dont you ever feel like you just want to get out of the rat race. what are we all working for. to pay mortgages and car loans and to get the latest stuff. well its all bllocks. i love spending all my spare time down the plot. i'd spend all day everyday down there if i could. the question i'm asking is, has anyone done this. the good life. lived of the land .sold up and actually done it. how did you do it. how much did your land cost. where are you doing it. any tips on doing it. i know it wouldnt be all hugh fearnly whittingstall. but its gotta be a d**n site better than the rat race where in now
HI
I thought you might like to see this blog. It's from a couple who are trying to do just that in Central Scotland. Have a look - seems nice folk. Maybe the secret is to just do it?
http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/index.php
I know what you mean, weedgrower. :)
I'd love to do smallholding one day, hopefully not too faraway future!
I'm not bothered with latest things, I don't even watch telly much anymore.
Growing vegetables & fruits and keeping hens... that would be nice!
The site is very interesting. I've bookmarked it. ;D
Yes, I love the idea of a smallholding too. I find myself feeling miserable because I'm bored at work, and feeling I shold look for another job but don't know what, mainly because I don't think I want a career, just a nice peaceful life.
I'm always happiest when I'm down on the plot, and would love to spend more time down there rather than working full time to pay the rent etc.
The secret seems to lie in having enough money behind you; it would be a lot easier without mortgages etc!
So much of what we do is fundamentally pointless, yet we need to do it in order to get money to pay for the things we're trained to need. I love the ideas of people like John Seymour and it appears so appealing. But I'd be worried about when I become less mobile, and how I would be able to look after things unless I had a large wad of cash behind me.
Having said this, I'm not sure I could kill animals on a regular basis, at least not ones that I'd lovingly raised, so I'd probably have to be a veggie. I could get used to that though...
Think you hit it on the head there Robert. Having things to start with counts for a lot.
If we think about it honestly, though, what do we mean by rat-race? Given this subject a lot of thought in my time - what exactly is it we want to escape from, and what to keep? Here's a few of my (honest) thoughts. Selfish some of them, but there you go.
Want a place to grow things without fear of theft or vandalism. Want to eat veg thats not been sprayed with pesticides, and a little meat from animals that haven't suffered during their lives. Want to sit in garden in the morning and listen to the quiet. Want house to live in - don't want to start from scratch with nothing. Want privacy. Would seriously struggle in mud hut or communal housing. Want electricity, want drill, lathe, oil, freezer, transport, washing machine, processor, tumble dryer for those wet cold raining days. Want detergent. Want clothes, comfy, not itchy, ready made. Want heating in house thats no effort to put on when its cold. Want to buy seeds that aren't going to fail. Want paper to write on. Want books to read. Want to turn on tap and get water. Want dentists, doctors, police, firemen, someone to look after people who can't look after themselves, someone to educate my children in things I don't know about. Want engineers, designers. Want factory workers. People to produce my rotavator, my trimmer, my knives, my metals, my wind generator, my solar panel, my drill, my lathe, my oil, my glass bottles and jars, my clothes and shoes.
Don't want anyone ever to sack me again. Don't want to make huge profits for some other b*gg*r and come home after 15 hour working day, exhausted. Don't want to realise at the end of a day, that I didn't know what the weather had been like that day. Don't want to spend hours on the motorway, hours smiling at people so hard your face cramps up, hours driving back, to get caught in traffic and miss kid singing on stage. Don't want to spend time pushing trolley round supermarket and listening to other peoples kids screaming with boredom. Don't want to listen to other peoples music blaring. Don't want to pick up other peoples litter, or fill a bag full of plastic packaging waste for the dustmen each week.
Could go on forever. Thing is, when you think about it, life's been reasonably cushy, and who IS going to make the things I want? Seems maybe that some would have to stay in rat-race for my benefit, not sure I can live comfortably with that notion, and being a realist, can't offer an immediate solution for that one.
Bless. Be happy folks is it one of those things that the more you try to grab it becomes elusive? I think it is all comparable really. I think you can make the life you are in a little more comfortable for every one and we should take a little more time to apreciate the GOOD things. I lived up t'north in a small community and do you know what the weather was rubbish. The drug and more so drink problem was very bad and I now love the city life. But....I don't queue etc I try and beat the rushes etc. It is nice with all the shops etc. Chuck the TV out (I do have one) enjoy the kids if you have them and go to the lottie..
