Our primary goal in creating our forest farm/homestead is to remove money from our lives as much as possible. I do not want to take part in exploitative and amoral economic systems any more than I have to. Additionally, I just don't feel like human beings are meant to live this way. We are animals. We are nature. We should be living in harmony with it. Not in juxtaposition to it. The "rat race" leaves me horribly depressed and empty. I have no interest in it. Granted, the systems that be will not disappear any time soon. So that leaves working within it. Sort of. But food, water, and energy security can go a long way toward freeing a person. Allowing them to be human again. Not just another serf for our modern day feudalism. Let's not be fooled, it is still feudalism. We just changed the names and added steps.
We have some plans to make a bit of money. Enough to pay the tax man and buy some things we can't make ourselves or trade for. Ultimately though, we are trying to put ourselves in a position to grow, raise, or barter/trade for as much as possible. It has been a dream for a long time and we finally have the land to do it. Projects start this year.
So if anyone is interested in some "networking" for this sort of thing, hit me up. I'm in Oklahoma at the moment but our farm is (will be) up in northern VT, near Newport.
Summed up - Who gives a damn about the Joneses?