The Cost of Our Danish Homestead
A Look Inside the Economy of Buying a 100 Year Old Farmhouse on 2 Acres in Northern Denmark
My Dear Reader,
This autumn my husband and I were sat by the kitchen table on a rainy and windy day. Excel sheets and bank apps where spread out in front of us.
“The numbers do not add up.” I told Herluf. The rain was flooding down the window, and the wind was howling as it was finding its way through the cracks of our home.
This may come as a surprise for some of you, but we are not the owners of our Danish farmhouse. Merely tenants.
Last June, when we took over our farmhouse and homestead, we did not buy the place ourselves. However we did agree to buy the home as soon as Herluf had gotten a full-time job and we had saved up enough to take out a loan in the bank.
Well, it’s been almost two years since moving in. Herluf has had a full-time job as a web developer since this summer.
In conclusion: Our time of renting was coming to an end.
The time to buy is now.
Herluf looked solemn as he put more firewood into the burning masonry oven, that was keeping us warm in the autumn storm.
“If we want to save up enough to buy the house in the near future, we have to cut our expenses down to the bare minimum,” I continued. “That includes building materials and tools for renovating the house. All renovations must come to a complete halt.”
I knew this was what Herluf least of all wanted to hear.
A big part of why he agreed to move out here, into a 100 year old farmhouse in the woods, was in order to fix it up. He never wanted to live in something that was not finished, an open wound.
What he wanted, most of all, was to work on the house. To devote all of his time to renovating, building and crafting a home, like he had done originally in that summer we moved in.
But now, he would have to, instead, work away from the home, at a full-time job in the city. There would be no money for renovations. For the coming winter we would have to buckle up, and simply do less, in order to save more.
I know this is kind of taboo in the artist industry, but being short on money lit a fire under my creativity.
All autumn the fire in me was blazing, as wild and warm as the one keeping our house warm.
While being pregnant and a stay-a-home-mother to our two year old, I doubled the amount of Youtube videos, I filmed, edited and published, and I wrote my newsletter every week and turned paid subscribtions on here on Substack.
All in all, my creative endeavors made us around 2000 dollars, which we could put into our savings.
Herluf too, was able to negotiate a raise in December, and we were able to put aside 30 % of his earnings into saving each month. For the house and all of our renovation plans, they have laid dormant through-out the winter.
Up till now…
This spring we contacted our bank, like we did 2 years ago, and this time, the answer was: “Yes.”
Finally, we had saved up enough money, and with the security of Herlufs full-time job and no daycare expenses for our children, we were finally approved for a loan.
5 Steps We Took to Save Money
Now, before we get into the cold numbers of it all and the costs of our Danish homestead, here is 5 steps we took in order to save up enough to take out a loan for our home: