The wife and I have been looking at land for some time now. It looks like we'll get a chance to get land sooner rather than later, which is a big step forward for us.

So, the question is, what do you look for, in general, when looking at a plot of land to build a home on? Aside from availability and price, I seem to have a lot of questions about things like water, utilities, etc. The idea is to gain a piece of property where we can be as much 'off the grid' as possible.

if you're going 'off the grid', the world is your canvas. you don't have to worry about utilites, etc. provided you chose a building style suited to your natural surroundings, the rest is up to how hard you're willing to work

you have to have water, a well, a spring, a crick, whatever. water can be made 'safe', but you have to have it one way or another.

frye

The most important thing for me, when picking land, is to look at what's around it. This is from experience. Don't buy a piece of land that's anywhere near a major highway or in an area where growth is occurring.

You'll quickly have neighbors building houses all around you.

Your property values will go up rapidly, which means significantly higher taxes. Unless you're buying it strictly as an investment, this is a bad thing.

You'll lose your privacy and "peace and quiet".

In both the previous properties I have purchased for my homestead, I failed to look closely enough at this. In the first case, it worked out quite well for me. I bought a house on a couple of acres that was off by itself. Within two years, houses were popping up all around me and my taxes shot way up. So did my property value. My wife and I couldn't stand it any more and sold it. We made a nice profit. Fortunately, we had not sunk a lot of money or time into making it a long-term home.

But in my current property, the same thing has happened. We do have a lot more space now, and the properties around us are "full", meaning that there aren't any vacant properties. But still, we have to contend with neighbors and noise and light that wasn't there when we purchased it.

It's easy to think that a little bit of space will provide a "buffer", but in reality it doesn't equate to much if your neighbor decides to be an asshat. Our most recent neighbors bought the 10 acres next to ours and promptly cut down all the trees to build their wanna-be "mansion". It destroyed our scenic view and more importantly in increased noise. We can now hear the traffic noise from the highway that's about 2 miles away much better than we could before.

If you have skills and willpower, you can make almost any property work for your needs, in terms of living off grid. Even in near-desert environments, you can supply yourself with water and energy, plant a garden, raise livestock, etc. But your happiness will be greatly impacted by factors out of your control like neighbors.

So the wife and I have decided that next time we "up and move", and purchase a new piece of property to plant ourselves on, the priority will be finding a place where nobody else wants to go. It's damn hard to get away from the yuppies and suburbanites who are looking for their "little piece of heaven". They come in, build monstrous houses, pave the roads, and turn it into their own little city-like environment. And they destroy the natural setting. Stay as far away from them as you can.

We're going to be looking for a nice piece of property, but in an area that the suburbanites don't want to go. Unfortunately, this means staying away from places with scenic views and any type of river/lake access. I'm prepared to deal with rugged conditions if it means ensuring my privacy and peace.

Look for a chunk of land where you can build your house OUT OF SIGHT FROM ANY ROAD!!
Well out of sight if you can manage it.
The very best way to deal with permits and inspectors is to simply dodge the whole load of crap. Don't let anyone know you live there, or are building.

I parked a small travel trailer on my land, and applied to the county for an address on that. After they had been there and left I built the house without any permits or inspections at all.

My father in law set a power pole and called the electric utility for an electrical service for a trailer. After that was in, he went and built his house without bothering with any inspections or permits because his house was also situated where no one could see it.
Then he just hooked power up to the house himself. The power company don't care, it's just the friggin inspectors that do.

The tax man will eventually find your place no matter what, and you'll have to start paying taxes on what you've built, but that probably can't be helped unless you build a well concealed underground house.

What Tobus says about neighbors and taxes are very true. Especially the taxes. look for land in the poorest counties near you. The tax rate will be lower there.

Finally, look for a spot that not only is well concealed, but also has good year round access. Or not, and get used to snow shoeing in and out in the winter ( um, this probably doesn't apply to you, eh? ) well, make sure the spot isn't on a flood plain or can be cut off by flash floods and whatnot.

Everything that folks used to look for in a homestead - Fertile soil, sources of ground water, flat land to build on, etc..., all that is secondary these days.

I also would like to buy some land some day. Can't afford it now though. The bike/generator thread got me thinking about building a water powered generator some day if I get some land with a creek on it. A generator that doesn't run on a consumable fuel could come in handy when living off the grid. That's one of the reasons that I think it's a good idea to look for land with a creek that doesn't dry up.

