A homesteadin we will go

[jhnpldng]

08/21/2010
Made the decision a few weeks ago and put money down on 7 acres in the Ozarks yesterday. We leave Florida in the Spring. We will be living in a 5th wheel to start and will build one large room onto that to get us by for a year or three. The 5th wheel will become the kids bedrooms and remain our bathroom at that point. The big room will be the dayroom with kitchen and Mom and Dad's bedroom. (maybe up in a loft) This big room may be the beginnings of the A-Frame house we want to build or it may be a simple box that will later become a shop. Not sure yet.
Property has elec/phone running along the road frontage. It has approx 10% grade back from the road and the view in that Easterly direction is miles of rolling hills. Here's some pics.

http://www.justplainfedup.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/sm_view01.jpg
Lose a few more trees and "pretty soon I'm singin, do do, do do, do do, lookin out my back door."
http://www.justplainfedup.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/sm_view02.jpg
http://www.justplainfedup.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/sm_clrng03.jpg
Country road take me home. Pic below is the county line. On the other side are restrictions, codes, taxes and all that other yucky stuff. This county is the largest in sq miles in MO but has a Sheriff and 5 Deputies, no codes, no building or planning depts etc. That next county down has all the conveniences though. two small towns about 5 miles away with convenient stores, pizza, auto parts, hardware store and a City 25 miles further with population of 12k has most anything except ghetto.
http://www.justplainfedup.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/sm_hwy_nn.jpg
Well, I've reached my 4 pic limit for this post but have one or two more to add so tbc.

[AzLoneRider]

Beautiful, looks like a great place to make a home and a homestead... What an adventure!!

[NCLee]

Just Plain Fed Up! I love it! :wub:

Congratulations on your new homestead. Looks like you've chosen well, especially with regards to the county line. You're probably going to find that's the best thing of all. Our place used to be like that, until this neck of the woods started sprouting subdivisions behind every tree. Now we're up to our arm pits in rules, codes, regulations and then some more rules, codes, and regulations on top.

I'm looking forward to seeing your progress and more pix as you get time to take them.

Wishing you much luck that your problems will be small ones and your joys will be great.

Lee

[nhlivefreeordie]

Nice looking spot!! Look forward to seeing more pics and seeing your progress as you go. Good Luck !!

[jhnpldng]

This one pretty much shows the lay of the land, between the lines.
http://www.justplainfedup.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/prop2_01.jpg

Clearing towards the front.
http://www.justplainfedup.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/sm_clrng02.jpg

Topo of it. Red lines approx. dashed line is county line.
http://www.justplainfedup.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/topo.jpg
Neighbor across the road has a pond and it's been in every single map I've seen so it's been there forever but I don't know if it's natural/spring fed or man made. There's a year round creek just behind us and the whole area has lots of springs, rivers and creeks. Surrounding us is 2-3 huge farms/ranches. The property was logged a few years ago so no timber value but on the other hand it's not completely bare yet has some sunlight getting to it. I'm sure I'll have some stumps to deal with but I've got a wrecker with 16 tons worth of winch that will help. For the really big ones, I'll have to use other techniques. I've seen some nicer properties and also some cheaper ones but none with this good of a location and you know the saying.

Our original plan was to just pay cash but we would have ended up 100 miles from anything or on one acre so we're doing owner financing after 25% down and the 25% down won't happen until we get there or shortly after to give us a chance to get settled and be 100% sure. ;) We're about 99% now. For now we're sending minimal payments with almost nothing down and when we get there we will have less into it than two months of rent here. The total price for the property is be equal to two years rent here. We should be able to pay it off within 5 years even with one minimum wage job. If my wife gets a job at a convenient store nights along with my day job (hopefully more than min wage) and we live very frugally then we could have it paid in two years or less. That also depends on how many other things we do to get started on the homestead. Lots of work ahead and I'm the weird type that actually prefers the non paying kind of work.

[sissy]

Welcome & congrats. Looks & sounds nice. Look forward to your adventure.
sissy

[Proud_Poppa]

Fantastic!! What a great looking area! You are living my dream....best of luck in your new adventure!

[Aamylf]

Am very excited for you! That is a beautiful piece of land. The idea of 5th wheel and then simple one room 'house' sounds smart! Hope the codes stay away from you.

[firegirl969]

Welcome to the forum! Congrats on getting your family's little piece of heaven. You are living the dream of many. DH and I moved to his grandparent's family farm 4 years ago and bought a small SW trailer for cash and we have never regretted it. It is so nice to be able to have a place to do what you want, when you want, and not be bothered. I look forward to reading more about your adventures. Blessings, firegirl

[mozarkian]

Welcome to Missouri- kind of looks like Texas Co Missouri, from your description and the terrain. Very pretty country, mostly farming. If that is where you are headed, you will like it-lots of rivers, creeks, farms- not a lot of job opportunity but cost of living is really low.

[KarenBC]

Nice! Keep posting pictures of the journey - including some of the move up.
I'd love to hear more as the place shapes up. Sharing info through BWH is a huge help to me, and keeps the motivation going too.

[jhnpldng]

Welcome to Missouri- kind of looks like Texas Co Missouri, from your description and the terrain. Very pretty country, mostly farming. If that is where you are headed, you will like it-lots of rivers, creeks, farms- not a lot of job opportunity but cost of living is really low.

Yuppers. Lots of Springs too so hopefully a well won't kill us too badly yet that won't be happening for a year or three. :( The creeks, rivers and springs are about 100 feet below our elevation. The bedrock out there tends to be fractured. Should be fairly easy drilling for an Ozark well and we might get away with a 200' well as opposed to 3,4,500'.
Within commuting distance of West Plains so I think I'll find something to make a buck at. I have done the math and we could actually make double payments with one minimum wage job. I'm pretty multi talented and our unemployment rate is 3-4% higher here than MO.
I think we'll be ok and we've had some signs lately that reinforce our decision. :)
Our biggest concern will probably trying to keep the balance between paying it off quickly and/or getting things done. I hate payments but the rough life will get old quick.

[Tom]

Good luck with your land. I am sure it will be different than Florida... no alligators for one thing! :eek:

[Anon001]

Congrats! You've found a way to start your new homestead without having to spend a fortune or be in debt for 30 years. I've tried to show people that it can be done and for a lot less money than one expects. What you're doing is motivation for those that think they can't relocate and for those that think it takes a small fortune to start a homestead on some acreage.

Good luck and keep the pics and progress coming.

Paul

[jhnpldng]

Congrats! You've found a way to start your new homestead without having to spend a fortune or be in debt for 30 years. I've tried to show people that it can be done and for a lot less money than one expects. What you're doing is motivation for those that think they can't relocate and for those that think it takes a small fortune to start a homestead on some acreage.

Good luck and keep the pics and progress coming.

Paul

Exactly. We live week to week right now and have zero savings. We work simply to pay others. I plan to chronicle the whole thing and am setting up a blog as we speak. Our next few years ain't gonna be fancy to say the least but when we figured out that we've paid $30,000 in rent in the last 3 years with nothing to show for it all doubt and fear were removed. The idea came from a post on a preparedness forum where someone said the first step is to get whatever property you can afford with cash and go there. Then start building your retreat. Can't get started until you take the first bug step. Might be closer to a leap. :) We ditched the pay cash part when we realized it would get us an acre or so yet we refuse to get into a 30 year mortgage. Hopefully the economy won't get too much worse in the next few years.

[OTG Newbie]

Congratulations on your new homestead!

Looks like a great piece of land to start off with. Wish you the best! Keep us posted on how things are coming along. love the photos!

[mousebandit]

Congrats! That is so beautiful and it is awesome that you guys are going to take the plunge. We've been living in a travel trailer the last year to pay off debt (me, hubby, a 2yr old, and we added a new little guy in March), and it can absolutely be done! You are making the smart move!

Give us the link to your blog when you get it going. I would love to follow it.

Tracey R.

[Faye]

Welcome Jhnpldng and congratulations on your new place. I would love to have another place but DH and I are to old to be starting over plus he has health issues.

[jhnpldng]

Congrats! That is so beautiful and it is awesome that you guys are going to take the plunge. We've been living in a travel trailer the last year to pay off debt (me, hubby, a 2yr old, and we added a new little guy in March), and it can absolutely be done! You are making the smart move!

Give us the link to your blog when you get it going. I would love to follow it.

Tracey R.
We lived in a travel trailer with two toddlers a few years ago but this time, like you, it will be by choice rather than being all we can afford. We're still hoping to find a cheap MH or small house to rent with a yard because that will save us from having to rent outdoor storage for a box truck and 16' trailer, plus we have a medium/large dog. I may also be able to work something out by renting the back half of this property (including a shop) living in the 5th wheel while the landlord tries to find someone to rent the house and even be able to stay after it's rented. That would be ideal.

I've got a few different sites as I've been trying out different technologies and going in a few different directions. I've put together several different wordpress sites including a couple I still have and some for other people. On one of mine I started using a shopping cart plugin but even though it is the best available it isn't very good. Lousy support and frequently breaks. Then I started using zen-cart for the store but I want many either features including a blog. Then I tried joomla and drupal and have decided on drupal due to it being very extensible and having a paypal certified shopping cart module that can be added. I can't simply use paypal buttons because my products have variations, color, size etc. My drupal installation is in a subfolder of another site as is the zen-cart installation. Quite the mess. I already made a couple of homestead posts but that site is going to be completely wiped clean so I can start over now that I have a plan. For now I'm going to post homestead stuff on a wordpress blog I don't use much. The name will fit the subject in my case. I've got to clean up some rants on it and transfer the homestead posts over to it. After that I'll give the link out. At some point that site will redirect to the homestead section of the BIG site with all prior content copied over and intact.

I think I'll go do that now.

[jhnpldng]

Not allowed. Please post in Members Websites
This will be my homestead blog for now until I get my other site done. We're not moving until Spring so there won't be a whole lot to post. I will however post some on our preparations and the journey.

[jhnpldng]

Not allowed. Please post in Members Websites
This will be my homestead blog for now until I get my other site done. We're not moving until Spring so there won't be a whole lot to post. I will however post some on our preparations and the journey.

Just click on my name and go to home page. That members websites section has a whopping 13 sites listed. Seems like I've visited a lot more than that from here plus I've never been to that section. I guess I clicked on people's names to get to their sites but I could swear I just clicked some links in posts. :confused: