Financial Questions and Beginning a Homesteading Life

[NoahJohn]

I need some advice regarding my financial planning and homesteading goals. But first, some background. I'm in my twenties. No children, but hopefully someday. I have a graduate degree and I own two businesses. I will hopefully be opening a third in the next couple of months. For the first time in my life I am earning very good money. Somewhere in the range of $100,000 - $150,000 this year with the potential of much more in the upcoming years. My thought is that I could sell my businesses and retire by the time I'm 30, if I so choose.

My very short term plans, like within the next 2-3 months, are to pay off all of my credit cards. I currently have about $15,000 in credit card debt. Then I want to work towards paying my car off. That's another $16,000 or so. Once I do that, all of my debt will be paid off, with the exception of my graduate school loans. Those are approximately $40,000.

Paying my debt off is incredibly important to me. I think my next logical goal is to build a house. This is where my homesteading interests become important to me. I very much appreciate the self-sufficient lifestyle. I want to own some acreage - anywhere from 10 to 50 acres. At least part of the property needs to be wooded in order to provide privacy. I'd like my house to be secluded. I'd like to have a paved driveway. I'd like to have a wood burning furnace, I'm thinking about an outdoor one, in order to cut the risk of a chimney fire. I would also like a fireplace as I appreciate the ambiance. Gardening is very important to me, as I enjoy growing and canning my own food. Perhaps a pond to supply water as well as the fact that ponds are nice. I'm not sure about off-grid electricity. I don't know what my options are and when I did research many years ago I found everything to be quite expensive.

I guess what I'm looking for are suggestions. I know to pay off my debt. I know to have savings should bad things happen. It seems as though securing a house would be the next important thing. Previously I had built a house in the country on eleven acres, but I sold that last year and am currently renting.

Does anyone have suggestions on what necessary or luxury items should be included in my home? I already have a pretty good idea of who I want my builder to be so of course we'd be having these discussions as well. Are there websites that talk about good things to include in your home?

I'm a vegetarian so I don't have any needs to butcher my own meat. At this point I'm not interested in having farm animals or even a barn for that matter.

[Terri]

You have enough money and you have a builder lined up.

You might want to hone your SKILLS a bit. Can you have a vegetable garden where you are right now? Can you pickle or can the produce? Bake bread? Live on a shoestring when there is a business slowdown?

Moneywise you have a decent game plan. So, look at the things that are not money-related.

[NoahJohn]

Thank you for your reply. I do currently have a vegetable garden and I do can the produce. I can also bake bread, though I don't do it often.

[melco]

Something I would consider when choosing your land is the possibility you will remain there. With that thought I would purchase a large enough piece to suit your "now" interests but also your "then" interests. For instance you said you do not want a barn, but your wants/needs may change in the future. Make sure you have a good area for such a thing just in case. Also, what seems like a nice quiet spot now could cetainly not be the case in 10 years. You sound like you know what you want and that is good. God Bless you.
Melissa

[Labrat407]

Right now, might be the best time to get land in the next few decades. There is going to be a housing slump like you would not see again. Even if you have to go into a bit of debt for it look for the best possible land. It may never be this cheap again. They are not making any more, except in a few countries like Belgium, and some volcanic Islands.
Also look at getting a hobby that interests you that might provide a source of income later.

[wwubben]

What did you learn from your experience with the house you just sold?

[minnikin1]

My guess is that it will be very tempting for you to over-buy, based on your current income.
Then when you do retire, you will have taxes and many maintenance costs that
could be high.

The basics for homesteading life:
good water, gravity fed or pumped by wind or other "free" method.
Big, harvest kitchen, ample pantry, outdoor kitchen, wood fired oven, root cellar.
Plenty of warmth and sunlight, depending on where you are. A woodstove with cooking surfaces. Don't build in deep pine shade where you will be sunlight deprived in the winter.
Low energy use laundry system.
Greenhouse, Tools, Tool sheds, Potting shed, Wood shed. Spring house, well house.
Fences
Ponds and Creeks
Mature trees/ shade
Bearing fruit, nuts, berries are a big plus - no waiting.
We also include sauna and hot tub. This lifestyle is hard on your body and you need to take care of it. Will you lose healthcare after you retire?

Secondary uses for sauna:
food dehydrator, laundry drying on damp days

[Callieslamb]

you have available to start the 3rd business and put it towards your debt. Sell the car and get a cheaper one. If you are dedicated to getting out of debt - you need to learn to live a lifestyle NOW so that you don't accumulate more. Or you will end up with 50 acres and a lot of debt.

