Cob & hay bales?

Currently living in a single wide and working in an unfulfilling job. I want to be able to pend more time around family, doing things that interest me, and live a little closer to nature. One of my objectives in achieving these goals to live in a mortgage-less earthen home. Cob has my full attention and I'm also really interested in some of the features I see in earth ship homes (catching & reusing water from the sky, solar panels & wind power, maybe a greenhouse) but I don't like the idea of using tires. I have a full time job, single dad, and I drive about 45 minutes one way to work each day, so roughly an hour and half of driving, and I think all the packing tires with dirt row upon row is just something I'm not going to be able to get done. I am however interested in cob alone, or maybe cob with hay bale centered walls. Does anyone know how good/effective this is? How is it compared to other solutions? Would you put hay bales in the center or would you opt for cob alone? Thanks.

Good on you Gordan.
Research either this site or the internet for most of your questions, they are all covered.
BUT, I will say a few things.
Earthships can only be built with low cost labour.
Mortgages can be very helpful, dont discard them, its covered somewhere on this site.
There is nothing wrong with good debt.
Start small and build a design that can be extended as each bit is completed and your needs change. Thats all covered somewhere on this site.
My advise;
- use mortgage to build foundation and steel roof construction
- use adobe bricks or cob 12-20 inches wide with minimum 10 ft ceilings