I started to listen to the audiobook of “Meet the Frugalwoods ” from the library after reading the synopsis on it. It’s about a young couple who decided in 2014 to stop working the conventional 9-5 job in the city and live their dream of owning a homestead in the rural Vermont area. The book starts out giving some background on Elizabeth and then her husband Nate.

As I am someone that is always looking at ways to cut back on something to save more money in hopes that one day herself could own a piece of land and dream about not working the conventional 9-5 job or in my case the 6:30 -3:30 job. I did really enjoy knowing that this couple who was also from the Midwest like myself found a way to not only quit their jobs but also find a little piece of heaven in Vermont.

Right away, Elizabeth started asking the hard questions:

“What would you do if you didn’t need a paycheck?”

“What is your passion in life?”

“ What is stopping you from making that a reality?”

This really got me thinking what would I do if I didn’t need a paycheck, what is my passion? I have had the dream for the past few years of owning a piece of land around 5-10 acres somewhere, ideally not in the state that I live in right now with my dog and I would love not to have to go to a job Monday through Friday 9-5 but instead make my own money and choose how much I want to work, if at all. More than anything not to have to worry about money and the high raise in pricing everywhere those days.

What is stopping you from making this happen?

When the pandemic hit in 2020 and the whole world was forced to shut down. I’m not going to lie I was ok with it, not in the sense that we were in a pandemic or that there was a virus taking over the world but more I just needed a break from people. What I thought would be a nice work from home situation in my case was not. I worked at an office that could offer online services but having never done that before someone needed to stay in the office to figure it out and that person was me (with a couple of other people who preferred to work in the office then home).

I tell you the great toilet paper shortage of 2020 really open my eyes, and showed me what I don’t want in life anymore. I had taken to talking to a few friends and how to start saving money and making money on the side to better save for the future. One friend in particular show me the world of online selling. Now don’t get me wrong I love the people I work with and have learned so much from the place I worked but it took a pandemic to really open my eyes on working towards something different.

I took to 2020 to being a learning year and starting watching YouTube videos and started following accounts on what to sell on eBay. I wasn’t sure how shipping worked and started using Mercari to help learn more. I also went into to buying a domain name for a website but had no clue what to put on it. I did sell a few things online but nothing much, and that is ok. I moved into 2021 with the goal of trying to make more money to sell online. Talking to my friend and learning from what I have sold online, I went to making an area in the in my basement and went on buying items to sell once I made money from selling something.