Drop out

[Va. goatman]

I'm getting really tired of working a job that a 3rd of what I make is taken from me So What I'd like some advice on is how can I just kinda quit my job and drop out I don't owe for anything I have 28 acres in SW. Va. I know I could do odd jobs to make enough to keep the power on and pay my taxes

[Cyngbaeld]

Just do it. You might pay the tax as far ahead as you can and try to have a cushion for the utilities.

[AngieM2]

Do you have some type of living box/little house/yurt/etc so you'll have something to stay out of the weather and away from wild critters?

I'd think you'd need to be planting something or putting up foodstuffs for the winter, then plan to plant. And seems everyone needs some animals, and they would need fences and a 'house'.

Just thoughts of someone that would love to get out of the 'normal' work cycle.

Angie

[mnn2501]

So, what you are saying is that you want police and fire protection, roads and hospitals, safe cars, safe drugs, safe restaurants to eat out at, public libraries, free elections where you get to choose who represents you, etc etc but you don't want to pay for it.

Hey, I'll be the first to admit that government wastes a lot of money, but they also provide very useful services. It would be nice to be able to designate where you want your tax dollars to go, but you can't. You can however choose who you vote for and vote against the bums that spend your money where you don't want them to spend it and let the people you do vote for know you are mad as he!! and aren't going to take it anymore.

Hey. Several years ago, I did what you're now contemplating. The key for me was having the house paid for and no debt. I think that having a tractor and a few implements is going to prove well worthwhile.
The costs:
My main monthly bills are electricity(average $100 a month), telephone/internet/satellite TV(about $160) and I put $100 a month up for real estate taxes.
The benefits:
I thoroughly enjoy every single day. Most everything I eat is something I grow or raise. I am never in a hurry. Life is unspeakably good.
Conclusions:
Its not for everybody. When I go to town, I don't have a new car. I have a couple of old trucks with no electronic parts that I can fix and keep running forever. Although I can afford a lot of things, I feel no need to have them. I've gone way past the point of thinking I need to spend every dollar I have. I see so many people living in a hurry, up to their eyeballs in debt, and just downright hateful because they're bitter about their own unhappiness and don't even understand that. But, they probably see me as wasting my life away. LOL, its a judgment call. I have come to terms with my own mortality and plan on living my life in this manner until it's over. One day of living in total harmony with yourself is worth years of agonizing through every hour of every day. My biggest worries now are whether or not it rains.

[Bearfootfarm]

So, what you are saying is that you want police and fire protection, roads and hospitals, safe cars, safe drugs, safe restaurants to eat out at, public libraries, free elections where you get to choose who represents you, etc etc but you don't want to pay for it.

Hey, I'll be the first to admit that government wastes a lot of money, but they also provide very useful services.

Very little of that comes from INCOME taxes
Even with NO job, you STILL pay sales and property taxes

[AngieM2]

I know I could do odd jobs to make enough to keep the power on and pay my taxes
Edit/Delete Message

Originally Posted by mnn2501

So, what you are saying is that you want police and fire protection, roads and hospitals, safe cars, safe drugs, safe restaurants to eat out at, public libraries, free elections where you get to choose who represents you, etc etc but you don't want to pay for it.

Hey, I'll be the first to admit that government wastes a lot of money, but they also provide very useful services. It would be nice to be able to designate where you want your tax dollars to go, but you can't. You can however choose who you vote for and vote against the bums that spend your money where you don't want them to spend it and let the people you do vote for know you are mad as he!! and aren't going to take it anymore.

He said "pay his taxes" so you have no legitimate fuss

Angie

[bee]

Goatman, what do you have on your 28 acres? Fruit trees, wood lot, catfish pond, hay fields, mature nut trees, good deer/turkey hunting, liveable home/camp, dependable water source...a couple acres of ginsang or goldenseal??? Will your land grow ginsang(needs good woodsy soil and 90% shade density) you could maybe work another few years and plant a section to ginsang seed for each of the years you delay "retiring". 5 to 6 years for marketable roots.
Better to advise how sustainable your ability to stay out of the work force if you explore all the "positives" of your resourses. Kinda hard to not have the 40 hour work week if you have to buy all the feed for livestock or yourself for that matter.

