Starting A Homestead

[JessHamm]

Hello!

I am new to this forum. In fact I just signed up, so please bear with me. My apologies for the long post, I wanted to make sure I didn't leave anything out!

I am a 25 year old living in the heart of Saint Louis City in Missouri. Recently, my boyfriend and I have decided to try and start a life of a small farm/homestead. My boyfriend comes from a small town, but not with a farming background, and I come straight from the city. I have always had a strong desire to be as self sufficient as possible, for myself and for *possible* future children. Living organically is also something I am passionate about, and I am making the effort to continue to try to achieve this. He is a creative, compassionate, and hard working man with a desire to live off the land and enjoy everything nature has to give, both the good and the bad.

We of course, have thoughts/dreams/opinions of what we would ultimately like to do in our future, but we understand that these things are not always quickly achievable or realistic. We do have some things that I have a fear will keep us from achieving our goals as quickly - he owns his home with additional members living in the house, I rent my own place and will be combining my household with his in January, but I also have 20K+ in student loan debt. We both have close family ties, but are supporting ourselves completely without the ability to ask family for "help". He and I seem to have tired of our office jobs that are getting bills paid, but not giving us any sort of sense of challenge, happiness, etc.

I am looking to find out what we will need to do in order to reach this goal of ours. I have begun doing various bits of research, but am not sure of where we should both even start in terms of planning, and large and small details such as finding/buying the right land, farming equipment, crops and animals, and so on. We are both very passionate people, willing to learn and to research, plan, and work VERY hard...but we welcome any advice.

We do not have experience in large parts of a life like this, but we do have gardening experience (small and large scale), have worked with power tools, some farm equipment, and so on. My father grew up on a farm, and would love to get back to his roots, my mother worked with horses for an extensive period of time, and his mother is well versed in many things such as canning. The hope is to have them at some point be living close to us so that we can not only be there if something happens, but so they can contribute their time also and receive foodstuffs and such as a result. Our parents would love to get back to a life like that, and we would love to have them around for possible future grandchildren and to give back to them as they have given us so much already, so this is very important to us.

He and I have discussed penciling out goals 3, 5, 10, 15 years and so on down the road for this, and decide what we will need to do now debt-wise and such to meet these goals, all the while doing research and planning.

Thank you for taking the time out to help us on our journey...we both very much appreciate every bit of advice and help that we receive.

jrhhc8@gmail.com[/SIZE]

[John_Canada]

Hey Jess, just started this board recently myself. My wife and I have been working a 5 year plan that includes this:

1) Get kids thru highschool first while building up equity in our current location.
2) Purchase a property for cash, being the equity remaining in our home. Location is going to be wherever we can afford the MOST land possible for cash.
3) Build a small house on the property, again with equity.
4) Build up my passive income until it becomes enough to pay all the bills no matter what each month. Bit at a time.
5) Retire and build up the farm (gardens, woodlands for heat, sell stuff or photographic services for the rest).

Certainly possible. If I were you I would most worry about your loans and building equity at this point and learning to save versus spend on junk. That's a hard lesson.

Also keep up your passion for it. Do a drive to potential areas. See if you have relatives to talk to that have farms. If not, go to the area you think u will be able to afford and start making friends. Offer to help them for a day. Makes the monotony of boring jobs that much better if you have something to look forward to on the weekends.

[JessHamm]

John,

He and I definitely want to wait to have children until we are settled in to our "goal" home and have enough stability under us. We certainly will pay of any small debt (credit card bills, medical bills, etc) during the time we are in his current home. I do not want to be held back from achieving this with my student loan, so that may be one debt that is still going to be around (hopefully larger payments will be able to be made sooner).

The next step would be to purchase the land, possibly one with a home already included, with anything we have saved after fixing up and selling his home. The thought is that one of us will either keep our current job (if we are not more than 1+ hours from it) or find one within the area we move to, to make sure bills are paid on time all the time. Then we would slowly build up the homestead a bit at a time, hopefully reaching the point in which we could both receive income exclusively from this, move our parents out to the area, etc.

I am not sure of the best way to go about finding the right land for what we may want. I have read also about having soil tested and so on. I have a fear that we will miss out on something almost perfect for us, but know that we need to be responsible and pay off bills as quick as possible and as you said, not spend money on junk.

