You got some property… NOW WHAT? If you are planning on building a homestead from scratch, maybe even an off grid home, eventually you will need to choose a spot to put your house. How do you choose the best spot to place your home? Don’t make a costly mistake, in this episode Logan Parker from Heirloom Builders joins us to talk about how to choose the best location on your property for your home.
I struggle a lot. My moldy, run down apartment is often cold, my pantry shelves are often bare. I often look at my bank account and it’s empty, my big jacked up truck is getting rusty and worn out. My clothes are old, it seems like more in my life is broken then is properly functioning. My apartment is cold, I don’t have internet at home.
Then I look at what my friends and idols all have. Maybe not as much money as I have in the bank, the nice corner office in the skyscraper downtown, the $80,000 a year income and good health insurance and benefits. But they have their farms, their land, they’re good hunters and trappers. They own ATVs and snowmobiles, have the comfort of wood heat, are free to own whatever guns they want, have bonfires and burn barrels out back. Watching as they raise pigs and cattle and their families.
And I’m stuck in the city in this little, run down apartment. Saving every dollar I can for that dream. To be sure, I’m watching my savings grow, and I know money some day can buy a lot I’ve forgone today. You know that off grid property up in the woods where I can do my own thing, hunt and produce more of my own food, electricity and managing my own waste. Worrying about every little dollar as I feel I’m stealing from my future.
But I really shouldn’t go through life these ways. I should be more thankful and celebrate what I have and what I accomplished. While sometimes I am hungry because my refrigerator is bare or cold because they heat is turned down, so is my choice. I forgo buying things not because I’m poor but because I want a better tomorrow and less waste today. My bank account is often low not due to a lack of income but because I choose to invest my money in stocks, bonds, and higher interest accounts then my checking account. I ride the bus because my big jacked up truck won’t fit downtown and because I like saving money and not dealing with city traffic.
My net worth is doing well but I often feel so many others have so much more than I do. I look at the homestead with the rundown trailer, but also with the deer hanging in the yard, the hogs and goats in the backyard pen, the smoldering burn barrel out back, the views of the wonderfully beautiful rural landscape. And I’m stuck in the suburbs in my apartment all alone.
Now, I get that the newspapers and the commercial media say these rural people are poor and deeply impoverished. Certainly if you compared my bank account or my job to them, they’d look much worse off financially. Indeed their struggles are real, while mine are mostly in my head – voluntary versus real poverty. But I also know that I lack the skills, the connections and the grit to get by the way they do with so much less money.
I really should be more thankful for all that I have…
Walking along Beaver Dam Road Road looking at the ramshackle hobby farms… 🏡 🐽 🐐 🚜
The smell of hay and manure in the air, the junk equipment, the peeling paint. The old mattress piled on the brush pile just waiting to be burnt. The grunt of the pigs and the bellowing of the cows. A gun shot rings out in the distance, a four wheeler roars along in the woods.
The country life. If I can experience it just by taking a city bus and walking a short distance I know it’s not that far away. It’s even closer if I were to take my big jacked up truck out there. With my job, I could certainly afford to live out in the country although I don’t, dreaming of a better tomorrow. I like run down, cheap and country stuff but also want to be able to have enough land so I’m not bumping up into others, or constantly fighting the stupid liberal laws of New York on guns and open burning or all the taxes and anti-rural laws.
It’s an interesting question and I’m not sure if I fully know the answer. A lot depends on the markets, how things go with work and life more generally. While I’m making good money now and could go out and buy a house with a mortgage, I’m still okay with where I am living now.
The thing about it is that to live the life I truly want to live I will probably have to give my good paying job up, and settle for a job with a lot less money. So it’s important to save and invest the money I’m making now for a better tomorrow.
I sometimes click through the posts on Facebook regarding homeownership versus renting 🏡
I do want to eventually own my own land but I can’t make the math work comparing my small rundown apartment on the bus line – near parks and the library compared to buying a house and having to pay a lot more to heat it, maintain it and have to be reliant on an automobile to get everywhere.
Maybe buying a house makes a lot more sense if you are already renting a full house, or a high end apartment and are reliant on a car to get to work. But if you aren’t looking for the suburbanite experience and are currently happy with your existing living place it doesn’t make sense to tie up so much money in a hard to liquidate, non diversified asset which certainly can loose money.
For now, I’d much rather invest in the market and save for the time when I can buy my own land out in the country, in a freer state where I can have not only livestock but also the guns I want and the ability to have fires and do the self reliant things I want to do with my land.
Lately I find myself writing less about owning my own land and the off grid way of living. While I certainly continue to have that goal, I feel like there isn’t a lot more to say about it except that I continue on my routine savings and investment plan as I inch towards it. But I’m making good money at my job – which I’m putting towards my future while not be laboring the point – my savings and investments are automatic and require little day by day thinking.
At the same time, I’m continuing to read and learn. I keep reading books about livestock and homesteading, learning how to manage natural resources and labd effectively. I’ve been been continuing to learn electricity and the building code, solar power and gardening. I follow several YouTube channels on these topics and are subscribed to many homesteading podcasts and groups.
The thing in my mind is not to jump too soon. Enjoy life today but keep a focus on a better tomorrow. While nothing beats having hands in the soil directly, learning through watching and reading is the next best thing. Being book smart at least gives you some background – and ideas where to go next.
Many people at my point in my career would looking to buy a house and settle down. I do look at future properties from time to time but my focus now is investing and saving. I just don’t want a suburbanite house – I want to live out in the country, on my own land away from neighbors where I can do my own thing on my own land.
