Hello and good morning! Today I wanted to go over a little bit about what it takes to finance our life and the well being of the animals. It's not cheap if you're thinking about doing it. My husband is the type that likes to get a good deal and he jumps on any deal he sees. Our horses were free for example, as long as we bought the saddles...and we might have caused some marital strife for the husband who made the deal lol. This week was tough on me. You know those times in your life that you really don't want to check the balance in your checking account, well that was me, and I hate that feeling. I'll start off with an idea of us financially, without going into to too much detail. I want to be forthcoming but not tacky I guess. We make a decent living. My husband is thisclose to getting certified as a journeyman electrician and as I said before he's a fairly good negotiator, especially when it comes to how much he's getting paid. We have a pretty comfortable life, even more so had we not bought this house. Our house payment is about $1800.00, car payment is around $350.00, food is expensive and I probably spend about $500.00 a month on groceries (mostly bought at Costco and Winco). Now add in utilities, insurance, cable, phones, credit cards and student loan debt, gas and entertainment, household necessities, oh and everything the kids need. I'm sure I'm forgetting something. NOW add in the expense of animals. I know what you're thinking, why don't you get a job? Believe me I will be writing a blog post on that, let's just say its not in the cards right now. Luckily, we have an emergency fund and I have a feeling we'll be dipping into it for a few months until my husband gets his certification. Hopefully I can change that to a few weeks but I don't want to assume and put too much pressure on him. In our family my husband makes the money and he does as he pleases with it, but don't worry he's perfectly aware that we have bills to pay. I'm the one who distributes the money, leaving enough in the account so he's comfortable pulling money out when he wants us to go out to eat for example, and lately, when he wants to buy more chickens. He says it will pay off, and theoretically, when we don't have to go the grocery store any more, it will (yes, we plan to eat the chickens and pigs, but not all of them, I have my favorites). He also plans to sell some things that the farm will provide us, like organic free range eggs. And I really can't put a price on the health of my kids right? We've all heard about all the crazy stuff going on with the U.S. food industry. But like I said- theoretically. I don't know how long it will take and sometimes I hear calling my name the comfort of leaning back on just having a normal apartment in the city where we don't have all these responsibilities of owning a house and caring for animals, which makes our already big family of 6, a family of (counting)...36, if you don't count the eggs my husband is hatching in our bedroom. Yeah I have eggs incubated in my bedroom (annoyingly shaking my head). I guess you can probably hear a hint of resentment, I'm working on it, really! Now I'm going to write you a list of things we bought for the animals:
Purchased Price
The animals themselves (30 total) 0.00-125.00 each (the most numerous being the chicks for 2-5 bucks each and we have 20)
Fencing 100.00 each fence, bought 2 (again, deals)
Bedding 7.00
Food and vitamins 6.00-10.00 each bag and we buy two bags a week so far, hay is 4.50 per bale and we bought 9 bales a month ago, we still have four bales left.
Incubator 20.00
Heat lamps 10.00 each, we have two
Saddles 125.00 each, we have two
Feeding containers 10.00 each and we have two, the horses use buckets and a wheelbarrow we found in the yard, and the goats use large bowls that we had.
Crates 40.00
New boots, aka sturdier shoes, lol. Entire outfit bought at Goodwill. You can kinda see my daughter on my hip in the first pic :). Photo credit: my ten year old son, Cris.
That's all I can think of right now. Most of things we bought were one time purchases so we only really spend money on the food every month and things as they come up. I need to buy grooming supplies for the horses as of right now. I try to save money by buying things at Goodwill and my husband finds great deals on craigslist for mostly everything. We also happened to have bought a house where the owners left pretty much everything so you will find in every room in my house dishes, furniture, blankets, etc. which were left by the previous owners and which I use every day. I plan to plant a huge vegetable garden which I really should be working on already. I go to goodwill every Friday to seek things needed for the household and I pretty much buy all my clothes there, I recently got my daughter and I boots for being outside in the mud with the animals. I try not to spend over 5 bucks for any one item. Still with all the thrifting, the animals are still extra expenses that we aren't capitalizing on yet. Our chickens aren't laying and we have not killed an animal. Those things will happen come late spring and summer. This week our bills are late and I don't really know where we overspent, though I can take a guess it was eating out, animals, and entertainment. I figure as I go I'll be learning where to adjust our budget. So I guess the point is it's challenging, and expensive, but we make it work. You pay for the life you choose, and that's that.
Our Bantam Chicken and Rooster who are super cute
Labels: that farm life
