Where do you even start???

[becca74]

How do you even begin to make your dream come to a reality?? We live in Vermont.. but in a big town and we live IN town.. neighbors really close to each other. We own our home.. we have 4 kids and we "dream" of living in the country on a good sum of acres and build our own "farmhouse" and have a small farm...

The dream seems like it is unattainable.. how did you all make your dreams come true??

[Forerunner]

Get out of debt.

Then buy your ground, small and rough if necessary so you can afford it, haul in a camper to live in and a used van trailer (over-the-road type) for about 12-1500 bucks for your shop and storage area and build from there.

The next order of business would be building the compost pile during all otherwise idle time and at every opportunity.
Soil fertility will be your long term source of sustenance, perhaps even wealth.

I dismantled several barns, old houses and outbuildings for those who were finished using them and built from 90% used materials.

Make friends in the community you choose to live in.
Good neighbors can make the transition happen much quicker.

......and, lastly, don't be afraid to ask questions.

[Minelson]

I would start by calling a realtor. Find out what the market in your area is like and start looking for what you want. Maybe get something older to start with and build the dream house while living on the land. One baby step at a time.

[Beeman]

Not as easy as it used to be as even raw land is waaaay over priced. I would stay away from realtors, just read their ads to get a feel. Put out the "word" that you are looking for a little land in the country. Talk at the diner,barber,school meetings or wherever you go.

[turtlehead]

Start where you are. Put a garden in the yard and learn about pests, diseases, soil tests, composting.

Then learn about preserving your harvest (and also visit the farmer's market or store when produce is on sale). Learn to freeze, dehydrate, and can.

Learn to sew, knit, crochet. Learn to fix things that are broken instead of calling in a repair person or taking it to the shop or throwing it away.

Before moving, deciding what "homesteading" means to you. Will you have a small garden, or huge? An orchard? Will you raise your own beans to dry, and corn, and wheat? Will you have animals for meat? milk? eggs? fiber?

Figure out what you're looking for in a piece of property. Must it have running water? Pond? Stream? Spring? Be close to hospitals? Does the school district matter? Will you need to harvest firewood from your place?

You mentioned building your own farm house. Find out what it costs to have a driveway put in, a well drilled, septic installed, electric and phone run. Then when you compare two pieces of property and one has phone and electric available, you'll know the worth of that and you can compare the properties and their prices realistically.

So...
Do what you can now.
Figure out what you want.

After that, take tiny baby steps to get there.

[FarmersDaughter]

Are you tied to Vermont or do you have the ability and/or desire to move elsewhere? Vermont is absolutely beautiful and a great place to live, but it is very expensive and most of the jobs don't pay enough to make up for the high cost of living (I know because I lived there for a while). It makes it harder to get ahead and afford land. If you can find employment in your field, it might be worth exploring other areas of the country.

Other than moving elsewhere, I agree with the other advice that was posted before mine.

[Terri]

You start with saving what you can, while attending to your homesteading knowledge.

In an apartment you can bake bread and cakes, learn to sprout and use the sprouts, learn to knit or sew or both.

If you rent a place, you can try container gardening as well.

If you own your home, you can have bee hives (with a fence around it to keep your children from the bees) and a garden and a dwarf fruit tree or two. You can probably find any bee hive regulations in the city animal ordinances on their web site.

If you have a garden you can learn to freeze and can your vegetables, and the food raised will decrease your living expenses. Put that money into savings also, towards a place in the country.

I did this, more or less. It did take some time, as life happens, but I more or less did it.

[Jenn]

I was in Germany with the Army. Built up my homesteading library by mail order dreaming and wishing. Had me ready when I moved to hit the ground running. And to know to what sort of place I wanted to move.

[Yvonne's hubby]

Originally Posted by becca74

how did you all make your dreams come true??

I held a yard sale and sold all the unnecessary junk, sold my house to a realtor for what I could get, took that money (about $2500) and headed into the unknown with a couple horses, a worthless wife, three kids, and a fair to middlen dog. 31 years and a lot of sweat, blood, backaches, broken bones, bruises, blisters and perseverance later....... I am now living my dream, in a log cabin on a small farm in Ky with a wonderful wife, one fine young lad of 16, two worthless cats and mighty fine dog, a handful of chickens, and a small herd of beef cattle. How did I do it? One day at a time with the good Lord watching out for me every step of the way.

[Nevada]

I started by moving to NE Nevada, where land is insanely inexpensive. I bought 2 1/4 acres for $800 about 10 miles east Elko, NV, then built a 2-story cabin out of pocket money.

We needed to be fairly close to town, but if you're willing to be farther out (say 100 miles from the nearest Home Depot) you can find longer acreage land near Montello, NV for under $100/acre (sometimes as low as $50/acre).

[geo in mi]

Welcome! Your first posting? You just started........

[duckidaho]

I know you already own a home, so this might not work, but we rented a farmhouse and and acre and started gardening and raising chickens. We got to know the soil in the different regions around us. Decided on one county where the soil was what we wanted. Saved some cash. We looked for property for 2.5 years before the "right" one came up. Then we bought it quick. We have a lot of work to do, as the cultivated land has been abandoned for years, but it has good hay and pasture. It may take us a year to get back to selling produce at the farmers market while we get the soil right. Good luck. Soil was our main concern in looking for property.

[ronbre]

we bought a home on 10 acres for $8,000 but that was in 1971..

what you do is you decide where you want to live and then save toward it..never allow yourself to go into debt for anything you don't HAVE to have..ever.

