Plan for self sufficient into amazing retirement plan?

[Carla D]

I have been doing a lot of heavy thinking about the financial security in the future. I’m not a doom and gloom seeking or thinking person. No do I read and watch financial media. Just not something I understand very well. I have made several observations and mental notes of on the economics of the US, particularly the upper Midwest. I’m not a psychic or an expert. But I feel really tough times approaching. As a country, region, community, or family. I’m not sure. All I know is we will likely be devastated in the event my husband loses his job, I lose my SSDI, a family crisis, or any number of things happen.

I have had vague ideas in the past of how I’d like to live when I’m older and into my retirement. I’ve always assumed we will be in deep doo doo. But over the course of the last two weeks plans, details, opportunities seem to be starting to take shape.

The plan is creating a small farm. Nothing huge, but bigger than a couple of these and a couple of that. My husband and I have been raising pigs for nearly two years and dabbling into other animals. We are renting a very small chunk of space from my sister in law. The problem is we are at seam busting size for the space. We also want to raise a few different species of animals.

Our plan, well my plan is to produce quality meats, foods to provide a selection of healthy options for my family and reduce my reliance on the local grocery store. Raise healthy livestock that we will eventually be able to feed and care for from our own production of supplies, feed, hay, nutrition. The primary goal of making self sustaining with proper planning and management.

But, I also have two other objectives. Maintain a modest lifestyle yet being able to care for ourselves, family, and/or aging parents should the need to arise. I was going to try selling goods using the produce grown and livestock raised and processed on our own farm in order to do this. Being anything from goat milk products, leather accessories from the hides tanned on our farm, baked goods, canned goods, etc.

My last objective was to find joy, fulfillment, and personal growth in our older years. I’ve been disabled for nearly ten years now. The biggest thing I struggle with is feeling productive, mentally stimulated, and sense of pride. I have found that only in the last two years while helping my husband on the farm by doing daily chores, treating our animals in a loving, nurturing, respectful way, much like people do with their pets. My favorite part of my duties is helping and treating our animals when they have special needs. Things like midwife to our pigs, hand raising small, weak, or orphaned animals, to managing their veterinarian needs. I feel that this kind of satisfaction and purpose is going to be a necessity to both my husband and myself during our golden years.

In the later years do creative and fun things with ourfarm and passion. Creating a small local family destination with ice cream socials, milk and cookie gatherings, falltime events and activities. Create a fun learning environment for the young ones in our family, classroom learning experiences for the local schools. Even create habitats for special wildlife such as honey bees, butterflies, wildflowers, certain bug or small animal not excluding amphibians. Keeping busy, love what we’re doing, doing what we love.

I want to keep things on a smaller scale. I’m not talking commercial or huge. Maybe I’m dreaming big. But, has anyone else found means of security by doing something you really loved and had fun to the end?

 

[Beekissed]

One of the biggest problems I've seen with folks who want to retire into a situation of homesteading or farming is that by the time one is of the age to retire, they often lack the energy, health or strength to do all it takes to produce all they want to produce on the land.

There's also a HUGE learning curve on such an undertaking, which takes time, energy, lots and lots of physical work and quite often financial loss due to lack of experience or knowledge. Sometimes it takes many years to get a good system going that's also financially sound....but by the time someone retires, years are not so much a luxury when it comes to having to make money and also provide for all the hungry mouths on the farm or homestead.

I have two siblings who have had great plans for many years to retire into farming, both with sufficient land and resources to do so....but the problem is that they are waiting until then to actually practice their chosen dream. Oh, they might read about it now and again, but it's mostly planning, dreaming, and talking...no actual hands on learning on their own land or even at workshops at other places.

My advice is, whatever you want to do in the future, start doing it now in whatever way you can....don't wait. You are not promised tomorrow, so today is the day to start the trial and errors of farming and homesteading, no matter how small scale you have to do it. Sop up all the hands on learning you can do, participate in farming/agricultural workshops, start an exercise program to increase core body strength and focus on a diet geared towards increasing energy, overall health and strength....you will need every ounce you can muster if you truly want to do the hard work of farming/homesteading/or agritourism.

Start gardening with an eye of providing a goodly chunk of your yearly food needs and then can it up...don't rely on freezers as the grid will eventually fail you, short term or even for a longer time. Learn all your homesteading and farming skills now, before you will be applying them all day every day all season all year. The time to learn something is before you need it, not some day.

