Your Dream Might Be Closer Than You Think: 6 Lessons

As I sit and watch the snowfall through the window, it hits me.

We are living the dream.

In fact, we have had multiple people tell us “that’s the dream”.

At 32 and 28, my wife and I bought our dream property.

What is your biggest dream?

Are you on track for achieving it?

Read on for our journey and the 6 lessons I learned along the way.

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When I first moved to Montana for college, I fell in love with the mountains. I grew up skiing and I was in Boy Scouts, so I spent a decent amount of time playing outdoors, but I hadn’t really adventured until I came to Montana. 

College was four years of falling in love with Mountains—it’s when I started climbing mountains, both in the summer and the winter, and when I got really into rock climbing, mountain biking, hunting, etc.

In college, I remember talking about how I wanted to live in a cabin in the woods. I wanted to chop wood and do stuff on the property. At the time, I didn’t really know what that meant or entailed, but it was still exciting to me and I’ve held onto that over the years.

After college, every place I lived had a view of the mountains from at least one window. That was always important to me. Despite how small of a view, it had to have at least one.

When my wife entered the picture, she had similar aspirations. She grew up in Montana, outside of town, on 5 acres and a lot of privacy, a log cabin hand built by her dad for a “playhouse”. She longed to get back to something similar.

Early on in our relationship we set a goal of having property that would provide privacy, quiet, access to activities, and opportunities for us to build an incredible life.

We often talked about this dream (especially when we could hear the college girls next door partying). But it took us a bit to start trying to figure out how to make it a reality.

In January of 2021, as part of our annual goal setting exercise, we set a goal to buy a house in the summer of 2023. That gave us 18 months to build up a down payment. We set things up so that each month money went into that “down payment” bucket in our savings account, and basically forgot about it.

We didn’t start getting serious until January of 2023, when we sat down for our annual goal setting, and as part of the exercise we realized that for both of us our #1 priority had become owning land.

Once we realized this, our attitude changed from passively saving up for a down payment, and actively putting everything we had into achieving this dream. 

So, we downloaded Zillow and started looking for land. We also looked a bit at houses but quickly decided that what we wanted was too specific and it would be near impossible to find the right house on the right land (at least within what we could afford).

The first property we looked at was great. The agent had to take us up in a side-by-side because the wind had drifted the road with snow. When we got up to the property, there were 20 elk standing right on the lot. 

Sold!

This property sat on top of the world with mountain views in 3 directions. 

How could you beat it?

The problem was the access. And remoteness. To get power and utilities and access in the winter would be extremely difficult and costly. So that one was out.

We then proceeded to look at property after property and ultimately put offers in on 5 different places.

The first one, the seller refused to come down and then when we came up, he decided to no longer sell the property.

The second one, the seller's agent was out of town which led to some miscommunication and ultimately our offer got beat out.

The third one, we decided to just buy a house instead of land since we were frustrated and wanted to get into something sooner. This was only on 2 acres but was a very cool, very custom home. That seller refused to budge as well and we didn’t believe the property would appraise for what they wanted.

The fourth one was it. 20 acres, backed up to national forest, an A frame log style home. Exactly what we wanted. We had an offer (over asking) and everything ready before we even looked at it (2nd day on the market). Through an error with the seller's agent, they accidentally agreed to our offer but it ended up not being enforceable. It was an emotional roller coaster of “is it ours or not?”. Ultimately they accepted a different offer despite ours being higher.

After going all in for so many properties that fell through it was starting to feel like this dream just wasn’t meant to happen—at least not right now.

However, we had learned something important.

We realized that this property was by far the most important thing in our lives at the time. It would unlock everything else for us. 

It had to be our top priority.

We had also really narrowed things down because we knew exactly what we didn’t want. And after losing out on the last property it became painfully obvious what our non-negotiables needed to be.  

We needed:

• Enough land to roam

• To not be able to see any other houses

• Big windows with a view of the mountains

• To feel like lived in the forest

• To back up to public land

• A log cabin style with lots of windows

• Cabins for guests

• A space for a pottery studio

• To be able to ski out the back door

• To be able to hunt on the property

A little while after coming to this realization, I remembered a property that we had almost gone to look at several months prior but ultimately decided not to because it was snow-machine access only in the winter. When I pulled up the listing, it was still available, and it met most of those criteria.

