Jackson Bradley

paul wheaton wrote:College is currently a fools errand if it leaves you in debt.

An easy solution to a lot of the issues raised would be seeking to live a life that is debt free. If you allow that principle to guide your path, most of the foolishness can be avoided fairly easily.

We add eggs to the the dry food. 4 total per day. 2 in the morning and 2 in the evening.

About a 3/4 of the time, the eggs are raw. Never had any issues and they eat all of the food right away.

Our approach to this post may be unconventional. It has 3 parts.

1-Arrive at being debt free (including your home/property).
2-Save enough money to cover 3-6 months expenses (emergency fund).
3-When you receive more money, after the emergency fund is met, invest that money in your property/equipment-tools/maintenance right away.

#1 is based in some foundational beliefs that need a little bit of explanation.

1-Debt free. I think most everyone can see the value in this. We take it a little further than just being debt free. Because most investment vehicles allow the receiver of your money to make loans to other people, we do not invest our money in anything but our property and community. Our conscience does not allow us to be debt free and turn around and make interest on an investment that, in turn, is causing another person to be in debt or making the slavery of debt available to someone else. Most investments work this way but not all. This can be a risky mindset and each household would need to count the cost.

#2 and #3 are practical and aid to counteract the potential financial "loss" of not using conventional investment vehicles.

2-Emegency fund. This gives us some breathing room in case I need to find other/additional employment in the case of a job loss or major expense that could come up. This fund is kept in cash.

3-Invest any other money in "hard goods" as soon as you get it or as soon as you have saved up for an item or project needed.

Here is an example. There are many factors and it is not a perfect example. I have $1,000 in 2020. 5 year CD rates are around 3.50%. If i put that $1,000 in a CD in 2020 and took it out now, it would be worth $1,187. Unfortunately, due to inflation and using the CPI index, I would need $1,255 in 2025 to equal the buying power of $1,000 back in 2020.

Our mindset would have caused us to invest that $1,000 in a few chicken tractors or fencing or a RMH or some physical item that furthers our homestead progress.  It reduces our future tax burden because I don't need to "earn" that dollar, that is heavily taxed, to buy eggs, pay an electric bill for heat, etc. That investment also does more for us than just provide a monetary return. It increases our knowledge, experience, self reliance, etc.

Jay Angler wrote:Again, there is a lot of focus on "the economy". I believe that at the moment, the real "winners" in our current "economy" are the extreme rich. Not sure where I saw this info, but the news is full of US strife over "SNAP Food Payments". One of the quotes claimed that full time employees of both Walmart and MacDonalds in areas of the US, were dependent on SNAP payments - these are multimillion dollar companies.  Why are they paying their employees so poorly that the employees need public assistance? No wonder people are questioning the system. The approach in Canada would be to demand an increase in minimum wage!

The image below is from Indeed. It reflects all of the reported pay. The average of those 7 positions is $20.04 per hour. The US minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. 6 of the 7 positions pay double the minimum wage.

I have some friends that work at the WM and other large corps like Lowes, HD, etc. They all earn around $20 an hour. I am not sure about the fringe benefits, I never asked. They are at different stages of life, some single and some with families. Some with families are single income households. They all have in common that they resist consumerism quite well so their quality of life in rural MS is pretty good on $20 per hour or at least they are satisfied. When we were in Dallas, renting in a Dallas suburb, you'd probably have to have 2 earners to make it work.

There are so many factors that come into play.

However, I do understand your point that when compared to shareholder and executive profits/pays, there is quite a disparity.

I will say, from a very memorable experience, that if you do use a food processor or similar, you may consider doing so outside. The processor does a great job. You get mostly flakes and a little powder.

I made flakes and powder out of some dried trinidad scorpion peppers. I used a food processor and it worked great. While processing and especially after I opened the lid, everyone in the house was coughing and had watering eyes.

I have also used a mortar and pestle. Slow going and more for small batches, but allows complete control over what size you want.

The garden is retired for the season excepting some root crops and some greens like kale.
The grass is not growing so the mower is retired.
The weeds that grow do not need much managing as they die off when it warms up.

I can tackle large projects and maintenance without the distraction of the things above. Building projects, trail making/clearing, filling compost bins with chicken deep litter and replacing  with new carbon material using wood chips and dried grass that I bag with the mower.

Enjoying playing in the woods with kids with little foliage and hot tent camping at different spots on the property with all of the kids.

I get somewhat confused on the longevity of the different parts for the different types.

I can't quite wrap my head around what I'll need to replace/clean, about how often it will need replaced. That seems to depend on the type of RMH. I have read through your masonry build in the large building, the Wisner's materials, Thomas Rubino's projects, etc. I have seen where some of the metal components need to be replaced and some of the bricks crack and need replaced, etc.

I understand a factor of that would be climate dependent due to the amount it would be used (wood burned). The larger masonry heaters seem like what I would work up to in my residence but practice building one on in my accessory building.

Victoria McKay wrote:I read back through some old threads on this site, and perhaps concrete is not quite the demon I had in my mind. And I think I will end up going for a complete concrete poured slab, that will also provide the footings for load bearing beams and the walls.

I am not familiar with the permitting landscape where you are. I permit various construction and equipment work across 7 states in the USA. We've done some very special things in historic houses and regular homes that were unconventional by todays standards.

The key to all of those projects was getting to the right person. A lot of permit techs apply the letter of the code and do consider the intent of the code. One project in a large us city took us 9 months to get a permit for. It was an 1860's home that ended up being 4 stories tall through additions over the years. It was on the historic registry. I had to work all the way through the building department to finally get to the city commissioner to obtain approval.

If you get the sense that you will encounter or have encountered someone who will consider the intent of what you are doing, you can be successful doing non conventional things. It can be a gamble. In a lot of cases it can be exacerbating and may not be worth the effort.

If the conventional concrete method is acceptable, that will be easiest to get through the process. However, I would not discourage you from trying if you feel it is important to try something non conventional. Someone needs to pave the way for others, sometimes.

***Side note. My experience with houses on the historic registry is that 100% of the homeowners I have personally dealt with would never have bought or registered the house if they really understood all of the restrictions and board approvals you encounter to make any changes***

Mariya Bee wrote:I'm seeking a place where I can stay for free and offer the skills that I can in exchange.

It could be helpful for you to inventory what skills you have and how much time you could provide in laboring in those skills. All arrangements we know about are either paid or bartered. For example, we have someone staying with us that contributes X amount of hours, using the skills she has, in exchange for a place to stay and utilities.

Their are opportunities at Wheaton Labs and some other places that take cash or work in exchange as well that I have read about on this forum.

Our experience has been that our culture prefers convenience. That has to be purchased with money. You get the money by trading your time for it.

It is possible to remove money from the equation but you typically cannot remove the labor/time. If we want to heat our home without using electricity/propane/heating oil, we will save money by not buying those things. The tradeoff is that we have to process firewood using our labor/time. In the end, I suppose we just shift the focus of the time from employment/money to the property/food/water/heat.

Homesteading, living off grid, off the land, self sufficient, self reliant, or whatever category you want to be in typically involves a great deal of labor getting set up and a decent amount of labor to keep things going.

In a community situation, you can specialize and share the labor burden better. As an individual, you can minimize to food/water/heat to minimize the labor burden.

When you do encounter an opportunity, you will have already take your own inventory and may be more prepared for a discussion on the particulars.