[diane5000]

Originally Posted by becca74

How do you even begin to make your dream come to a reality?? We live in Vermont.. but in a big town and we live IN town.. neighbors really close to each other. We own our home.. we have 4 kids and we "dream" of living in the country on a good sum of acres and build our own "farmhouse" and have a small farm...

The dream seems like it is unattainable.. how did you all make your dreams come true??

We bought fifty acres with an old abandoned hunt camp(small lake loaded with bass) We sold everything

we had to get here. (Got rid of a mortgage, hydro bills as well). The divesting

process took three years. FREEDOM!!!



Diane
http://www.frombeyondthegrid.com

[TurnerHill]

Start here:

http://www.landforgood.org/services/working-lands/

[Cornhusker]

Originally Posted by Yvonne's hubby

I held a yard sale and sold all the unnecessary junk, sold my house to a realtor for what I could get, took that money (about $2500) and headed into the unknown with a couple horses, a worthless wife, three kids, and a fair to middlen dog. 31 years and a lot of sweat, blood, backaches, broken bones, bruises, blisters and perseverance later....... I am now living my dream, in a log cabin on a small farm in Ky with a wonderful wife, one fine young lad of 16, two worthless cats and mighty fine dog, a handful of chickens, and a small herd of beef cattle. How did I do it? One day at a time with the good Lord watching out for me every step of the way.

Congrats on the dog.

[NCLee]

Agree with the first reply. Get out of debt. Even, if as Davy Ramsey says, eat beans and rice, rice and beans. As soon as you can start putting money back to use for your farm. Not only for the land, but for the seeds, equipment, fertilizer, and a long list of things large and small that you'll need.

When you mentioned your dream, you mentioned building a farm house. Do you really want to build, just to have a new house? Providing it's structurally sound, would you be willing to move into an old farm house? I'm not talking about an 1800's or 1900's one. How about one built back in the 30's or 40's. ??

Or, starting out on your farm in a used (good condition) mobile home. For a working farm, the outbuildings may actually be more important than what you live in. Depending on your budget, the dollars that you put into a house, initially, may be much better spent on the barn instead. (Tractor shed, farm workshop, grain storage, summer kitchen, and/or other buildings applicable to your property.)

Are you sure that you and the rest of your family are ready to put in the physical labor that's needed to live on a working farm? Are you and your family ready to give up the conveniences of the city? Especially your children if they are older than 8 or 9 or so? We have to drive 3 miles to pick up a loaf of bread. We have to drive almost 15 miles to get to a good sit-down eating place or see a movie. It's 25+ miles to get to the nearest "big city" for the goods and services that just aren't available out here where we live. I'm still on dial-up. Out here, the alternatives are spelled EXPENSIVE.

Are you in the position to get started learning the skills needed now? As an earlier poster mentioned, you don't have to wait until you're on your farm to learn to can fruits and vegetables. You don't have to have a garden, nor a pasture with livestock to butcher. Farmers markets, roadside produce stands, loss leader sales at grocery stores, and bulk suppliers, such as Sam's Club can supply all that you have time to can at economical prices. Turkey's purchased on loss leader sales at $.40/lb, this past week is a good example. I have 3 in the freezer, waiting to be canned. Even someone in an apartment can do the same thing.

I'm not trying to talk you out of your dream. Instead, I'm hoping to give ideas, ask questions, and offer suggestions to help you get started. We made our move to the country back in 1974. I've never regretted our decision to live here. I've never regretted our decision not to build a "dream" home on our property, when we had the opportunity.

If we had, we'd still be saddled with the burden of trying to pay off that debt. We'd be paying higher property taxes, higher insurance premiums, higher utility bills, etc. Today, we are debit free. We are able to do, for the most part, what we want to do. Within reason, that is, as we try to live frugally, by choice.

BTW, when we moved here, we bought a used mobile home for $4000, if memory serves. Lived in it for 10 years. Sold it for $2000. By going that route, we were able to afford the well, septic tank, electric service, etc. to make the move. During those 10 years, we had the money to build a greenhouse, goathouse, corn crib, tractor shelter, etc. And, we saved money, too. Couldn't have done that if we'd bought our land and built a "dream" home from the start.

Lots of other good advice in the replies that you've received, so I won't try to duplcate those. If you and your family are ready, in spirit to make the move, get busy with whatever aspects that are needed for you to physically make the move. If you're ready, your place is out there somewhere. Go find it and work on what it's going to take to get you there.

You'll find a whole bunch of people here, both cheering you on and offering practical advice. Please feel free to ask questions on specifics. We'll try our best to help.

Good luck in your path towards your dream.

Lee

[willow_girl]

How far are you from the country? Perhaps you could find an elderly farmer within a reasonable distance who would share their land and equipment in exchange for free labor, or at least rent you a garden patch and pasture.

You'd be surprised what you can do on just a couple acres.

If the right person came along, I'd share my land in a heartbeat ... even at 4-1/2 acres, I have more land than I can develop by myself, and I'd love to see it put to use!

[duckidaho]

Obviously debt free is the best, however, I have college loan debt and mortgage debt. Both are arranged in a way very acceptable to us. My college debt allows me to teach 20 hours a week and make as much cash as most of my friends make working 40 hours a week. It leaves me the rest of the time I would have spent working to devote to the farm. Soooo, don't let some debt scare you off if you can make the cash flow work out. Be creative about your debt.

[Callieslamb]

We sacrificed our family home so we could live out of debt. The "out of debt" goal came before the "buy some land" goal. LOL. We sold our house and bought something way smaller on a tiny piece of land. Then, discovered we could do something else with the land. BUT..we didn't have 4 kids when we did it- most of ours were grown and gone by the time we got started. What are you willing to give up to have your dream?