I've heard a thousand women say they could kill their own livestock and process it "if I had to" but are reluctant to learn how to do it properly BEFORE they have to. Why wait to learn that when you are in a HAVE to state? Do it now, often, learn it well and even teach others. There's NOTHING so valuable for such an endeavor than experience. And I don't mean let your husband do it while you watch, but actually do it. I was teaching one woman from the city on her first experience killing a chicken for eating and asked her if she wanted to kill one and demonstrate what I just showed her. Her reply, "Well, my husband will be doing all of that."

So I asked her, "Do you still want to farm and do all of this if your husband should die?" She said she did. So I handed her the knife and told her to kill that bird, we are not promised tomorrow and her husband could die on his way to work that day.

I don't know if he cared for that little lesson...he left for work directly after killing and gutting his first bird ... but she did learn how to kill, skin and gut that bird, as well as remove the meat from it for cooking.

 

[NH Homesteader]

Research your market, very important. A lot of people have great ideas but fail because their market couldn't sustain whatever product they have. I've given up making much money on my animals because the market is saturated. Only ways for me to make money would be to have something different or undercut people (which I'm ok with), but even then it's hard here.

 

[Carla D]

One of the biggest problems I've seen with folks who want to retire into a situation of homesteading or farming is that by the time one is of the age to retire, they often lack the energy, health or strength to do all it takes to produce all they want to produce on the land.

There's also a HUGE learning curve on such an undertaking, which takes time, energy, lots and lots of physical work and quite often financial loss due to lack of experience or knowledge. Sometimes it takes many years to get a good system going that's also financially sound....but by the time someone retires, years are not so much a luxury when it comes to having to make money and also provide for all the hungry mouths on the farm or homestead.

I have two siblings who have had great plans for many years to retire into farming, both with sufficient land and resources to do so....but the problem is that they are waiting until then to actually practice their chosen dream. Oh, they might read about it now and again, but it's mostly planning, dreaming, and talking...no actual hands on learning on their own land or even at workshops at other places.

My advice is, whatever you want to do in the future, start doing it now in whatever way you can....don't wait. You are not promised tomorrow, so today is the day to start the trial and errors of farming and homesteading, no matter how small scale you have to do it. Sop up all the hands on learning you can do, participate in farming/agricultural workshops, start an exercise program to increase core body strength and focus on a diet geared towards increasing energy, overall health and strength....you will need every ounce you can muster if you truly want to do the hard work of farming/homesteading/or agritourism.

Start gardening with an eye of providing a goodly chunk of your yearly food needs and then can it up...don't rely on freezers as the grid will eventually fail you, short term or even for a longer time. Learn all your homesteading and farming skills now, before you will be applying them all day every day all season all year. The time to learn something is before you need it, not some day.

I've heard a thousand women say they could kill their own livestock and process it "if I had to" but are reluctant to learn how to do it properly BEFORE they have to. Why wait to learn that when you are in a HAVE to state? Do it now, often, learn it well and even teach others. There's NOTHING so valuable for such an endeavor than experience. And I don't mean let your husband do it while you watch, but actually do it. I was teaching one woman from the city on her first experience killing a chicken for eating and asked her if she wanted to kill one and demonstrate what I just showed her. Her reply, "Well, my husband will be doing all of that."

So I asked her, "Do you still want to farm and do all of this if your husband should die?" She said she did. So I handed her the knife and told her to kill that bird, we are not promised tomorrow and her husband could die on his way to work that day.

I don't know if he cared for that little lesson...he left for work directly after killing and gutting his first bird ... but she did learn how to kill, skin and gut that bird, as well as remove the meat from it for cooking.

I really like what you’ve said. I feel like I’ve waited until the last minute to come up with a plan. I am definitely on the late side, but not too late. Then there’s the fact that many people change or revise their plan as often as they change their clothes.

I am really lucky that my husband has had quite a bit of farm experience in his past and is currently doing it with pigs. My father in law who has a great wealth of farming knowledge is up to his eyeballs with my husbands pigs. I’m trying to soak up and learn everything I possibly can from both of them. I’ve been raising 8 young wethers for about five months on my own plus I also do the “second shift” chores. I KNOW I could kill one of our pig or my pet wethers if I had to. I’ve killeda few animals in my past, just never a pet. But I’ve found “NEED” is an excellent motivator.

