Young Homesteaders

[Silvercreek Farmer]

I am trying to find out if there are any out there who became full/semi full time homesteaders while you were in your 20's without the help of a benefactor, (ie parents buying 10 acres for you/ taking over their homestead, ect).

[DenverGirlie]

Sunspot, on these formums, is young and getting ready to start out

[diane]

What do you consider as young? Homesteading without an off homestead income is pretty hard at any age. We lived in town while we paid for our land. During that time we had a tent the first time and a camper the second time that we stayed in on weekends and vacations. We started orchards, gardens, fencing etc. before we ever were able to move on to the land.
Unless you have a pretty good nitch market and are working from dawn to dusk 365 days a year, it's pretty hard to make enough income off a small homestead to pay for taxes, insurance and the things you can not provide for yourself. Property taxes you can't avoid, but you can live without insurance......but it gets pretty scary.......been there and done that and now I am doing it again.

[ladyrua]

My DH and I are in our mid 20's and in the process of doing it on our own - unless you count the country living tips and tricks I'm getting from his mom!

On this same idea - have you found any good websites for young, just starting out, homesteaders?

[Silvercreek Farmer]

Originally Posted by ladyrua

My DH and I are in our mid 20's and in the process of doing it on our own - unless you count the country living tips and tricks I'm getting from his mom!

On this same idea - have you found any good websites for young, just starting out, homesteaders?

I read some of your other posts and it sounds like you are doing something similar to us, suburban homesteading! I haven't found anything specifically targeted at young homesteaders, but you can check out my friend's site www.imladrisfarm.com, he is pretty young full time homesteader. From what I have seen, most folk don't get into it until later in life ,unless they inherit it. It seems like there are not many farms out there that can support their own debt, but if there is I would love to hear about them!

[full sun]

I am young and I guess in the planning stages of homesteading. We just bought 18 acres in NC (moved from MI), I've had goats and chickens for a few years and a veggie garden. Now things will be bigger and hopefully more productive. I don't know if I can do it completely, but the more I grow and provide for ourselves, the better.

Jennifer

[MelissaW]

We bought this land when he was 25, and I was 21, without any parental help. We built the house slowly (actually, 14 years later we are still adding things), debt free. We did without a lot. I remember when we had to buy a $200 dehumidifier, and it tooks us MONTHS to recover! We've only had one real vacation in all these years. Acreage on this street is almost 10 times more expensive now than it was then, so if we were that age and starting out now, we would probably never be able to do it. I will add, however, that we aren't fulltime homesteaders. My husband has always had a full time town job, and I work part time now, although I was off for many years being a full time mama. I sure admire those who are starting out. It's a big job.

[fantasymaker]

I started out at 23 but I did have the help of a good finacial instututuion.

[Rowdy]

Well, I'm 28, and made the down payment on my six acre homestead three years ago.

I started with six raw acres of this


Then I jumped on a dozer to get this



And then did a whole bunch of brush clearing by hand to avoid tearing up the fragile topsoil I have on my sand.




Then I added a little fencing with some goats to help me out
(this was taken from the same postion as the first photo.



Now I have bought a little toy tractor


and that toy tractor is going to help me turn this into a market garden (mostly melons this year) and seed the other five acres into grass.



All of that, and my high tensile electric fence, my 200 feet of underground electric service, the 200 feet of water line, all the land clearing, goat wrangling, road building, the garden I had last year, everything was done completly by me alone. No one but me as put in a single hour's work on my place, not a single dollar but mine has bought the stuff I have needed. I tried to get a couple of friends out to help me on some stuff, but they would never come out, so I just did it.

At the same time though, I also have an outside job that I work 50 hours every four days. Maybe when I get the farm part off the ground, and I have the house built I can go to a full time 'stead income, but I doubt it. Looking at all the area's ranchers and farmers I know, all of them had wives that taught school in town, or worked for the county, etc. So, I figure if I am making most of the food I'm eating, and the farm at least helps pay for itself, I'll not look down on myself for having an outside job.

[Silvercreek Farmer]

Wow Rowdy! That looks great! Keep up the good work! I wish I could come over, (It would be a bit of a drive from NC) I would be happy to help, I try to help my friends out as much as I can with homesteading projects, keeps me busy while I am waiting for my place. Are you planning to build a conventional house, or something a bit more rustic? The pics are great, keep us posted!

[Marilyn]

Matthew, have you read any of Joel Salatin's books? I think that the one on pastured poultry would be especially useful to you. He is very encouraging to those that are just starting (or close to starting). The jist of his message is to start right now and do something with whatever you have - even if it's a small backyard - do something that will put you closer to what you want eventually. It was a great book. I would love to take the opportunity to work with him sometime...