Make lifestyle changes now. Put all money towards the debt and be out in as little time as possible. This is a major part of being self - sufficient. YOu will also find that you will realize your goals more quickly. We have no guarantee that any of us will get 10 more years in the present circumstances.

[CJ]

I don't mean to sound negative, but $70k in debt that doesn't include a mortgage? Eep! On your income, I'd find a way to live on $30k or so a year and pay that off asap.

Then the following 2 years, get your land by either saving for it first, or finance it short term and pay it off quick.

Then build.

But there's no way on earth you're going to retire by 30 on that. If you can buy your land and build your house and be debt free at 30, that would be a wonderful goal!

[seedspreader]

Do you have geographic limitations?

That will determine where a lot of you money goes (based on land values, etc)

[NoahJohn]

CJ - You said basically what my plan is. It will take a few months to pay off my debt. Then I want to purchase my land and build my house with the ever continuing goal of limiting my debt and having as much paid off as I can. I'd like to have my house paid off for as soon as possible and I plan on paying cash for my land.

Seedspreader - I am in Ohio and need to stay here due to my business.

[seedspreader]

Originally Posted by NoahJohn

CJ - You said basically what my plan is. It will take a few months to pay off my debt. Then I want to purchase my land and build my house with the ever continuing goal of limiting my debt and having as much paid off as I can. I'd like to have my house paid off for as soon as possible and I plan on paying cash for my land.

Seedspreader - I am in Ohio and need to stay here due to my business.

When you speak of opening a third business... is it the same line, but just a third location, or is it really a third business?

[edcopp]

If I were in your position I would rent a house for 1-3 years while honing the necessary skills for homesteading life style.

Pay off debts, and accumulate cash.

The market for the kind of real estate that you seek is in flux, as well as the regular housing market. A handfull of cash speaks very loudly.

[Mid Tn Mama]

I would not build unless I had to. With the number of forclosures that are going to be happening, I'd find one of them first.

Or rather, I'd get all that debt taken care of before building more. You don't need to be dragging school debt around with you and adding mortgage debt to it.

I'd look very hard at places that--
-- had land
--had a pond for stocking with fish
--had a year round creek for livestock (you may want goats for milk/cheese or simply grazing


In a house, I would look for a well-built home with a good roof, plumbing. You can always build on as needed.

Here is what I would want in a home--easy access to laundry washing (we have a pass through from bathroom to laundry and a laundry chute)
--cold storage/canning storage area for root crops, fermentation, etc.

--porches/overhangs/trellises on the sunny side of the home

--an orchard

--greywater system that can be used on the garden

--a cooking porch that can be used for drying laundry

easy to care for flooring.

An easily reached full freezer.

While solar may be expensive for whole house, in many areas you can easily pay back a solar hot water system in 15-20 years. Hot water is 40% of your utility bill.

[Freeholder]

Get your debts out of the way, and then wait a year or two before you even start looking for property. The real estate market is no where near the bottom yet.

When you do start looking, you want a woodlot (so you don't have to buy firewood, which is going to be getting more and more expensive as oil prices go up). You want water -- good potable water -- not too far down (or too close to the surface, either). You want good solar exposure. You want decent soil for your garden and fruit trees, etc. And you want to be as close as possible to where you work, shop, etc. Because gas prices are going to keep going up.

Someone up there suggested starting to live frugally now, and I agree. That's probably your most important skill, if you want to retire young.

Last, you didn't ask about this, but I'm going to mention it anyway. You don't say your gender, but if you are female, you might not want to put off those babies too much longer. The longer you wait, the harder it is to get pregnant. My middle dd waited to get married until she was 27, she and her hubby want children, but so far it hasn't happened. One of my sisters didn't get married until she was in her early thirties, and it took her a while to get pregnant, too.

If you are male, disregard the above, LOL! You can find a young wife when the time comes!

Kathleen

[minnikin1]

Forgot one thing -
seek a balance between saving for tomorrow and assuming the SHTF situation will come to pass tomorrow.
It would be sad to have big bank account and no means of survival if disaster strikes.