I know this is getting slightly off topic, but I would stay away from any type of generator that must stay in running water. When you go through a dry spell and the flow slows down, you're SOL. When you get too much rain and the creek floods, you risk losing your generator. Or at least the part that's "driven" by the water. It can wash away from the torrent, it can be torn away from erosion during a flood event, or it can be destroyed by debris being washed downstream.

I worked for several years for a pipeline company. One of my duties was to do pipeline inspections in remote areas (as well as being involved with repairs, "smart pig" tracking, etc.). By far, the worst damage to our pipelines came from where they crossed creeks. The pipeline was built during WWII, as an emergency project to transport fuel, and so they didn't take a lot of care in burying pipelines deeply under creeks.

So invariably, whenever we would go to a creek crossing, we would find all kinds of debris jammed up on the pipeline where it crossed. Erosion was always pretty bad. You could see where huge logs had smacked the line, damaging the coating. Not to mention the usual problems with rust from the water.

Anyway, it's a good idea to find a property with running water. It's useful for all sorts of things. But for power generation, I would choose a method that is less prone to damage.

You are right. It wouldn't be easy. I think that I could do it because of my experience erecting machinery in power plants, glass plants, tire factory, feed mills, food processing plants, cannery, oxygen plant, and so on, and so on.........
It would be a challenging project. Maybe it wouldn't be possible but it would be fun to try.

Your best bet is to go to the Planning and Zoning Committee meetings in the rural counties you're looking at. The county I live in is tired of city people moving out and subdividing the land, and has placed restrictions on how the land can be divided up. If the local Government is going to make these rules, you may as well use them to your advantage. Around here, people are allowed to carve off an existing house and small acreage, with the caveat that the surrounding 25 acres will be maintained as crop/ pasture (undeveloped in other words) land for at least the next 20 yrs. It is recorded in the deed. And no property less than 40 acres can be divided without rezoning, which is damn near impossible. So, this gives quite a buffer between neighbors, and gives you time to save up so you can hopefully buy the adjoining land in the mean time.

A lot of the time agricultural property doesn't have the same setback easment requirements as subdivided property, allowing you to build a barn, etc. close to your property line if that's where you need it to be. Most of the time, they are only concerned about the space between structures, to prevent the spread of fire. Which is also something to think about. I have a couple good books around here on the subject of farm planning, I'll post them in the library section later.

As a libertarian, the idea of using the force of government to restrict what people do with their rightful property is disgusting. I would never, ever do such a thing. That's no better than the rest of the "little tyrants" in this country who go whining to government to fix every little inconvenience in their lives.

Looking for building sites and looking for multi use land can be2 different things too.

When we bought this place, I was getting anxious to get out of CO. The farmable ground was OK, but all the south facing slopes were the best farm ground. If I ever want to build a partial underground house I am going to have to be creative on the partial south slopes or take out some of the production ground.

Around here where there is live water, there is lots of people, it thins out quickly from creek bottoms.

Anyway, some concerns when moving out away from the masses.

Water- if you can find a place that isn't over priced with running water, check it out thoroughly. Water rights may prevent you from using the creek except to look at, EPA Wetland regs apply to everyone also, and they are a PITA. Terrain and volume fluctuations may be a concern, flooding can be serious, know the flood plain. a 2' creek can be a 40' river overnight in the right conditions.

If not freeflow water, natural springs can sometimes be better in some ways, no flood plain for one. No restricion of use too.

The real concern in is going to be well depth and water quality. If you have to a 500' well or low volume or marginal potability, those are going to be permanent problems.


Another concern is vegitation, short grass prairie is easy to damage and long to heal. Just building house can leave bare areas that will remain that way for a long time, alternating from mud to dust. Too many trees that grow fast meaning constant maintenance or no trees and difficult and labor intensive to get going.

I have never understood why some people move into an old homestead site around here with established trees and then cut them all down. Even half dead ones give shade in the summer and windbreak in the winter but they seem to prefer to have the house sit by itself.


I can see both sides of this. We moved from CO because they subdivided the land across the road, split 640 acres into tracts from 25 to 10 acres, all getting a share of irrigation water for their pastures. That water came from a single small ditch of the lateral canal that could carry roughly a little over an acre foot of water a day, basically enough to run 2 heads of water to irrigate with, which 3 farms had to share time using. It was already a problem, with that there was simply no way to continue a viable ag operation and we were forced to sell or quit using our land fo AG.