[Aintlifegrand]

Rowdy...I am impressed. We have done essentially the same thing ( Buying land, clearing it ourselves, and building) except it was me, Dh and three teenagers. Our house is nearly complete now...but it has been four long years. I cannot believe that you have done that all by yourself...like I said...I am impressed. BTW I used to live in WTex and I can only imagine how much harder that made all that work.

[Alex]

We had $4,500 grubstake at age 28 and $300 a month from a duplex, a garage-one-bedroom conversion, and three-bedroom house (after paying mortgage taxes etc..

Paid $3,000 for the land. Bought Tilly-The-Tractor for $400 and that was it. Spent $500 on material for spikes, nails and roll roofing (no power -- later we added, indoor plumbing at sink and shower only -- with hoses from the truck and gravity water -- later added well etc, outhouse at first.)

We built a log cabin, planted a garden, and thrived. Did ALL the work ourselves -- Nancy, Alex Jr age 9, Gretchen age 3, and myself -- we all loved it. We were living in our log cabin 3 months after I cut the first tree (we cut windows, added second floor during that first winter.) We have been continually making improvements and additions and love every minute of it.



GO FOR IT -- make the plan -- for a better life.

Alex

[Silvercreek Farmer]

I have read "You Can Farm" and while I greatly admire Joel's enthusiam, work ethic, knowledge, commitment, leadership, and on and on. I am always reminded that he did inherit 550 acres, which sure does make things a lot easier. I believe all of his advice is very sound and useful but it still seems to me that making decent (not rich, but fairly secure e.g. health insurance) living homesteading/farming takes a large equity injection (whether it comes from inheritance, outside job, ect), not something that anyone can just go "do". (Even Joel's father worked in town to pay the mortgage) Thinking back it even many of the "original" American homesteaders got cheap or free land from the government. I say all the time that making a living farming is difficult because it is so much fun! You are competing with people that will not only volunteer but will PAY to work! Salatin has (smartly) taken great advantage of people's willingness to volunteer (or at least work for very little) with his interns, in effect trading farm education for labor, as well as capitalizing on people's willingness to pay for his books, all of this is benefit of his orginal capital. All this said, I also believe that it is all very well worth it and I am willing to do everything necesary to get there. My wife and I have done almost everything we can possible do on our 1/2 acre in town (even bending the zoning rules about livestock a bit, shhhh), keeping in mind that I will need to sell it to get to the final homestead. I would just like reiterate that my dicussion is not a complaint, just pondering the subject and wondering if there was a truly self-sufficient (ie, could fund it's own purchase) homestead out there! Eustace Conway's place, Turtle Island, is probably one of the closest I can think of, while he worked considerably off the farm to purchase his 1000 acres, most of the acreage is maintained as preserve, not generating cash income. (As it seems Joel's place is too) I would guess that the majority of his income is from hosting camps, ect. which he could do on much less acreage. All this leads me back to my belief that the closest hope of a self sufficient homestead is centered in agro-turism and education, which could lead you to the question of whether or not that is really "farming". Ahhh so many fun things to think about, sorry to all of those who this stream of thought might bother, it's just my nature!

[Silvercreek Farmer]

Wow Alex! Awesome Place! That's the way to do it! Very impressed! If you don't mind me asking, how much did you have in equity in the rental house, and have you ever made any cash income from the homestead or has it always been just the $300 per month and the bounty of the land? Did I mention that your place is awesome!

Oh yeah, one more thing, once again only if you don't mind, tell me about your land, how many acres, was it remote, cheap at the time, still cheap, ect.

What you are doing is HOMESTEADING!

[Rowdy]

Originally Posted by Aintlifegrand

Rowdy...I am impressed. We have done essentially the same thing ( Buying land, clearing it ourselves, and building) except it was me, Dh and three teenagers. Our house is nearly complete now...but it has been four long years. I cannot believe that you have done that all by yourself...like I said...I am impressed. BTW I used to live in WTex and I can only imagine how much harder that made all that work.

Well, I had the advantage of being the son of an heavy equipment operator, spending weekends and summers playing in the dirt with my father. Then being one myself until three and half years ago, with alot of the work doing underground electric. So, I guess that does make it easier to go down to the rental yard and just get what I need to do the job.

Are you planning to build a conventional house, or something a bit more rustic?

You know, that changes every few weeks. Right now I am content to live in my travel trailer until I get the land paid off, and then I'm going to start building, but I am still not completly sure what yet. More than likely it will be a small two bedroom stick built, but I've been reading up on all the other options like strawbale, etc. Or I might break weak and find an older mobile home for cheap and move it to my place. That is the last option, but would be a way to have a roof over my head for under $5000.