[NCLee]

While you're still working, start accumulating what you need to settle in on your land. Since you didn't mention a dwelling, concentrate on that first. If there is one, make any necessary repairs. If you don't have a dwelling, look into used mobile homes, first. Even if you decide to build a house, you can still use the home for a workshop, summer kitchen, storage, or whatever secondary use you may have for it.

Accumulate the tools that you don't have now. Gardening, food preservation, animal care (chicken feeders, for example.) Go ahead and plant fruit trees and other perennial food crops, such as asparagus, berries, herbs, as soon as you can. Protect from wild life, if that's a problem in your area.

While you're still working, make sure you have the right vehicles for your homestead. I'm not talking about buying new. If you're driving a small car, trade it for a good used pickup truck, for example.

If you need to put in fences, go ahead and lay in the supplies for that. Hopefully you have somewhere that you can safely store your supplies.

While you're still working learn as many skills as you can that you'll need in the future. Food preservation is one that everyone heading for the land needs to know. Now, your job will give you the dollars to buy the needed equipment and accessories for the various methods. Spend a weekend canning veggies from a farmers's market or learning the best ways to use your dehydrator.

IMHO, actively working towards what will make you self-sufficient will help you cope with your job and the tax burden for now. Make sure you have all the tools you need for the work you plan to do. And, be sure to set aside enough money to pay your property taxes for at least a couple of years. You don't want to later wish you'd worked another 6 months before you gave up your current job.

Plan carefully. Then, you'll be able to feel confident as you wave goodby on the way to your homestead.

Hope these thoughts are helpful. I walked away from a 9-5 in 1996 with no regrets.

Lee

[Ernie]

I don't see anything at all wrong with a man wanting to live a simpler life. He'll stop working so hard for someone else, but he'll be working just as hard on his own farm (which never seems like true work).

My advice is to gauge where you are today in terms of skills and abilities, and then take a long hard look at the money situation. Can you afford this? How does your family feel about it? And then pray about it. A lot. Guidance is there for you if you wish.

[Wisconsin Ann]

I'll offer a bit of other advice to what was said above. Medical insurance. You probably have some form of medical insurance from your job. If you move to a wholly (yes, that's the way it's spelled...odd looking, isn't it?) "work my farm/trees/whatever" life...you'll need to be in good health to survive. If you break an arm, you'll need it fixed ASAP so you can cut wood, churn the butter, etc. None of this sitting around for 2 months while it heals up.

You're more likely to be generally healthy in a simple lifestyle "homesteading" type...but also more likely to suffer an injury from an accident, or maybe throw out your back.

anyway. Look into how to do the medical insurance thing. Join a group health care, or something similar perhaps.

Get your ducks in a row and then drop out

[Horns Bach]

You could always work less like only 20 hrs a week at a job you love. And take care of your health so that when you get older you will still be able to manage the work on acreage by yourself.

[wyld thang]

While I agree about doing whatever it takes to be strong and healthy (and strong and healthy saves you from a lot of injury too), I think we have a knee jerk dependence on health insurance(of course I realize I'm speaking as a healthy person, so just know I'm "biased"). I think the money is better used, put away in a savings account that you dont' touch. If you break an arm you've got the $ to pay for it. If you don't break an arm you've got a nest egg for a rainy day.

The things is, statistically, you can avoid a LOT of illness and metabolic fubar through diet and exercise and not smoking or drinking like a fish. That leaves injury accidents(like the broken arm). You can save money by being up front about paying cash, and being over the top anal(or having a friend who can be anal for you, plan this ahead of time) about the hosital using generics, asking how much EVERYTHING costs(even the bedpan) and REFUSING what is not needed(like if a tylenol with codeine will work for you instead of morphine--for instance my hub chose the tylenol because he could deal with dulled pain, but not the price of morphine), then going through your itemized bill. Hammer the doctor about being cheap--you can "sometimes" get away with a simpler repair method(talking about broken bones) if you strictly follow care and physical therapy instructions--be active in your recovery. Get and keep copies of all your xrays/scans.

