agmantoo...now I gotta know how much!!LOL....sounds like you really know what you are doing. Doesn't it take a good startup, though?
Betho and ksfarmer...I was curious how many wound up with land from family, even buying it from family is usually much cheaper. Dh grew up on what used to be 100 acres of family land. His grandfather's father had 10 boys and split it into 10 acre tracts when he died. By the time grandaddy gave Dh's mom a couple, there's not much left and most the family has sold out at costs over 50,000 per acre. No way we could have done that.
Longshadow and haypoint...we are probably more in ya'lls boat! I have learned more about saving and living simply just these past few months (plus we used to really live cheap when DH only made $300/wk!). I guess I just don't want to be too old to do it when I get there!!! Which brings me to another thing I am curious about . If anyone doesn't mind telling how old you are or were when you got there. We are both 29 and people keep telling us we have plenty of time, but I want it NOW, ya know? My family (who are city folk) keeps telling us we should have stayed in our subdivision home until we could afford the land we wanted. But, we thought it best to get what we could while the kids are young and raise them w/ as much exposure as possible. I guess that is really my rush....even though DH grew up on only a couple acres, all that land was still in the family when he was growing up and much of it was farmed in some form or another so he had that exposure from day 1. I want to give that to my kids too, especially now that I know what all I was missing as a kid!!
Anyways, DH makes a fairly good income, but I don't work and it IS NOT worth me missing out on the kids to pay for the homestead, so that isn't an option. I like the idea of making money when you aren't working....right now DH works and goes to school, so that would be the only way to bring in more. I am also hoping to have some eggs and produce to sell next year, as well as jams and jellies, and I have been selling my cakes for some time.
Just to give you some background: We did make some unwise financial decisions this past year (got some credit card debt and bought a new car). It really is unlike DH, but I think we got caught up in a few months of weakness/laziness after 10 years of scraping by and went a bit wild after moving into the new house. We also have a pretty hefty mortgage (199,000 for house and land), but it's worth at least 250, so we do have a good bit of equity for less than 2 years. My plan is to pay off all debt but car and house this year, and start putting away for the land, try to buy land in 5 yrs or so (after DH graduates college, his income will increase by 10-20,000 a year), and start putting up fences, barn, and start building while we are still here. And use the money from this house plus maybe some of DH's 401 to put down on a new house.
Am I crazy?? I guess I just worry that we blew it. Up until a year or two ago, this was NOT the life I wanted. If I had known then what I know now, I would have built a small house on more land and done w/o a new car instead of having a big house, new car, and not much land. Believe it or not, 5 acres used to sound like ALOT of land to me.
Oh, and Ravenlost....we would probably be looking in eastern AL, as land here is just getting ridiculous, but we want to stay close enough for DH to have a reasonable commute.
Thanks again for the input, keep it coming and please excuse my rambling!!
Rachael