Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place... I need a little HELP.
It's decision time and I'm stuck on money, convenience and practicality!!!
Taxation is theft...
Ok, I can hear it all, but how would we build roads, and so on... Well this is not quite what this post is about. Whatever side of the political circus you stand on, I'm pretty sure you would prefer to see less taxes being taken away from you, every time money moves in and out of your hands. I've been researching different things lately, one of them has to do with retiring early and becoming independently wealthy. Every money expert I've been looking at have one thing in common and that is to use all the loop holes available to pay as little taxes as possible.
When I look at my pay checks, the government takes roughly 30% of it. That's enormous, I mean maybe people pay even more taxes in Europe, but 30% is still a huge number, especially in the land of the free. If we wanna talk about taxation a little, I'm sure not much of it goes to things other than war related politics.
Making a decision
I get stuck pretty often on making decisions, especially those that involve a commitment. There are a couple of things I'm thinking of for next year's winter dwelling. All the factors that make up this decisions are driving me nuts!
The building types. I want to have structures built out of mostly natural materials and I want them to be mostly without hard corners... I like the curves, like a river, it flows so smoothly because of of its soft turn.
The location. There are a few places we would like to live on this 19 acre parcel, some are reserved for certain types of buildings, each having their own practicality.
Time and Convenience. We decided I would only work as little as possible to keep our heath insurance on the super cheap side of life (for the US). I work a little over two hours away, so I play weekend warrior for a couple months every six months. In return, we get a lot of time together, being home, therefore having more time to build our dream homestead. That still only gives us a few months to plan, build and grow into a successful homestead.
Money. I would like to find ways to pay as little real estate taxes as I can for as long as I can on this property, with more financial capital in hand we'll can dig a well for example!. For now, whatever building we chose to build, it needs to be filed under some sort of art space, barn, or some kind of equipment shed. I know, I know... who would pay for the public school system if no one paid their taxes. But I only plan on deferring higher real estate taxes imposed on real homes, a little while. I wish I could defer it for ever but you know, we also must protect ourselves too!
And that's where I get stuck.
We were able to narrow down the idea down to a small timber frame cabin, in the woods with an awesome mountain view or a large equipment shed/barn near the north east corner of the property where we want our MakerSpace to be.
With a small family of three, it's easy enough to live in a tiny house, so if we chose the barn, we could make part of it into a real cozy little winter home, up in the hights of a 24' by 48' structure. I found timber frame kit company called The Jamaica Cottage Shop, they use locally sourced wood (the north east region of north America), which made our decision to work with them easy, and their prices made it even easier.
I know you must be laughing, a 48' barn may not qualify as tiny living... but the apartment in it would be pretty small because I'm not really looking to insulate the whole structure, not yet at least. That barn, the whole timber frame structure with the roof and siding goes for around 15 thousand bucks. I can probably source most of the material for building out an apartment for a 3rd of the typical price.
Here's the photo, bellow on the left:
The photo to the right of the barn is the 20' by 30' cabin. That one, with a four season package goes for a little over 30 thousand dollars, probably without the porches. That's where the convenience and time thing comes into play. We would still have to put either structure together one our own time and labor, but with this little cabin, everything but the interior layout is ready to go.
Making sense of all this...hmmmm!
Well ok, let's see the Barn, costs less and perhaps in the end would cost about the same as the cabin. It will probably take us longer to build but we also would have a massive space for art, yoga, gatherings and workshops away from the rain in the warmer months. It could very well take the place of that MakerSpace we want to have too. The apartment could become artist living spaces, studios or offices once we build our earthship.
Remember I mentioned some areas are reserved for other structures? Well yeah, we want to build an earthship, and we already know where it will be, there are other parts of the property we are saving for different natural building workshops to come.
@Eco-Alex, I will always think of you now, anytime I talk about earthships, thanks for your inspiration! And for all you who don't know what an earthship is, check out Earthship Karuna to get an idea of what these homes are about.
The little cabin, while it may just be more about convenience, it may also be the better option when it come to managing our precious time. Like I was saying before, it comes practically built and fully insulated. All we would need is a kitchen, a lofted bedroom and a bathroom. If we cant pull through the full build, we can live in an open space o problem, giving us time to work on other projects without the worry of Old Man Winter coming to bite us in the ass too much!
