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All this sounds like just a frugal lifestyle, not a pathway to get rich. The op doesn’t sound very wealthy to me.
You are correct but it can be used as a mechanism on the pathway to get rich. Rich is relative, you can have all the $ in the world and it won't buy friends/family or your health. Yet you need all your basic needs met. Truthfully once you have your health and basic needs met, that should be enough for happiness. But most of us want more. I want to eat out 3x a week, take some of the veges home. Eat heartily as we've been doing (and lost weight, so it's odd)
Each time people think they need all this money, try watching this youtube video
Then get real about how much is needed to be happy. I prefer to feel like all my medical needs are covered thus we've saved as if we are both living until ages 96, taking inflation and rising healthcare costs into account.
Yet we have no LTC coverage which is one reason our homestead value needs to remain very low. If it's more than $250K (which is 50% of the average home price here) then it could be seized later if we ever need LTC services to pay for that. The fact is, we screwed up on this not planning earlier for it. It's easier to avoid LTC by working for pay or keeping yourself in shape and eating right.
Seems you'd need to save up ALOT of $ and risk your nest-egg being seized to pay for your care if you do not have a GOOD LTC plan built in.
I've always worked for low pay but had excellent medical coverage for us both....and some retiree coverage for myself which allowed me to never actually use our own $ for care as Seniors, as of yet. knock on wood. It's filled in any gaps so far so our medical savings can stretch further.
As for the rest of it. Not many have ever butchered a hog, or processed a chicken for that matter. Some just aren't up for it.
Well until the chicken plucker was invented, imho, it was too much work. Now it's easy and quick. Handing someone a huge 7-8 lb organic free range chicken is a neat feeling.
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What do you do about food storage? Running freezers on solar can be tough in some climates.
We haven't had any issues with it. But just in case, I started a thread asking about a Spring house so I'd like to have that resource too.
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What are you doing about vegetables? I'm a professional chef and game hens with potatoes can only go so far.
We eat out 3x a week at a Vegetarian Restaurant. The meals are so big we end up taking 1/4 home. I get a few tempeh tacos with a huge mixed green salad (raw cukes, tomatoes, peppers, etc). OR a Daryl salad with flaffels, cous cous, green goddess dressing and the portion is HUGE. Basically we eat these vegetables instead of growing our own or even trading.
We have just enough veges in the manure pile to grab some veges when needed in a recipe.
Green & colored Vegetables are consumed about 4-5 days a wk. Hopefully that is enough to be healthy.
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It's great you situation works for you, but you've got a rare corner.
Yes I didn't realize that we had a rare corner until this thread.
Again, homesteaders nowadays work p/t jobs. We could do the rental thing and I could quit my job but am afraid my 4 hrs of cycling, holding bible studies each week, wouldn't happen.
They even asked me to work one more 12 hr shift a month so I accepted. Two 12 hr shifts a week and sleeping for half the shift is perfect but I suppose we could use the extra $. Maybe take a Disneyland & Ocean trip each year instead of alternating years and it's an extra day to get in a few hours of cycling
They don't need a Security Guard way out there but their Insurance Co. required it. It's a huge operation
My Dw took a class on pig butchering, she did so well that they offered her a job. She LOVES finding each of the appropriate cuts of meat.
Just curious but how do you feed your pigs? I haven't found a good reliable source for food and I LOVE pigs so am not sure we could butcher one. I LOVE chickens but not the Cornish Cross so much as they don't have the greatest personalities.
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We did chickens a few times, by hand. Then a neighbor loaned us their chicken-plucking machine, after using it once, we bought our own chicken-plucking machine. We host poultry processing parties. A lot of people might only have 6 birds, so we have a potluck and do all of our poultry together.
Processing parties that sounds fun! Have you ever butcher Cornish Cross variety of hens? We debated between those and your Freedom Ranger hens.
We also have an herb garden outside, I forgot about that. It's small but suffices our needs
Just curious but how do you feed your pigs? I haven't found a good reliable source for food and I LOVE pigs so am not sure we could butcher one. I LOVE chickens but not the Cornish Cross so much as they don't have the greatest personalities.
