I'm glad you have a plan!
When you're looking to buy, make sure the deed restrictions or other legal restrictions do not preclude the kind of building you want to do, or any other future plans you might have for the land.  Also, remember the taxes on the land itself might increase if the area becomes developed in the future.

I'm in a similar situation myself right now... TRYING to save enough money to get some land here in the sky-high-property-values land of Taxachusetts. Until then, I've lined up some community garden and relative's backyard space for some food - plus I live next to a park/forest area that has some decent foraging. I'd love to be off-grid, but not too remote, to keep my commuting costs/time low, and to be close to my family. I'm looking at cordwood building along with recycled materials (windows & stuff), to keep costs and materials low. And I want to start very small.
Hope your plan works out!
Roxy

Hey Yeti,

Don't take anything here personal. I'm going to be bluntly honest, ie: I'm going to be a dick. So, ahem...

LISTEN UP PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS!.

If I had a 2x4 I'd smuck y'all with it!

Finances are fucking important!

Now that I have your attention... 

Don't mortgage yourself into the ground trying to achieve these things too quickly. You missed the real first step, which is getting your finances in order.

FIRST UP: reconcile the present. at the minimum I suggest you read two books before doing anything else: "The Wealthy Barber" to get you thinking about how money works in our system (if you haven't read it, you may be surprised by what you don't know) and "Your Money or Your Life" (YMOYL), which changes how you think about money and work and a job, and by actually following the steps you'll easily cut 10-20% out of your spending and begin actually saving after reading it and following the steps therein. My wife and I save about CDN $300-500 a month on ONE income in a very expensive part of the country. Think about it. You buy a $20 book and it saves you, minimum, $1000 a year for the rest of your life. That's just smart financial thinking. But WTF do I know about it, except that it actually works. So buy the bloody book and read the damn thing already!

YMOYL will have you reconcile the past: write down all of your capital: calculate the current value of everything that you own that is worth something (eg: the $1000 computer you bought last year is worth $250), and all the money you may have saved up, and all the debt you have. This is what you're starting from.

Next, reconcile the future: put together a 10 year plan detailing what you want to do, and how much you think it's going to cost. Bonus points: figure out how much money you need to save each year to achieve those goals, and figure out how much money (less taxes and other deductions) you think you'll earn each year.

So, see what I'm doing here? I want you to think about this stuff a lot. This isn't play time, this is YOUR FUTURE. The thing is, 90% of people treat their future as if it was play time (guess how many boomers don't have enough money for retirement). And when I say retirement, don't think "old and grey, playing shuttleboard on a cruiseship". Retirement means "no more shitty 9-5 ratrace, I will be independent of needing to work for money, I can do whatever I want with my time". Got it? If you love your "job" (ie: paid employment) you can certainly keep doing it - but you'll be financially independent of it.

I suggest waiting on these things until you've got the finances chugging along nicely. They're good avocation things for the moment. Some will disagree with me here, but your step three will never happen if you don't have your finances straight.

So you're looking at paying off student loans and all that jazz, right? If you play your cards right, you should be able to retire in 10 years in civilization, way earlier if you go off-grid, assuming you read Your Money or Your Life and actually follow it. Sorry to be blunt, but most people ignore the basics and fuck up their finances.

This all comes down to thinking about money. You have a computer, that means you have a spreadsheet. You're going to start using it a lot, so become friends with MS-Excel. Here's an example of how to think about these things. Don't think "I need a car". That's the cart before the horse. The real problem is, "I need to get from A to B". Our culture has trained us to think an idea like "I need a car" for most problems, and then created a very expensive solution to fix that incorrectly-attributed problem.

Ok, so how can one get from A to B? Walk, bike, hitchhike, carpool, transit, buy a vehicle, etc.

Ok, so then you sit down and figure out the expense for each of those things. Walk, 0. Bike (if you own one) $100 for safety vest and lights*, otherwise add anouther $75 for an adequate bike. Etc etc. Now think about the expense of a car: $100+/month on gas, $150+/month of insurance, and if you average out the maintenance and repairs, that's easily $15/month on a new car, much more for an old car => that's $265 per month minimum! Most people can't find $50 at the end of the month to put towards retirement...imagine having $265! A car is nearly always a luxury for anyone that is thinking they want an off-grid lifestyle.

NEGATIVE. I give you an A for effort and a D for thinking this through. Sorry.

Why the hell would you buy a couple lousy acres next to town? Fuck that noise. Dude, you're throwing away your long term plans for short term ones.

You've started with a wrongly-attributed problem: the problem isn't "I want some property so I can do primitive living" the problem is "I need shelter" with the caveat that you're a teacher so you need access to a shower and laundry facilities.

Here's a thought. Find the cheapest way to get shelter that still allows you to work. So, let's say "co-rent a house with a bunch of people", "rent an RV", "rent a manufactured home" "buy a manufactured home for re-sale later", "live in my car", "rent some land at a friend's place and live in a van like good ol' Kate from Ishthink" whatever. I don't know your life situation, but start with the question "I need shelter" and really brainstorm. Bonus points: find a way to get your shelter close to your work, and that ensures you won't ever think of a car again.