Now the developer had the right to invest and develope property, but did they have the right to force me out of business through over use of a shared resource?

When I was in grade school, we lived on a place where housing grew up around us, county decided the complaints of the smell from a neighboring feedlot were enough to shut it down saying it was interfereing with the house owners right of use.

We sold out and moved further out, 12 years later we see the same things happening here.

Look, you don't like the fact that society encroached upon your homestead (twice now), I was just suggesting that he check out the local ordinances regarding property ownership to try to pick the one that best suits his needs.
How else is he going to guarantee the place he worked so hard to build isn't going to become a place he feels trapped in?
The people that make these rules are indeed "little tyrants", and with the screwed up imminent domain laws in this country, even following them is no assurance that he will remain unmolested.
Like I said in my other post, we still have to work with in the guidelines of the society we live in, even if we're working to change them.

Good replies, all of them.

The situation I'll probably be in is that I'll live 'in town', but I'll have my plot of land way out in the boonies. I'll be working on the land on weekends and summers until I get things built up the way I want them (landscaping and structure wise) and to where they can comfortably support myself and family. When we're to that stage and it's cost viable to start the long commutes, we'll move out there. I've got lots of time is the point.

My first desire is to gauge off the experienced folk whether or not I'm even looking in the right places as far as proximity to things like roads, utilities, natural barriers (creeks, mountains, etc.) and people.

That is my complaint as well. Our first property had a lot of trees overhanging the house, and woods on both sides. Every other new home that was built around us, the first thing that was done was they razed the property. Cut down every single tree. Idiots.

Part of the reason that home sold for such good money was because it was one of the few in that neighborhood that had well established trees.

And now my new neighbors have done the same thing, although not quite as severe. They cut down a lot of trees for their "landscaping".

I'm certainly not telling you what to do, but I think that's a rather idealistic plan. At that rate, you'll never get it accomplished. Part of homesteading means living there every day and doing the work every day. Even after you get home from a real job. If it becomes in your mind just a "weekend place", that's all it will ever be. And your priorities will shift away from it. I know you think they won't, but they will. You won't go there every single weekend. There will be things that come up, and eventually your weekend trips out there will diminish.

This is just my opinion, but I think it's best to just dive in whole-hog. Put yourself in the situation where your homestead is where you live from the start. Then your saturated in that environment and you have a lot more reason to continue working on it.

Plus you don't have to pay two sets of bills.

Man, Tobus nailed that one right on the head big time!

I had a similar fantasy about living in town and "just building on the weekends until the place was ready."

The fact was that I just was not ready to do what Tobus wrote -
Dudes, truer words were never written!

Fortunately my wife grabbed me by the ear lobe and dragged me up, kicking and screaming all the way, just as soon as most of the snow melted off the land.

Smart woman.

Once you move onto your off-grid land, you'll immediately begin saving tons of cash - No rent, cable bill, water bill, power bill, internet hookup or any of the crap that goes along with living in town.

All this cash can be directly poured into building your home bit by bit, paying for it as you go along. You'll never go into debt. You'll never be burdened under a 250,000 mortgage.
Instantly your back will straighten up a bit and you'll walk a little taller.

By the end of the first week, you'll be so in love with your land that you'll wonder why the heck you waited so long to move up there!
You need to live on the land. Only then will you discover the way the sunlight interacts with the land. The direction the breezes flow after sundown, the very best place to put your home-to-be.

You'll learn to live Deliberately, as Thoreau wrote -

You will be truly amazed at all the crap you can leave behind you in town, and be better of for it!

Do not be concerned with the fact that you may ever have built anything before in your life - You will be truly amazed at what you can accomplish once you have to - Once you have set yourself a task and there is no going back. You will grow as an individual as your homestead grows. You will developed new skills and abilities, and will surprise yourself with what you have accomplish!

You will discover that you just do not need two incomes to live on.
You don't need a T.V., new car, fancy toys and clothes and all the junk you used to think of as "necessities." You can live perfectly comfortably without running water, power, air conditioning, central heating and all the other things that turn people into couch potatoes.
Your wife will be able to stay home and live the country life she has imagined.
You can set her small construction tasks to do while you go off to work during the week days. The building will go much faster, and she will grow as an individual, with new self confidence born of her new skills and abilities as well.
Always be sure to be very impressed with what she has done that day when you get home! Then have dinner, light the lanterns and get your ass to work for a few hours! No laying on your butt watching TV or goofing off on the internet for this sturdy homesteader. Stay focused on the here and now!
You'll find that the physical exercise will do you a world of good after a day spent at a sedentary job.