Come to think of it, in case we don't finish the apartment in the barn, we could pull out trailer into it , close the big garage doors with some sort of see through plastic or windows and voila... old man winter would be out of luck with this solution too!
We will still need to figure out a water system, sort our electrical system and keep in mind that either structure we chose to build will still need a building permit and therefore proper footing/foundation. There are many hidden costs I can't even think of but I'm ready for them. And you know if we can avoid having that elevated tax rate of proper dwellings, we can offset other building costs.
Personally I would love to chose a smaller timber frame with a roof, than use strawbales, natural plasters and paints.... but again, comfort vs time... The sooner we can be living full time on this property, the sooner we can create a School for Natural Building Techniques.
Now the question I ask you is, what would you do? I really take your advice to heart, I consider a lot of you my mentors in this world of modern homesteading, and I want to thank you in advance for all your help.
Spread your wings and fly to where your heart takes you.
riverflows answered this for me I think, but there is a reason you keep coming back to the barn, it is your intuition telling you to go for it, so just do. I hope you are well xxx
Thank you for this, It actually made me think of why I decided to make my life in New York State... I keep coming back to it! Everywhere I lived, it never lasted more than 7 months, after that I'd go right back to where my immediate family settled. It must be that same thing, that same gut feeling that says BARN!
Thanks 😁
Okay, here's my two cents. I would without doubt go for the barn option. Ten years ago, I may have said nah, I'll do it tough and save money and build myself. However, as you say, time is money and money time - if you can have a base that's secure, warm and reasonably comfortable that is going to help all your other dreams come true faster. You already know it's tough to do that when you don't have basic decent living - water, driveway access, warmth, etc etc. Plus, you'll have more time to hang with your kid rather than be so busy just trying to build something decent. I think you already know what you will do, you just need people to agree with you - yes, go the barn, it's a good idea.Then you can have something in which to accomodate and feed people to help them build your other things!! Love you. x
Lol, I feel lile we've known eachother... or at least it feels like you know me pretty well.
The barn idea was the original idea I keep coming back to. And you're absolutely right, it would make a nice place to have a really large dinner table for, could even be a place to hang out when we need a break from the rain. Plus this would serve two purposes, a home/shelter from the weather plus a step forward in making that makerspace!
The cabin would be quicker to put up (I think) and we'd have that time to hang out with the family not working too... but it would be a single use cabine, I mean a building only used for one purpose...
Thank you River 😁
Ha, of course we know each other, we've been steeming together for a while and crossing paths on at least three communities here! Eagerly awaiting the next update, and love teh way you use steemit as a big sounding board for your plans.
True true! Yeah I guess I do use it like that 😁. Thanks for your help.
Tough choices. The only thing I feel qualified to comment on is taxes and that would just be a rant so I will spare you. I encourage you to consider your time and the quality of life each choice will give you while your family is young. Money must be solved but can seem impossible then seems to work itself out sometimes.
Thanks @steven-patrick, I tend to thinl and say, in the end it always works out. The money thing will work out too!
Ok I'll look into comfort for the whole family and see what I come up with.
With a name like @senorcoconut you need to sell everything and move somewhere WARMER asap! LOL. My 2 cents of lighthearted fun. A bamboo hut in a coconut grove in Thailand sounds perfect. :)
Seriously, the barn. I agree with @riverflows 100%. And in your heart I think you already do too.... Like she said, you just need some confirmation.
If you need a break in the sunshine away from barn life, Thailand awaits. :)
Haha I would love to have a bamboo hut in thailand!!! You know we learned a few tricks on building with bamboo while we were in Pie, at a small permaculture farm just at the entrance of town (coming from Chiang Mai). If I can find the name or an adress again, I'll send it to you so you can check it out 😁. The owner was so super nice!
Yeah I think you and @Riverflows may be right about the barn... it sucks being afraid of commitment. That may be the only thing I regret from having grown up on the move and traveling the world like a free soul! But I think I can work on that.
We'll be going down to Costa Rica for a winter break in february this year, but who knows, maybe we can visit next year 😁.
Thanks for ypur help @artemislives
Not that I am a certified architect and have some advices. But I am learning from this just in case I want to build a house. Those setbacks seems to be something that I will expect in the near future before building a house even a tiny house. Good luck and blessing to your family.
Thank you so much, I'm happy to help in amy way I can, luckily there is a mountain range of homestead wisdom to tap into here on steemit... 😍
For sure! I am checking them now and then especially I am interested in tiny house.
I was just listening to a podcast on tiny homes. Done right they're a lot of work but theu can also be a great way to own a home out right, no mortgage and best of all they normaly don't charge a real estate tax on 'em 😁!
See, that's what I am also talking about. They normally don't charge a real estate tax on tiny houses. Getting mortgage is like voluntarily chaining ourselves in a long life debt. I knew first hard what it was like having to deal with debt. It's not fun. Sooo I am trying not to involve in any of that situation.
I hope you will find the best materials :-) !
Macchiata.
Yeah... debt... there's good debt and than there's bad debt. I was lucky I found a cheap apartment with 2 bedrooms and had someone else living with me paying half of the mortgage. Now its fully rented to someone for a real good price (for the neighborhood) and It costs me nothing... But If I had built a timy house somewhere I would be debt free!
Hey, @senorcoconut!
Thank you for your contribution to the crowd. We are the Steemit project dedicated to empowering The Wisdom of Crowds. You can find more about us on our official blog or whitepaper and you can support us by voting for our witness and joining our curation trail on Steemauto . We are also inviting you to join Crowdmind Discord server. Don't forget to use the #crowdmind hashtag and happy crowdsourcing!
Additional comment: It is great that you decided to ask the crowd about its opinion on this matter. That was a smart choice and we hope many homesteaders will respond to it. Although we know it was not your main goal – the posts like this one are the reasons why we started this project. And about your plans – we are not sure that we can contribute much but barn looks like a master project which could be worth sacrifice with all that space. Small cabin is also lovely, and trailer option shows that you actually are great planner. Please consider crowdfunding as a way to make your work easier. If you do anything related to our project, let us now on Discord or any other way. Good luck!
This sounds like a really nice project, I will check it out later, there sure is a lot of wisdom in crowds!!!
Thanks for your comment, writing about this alone has helped me already!
Heehee... nice! Thanks for the laugh
It seems like the barn option has more practical benefits for you right off the bat. Personally I wouldn't have any shame in living in a barn, as long as its designed to my own personal comfort... which would mean I need lots of windows. I have friends that converted a good portion of a barn on their property into their primary residence, and they still had lots of barn left to use for parking tractors, storing firewood, tools, and much more. Their home was one story, but above their home they had extra storage rooms and on the third floor (their barn was quite tall) there was a project room. Oh also they parked their camper in the barn and lived in that with a roof over it while they built their home.
Just sharing that perspective in case it helps :) But sometimes practical isn't the only thing important to happiness and maybe you would be much happier in the cabin for other reasons. Comfort is so important to happiness and its different for everyone.
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Yeah you're right, sometimes practicality isn't the all important thing for happiness. But I'm thinking the barn option is best for all the same reasons you mentioned.
We have no shame in living in a barn either 😁.
Thank you for your help.
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Yeah you're right, sometimes practicality isn't the all important thing for happiness. But I'm thinking the barn option is best for all the same reasons you mentioned.
We have no shame in living in a barn either 😁.
Thank you for your help.
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Start really small with something that can produce excess and grow from there. Keep blogging on Steemit but look to sharing your great posts on other platforms
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Thank you @ligayagardener, we're doing tomatoes for sure and medicinal herbs... later will come the animals or whatever life has planned for us then
The great thing about this is that you can't fail
Haha thanks, that's very sweet and true!
I encourage you to go for all of your dreams and think big... If you truly want to create a natural building school.. look into 501-c3 or c4 class that you could register a "part of your property to the school and be completely tax free. the big thing is that with these gov. filings no one person can solely benefit from the organization by living on the property, you get out of that by registering the mission on a piece of the property, which can then be public/school facility. OR you can just say that the natural living is your religious freedom and file that way, lots of others hoops, and this is a big research project.. Many public libraries have grant sections and people that are quite knowledged with this info. You could also go the way of private grants for projects like this... there are incentive programs for offset costs such as solar, wind now. Beautiful vision and building and wishing you all the abundance and clarity to reach your intention! Search for others that have done this and seek some solid advice..