Life advice - Money, real estate, places, regions . . .

[Didgery]

I am a 30 year-old wife and mother of three. My family has been struggling financially for years, since swearing off credit cards and buying a WONDERFUL little fixer-upper in the country. We love our goats, garden, hens, and home, but making the mortgage payment is a big stretch. We've tried both working full-time jobs, but the childcare payment was too much.

I feel like we're ready for a radical change in the next few years, and I would love your advice on what I see as my options. In the meantime, I am going to to go to school to study nursing, since I think that it would be a career that I would enjoy and that would help pay the bills no matter where we settle.

We are feeling kind of down and out lately, and want to plan and work towards a realistic dream that gets us out from under these big bills. A mortgage-free life would be ideal. In my fantasies, we sell this house at a modest profit after the market picks up (I'm thinking 3 to 5 years out, after getting ahead a little with our bills and putting a lot more work into the place) and build from scratch, one room at a time, on a very affordable, larger parcel somewhere else. I would love to be able to homestead full time, taking part time jobs to pay for the necessities of life. We have the skills to do this without a construction loan and would be fine with a primitive lifestyle.

We are currently in a region with these positive features:
A)proximity to a nice city, with a hospital, a college, and good cultural opportunities
B)great neighbors
C) beautiful riding trails right out our door (I am an equestrian)
D) proximity to my parents, both of whom live a couple of hours away
E) proximity to my oldest daughter, of whom I share custody (she is a preteen; her other parent lives about two hours away)
F) good schools for our small kids to attend when they are older (we do not want to homeschool, so good public schools are important to us)
G) it's a place I love

Our current region has the following drawbacks:
A) currently on a very small property (we have just an acre and even that is hard for us to afford) and probably can't afford bigger
B) tough job market for my husband, in the trades
C) dark, wet winters, tough on my husband who doesn't care for this region
D) fairly high cost of living
E) husband misses his family

We have another option. Husband's family owns a large, vacant wooded parcel (several dozen acres) in another region, and husband and I have always dreamed of building a home somewhere. It is natural to assume that we might want to build there. The positive and negatives of that situation are, on the plus side:

A) My husband loves that place. Dearly. With all his heart.
B) a beautiful, large property, already paid for!!
C) nice community, decent public schools, culturally comparable to the place I love here.
D) proximity to his parents, who are retired and would be very close (close enough to help with childcare if we were working, plus we both enjoy their company)

On the negative side:

A) cold. It's colder there than here and not much lighter, so the weather complaints we have now would only get worse.
B) child custody issues. We would have to come up with a way to share time that included airplanes, unless we wait a decade until my kid is in college. Not the biggest hurdle, since we already have her for summer and vacations, but a hurdle nonetheless
C) wooded parcel would require a lot of clearing and cultivation to be arable, and we're a bit spoiled by our beautiful rich earth here in a river valley.
D) no trail access from the property. This is a big one for me.
E) I would miss my parents.

Another fantasy we occasionally indulge in is the idea that we would sell this place and move to a rural parcel (hopefully adjacent to public land and trails) in very low cost of living area someplace completely new, but I think the drawbacks to that would be loneliness (missing all our friends and family), possibly poor schools, possibly poor job options, and the possibility that we wouldn't be happy after all in a region that we know nothing about. On the plus side, we could try to find a place that we could both come to love, since I love my childhood home and he loves his childhood home but neither of us loves the other place. Might be better to try to settle somewhere that fascinates us both.

Just typing all this out made me realize that, while we are lucky to have another paid-for option, the best thing to do is to be patient where we are (we can't sell our house at a profit now, with the market down, and no matter what we are going to need some money to start if we're truly going to pick up and start over somewhere else). All this daydreaming about the future is one thing, but the thing to do now is to keep working on my education, keep paying down our debt, and try to live frugally so that we will be in a position to fix up the house and make it shine when we do eventually get an upturn in the housing market.

Anyway, thoughts on what I have written are very welcome. Thanks in advance!

