Budgeting and Saving for a Dream (Part 1)

As nice as it might be to spend all day daydreaming about all the reasons why we want a homestead (read more about our dream and plans here) and all the things we will do on the homestead; to make our dream come true we also need to admit that a large portion of our success or failure will come down to less romantic realities. And one of the largest realities that we have to face are the finances.

Regardless of what your goals or dreams may be, whether it is to get out of debt or to buy a homestead mortgage free, it is difficult for many people to budget and save for these big goals. So while our financial realities and goals are very unique to our circumstances and dreams, I want to share how we are managing the financial aspects of saving for our dream.

Please note that the way we have gone about budgeting and saving for our dream, are just that: our way. They are not the only way, or necessarily even the right way. However, hopefully they will give you a few ideas for how you could navigate the practical financial aspects of reaching your dream.

However, I am also well aware that very few people (myself included) are particularly interested in diving into the nitty gritty details of how to budget and save around this holiday season. Be sure to stick around after the New Year when I will really start to dig into our financial stories. Hopefully the series will inspire you to start saving for your dreams and goals in 2014 and to get those financially related New Year's resolutions off to a good start.

In the meantime, to whet your appetite here is a taste of what I will discuss...

In our journey there are 3 main financial realities that we face:

1. It will cost a lot of money to buy land, and to build a house & the homestead infrastructure.
2. Unless we save a significant percentage of our paychecks each month, we won't be able to move to a homestead any time soon.
3. Even if we are able to significantly reduce our living expenses, there will still be financial obligations after we move to the homestead, so we will need to find creative ways to earn money on the homestead.

So in the first weeks of January I will share how we have tackled each of these three realities. I will talk about:

• Our financial resolutions and savings goals for 2014 and beyond.
• How we save over 50% of our income every year.
• How we create and stay on a budget.
• Tips for ways to save, and still enjoy life.

But since Nathan and I especially value this time of year as a special time to spend time with family (and I hope that our readers are able to do the same), you can look forward to some lighter posts for the next couple of weeks...