Gathering lumber/materials? Options

[Ryouu]

I recently started this Harvest Moon and so far it's been great. I noticed that it was extremely difficult to accumulate enough lumber or materials for any of the upgrades/buildings through just chopping small branches with the ax (no wonderfuls). I somehow managed half the lumber needed for the chicken coop and bought the difference. I also bought the house upgrade, but had to pay for the entire materials cost as well.

I just wanted to see if people generally ignored the material collecting in the beginning and just payed the labor + materials costs instead.