[Beeman]

You've got kids, they are #1, not fantasies. While you are planning they are growing up. No profit can replace time and building equity in homes might become a thing of the past soon anyway.
What we did was sell the home with the mortgage and move to a lower priced area close to a small town. We didn't make profit on our home but our lives profitted greatly.
Energy costs are not going down and neither are property taxes.

[TurnerHill]

Keep working on your education, keep paying down your debt, and try to live frugally so that you will be in a position to fix up the house and make it shine when you do eventually get an upturn in the housing market.

What I would add to that is that when you are making improvements to your property, you should do so with a eye toward the broader real estate market, not toward making it the ideal "homestead."

There have been any number of posters on these boards convinced that their "homestead" set-ups enhanced the value of their property, only to be very disappointed to find the opposite to be true.

I'll give an example. I buy, renovate and sell houses. I found a place this summer where virtually every inch of the back yard was covered with raised beds. They were well made, and seemed to be extremely productive.

And in my back-of-the-envelope calculations, I subtracted from my offer because they were there. They needed to be removed to create a yard that would appeal to most buyers, and removing them would be work, and work costs money.

In your case, I would caution you that horse people tend to over-customize their properties for horses. Since one acre isn't going to be a "horse property", you should be careful of that.

[geo in mi]

I think you have thought out all your current options pretty well. You and your husband/family will have to make it a joint decsion that you each can live with and love. I think just about everybody feels stuck in a mud rut right now in this down economy. If it picks up, then he'll get more work, and more options might open up-that could be your deciding factor. Meanwhile, marching in place and blooming where you're planted seems to be the order of the day.

[Welshmom]

Picking up and moving anywhere is going to cost you lots of $$, and disrupt your kids. Use your great construction skills to improve the place you have.
Oh, and you're not gonna wanna hear this, but - to save money, get rid of the horses. Sorry, but unless they are work horses that contribute more than their feed intake's worth, they are a liability. Emotional asset, sure, but a financial drain. Same goes for any other non-food producing critters, etc.

[Jolly]

A few thoughts...

1. Finish the education. Ideally, if push comes to shove, one spouse's income should pay the bills, with enough left over for beans and rice.

2. Unless you will be the primary care givers, take the parents out of the equation. If your next place is your last place, you'll be there long after his and your parents are gone.

3. Land. It needs to be affordable (within reason), of adequate acreage (and remember, some parts of the country require quite a bit more land for stock than others), and have reasonable property taxes. Only you know what is acceptable to you in terms of schools, but remember you will be living there long after your children graduate.

4. House. If you are set on building your own, build with an eye to affordability, energy costs, and resale. There are many houseplans available that feature homes which can be successfully expanded as possible. Build conventional.

5. Economy. Look at long term trends. I'll take steady, with a slightly lower wage, over boom and bust, anyday.

6. Debt. With exception of your mortgage, none. Owing nobody gives one marvelous flexibility in life.


My .02 cents, YMMV....

[whocares]

heres my 2 cents for what it's worth...

I own several houses and do not rent any out, too much hassel, we do fix them and sell them, Real estate values are going up again in most areas, so keep the place you have and get rid of the things you don't need, like cable TV and a home phone if you have cells...Find a cheaper internet...use coupons when you shop and save every extra penny you have...Your going to need it with kids.

Being debt free is not being without credit either, it's having good credit...just no debt.

School will change you life, it did mine, so hang on till you can't any longer, things will get better...

[Didgery]

Originally Posted by Welshmom

Picking up and moving anywhere is going to cost you lots of $$, and disrupt your kids. Use your great construction skills to improve the place you have.
Oh, and you're not gonna wanna hear this, but - to save money, get rid of the horses. Sorry, but unless they are work horses that contribute more than their feed intake's worth, they are a liability. Emotional asset, sure, but a financial drain. Same goes for any other non-food producing critters, etc.

Thanks for the advice - not unreasonable, but in my case the horses are not costing money (I don't currently have one of my own, just taking care of one for a very kind someone else . . . I get the free access, they pay the bills). I had to sell my own for financial reason several years ago, but I want to plan for a future with horses.

