Opinions Wanted: Reasonable income for Homesteading family of 3

It all depends upon what lifestyle you want to maintain. When I came to this county about 30 years ago I had an old vw van, a few possessions that would fit in it, $400 bucks cash, 3 kids, an ungrateful wife, and no job. I sold the van fer $600, put that with my $400, to make the down payment on a piece of land. I then swapped an old Ky long rifle and a fair shotgun for a load of cull lumber at a local sawmill. The boy and I built an "A" frame with that lumber. We had no utility bills, running water was in the creek down at the bottom of the hill. this is the only surviving photo of that "A" frame.


(I am the one in the blue shirt with the long john sleeves stickin out)

I fixed peoples cars, built cabins, moved log houses, dug ponds, Laid block and brick, cleared brush and many other things to get enough money to feed the kids and make a living along the way seldom earning anywhere from$1 an hour stripping tobacco, to $7 an hour for my building skills. Sometimes I had work, sometimes I didnt but I have had a good time.

Its now 30 years, two wives, several dogs, three farms, and numerous cabins and a lot of plain old work later but I am quite content to be living in our nearly finished log home.



Life is a bit of a gamble. You pays yer money, and you takes yer chances, if yer looking for a guarantee......... buy a toaster at Walmart.

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"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain

sounds like you have worked hard to get where you are..i hope you downloaded that online book..it is a good one and you can't beat the price..free..a lot of good ideas in it..a lot of research.

You look like two very comfortable people! The dog and cat aren't doin' too bad, either.

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"What one generation tolerates, the next generation embraces." -John Wesley

What Alan said.

You have a good paying job... that could mean lots of things to different people. Getting out of debt and starting over is only half the equation. Getting land, anther home, a garden, and a homestead set up, all costs money.

Like Jennifer said... growing your own may (will) cost more than buying it... that is if you consider All of the inputs necessary. I've spent quite a few hours trying to get a tater crop in this spring... half the crop drowned, a quarter of the crop has survived sorta and mostly rotted, and I haven't dug the good looking plants. If I'm lucky, I'll end up with maybe two hundred pounds of taters. Seed, fertilizer, compost, fuel, my time vs. ~ $50 worth of taters... seeing as I can buy that many potatoes with less than two hours of off-farm work.

The best farmers I know have off-farm jobs that pay well.

I totally understand the less stressful part... but, if you don't have regular outside income, you'll soon learn what real stress is when you have a catastrophic failure of your 'cash cow'. I can live off pretty much nothing... all I need is enough cash to pay the taxes. It's when those little luxuries (anything greater than eating plain food and breathing) come into play, that cash is necessary.

What is this 'retirement nest-egg' you speak of? Your mileage may vary, but the folks that I know that are doing this for real, are still working every day up into their mid 70's. Working for yourself is great, but there are no health plans, retirement, 401-k's, profit sharing.

Keep your job as long as possible. Cut your hours. Don't burn any bridges. If possible, do relief work when someone is on vacation. A week every month or so would bring in useful cash. Unless you're a student of scrounging, you'll find cash a necessity.

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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

We farm full time. We don't have off-farm jobs, or a trust fund or anything like that. We're living comfortably on what we earn from our farmstead. On occasion when money's been tight my wife has offered to get an off-farm job but when one calculates it out it just isn't worth it. It is far better to have us both here on the farm.

For a family of five I would put $10K or so as a very reasonable annual living with debt clear, ignoring health insurance (figure $8K to $15K for full cost if you include it) and real estate taxes (because they vary so much place to place and depending on what you own). We have done that many years. Tightening our belts a bit more we could do less. It happens some years. Other years are better.

Many people would not enjoy the same lifestyle. A lot depends on your expectations. A lot of the expenses of 'modern living' are job related. If you're homesteading heavily you produce a lot of things and don't have time for other things that eat up money. Subscriptions, travel, toys...

Retirement? What's that? Realize that retirement is a very new concept. People didn't used to expect to stop working half way through their productive lives and somehow have the resources to live off a 'nest egg'. Personally, I intend to keep doing stuff. You stop doing and you start dying.

All of my stock is out grazing my other asset. It works.

Cheers,

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog/
http://HollyGraphicArt.com/
http://NoNAIS.org

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

A reasonible income for a family?

If you have no debt [no CC debt, no mortgage, no car payments, no student loans]; in this area we see families supporting themselves on $20k/year. Like 2 adults and 2 teens but no garden.

I am building a house and trying build a farm so it does take some money. If our house was done, $1k/month would be fine.

It does depend a lot on the cost-of-living in an area.