My wife and I moved into a tiny travel trailer. I'd gutted the interior with a chain saw so I had room for a small wood stove and to build a bed that I did not need to fold up every day.
I built a big shed roof over the trailer, a storage shed, outdoor shower and sink to wash dishes in out behind the trailer, dug a shallow well and installed a hand pump, dug an outhouse and hung up a hammock between two shady trees. Instant homestead!
We lived like this for a year and a half while building our cottage.
We got 15 feet of snow that first winter.

It was literally the time of our lives.

When we did finally move into our cottage we took all our crap out of storage and went through it. We now had the room again, but we discovered an amazing thing, that we had been tempered somehow - Suddenly this pile of crap was just that -crap that we simply didn't need or want anymore. It all went to Good Will. Let someone else clutter up their lives with it all.

Honestly folks - If you dream of homesteading, Do it now!
Don't wait till the house is paid off, sell it! Don't wait till the kids moved out, or whatever it is that you think you must wait for "Until I'm ready."
You'll suddenly wake up an old man and never have realized your dream.

I hear what you're saying, but there are other priorities that must be taken care of before I'll be able to do that. (Mostly financial.) I'll be in a financial position to buy the land and work it for a few years before I'll be able to afford the rest of the expenses associated with building on the property. I plan to pay cash for the land. It will just take a few more years before I can afford the expense of building, at which point I will move out there.

I'm a lot younger than you EtdBob. I've got time still. Again, I know what you're saying, but I have two options. I can wait til I can afford to build, buy the land and immediately start building. This will still take the same amount of time, regardless before I'm able to do this. Or, I can buy the land while I'm waiting to be financially able to afford building, work the land, then start building at the same time. I'm going with the second plan.

Im wondering what you all think of North Florida, Suwanee county in particular, I have family up there and we are planning to get a place up there in the future. We've decided 5 acres is a good amount of land for a small homestead so we would have some space

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suwannee_County

This seems like a good place doesnt it?

http://homes.point2.com/US/Florida/Suwanne...eal-Estate.aspx

We do plan to remove at least some trees for a garden and space for a few goats.

Just make sure you factor in all the costs of owning the land into your financial outlook. Property taxes are a big one. And don't just go by what they "estimate" the tax to be. When you purchase the land, the appraised value will rise and the taxes will go up. They will also go up every year for various reasons (either the school tax or the county roads/bridges tax or even just the tax rate itself that's a percentage of property value). The State has been playing games with property taxes in the last few years and they threw a big curve ball at us this year.

So you might want to figure on taxes, for financial planning purposes, being as high as 3% each year. If you buy $100,000 worth of land, plan on paying $3,000 out of pocket every year and build it into your budget.

Yeah, that's an unfortunate unseen cost. Luckily we're looking at trying to be remote enough that we wouldn't be falling under city taxes for sure... county and state would be the only parts we'd have to worry about here. But yeah, that is part of the plan.

It's definitely better to be in a county where there isn't a large city, sure. But even small counties are getting unruly with their property tax. My county, for instance. The largest town in my county is less than 1,000 people. And that's the county seat. But the voters still keep passing multi-million dollar "bonds" to fund a new high school and (in the latest election a few weeks ago) a new jail.

As the federal government keeps pushing for everyone to meet education standards and law enforcement standards, the poor counties are having to raise their taxes to accommodate them. And this is where it gets downright costly to live in a rural county. Since there are less people trying to fund these large programs, each person has to carry a higher tax burden than they would in larger areas.

Another thing to consider is regulation. Some places it isn't going to matter as the state is pretty universal but for instance in CO there are neighboring counties that are widely different on codes and regulation etc.

This is one of the reasons I like WY so much, very little regulation on building, you want a barn, you build it, no permit or inspection needed. Where I was in CO or in enighboring NE you have to have separate permits and inspections for electrical, structure and plumbing. We still get hit with rising taxes because of property value increase though.

Also the cost of things like putting in a water meter (if you plan on it), can swing wildly from one water district to another. In one spot it may be $500, the next road over in a different district it may be $2500. Also makes a difference whether they have to dig up the road or not to install it.

