Progress at the Homestead: Reinventing Retirement

Reinventing Retirement

After years of owning our own businesses and working traditional 9-5 jobs, we made the scary and exciting decision last year to retire early and shift gears. Our careers and business pursuits served us well and allowed us to serve others, but there is so much we want to experience - more freedom, more connection with nature, and more time to pursue what truly matters. So we embarked on a journey that combines the skills we've gained over the years with our passion for living simply, frugally, sustainably, and with purpose. We were not sure what retirement would look like. We knew we wanted to stay busy and keep our minds active. We also knew we still needed a source of income.

Our path to this new chapter is rooted in the idea of reinventing retirement. Rather than taking the traditional route of "quitting work", we're building a lifestyle that lets us work on our own terms. The base of this lifestyle is frugal living and self-sustainability, evidenced by self-construction of a tiny home/barn, along with a garden, orchard, chickens, pigs and maybe a cow. Onto this base, we're adding passive income with our six RV sites. And this year we have each leveraged our experience and passions to create work opportunities that add another layer of flexibility to our retirement plan. This combination has allowed us to make our dreams a reality. We are in the midst of saving for and planning our first RV Road Trip this May and June, and we can't wait to share the adventure. Until then, an overview of how we are reinventing retirement.

Frugal Living and Self-Sustainability

Tiny Home/Barn Progress

These front doors will serve as a key extension from our super small living and kitchen area to the large covered patio, where we are already spending a lot of our time.

Our barn/house includes 640 square-feet of living space, 960 square feet of working/storage space in the barn, and 800-square feet of carport/outdoor living space.

Spencer and I have always been frugal, really as a means of survival when we were young and first married, but later by choice. We were both raised on farms and in families who grew gardens and raised livestock, so the idea of homesteading is not new to us. However, after we sold our farm, and as our children grew up and got busy, and we worked in the public sector, we got away from many homesteading and frugal practices. As we began to contemplate our futures without full-time work, we both knew we wanted to incorporate those back in to our daily lives.

As we transition from a traditional family home to 600-square -feet of living space, the process of downsizing has been a transformative experience. Our previous home, where we raised children and lived a busy, conventional life, was filled with comforts and conveniences that come with a larger space. However, as we shift toward a more self-sufficient, mobile lifestyle with this small home base, we're learning that less truly can be more.

The beauty of downsizing is in the freedom it brings. With fewer belongings to maintain and more focused spaces, we are finding that we spend less time managing "stuff" and more time enjoying what truly matters: quality time with family, exploring new places, and working on our passions. This process of scaling down isn't just about making room physically; it's about creating the mental and emotional space to focus on what we value most, while also being mindful of the resources we use.

Check out one of the glorious sunsets we are blessed to witness every single day from our back porch.

Every aspect of our barn/house is shaped by Spencer's talented workmanship. Check out the handcrafted cedar doors that will grace both ends of the barn. He somehow blended the function he needs for the barn with the aesthetics I begged for to make our metal home rustic and homey.

Our tiny

Spencer Jones, husband, father, and DIY Extraordinaire. This guy can build anything, and he works hard to make all my dreams come true.

house and barn is currently still an enclosed shell, but Spencer is making progress every week. He has designed the structure to be simple but comfortable with an emphasis on practical living. The layout is intentionally minimal, with the kitchen and outdoor living area taking center stage. We love to cook and entertain, so having a functional kitchen and ample outdoor space for dining, relaxing and working is essential. The kitchen, while small, will include only the items we need for everyday cooking and preserving meat and food from our garden. The outdoor living area is an extension of that, offering a place to gather with family and friends while enjoying magnificent sunsets, wildlife and plenty of fresh air.

Gardens/Orchard

As we embrace our new lifestyle, one of the most exciting aspects is the creation of our gardens and orchard. Although we're just getting started, these spaces are already up and running and we're optimistic about the harvests we will see this year. Our garden is designed to provide a steady supply of fresh, organic produce, from leafy greens to root vegetables, with plenty of room for experimentation.

Our very first garden as a married couple in 1985 was spread out over a large acre and fed with manure from our dairy operation. We had no idea what we were doing, and we had so much produce, we fed half of our community, preserved what we could, and still wasted a significant amount.

