mooretrees journal

[RoamingFrancis]

Beautiful bus pics!

I wish I had Montessori or something. In high school I wrote an elaborate proposal to my parents to let me unschool myself. It failed. Luckily, I didn’t let public school squash ALL my creativity.

[mooretrees]

@RF me too!, I loved seeing my nephews in their Montessori classrooms years ago and it is exciting to start thinking and implementing some Montessori style teaching in our home.

@Hristo, thanks for the reference, I do agree that the Tri-thingy you mentioned is awesome. I've lightly looked into previously and was fairly intimidated by it. I am focusing on Montessori because I've got a little familiarity with it and I want to start something without expending a lot of energy researching all my options. Too many options is overwhelminf for me!

For now, my initial goals are to focus on practical life skills (washing dishes, making food, laundry, sweeping and mopping), making learning materials together (math beads for counting, number boards with acorns, sandpaper letters), and adjusting our home so he is more independent. I think a few hooks strategically placed for hats/coats and such, a safer stool for the kitchen, and some different clothing storage so that he can access his own clothes are easy places to focus. I have a playgroup set up with other kids his age that are not doing preschool so he'll get some fun unstructured play time. I've also got him signed up with a preschool teacher who is only doing one on one sessions with masked kids once a week. I cried when I realized we had some help with our son. I know we can teach him and he's fairly bright, but it's awfully nice to have a professional with tons of experience to learn from and for him to hang with. She also teaches ukulele!

I'm focusing on the practical life skills because it's stuff we have to do everyday and he can actually be helpful. I think I found a little side table we can use as a desk and we have a shelf DH built where we can keep his school materials. I'm still reading about Montessori style so we might not actually sit down for 'school' for another week or so. There's no rush, but it's nice to have some clues about what we're doing.

Food preservation:
I found a peach tree that was heavy with peaches recently. I knocked on the house and asked if I could harvest the peaches. The young guy seemed amused but said yes. A few days later I think I harvested a little over 40 pounds of just ripe peaches. And then spend most of Saturday canning them. So much work. DH helped and we got 18 quarts. The previous week we processed four dozen corn and DH butchered three rabbits. I'm hoping to head back to the peach tree and make peach butter to either can or freeze. Peach butter seems better than jam because it needs less sugar and I'm not attached to a certain thickness of the spread. Also, I've make peach compote before and left the skins on and it was just fine. Taking the skins off the peaches added the most work to the canning process.

I blended up the two fermented hot sauces I made and they are delicious. The one with lime and ginger is so tasty, but much hotter than the plain garlic and jalapeno. That experiment was a success so I'll try it again with a variety of peppers and other spices. Here's the basic recipe should anyone be interested. https://nourishedkitchen.com/fermented- ... ce-recipe/

Wood Cutting:
Went to the woods and only brought our crosscut saws yesterday. DH had scouted out two lovely and quite large larches that were standing dead. We felled one together and it was the best hinge/cut we'd made since we started cutting wood several years ago. The felling saw is harder to use as you don't have gravity helping. But, we were able to stop and assess and be very precise with the saw and it felt very controlled. DH was really happy with the hinge, that and where the tree fall are the only two ways to see how you did. The tree fell where we wanted it to go and the hinge was even and just picture perfect.

We started bucking the wood and quickly realized we had bit off more than we could chew. The tree was one of the biggest we'd ever cut - first mistake! The truck was a decent distance away from the wood so it was going to be hard work to move the rounds to the truck. We cut the first round into a 4' length, thinking it wouldn't be too hard to roll it to the truck. Loading it into the truck however....So, we sat around talking about what we should do with this beautiful wood. It was 2:30 in the afternoon when we were realized we were bit over our heads with this tree. We finally decided to head home and come back the next day with the chainsaw. DH can buck the wood and those rounds are more realistic for us to get into the truck. The nat'l forest rules state that you have to stop using power tools at one, so if we've still got energy and wood left to buck, we can switch to the crosscut saw. As we left, I realized I didn't feel like it was a failure, just a big learning session.