My experience is strictly from living in the Midwest, so I don't know, but how do they handle waste diposal down there? Up here we have to have a perc. test to see if an underground septic system will work, or if you have to have a lagoon.

One of the perks of living "off grid" is that you don't need things like water meters. You pump your water straight out of the ground. It is free. From nature to you.


Most rural folks down here (myself included) just put in a septic system.

I guess that would be one of the points made earlier about choosing a place with enough capacity to support your everyday needs.
I don't have that much experience with wells, I didn't know if he was going to live "normally" (using supplied utilities) most of the time, and just have it set up for off grid living, or live off grid all the time.
What I'm getting at is, if you don't have infinite resources on your place, and need to save them for a bad situation. Know what I mean?

It doesn't really take "infinite resources" to live off grid. With modern technology, it's just a matter of money.

Buying a remote piece of land usually means you're going to have to supply your own water anyway. They can't just run a water line 20 or 30 miles to you. And if you're within a few miles of a water pump station, you're not "remote" enough.

I would think the whole point of going off-grid is to not ever have to run any utilities to your homestead, period. No water, no electricity, no sewer, no gas, no internet cable, no cable TV. Not even a phone line.

I'm O.K. with that, other than I couldn't converse with you fine fellows, but where's my wife going to live?
I was just throwing ideas out there, obviously you know more about Nidrah's home life than I do.
I'm trying to ease into this whole idea, to make my home life easier, so that's the perspective I'm writing from.

Howdy boys.Been lurking on this one for a little while...I have my place , far back as is reasonable, all solar, propane , wells, wind mill, water rights.....Now let's eat. The balloon hasn't gone up yet, the MZB's ian't coming thru the wire and CHARLIE isn't everywhere. You gotta' make a living back of beyond..and Like it! It's a helluva lot tougher than you think. When you're 50 miles from town gas is still 2 bucks and up...stuff costs more..a whole raft of new issues. I've been doing the survival type life since the 70's . We figgered back then it woul only be a couple of years and it would all go to hell..almost went a couple of times...but you DO have to have a life. Especially the women folk..easy to talk aboiut it hard to live it...See if you can find any books by the late Brad Angier and his wife Vena. They did it for real..if you then follow their lives you find that as they got older they eventually settled down to a life of comfort in a more conventional setting.($$$Success$$ through good writing) I'm not saying it isn't a good life but it ISN'T for EVERYONE.....No phone...good luck finding your spare parts without driving over half the state...Internet costs $ unless you like 10k dialup speed..and if you haven't got it how are you going to stay in touch..TV? Who cares. ..but books are important and take up a lot of space. Need a good sized house...not a mansion but some space. Kids? Thirteen miles to the BUS STOP.....Lots to think about..ooops. gotta' go...Adios

While diving in whole hog might be a good idea for some, only a fool assumes everyone's situation is the same as theirs and therefore the solution is the same as theirs.

The wife and I are lookign at land now. We hope to buy a piece before Christmas and give it to each other as a present. I have no intention of giving up 6 figures a year we make living and working in town. I'm going to ride the train till the wheels come off, or I finish my place out of town first. If I leave here and move to the country, the chances are that the wife and I lose $50K - $60Ka year because very, very few rural communities could support our salaries. If I stay, I can make enough to get my land, pay it off or make a major dent in the payment of. I can buy the things I need, as well as have the time to build a house that's paid for.

3-4 more years here and I can have a house (paid for), the land (paid for), plenty of new trees on the way, and a good garden.

Everyone's situation is different. Your solution may vary.

Is this the Guide for the Happy Homemaker from 1954?? Your pot roast and potatoes will be waiting for you when you get home. I'll have your slippers all ready and my lipstick neatly applied.

This l'il woman will hang steel and pour concrete with the best of 'em.

i smell a dance-off a commin'!

frye

I would highly recommend the book How to Find and Buy Your Place in the Country by Les Scher. The book has had numerous printings over the years and is a classic imho. This man speaks from experience and covers all the bases as to what to look for--he will not let you overlook one detail. He also has one heckofa off the grid homestead in the north coast kali mtns. check it out! Also, from my experience I have found that is just best to move and DO IT!! We're not getting any younger and if you have and or planning a family,, believe me, your kids will grow up tough and LOVE IT!! Living in the sticks is not easy, but is is fun and you will learn to do it all cause you can't afford to pay someone, good luck.

