Savings Goal

Few are able to live entirely off the farm/homestead. In addition to the things you must plan for, such as taxes, insurance, fuel, vehicle maintenance, repair, and replacement, etc. there are all the things you cannot plan for such as injury or illness, medications, storm damage to property, livestock, or crops.

Some of your projects and ventures will go as planned, however, not all of them will. The failures should not discourage you from continuing to try. But they can be expensive. You definitely have to pay for your education on the farm.

And someday you may find yourself unable to work the homestead and generate the income it had formerly produced. Nobody likes to think about getting too old to take care of things but it does happen.

Remember: The way to make a small fortune in farming is to start with a large fortune and then buy a farm.

I do wish you much success.

There are fewer people in WY, both states have beautiful areas and some areas are better than others for homesteading and farming/ranching. Land prices very greatly, as does the productivity of the land.
Good land that's in alfalfa here is a 70/30 crop share here.The owner gets the 30%. It changes some depending who pays for planting, soil amendments ect. Crop land is straight rent. The prices of corn, wheat, and soybeans are heading down and that will affect the amount of rent, so I would not make plans based on the last few years land rents. The yields on non- irrigated land very a lot from year to year. Some land will feed cow/calf units per acre, other land it's acres per cow/calf unit. Your location will impact your income from the land. Both states have some water problems and water rights are a big issue in areas.

I would plan on one of you working at a off farm job. The majority of farms have one spouse employed off the farm. If obamacare works, it might not be as important, but farm income is not too consistent, and costs stay high.

I would find several areas that I was interested in and start reading the local papers and watching the real estate adds as well. In some areas it is hard to find land for sale as it goes to family or neighbors, as soon as it may be for sale.

Better when young as compared to old.



At Farmer's Markets where I sell produce, I rub elbows with many fellow farmers who started with no more than the shirt on their back.

I sit on the board of an regional organization that networks an Apprenticeship / Journeyman program. They have over 200 farms that host/train apprentices every year. From that body of trained journeymen, we see at 10 to 20 new farms each year.

Your talking about coming into it with a bankroll. Which is completely different.

I would still recommend Apprenticeship / Journeyman, to give you the knowledge and experience you need. Learning curves can kill you.



Share-cropping is a very popular method of getting onto land.

I know a few farmers who started by share-cropping 2 to 5 acres of land. After a couple seasons [again to learn the ropes], they were able to expand.

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Have you considered changing jobs? You mentioned that your current employer has work in CO and WY, but there are other employers around the country that might allow you to look in other states.

Do you require 100+ acres? Finding that much land close to an area that has schools/social life for your daughter might be difficult. All I'm saying is just think about how much land you need at a minimum to obtain your goals of off grid.

I agree with you in that if you can go into this venture debt free and pay for the land in cash that is the better option.

An idea came to me that might help you out as well. Before you move to a new area, buy your vacant land with cash, then rent the acreage to cover the taxes + a little profit. The goal is not to generate major income, just carry the property so you don't have to put any money into it. That is the first year. During your second and third year, you build your house, septic, power supply, and wells as you can pay for them with cash. So by the start of year four, you have a house paid for and a property that is maintaining itself (more or less). During year four, you start your transition to your new home by transferring jobs, moving the wife and kid to the new house while you finish work, or take a long 6 month vacation to the property to get it ready. Just a thought I had...

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Your thought is almost our 5 year plan to a tee. We're calling it a "5 year plan" to be cliche. In actuality, it could be a 2 year plan, a 3 year plan, a 4 year plan, etc. Our goal is to spend the first year taking trips and finding out exactly where we want to be (geographically). Then we're going to get serious about finding land. By then, we should have enough saved to buy the land outright and do almost exactly what you're saying.

I guess I left out that I want to be able to hunt on the land, as well. This is why I'd like a somewhat large parcel. We'd only be using about 10-15 acres, maybe 20, for the homestead, the rest of it would be left wild (maybe add a few food plots) for hunting. Do we NEED 100+ acres? Of course not. But, it sure would be nice to be able to hunt my own land, not have to pay lease fees, and not have to worry about all the public hunters for a change.

With all of this said, it's merely a plan at this point. There is a lot of preparation that I'm learning about so we're going to try to stick to our plan while cutting a lot of other things out of our lives and trying to learn some more of the basic skills we'll need to do this without failing.

As for my job, I'd rather stay with this one, if I can, because of the income it generates. A year here would be a few years in another field. It may limit me geographically; but, it'll allow me to throw in the towel a little earlier, too.

Small properties [10 acres or less] you can get into, work and support yourself; all with very little infrastructure. This is a business-model where I see people new to farming having opportunity.

Larger properties can not be worked by a single person without more infrastructure [farm equipment], thus debt-load. I have known a lot of farmers in that business model. That was the type of farm that my father operated, and that I grew-up on. Very narrow profit margin, and some years there simply is no profit margin. In-town jobs are often needed to support that type of farming 'hobby'. My father did it all his life, and he was never able to get a farm to be self-supporting.

