I thought I would give some insight on moving a homestead while it’s still fresh on my mind. If you’re in the same boat we were 7 months ago, you’ll probably appreciate this post. If you’re thinking about moving to a new property in the future and want to know what you’re getting yourself into, this is for you!
In April of 2023, we found land that we currently are homesteading. We bought ugly property for really cheap! At the time, my husband and I were already operating our half-acre farmstead. We couldn’t wait to move onto our new land! However, we had no clue what we were getting ourselves into. We began by packing up the inside of the house. Anything we never used, we donated. If it was something we hardly used, it went into a box to be packed away for moving day. Keeping only necessities out, the closer to moving day we got, the more we put into boxes.
My husband and I moved with just us two, his truck, and our two cars. We have small 6 foot trailer that we also used. We also didn’t rent a U-Haul. Our goal was to move as frugally as possible, saving our money for important future projects that we would need to spend money on. We had to take several trips to get all of our belongings to our new place, but we still ended up saving around $600 by doing the work ourselves and using our personal vehicles.
Next, all of our outdoor equipment, chicken feed, tools, supplies, all that, had to be moved. We had no idea what to pack because we needed almost everything we had at both properties, at the same time! We also had no infrastructure at our new place. No chicken coops, no sheds or outbuildings, nada! We spent many weeks in the summer, going back and forth to cut grass, take boxes or tools to our new home. We also built our chicken coops with our spare time on the new property. When we signed the dotted line, only half of the chicken coops were built, there weren’t any sheds, and we had to move out within 2 weeks.
In the time between moving, my husband going to work, permits, meetings, taking our kids to school, making several trips per day from our old property to the new, we were both exhausted! At the beginning of our move, we thought this would be a lot easier than it actually was.
By the time the chickens were moved, our yard truly looked like an episode of ‘Sanford and Sons’. The price you have to pay when you’re moving out in a hurry! We immediately got started on our first shed, which will serve as my husbands workshop eventually. For now, it’s being used as storage for everything that we want out of the weather. Keep in mind, while all of this is happening, my husband was still working full-time off the homestead. Most days, it was just me running the show.
If I could do anything differently, it would’ve been doing more here at the property while my husband was at work. However, the weather was extremely hot during this period, with the heat index being anywhere from 100-117 during the day and mid 80’s at night. Had the weather been more cooperative, I definitely would’ve hustled more! If you want to see behind the scenes on what we did while moving our homestead, follow us on Tik-Tok.