Financial Questions and Beginning a Homesteading Life

Good Luck but one thing to remember is that life can change in a minute. I was in your shoes 5 years ago but after the down turn in the economy I now make a 1/3 of what I used to. pay off your debts and save ... save ..... save. Have a back up plan just in case.

What part of the country are you looking at?

I sorta go along with Donsgal.

The future with your partner needs to be ours not yours or hers.

I think you'll fine that after people get married and move into his/her house, it eventually gets sold & they find an "our" home.

Unless you plan on practicing with building this house?

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Only she who attempts the absurd can achieve the impossible

Hi NoahJohn,

I'm in the same boat as you. I'm still in my 20s (barely - I'll be 30 next year) and make a little more than you do (and my basis is yen so as the dollar keeps dropping my salary goes up comparatively). I have no debt and managed to put about $60k into savings since last April, next year is looking even better.

My goal is to go into semi-retirement in five to six years on a homestead of my own. I'd like to buy the land/house/equipment outright with no mortgage and go from there. For now I'm only planning semi-retirement as it would be easy with my skillset to find a part-time telecommute-able job paying around $50-60k per year with insurance/retirement benefits. I figure this allows me the best of both worlds.

The hard part is finding someone who is interested in sharing this life with me: right now I live in the city and most of the women I meet are interested in little other than hair and makeup. Despite what one reads around here, women who are interested in homesteading don't grow on trees, although it is probably easier for you in Ohio than for me in Tokyo. I make my own beer, soon to have a rooftop garden built, make bread in a rice cooker. People here are shocked SHOCKED! that one can do such things... It's a completely different attitude/mentality.

Anyway, good luck, I look forward to hearing your progress. I'm a lurker here but it's nice to see I'm not the only one who has the same goal.

m.e.

As far as the wife thing... Sure John must consider that but I would hesitate to tell him to halt his plans for a home in the country just in case he meets a future wife. What if he's ready to buy his property in 3 years and his wife doesn't come along for 10?

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Uncle Dutch Farms
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good lord, where did he has for marital advice people? he may never meet a compatible person. what, he should wait until his dying day because he was adviced to put off his plans and wait until he was married to plan his future? sheesh louise.

all right. you already said you know you need to pay off all debt. do you want to not work at all after retirement? in that case you'll need your house/land paid off and enough money invested to support you. so you need a really firm idea on a budget of after retirement expenses without a paid off house, land and car. if you find you'll need 25k for prop taxes, utilities, food, HEALTH INSURANCE (just wanted to capitalize this as it will be several hundred dollars a month), home owners insurance, car insurance, and just plain fun money. sure, you can live on 10k a year if you have to, but can YOU? so I'd sit down and really get a firm number that you'll need per year and get enough invested to return the sum you'll need. though it sounds like you have the abilities to start over again if it comes to that. congratulations and good luck.

Well, I know a young fellow (well, in his mid-30s) who spent a lot of time and trouble and MONEY building a nice little homestead, beautiful garden, fantastic view, out in the country. It was his dream. It was what he worked his whole life for. Then he met this gal, fell in love...yada yada yada. Her first words when he showed her his homestead were.......ewwwwww why would you want to live HERE?????

They are now living in brick house in a subdivision of brick houses in the middle of the city and his dream is just a painful memory. Yes, he could have NOT married her, I suppose. But then he would have had to choose between living alone and away from the woman he loved, or giving it all up for her.

So my advice stands. Find a woman who is on the same page BEFORE you go to a lot of time and trouble and effort and money to build your dream. Don't count on the fact that you are going to find her AFTER. Good homestead loving women are hard to come by, dontcha know..... :baby04:

donsgal

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Life is what happens while you are making other plans. (John Lennon)

That marriage will be a statistic in a few years, or he'll be one miserable middle aged man someday.

Why would this person marry someone who didn't want to share his dreams, his lifestyle, his home? Build the house, get it all running and find a woman who appreciates you, your lifestyle, your plans and hopes and goals to share your life with. They are out there, you just have to be patient.

When did this become a marriage discussion? Now even I got into it.

Get out of debt and buy a home. Have a great life.

mark

John,
There have been some very good ideas given.
In conjunction with trading hours for dollars we have developed some sources of passive and semi-passive income.
Purchasing what is called an intermediate property may also be to your advantage. Instead of trying to make one big jump. Buying a property with the full intention of resale as the market increases its value. Doing so will often relieve financial pressures in the future.
Another thing that works well is getting a property that can be put all or partially in the FSA program for a few years. With a large down payment the FSA program will often yield enough to pay back at least the taxes and the payments on the land. Certain properties may even be able to yield some other considerations (fee hunting or share cropping) over and above.
Defering taxes through the Green Belt program can be advantageous also.
There is an adage that says; History always repeats itself. Well each time we get a new setting President the economy will take a short down turn. That is happening right now. If the GOP returns to office, the downturn may be longer. If the Democrats get the seat they will hit the ground running and will be looking to get the economy moving as fast as they can in order to make good on all the promises that they will be making.
There are many other variables but from my point of view, I would put myself in a financial postition to purchase ground in the next couple of years. That ground having some of the qualities spoken of above. If possible a property that may be larger than you need in order at a later date, for it to be divided and a portion sold off or rented to someone. Thus eliminating or greatly lowering the debt.
In todays global economy we need to be careful to not "pigeon hole" ourselves. Even though we may have the inclination to get out of the mainstream.

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That which is tolerated by the first generation is magnified in the next.

CIW

Yes you should get rid of credit debt. But if you are saving ANYTHING (which you should since 'retiring' to a homestead with no money is going to end in poverty and having to work again after a few years or months for most all of us) you should be stashing away all you can in the best tax protected retirement accounts possible.

With your own business you can have a keough 401K type plan and deduct up to $15,500 pretax dollars (ie save probably $5000 off your tax bill this year) and have that amount growing tax free until you withdraw it in retirement. Only removes $10,000 from what you'd have after tax to pay off credit debt.

You can do an IRA for $5000 this year. Roth if you do ever not make too much money (think you make too much this year) is the best- put in $5000 after tax dollars and then (until laws change ) no taxes on that or all the earnings ever (if earnings not withdrawn until retirement). Probably paid too well for a tax deductible IRA or should have 401K which also prevent using that but can have after tax IRA in which no taxes paid on the earnings in the account.

Me and DH? He makes <= to your figures, I am starting a job pays similar amount. Last year we maxed out his 401K type fund, too rich for Roth IRAs (I check every year and do Roth whenever possible) so regular IRAs, and for the few months I worked at my new job I took NO pay and put the whole pay into their 401k type pension fund. All in all we put $15500 his keo $12000 my keo $4000 into each IRA for $35500 into retirement. I only took my job to ensure money for retirement- I'll get some take home pay this year. And why do we save so much? Because we want to quit working before we die!!!

Anyway calculate your returns... I guess paying off a 20% credit card is a 20% return, but saving $5000 on your taxes by spending $15,500 on a 401k is sort of like a 30% return on your money! Not actually 30% long term since you pay the tax down the road but tax rate may be lower and psychologically likely to have more in retirement this way than otherwise... IE aren't you more likely to have retirement savings if you fund that fully this year, and paying off debt only partially, than if you TRY to pay off all debt but definitely make no plans to do any retirement savings?


(savings for retirement not mentioned by you or that I could see in my brief perusal of posts)

From one of his earlier posts, (Nov. 24, 2007) it appears NoahJohn is already married! So hopefully the wife is a willing participant in this homesteading plan... and she is willing to be doing alot of work out there!