Techie wants to live the simpler life

Time and resources, questionable.... Energy to do it.. likely not.

My wife and I both work evening shift (roughly 2:30-12:30) all we can muster is sleep, shower, eating junk cause no time to cook, then back to the grind. The two days we have off are usually spent helping the inlaws out and catching up on sleep. Sheesh... If we're working this hard it might as well be for ourselves..

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"Let the beauty we love, be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." Rumi

There are places where you can still get land cheap. About 100 miles east of where I live in northern Nevada there is an area around the town of Montello, NV where you can still buy long acreage for a song. It's just west of the NV/UT border. I suspect you can find 20 to 40 acres for around $5,000 if you make direct offers to out-of-state owners. Their county assessor's records are online, so you can get property owner info easily. If you're serious about doing that, PM me and I'll try to get you pointed in the right direction.

Some of those parcels are near power but most aren't. You'll need to make allowances for that (usually solar with battery storage for your TV, lights, etc., and a generator for power tools). You'll also need a 4x4 vehicle because they do get some snow in the winter. The water situation is good, with most wells coming in at 100-150 feet with good production (20-50 gpm).

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If you haven't actually used it, how do you "know" that it is an option for techies?

If you need to do anything command line, particularly over a VPN you will find satellite internet to be painful. The latency on the uplink runs about 800ms.

When we bought our farm in 2002 I stood on the hill and looked 5 miles away where I could see the radio tower on top of the County building in the county seat. I figured at worst I could do a wireless bridge. Then I learned there wasn't even a dialup pop in the county.

In the interim I have tried all sorts of things. Even bought a 150 foot radio tower which I figured would give me an opportunity to do a bridge further out. Finally Verizon extended EVDO coverage to my area. I love EVDO! Not going to download videos over it but it gets the job done.

Seeing as you haven't already selected a place I have a few recommendations:

1) Select a job based on where you want to be, land is reasonable and the overall job market in the area has decent long term prospects. Even if you telecommute part of the time you will do ok. You have already pointed out the need for insurance because of your wife.

2) Save your money and buy (not rent) a property. If you are going to make improvements (and I guarantee you will want to) you want to do it to your place, not someone elses.

3) Build your tech skills. You didn't mention what kind of programming you do but pay for skillsets varies widely. You may want your farm/homestead to fall back on but you will find yourself much better able to pay for it if you are making a decent income.

Just a few thoughts.

Mike

Its going to take time, equipment and lots of work to work 20-40 acres.

keep looking around, make offers with the current market people may be willing to take less.

Start a garden where your at. DO lots of reading find out if all the hard work is for you.

You may find that a "FARM" is not what you want. Your looking for more of a homstead, most "FARM" are task specific endevers, CORN, dairy, pultry and they dont intermix. Your going to want someplace that you have pasture land, hay field as well as and crop land

FIRST item. FARMING is WORK, your a small businessman. Dont think of it as a hobby or thats all it will every be.


Be carefull with that statement, Most of the economical satellite internet are not really designed for 2way networking you would need. Yes they do two way but they are geared more twards downloads. Many VPN systems used by corporations for security DONT work over satellites. KNow what you need and make sure its available.


Been in the computer field almost 30 years, Have place in the country for some chickens, garden. hardly self sufficent but have all the makings and info to go that way if needed to. I am a little short on land as is right now for animals but have lots of nearby land that could be used.

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Gary in Central Ohio

Hey.

I recommend that you work as an apprentice farmhand part-time to see if the glove fits.

RF

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It's not good enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required. - Winston Churchill

Satellite internet is not nearly reliable enough in my mind to count on for what you are thinking. I've had satellite... it was worse than dialup. And I'm not the only one with that experience.

What would I do if I was you? Get as close as I can. See if you can find a place to rent that has a little space so you can have chickens, garden, etc. Your kids can stay at their school and you can at least get going on stuff right now. Compost. Put in some fruit trees. Many landlords will allow someone to do that sort of stuff if there is room on the property, it makes it nicer and increases the value. Or even buy a place where you are at so you can do whatever you want. Then you can sell it and move to the land when you are ready, in the meantime having been learning and practicing homesteading skills.

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Uncle Dutch Farms
Blogging from working city mom to homesteading housewife.
Rural Living Today
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BUY LOW AND SELL HIGH!! Real Estate is at an all time low now, do not make the mistake I made a few years ago and buy high and get stuck with it. I bought 27.5 acres later on at a really good price in another state and live here now but I am still stuck with 2 properties where I will take a loss if I EVER sell it unless it apprciates 100% in the next couple of years.

Don't rent if at all possible and try to buy now or at least lease and lock in the sale price with an option to buy.

As far as WildBlue or Hughes net run away don't even think about it. I too am a techie, I am an engineer for a cellular company. I have no cable, DSL, or even enough phone lines for a 2nd POTS line in the house, I was lucky to get my 1 phone line. My cell site is a bit far and I am nestled between pine trees so I have hardly any signal in the house. I had to purchase a cellular repeater mount an antenna outside and one in the most used room in the house. By doing that I now can use a EVDO card but the signal is a bit weak so I do not get the full speed EVDO is capable of. It works but you will not be downloading videos all night long or uploading large files. Think REAL HARD before you purchase. We bought here since it was what we could afford and I knew that with some money and effort I could get a EVDO signal in the house for "slow broadband". It's still slow for me but I know in 5-15 years I'll get something high speed here, or at least when my 8 year old has some children they will get it if I am no longer on this earth.

