Jordan and I have some decisions ahead.
For a long time, I’ve been hammering on this idea of getting out of debt. For a long time, we’ve been discussing how to be self sufficient. For a long time, we’ve been considering moving.
In my ideal world, we’d get the outcome of all those things at the same time.
Only because we’ve been considering it as long as we have did we realize other factors may play in, and other factors may affect how much space we want.
Space
We’ve been living on 0.33 acres and have initiated a dense growing space. We like the method, and we’ve had some success at it. (1200+ lbs of vegetables from the garden this year alone.)
However, once we realized we loved growing things, we knew there was a need to expand at some point. Our original estimates were to at least double that space (0.75 acres)–wherein we could aim for something as dense and end up with significantly more food.
However, we’ve also had dreams about expanding the numbers and types of animals we have to increase our protein options. Which would dictate more land, in order to keep them appropriately pastured and fed.
So we thought double that might be the right amount. (Closer to 1.5 acres.)
One of the biggest factors that went into our decision to grow a lot of our own food was an Airbnb glamping setup we stayed four or five days at in Oregon. We figured we could set up something similar on a small farm and use the land to make a little money. Taking that into account, we’d need another 0.5 acres minimum. (So we’re close to two acres.)
Two acre lands are close to the same price as 5 acres, and we wanted to factor in growth, so why not consider that?
So in my head, I was looking for homes on lots anywhere between 1.5 and 5 acres.
Cost
Cost is my driving factor. For some reason, I am deeply concerned about hedging against burnout at my job.
I’ve burned out before–partially my fault for taking too much on in a world where no breaks were allowed (also for being a perfectionist who wouldn’t accept mediocrity (no one wants mediocre teachers, but we pay them about the same as skill-less workers))–and I don’t want to do it again. I was lucky I did it when the only one who was impacted was me. If I had a family the damage may have ended up being irreversible.
So my aim has been to reduce our costs as sharply as possible. Which was nice for the first 6 months of 2019 when we did it (we got a lot of money stored away in home equity) and then we got distracted by a huge number of other things.
So I was looking for a home in an area where we could get a home and acreage for less than $230,000.
COVID reduced our intentions to travel to areas where we could execute this plan, and it’s probably good it did.
Family
Children have always been in our plans. Just not in our reality.
We’ve been through some invasive fertility treatments (both of us, although Jordan has taken the recent brunt of it (and will be taking the future brunt). With no success to date.
Mine didn’t even change anything, and hers changed a lot–personality is affected by hormones, apparently. Who knew.
So we don’t have a whole lot we can cling to, except each other, but that doesn’t seem to cause children, either.
Home in the $230,000 or less range don’t exist in the west, unless you want a dump and to pour half again as much money into it to bring it up to livable space. Which defeats the “reduce debt” goal. So I have been very resistant to considering anything near family (in the west).
However, we’ve felt out of place in our current location basically since we arrived. We’re on an exposed corner. We are private people. We don’t really want people walking by and gawking at our business (or our not business). And because we are both introverts, we probably need to be around extroverts who we know and trust.
Therefore: family.
Which means the west. And not near where we currently live.
So for what we want (or think we want) the price range needs to increase.
This brings us, in a way, back to
Cost
Cost now of existing assets. What do we have? And what have we learned from it?
I’m grateful to have a job that I (mostly) enjoy, and that pays me generously.
I don’t want to have it forever, and I don’t have ambitions to rise through the corporate ranks. I might have at one time, but I’ve always tried to shy away from personal imbalance, (despite imbalance being how I get anything done–time switching costs are terribly high for me) so I want to not obsessively focus on one thing, except on a thing that is achievable in a week.
So I need to save as much money as possible as quickly as possible. OR find a routine that balances work and life. I hear children absolutely ruin that, so maybe there are some blessings to not yet having them?
Our largest source of money is the house.
Significant equity. Then we spent the second half of the year (under the assumption we were staying) remodeling it and adding a master bedroom and bathroom.
We did the majority of the work ourselves. Which was therapeutic for both of us. We discovered work we definitely could do, and work we didn’t want to.
We probably won’t do most of that again.
But it was good to learn we could. And that building isn’t as hard as people make it out. (Most people are scared of black boxes, and youtube has enough EDU content that nothing is a black box anymore.)
So the house needs to be sold to fund a move.
Or we could rent it, but that would require refinancing debt and adding more. Not my top option–even if it means getting an asset appreciating in value.
The search
We did a lot of internet searching in places we’ve never been.
We did some searching in places our family live.
We made (so far) three offers on homes. Three were accepted. And we pulled out of three.
None were the right situation. Two of the homes needed significant work. One of them was a beautiful home in the middle of a state that had no one we know.
We’ve looked at open lots of land and considered building, but the total dollar cost of that is likely to be double what we want to spend.
And more than a nice home on more space.
So searching continues.
Conclusion
We need space. We need land. We need friends/family already in place wherever we go.
We need less debt, but we also could get by with using the land to make more money. Or at least support ourselves.
You may not feel it, but this has been good to study it out.