School bus build:

AxelHeyst is coming soon and we're hiring him to work on the bus. DH and AH worked really well together when he visited us last month. I'm excited to have another set of hands on this project and see the pace of building increase. Initial plans are for AH to bid on certain projects and work independently at his own pace. If I had to do this over again, I would find a bus with a taller ceiling. DH has spent most of this year working on raising the ceiling so we didn't feel claustrophobic. Simply buying a taller interior bus would have cut out so much work. Oh well.

Work:
I only work two days this week which is fantastic. Work has been very stressful because of this vaccine mandate. I'm shocked at how many people are against this vaccine. I guess that is naive of me. I was so excited to get my shots that it's hard to understand how others might have hesitations. We are losing at least three people because of the mandate and we're already short staffed. I spent a good part of Friday working as a phlebotomist, but getting paid as a tech. I do see being asked to work more in the coming weeks, which I'm still figuring out if I will. I don't mind making a little bit more money.

Money:
This year I've made around $24k net so far. Since I'm the breadwinner, that's it for our family. I was shocked at how little I've made and how little I've stressed over it. I did freak out a few months ago and then we got two roommates for a short time. So, I'm not totally zen about how little I'm making. But, I also felt surprised because we're living really well on that 24 k. I know we're still learning how to live well on less money, but we've made a lot of progress this year.

[Hristo Botev]

Saw this on Bari Weiss's susbtack and thought of you: https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/americ ... -goes-boom

[mooretrees]

Saw this on Bari Weiss's susbtack and thought of you: https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/americ ... -goes-boom

Interesting read. What's so funny about the homeschooling norm of hippies and evangelicals, is those are the two groups I keep finding as an ERE parent. But now I won't hang with the evangelicals because they won't get the covid vaccine. And there just aren't a ton of hippies around, or maybe I'm not hippie enough to find them? Like the article suggested, I'm not convinced that what schools teach is what my son needs to learn. However, I don't really know what they actually teach so I'm speaking from my experience many years ago. I'm not writing off traditional school, but I am very curious how this year will set the tone for our lives.

[Gilberto de Piento]

States will have a document that shows what has to be taught by grade, known as academic standards. For example, Minnesota social studies: https://education.mn.gov/mde/dse/stds/soc/. The actual implementation in the classroom of course varies widely. You could also look into what standardized tests check for by grade and subject as well as what is in common textbooks by grade and subject.

[Hristo Botev]

Like the article suggested, I'm not convinced that what schools teach is what my son needs to learn. However, I don't really know what they actually teach so I'm speaking from my experience many years ago. I'm not writing off traditional school, but I am very curious how this year will set the tone for our lives.

This has been a very challenging decision Mr. and Mrs. Botev have been struggling with over the past couple weeks--as our Jesuits say, we've been on a "journey of discernment." I don't know where we'll end up, and I'll not pollute your journal too much with all of our half-formed and half-baked thoughts on the topic; I'm sure those thoughts will end up on my own journal at some point.

For now, however, the current thinking is that we use 2024 as our transition year, as that's the year that DD will start high school and DS will start middle school. Their school is K-8, so we've got to make a decision regardless.

The choices had been: the big Catholic high school (the front runner); one of the smaller/fancier/more expensive Catholic high schools; or the public school down the street which in addition to being "free" is regarded as being academically on par with the Catholic schools (whatever the hell that means), but will of course be filled with students who all come from the same public elementary and middle schools we decided to take DD out of after 1st grade when we realized that if schools were going to indoctrinate our kids, we wanted to be able to choose what form that indoctrination was going to take.

But now, we're realizing that most of DD's closest school friends probably won't end up at the same school as her anyway, so why not use 2024 as our opportunity to "fix []our housing/location situation," as Jacob put it (viewtopic.php?f=20&t=12064&p=247351&hilit=ipcc#p247351), and GTFO of dodge, given that "dodge" is scoring pretty low on Rhodium's climate map: https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/.

And to that end, the school model/curriculum that really makes me scream "YYYEEESSS!!!" is this one: https://chestertonschoolsnetwork.org/about#our-model. And what do you know, they've got schools (currently or coming soon) in all sorts of places that score really well on the climate map.

Web of goals and all.

[mooretrees]

@Hristo, very interesting. So now you've got a few years to prepare for a big move? Just from personal experience from going to a Catholic high school, drugs were a real problem with kids who have money. Instead of pot, it was cocaine. This of course will happen with any group that has money, I think, so it wasn't the Catholic part of the school, it was the money. Not sure how you prepare for that other than maintaining a good relationship with your kids?