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I don't intend to try to farm 100+ acres, I just want to own it for hunting. We'd use no more than 20. The rest would be left for hunting and firewood, ideally. I know it'll be tough to find this exact setup, but we have time to look, and we're flexible, if we need to be. If we rule out the hunting aspect of it, we wouldn't be looking for more than 20 acres.

Medical and big ticket items and old age living get in the way of the idealized notion of simple living on 5 acres and no interaction with the big world.....

House fire, well breaks, etc. Health insurance for 3, maybe more you are young....

So, you kinda need one job in the household to keep things together, health plan, retirement and rainy day fund. Those can be harder to find out in the boonies, but if you do tend to be fairly stable?

After that, so much depends on your location, and your closeness to an area population that buys stuff.

Market gardens do well in some areas, others you can't give produce away because everyone has a garden.

If an ethnic group is concentrated near you in the city near you, for example some groups crave goat - well there is a good market for you!

In the south you have a long summer, can grow market garden stuff many months. Up here in the north you can sell stuff about 3 months is all, otherwise we are in winter and spring when not much grows to sell and winter is too cold and too low a sun to do a greenhouse either. Hard to live on 3 months of sales......

You need to find a combination of doing what you love - some love critters, don't know which end of a hoe to hold and don't care, so e love tending plants until its too dark to see but are scared of livestock. So first off do what you love.

Then within that, you need to find a market for what you do. If your talent is schmusing with people a U-pick strawberry patch, a fall corn maze might be for you.

If you love working with dirt and your kid matures to love chatting with people, a sweet corn stand might work well, you plant and tend, the kid sells.

Or do a coop garden, you do all the work, sell shares, one of your family delivers good to the 'owners' of the shares twice a week. If you can talk up how good your crops are, and how owning your own garden (by paying me a fee every year for a share in the produce) is the best deal. A lot of this is -marketing- not growing stuff, so you end up really back in the business world, just maybe a lot more on your terms, with your stuff. Small scale but to be honest it is more work, you are going to be all things, production, marketing, finance, maitinence... It is not easy work, but it can sure be fulfilling.

Someone wants to buy bulk asparagus in your area, a few acres is the thing to do.

Search out your area for what is going to sell. It is a little scary to be dependent upon only one buyer tho, you need to set up to be flexible, follow your market.

Crops need intense labor certain months of the year if you aren't working in the dirt from the time you wake to the time you fall in bed you are failing... While other times you have time to sit around and ponder creation and vacation and all.

Livestock need tending 24-7, steady work without a break all year long, if meat animals you better have young stock growing as you sell the mature stock so there is no break. Ever. But you can plan the workload to be fairly regular and even all year, little more at birthing time.

There is no one answer.

1. What temperament do you have, what do you love doing?

2. What is your location as far as climate and local demand?

3. Who is your customer, what demand is there, what are your selling skills, its all about marketing after you get the first 2 sorted out.

All of the above is fun when this is a hobby, and you can do lots of mistakes and still have fun.

If you are trying to make a living for 3 or more, this is all every bit a business like your current job, trust me same stresses, same problems. Only thing is many people prefer their own problems and problem solving vs going to the salt mine and working on someone else's problems.... if you are like that, you should do well. It's not stress when you enjoy it, even if it is actually harder!

Good luck.

Paul

Paul,

Thank you very much. This is exactly the type of information I'm looking for. Your last paragraph nailed it. I don't mind long hard days, I don't mind hard work, in fact, the job change I'm taking right now is from the office back to the field for that very reason. However, it sure would be nice to be doing the work for myself. Maybe it is a better idea to move to the country and keep my job, at least until our daughter is about to go to college. It'd certainly lessen the financial burden and it'd allow us to truly enjoy the property, not work it until our fingers bleed trying to make a living. Thanks for pointing all of this out, it's definitely going to influence our decision.

Ok... Actually cash rent is more popular in the Midwest now rather then crop share.

On a upper Midwest crop farm you might get $200-300 an acre this year by renting it to a farmer.

Sounds good, your 200 acre farm will get $40,000 to $60,000 income - not living high off the hog, but a nice side income right?

But land that brings that much rent is going to cost $8,000 to 9,000 an acre right now.

So you will have to plop down $1.6 to 1.8 million dollars to own that farm free and clear. Are you sure you can buy that 200 acres with 2 years of savings, free and clear? You must have a govt job!!! . (Just having a little fun, don't anyone get mad...)

If you can do that right now, you need to be talking with your accountants, not us.

Crop farming is a bulk commodity game, with very low margins, and high costs.

I pay $36 an acre property taxes, so if you live here you need to take out $7000 from that $40,000 income right off the top.....