If your land has low property taxes, for example. We pay about $1 per acre per year. But we have lived in high price areas before where taxes alone would be $2k per acre per year.

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http://www.mofga.org/

http://www.mofga.org/Programs/FarmAp...2/Default.aspx

Just wanted to say to YH-----that's a great picture of you and your Yvonne. A cozy home, a glass of wine and a loving mate....who could ask for more?

Ooowch! That's more in taxes per year than we paid for our land. We have friends in Mass who tell us about the horrors of taxes there. If I remember correctly their real estate taxes on a modest home are $13K/yr. They're trying to move up here to Vermont to get away from that but have the job/benefits golden handcuff trap.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

Life is good when ya let be. Its been a lot of work, but we have shared in it, built it the way we wanted it and its home.

The really nice part is we have paid for it as we built it.

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"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain

You could do it on $1000 a month IF you have the house paid for completely and are debt free.

My father does IT consulting and has the small house paid for ( 1 bedroom) with my mother.. He works when her gets a call and when he doesn't he works in the yard or does odd jobs. They could live on less. but that's without cutting anything out..they don't have TV and use a wood stove year round , its their only source of heat and only oven/stove.

So it can be done...but its not easy and it took them their whole lives to get there.

HI Matt
I know what being in a stressful job is like. However, there is NOTHING more stressful than being backed into a corner and knowing you're going to loss everything because there isn't enough money. I've seen it myself. Friends that got the homesteading bug before we did, quit their jobs, and wanted to raise goats and onions. They didn't make it, divorced, and lost the land. We didn't want to follow that path, so when my wife and I bought our land, we both decided that we'd keep our career jobs and develop our homestead part-time on weekends.

We've had our land for 4 years now. We've got a roofed dry cabin build, an orchard planted, garden, rifle range, and friendships with neighbors. Pretty much all our free time is devoted to our "ranch" now, but we're paying off the mortgage and otherwise staying debt-free. We have made all our large-scale construction purchases on a Home Depot credit card, and get the "1 year interest free" deal. I'm proud to say that I have conscienciously paid off our bills on time and have not paid one single penny in intrest to them in all that time.

What I would suggest to you Matt is that you keep your job for now, but start looking for your land NOW. Buy it now while your credit is stellar. Once you're on the land you yourself can decide how much longer you can hold out at your awful job, but you'll be secure in the thought that you won't have to face daunting debts that might cause you to loose your land.
Good luck to you,
Michael

Many posts concerning money matters should come with many disclaimers, the biggest being your results may vary. Be very wary of the I built it all in my spare time between odd jobs and now we live the life of luxury posts. Always read between the lines.
Can you own a house and property outright and live on 10k per year? Possibly but not probably. Funny thing about houses and property and all of the stuff, they require maintenance and improvements and sometimes replacements most all of which cost money.
We do our best to work on $350 per week, but we make a lot more then that. This gives us the ability to repair and replace what needs doing. Also allows us to save both for retirement and for a rainy day, a good deal, or sudden fun attacks.

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"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self confidence"
Robert Frost

YH, luv your pix, there's a lot to be said for being thankful/content. Well done!

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THE BEGINNING IS NEAR
5-star double-rated astronavagatrix earth girl

You paid less than one dollar USD per acre of land?

Buy more you got a good deal!

We had to pay $300 per acre to buy here, I have been okay paying $1 per acre annually for taxes

My friend came from a family of ten. His father was/is the sole provider for the family. He made it on 30,000 a year and even built a new house. They raised most of their own food including beef. They would slaughter one or two for themselves and the rest would be sold to cover their cost of feeding them. It is basically free meat or even a little extra some years. They also sell hay off the land as well. One thing they did get out of was chickens. With so many Amish selling eggs it just wasn't worth the hassle when they could get eggs cheaper than what they could do themselves. They also quit growing potatoes since there is are quite a few large potato farms an hour and a half away. Usually the Amish will get them dirt cheap right around harvest time and then keep them in their basement. I don't remember exactly what my friend's family pays for them taters but I swear my friend said it was 5 bucks for 50 pounds or something like that.

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http://www.xanga.com/shackman A blog about whatever

This is an interesting question! We're looking at a similar situation except with five kids. Right now DH is the only one working and has two jobs (civvy job and Nat'l guard) We plan to stick with the Nat'l guard which is guarenteed income but only about $5k a year. We're trying to push down our debt, pay off our vehicle and save up some money.

Right now i'm practicing growing our own veggies and herbs. We bought land (with a mortgage) in Feb. and will try and pay that down after these other bills. we're lookign at building our house debt free so there would only be the mortgage on the land. The land will have a well so there's the water and we're looking at greywater usage and alternative energy. I'm hoping eventuallly we'll be able to have enough solar power to get a credit from teh elect. co.