As far as the rest goes, I appreciate all the kind words. It's great to hear someone say, "bloom where you're planted," since I feel like we're not realistically going to be able to do much else in the immediate future. Cost of living is similar in both the places we're seriously looking at, so maybe waiting a few years until we can really start fresh somewhere else entirely is the best idea.

We are very frugal already . . . internet is our only extra and I use it for some work-related things, so it pays for itself by the end of the year.

Thanks again. Good to have a public airing of all the things I'm pondering!

[Terri]

I have never sorted out family issues to my satisfaction, so I have no advice to give there.

Money wise: is the mortgage the only bill that you now owe? Because, if it is, alas, the payment will stay the same. *IF* you had other bills, such as a car note, you could look forward to being more prosperous when it gets paid off. I love having the cars paid off!

In the mean time, some budget-savers from an older Mother:

Baby food can be made by you. Take the evening cassarole or whatever, put it in a blender with water, and blend. Then thicken with fortified baby cereal. I used to cook up a chicken stew for my youngest and blend it and thicken it. *REMEMBER* that babies do not eat as much salt as an adult.

Those fancy baby juices in the store? They are diluted juice, is all.

Keep some instant meals that you can fix while you are tired. That prevents fast-food trips. I buy a couple of steaks when they are on sale and keep them frozen: you can slide them under the broiler, ice and all, and nobody will complain. Especially if you nuke a potato and set out the butter dish.

Lastly, do you have a budget?

A budget is *NOT* a way to cramp your style: it is a way to not have to worry about money. At all. Ever. The end.

You have a set amount of money coming in. When you know where it needs to go, then you are done. On shopping day you can think "I have XYZ dollars to spend", and then you do it. For your pocket money, you think "I have XYZ to spend this week", and you do not go over it. And, yes, you need a LITTLE pocket money, even if it is only change to feed the meters.

I found the first budget hard to set up, but after that it became easier.

Also, when my kids were small, I used to work weekends to avoid that big child care bill. The family trashed the house while I was gone, as my DH was never much for picking up after the toddlers, but it was what was needed at the time.

Since you are a nursing student-to-be, can you get weekend work in a hospital? At a nursing home? Weekends are NOT popular times to work at either, folks really liked that I was available at that time (Yes, I am a nurse. I did work on weekends.)

[PulpFaction]

Haven't read all the replies, this has possibly been pointed out, but if your ultimate goal is TRULY to be a full-time homesteader, why would you waste the time and money on nursing school? Assuming you already have all the pre-reqs for nursing school, you're still looking at a minimum of two years and a heap of additional school loans to repay.

Maybe you would be better off developing your skill set for those freelance or contract jobs you mentioned working as a side-line to pay for cash necessities.

[Jolly]

Originally Posted by PulpFaction

Haven't read all the replies, this has possibly been pointed out, but if your ultimate goal is TRULY to be a full-time homesteader, why would you waste the time and money on nursing school? Assuming you already have all the pre-reqs for nursing school, you're still looking at a minimum of two years and a heap of additional school loans to repay.

Maybe you would be better off developing your skill set for those freelance or contract jobs you mentioned working as a side-line to pay for cash necessities.

Nurses are employed in any and all rural communities. It is one of the best paying, easiest to land jobs in most sections of the country.

[fransean]

Have you considered a WAH position? Then you will not have to worry as much about childcare expenses.

[Didgery]

Thanks for the replies. We already have a pretty strict budget, but we can always use a reminder to stick with it. I think that our options will look a lot brighter in a few years when I have my nursing credentials, the kids are a bit older, and our credit debt is paid off. Otherwise, our only big bill is the mortgage.

As far as working goes, I do dabble in freelance stuff but I know from experience that I do better working outside the home. Nursing feels like the right move to me and I know that I will always want an adequate income in addition to my home economics, and also to facilitate my riding (again, not costing me anything now but it will be an expense that I want to be able to afford in the future).

Thanks again!

[Maura]

Go to your local banks and see if you can get a new mortgage. The rates have come way down. One of my friends just got a new loan, her house payment was cut in half. Won't hurt to ask.