Disclaimer: First of all, this is the lifestyle we have chosen, and if you have not chosen to live debt free, we are not here to judge you. God has made each of us a steward of His money and resources and each person must do their best to use it wisely and in a way that glorifies God.
I grew up in a debt free home. My dad was always passionate about not borrowing money, but saving up and paying cash for things. We were poor, yes, but everything we had, we owned.
Honestly, as a teenager I saw other people’s big beautiful houses, cars that didn’t break down constantly, and classy clothes, and thought debt looked rather rosy if it helped you be able to afford those things.
When Andy and I started dating I realized he had been talking to my dad and developed strong beliefs of his own when it came to finances and debt. The borrower is servant, or slave, to the lender, the Bible says. If you choose to borrow money, you choose to spend your time working to pay that money back, in a sense indenturing yourself to another until the debt is paid.
We soon got engaged and began to think seriously about where we would live after we were married. We were both doing Voluntary Service and had approximately $6,500 combined.
We had a small, $1,600 wedding, which my family helped pay part of, bought our first car for $2,000, and bought a large, old, fifth wheel camper for $4,000. Since Andy worked for his dad, we were allowed to put our camper in a back pasture, and there we set up housekeeping in our first home.
We began marriage broke but happy, and we owned what we had, even though there was precious little of it. There were only two of us and we were in love – we didn’t need much space.
We did not have a super high income there on the farm, but with a little scrimping and lots of budgeting there was always enough. The only trouble was, living in the camper was not a long-term solution and we needed to save money to buy a house someday.
Knowing our own weakness in saving money in the bank, we decided to invest it into calves. We went to livestock auctions and mostly bought the calves no one else wanted. They were cheap, wobbly, some were sick. We brought them back to the farm and tried to nurse them back to health. Some died, but most made it and a year later we sold them right as the market was beginning to crash.
Turned out we didn’t make much money on them, but we did get the money back that we had put into them, which, when coupled with a gift and tax refund, bought our 18 acres in Alaska.
We planned to move in one year and build a cabin – but we were broke again!
We hoped to get the money to buy a motorhome and trailer, which we could then resell in Alaska, by raising puppies to sell, but we had many setbacks. Our first dog didn’t get pregnant when we had her bred. The second dog contracted Lyme disease a week before she was due to have her puppies. She was flat on her back and couldn’t walk. We ended up taking her to be vet for an emergency C-section to deliver her nine puppies. The C-section cost $1,500 but the puppies ended up paying that back plus some.
Our Alaskan Malamute named Cherokee came into heat, and the male Malamute that we tried to get puppies from ended up being a dud, and she had a litter of mutts, but even those we managed to sell. In all, with a tax refund included, we managed to scrape the money together for a used motorhome and a brand new 24 foot trailer.
The first dog ended up having a litter of 11 Labradoodles, and that brought in a nice amount of income just as we were ready to leave.
On May 16, 2017 we got in the motorhome and headed off for Alaska with not much in our pockets but plenty of adventure and excitement to go around!
We thought we would only have to remodel the house that was here, a small 14 by 24 structure we had seen in pictures. Upon arrival, though, we realized the house was too far gone and we would be much better off building from scratch.
We pretty much built the house paycheck to paycheck. We sold the trailer for $7,000 and that bought the roofing materials and enough to get into the cabin. Soon after that Andy broke his hip and we faced surgery and medical expenses.
God has been so good to us. Our church family and family from Ohio helped us get the house to where it was livable, and some gave monetary gifts as well.
The hospital bills were drastically reduced since we don’t have a high income. Andy’s church in PA helped pay some bills since we were still part of their healthcare plan, and we sold the motorhome this spring to pay the last of it.
Since then there has been a lot of catch-up to do since all the money was going toward hospital bills for six months. As of right now, Andy calculates it would take around $6,000 to finish out the cabin, but at this point we aren’t in any hurry. We started doing Dave Ramsey’s baby steps now that we’re caught up, and want to have an emergency fund and six months of expenses saved before we finish the house.
We are warm, fed, and dry, and we have it so much nicer than the majority of people in the world. Best of all, this house is filled with love, and you really can’t get much better than that this side of heaven.
After reading this you may think we are a little bit crazy – especially the part about heading to Alaska with little money to build a house when we got there – and you’d be right! We are both dreamer/adventurer types and while we never have much money, we have a whole lotta fun along the way!