Dana Mize& the big m ranch
Well. now that we secured the property and "It's Ours!" we better get to start building & selling, moving & groovin' Right? Right! So we spent a few hours talking and praying to figure out what God had in store of us next... and would you know that just so happened to be a 1983 Fleetwood Prowler travel trailer? Yea.. Me neither! But seriously, after we decided we were ready to make this move happen we spent countless hours on craigslist searching for the right Twinkie... (as my best friend Alicia calls campers & trailers) We searched in the tri-state area and to be honest campers are expensive little toys, 40,000 here 60,000 there... We are apparently in the wrong line of work because I can go ahead and tell you that Gearhead & I are not anywhere close to that tax bracket... ha ha ha Okay... So we made a plan and I decided I would take on some extra photography work so that we could get our hands on a older nice model camper that would be comfortable to live in. Yup Live in! Houston and I are very like minded in the fact that we want to live our lives NOW... to the fullest extent. I don't want to wait until I am at retirement age to have our dream home. We are doing it now! With a lot patience, a lot of help from our parents, modest money management and perseverance we will be self building our own home. Not to fool anyone to thinking this will be a nightmare. Brian is a General Contractor and will be guiding and building our house with us! The Camper comes in on the modest money management side. We are planning on moving into the camper and living out of it until we are able to complete our home. That may be 1 year, maybe 3 years.. who knows... We just know we have a goal in mind, we are content with what opportunities we have and we aren't giving up. This will definitely be an adventure! So we saved what we had and whatever we could get our hand on. However I have a bad tendency to dip back into savings if it is accessible... so we ended up cashing out our savings and placing it into a glass jar with a very small bottle neck and of course.. NO WAY to get the funds out unless you break the jar..... Though this seems very elementary... it worked for us! We were able to watch our saving grow through the glass and found the nights where we rolled up the bills and shoved them in & wrote the new total on the bottle to be a pretty fun and goofy experience.... Plus you can't argue with results! Here is our camper jar hanging out waiting for more moolah! and us cramming in more money! Anyway.. after a short 1 1/2 hour drive to Forest City, North Carolina, we bought our new Metal Mansion and are starting to call it home while we are shaping the property and getting ready to build. This is also going to make it easier for Brian to go in and fix anything on the current house and show it to people since our stuff won't be clogging up the place! Brian and Houston had to fiddle with the ball on the hitch a little.... but we got it... I still wonder to this day is Papa Mize put Locktite on the threads just to play with us.... because seriously.. He Would! Either way.. it was pretty funny to watch. Well, we got the right ball on the hitch and loaded her up to take her home! Here are some photos of the inside. the front door leads into the living room that the previous owners were using as extra space to have a bed when friends came over. There are two bedrooms through the back door. A full kitchen, dining area and a bathroom. She is 33ft long :) Now to take down all that sexy wood paneling and
MAKE IT HOME! :) Carolina Love, D.
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Our families have been on the hunt for the right track of property for the past 2 years, trying our hardest and busting our butts to prepare ourselves to take the leap of faith, sell what we can, keep what we want, manage our budgets and own our own, as Tammy would put it, "Compound" ha ha ha We have searched through an endless amount of tracks that were close but no cigar. We have had several deals with property fall through and of course we would all get disappointed, sad and upset. The loss of what we thought was the perfect property over and over again had us questioning ourselves and left us confused about how we could make our situation better. At this point we were left with a bitter taste about moving and we didn't want to have to explore unplanned avenues for starting a new chapter in our lives... no one really does when you have a plan in mind. Let me explain. We all live together, yes, in one house. Each of us taking care of the others, financial problems, emotional issues, career advice, accomplishments, disappointments, tears and laughter we are all able to tackle life together, which I have come to realize is a pretty darn genius way to go through life. Yes, there are times in our family, just like in any other family, where we could strangle each other, but for the most part we keep life on the light and happy side and focus on our goals together and in the end, it all seems to work itself out. With Houston and I being a young couple getting prepared to get married and start our lives as one, we knew the we would want a home of our own, a family our own, but to keep our close knit family, well, Close! So we kept our eyes on the big picture, patiently waited, and prayed about our situation. In the mean time of searching for property to live on, we were also searching for Hunting property. We are all avid hunters and love when Deer season hits the upstate! At that point we were a few weeks away from the season open date. Brian ended up calling an old business client to see if she would mind if we hunted her property. And would you know.... During their conversation she offered the property to us to BUY. We couldn't believe it! When we weren't expecting or looking, the opportunity presented itself. Brian told everyone when we got home that night and you could immediately feel that excitement rush over the room, hopes were brought higher than ever before and our minds got rolling on the "What if this is it!?!?" question. After talking ourselves down from the udder surprise and excitement, we had a talk about it, we prayed over it, had another discussion, broke open the books to see if this would financially work for us, prayed some more, had another discussion and on October 18th, 2013 God made his entrance, placed his hand on our family and showed us the way. This was it! It was really happening! Below are the photos of all of us the night we signed the contract! This was our first step to reaching our dream of owning our "Homestead" :) So,what to do now that we have secured our new property?
Sell our current house. Harder than it sounds, right? Kinda scary? Yep. But Brian has this genius phrase, not complex at all, but it makes so much sense it will definitely create the "Face-in-palm" effect. Here it is... "Either you want it, or you don't" simple as that We are doing everything in our financial, faith, and determined power to make this happen. Because we want it! So here we go. Selling our house, moving to a new town, new schools, a new area, more land, and the Good man Upstairs by our side. With a little bit of faith, and a whole lotta' love, everything is possible! Carolina Love, Dana |
Dana Here..25. Married to my High School sweet pea, Houston. We have lived in a 216 sq ft camper working on 3 years now to become as financially free as possible while building our first home ourselves on 25 Acres in the Upstate of South Carolina. |