[John_Canada]

Looks like you are well on your way to planning this! Good for you. The one consistent theme that my wife and I keep talking about (and understand we are in our early 40's now), is we know our needs will change in even just a few years. We were not really considering this even just a few months ago and thinking we needed WAY WAY more than we actually will in several years. Something to keep in mind when making your wish list and what you can actually afford because once we did that, we cut a lot of years off our plan.

[Maura]

Right now, plan a garden at his place or your place. Think about what your garden on your big homestead would look like, and do a mini version on your/his place. This will be learning experience for both of you. You'll learn about growing plants you haven't grown before, and how much you can expect from a given amount of space. Most people will plant a huge garden, get it planted, then can't keep up with it, giving them a huge amount of wasted time.

Do whatever is practical for you to save money and to not spend money. Seriously look at buying a used car rather than a new, for instance. However, sometimes it is more cost effective to buy a new car- be honest with yourself. Stop buying coffee at a store, if you are, this adds up.

Live on one income and save the other. Can you do it? If you can you will see your dream sooner. This also gives you the option of staying home with your baby because you can live on one income. It gives you wiggle room of one of you looses your job. It forces you to live more frugally, an important step when you have kids and your expenses suddenly increase.

If you wait to have children until everything is perfect, you won't have them. Recalibrate this.

[jwal10]

Do not borrow money. You can buy a few things on time, if you take advantage of good interest rates but a little at a time. Keep looking for the property you want to be in, either to rent to own or buy on contract. Only contracts that can be paid off anytime, sooner the better. You can always rent his house. Keep improving your property without going in debt. Plant the trees you want early. People can live without a lot of wants when you can see your future getting closer to your goals....James

[thestartupman]

Hi Jess, and welcome. I just recently did kind of what you are thinking about doing. I will give you a few thoughts, both good and bad about my experience. The very first thing I would do is start looking at what you are spending now. I am talking about writing down where every penny is going. I still track all of our spending on a spreadsheet. It let's me see where our money is going, and .make changes as needed to meet our goals. The coffees, and lunches at work can really add up. I don't know how much debt you have, but if you would take your smallest debt and pay any extra you can on it, and pay only the minimum on the rest of it. This will allow you to pay it off as quickly as possible. Then you can pay the amount you were paying on it, and apply it to your next smallest debt. I have to go do some things right now, I will give you more of my thoughts later if you are interested in hearing them.

[JessHamm]

Hi All,

I have been reading all of your advice! Please, continue to give more if you would like.
Work is keeping me from responding, but I do appreciate the response and appreciate the valuable advice you all are giving.

[Copperhead]

The good news is . . . you're YOUNG! Take advantage of your youth and enthusiasm, seek out a neighbor/farmer/homesteader whose life you would like to emulate, and tell them you want to be an INTERN. Be sweet, be kind, let them know you will work hard and do lots of crappy jobs for FREE if needed, but do not take NO for an answer.

When I first left my "secure" job as an IT professional for a government contractor and decided I wanted to farm or die, I sought out an older gentleman in our church who still gets up and farms every day. He is well in his 70s and his 40-something son is primarily in charge of the farm, but for 1 day, each week, for an entire year, I showed up and worked my butt off, for free. Yup, I spent the first couple of weeks pulling 50,000 staples from a rusty woven & barbwire fence that had been patched to the point that the patches were needing patched. The old man didn't like hardware disease so we retrieved every bit of that rotten old fence from the (steep!) hillside. The good posts were hammered with a 36lb sledge (yup!) to make sure they were good and tight. The rotten posts were pulled and good posts hammered (yup) into the old holes. Finally, after "earning my stripes", I learned how to construct a 6-strand high-tensile NON-ELECTRIC fence that was expected to last 50 more years. They old man and his son were very thoughtful. They used the tractor to haul the 200+ lbs of recycled 12.5ga high-tensile wire and the spinning jenny to the top of the ridge, that way, I could make my 400' pulls downhill yup!

In time, I learned how to work cattle through a chute, immunize, and even castrate 600lbs steers. Actually, on the day of castration, the old man's arthritus was making it difficult for him work the knife and pliers, so I volunteered to give it a try. I turned over 50 bulls into steers that day. yup.