[saramark]

Concentrate on paying off debt. Learn to live on less than you make. You are doing well, but if you have loans, you haven't been living on less than you make for very long. I am 33, married with 3 kids. I live on 15k yearly, own my own home, and take no financial help from anyone. We live simply, but we only have 1 acre, so we cannot grow or raise all we need to live on in this spot.
Are you a vegetarian or vegan? Is it for health or religious reasons, or what? That could be a deciding factor in how you plan. Paying off that debt is key. With what you make, you could pay CASH for a home in the country in a few years, or make a large downpayment and finance over a short term. Not having payments really allows you to live on less income.
It may be in your best interest to continue to own the business even after retiring. It could earn you cash income without your day to day work, depending on the business.

Now all you need is a wife and a few dozen kids, LOL.

Hope it all turns out well, keep us informed. If you consider animals, I could be of much more help.

Mark

[piglady]

I don't know about you but here on our farmstead, time is in shorter supply than anything else. If you are running 3 businesses, how on earth are you going to raise and perserve your own food. Right now, I would live in a room in someone's basement for a couple hundred dollars a month and work every minute I wasn't sleeping. buy your vegetables at the farmer's market for now. You have no wife or kids so you have more time now to earn money than you will ever have. Once you are completely out of debt and have an emergency cash fund, continue to live this way and pay cash for a repo house (plenty of them out there) at auction and then you are ready for the next part of your life. Sell two of those businesses, find a wife, plant a garden together, sit on the porch swing and shell peas, run through the woods together, and make some babies. In that order!

[donsgal]

Originally Posted by NoahJohn

I need some advice regarding my financial planning and homesteading goals. But first, some background. I'm in my twenties. No children, but hopefully someday. I have a graduate degree and I own two businesses. I will hopefully be opening a third in the next couple of months. For the first time in my life I am earning very good money. Somewhere in the range of $100,000 - $150,000 this year with the potential of much more in the upcoming years. My thought is that I could sell my businesses and retire by the time I'm 30, if I so choose.

My very short term plans, like within the next 2-3 months, are to pay off all of my credit cards. I currently have about $15,000 in credit card debt. Then I want to work towards paying my car off. That's another $16,000 or so. Once I do that, all of my debt will be paid off, with the exception of my graduate school loans. Those are approximately $40,000.

Paying my debt off is incredibly important to me. I think my next logical goal is to build a house. This is where my homesteading interests become important to me. I very much appreciate the self-sufficient lifestyle. I want to own some acreage - anywhere from 10 to 50 acres. At least part of the property needs to be wooded in order to provide privacy. I'd like my house to be secluded. I'd like to have a paved driveway. I'd like to have a wood burning furnace, I'm thinking about an outdoor one, in order to cut the risk of a chimney fire. I would also like a fireplace as I appreciate the ambiance. Gardening is very important to me, as I enjoy growing and canning my own food. Perhaps a pond to supply water as well as the fact that ponds are nice. I'm not sure about off-grid electricity. I don't know what my options are and when I did research many years ago I found everything to be quite expensive.

I guess what I'm looking for are suggestions. I know to pay off my debt. I know to have savings should bad things happen. It seems as though securing a house would be the next important thing. Previously I had built a house in the country on eleven acres, but I sold that last year and am currently renting.

Does anyone have suggestions on what necessary or luxury items should be included in my home? I already have a pretty good idea of who I want my builder to be so of course we'd be having these discussions as well. Are there websites that talk about good things to include in your home?

I'm a vegetarian so I don't have any needs to butcher my own meat. At this point I'm not interested in having farm animals or even a barn for that matter.

I'd say find yourself a nice lady to share your dreams with. Everything you plan will be infinitely better with a like-minded partner to work toward your goals together.

donsgal

[Maura]

Look at land and houses with acreage. Make a study of it, but don't buy. Go ahead and pay off your credit cards. As for the vehicle, don't worry so much about paying it off, but get ahead of it (pay more than the montly payment each month).

The problem I see with buying land and building a house involves your future plans with a wife. While some women would be happy to set up house in the house you designed, on the land you like, in the county that makes you happy, some are more, well,... difficult. While you want to marry someone who is like minded, I doubt you will find a female clone of yourself. Slow down, pay off the debts, take a couple classes on early childhood development.

I also doubt that you would be happy "retiring" at age 30. You are going to find something to do that involves taking you away from your family. Consider this, and think about what you really like to do in between caring for your garden and children. You could be a business consultant, for instance, and work out of your home or keep an office in a nearby town. Just some thoughts.