Quick update before my monthly update where I actually share financial information!

School bus is coming along! AH is churning out the projects, currently he is working on a front door and getting the windows prepped to secure the windows more for winter. It sounds like once the windows are all secure then he might move to getting the ceiling installed. It's exciting watching the changes over such a short period. DH is plugging away at the roof raise. This is such a huge project it can be discouraging. And sometimes I behave badly and give DH a hard time. That's all I'll say about that. Just part of the normal ups and downs of building I think. I've requested January off and we'll see the state of the bus by then. If it's water tight and legal, we'll be fine.

Homeschool:
We've both made our son cry during homeschool. He just wasn't in to it and we pushed. Lesson learned. He's slowly learning classic school stuff and making decent progress with helping around the house. He runs to help with dinner or any other project in the kitchen. Last night we made pesto and he was sitting on the counter helping. We both had to wear our ear protections because I borrowed a friends Vitamix. Those things are loud. During dinner, he wanted butter and the butter jar on the table was out. So he hopped over to the fridge to get more. That is a big deal to me. He didn't wait around for us to get it for him. So that's progress in raising a human that doesn't usually get tracked at school. Of course, I don't know since I've never had a kid in school.

Food production:

Harvested all of the beautiful blue corn I grew for making tortillas. They need to dry and then I've got some work to do to turn them into tortillas. They are stunningly beautiful. I picked most of the tomatoes to make sure they didn't get destroyed by a frost and I think they should ripen off the vine. I hope to roast them and freeze them. So far, my garden has produced a crap ton of beans and a decent amount of potatoes, beets, carrots, kale, sunflower seeds, a handful of winter squash, an adorable watermelon and some limited greens. I'm heading out to the friend who has the big green house today to do more weeding and planting. So far, we've planted a lot of beets, carrots, arugula and other winter greens. I'm not as focused on planting at my house as a result which isn't great. But, I've got some stuff planted, just not as much as last year.

I bought a used dehydrator. It's older and simple and works great. So far, I've got a bunch of plums and plum leather processed. Plum leather is the bomb. I can't get over how delicious it is, and so simple. I had the plums before I had the dehydrator so I froze a gallon jar of the ground plums. I need to get on finding some apple trees and I think I have a leaf for grapes. It's so easy to find free fruit once you start noticing it around. I found some more plums on the side of the road that I think are good and low enough to harvest. It doesn't seem like we'll ever have 'enough' dried plums the way we eat them!

Work:
Thank goodness the vaccine drama at work is slowly reducing. Now it's just the patients causing problems! Which is just fine, I'd rather be stressed by patient work any day of the week. I am in charge of the blood bank and I can't believe how many people have desperately needed transfusions this month. It's unreal. The other day we gave out 24 units of blood and plasma. That's a record for me. And we have a TINY inventory! Anyway, I know that doesn't make much sense outside the lab, but it was a big deal. And the dr was a classy guy and thanked us for our work. That's gravy on top for me, I knew my coworker and I had done a good job. Plus, the patient was still alive when I left for the day. Times like this I wonder what the future will be like with a changing world. What will medicine be like in 50 years? Will that person die right away if our high tech world goes away?

I've got to spend some time with money, I'm committed to having an accounting of where our money went this month, though I am dreading seeing the numbers. But, it's good to have some idea of what and where it's going.

[Hristo Botev]

Just from personal experience from going to a Catholic high school, drugs were a real problem with kids who have money. Instead of pot, it was cocaine. This of course will happen with any group that has money, I think, so it wasn't the Catholic part of the school, it was the money. Not sure how you prepare for that other than maintaining a good relationship with your kids?

Funny, the Catholic school in our metro area that has a classical education model that I find appealing costs about $30K/year to go to, which makes it a big fat NO--not necessarily because of the cost (if it were really worth it, we'd pay it), but because we don't want our kids going to school with kids whose parents would spend $30K/year for school (the saying "I wouldn't join a club that would have me as a member" comes to mind). I was talking to someone whose kids went to one of the other really expensive Catholic schools in town and he said it used to drive him nuts when his kid would come home and ask things like: "hey dad, can I go to Colorado with Johnny this weekend for skiing, they're taking the jet out there Friday evening, back by Sunday evening?"

