I bought land on Facebook Marketplace for $40K. Now I live there with a single mom I met on Threads and our 3 kids.

This as-told-to composition is according to a conversation alongside Yolanda Williams, 46, who lives in chief Arkansas alongside her 9-year-old female on a ranch alongside another sole mom and her two kids. They assistance all another alongside childcare, mental support, and more. This discussion has been edited for dimension and clarity.

In 2021, following my female Gia and I got COVID, we decided to obtain a run one day. I came throughout this one small highway that I cut in affection with.

We kept coming back, driving about this neighborhood in Arkansas, and it became our Sunday thing. We'd get in the car and get ourselves a saccharine treat — me a coffee and her a cinnamon rotate — and run about for an hr looking at all the distinct farms and houses and really fair visualizing the existence we wanted.

We did that for two years before I established our 3.19-acre district in agrarian Arkansas. After visiting it, I purchased the district in 2023 on Facebook Marketplace, For-Sale-By-Owner. It disbursal $40,000 to buy, and I put downward $12,000.

It was completely forested raw land, so I could lone see part of it, but I used a real asset agent for the process. At the end of 2024, I secured a aid to assistance pay for the infrastructure, and I spent 2025 getting the district prepared to move into. We didn't move until March 2026 since the district needed clearing and applicable things specified as a driveway and utilities.

The procedure was costly since I didn't have much prosperity remaining to build item on the land. We got an RV as a location to stay, stash money, and build in the next five years.

Before I'm 50, I would akin to have a imperishable residence built on the land

I'm from Southern California, and whenever I remaining in 2017, I was paying $600 to rent a visitant area from my friend. Now, I pay $485 for my district home loan and $400 for my RV fee a month. So, all in all, for me to be on this land, it's about $885 per month. Utilities run concerning $150 to $200 a duration in the summer, and afterward $100 for water. It's exponentially cheaper to live akin this, particularly in Arkansas.

Here we have the liberty to roam and to be outside. I'm continually in the garden. I've really misplaced 30lbs since March since I move so much, and I didn't equal acknowledge it. I'm getting a lot additional sun and exercise — so is my daughter. I awareness additional content, I awareness additional at peace.

However, this move has turned into so much additional than that for us. I've been a single mom since my female Gia was born. She's 9 now, and I've never really felt what it's akin to have support, to have person about all the time. By chance, that all changed this year.

I'm not certain who followed who first, but I met a sole mom called Sunnie on Threads

She posted on the social media app Threads concerning wanting to buy land, and I commented rear that she should regard Arkansas. I explained to her that district is cheap out here, and I gave her a bunch of information.

A few months later, I randomly saw her posting on Threads that she was in Arkansas alongside her two kids, who were 11 and 5 years old, looking for land, so I slipped into her DMs, and we exchanged numbers. I texted her to arrange a meet-up and to display her my land. Mind you, this was before I had really moved onto the property.

The archetypal period we met, we had pizza alongside the kids. They had a appearance around, and the kids played really fine together. Gia likes the pizza crust but not the genuine pizza, and one of Sunnie's kids likes the pizza but not the crust, so it worked out perfectly.

They helped me about the asset as I was in the chief extend of getting everything prepared for me to move on to. That's whenever we got to talking concerning her possibly living current during she searched for her own land.

Sunnie lived in a distinct city concerning an hr from me, and she didn't cognize anyone in Arkansas. I offered her the chance to remain alongside us to evade spending prosperity on hotels and Ubers. Although she wanted to buy her own land, I made it apparent that she was greeted to remain alongside me as lengthy as she wanted to. We now divided the home loan and usefulness expenses in half.

That's how our "mommune" started.

Although we didn't cognize all another for long, I felt a powerful association and vibe

I loved that she was extremely much like, "I desire to put my gloves on, and I desire to assistance you," whenever it came to laying the foundations about the property, specified as weeding, spraying for ticks, construction planters, and sowing seeds. Now we storyline together and develop as much as we can — akin comfrey, citrus balm, mint, and basil. We equal create our own fertilizer.

And you know, that's what's missing. A lot of group desire this life, but they don't desire to really rotate their sleeves up and get dirty to assistance one another.

Sunnie was basically a complete stranger. But what I've been trying to do is hear to myself and rely myself. I really felt a awesome vibe from Sunnie, and my female really took to her. We got along, and it fair felt right.

Yes, it's difficult to build rely since you can't really rely anyone until you commencement to be about them all the time, but the entire item alongside Sunnie is she came, and we sat, and we had a conversation concerning prosperity and concerning expectations and concerning childcare. You fair have to be consenting to have the difficult conversations in command to build a community, and I desire to be about group who comprehend me.

We're now expanding food together and raising wildlings.

This is our matriarchal community

What I continually try to inform group is we need to decenter and deprioritize affectionate relationships and fair concentration on relationships in general, any that assistance looks like.

Whether that's companionship or family, concentration on construction that community, and we volition get the assistance we're looking for, but if you're lone focused on needing a man or a hubby or partner to have safety to awareness supported, afterward a lot of group volition young female out on priceless assistance alongside allies or another women.

For example, I was having a really difficult period this Mother's Day — it's fair a difficult day for me. Sunnie saw that I wasn't in a fine space, so she took the kids and remaining so I could get several solitary time. Having that assistance and knowing that I can say "hey, I'm having a difficult period alongside motherhood correct now" and person volition not lone comprehend but volition assistance me through that by observing my kid for me, taking her to the park, or giving me several area — it has been life-changing. It's the assistance that I need.

We really fair assistance all another out. When I have to depart and go somewhere, I'll ask her to arrive inner the RV or to observe Gia perform outside, and she does. Vice versa — if she needs me to observe her children, it's really not a big deal. We fair ask all another for favors like: "If you're out at the store, can you get me this?"

We communicate really fine alongside all other, and we assistance all another out any way we need to, and that includes having meal together sometimes, observing TV together, and I volition let her kids arrive complete current so she can have a interrupt and be capable to be in her RV by herself, or we'll go to the park so she can be by herself sometimes.

Ever since I met Sunnie, I can fair inform there's a alter in my nervous system. Having person current method I can tap out. I'm 46 this year, and I wouldn't commerce this mommune we've built for the world.