Here's another way of looking at it: if your solution is the one a Taker would use, or one your parents would use (assuming they're the average Boomer), it's probably a stupidly expensive solution.

Having found a cheap way to live, you save a bunch of money on shelter costs and that lets you buy WAY MORE LAND in a MUCH BETTER LOCATION so you can effectively do your long term goal of living SUSTAINABLY - ie: not in a suburb.

Basically, you sacrifice a little at the beginning to gain lots at the end. That's how finances work.

Exactly right - that's putting the cart WAY before the horse. Everyone gets all excited about "ooh, I want this sort of house" because it's fun and then fuck up all the boring steps that are absolutely essential to getting to the house.

I hope you can tell I'm not trying to insult or denigrate you here, but rather trying to get your attention because this is too crucial a topic to be flippant or half-assed about. K?

- Joe

* the most important part of your financial picture is you. Saving yourself $100 on safety equipment and then getting injured so you can't work (ie: no money) is STUPID financial planning. [edit: Let's say your monthly take home pay is $1500. Now, think of yourself as a machine that sits in the basement and prints up $1500 in one dollar bills. Because that's basically what you do. So take care of your money making machine. The thing is, if the average person actually had a machine that made dollar bills, I bet you they'd treat it better and be more careful with it than most people treat themselves. It's funny how paradigms work, ain't it? ].

Thanks for the feedback! Totally what Im looking for. Don't worry about offending me- as long as it's constructive and heartfelt!

I have heard of both of those books so I will for sure give them a read.

As for my finances I've gotten through five years of university (well, almost through the fifth) and I have zero debt...I actually have a nice start saved up. But I am for sure looking into my finances- investing and savings plans. I don't see any way you can make any purchase/plan this large without thinking of the huge amounts of money you're dealing with and how you can get them. Until I get a steady source of income all I can do is theorize, but I assure you I am not taking this lightly. Your emphasis on this is very well taken!

Okay, to clarify- I do not plan on buying acres next to a town- but I do plan on buying them near. Because my income will depend on my teaching, I need to have someplace to teach to make income. Unless I save up enough money to purchase land, build on it, and be pretty much sustainable- I need to be near a teaching market. Eventually I hope to cut back on teacing but for the near future I will be dependant on that source of income. I think having a car would be a good idea, in that any location that I will be happy building will not be near most anemities and people I like...hence my tinkering with buying a westfalia to live in- instead of paying rent and car insurance. Eventually that would be downgraded to something smaller- perhaps EV converted. I would love to get away with no car- but living in the boonies and getting to work don't mix. I hate the idea of renting things because you're paying money towards nothing. At least with a mortgage you are paying off something. The catch is you have to think about renting for say, a few years and buying something outright, or paying a mortgage for a longer period of time. In the end you gots to look at your situation.

I would like to buy tons of acreage, but that gets really expensive. In that case I would most likely need to get some sort of really cheap shelter in town somewhere for years...as I don't invision myself being able to live in a van for that long. So I need to figure out, somehow (suggestions welcome!)- how many acres would be optimal- because in reality what my next plans are depend on how much money I need and how long that will take.

_____________________________________________________

"The sparrow hops along the veranda, with wet feet."

Oh yeah and buy your land for cash, of course, not on a mortgage..

How many acres you "need" depends on what you want to do with the land, and how many people you intend to support with it.  Do you intend to "farm" for income in the future, or do you just plan to grow your own food?  Do you want livestock, if so, what kind and how many?  Do you want wildlife of the big size (such a deer) do you want to be able to hunt?  Many areas have restrictions on the minimum size acreage you need in order to hunt (here it is 20 acres).  So much depends on the carrying capacity of the bioregion, drier areas have a lower carrying capacity per acre unless irrigated.  Do you plan to irrigate?  Do you plan to have a well or do you want live water (stream, spring, lake, etc)?  All of these are considerations.  In general, the larger size parcel you buy, the cheaper the land will be per acre.  Most people want smaller parcels, so if you're willing to pay a little more, you can sometimes get twice as much acreage for less than twice as much as a smaller parcel.  Land within commuting distance will be much more expensive than land further out. Remember gasoline won't probably get cheaper in the future.
At this point in your plan, you might just want to have a general idea of where in the country you'd like to live, and about how many acres you might like to have, and how far out of town you might want to be.  The you can look online for listings which will give you a general idea of the prices for land in that area right now, but keep in mind they may change drastically in the future, if an area booms or busts.  In our area land has boomed and our land now is worth about twice what we paid for it if we were able to find a buyer today, but we may be heading for a bust.  Buy during a bust, not a boom, if you can manage it.  It might be difficult to determine how much money you'll need for these plans, but from experience I will say "As much as you can save."  We bought our land for $65,000.00 cash (saved over the course of 4 years), and then after that it took over ten thousand dollars to put in our shop, road, well, phone, septic, etc, plus we have a mortgage on our house.  It will take all your money, and you'll still run out, unless you earn a pile from your job.

