I'm about 20 months from retirement and have started looking at what it takes to retire.
Not in the sense in terms of financial stability as this is "a day late and a dollar short", but in terms of how do I find and develop the property on which I will spend my last days on this dirt ball.
I wold like to have a reasonable property on which I can walk on on my back and deck of my house and "P1SS" in the wind" so to speak if I so desire without neighbors calling the Gendarme on me.
I have found 9 acres (maybe 423 Sq-Meters) which will work, but takes a bunch of work to get it in order. It was previously a hay farm.
There is a spring feed pond which I can stock with shell crackers, blue gill, and maybe Hybrid Catfish, and a great backstop of Forrest which probably supports deer and other wild animals (I have no compunction against harvesting venison and feel it is my civic duty to help control the proliferation of deer as otherwise they will go unabated).
I am hoping to develop a sanctuary in which my grandchildren can stay with me for the summer and learn the beauty of being outside a "city" {ugh! Washington DC} (in the USA we don't have the luxury of green spaces that are common in the EU from my experience in Germany and Austria).
When you are young you have the future to recover from bad decisions. The world is your "oyster" so to speak.
When you are approaching old age things are different.
Do I risk all to try for the Brass Ring?
Not in the sense in terms of financial stability as this is "a day late and a dollar short", but in terms of how do I find and develop the property on which I will spend my last days on this dirt ball.
I wold like to have a reasonable property on which I can walk on on my back and deck of my house and "P1SS" in the wind" so to speak if I so desire without neighbors calling the Gendarme on me.
I have found 9 acres (maybe 423 Sq-Meters) which will work, but takes a bunch of work to get it in order. It was previously a hay farm.
There is a spring feed pond which I can stock with shell crackers, blue gill, and maybe Hybrid Catfish, and a great backstop of Forrest which probably supports deer and other wild animals (I have no compunction against harvesting venison and feel it is my civic duty to help control the proliferation of deer as otherwise they will go unabated).
I am hoping to develop a sanctuary in which my grandchildren can stay with me for the summer and learn the beauty of being outside a "city" {ugh! Washington DC} (in the USA we don't have the luxury of green spaces that are common in the EU from my experience in Germany and Austria).
When you are young you have the future to recover from bad decisions. The world is your "oyster" so to speak.
When you are approaching old age things are different.
Do I risk all to try for the Brass Ring?
Will it end up costing a substantial portion of your assets?
Can you sell it if you change your mind later?
Will it physically drain you to develop the site?
If you develop physical problems, will you still be able to live there?
There is an old quote "youth is wasted on the young".
What you aspire to do may be restricted to the point of impracticality by the effects of age on your body. In my case the knees are causing me grief after half a lifetime playing basketball.
As much as I share your vision for an idyllic rural retreat I do worry that post-retirement with its sudden loss of nearly all your social interactions at work will prove hard to live with. Just saying that you should not neglect your social health.
What you aspire to do may be restricted to the point of impracticality by the effects of age on your body. In my case the knees are causing me grief after half a lifetime playing basketball.
As much as I share your vision for an idyllic rural retreat I do worry that post-retirement with its sudden loss of nearly all your social interactions at work will prove hard to live with. Just saying that you should not neglect your social health.
After 41 years as an engineer at Motorola I took the buyout just over 5 years ago. At it's heyday the Motorola plant employed about 5,000 people and was one of 4 large facilities in south Florida. They are all gone now with the exception of a small group of people renting a corner in what was the former plant. Do I miss it? No, not really. I miss some of the people, and still visit what's left of the plant every year on my Florida vacation.
The major financial shocks were neither planed for, or expected. The cost of government run health care in the first two years equaled my pension check, and my daughter moved here with her kids and became another money sink. Those have been mitigated to a large degree, but it meany that my wife and I both have part time employment.
9 acres is quite a parcel to maintain as we get older. I thought I wanted a bigger piece of land, but 1 acre is enough.
I have one acre and my neighbor has two I'm 66 and he is 83. Between keeping my place running and helping him out, it's nearly a full time gig. I spent the day today changing the belt on a riding lawnmower in the rain......He had a 100 acre farm which his kids have now. No more farming though.
Every state has different laws about what constitutes farm or agricultural land. In Florida you can lease out all or part of your land to someone else to graze their cattle / goats / sheep, but keep the tax exemption for yourself. There is a minimum head per acre count, but it's pretty small.
Here in West Virginia you need herds of two different animals from a certain list, and chickens running wild including those squashed in the road seem to count. Transient animals like ducks and geese do not.
Choosing to actively farm 9 acres by yourself requires a BIG commitment. I know it's one that I'm not up to.
Even a dumm blonde could see the end coming at Motorola. I began actively preparing for the big change at least 5 years before making it. Cleaning out our parents houses after they passed made us realize that we had collected far too much "stuff." We began downsizing early.
South Florida had become a place that neither one of us wanted to stay in, so we began looking for a place here. We got the acre with a derelict double wide cheap......it just took us 5 years of vacation trips to clear the land of all the garbage that had been left there. The double wide is not habitable, and taxed as such.....it's full of tubes and "stuff" brought here from Florida one Honda full at a time. We build the house next to it.
We sold the house in Florida for about 5 X what we paid for it, but I had lived there for 37 years. That money built the house we have here now.
Busy, yes......you will be surprised at how many people say, "oh George doesn't work, he can do it."
There was a long thread here that died out about 5 years ago. It might be worth a read through.....
Thoughts about retirement...