There are some pretty basic things that I’m going to need to learn. They aren’t going to be easy for me however. Things like baking up a small trailer instead of unhitching it and pushing it to where I want it. I am capable of backing up a good size boat and a car trailer. It’s the short ones that give me trouble. Learning how to drive a tractor or other bigger vehicle. I can drive a stick shift vehicle effective enough to drive two states over from here. But I’m nervous as heck and quite reluctant to learn how to drive my father in laws Bobcat tractor. It’s basically a garden tractor on steroids with a PTO, three point hitch, and bucket/fork capabilities in the front. These are two things I have every intention on learning to do this spring and summer. Asituation came up at the farm last night, after 9pm. I ended up calling my FIL after he’d gone to bed so he could move his bobcat tractor out of the barn for me. We had quite warm and smoldering hay in our barn, goat pen to be exact. I had to get that out immediately because it couldn’t have waited until morning. That was really frustrating.

I love how you taught that woman how to butcher a chicken. Honestly I don’t have any issues with killing an animal. But before I went and actually did the act I would be googling or YouTubing how to quickly, efficiently, and humanely to do it. Animals deserve quick and humane deaths.

I have plans to live until I’m 97 years old. I’m pretty certain I will out live my FIL and I’m pretty certain I will likely outlive my hubby as well. Especially if I’m not prepared to take over the farm myself. I’m thinking since we are still mid 40’s we will have a sizable number of critters on our farm. At least more than 2-3 of each species. I’m pretty sure as long as we are able to get out of bed, walk to the barn and haul at least half of a 5gallon bucket of water or feed we will have animals. It’s just in our blood. I’m thinking though things would be significantly scaled back p, likely on 1-2 of each animal, and of only animals we need to keep our personal needs met and pantry stocked. I am definitely thinking about your words.

 

[Beekissed]

Things like baking up a small trailer instead of unhitching it and pushing it to where I want it.

I struggle with the same issue but have been practicing that a lot this wood season, backing it into small spaces between trees and such after many tries. Eventually it will get to be like second nature but those smaller trailers seem to be a pesky item...my son works in the oil fields and backs up all kinds of large trailers, heavy equipment, etc. but found that this 4x8 utility has a mind of its own and jackknifes in two seconds no matter how skilled one is.

 

[Beekissed]

@Beekissed has a knack for repurposing Goodwill finds. Get old headboards and make benches.

As Bay said, GW is your friend, as is the Rehab store...our Rehab store will even get in huge loads of barn boards, new boxes of flooring of all types, wood trim scraps, etc. All of these things come in REAL handy when wanting to do things on the cheap.

I turned a $1 headboard from Rehab into a clothing/coat rack for my bedroom and the rest of it is being used in various projects throughout the house. Used old antique items I had on hand and those I picked up at a local flea market for $.50 to form the pegs..the whole thing cost me $3 to make and took less than an hour when including paint dry time. These are things you can use in your home or resell for a tidy profit...city folks love stuff like that.

 

[NH Homesteader]

That too! I have that problem. Our plan is to try to sell some AGH sausage (talk up that heritage breed!) and eventually lamb. And maybe soap.... none of which will make us rich but can help. We hope.

 

[Britesea]

I've read that having multiple streams of income is a good idea- so that if one dries up, you aren't left up the creek. I would think a combination of basic product (meat, eggs, produce etc) and value-added product (leather, wool, chicks, pickles and other canned goods) and maybe some other things like hand-spun yarn, or wooden furniture, or clothing, or soap and candles.

Barter is NOT dead; it's just laying low. My DH's family had an arrangement with a neighbor that was a beautician-- she came by once a month and cut everyone's hair (there were seven of them in all) and in exchange they raised a pig for her each year. The only money involved was that she paid for the cut and wrap of the meat since an outside butcher was used. I had a casual friend that let me stay in her time-share in the mountains (lakeshore property!) for a week and in exchange I did a spring-cleaning on the cabin (It only took 3 of the 7 days, so the other 4 were vacation)

 

[NH Homesteader]

I can't see everything you uploaded because I have a cell phone and it's not cooperative at the moment! Have you looked into legal requirements in your state?I've always wanted to do something like what you're thinking but in my state I would need to truck my pigs to a USDA butcher to sell by the package, would need a food handlers license and to have my freezers inspected on occasion, all precooked foods would need to be cooked in a certified commercial kitchen... except jams and jellies (I think, haven't looked recently ). And dairy products have a whole long dramatic bunch of rules.

Not trying to be a downer, just thinking about logistics!

 

[Lazy Gardener]

IMO, barter would be the best way to go when ever possible. Cash is also a handy thing. But the beauty of barter system: It benefits all parties concerned, and Uncle has yet to figure out how to get his greedy fingers into the barter system.