Hey yeti,

Ok, well, my personal plan in a nutshell is work like a dog for 10 years and save up all the $ you need and then "retire" tribally in my crazy Ishie way somewhere and buy lots of land (the more in the boonies the better). That's kind of what I was suggesting. I wasn't sure what your plan was exactly (still not sure about that actually) so I'm not sure I'm actually coming at you from a useful angle. Oops. What's that rule I keep forgetting? - Listen THEN talk, listen THEN talk.

I'm glad you found something I said was useful.  

All I ask is please seriously make sure you know your plan very well, and think it out many years in advance.

- Joe

joevir (AT) gmail (PERIOD) com

Or you could pool your resources with some other folks and "retire" years earlier....

Hey Lynn,

Ah, but I don't want to retire earlier unless pressed by circumstances to act earlier. 10 years is a perfect time-frame for me otherwise. And most of the folks I know that think the way we do are broke students or don't work much at all. The one shining exception being my good tribal friend, who is frugal and saves $.

But besides him, most folks are not especially good at saving up capital, especially since, if I can get into medical school, I'll be earning a high salary. Maybe that MattJ guy will connect up with me. I pay the bills, he learns the horticulture/permaculture/survival stuff and teaches me. Hmm that's a good idea, where's Matt when you need him?

- Joe

joevir (AT) gmail (PERIOD) com

Joe, you're not sure of my plan because I don't have one yet- that's what I'm in  the process of starting to do...I'm still insanely busy with school, but I like to mull things over in my head. So yeah, any feedback is great and applicable. I will for sure not be buying anything for a while because I want to save up a good chunk of change so I can buy things outright- as Lynn has suggested.

 As for where the land is- I would love (I think) to live in a more remote location and buy as much acreage as I can. However, I am not sure how self sustainable I will be able to be (that sounds awkward)- thus the dillemma of having some sort of income. I would for sure have to be near somewhere to buy some supplies, and have some mode of transportation. But I guess if you are in a remote location there will still be towns near you, just not any major ones. I guess I'd look to spend around 50k (perhaps less) on land- and should be able to get decent acreage for that...

_____________________________________________________

"The sparrow hops along the veranda, with wet feet."

Can I ask what you consider "decent acreage"?  

Why yes you may! I basically want to get as much land as I can in an area that I'm happy being. That being said- and this is just a number off the top of my head, for no real technical reason as I have not looked into any- but something at or above 20 seems decent... I want to have something large enough to support an animal population (perhaps to hunt?)- so I'm not sure exactly how much that is- of course it would depend on the animal. Now if I'm going remote obviously the animals will not stop on my borders and there will be a greater area to support life (buying land next to crown land would be a good option)....Also dabbling in permatculture and hunting and gathering is also an interst...that being said I don't really want to buy a 3 or four acre parcel and everything around me gets developped (mind you I think I'll be far enough out that this won't happen). Any other people have thoughts on how much land they'd like?

on edit: I was just thinking of property rights and a crash....e.g.- how long would you acutally own the property you have a deed for. Would it be better just to go with a smaller (but not too small) parcel of land with undevelopped land around it? 

_____________________________________________________

"The sparrow hops along the veranda, with wet feet."

From my own experience I find 20 acres to be the absolute minimum for privacy issues.  Undeveloped land eventually becomes developed and then you have neighbors.  Putting your dwelling in the very middle of a square parcel of 20 acres puts you about 450 feet away from your neighbors' property.  You can hear neighbors at this distance if they sit out on their porch and speak loudly or play the radio.  If your land is heavily wooded neighbors aren't as much of an issue, but if it is open, you may want more acreage in order to gain privacy by distance.  

I should mention that 20 acres is far more than I can properly care for such things as erosion control,cutting out invading species, purchasing or growing seeds or transplants, and general management.  So that's something to keep in mind if you're looking to restore degraded land, or do natural or permacultural farming - one person can only properly care for 2 - 5 acres.

Hey Yeti,

I'm sure glad you took my post positively

Whereabouts do you want to do this? Would you prefer doing it in Ontario?

- Joe

joevir (AT) gmail (PERIOD) com

Joe,

You wrote:"...I suggest you read two books before doing anything else: "The Wealthy Barber" to get you thinking about how money works in our system (if you haven't read it, you may be surprised by what you don't know) and "Your Money or Your Life" (YMOYL)..."

Thank you for sharing this.  I'm going to check these out when I get some time.

Curt

Hey Curt,

I'm really glad you'll check them out. I really can't emphasize enough how helpful they are. :) 

- Joe joevir (AT) gmail (PERIOD) com

I'm going to get them as well. I need to learn how to manage finances. I am not naturally a good "numbers" person.

Hey Olivia,

Ah, then IMO these books will be very helpful "Wealthy Barber" is a really good introduction to finances in general (written in a conversational style that makes it interesting) and YMOYL helps to create a vision of finances that works very nicely with Ishmaelian ideas.

- Joe

joevir (AT) gmail (PERIOD) com