People Always Ask How We Pay for This. This Is the Answer.

They always ask.

How do you pay for this?
How do you afford that?
How did you make this happen?

The question is never neutral. It’s never just curiosity. It’s a challenge. A polite way of calling us liars. Of saying this life must be a trick, a scam, a fantasy we fabricated for likes.

Because if it’s real, if it’s possible, then what does that mean for you?

So they poke holes.
They look for the angle.
They want the catch.
They want the cheat code.
They want to be told it’s fake so they don’t have to try.

And then, in the same breath, they ask for advice.
In a TikTok comment.
As if a sentence could replace a decade.
As if we haven’t already spent years clawing our way out of the wreckage they’re still calling normal.

Let’s be clear.

We’re not “just homesteaders.”
We didn’t buy a couple chickens and plant tomatoes and call it freedom.

We sold everything.
Walked away from comfort.
Left jobs. Burned bridges. Buried dreams.
We paid in blood, sleep, money, isolation, broken bodies, and years we can’t get back.
That’s how we paid for this.

And then they say—
“But what about property taxes?”
“Don’t you still need gas?”
“You still use the system.”

As if we haven’t had to buy gas.
As if we didn’t know property taxes exist.
As if we built an entire life outside the system and forgot the system still exists.

We’re not morons.
We didn’t get here by accident.
We got here by confronting every cost, every dependency, every single thing that could keep us trapped—and doing something about it.

What’s insulting is thinking we didn’t already do that math.
Thinking that pointing out property taxes is some kind of gotcha.
Thinking you're exposing a flaw when really you're just exposing your own refusal to try.

We didn't inherit land. We didn't win the lottery.
We earned this life the hardest way you can:
By deciding it was the only way we could live with ourselves.

So no, this life isn’t for you if you're still asking how we paid for it all.
Because what you’re really asking is to be let off the hook.
You want someone to tell you this life isn’t real—so you can stay where you are and feel okay about it.

But this life is real.
And the cost wasn’t just financial. It was existential.

If you think you’re entitled to the answer for free, you're proving exactly why you don't have it.
This life isn’t passed down in comments or how-to guides or neatly-packaged hacks.

It has to be earned.
And most people don’t want to pay what it costs.

We stopped answering the question because we realized it was never really a question.
It was a confession.
That you don’t believe people like us exist.
That you're still trying to convince yourself you’re not stuck.

But we are real.
And that’s the problem.
Because now you have no excuse.

So next time you wonder how we paid for it—
Know this:

We paid with everything.

And we’d do it again.