If you’re thinking to build your own house or somewhat interested but don’t know where to start, high 5! Happened to us too and look, 1 year later, our house is currently building in progress as I am typing now.
So don’t worry if you feel overwhelmed with the idea or you think you are not good enough to have that dream. We are not good enough too! But we’re figuring it together, learning a few lessons along the way, putting it here so you don’t have to learn it the hard way, like us!
Here is what we do to ‘warm up’ the engine before start:
- Feasible test – Haha kidding, just want to use big words to sound sophisticated. I think the word here is more like ‘reflection and planning’. First you reflect on the life you had /having, then you envision the life you want to have. Are you really OK to move further from the city and live by yourself? Do you have family commitments? Like us, we’re obligated see my mother-in-law every weekend so with these factors in our mind, it will help with the planning part.
- Location – Related to point 1, you need to ask yourself how much you are need/willing to travel. N is still working a full time job, he needs to travel pretty often and we also still need to go to the city area almost every weekend so we can’t move too far, max 1.5 hours drive to and fro which means that we can look for location max 45 mins away from KL which approximately is about 50km from the center.
- Budget – This part is slightly tricky as part and most of you will think that you don’t have enough funds to do so. i think what is important here is to ask yourself how much you are willing to pay for the house you are going to stay in? Doesn’t matter in the city or suburbs, but how much? For example in our case, we calculated our income and the amount of money we are WILLING to pay for owning a house/property comes up about RM750,000 max. So no matter where our house location is, this is the amount we need or will spend for housing. With this in mind, we need to calculate backwards and allocate money for the land and the project construction itself. In KL, a RM750,000 landed property usually need quite a bit of renovation and it’s not that big. We weighed out the pros and cos and to see what kind of property we can get with the same amount of money in the suburbs and the answer is a very big property at least 3-5 times the land size in KL. Next, we just need to figure out how much does it take to construct a house, ballpark figure so we know how much left we can allocate for the land itself. No point just getting a land and staying in tents right?
- Timeline – When do you want to do this? We know many people who started farming on their own land, with no worry in their life, built a nice little hut that they can go on weekends and they are like in their 50s. You know the typical retirement idea. I think N really sold me this dream when he mentioned why wait til 50? Why can’t we start now and work on it while we have the energy? Many people think that it would need loads of money and time to do this. Money yes, but not a lot depends on your expectation. Time yes, but with proper planning I think it is feasible. We gave ourself 5 years to build this dream, from planning to building the house and enjoying our first harvest, chilli padi also count ya! This is our 3rd year in since we started planning for this. Not just plain talk/dream.
- Intention/Goal/Outcome – I think intention affects the outcome so it’s important to ask yourself what do you want to get out of this plan? Is it because it’s a hipster thing to do? or is it because you want to live a quiet life independently? For us, our intention is to live as self-sufficient as possible without compromising our kids welfare/happiness because at the end of the day, it’s us who want this life, not them. They are just tagging along. So we need to consider their needs and social life as well. That’s why when we choose a location, it cannot be too far from civilization (i.e schools, shopping malls, tuition classes if they ever need it) though the further the better in terms of nature but it is possible to strike a balance. We just need to make a checklist.
I hope this post will help you get started with the planning to live your dream life and I’m here to tell you it is possible, not without challenges of course but definitely do-able with the love and grace from God.
All the best!
RR