You'd better have the venison roast ready when I get home - and the concrete work done as well if you can manage it.

Skip the lipstick, I think makup makes women look silly. I think women wear makup to compete with other women, and to bolster their own self confidence.
Got a tip for ya - Men are easy - All ya gotta do is show up baby!
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I heartily agree.
Most folk are just fooling themselves - "I'll just save 200,000 bucks and have a nice country home built out in the sticks for me, then move"
Yeah right.
Most folk will not ever be able to make the break from city life, the high paying jobs and the rat race.
Breaking out of the rat race is very very hard to do.

Well heck, if you do manage to have your cake and eat it too, more power to you, but for most folk the homestead just remains a dream.

Only you are preventing yourself from living your dream.

This is my situation. We are outgrowing the place we are in and will start looking after the first of the year. But we also have to figure in where we work. There are not a lot of small communities that can support the salaries we make. My wife will retire in a little less than six years so that will ease the travel cost some. I on the other hand have a good 20 yrs. to work.

I'm wanting a happy medium. I want to be self-sufficient as far as relying on water and utilities from citiy/state, but I don't want to cut off all technology. I think if you plan efficiently that you can have both, but still be prepared to live w/o the things that the city provides (Util.) when and if things get bad.


DK

DK

This is the hang-up for most people. They refuse to take a cut in pay or downgrade their standard of living. They want everything in their lives to stay the same, but just live in their dream getaway home.

If you truly want to live a rural lifestyle, you're going to have to give up some of the things you currently enjoy. Like convenient restaurants and pizza delivery. Going to the movies on a whim. Zipping out to do some quick shopping. Your lifestyle changes dramatically, and believe it or not, you end up spending a lot less money. When it's a 40-mile drive to the city, you tend to plan your shopping trips better. You make lists and plan your stops, and you end up not wasting money or time. You no longer need those two high-dollar incomes to be happy.

After I graduated college and got married, my wife and I moved to "the big city". We were living shoulder-to-shoulder with everyone else in Houston. Fighting traffic and all that jazz. I worked full time and so did she. And we lived in a crummy little rent house because it was all we could afford. We hated it. We were unhappy and miserable. And we thought we'd never be able to afford to go anywhere else.

When I took my current job, I actually took a pay CUT to get out of Houston. And my wife quit working altogether. So our combined income was reduced drastically. It was a huge risk for us, and we had no idea whether we'd make it or not. But still, we managed to have a better quality of life moving out to a rural area. It's just cheaper to live out here. We ended up buying a house and a couple of acres. Then a few years later, sold it at a nice profit and bought another house with almost ten times the acreage as the first one. You don't need to maintain your super duper incomes. Just set a deadline and work towards it. Be willing to sacrifice a little.

You just really have to decide what's more important. The convenience of living in town and making lots of money that you can waste on crap, or living in the country where you have a better quality of life although not as much money in the bank. But the excuse that you can't afford to live out there if you both can't work for your current salaries just isn't a good excuse. If your prime motivation in life is money, then stay in town.

Some of my friends know that I'm eventually going off-grid. They have no problems with the raising of food, the work entailed, the building of the home, living without electricity or phone...but WHOA! Mention getting rid of the T.V., and they look at me like I'm crazy...

I understand your point Tobus, but my excuse for working where we are currently isn't about maintaining a lifestyle. We live well below our means. As far as zipping out anywhere -- well we have two little girls right now. We don't do any spur of the moment zipping.

My spending habits wouldn't change no matter where I live. I'm not extravagant in my spending. We sock money away every chance we get. At this moment my wife has put in over 22 yrs. of service where she is currently employed. In less than six years she can retire AND draw her retirement. That would be stupid to throw away and not a very good financial decision by any means. Not many people are in that type of positive future. We would really only have to worry about my travel to work when considering long term employment.

My ideal property is within my reach and we are prepared to make sacrifices. I'm just having trouble finding that perfect piece of land that suits all the necessary criteria. Our big plus is that we are stable enough that we don't have to make any quick decisions on moving. If I ended up living where we are now longer, it would actually just allow us to purchase a better place.


DK

People still ask me "did you see this on TV last night?" -
Even people who know how I live and have actually been to my cottage.
They just can't imagine someone not watching TV!

I haven't watched broadcast TV since 98' and I have survived pretty good so far....

You got lucky too. 2 weeks after you moved your previous residence was 6' under water