The land we bought is dense forest. This region is not drought-prone. It is generally pretty dense forest understory brush. I have an old brass school bell my grandmother used when she taught grammar school in the 1920s. Everyday I bring out maybe one cup of corn for each pig and I ring the bell [to train them to always come to the bell]. This way when they get loose, I go hiking to look for them and I bring my school bell. Once they hear the bell, they come running.
Our pigs live entirely under the forest canopy.
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... Processing parties that sounds fun! Have you ever butcher Cornish Cross variety of hens? We debated between those and your Freedom Ranger hens.
We tried cornish crosses, but it is not unusual to lose 20 out of every 50. With Freedom Rangers we rarely lose more than 5 out of 50.
We tried cornish crosses, but it is not unusual to lose 20 out of every 50. With Freedom Rangers we rarely lose more than 5 out of 50.
Wow. I guess we've had very good luck then. knock on wood
We are also out in a dense forest which makes gardening a bit of a challenge. Thank Goodness for composting piles which I normally call manure piles but it's same thing
Well until the chicken plucker was invented, imho, it was too much work. Now it's easy and quick. Handing someone a huge 7-8 lb organic free range chicken is a neat feeling.
We haven't had any issues with it. But just in case, I started a thread asking about a Spring house so I'd like to have that resource too.
We eat out 3x a week at a Vegetarian Restaurant. The meals are so big we end up taking 1/4 home. I get a few tempeh tacos with a huge mixed green salad (raw cukes, tomatoes, peppers, etc). OR a Daryl salad with flaffels, cous cous, green goddess dressing and the portion is HUGE. Basically we eat these vegetables instead of growing our own or even trading.
We have just enough veges in the manure pile to grab some veges when needed in a recipe.
Green & colored Vegetables are consumed about 4-5 days a wk. Hopefully that is enough to be healthy.
Yes I didn't realize that we had a rare corner until this thread.
Again, homesteaders nowadays work p/t jobs. We could do the rental thing and I could quit my job but am afraid my 4 hrs of cycling, holding bible studies each week, wouldn't happen.
They even asked me to work one more 12 hr shift a month so I accepted. Two 12 hr shifts a week and sleeping for half the shift is perfect but I suppose we could use the extra $. Maybe take a Disneyland & Ocean trip each year instead of alternating years and it's an extra day to get in a few hours of cycling
They don't need a Security Guard way out there but their Insurance Co. required it. It's a huge operation
Hey, I’m glad you enjoy your life, but you’re not “homesteading”. You have a hobby farm.
There is a certain satisfaction in not being tied to the grid. When DH first got his 5 acres of high desert in the red-rock country of Utah, there was no grid. So he did solar; just 1,000 kw. Enough for his modest 900 sq ft. home. The grid finally came, but it would have been tens of thousands to hook up, so we didn't.
We did have internet, but no cell coverage. Gardening was impossible in that climate and I love animals too much to kill them, so am a hypocrite-meat-eater.
It was 35 min. to town along the scenic CO River but I didn't mind.
I can't say we got rich at all, but it was a satisfying lifestyle and I'm sure we have more money in retirement not having built a dream home back then. No debt, no mortgage. I did notice there were hardly any younger people there as time went on. Just retirees, about half second homes. Only tourism jobs.
No one cares if you want to live off the grid, so not sure what that discussion is about.
I will say our well was "iffy" and glad we got out of there before it ran dry. That's the Southwest, for you.
That’s awesome. I’m actually building out a farm for a concept restaurant right now - a table in the farm kind of thing. We’ve done a few events and have had people get weird over the fact that the pig or chicken they are eating was the same one they saw running around 90 minutes ago. I might have to rethink this part!
Have you looked into any of the propane or LNG fired generators as a backup to Solar? My concern is that health inspectors get super dicey about solar only. Maybe I should open another thread on this... what kind of battery panel are you using?
Not sure if it's the same where you are but if you produce the food at home and bring it somewhere else, there are no health inspectors.
Our one local restaurant does this. Sounds odd but everything that is served was supposedly pre-cooked elsewhere.
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