One certainly can dream. I'd love to be self sufficient but as jennym said there is so much that we use as "basics" that require other people to stay in the race while others drop out.
The mortgage is the hard bit. We're only on the 2nd rung of the ladder and the 3rd is going to be a small house (if lucky). Being so close to London the prices are high and commuting is paramount. If we killed off all the rellies won the lottery then I could quit work, get a house with a bit of land and start putting the dream into practice.
My parents did it - about 85% of it - when we were very small. I remember an idyllic childhood, cabbage munching cows, long walks through the forest without parental supervision and my first ever pet (a dead stoat, how proud I was! ;D). I also remember hard work to find money to pay bills that the government still insisted we pay (callous fiends!) and how broke we were as a result. Overall: a wonderful way to grow up. No conspicuous consumption & no materialism: good lessons learned well that last me to this day.
I have come to realise that the best way to be as self sufficient as possible is first of all: to have money. Roll on the lottery win!
With all these ideals I think the reality may be less perfect than we'd hope. I'm thinking of the long cold winters, isolation and worry about not having much of a safety net if a crop fails or one gets ill.
Bus as my glass is always half full, I also think it's got a lot to do with assessing the real value of our quality of life. It's possible to go along way towards the "ideal" life and at the same time accept compromises to get a balance with "modern" expectations. I can't be doing with "stuff" and am the retail society's nightmare. I just don't have a use for something that only takes the stones out of small fruit ( for example) or upgrading to the new model when my functioning obsolete one works just fine for me.
I'm lucky in that I have the ability to earn more than I need, and have only myself to provide for, and in doing so have time to think about what I can do without. I'm 2.5 years into a 5 year plan to change my lifestyle having recognised that I couldn't go cold turkey.
The house was significantly downsized but the car stayed. Now the car is being phased out of my ego and in the autumn will be swapped for something far more practical and ordinary, then when the current job contract runs out in 18 months time, probably go freelance and downgrade so I can work locally.
It takes discipline, but it's not all horsehair shirts and plans should be flexible to adjust to changes in the individual's life and expectations, external forces and occasional reality checks.
I'll never be Barbera Good ( no matter how many times OH wishes - flexibility! OH wasn't around for the original plan ;D ) but I'm more content with my life than I was in the previous career aspirational times.
Horses for Courses, but that's my contribution.
Shante'
You're right, Shante, if you're not blowing money on keeping up with the Joneses, you have more money and time for the things you want to do, like pick weeds at the lottie! ;D Our car is 10 years old and it gets us from A to B. That's all you need.
The one thing my parents taught me was to like my job, because I'll spend so much time doing it. There are days when I think, blech! this drives me nuts and ooh! I hate this (usually around deadlines), but on the whole I have always enjoyed what I do. Which is nice. I also reverse commute, which I highly recommend. Basically, life's too short to have a job that you hate and to be stuffed in a train on top of it all. I got the job I like first, and the money eventually showed up.
I doubt if I can put into words my thoughts as well as the previous posts but here goes.
I have two brothers on the corporate treadmill, I've never been in that position. I left school at 16 and have pissed about with deadend jobs ever since. I'm now a docker and have a wonderful life. 4 days on 4 days off. Next best thing to not having to work. 4 days to do things that I have now realised that I really enjoy. 4 days to potter down the lottie if the mood takes me. I do need beer and clothes so I have to work but I don't need the huge house, 2 cars and golf club membership. Just wondering when my brothers will realise the same. I will not keep up with the Jones's but I will eat better vegetables than them!
Life could be better but my cup is more than half full.
So do agree. I sit and look at my plate with all that lovely tended vegetables and think how lucky that is. All the money in the world couldn't buy the satisfaction of eating that. Lovley weather folks enjoy XX
Done it, baby! 8)
Well, not quite to the ultimate extent, but so much happier.
Like Jenny says, there's loads of stuff which I want/need which still takes money, so it's kinda necesary to do some sort of work. I'm gradually working towards being more environmentally friendly, but not that cheap, so all things in due time...