I never did get paid. There may or may not have been a sweatheart deal on a couple of heifers. I did get a good, warm, hearty lunch every day I worked. I also paid dearly for babysitting. In the end, I learned the most over the lunch table. When he was working, the old man was all business and the son isn't much for conversation, but while waiting on the wife and mother to prepare the meal, the old man would tell how people used to farm, before the days of cheap corn and diesel (and tractors). Funny how things come full circle. Yup

[Whisperwindkat]

Others have given you good advice about debt and budgeting money and reducing your consumption of it. My advice is to start where you are. Start learning to can now. It isn't hard and there is loads of information online that will guide you through whatever you want to can. See what you might be able to glean for free. Our pear trees have been loaded this year, more than we can possible use and we have let several people have as much as they wanted off the trees. Quite a few people will do that. Don't be afraid to knock on someone's door and ask them. There is also a business that recently built it's building in a pecan orchard. Rather than cut down the trees they left them and the pecans are free to whoever wishes to come and get them. Haven't bought pecans in years. Grow a garden now and learn the ups and downs of doing so. This will give you knowledge and save you money. Learn how to cook from scratch using very basic ingredients. Learn how to fix and repair things yourself and start working on building your tool supplies, little by little. Knowing how to fix something yourself will save you loads of money. As far as looking for land. Look for land that has good topography. How does that land look during the rainy season (flooding), how does it look in the dry season. Is it laid out well already or can it be laid out well so that time is used efficiently along with land space. Hope that helps, Kat

[Tricky Grama]

Welcome & good luck!

Patty

[Edmelott]

I Keep seeing the word boyfriend and his home my, etc. I believe I would be looking for a commitment of marriage before I planned on jointly paying bills, fixing up his house, etc. Just my opinion. I have heard of bad experiences.

[Steve in PA]

Originally Posted by Edmelott

I Keep seeing the word boyfriend and his home my, etc. I believe I would be looking for a commitment of marriage before I planned on jointly paying bills, fixing up his house, etc. Just my opinion. I have heard of bad experiences.

Yes. My niece did this 2x and after each relationship she emerged deeper in debt with nothing to show for it.

[Laura Zone 10]

Originally Posted by JessHamm

Hello!

I am new to this forum. In fact I just signed up, so please bear with me. My apologies for the long post, I wanted to make sure I didn't leave anything out!

Welcome. This is an amazing place, filled with very smart folks, that are more than willing to help!!

I am a 25 year old living in the heart of Saint Louis City in Missouri. Recently, my boyfriend and I have decided to try and start a life of a small farm/homestead. My boyfriend comes from a small town, but not with a farming background, and I come straight from the city. I have always had a strong desire to be as self sufficient as possible, for myself and for *possible* future children. Living organically is also something I am passionate about, and I am making the effort to continue to try to achieve this. He is a creative, compassionate, and hard working man with a desire to live off the land and enjoy everything nature has to give, both the good and the bad.

Passion, desire, hard working...all needed qualities!!

We of course, have thoughts/dreams/opinions of what we would ultimately like to do in our future, but we understand that these things are not always quickly achievable or realistic. We do have some things that I have a fear will keep us from achieving our goals as quickly - he owns his home with additional members living in the house, I rent my own place and will be combining my household with his in January, but I also have 20K+ in student loan debt.

1. Get out of debt and stay that way. I cannot cannot stress that enough.
2. 20k is not a lot of money. Paying 1000.00 a month can have you debt free in less than 2 years.
3. "additional members'.....are they family?

We both have close family ties, but are supporting ourselves completely without the ability to ask family for "help". He and I seem to have tired of our office jobs that are getting bills paid, but not giving us any sort of sense of challenge, happiness, etc.

1. Have a plan of how to get to your 'passion, desire, happiness'.
I am positive it will have to include a job that you find 'unchallenging and tiring' BUT it pays the bills for now.
So to get what you want you may have to work (2) boring jobs so you can get out of debt and get to your 'dream' sooner!
Stay focused.
Don't jump the gun.

