Financial question- What kind of income does your homesteading/hobby farming family NEED each month?

[CrunchyJess]

I know this will vary greatly based on geographic location, but I'm just looking for a ball park of what your monthly expenses are. 

We are in the planning stages of moving to the country and seeking a more self suffiecient lifestyle.  We will be buying a house with hopefully 6-10 acres.  We plan on immediately installing a woodstove for heat, planting a garden and fruit and nut trees and getting laying hens.  We have a 5 year plan to move to solar panels, expand our garden and livestock. 

Right now we live in the suburbs and are working on paying off our debt and absorbing every bit of information available about homesteading.  I'm having a hard time finding information about the financial cost of having this kind of operation.  I mean, ideally, your livestock and garden would be able to pay for themself in what you are able to consume or sell.  The whole idea of being self sufficient is to be low cost and provide what you need with your land, but I know it won't be that easy on the start up end.

First, we will have a land/house payment to begin with and also utilities until we find alternative ways of providing power.  we will maintain phone and internet for my husbands job.  We are working on paying off our cars right now and eliminating all the debt we have. So I THINK it is plausable to say we could have all of our bills total no more than 1200 dollars a month. 

What other expenses do I need to be considering?  What kind of income should I feel comfortable with?

[FarmerBeth]

Add on your wood cost, since you probably will at some time lack either enough woodlot or enough time to harvest all of your own wood.  Our very roomy (but old) 4 bedroom farmhouse goes through about 7 cords of wood a year.  We have done a lot to upgrade energy conservation, but there's still a lot to do, so if you have a smaller or more retrofitted house you will need less, or if it's warmer in winter where you live (I really don't know anything about Arkansas).  Here I can get a cord of wood for 90$, but this varies a lot geographically.  Figure in tools (like chain saw, construction equipment for building coops, plumbing, electrical and energy conservation upgrades).  Look at any increase in gas usage that could happen over being farther from some things you must drive to (you can cut down on this by trying to get all errands done as one big trip monthly or so).  Look at anything you might buy for groceries that is difficult for you to grow (for example, I hardly ever have to buy fruit in the late summer or fall, but growing grain is not feasible where I live) or that you will need to buy until your garden and fruit is more established.  Consider building material expenses for coops and upgrading to your own power, and fencing for animals.  Lastly, look at entertainment (you can keep this cheap at home, but even cheap hobbies sometimes have some expense) and activities you may want your child(ren) to be involved in as they grow.  I'm purposefully only saying what things to consider, not prices, because I don't know the going costs in your area.

Sorry for the wordiness.  We are in year three of a similar plan to yours (except that we are planning conversion to wind, not solar).  This list is very much what we encountered.  It's great your debt is very much in line - that will help you a lot.  We chose a very large down payment on the house (which was hard at the time) and paid off a student loan in cash when we bought the house but the short term pain was worth it - lower payments and if we need a farm or home improvement loan later it looks so much better with more of the house paid off.

[Adaline'sMama]

Ok, I was supposed to do this anyway to figure out how much money we are about to need to scramble and get because DH broke his hand. We have to have internet and phone for our business. We use 100% wood heat, but we do buy kindling from a local sawmill. Here is our monthly breakdown for bills:

Rent: $350.00
Land payment" $225.00
Internet: $67.00
Phones: $150.00
Electric: $180.00
Water: $40.00
Gasoline: $300.00- DH drives to the city 4 days a week for work, and I go in with him about twice a month to buy groceries and supplies. Its WAY cheaper to buy groceries in the city than in our local town.
Dog/cat food: $50.00
Repairs, parts, ect: $100.00

We have electric fencing on our power bill. Also, our irrigation system for the garden and plants isnt great yet, so we use water sometimes and that is why the bill is so high. Remember, it typically takes several years of gardening to become self sufficient with food. If you are spending your time trying to sell your food (at market, or in a csa) you will likely have less time for canning and storing your own food. The repairs and parts, ect that I listed is because you always have to take in consideration that things are going to happen. In the past week my goats have busted out part of the fence that needs to be replaced, we cant find our wire cutters, we have to have the chainsaw blade sharpened, and buy glue boards to trap brown recluse spiders. Its always something, but I love it out here and even though its hard work, I wouldnt go back to the city for anything.

