by St. Funogas, Survival Blog:
With winter ebbing and spring headed our way, some folks are probably thinking a little more frequently about getting out of the city once and for all.
Having “been there done that,” it saddens me to read comments on SurvivalBlog from people wanting to start living a simpler more self-reliant lifestyle in the country but they just can’t seem to make it happen. For some of those, I’m confident they could turn their hopes into reality if they could learn to think out of the box, rethink normalcy, toss some of their fears aside, and make some sacrifices to make it all happen. Once settled in and growing accustomed to their new lifestyle, the “sacrifices” they made will seem trivial in comparison to the lifestyle they’re now enjoying.
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I hope by sharing my own story of how I was able to finally start living the dream the reader might be inspired to take a fresh look at their life and see what kinds of trade-offs they can make to achieve their goal of getting out of the city. While it’s never too early to start preparing for TEOTWAWKI, even if it never happens the joys that come from living a lifestyle in a rural area cannot compare to the way of life many are living at the present time in cities and suburbia.
MY FIRST DESIRES FOR SELF-RELIANCE
It’s not too often that kids read life-changing books in elementary school. For me, the book My Side of the Mountain had that effect. The story of a boy running away from home in New York City to live a self-reliant lifestyle in the Catskill Mountains set me on a course which would eventually lead me to where I am today, living on my homestead and striving to live that self-reliant lifestyle I’ve dreamed about since elementary school.
After reading My Side of the Mountain, my desire to learn the skills required to live a self-reliant life began. The self-reliance/survival genre became my favorite books to read and that’s never changed. I read the Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson books my grandfather gave me in grade school, bought How to Stay Alive in the Woods in 7th grade, Alas Babylon in 8th grade, enjoyed The Last of the Mountain Men, and read every survival adventure story I could get my hands on, even the grisly ones like Alive and its unauthorized predecessor, They Lived On Human Flesh. My family subscribed to The Mother Earth News back when it was still a fairly new magazine dedicated to self-reliance, edited by a couple of hippies living off-grid somewhere.
From reading these kinds of books, even though some were romanticized fiction, I realized early on that living a self-reliant lifestyle would probably mean giving up some conveniences in order to make my dream a reality. But they also taught me that it’s possible to live with few possessions yet still live a good life.
I eventually ended up working in one of the larger cities in the US. I found myself in the same situation many find themselves in: unwilling and/or unable to give up financial security to move to the country. I was also in a relationship that was working great for the here and now but our long-term goals had almost no overlap whatsoever. Then one day I heard a saying that had a profound impact on me: “Nobody on their death bed ever wished they had spent more time at the office.” Wow, heavy stuff.
I was in my late forties and not getting any younger. It had been 40 years since reading My Side of the Mountain so I began to ask myself, “If not now, when?” I split up with my girlfriend and met another gal who was more interested in going wherever life led. Her occupation offered job opportunities almost anywhere we wanted to live. I one day mentioned my dream since childhood of living a self-reliant lifestyle in the boonies and she thought it sounded great. The pieces were falling into place to finally begin living the life I wanted. To do so, I knew I’d have to take a leap of faith, sail out of the safe harbor, and face some unknowns.
The hardest part of all was walking into my boss’s office that day and saying, “I’ll take a 50% cut in pay if you’ll let me out of here and work from home somewhere in the boonies.” If he said no, I was going anyway even realizing there was almost no chance of finding good-paying work in rural America in my specialized field. But if not now, when? My biggest concern at that moment in his office wasn’t how I was going to make money, it was what kinds of sacrifices was I going to make in order to make my dream happen. I had already decided I was moving to the country come hell or high water. The details would have to sort themselves out later.
To my surprise my boss said, “Sure, we can do that.”
I couldn’t believe it, I was finally on my way!
SEARCHING FOR THE PERFECT PIECE OF LAND
Where shall we live? I knew exactly which part of the country I wanted to live in and narrowed it down to a few counties in that area. My girlfriend didn’t have any particular preferences on location. She started sending out resumes. While she was at each interview I was at the real estate office looking over the offerings. After one interview in a one-dog town, we walked into the local diner for dinner. As we were walking toward our table, every single person in the diner either said hello to us or nodded their heads. My girlfriend couldn’t figure it out. After we sat down I said, “This is one of the many reasons why country life is so wonderful. Everyone’s on a first-name basis and most of them want to be your friend if you just treat ‘em right.”
She found a job and we moved to our new county and rented a house. Finding the perfect piece of property was harder than I was expecting and a few wrenches were thrown into the works as well. It took almost two years to finally find the perfect place to build a homestead. But it was worth the wait. My girlfriend had worked in real estate once upon a time. I was planning on offering a few thousand dollars less than the buyer was asking. She said the only way to buy real estate was to make an insanely low-ball offer. I told her the offer she was suggesting was downright nuts but went ahead with it. It was so low, only two-thirds of the asking price, I was embarrassed to present it to the real-estate agent. To my surprise, the seller countered with an offer that was only slightly higher. It was the only property I looked at that already had a well drilled. So that saved me another $10,000.
I finally had my 20 acres!
PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT THE PROPERTY
Part of my 50%-cut-in-pay deal with my boss was to allow me to work only the hours necessary: 15-20 hours a week during the winter, 60+ hours in the fall. That gave me extra time certain times of the year to start building my homestead.