Umm, hard no.

Meanwhile, a couple of the Chesterton type schools we're looking at as part of GTFOD plan cost less per year than the public schools part of our property tax bill currently.

That said, DW and I both went to a large public high school with a wide variety of income levels; BUT, even still, it didn't take a whole lot to be considered a "rich kid"--it was a pretty poor town, at least relative to where we live now. And there was plenty of drugs around there, too--though not cocaine, that I was aware of.

[mooretrees]

Warning, this post actually contains numbers and not just thoughts!

Food Home: 406.93
Food out: 153.73
Mort/Bills: 879.49
Vehicles: 295.19
Health: 327.11
Son: 155.20
House: 305.64
Rabbits: 15.00
Misc: 245.46
Total: 2783.74 (does not include expenses related to school bus build)

Money In: 3815.13 (two paychecks, birthday money and the gov't check for having a kid)

These totals might be slightly inaccurate as I don't think I captured cash transactions. I'll dissect the categories now.

Food home is decent. I keep getting free food and fruit. We're trading coffee for eggs and some veggies with a friend. I've stocked up on some veggies for winter (basil, tomatoes, corn) so this total is higher for that reason. It seems likely we could easily get it under $400 in October.
Food out: This category is huge for us. I am responsible for this as I attempted to buy some happiness at work for coworkers by bringing treats and lunch for a few of them. Work has been stressful and I tried to mitigate it, likely a futile gesture and not to be repeated.
Mort/bills: found out that we haven't paid the internet bill in MONTHS. So, we had to pay up and it was almost $200 and this category shouldn't be as high again.
Vehicles: We made two trips to Portland and gas prices have risen. Don't anticipate doing that again.
House: Bought a dehydrator (used) which was the big purchase.
Son: He's got a weekly meeting with a preschool teacher at $40/hour so this should stay somewhat similar going forward.
Health: DH is going to a therapist now.
Misc: replaced a broken phone with a (new) used phone and some other stuff for DH.

As I spent time collecting this information and getting a sense of about what we had spent, I realized I didn't feel too much emotion about the numbers. I've had spurts of being embarrassed or guilty or reluctant to share this financial information. But mostly I felt like, oh, well this is what we've spent. I do want to spend less, but I felt like most of our purchases were relatively thoughtful or planned out. Maybe I'm actually an optimizer now in Wheaton levels?

[7Wannabe5]

I think you skipped right over Optimizer and took much more social being than typical forum member detour to Stocks and Flows

[AxelHeyst]

Yeah what 7 said. Did your Official Third Party Verified Wheaton Level 6 card and certificate not come in yet?

[mooretrees]

@7w5, I didn't think it was possible to skip levels?

@AH, I'm still looking for the card in the mailbox!

Not ready to do a numbers post yet, still need to sit down with receipts and the bank account. This will be more of a rambling, brain dump post.

Food:
I pulled out the electric grain grinder I bought earlier this year and have started grinding some hard winter wheat. It's a fairly seamless transition to use it in place of regular white flour. A little grittiness and wholewheatyness hasn't been a problem for muffins, cornbread or dutch babies. I got a friends sourdough starter and it doesn't seem to like the whole wheat flour, so not sure what I'll do to address that.

I half jokingly suggested to DH that we didn't need to go food shopping this month as we've got a lot of stored food. He seems open to it so far, though once we run out of butter that might change. We get milk delivered and trade coffee for eggs, bread, veggies, and the occasional goat cheese. The winter garden I've been helping at is starting to produce harvestable sized food, not a lot, but some greens. With some creativity, we can eat the canned goods, winter squash, onions, frozen veggies, and garlic I have stored. We have rabbit meat and will be getting a quarter of a beef soon. So far, not going to the store has been easy, but we might have to get creative with what we cook soon. It seems like a fun idea and I'm not feeling like it would be a failure to go to the store, just interesting to see how long we could pull this off.