So no, I don't think crop share will ever work out for you if you are a regular person. You can't buy wooded over swamp mountain land at $1000 an acre and somehow rent it out for top dollar crop land......

You can PM me if you really do have a very big nest egg; farm land can be a good investment if you have that kind of cash laying around, but I doubt you would be interested in sharing that info on a public forum. In the no-intrest, scary stock market world we live in, timing some ag land purchases right and getting partnered with a farmer to rent the land from you can be a good investment with good returns, but you are playing that game long term and with piles of money, -not- with borrowed money or you will crash and die fast.....

Me I am a farmer on a small corn and soybean farm and don't rent much at all and just try to keep it simple and mine and go from there, wife has a real job to keep the benefits and pay for the fun things. So I don't fit the above at all, but it is a way to invest piles of money if you know what you are doing.

Paul

Paul,

PM sent.

We have 150 acres with riverfrontage. We routinely see moose, deer, bear, turkey, bobcat and beaver' and we can harvest all of them without need to leave our land. If your in dense forest with low population-density, it helps a lot as you have lots of game with very few people supporting themselves from the game.

I only 'farm' a small bit of it: 10 acres produces wild fiddleheads / maple, 5 acres of woodlot carries a herd of freerange pigs, 1 acre of orchard, and another of veggies.

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Sounds like exactly what we're looking for. Congrats, you've found heaven.

We are able to make this place 'work' because I have a pension [roughly equal to minimum-wage]. I was not aware of the Apprenticeship / Journeyman programs when I started. I have made many mistakes along the way, which would have wiped us out if I did not have the pension. Fortunately we live in a region where minimum-wage is a 'living wage'.

If I were doing it without an outside source of income, it would be nearly impossible without the skills, experience and assistance gained from such a program.

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200-300 acres of Midwest land could cost over a million dollars. Methinks you need to do some more research.

"My end goal is to not have to worry about the money, to be able to just enjoy the land and the lifestyle."

I don't mean to be unkind, but that's fantasy. Unless you win the lottery or something, you still have to worry about money for the rest of your life. Even Dick P. had to have money for supplies, tools, replacing worn out clothing, whatever, then getting those things delivered by air. And he was a single man, your post said "WE". A couple or a family takes even more money to provide for.

Don't be discouraged, it's a great dream to have, but if it were so easy everyone would do it! Do some more research and thinking and you'll figure out a way to live a lifestyle you are happy in, with the compromises necessary for living in today's world. It won't be the Dick P experience, but I bet you can come close enough to be satisfied and feel fulfilled.

Start living on nothing now and saving your money for land, tools. Work on skills you think you will need. Start out debt free if at all possible. And, best of luck. It says good things about your character that the lifestyle appeals to you, you just have to merge your dreams with reality.

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Thanks for the advice. We'll be debt free within 6 months. FWIW, I could be debt free right now, it's just a matter of writing the check; but, we made a plan to get to that point in x amount of time, so we're just sticking with it.

I have done research, I'm not sure why people keep bringing up the price of the land in the midwest like it's a deterrent. I understand what the price tag is and I understand what it'll cost to get there. As I stated earlier, I intend to buy several hundred acres with cash.

For the sake of argument, can we please address future conversation as if the price tag for securing said land was a non-issue?

With a good cash base to buy the land outright and enough reserve to build your infrastructure up front, anything is possible.

Once you have your funds for the land set aside, estimate your costs for the infrastructure (then double it!). If you build with low maintenance, passive solar and off-grid in mind, it will be easier to control your future expenses.

My scenario may not too dissimilar from yours. My family and I purchased ~80 acres here in OR four years ago. I transitioned from a corporate job and house in the suburbs back east to working from home and building the homestead. I take consulting contracts as they come and work on the house/property the rest of the time. No banks required; we're building as we go.

We're only about 20 miles from a decent size city, so my homeschooled kids have plenty of access to social groups. Most of southern Oregon is federal, state or other forms of public land. I think my county only has about 20-some percent private land. Which means my neighbors are not too close and most of the land around us is BLM.

Once I have the main infrastructure of the homestead finished (soon, I hope!), our necessary funds will drop to ~$2K/month. About half of that is private health insurance. The rest covers gas, taxes, other insurance, food that we don't grow, and some spending money.

There are plenty of homestead-based hobby projects that can net some cash once we stop the major construction process, but I will likely continue to take a few contracts a year to cover expenses. Our hillside soil isn't the kind of land that you would likely rent out for agriculture, but trees/vine crops do well in our area. Plenty of pasture and hay down by the river.

K.B.,

I'd like to speak with you more. I'm on a red-eye to Scotland for work leaving in about an hour. I'll catch up with you when I'm back on wifi or back in the states.

I’ll be interested in updates.

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I will keep you guys in the loop - you'll go through it with me because I'm sure there are PLENTY of questions ahead!