just from what the man told me). Now I don't know how much all that would cost but I know for a fact it would be well outside my monthly budget. The plan is to use that lumber to build a small hay barn and the chicken coop and fence the property (I'm using wire fence not the privacy boards). I can also build the raised garden beds and most of the things on our list out of it.

So for us.
1) Clear the land
2) Get the fencing materials
3) Build a large compost bin (we'll be living there this whole time so it's better to start composting now instead of throwing anything away)
4) Sink posts and build the fence

After that we'll scrub our needs list again and see what is at the top of the list. Probably either the barn or chicken coop. Regardless though my advice is to continually cleanse and then scrub your list and finish one thing before you start another.

Oh and have fun. Good luck!

I know what they are supposed to do, its just fighting for them to actually do it. Plus since he just got a promotion a month before he left they are trying to argue it. Fortunately he got extended active duty orders so for the next few months he will still be on the base. I also went back to work.... so not much is getting done around the house.

Since we moved here 1.5 months ago we have painted a bathroom (still have to do touchups and unfortuantely you can see all the flaws in the wall) installed a new faucet and toilet and we are switching out a mirror. I have also taken down cabinet doors in the laundry room since we prefer the open look (tried staining since the cabinets are the same in the kitchen and wanted to see what it would look like in there). We have had a privacy fence built, installed a new garage door opener, planted a few things and pulled up bushes, got rid of the rock garden preventing grass from growing in 1/2 of our front yard, built a quail pen... and thats about it. It seems like a lot but I really need to get to work!

I'm kinda bummed about the bathroom too. I sanded down the walls a bit but the walls are imperfect (they were covered with wallpaper) and we don't have extra $$ to have them fixed right now... I'm just hoping that isn't a theme through the house that every wallpapered wall is gonna be problematic.

 

[newfoundland]

Although you are naturally impatient to make greater headway with your home, I think you have done fantastically well. Ah the energy and drive of youth! As with any big project I would start small, in one area, and aim to complete that room/area/project. Then, when you get down, and of course you will, you can go and look at that area and it will give you heart and drive to carry on. Lack of money constantly delays jobs getting done, so when you run out of money till next month, work in ways that cost nothing but make a big impact. My favourite way is tidying up. I know it sounds trite but having everything neat and clean makes such a difference to our well being. This of course extends to the garden which you can never over prepare for crops!

I don't want to sound discouraging, but wallpaper is often used to hide a multitude of sins, I'm afraid. You must be prepared for uneven plastering underneath. As long as the plaster is attached to the wall and not floating, you should get away with power sanding it. If it is floating in places it will need to come off and check for dampness in the wall. In the damp climate i live in, and given that many houses are well over 100 years old, this is a common problem. You could of course make a feature of the unevenness of the plaster by painting or lime washing it white? You could wood panel it, costly but only necessary once? Many people around here live in 18th century houses/cottages and don't have a striaght flat wall in the house.