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?