There are a lot of things you can do to become more sustainable. I am probably sitll on just the tip of the iceberg with this. Oh, i'm also bartering sewing for piano lessons for my 3 oldest kids for a month or two.

For those saying $35000 is an excessive amount of income, I know people who make that waiting tables or bartending. Income and expenses are so dependent on location. It is definitely possible to get by on less, assuming you are in the right location for it. This year the school and property taxes on the house I grew up in were $7500. And that is on a well-kept up but not very fancy house. Other houses nearby are up to $15000 in taxes. That's part of why we have never considered buying a house in the neighborhood I grew up in, although it is a nice older neighborhood.

We figured out that after our mortgage is paid off our expenses per month would be about $500. That is based on what we spend right now for two adults, a toddler, and an infant. It includes all utilities plus phones and internet, home and car insurance, taxes, groceries, gas, and miscellaneous expenses. We would like to have more children, and as our children get older they will also get a little bit more expensive. I'm sure other expenses will crop up too.

My husband is having health issues related to stress from his job right now. Our goal is to be in a position where one of us works a low-key part-time job but that won't provide us with health insurance. We have been looking for something that doesn't pay quite as much but is less stressful for him. While we can find jobs that don't pay as well, they still require the same amount of extra time from him. We are also looking for something that offers a more set schedule so that I could work when he is home with our girls. Our backup plan is to win the lottery.

It is so difficult to plan for retirement expenses. I am in my 20s, and my husband is in his 30s. We have absolutely no idea what things will be like when we are older. We know that social security won't be there, but we don't know how much our expenses will be. My family tends to live a long time and be very healthy, and my husband's tends to live a long time but not always in very good health. We are putting money away and hope it will be enough when the time comes.

Working together to pay things off has been really great for our marriage. My own parents got divorced and a large part of the reason was that they weren't on the same page financially. Having goals for our future together has been wonderful.

Kayleigh

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http://kayleighjeanne.blogspot.com

It is different for everyone. We live on a farm that's paid for, our house is paid for also. So the only bills we have are Electric and phone. We both still work because of all the other things that come up. We currently have 3 cars. One belongs to our youngest son, who is in college. College replaced our mortgage. We work to keep him in school. Plus property taxes, house insurance and insurance on 3 vehicles. There's always upkeep expenses. Our house needs new shingles this year. We need more fences, all the cars will eventually need tires and hopefully only minor repairs, but all this takes cash. We try to never borrow. We save along the way for all these things. We wouldn't have a cell phone bill if our son wasn't away in college. He doesn't have a land phone so that's our only connection. We raise goats so they have to have feed. We do raise a garden, mostly because we feel the food is healthier. It just never seems to end. That's why we continue to work away from the farm. Our farm isn't big enough to provide our living at the time.

I disagree with buying a fixer upper versus building.....from my exeperinces..I have been able to build 3 homes in my life cheaper than I could buy the fixer upper to start with......YMMV

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Have Gun,Will Travel...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAfHigPsC_s

as others noted, non-food expenses can be very considerable, particularly health insurance or health care. moving to the country will likely increase your transportation costs, particularly if gas prices rise again.

you mention paying off debt. is that consumer credit card debt? or mortgage debt? if consumer debt (ie, non-mortgage debt), have you resolved the issues that got you into that debt to begin with? If not, you're setting yourself up for disaster later.

if mortgage debt is what you're paying off, what assumptions are you making about the real estate market? eg, are you assuming that you can sell your current house "after the market recovers", to help fund the homestead? How sure are you that your assumptions are correct, and what happens to your dreams if you're wrong?

are your kids ok with moving to the country? if they're young, they'll probably adapt reasonably well, but if already teenagers, they might think it's "boring".

is the stress of the job due to the industry, or that particular company? ie, could you do the same/similar job for another company and have less stress?

are you planning on moving to the country roughly where you are now, or moving to a completely different part of the country? if you're planning on staying where you are, what prevents you from selling your current house, and buying a more remote property now, and dealing with a longer commute for a while?

i'd suggest your and your wife define what you want the long-term dream to look like, and then lay out the steps along the way. what's stopping you from starting a garden now? from baking your own bread? from buying a half-cow and putting it in the freezer? how accurately have you evaluated all the work it will take to realize your dreams? eg, animals require daily care, and generally preclude going on vacations, even short overnight or weekend trips, unless you find a reliable person to take care of the animals (which from various posts on the forum, it's hard to find reliable assistance in this area many times.)

--sgl