“Why don’t we go check this place out”, I said to my wife. 

“Fine, but I’m not getting my hopes up”, she replied.

As we drove into the property for the first time, it got densely forested. 

Then we drove through the big overhead log entrance gate (always wanted one of those).

Then we drove by the first out building and saw the sign “Behr Pottery”. Turns out it was a pottery studio. I looked at my wife and she just said “shut up”, not wanting to get her hopes up.

Then we passed by two log cabins. Perfect for the guests we would want to host.

Then we get up to the main house. Half is a log home with lots of windows. The other half is a converted train caboose. Very cool.

Then we tour the house, hand built by the seller who had lived there for 45 years. Everything custom, everything hand done.

The guest bedroom is 3 walls of glass that sits “inside” the forest. Literally my wife’s dream.

The master bed looks out a big window at the mountains.

The master bath looks out a big window at the mountains.

Everything looks out at the mountains.

Turns out this property checked all of our boxes and all the ones we had wished for but didn’t put down because they seemed so unlikely.

So we put an offer in. And this time… the sellers accepted.

We quickly ran into challenges with financing (snow machine access), then insurance, inspection, appraisal, moving in January when the road isn’t plowed. Literally every step of the way there was a problem to overcome.

But ultimately we were able to make it happen. 

And now we are living our dream. It hits me sometimes, when I walk in the door, or wake up in the morning, or when we eat dinner in the cupola in the caboose. This is everything we wanted.

So that’s great for us, but what is the takeaway for you? 

How can you accomplish your biggest dreams?

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When I reflect on it, there are several things we did that allowed us to make this happen.

1. Have a dream

This might seem obvious, but if you don’t have a clearly defined dream, then it will be difficult for you to achieve it. My wife and I had talked many times and even written down what we wanted. We very much knew what we were working towards.

2. Understand what it takes to accomplish

Sometimes dreams are closer than you think. It was for us. We really didn’t think this would be exactly possible at this point in time. However, once we started looking into it more, crunching the numbers, and figuring out how to do it, we realized we could make it happen.

3. Have a strong financial foundation

The biggest reason we were able to pull this off is because we had worked hard to put ourselves in a very strong financial position. From the time we first went under contract to the time we closed the amount we had to put down increased 4 times and went up by 80%. We could not have done that without starting in a place that gave us flexibility.

4. Know that your dreams are worth it

I have always been very frugal. I don’t like to spend money and have always been a good saver. As time has gone on though, I realized that money is meant to be spent. You need to do it right, but we had created so many buffers and safety factors within our financial situation, that it was okay to move beyond that. What else was this money good for if not buying and ultimately living our dream life?

5. Focus on what is truly important to you

My wife and I knew what was important to us and therefore were willing to refrain from spending in other areas (travel, eating out, shopping, etc.) that allowed us to be able to accomplish our biggest dream. Decisions become easier when you know why you are making them and you have a system that removes a lot of the decision making for you.

6. Have a system

When we set the goal to buy a home in 18 months, the math didn’t add up. The amount we were saving each month was going to leave us 30% short for our intended down payment. However we hit the timeline dead on. Honestly, I am not quite sure how. 

But then we proceed to double our amount down over the next 6 months. And then we found that extra 80% over the next month. All of this was possible because we have a very clear automated financial system in place. Our money goes where we need it to and nowhere else. Our money is in sync with what we want and how we want to live.

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What is crazy about this whole thing is that when I think about it, it took 10 years to accomplish this. 

The journey began after college when I started working. Within 10 years, I saved, invested, grew my income, got married, continued doing the same, found the dream, bought the dream, and now live the dream.

10 years is not that long. And that is basically starting from 0 (I was actually negative monies coming out of college).

So no matter where you are today, imagine what you can accomplish in 10 years. 

What is your biggest, wildest, most outlandish dream? 

Think about that. 

Write it down.

Then follow the steps I outlined above to make it a reality.

Your dream might be closer than you think.