I am looking to find out what we will need to do in order to reach this goal of ours. I have begun doing various bits of research, but am not sure of where we should both even start in terms of planning, and large and small details such as finding/buying the right land, farming equipment, crops and animals, and so on. We are both very passionate people, willing to learn and to research, plan, and work VERY hard...but we welcome any advice.

1. Have a plan. In (3) months you want to be "here", (6) months, here, and (12) months, here.
2. Write out HOW you will get there (paying off debt/how you will pay off debt).
3. Once you have an idea in your head, and plans drawn out on paper, then you can start making a list of what you need (a) Property. Do you want a stream on your property?
Do you want hills? Do you want woods? How much do you want? What kind of weather, growing season are you looking for?
Do you hate winter? Do you hate heat?..........ALL those ity bity details, write them down.
All the sudden your piece of property will come to life, and you will know EXACTLY what you are looking for and where.

I can't stress enough how important planning is.

Fail to plan? Plan to fail.

We do not have experience in large parts of a life like this, but we do have gardening experience (small and large scale), have worked with power tools, some farm equipment, and so on. My father grew up on a farm, and would love to get back to his roots, my mother worked with horses for an extensive period of time, and his mother is well versed in many things such as canning. The hope is to have them at some point be living close to us so that we can not only be there if something happens, but so they can contribute their time also and receive foodstuffs and such as a result. Our parents would love to get back to a life like that, and we would love to have them around for possible future grandchildren and to give back to them as they have given us so much already, so this is very important to us.

Have a series of serious talks about your desires. They may have valuable experiences and advice and may even help with the planning!!

He and I have discussed penciling out goals 3, 5, 10, 15 years and so on down the road for this, and decide what we will need to do now debt-wise and such to meet these goals, all the while doing research and planning.

Thank you for taking the time out to help us on our journey...we both very much appreciate every bit of advice and help that we receive.

jrhhc8@gmail.com[/SIZE]

My humble advice is to get out of debt and while you are doing that, plan, research, put everything down on paper!!

[Terri]

This is how my husband an I did it in Kansas.

Look at your places of employment on a map, and find the closest big road that will take you out of town.

Take the road and drive out to what you consider a reasonable commute time. Are you still in the city or are you in the country? If you are in the country then you can keep your jobs and still homestead. This is tiring but it will make it possible financially. And, once living on the homestead you can make your homesteading projects a weekend thing if you want to because you will be working for yourself. You can start out with things like gardens and trees and building greenhouses on weekends only: it takes longer to finish each project but it sounds like you will need to keep your jobs for the forseeable future.

After driving out, we were out in the country almost, and so we bought a home in an area with one acre lots and that is our homestead. DH wanted to keep his city job and I NEEDED to keep my city job for a while and so this suited us.

There are zoning restrictions on livestock where I live, but I am married to a dyed in the wool city boy and it seemed like a very good compromise at the time! We eventually bought more land perhaps 15 miles further out, but I lost my health before we built on it and so it just sits there growing asparagus and daffodils: I paid the teenagers $5 an hour to plant them!

Also, to buy the 5 acres, I started a savings account. I put odd bits of money into it, starting with a $300 tax return. Then, I knew eventually the old vehicle would need to be replaced and so I started putting a car payment in it to take the sting out of buying a vehicle. Also in the spring and fall the utilities were not so high and I put the savings into the savings account. Also... but you get the picture!

The 5 acres came available, the terms were $6000 down and $150 a month, taxes were $600 a year, and I had $10,000 in the bank and the old vehicle was still running. We bought the land an I started building up the savings account again: now it was a car fund!

Then I got sick and so we have not been able to give the 5 acres the effort and money to develop it, but that is how we got our 1 acre home and our 5 acre land. By saving little bits of money and by finding land that was a reasonable commute that we could afford.

[geo in mi]

Welcome to the forum. You will find a lot of answers and ideas in all the forums of this site. I have been on my soapbox quite a few times for those who are just starting, or thinking of starting--with this advice.

1) Your soil will become your bank account. Most of the soil in the Northern Hemisphere has been depleted, or nearly so, by those before you who exploited it and used it up. So, you need to find good soil structure(tilth) and drainage so that your efforts to rebuild it will pay off, and so you won't wake up on plow day and find the plow turning over clay or gravel or subsoil....... Nothing kills self-sustainability like a soil that is wasted or unworkable. You will shed many tears (and dollars) on trash soil. So, learn what good soil is, take along a good post hole digger when you visit a property, and use it often to look underneath.......

