David Winchester

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since Dec 06, 2017
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Recent posts by David Winchester

Спасибо! Thank you for posting these. I've been dipping my toes in the water of Russia language and considering a trip to the other side of the world to see how beautiful your country really is, and perhaps doing some woofing/work awaying. Beautiful details.
6 years ago
Thank you all for all the great replies so far.

To answer some of the questions asked more than once:

Location - I'm fairly open. I have ruled out anywhere within an hour or so of a metropolis, >6 hardiness zone, low insolation, and low rainfall (less than 20 inches/year or so), and outrageous property taxes. This creates a band consisting of parts of WA, OR, ID, a big chunk of the midwest, as well as MO, AR, and WV. I love the Pacific Northwest, it would be ideal, but I recognize how affordable the Ozarks and Appalachia are, and it would put me closer to family.

What will I do - Good question. Learn, mostly. My hobbies and ambitions for the moment are mostly literary, and thanks to the kindle my reading list is a mile long. I've heard it said that you often have the time or the resources to pursue your dreams, but rarely both at the same time. Will I retire at 40 and become idle? Unlikely. But after a year or two of taking it easy I'm sure some ambition or another will call to me; If I ever got really ambitious I would love to build a forge for instance. I imagine my plan would go something like... Year 1: build home (mostly) and maybe a small garden. Plant fruit trees. Year 2: Garden more + chickens and bees Year 3: goats maybe a pig plus all of the previous Year 4: who knows...

@Kate - I hope you learn as much from this thread as I hope to then. If you find any other useful resources please share them
@Dale - Choice wise I'm pretty open based on the above listed criteria. Any suggestions?
@James - The more you get, the more it costs, and if it's really beautiful it costs extra. What sites did you find to be the most useful in your search?
@Jarret - Thank you for the links, I'll start working through them. Land wise I have the theoretical budget in mind of up to $50k. You mention 6+ acres. What would you say the desirable maximum is before it start to become more about privacy than usefulness? I hope to do a significant amount of the carpentry myself, and all of the electrical. Plumbing and septic is something that I would pay someone more skilled than me to do.
@Kyle - Good advise, splitting it up into smaller milestones. I'll have to think more about that. My job is very 24/7 currently, and has been for years, hence the burnout. I love what I do, but I would like to do more with my life, so small projects are largely out of the question until I change gears.

In the spirit of splitting it up: lets remove land and home from the equation and agree that I have to budget those based on local individual factors. Based on my more specific above stated goals what would a reasonable amount be to budget for everything else: tooling, fencing, sheds, coops, trees, raised beds, irrigation, hives.. $20k? $50k? What purchases were so expensive they surprised you? I knew a solar system would be expensive for instance, but I had no idea how expensive a good wood stove could be, or that a solar system of any normal size wouldn't be able to run a water heater as planned.

If I found a great 10 acre parcel for say.. $35k, built a 400sqft house for $150/sqft, and $30k in .. other, that would be $125k in capital and a couple man years of work. Toss in a $20k emergency fund, and enough money to live off of for a couple years and you're looking at a little less than $200k.  Is that a workable plan, broadly speaking? What costs might I not be considering?
7 years ago
I've spent the better part of the last decade working in renewable energy. I've spent most of that time making good money and investing wisely, and I can see the moment in the future coming when I'll pull the ripcord and pursue a simpler life. There is nothing wrong with the one I live now, I'm just tired if the stress and long days that come with managing multi-megawatt wind farms.

My question is this: how much have you spent or are you planning to spend to build your dream homestead? I understand these numbers are highly individual and variable, but some more data points would be valuable for estimating for me. Are there any good resources or there that look at this issue you could point me to?

40 isn't so far off for me as it once was, and in the next few years I'd love to leave the rat race, do a little woofing for skill building, and then put down some roots as it were.

Ideally I'd like to own some land and build a tinyhouse/cabin free and clear off grid, with a few animals and raised beds for 100-250k, and would like to dial those numbers in a little better with real world data.
7 years ago