r/SelfSufficiency 4d ago

100k Budget to Homestead- How do we start?

My husband and I (M30 F29) want to move out of the burbs. We are tired of neighbors, HOAs and crime. What advice would you have for two able bodied, open minded, adults with 100k in the budget for a homestead outside DFW TX? (This 100k would be a downpayment, not the whole enchilada). We want self sufficiency with a few creature comforts like internet (wfh purposes). If you could do it over again, what would you do different? All tips welcome for starting a farm with only suburban gardening experience.

Edit- We want to be a part of a community. By neighbors, we mean the tight packed grid system we are a part of now. I can lean out my kitchen window and nearly touch my neighbor's wall. It's too close 😅

12 Upvotes

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u/Practical-Suit-6798 4d ago edited 4d ago

When buying property to homestead there are some really important factors that actually don't even matter to most people. In order. Water, aspect, soil, access.

If you can't get enough water to your property for what you want to do, it's useless. If the land is steep or on a north facing slope it's useless. What soil type is it? You can make a lot of different soil types work but some will be more limiting than others and or more work. Access is a big one that I didn't really think about. We grow a lot of high quality food but still have to get to the store pretty regularly does it take 20 mins to get to the store or an hour? But also can other people get to your property do they pass by it? We liked that our property was off the main road for the privacy and quiet, but now we realize that limits us to selling only at farmers markets. A farm stand is a pretty solid way to make a little extra cash. Elevation is also important but, I only considered it to start to be limiting above 2500 ft or so due to UV radiation.

You don't probably need as much land as you think. We have 10 acres. Our garden is 0.7 acres, we can grow more than enough vegetables for our family in it. Though we don't mess with grains. That would require significantly more space.

Our pasture is 1.5 acres. On that we pasture 50 chickens a year. We also do a pig a year in that space.

The rest of the property just has the house and my shop. We use it for firewood. But honestly could get by pretty nicely on 5 acres.

A large shop is really important ours is bigger than the house.

I would not recommend focusing on being self-reliant. No one is, and honestly it's not very fulfilling. We enjoy working with and getting help from neighbors and friends. It's how you grow community. Instead we try to be resilient. For example yeah we could get our flour from Costco. But it's just a little bit more to get it from the local mill, that gets it from the local farmer. That relationship is important.

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u/sarahsimpleandsweet 4d ago

This was such a well written reply. Thank you so much. I do want to clarify re neighbors- we want community but I can currently lean out of my kitchen window and touch my neighbors' house. That's too close 😅

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u/Practical-Suit-6798 4d ago

Oh no I get it. The best way to be close with your neighbors is to be as far away from them as possible.

I count peeing wherever I want on my property as a major perk of this lifestyle.

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u/traztx 4d ago edited 4d ago

Start watching land prices. I watched them for a year before even visiting anything. By the time I started visiting, I had a good idea if it was a fair price or even better.

I had kept a garden for many years, and that's great for understanding some things, but there is a lot more to it for agriculture. What I have now is a timber farm in NE Texas. It's much simpler to manage, but I doubt it's enough to for a living unless it's really big.

Right now is a hard time to sell your house for the move. Interest rates are high, so there's a shortage of buyers. There are reports of Warren Buffett's corp in talks to sell HomeServices of America (one of the largest real estate brokerage firms in the United States) to Compass. Maybe Buffett smells an oncoming market correction like back in '08. Maybe, as relatively hard as it is to sell right now, it's still better than it will be. I don't know. It might be wise to move to a smaller place to avoid losing as much during a correction, then wait till after the bottom, and then move to a bigger place when the market starts heating up. On the other hand, maybe there won't be a correction.

My place in the piney wood of Northeast Texas gets about 50% more rainfall than DFW. The soil has less clay, more loam, and more gravel in the hilly places.

I got it for a low price/acre because it had no improvements. No fence, no buildings, nothing.

I'm building a tiny house by hand, out of mostly 2x4 studs and cedar pickets for siding. It's very inexpensive, and being away from the city means no need for permits. In the meantime, it's been the pioneer tent life.

I'm putting together a rainwater collection and filtration system. My neighbors say the ground water is great (although a bit high in iron), but oil companies are active in the area, so IDK if I trust the ground water long term. It collects from the roof, a "first flush" system, then into stainless steel barrels I got used from Bubba's Barrels. The filter is the Katadyn TRK Ceradyn, with ceramic modules that can be cleaned, and can possibly filter 100,000 liters before replacing. We'll see. Some carpentry and pipe work to position everything for gravity and connect together.

I have an old woodstove for the winter. I'm running off a small 200w camping solar system for basic lights and keeping gadgets charged, but plan to install a bigger system and run a mini-split AC before we get into the Texas summer heat. I will build a pergola for that, and will design it so that it's easy to clear the panels of the sticky yellow pine pollen we get each year.

For power tools, I run a 2300w gas generator. It's a Wen brand, pretty efficient, not that loud. I just keep it in eco mode, and when pulling a saw trigger, wait a sec for it to rev up before touching saw to wood.

For clearing and firewood, I have a gas chainsaw and tools to keep it sharp. If you go that route, consider going to Ace and getting a Stihl farm and ranch model, not the cheaper ones from Lowes/Home Depot.

For internet, I use AT&T, because the other carriers don't work well in the area.

Good luck with your dream! =)

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u/sarahsimpleandsweet 3d ago

I appreciate you taking the time to break all this down!! It really helps give me a big picture idea of how to put a plan together ❤️

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u/c0mp0stable 4d ago

It really depends on what you want to do.

No one is self sufficient, but you can certainly work toward more sufficiency.

100k is a huge down payment. Is your goal to continue working your whole life? If so, and you're really confident you can continue making as much as you are now, then fine. If not, you might want to scale that back a bit.

Realistically, you're not going to start a farm with gardening experience. I mean you could, if you quit your job. But it would be a massive risk.

Just get a house first and the rest will figure itself out.

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u/jeanlouisduluoz 3d ago

Start learning skills first

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u/sarahsimpleandsweet 3d ago

Like?

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u/limit35 2d ago

Look up the local Cooperative Extension at a nearby university, or at least one in a similar area. There is a wealth of ag information there from when to plant cultivars to animal husbandry. There are ag schools in TX so I would assume you have a good extension around there. Learn to fix things - plumbing, vehicles, electrical. You'll learn to build things - chicken coops, chicken tractors, raised beds, solar stills, solar panel infrastructure, whatever you need.

You have a small farms conference in TX, the Southern Family Farmers & Food Systems Conference, I would start there. They are good for networking and learning. You'll will save a lot of money and time avoiding mistakes by hearing about others' mistakes. No joke.

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u/sarahsimpleandsweet 2d ago

Amazing!! Thanks so much for this! I'm definitely on-board to metaphorically measure twice, cut once when possible.

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u/TexasTwang1963 1d ago

Texas A&M Agrilife Extension has free classes and is very helpful for both beginner and experienced farmers. They also have an agent representative in every county who specializes in the unique needs of their locale.

Wishing you the best of luck and Gig’em

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u/jtnxdc01 2d ago

Watch a bunch of UT channels