I made another round of the fermented hot sauce and it is just amazing. Hot, but not unbearable and you don't pay for it the next day. One more batch is on the horizon and then the fun is over. I started a new garlic kraut ferment a few days ago. Just salt and garlic blended together. It's possible the garlic can go green and blue during its fermentation before it settle into a brown. The last hot sauce ferment had some bluish garlic after two or so weeks. Something to research. I'm getting a reputation as a fermenter which is funny as I've just been at it for about a year. But that's what I get for talking about it so much!

Health:
I've given up sleeping with a pillow. There were a few stiff necks for a few weeks but now I'm comfortable. It's possible that that change has made my neck and shoulder more loose? I kept getting a stiff, slightly painful neck after doing kettlebell swings a few months ago. I felt like my form was good (video taped myself to check) and I had to stop doing swings. I'm slowly picking up the swings again and after three days, I'm not yet experiencing any neck pain. I've also been walking a lot more, usually in the morning by myself. I'm not trying to 'exercise' so much as move more. I've figured out that my calves and hips are quite tight, so I'm focusing more on regular stretches/rolling out those areas. I'm getting wrapped up with Katy Bowman's 'nutritious movement' ideas; lots of sitting on different surfaces, moving more, and realizing how adapted my body is to the modern world of chairs, rigid shoes, sedentary culture etc.

School bus:
AxelHeyst made a HUGE difference in the school bus during his time here. It's really taking shape inside now. He did the following projects (we listed them on his last night at our fun dinner):
-installed and made the door (quite a huge project)
-built the wheel well boxes
-insulated and put up siding on the lower walls
-waterproofed the bus windows and re-installed them
-painted the window trim
-built out the framing for the back wall of the bus, then insulated and put siding up on it
-fitted some replacements for two windows that we broke during the deconstruction
and probably I'm missing some stuff.
Pictures to come soon.

We went to the DMV yesterday to get the low down on getting it titled and registered as an RV. They said we needed to have sleeping quarters and a permanent kitchen. That's a pretty low bar and what DH is going to focus on to get us road worthy by the end of next month. NEXT MONTH!!!! DH wasn't a slacker during AH's time with us, he got five of the ten roof raise windows installed. They look amazing. Five more to go and he can move to the interior.

I enjoyed the heck out of having AH here. He's really mellow and self-contained in real life. I loved our shared language and how we could dive right into deep ERE conversations over coffee in the kitchen (usually after at least one cup). I liked the subtle influence of being around someone who spent less than we do. I worked a bit harder to find free food as I knew he would appreciate it. We had a number of dinners together spontaneously which was lovely. He also routinely cleaned the french press so it was ready to go in the morning, that was wonderful. Also, he's just cool and funny and could deal with my kiddo gracefully. After he left (the second time, see his journal for more details) I told DH I don't want another roommate. I think we've had it as good as we can with roommates and should end on a high note. We have plans to try and visit AH and his lovely lady over the winter and I day dream of pitching in on some projects he might need help with (hint, hint!). He gave us a deal on his hourly fee for rent and coffee and I think everyone involved felt like it was a good situation. He really jumpstarted the interior build and made it feasible for us to go to San Diego in the bus.

Random stuff:
Back to making candles again. A friend pitched in and bought molds for pillars and I've made two batches of them. I still prefer the tapers as I love the process of dipping them over and over. The utility is high for the pillars as they'll burn a long time. My friend wants to give them as xmas presents so I need to figure out how many she wants and if I need more beeswax. I still haven't sold any yet, and likely won't try again until I feel like my tapers and pillars look really professional. In the meantime, I'm burning them now as the days shorten. With a wood stove and candles, it's easy to feel like I've got the good life figured out.

[horsewoman]

Hi mooretrees, I'm very glad that going PT is working out for you and your family! It sounds like life is good for you
Regarding Montessori - my kid has been in a private M school for a few years now, and I still think it is the perfect mode of learning for her, but I have to admit that the pandemic disillusioned me a little. It seems that the M pedagogic is very attractive to anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers and anti-science people.
Luckily my daughter's main teacher is not afflicted with that madness, but a lot of the others are (including the principal, if I'm interpreting the language of information letters to the parents correctly.) They are very open to mask exemptions and stuff. I think my kid is one of very few vaccinated teenagers. It has been a bit disappointing. And worrisome, since I too feel like that you need to be careful with whom you surround yourself.
BTW I loved your sign, and that you had the guts to hold it up with no support around. That's the kind of civil courage we need.

