Bill Lane

Thanks everyone for your comments.  My wife and I found a really nice property with an older farmhouse with some great outbuildings/barns and 12 acres along a creek that we are very interested in.  Our plan right now is to buy it and me work for another year or two, saving up a little more money and getting ready to transition to retirement, and then sell our current house and move in full time.  The great thing is that the farmhouse is only an hour from my wife's family and while we won't be able to go visit every weekend, we have folks close by that can help check in on it and help us out when we go up every few weeks to do some renovation work on it to get it ready for full-time living.  It's already in livable condition, but has some updates that we want to do, so we're going to take advantage of working a little longer to help pay for some of those updates.  Once we get close to moving in, we can gradually take up some of our stuff each trip so that we don't have as much to move at the very end.  We are very excited about this transition and hopefully our health stays good the next few years for us to fully enjoy it.  Thanks again!

Thanks for the reply!  You gave a lot of great insight and advice.  My wife and I both grew up in the country and love working outside, hunting, gardening, raising animals, etc.,. so I am sure that we will both be very happy and comfortable with the change.  We are not afraid of hard work, in fact, we both love being outside and working around our home now...it's just that I don't have much time to do that with my job and commute each day.  We live on 5 acres now and have a garden, but we don't live near family and we couldn't afford to live in our current home if we are to 'retire' (i.e., couldn't afford the mortgage).  You make a great point about not having any regrets.  We have had family members pass away too early and others get sick and/or cannot physically do the things they used to do and we don't want to be in that position ourselves one day and not have the opportunity to focus on what we love.  I always think about that saying about "you never see a grave stone with the quote "I wish I would have spent more time at work"...".

Thanks again, I appreciate your feedback.   Have a great day!

Su Ba wrote:We took the leap so I'd like to relay a few thoughts.....

...switching to an agrarian lifestyle doesn't necessarily mean that you're heading to a simplistic, easy lifestyle. It's not the urban/suburban rat race for sure. But it's just different. I've worked physically harder as a homestead farmer than I did working in veterinary medicine. The problems and skills are different, but they are there none the less.
...moving to the country doesn't mean that you leave your troubles behind. Regretfully or not, we carry our personal baggage with us where ever we settle. Expecting the country life to cure them won't.
...if I weren't passionate about developing a homestead farm, I would have quit long ago. I see people move to my area and leave again between 6-24 months. They discovered that rural living wasn't what they envisioned. So many people when they make a change like this find themselves moving toward a fantasy dreamland, not reality. Reality comes as a shock.
...ask yourself if you're a rural person in your heart. Are you passionate about it? Passion can carry you a long distance. I was wanting to be a farmer since I was 12 years old. But I got forced into a different direction. I managed to make it veterinary medicine which was at least an agriculture category. So I'm a rural type person, although I was city born. Hubby on the other hand is a city boy. He calls himself a city boy who enjoys living in the country, but he's not the farmer.
...we made the life change in our mid 50's. I think that if you really want it, you can make the change at any age. How you go about it will be different according to your age.

We have no regrets making the switch. I never did. Hubby went through 2 years of waffling between staying and leaving. A couple trips back to New Jersey convinced him that our homestead and community was his preferred choice.

Now that I'm in my early 70's, I've had people who I knew go through hospice care and eventually die. Too many of them voiced regrets about various things in their lives. One of my own personal fears was that I was going to die without ever trying my dream of becoming a farmer. Well, I won't have any regrets on that issue. I ditched the modern city life and successfully moved to the farm. I like it. By the way, I'm working on avoiding having regrets when I die. I decided I wanted a pony, so I got one. I wanted to raise sheep and pigs, so I am. I wanted to be food independent, and I can be. I wanted miniature cattle, and having researched it, decided that was a poor choice, so I didn't get them.

Family is the number one reason people here have given up their dreams and moved back to the mainland. It's a personal choice that each person has to make for themselves. Hubby and I decided that we were no longer going to be enablers for our family members. It was about time to wean them. So we did.

ooking for feedback, opinions, stories, etc., from those of you who have left the 40-hr week, 9-5 lifestyle to move out to the country and live a more simple life.

My wife and I are in our late 40s. We have 2 children that are grown, with jobs, and live away from home. My wife retired from the military earlier this year and has been loving retired life. I also retired from the military in 2011, but have been working full-time for the gov't.

As our parents and other family members are getting older, we have thought more and more about moving back home (we live in SC, but family is in TN/KY) and me either retiring for good, or taking on part-time work so that we can spend more time with family. It would also allow us both to spend more time doing the things we love (raising animals, gardening, being outdoors, etc.,). I look at how much time I spend driving back and forth to work, spending more time with co-workers than my own wife, and not having the time to spend on the things that we really love and it really makes me think about why are we doing this when we don't necessarily have to. We also think about how we don't want me to work until I'm 60+ and not be as active and healthy to really enjoys those things that we like to do.

While we would love to be able to do that, a few things make us hesitate. First, our kids are still relatively young (20/23) and may need some financial help from us as they continue to establish their own careers. I know that we shouldn't necessarily delay our dreams/goals because of that, but as a parent, part of me feels like it might be selfish at this time. Second, while financially we should be o.k, especially if I work part time, I do worry about giving up a good paying job to take such a leap. I'm not worried about not having enough money each month, but it will make it more difficult to afford things if emergencies pop up in the future. We'll also have to dip into our savings to cover the costs of selling our home, relocating ourselves, and putting money into a new place. I know that there are no guarantees in life and we can't predict the future, but it makes me hesitant nonetheless.

That said, my wife and I would love to find a small homestead in KY or TN with a few acres and finally settle down. Have any of you taken the leap of faith and just got fed up with the grind of working 9-5 and moved out to following your homesteading dreams? Any regrets? Suggestions? Advice?