2) Water scarcity will rule the twenty first century. Before you buy a property, secure your water. Without water, and lots of it, you won't have enough for your plants, your animals, your drinking and food processing, and your crops. Don't listen to those who scoff about "global warming"--if it doesn't come, you'll have an excess of water--but if it does, you can still grow your food and keep your animals well and fed. And a farm pond would be even better for fish and fire protection....

3) Scout your surrounding area for show stoppers: like a 7,000 cow dairy nearby, a motocross speedway on the adjoining property, a public area next door that would allow four wheelers onto your property, because "the former owners always let us ride here." Nasty neighbors with pit bulls...... and so forth. Take a drive within a two mile radius of the property and find out.

4) Include in your budget enough funds to get a full property survey made, with irons and stakes, so that, from your move in day and thereafter, there will be no question (or assumptions) of the property lines. Avoid property disputes from the get-go.

5) Give everyone a sincere wave and a nod, no matter who. You are moving onto "their" turf. As soon as they find out you are not there to upset their routines or way of living, they will probably consider you an okay couple. Every rural area has it's "Teapot Dome"( that's the name of mine)--the early morning breakfast diner where the locals go for breakfast. Go there once every two weeks, be prepared for everyone to stop talking and stare at you when you come through the door. Don't sit down at the first table you come to, let the waitress point you to one........you'll soon understand why. Tip your waitress twenty percent, even for breakfast. She'll spread the word that you will deal fairly with your neighbors.

6) Get married and become a team.

7) Now, and in your new property, get a separate home office where ALL the business takes place(not the dining table)--and keep it organized. Get a pack of both, yellow legal-size tablets, and yellow notepads. Write down your immediate-doable projects. It's so much fun to cross them off the list when you get them done. And use the little pads for 'go to town' shopping items. Create a budget......

8) On your new property, FIRST create your tool storage/workshop. Keep it organized and usable......(do as I say, not as I do...)

9) Do not get involved with horses, goats, or antique tractors and farm equipment.....

10) Buy a good pair of gloves....



geo

[Jennifer L.]

Everyone has given good advice. My tidbit for you is visit farmer's markets and look for smaller scale growers and see if you can get an internship with them. Or, join a CSA that encourages members to work on the farm. That way you'd get expert advice from people who are making their living at growing things.

Learn canning from Mom/M-I-L now. You don't have to wait on that one! Exploit those family members with farming experience until they run when they see you coming! Actually, I'll bet they'll be very happy to talk about it for long periods.

Read. Read things like Helen Nearing's
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Life-Near...=helen+nearing

Plant trees early.

Have fun.

[ronbre]

see if you can find a place that already has some established fruit trees or nut trees or both, as that gives you a real headstart on food selfsufficiency..as trees take several years to bear, but if not ..get those in first when you buy land.

also make sure there is sure access to water, but make sure in St Louis area you are above the flood plain as it tends to flood badly there..or are you thinking of moving somewhere else? Michigan would be a good bet..cheap farms for sale here.

make sure you have some source of income if you have debt..maybe one of you could commute to a job to pay the bills while the other begins to build the homestead up.

[CurtisWilliams]

If you are going to have fruit trees, dwarfs will produce much quicker and be so much easier to pick from. Invest in secure fencing to keep your animals in and others out. Use multipurpose animals and things. For example a bred sheep equals lawn mowing, cart pulling, wool, milk, offspring, meat and leather. Smaller animals tend to be much more feed efficient than larger ones. A wood cookstove will both heat your house for free, well almost, and allow you to cook in an power/propane outage. If you can't pay cash, it can probably wait until you can. Most things lose 25-50% of their value the moment that they are bought. Used is ALMOST always a better by.

Above all, keep your eyes, ears, mind and heart open. Oh, and a good sense of humor goes a long way towards keeping your sanity.

[YounGrey]

Welcome to the forum and good luck with your homesteading adventure!!!


Homesteading Recipes:

http://homesteadingrecipes.blogspot.com/?m=0

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