Kudos to you for making firewood by hand! Since we are doing it with a tractor, equipped with a winch, a 20 ton splitter and chainsaws/buzz saws (which is hard work still) I'm super impressed by you doing it manually.

All the best to you and yours from our little farm in Germany!

[mooretrees]

@horsewoman, so glad to hear from you! I've been wondering how you were and hoping you hadn't left the forum. Thanks for your kind words. That's such a bummer to hear about the Montessori folks, though it's not totally surprising. i wish people if they were anti-vax, wouldn't be anti- mask and any kind of precaution. And totally feel the same way, i do pay attention to who I surround myself (and my son) more than before the pandemic. It's tiring.

The wood cutting is going slowly, but it's one of those things that is hard but FUN. So not a chore. Especially if I space it out. Hope to hear more from your little farm in Germany!

[mooretrees]

Likely my last post for a month or so as we're heading out on a road trip next week. We won't be in the bus as we learned at the DMV there was a newer title than what the dealer gave us. So far, the dealer hasn't seemed that interested in looking for the title for us. Now we're switching to dealing with Montana state so that should be a slow haul to get the correct title. That hiccup means we can't finish getting it reregistered as an RV and can't insure it. So, we'll take the car and poke around the SW. We were originally going to my in-laws, but they have a relative living with them doing chemo treatments and with Omicron, well, it just seemed too risky. So, now we're camping and going to drive around California, Utah and maybe Arizona.

School bus is starting to develop inside, it's too messy to share photos. We've a bed platform, a sink, a cooking area and the shell of a 'hall' closet. DH needs to do more waterproofing once it's dry enough. We've gotten a lot of snow and rain here the last few weeks and he's putting long hours in but it gets pretty cold out there.

I'm ready for a good long break from work, this will be my longest time off since maternity leave four years ago. While working part time is mostly amazing, the workplace leaves a lot to be desired these days. One of my hopes for this trip is that DH and I can have some deep conversations about the coming year. We need to decide if we're going to sell or keep this house. We also need to decide how much longer I'll work this job. I'm hoping a break will refresh me and I can stomach it for another year or more. It would be ideal if I could work it deep into 2023. With the housing market in our town, we could sell this place and possibly net a $100k after fees and such. I'm hoping my Mastermind buddies can help us figure this out.

I finally got worn down having an energetic four year old at home and put him in preschool two days a week. As an only child and due to our caution with COVID, he's not had a lot of exposure to other kids or a classroom environment. I still entertain the idea of homeschooling him, but we haven't done a good job of that this past fall. I am not sure we're homeschooling types anymore.

Covid: I'm over the fear of covid these days. I can't summon the concern of previous days. DH and I have our boosters and there's good treatments out there if you get it. It feels like a matter of when, not if. I still don't want to get it, but I'm not restricting myself too much these days. Also feel that I'm not a such a great risk, I'm not too old, not obese or diabetic and generally pretty healthy.

A young coworker who has been doing crossfit for years watched me do my kettlebell swings. I asked her as I was still getting a sore neck after doing them. She figured out I was hunching my shoulders. I've been doing them for a week and a half with a lot of focus on pulling my shoulder blades together and it's working great. Phew. I was getting really discouraged and not sure what else to do. I mean, I know there's a million exercises, but I really liked the efficiency of the swings.

One last bit, I finally sold some candles! I got a last minute invite to a holiday bazaar at a rock n roll venue. I whipped together some of my best hand dipped tapers to date and made $100 off of them. Not too shabby. I can see that turning into a nice little side business maybe next year. I made enough to recoup some of the start up costs. And learned that, for the holiday season anyway, my demographic is over 65 women. Not what I would have expected.

[mooretrees]

Sell or Rent.

We're a few months of hard work away from moving into a mostly finished bus. We're going for a 'livable with some future projects' bus. Livable means dry, warm, toilet, food storage and cooking area and separate sleeping areas. That still will mean a fairly together bus, but hopefully having a clear plan means DH can get it done in a few months. Since he's moved to the interior it is easier to see progress happening so I don't think this is wishful thinking on my part.