[Caneel]

This doesn't directly relate to your question but Mother Earth News recently (last month or the prior issue) had an article about how to be completely self-sufficient on a plot of land.  It was interesting to me because it laid out how to rotate animals and crops so everything would get the maximum benefit/production.

Real estate taxes will vary greatly depending on where you live.  We live in a relatively low cost of living area and our real estate taxes are $1,200 per year.  Phone (with unlimited long distance) and internet service is $70 per month.  You will also want to give consideration to homeowner's/property insurance.

Concerning wood heat - and forgive me if you already know this but I mention it because we had a real eye-openning experience last year - you will need to let your wood season (dry out) before you will be able to use it in your woodstove.  Not only does dry wood burn more efficiently, green wood can be hazardous because of creosote build up.  The length to time you will need to season it depends on your climate, when the trees were cut and so on.  Point being, you won't be able to just go cut a few trees down one month and heat the house the next.

I know many people that heat their house with wood and keeping the wood pile stacked takes a lot of work, like having a part-time job.  Most of the men spend a day a week cutting, splitting and stacking wood all year round (more than that when the weather is favorable for harvesting) so they don't need to buy it. 

[MaxsFox]

We're a little different, because not only will we be off grid, we're going fully primitive - no electricity, no plumbing, no utility bills.  We just bought our land, but here's my estimate of monthly costs:

Property taxes: $50

Car insurance: $100

Gas: $200

Phone: $30 (pay-as-you-go cell)

Feed: $150 (includes cat food)

Misc. supplies and such: $100

That's $630.  I think I can count on $700, because we'll want some luxuries sometimes, like some takeout or a movie night.  I'm hoping I can eventually eliminate the feed bill entirely, and cover some of that cost by selling some of what we produce, but that'll be a few years in the future.

[JudiAU]

Do you read Mother Earth News? THey have articles about homesteading at least in every article. And forums on their website as well... My impression is that it is generally young families with a SAHP or close to retiring type folks.

[minnowmomma]

Originally Posted by MaxsFox 

We're a little different, because not only will we be off grid, we're going fully primitive - no electricity, no plumbing, no utility bills.  We just bought our land, but here's my estimate of monthly costs:

Property taxes: $50

Car insurance: $100

Gas: $200

Phone: $30 (pay-as-you-go cell)

Feed: $150 (includes cat food)

Misc. supplies and such: $100

That's $630.  I think I can count on $700, because we'll want some luxuries sometimes, like some takeout or a movie night.  I'm hoping I can eventually eliminate the feed bill entirely, and cover some of that cost by selling some of what we produce, but that'll be a few years in the future.

If you have a composting toilet i get the no plumbing thing but what about water for bathing/washing and what are you going to use to light you home?
 

[MaxsFox]

We'll be using candles and/or oil lamps for light when we need it, though I imagine we'll mostly be living on farmers hours - sunup to not long after sundown.  Solar panels are possibly in our future at some point, but I don't consider them an immediate need.  I'm setting up my bee hives as soon as I can next spring, so I'll have was to produce my own candles.

The cook stove we're purchasing has a large water reservoir, so we'll pretty much have hot water on demand.  We're going to have a shower, utilizing a cistern, which will drain into a greywater barrel ourside.  We'll have to get pretty good at coordinating washing up and washing clothes/dishes, but that's ok.  In the summer we'll probably give solar showers a try.  My husband doesn't mind taking cold showers, and even prefers them sometimes, so that'll also help with our hot water usage too.

[Caneel]

OP - maybe you already thought of this but if you want to avoid using plumbing, you might want to stick with an existing house so you skirt septic requirements you might encounter if you build a house.

I mention this because I live in an area with a large Amish population and a fair number of homesteaders.  Over the past couple of years, townships have really cracked down on on-site human waste management, or lack of it.  Granted, it may be specific to where I live but it is no longer possible to build a house without putting in an on-site septic or sandmound.   There have been court cases and such about religious exemptions that have ruled in favor of the townships.   One can't legally put in an outhouse anymore.  Existing outhouses are ok.  Code doesn't want to hear about compositing toilets.  Just mentioning it as if you are ever in a land vs. existing house+land position, an existing property might give you more freedom to make your own choices because you wouldn't need to deal with approvals, building code, permits, inspections and such.