But yeah, I hear ya about reducing earnings to reduce fed taxes paid out, totally understand. Welcome to the tea party

Is it just yourself, or do you have a family to support too? if it's just yourself it will be a lot easier(duh). A smaller house is less work to heat, you have the land to grow a lot. You can barter too. Help someone put up their wood for some wood you can take home.

Good luck!

[belladulcinea]

Here in Oklahoma, you can work 24 hours a week at something you like and qualify for health insurance if it's something you need. I have several friends who do that so they can have it for their families.

I think your idea is something that is doable!

[deaconjim]

Step one: have a plan. If your expenses are low, saving shouldn't be hard. Figure out your expenses, and put enough aside for a reasonable period of time with no other income. Account for unexpected things.

Take a look around, and decide what you will need to sustain yourself on your 28 acres. Also take a look at your assets and decide how they can best help you toward your goals. Take an honest look at some of your liabilities, and evaluate how important they are to you.

Think outside the box. Income can come from places you may never have considered. Can you write? Many people find easy writing opportunities to bring in additional income. Don't hold your breath for a best selling novel, you can make more money on small, easy jobs in a short period of time.

Vegetables, fruits, and berries can also bring in money, as well as feeding you through the winter. Set yourself up to be able to raise a larger garden than you need, and treat it like any other job during the growing season. Also make sure you are set up for preserving the harvest so that it will last you through the rest of the year.

[mpillow]

My 14yo son worked about 15-- 7hour days this summer doing side work he made over $1000....never did get to hay because he started golf before haying was good. He made $10 an hour as he is skilled with bucket and backhoe, lawn tractor, shooting varmits($10 for one shot on a woodchuck) and most any general construction type work. He can do basic furnace work too...

goats are a good start....raise a dairy bull calf on the milk for meat---veal and beef
pick up some bantam chickens....mine free range and raise young without fail all summer.
rabbits super easy.

Get the book "Farmer Boy" in the Little House Series and read up on the crops and animals raised.

[Va. goatman]

Thanks all I should of said I have a small house and at the moment have 18 goats. did have about 40 but it was to many to keep up and work to. I have about 10 acres pasture and the rest is woods though I'm just about done fencing about 4 more acres of brushy woods. I do plan to keep my job till spring I just can't help but think there's a better way to live

[Bearfootfarm]

Thanks all I should of said I have a small house and at the moment have 18 goats.

See, there's your problem.

You could be RICH if you had sheep instead.
And I JUST HAPPEN to know where you can buy a nice flock

[woodsy_gardener]

Originally Posted by mpillow

My 14yo son worked about 15-- 7hour days this summer doing side work he made over $1000....never did get to hay because he started golf before haying was good. He made $10 an hour as he is skilled with bucket and backhoe, lawn tractor, shooting varmits($10 for one shot on a woodchuck)

$10 for shooting a woodchuck? Sounds like a bargain to me. If I were a good shot I might paint on my pickup truck: I shoot woodchucks - $10. I know lots of gardeners around NW Arkansas that have come to hate woodchucks. I'd probably get rich.

[sgl42]

check into how much health insurance is, or at least make sure that you won't lose your land if you're in an accident and get hauled into the hospital and are bankrupt before you wake up. also, if health care reform happens, you might have to pay for health insurance anyway, and it's not cheap.

with all the gov't money printing, cost of living is likely to go up substantionally over the next decade. how long will your savings last? will other sources of income keep up?

for whatever your job is now, how easy is it to get back into it if you want to/need to a few years from now? some careers look askance at people that don't work consistently, and other's don't care.

what will you do with your time if you're not working? if you're happy not spending lots of money in your free time, you should be fine. not everyone can do that tho (altho probably most of those on this forum could, but in the general public it's rare.)

do you have any family to worry about? are they on board with this?

if you can answer the above issues to your satisfaction, then it should work pretty well, and i'd say go for it.

--sgl