In recent years, we resorted to container gardens and backyard plots in the yard of our beach house, barely making enough to eat for a season with none left over for preserving. We are hoping for a happy medium with this year's crop.

We have carefully chosen varieties that are well-suited to Central Texas, and we're taking time to study and learn about companion planting - selecting plants that complement each other, improve soil health, and help naturally deter pests.

Speaking of pests, we have a beautiful herd of whitetail deer who visit each morning and evening, and while we enjoy their company immensely, we are working on ways to prevent them from over pruning our gardening efforts. We're open to any and all suggestions.

We are starting our garden plots mostly from seeds, and our herb garden is small, but we are already using utilizing produce from there in spring dishes.

The orchard is a long-term project, but spring has brought signs of growth and life. We have planted a variety of fruit trees that will provide us with bountiful harvests in coming years while serving as a habitat for beneficial pollinators and families of birds.

Peach and apple trees make up our orchard so far. We plan to add pear, pecan and plum this spring.

Coming Soon: Chickens

We're excited to soon welcome chickens and pigs to our homestead. We've already ordered the chickens and gathered all the necessary supplies to raise them. Our next step is to build a movable chicken coop, which will allow us to rotate the flock across the property, providing fresh ground for the chickens to forage, fertilizing the soil, and improving the health of our land and garden in a natural, sustainable way. We're looking forward to fresh eggs, natural pest control, and the joy of watching the chickens roam the homestead.

Passive Income

RV Sites Update

Those of you who follow the blog know we have been working on RV sites for a little more than a year. We have six sites, all full and producing enough income to pay our property taxes, monthly utilities, and operating expenses. As an added bonus, our tenants are some of the finest folks we know. We are truly building a tiny community.

Flexible Work Opportunities

One of the key highlights of our new lifestyle is the ability to work flexibly and on our own terms while still supporting our homesteading efforts and travel.

Mobile RV Service & Repair

On the Rocks Mobile RV Service and Repair is a perfect example of this. After attending a comprehensive five-week certification course and earning his NRVTA (National RV Training Academy) certification, Spencer is now a qualified RV technician. He is already busy (almost too busy to work on our house) building a solid clientele in Bell and surrounding counties. This mobile business allows him to provide RV repair and maintenance services directly to customers, whether they're staying in RV parks or traveling on the road, and the beauty of this work is its flexibility - it fits perfectly into our summertime nomadic lifestyle. During colder months, Spencer can focus on local clients in one area, while in warmer months, we will travel, offering mobile services along our route. It's the perfect way to stay connected with a steady income while enjoying the freedom that comes with living part-time on the road in our camper.

Teaching and Training

I have also transitioned from public school teaching and administration into more flexible roles. I teach English three days a week as an adjunct professor at The University of Mary-Hardin Baylor in Belton, which allows me to stay connected to students, honing my content knowledge and pedagogical practices, while still having the flexibility to maintain our new lifestyle. I have also picked up contract work creating training materials for corporate clients, which allows me to fulfill my creative passion for curriculum work with the benefit of working remotely.

Still Inventing

As you can see, we are retired, but are still inventing what retirement looks like for us. Our family members joke that we are working more now than we did when we were on someone else's payroll. And that's the real difference. We are working a lot. But we are working on what fuels our individual and joint passions. And we are working on our own terms. If we want to take off a day or a week, we are free to do that. If we want to stay in our pajamas, drinking coffee and dreaming about what's next on our list, we can do that, and we have come to really enjoy our early morning time together.

If you are contemplating retirement, I highly recommend it. And if you are "too young to retire" but want to work on your own terms, I hope you work at reinventing your own retirement. I would love to hear ideas and visit about possibilities. Please reach out or at least follow the blog and stay in touch.

Coming Soon

• Our first RV Road Trip - Coddiwomple (our truck) and Cat (our camper) will guide us through almost a month of travel through 13 states, hiking some incredible trails, camping at some amazing parks, with sightseeing and people meeting along the way. We can't wait to share the adventure.

  
  

• This year's meat preservation story and photos. Our process for making venison sausage, hamburger and steaks.

  
  

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