So, the one area we're not clear on is whether we'll be selling or renting our house. It's a great market for both. Internet searches say we could sell it for between $244-282 K or rent it for $1500/month. I've been researching capital gains and was initially turned off of renting as I saw only that we had to occupy the house for two years before we would be exempt from capital gains. Now I realize that we have more flexibility with the 2 in 5 rule. Basically, if within the last five years the owner, or both owners in our case, lived in the house for at least two of those five years (doesn't need to be consecutive) than we are not required to pay capital gains taxes. Also, this is another instance where having a low to very low income would reduce the tax burden if we didn't meet that 2 in 5 rule. Also, I think we might not need to be too worried about capital gains as it's unlikely the house would appreciate over $500,000, but I'm not sure I'm totally sure about that part.

It is possible that we could seel the house for around $80 - 100 K 'profit' accounting for real estate fees, closing costs and if we do make any upgrades to sell it.

I'm attracted to both options. The clean break of selling and having a good chuck of money. In some ways, this would put us at the 'starting' line of ERE. No debt and a bunch of money that is available to us immediately. The renting is attractive because it gives us a backdoor out of the school bus in case it doesn't work out. Also, it would be another stream of income for us, maybe not a huge one, but another one. We've played around with the idea of turning this house into two rentals, and even more crazy, adding a studio to our garage. We could hold on to it, pay down the mortgage and sell it when we find the next property we love.

Pros and cons for both:
It's actually really intimidating to have a large amount of money; I'd have to finally look into investing. The renting could either mean another part time job for both of us (me as the landlord, DH as the maintenance man) that could be super annoying and if we got a bad set of renters that would be shit. Or, we could have a property management company handle it and lose out on any significant extra income. I assume that last bit, I haven't talked with any property management people yet. We haven't yet displayed much aptitude for preventative maintenance, so renting could force us to get better at that. Or become a huge burden?

The mortgage is about $760 and I'm not sure if the insurance would change with renters? So, if we rent it for $1500, then we'd net almost the same as the mortgage. We could pay extra on the mortgage, save a couple hundred for house stuff (will need to replace the roof, have money for replacing appliances etc) and pocket $300 a month. Which doesn't seem like a ton, but could be our food budget. It's not a clear cut choice. I guess if our housing costs were gone (living in the bus for minimal rent or a work share) then getting an extra $300 a month could really be a big deal. Is it worth the learning curve and the potential for bad renters?

People in my life who are older universally think selling is a bad idea. I see that as a product of 'normal' financial thinking. It's hard for them to understand not wanting a house or the focus on reducing expenses. A coworker said to me some time ago, that everyone she knows that's done well had some part of their wealth in a home. I don't think that's a compelling reason to own a home. Anyway, this post is just an attempt to lay down the potential pathways we could choose with this house.

[Biscuits and Gravy]

There is a huge mental load that is lifted when you sell and walk away from a house, IME. So many cares (such as, well golly one day we’ll have to replace that darn roof) suddenly disappear and you recover mental and emotional energy you didn’t realize you were spending on a bunch of wood nailed to a slab of concrete (I’m not in construction, don’t ask me). You are capable of developing a sound investment strategy, and you’ve got years of reading this forum to guide you.

[mooretrees]

I totally agree BnG, as I was writing that post, it seemed like the only pro to renting the house was the escape from the bus option. Which seems a little silly?

[theanimal]

If the bus doesn't work out and you have sold your house, you'll have a good chunk of capital to be able to find yourself another option. It seems like the potentials for keeping the house cause more headaches (more things that can go wrong) and it seems like you're acknowledging that as well.

I imagine it's exciting to be so close to the end! New journeys are close on the horizon.

[mountainFrugal]

Just a few more questions without exact answers. Is it possible that you would want to return to the same community if the Bus does not fully work out? From my understanding you are a community wizard so this may not be an issue, but keeping ties there could be helpful and worth the extra short term headache of figuring out rentals if you and your family *could* see yourselves staying under some scenarios. What excites you to learn about more... rental based real estate or investing in the broader market? Of all the things you have thought about what are the worst case scenario downsides? If all of them came true would they still allow you to live the Skoolie life you have been working towards? All decent options, just need to decide what potential downsides you are willing to live with!