Worked for 4 years in defence industry - only sonar systems (think I would flatly refuse to work on missiles, etc), but still something I wasn't terribly happy about. Needed money to keep roof over head, and counted myself very lucky to step into a job straight from Uni. Having been ready to move on and chasing jobs for about 18 months, somebody pointed out that I could probably get funding to do PhD about this time last year - I looked into it, found a project I liked, interviewed and accepted an offer here (to start that October) within 3 weeks. Then had a bit of a mad scramble to sell small house in Surrey ('tis a silly place) and get moved in up here - on the plus side we now have a (relatively) very small mortgage for similar house.
So now I work (technically a student, but receive a stipend and treat it like a job) doing proper research which I enjoy, in a part of the country I like, having made lots of friends, with just enough money to get by. OK, so things will be a little tight when the little one arrives in November, but I'm doing a couple of nights a week behind the bar in my local to put aside a bit of money for that, which I also enjoy. And hopefully next year I'll get the allotment in hand and try to get most of our veg off that.
It is absolutely fantastic ;D
One interesting thing I remember from "Its not easy being green" is that the budget for setting up to be self sufficient & green was approx. £750k. Although I have great respect for what they have done there, I think most people could "get by" with that sort of backing - unless you have a big mortgage, which would defeat the whole object of it.
I could kick back, be as self sufficient, as green as possible with a little job on the side (saw a great one = 17.5 hrs a week term time only in the local school @ £6k a year). Just need the windfall from somewhere.
whilst the prospect of a small holding sounds great i appreciate the hard work that would be involved and that the day to day can quickly become the daily grind. best to find the joy in the daily small things we do, work people etc and accept the variety of life enjoying the plot when we can.
although lump sum that enables me to spend a week of leisure would be appreciated if anyone is offering.
Not quite done it. I was forced to retire 12 years ago (my but how long ago is that!) through ill health. I was lucky enough to be given extra funding so I could collect my pension and Incapacity Benefit. We sold up and moved away from where we used to live, as much to see if a change of environment would help (it did!). That left us with no mortgage and no debts, so the low income (Pension and IB do not add up to what the govt. reckon is poverty level).
We did intend starting up and running a nursery, but I was not really well enough to do that, so we ended up living very quietly, developing a reasonably successful garden. We grow enough veg, to keep us going for 9 months of the year and fruit for about 6 months (not including jam which we have enough to last 6 years!).
If I could have done it without being ill, I would have preferred it, but we never would have had the money without working, so Catch 22.
As said, you do need people to work to provide the things you cannot make.
Best of luck though to anyone who tries to do it. You never know whether it is possible till you have tried.
Wow what an interesting thread. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it and also Accidentalsmallholder. Although we are both Londoners my late husband loved animals. We were fortunate to buy a bungalow and 4 acres in East Sussex in 1967. Husband wanted space for the kids to roam (we had 2 at the time). We had calves' bullocks, sheep and pigs. Two more kids followed and husband wanted a garage/filling station so we moved to the Fens (couldn't afford one in Sussex) again we had a bit of land but due to running the garage business and haulage we only managed ponies and dogs. We then sold the garage but kept the haulage business. Again managed to buy a house with 1.1/2 acres of land and numerous good buildings.. Charlie said we will have about 6 pigs (I thought... here we go again!!) landed up with at least 300 pigs. Unfortunately Charlie had ill health and had to give it all up, but didn't we have fun for so many years? Our four kids have many a good tale to tell to their children. We chanced a lot but don't regret one minute of it.
Lorna
nice story lorna
we've been self employed artists for around 25 years and have recently moved(18 months ago)from the city to the country ..6 miles out,but it only takes 10 minutes to the shop where we sell our paintings and pots...we make enough to stay solvent and open 10-4,6 days a week,7 throughout the summer-we live in an ex-village school after working our way along the housing market to get here...,its very small and we still have a mortgage... but we dont keep up with the joneses..never have..but we've never led a consumer lifestyle-rarely buy new clothes-very much make do and mend...i dont think we could be wholly self sufficient but we do bartering and swapping...and of course growing as much as we can-and preserving it..we eat healthily and management still gets his beer on a regular basis!!...we shall never be rich,but we're happy..theres a lot to be said for enjoying what you have and making small goals for yourself nothing too major ..enjoying friends and family .
i think the answer is to rid yourself of unnecessary trappings and get a job that is not too burdensome...maybe not strive for total self sufficiency but reduce and refine your life.
thats my thoughts anyhow....
kitty