If you are thinking about living the dream of homesteading its really nothing to take for granted. The first thing you will find out is that it is much harder and there are more things involved than you ever considered. Even if you try to plan the best you can you are likely to fall very short of your goals and this can lead to disappointment which might result in you walking away from it all. There are no guarantees of success in this world but the fact is if others can do it and you are healthy and willing to try you have a good chance at making a go of it.
The Top Five Mistakes That New Homesteaders Make
Overestimating Your Abilities Its probably the the worst thing that you can do if you are considering Homesteading as a lifestyle. If you have no skills in an area you need to be trained before you even start. Obtaining those skills can be a matter of hours, days or even years. However considering you are trying to be as independent as you can it means you will need to know everything that happens on your property and be able to take care of it yourself. When things are too much for you to take care of you also need to realize that and call in a professional. Doing things over and over and over again just is not acceptable unless you are learning how to bake bread. So you really need to evaluate your skill set. Did you grow up on a farm? Are you employed in any type of building trade? Have you taken care of farm animals before? And most of all do you know how to find the answer quickly if its something you’ve never dealt with before. If you overestimate your abilities you are likely to be too proud to know when you need help or when you need to study before you do something.
Picking The Wrong Property Because You Didn’t Evaluate It Correctly Jumping into a property purchase because you fall in love with it is really bad and can lead to so much expense and effort required that you are almost guaranteed to fail. I know many people who were previously homesteaders, Lived in suburban communities or even lived in the City their entire life and after understanding their skill level to be able to do the work the biggest factor in their success was whether they really understood the property they were buying. If you are a complete beginner then don’t buy bare land and expect to live in a tent until you build a house because its just not going to turn out well. You are better off buying a homestead that is already established to some point. Do you have a good place for your home on your property because as pretty as it might be building on the side of a hill can be extremely costly. Building near a stream that floods in the wet season can mean a total loss of your investment. Whether you pick a different place on your property or a completely different property is a big decision to make before you make your purchase. Even if you want to be off grid do you have access to electricity on a pole and are you willing to build close enough to that pole so it doesn’t cost you $100,000 to run power to your house once you find out solar isn’t as easy as everyone says. Do you have Cellphone Service or can you pickup antenna broadcasts at the location of your home and not just on the top of a hill on your property. Like anything that will effect your life you really need to take your time to learn what you are looking for or you are likely to look at shiny pretty things and be distracted about what you need for shelter, utilities, farming and other basic needs.
Do You Have Enough Savings? Savings isn’t just about the cost of the property but do you have enough to maintain yourself while you are establishing your property. Can you pay for your car, gasoline, food, take care of yourself and your family for the time it takes to get started. One thing everyone is surprised about is that lenders do not want to lend to people who are buying bare land or even people building their own home. The reason is they are risking money and it will be much harder for them to get it back if your attempts fail. Normally you buy the land with cash or if you have to get loans you buy the land with one loan and then get a construction loan to build the house and when the house is completed you get it all converted to a conventional loan like you would for a suburban house. Until you get to the point where your home is inspected if necessary and you can move in then the lender is likely to be very distant and have all types of requirements from you. I have seen people buy some beautiful property and then be told by the bank that they can not build the home themselves even though they are a construction contractor. This doesn’t always happen but it can. Even something as simple as pulling a single wide trailer on your property to live in while you build can be against code and zoning and then you are in a situation where you are traveling to your property to work on it and that means you have to keep your job instead of quitting or taking vacation for 6 months to get things done.
Not Building To Proper Building Standards Too many people make this mistake and even if they do build their home with modern materials and techniques they often make really bad choices that result in delays and expense. Being a home building contractor for close to two decades I can tell you that Building Codes are the minimally acceptable level of quality. They are not to be looked at as restrictive they are the very minimal standards that will let you build a safe and comfortable home. Whether its the way you run your electric or the spacing of your floor joists you will find that just to have a comfortable home you are going to want to go well beyond the minimal standards listed in the Building Codes. This is a very very important thing to understand for people who might be building in rural areas that don’t have building inspections for every aspect of your build. In rural areas I have seen homesteads with amazing houses and out buildings and solar farms and all of the amenities but the only inspection they had to comply with was the septic inspection. Everything else they could have done whatever they wanted but if they cut corners and made bad choices not only would they put themselves and their structure at risk they would lose all of the time and money they invested. Additionally if they ever wanted to sell their homestead and the buyer got a home inspection there would be so many things not to code that a lender would never give them a loan. So it is very important that you take your homestead seriously if you are building a place to live and not just a cabin in the woods to camp or go hunting a couple weekends a year.
Believing You Can Build A Temporary Home I see a lot of people that make this mistake. They will go to extensive effort to build some type of temporary home that will not stand up to the standards of permanent housing. Sometimes they will go the Tiny House way or they will purchase some shipping containers or they might go as far as to build an actual small home on their property. The problem with this is effort wasted. Like I said I often recommend that people who want to homestead but don’t have the background should purchase an established property with a home that has a kitchen and a toilet that flushes. Pretty much everything else can need an entire tare down but that or getting a single wide trailer that someone is giving away and they are easy to find would be your best bet if you just have to get onto your property and start your life. However the best option is to fully plan your property. Whether you have 5 acres or 50 or 500 acres you should understand everything about it and what is the best locations for your home, septic system, water well, shelters for animals and everything else and then work only towards that. It might mean the trees for the goat field don’t get chopped down for three years while you’re building your home. It might mean you don’t plant that field of corn and you just plant a small garden you can manage while you are building your home. These things are tradeoffs and the other option is to purchase a property that has the land, house, barn and fields already established which probably took the current owner their entire life to get right and even so you will need to make major changes for your life on the property. Don’t Waste Effort. Don’t Intentionally Do Things Twice. Because Twice doesn’t always happen in life.
Final Note
Deciding to be a homesteader is a huge undertaking and quite frankly its often a dream not worth having. There is a basic attraction to the idea of finding some land and making it your home but there is also the reality that often it is better to let someone else do the hard work and you trade money for their hard work.
Also you have to do your research. Something as simple as living in a rural community that can still get broadcast television over antenna is extremely important even if you aren’t a big TV watcher. It brings information into your home and it does it for free instead of paying $1000 a year for a cable, dish or streaming subscription. Cellphone reception is also very important. You might find that one provider has very good signal while there really isn’t another alternative. Satellite Internet if you can’t get 4G 5G Data over Cell Service is extremely important if you want to home school your kids, have an online business or even just keep in touch with the world.
Living Rural and Homesteading isn’t a Game and if the original homesteaders who were actually homesteading and establishing property by erecting barbed wire fences in the middle of nowhere to claim their land had access to all the tools we have today they would surely use all of them. If you want to dress up and play homesteader and reject the world you can do that in a city basement apartment. But if you want to have freedom of knowing your effort supports your life and that you are dependent on that effort then living in a rural community might be a life for you. Have that understanding in your mind that you shouldn’t be trying to give up everything but you should be trying to establish your own life and provide for yourself.
All of this takes understanding of whats in front of you and how you get to that place where you can depend more on yourself with the help of everything possible to help you.
Hopefully in future articles we will cover some of the important topics you will be faced with.