Rich

Where can you buy land in the Hill country for $1,000.00 an acre?

well i typed a really long reply and the laptop crashed before i posted it. i'm not going to type all that again. but here's some of it...

i work in the development department of a very large software company and work at home full time. i worked there 11 years before i was able to do that and it was only when faced with "i'm moving" that they agreed. I have been working for years simplifying my life and scaling everything down so that I wouldn't have to have this job. i was willing to quit and take anything i could find up here (i researched the area and there were plenty of jobs within half an hour). i set myself up so that I wouldn't have to have that "city salary" and could have taken a job making far less than i do now.

i worked for years at learning anything i could and moved to one of the most run down neighborhoods in town on 3 lots to save money. this also allowed me to get back to gardening. i grew up working on the family farm every summer so i knew some. i read countryside, found the books everyone recommended on half.com, found this forum. I learned to start buying in bulk and how to store food and make my own food at home. don't waste money on new clothes, start hitting the resale shops if you need something. do anything you can to cut costs, that is one of the keys of getting out.

after a while i bought 5 acres 30 min outside of the city and thought that would be a place i could learn more until i retired. it flooded every year and over the time i was there i learned that i really wanted out of this whole rat race now, i didn't want to wait anymore. gave away or sold almost everything that had no practical value. and again, just lived as cheaply as i knew how doing nothing but paying down the house and debt.

so i finally sold that house with 5 acres, with the equity paid off almost 99% of the remaining debt, my truck was paid off too. so i decided i was going to just quit, move and find some other work - anything really. we found an area we liked that had good elevation and water (and met the other long list of requirements that we had.)

i turned in my notice saying that i was moving to NY, but i'd be willing to work from home as long as it was full time and i didn't have to travel. they agreed. i was VERY FORTUNATE!! i know there are not that many jobs like mine where you can work full time at home.

now that we've moved from Texas to upstate NY, i've found the teachers i needed. all the frugality i put into place long ago seems routine now and i'm looking for more and more ways to become more self sufficient. we found a house that was about a half of what i paid for my last place and about a third of what i sold my last place for. i am always on the look out for hand powered tools since we are planning on going off grid next. yes there is solar, but if i can find somethign that doesn't have to be plugged in, i'd rather do that. right now looking for grain mills.

if you can find ways while you are working there to start living as if you don't' have that job and get started living now much less. that way if you can't find a techie job online, you can still move to the country and maybe do somethign online for yourself or get some other lesser paying job.

check out east texas, the land is fertile, pretty good elevation and you can be 30 minutes from a good hospital and grocery stores. you are also close enough to Houston which has one of the best medical centers in the world. if you can buy somethign now, then you could go there on vacations and get started building storage sheds, raised beds, whatever.

good luck.

oh. on the internet thing. if you stay close to a major state highway, you may have a better change at high speed. we are in a town of about 600 people and still have DSL because we are on a major state highway. at my old place, i could only get dial up. i couldn't get satellite because of the forest i was surrounded by. couldn't get the dish high enough.

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Thanks all for the advice.

The best advice I think was to begin gardening in the backyard. My wife and I have begun that and we shall see.

Nevada! Montello? I Cowboyed out close to that country. It is dry. I'm in Idaho now though. If you want the most bang for your buck i would look in Kentucky, Tennessee, WV and so forth. The land out there dollar to production capability is alot more affordable. Montello Country would take 30 acres to run a cow calf pair unless you irrigated it.

I heard that Ezra Taft Benson wrote a book that basically told how a family could survive on a small acreage with all needs met. I haven't looked for it but it would be a good read for you. Once you get the garden going get a few hens to start laying eggs and go from there.

The surface is dry but the water table is very good.

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I'm a former multi-media developer. I've always been self-emloyed so I am used to saving for the lean times and living simply.

About 8 years ago we moved outside of town and have about 3-1/2 acres in upstate NY (by upstate I mean upstate, not 20 minutes for NYC ). This year, after saving what we could we will start adding animals. Chicken first, then goats and after that maybe sheep. I may finally talk my DH into that old retired pasture horse I have always known I would have. We homeschool and my husband works seasonally...we have never been happier.

Now I paint farm animals all day and design multi-media applications for equine professionals, animal lovers and creative folks when I need the additional income. I am able to volunteer much of my free time (not that I have tons by any means), and that means so much to me.

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"What would you do if you won the lottery?"
Become a farmer!

I keep telling my wife that we should head to WVA, TN, KY, Missouri etc. Those places seem so green to me, but also economically challenged, which in turn should mean great land prices. Her biggest complaint "They have big bugs there" I say "Bigger than the ones in TX???? Have you seen a hellgramite? Those things are NASTY"

Thanks for the ETB book reference, I will look for it. Wasn't he the Sec of Agrilculture?

You already have the heat those places have humidity and not quite as much heat. I lived in NC for a while and humidity isn't that bad. The land prices are reasonable there and you would need less acres then in arid country. Look at Kansas, it is affordable and depending on where you are you might not need irrigation. Get some chickens and they take a good chunk out of the bug population and turn them into meat and eggs.

Mhorn... I didn't read all the posts, so someone else may have said this already...

I am also a computer programmer and I do work from home. I have been looking into moving somewhere else where land is cheaper (I live in central Florida near Orlando.) However, my current company requires me to log in via VPN, and from what I've read, you cannot do this over a satellite connection (too much latency.) So, wherever I go I have to make sure I have access to the internet via land line (DSL or cable.)

Just something to keep in mind. Good luck.