The major financial shocks were neither planed for, or expected. The cost of government run health care in the first two years equaled my pension check, and my daughter moved here with her kids and became another money sink. Those have been mitigated to a large degree, but it meany that my wife and I both have part time employment.
9 acres is quite a parcel to maintain as we get older. I thought I wanted a bigger piece of land, but 1 acre is enough.
I have one acre and my neighbor has two I'm 66 and he is 83. Between keeping my place running and helping him out, it's nearly a full time gig. I spent the day today changing the belt on a riding lawnmower in the rain......He had a 100 acre farm which his kids have now. No more farming though.
Every state has different laws about what constitutes farm or agricultural land. In Florida you can lease out all or part of your land to someone else to graze their cattle / goats / sheep, but keep the tax exemption for yourself. There is a minimum head per acre count, but it's pretty small.
Here in West Virginia you need herds of two different animals from a certain list, and chickens running wild including those squashed in the road seem to count. Transient animals like ducks and geese do not.
Choosing to actively farm 9 acres by yourself requires a BIG commitment. I know it's one that I'm not up to.
Even a dumm blonde could see the end coming at Motorola. I began actively preparing for the big change at least 5 years before making it. Cleaning out our parents houses after they passed made us realize that we had collected far too much "stuff." We began downsizing early.
South Florida had become a place that neither one of us wanted to stay in, so we began looking for a place here. We got the acre with a derelict double wide cheap......it just took us 5 years of vacation trips to clear the land of all the garbage that had been left there. The double wide is not habitable, and taxed as such.....it's full of tubes and "stuff" brought here from Florida one Honda full at a time. We build the house next to it.
We sold the house in Florida for about 5 X what we paid for it, but I had lived there for 37 years. That money built the house we have here now.
Busy, yes......you will be surprised at how many people say, "oh George doesn't work, he can do it."
There was a long thread here that died out about 5 years ago. It might be worth a read through.....
Thoughts about retirement...
I P Freely on 5 acres of Maine woods. Some days I hardly see the indoor toilet. I can pick my nose, hide awkward trash, worship trees... neighbors won't know and don't care.
423 square meters is a large house (a big barn), 4,548 square feet, 67' feet on a side, not a farm. It is a tenth-acre which is quite small for a lot even in dense urban zones. I've had a very over-grown 1/4 acre that I could almost p*** in the middle of, but I had to watch for peepers.
9 acres is about 36,000 (arg, Google does it better than me) 36,421.7 square meters, 3.6 Hectares which I think is how they count land everywhere else.
5 acres, even mostly untouched woods, is not a worry-free life. I have 500 feet of grit for a driveway which tracks into the house, except when it turns to mud, or is under feet of snow. I have more than that in power line which has voltage-sag and trees fall onto (also across that driveway). My neighbor's line does not sag because it runs 20KV, and if a branch touches it a fire happens. Rural poles/guys fall in storms.
Almost everyone I know as they have got older have avoided other people more and more
My wife and I, both approaching 64, have good pensions upon retirement in Sept. 2017 and Jan 2018, respectively. We have savings, IRA/401K investments, and regular investments. Bought a 20 acre property 1.5 hours from our residence in DC Metro area. We can keep our residence (paid off in 2015), and still build on our property. Property is paid for. Property was last used as cattle farm and is now mowed for hay (we let a neighboring farmer mow it and keep the hay for free). The bottom of our property has a small perennial stream which has been dammed creating a small shallow pond.
We plan to build garage to house tractor/mower and RTV, and house that we will live in 3 seasons. Paying for both with liquidated insurance policies (no need for them now), savings and liquidation of investments, and a mortgage (less that 80% LTV, so no mortgage insurance will be required).
13.5 acres are to be reforested, with 100% cost subsidy from non-profit working with the State. Remainder will be "family orchard and berry patch, septic field, kitchen garden, and lawn for sports and such, perennial garden plantings, screening/hedgeow, and the house and garage.
My wife and I are introverts so we don't mind being by ourselves although our immediate neighbors are great. And, we are not oging to live there full-time. Even during the three seasons that we will be there, we will spend two weeks at the rural property and then head back to the big city to get our cultural and social charge.
When we can't use it any longer, we'll sell or give it away. In sum, its our approach for recreation. It's not an economic decision per se. As JLennon sang: When you're dead, you don't take nothing with you but your soul."
We plan to build garage to house tractor/mower and RTV, and house that we will live in 3 seasons. Paying for both with liquidated insurance policies (no need for them now), savings and liquidation of investments, and a mortgage (less that 80% LTV, so no mortgage insurance will be required).
13.5 acres are to be reforested, with 100% cost subsidy from non-profit working with the State. Remainder will be "family orchard and berry patch, septic field, kitchen garden, and lawn for sports and such, perennial garden plantings, screening/hedgeow, and the house and garage.
My wife and I are introverts so we don't mind being by ourselves although our immediate neighbors are great. And, we are not oging to live there full-time. Even during the three seasons that we will be there, we will spend two weeks at the rural property and then head back to the big city to get our cultural and social charge.
When we can't use it any longer, we'll sell or give it away. In sum, its our approach for recreation. It's not an economic decision per se. As JLennon sang: When you're dead, you don't take nothing with you but your soul."
Leasing out the hay rights is a possibility but I would still probably need a tractor and bush hog to keep the property under control. The barn would have to go. I've requested a quote from a salvage company to see how that would cost.
I plan on gardening between 3000sq-ft and 5000sq-ft so the tractor would be use full there too.
Another "must have" is a rifle range as I shoot a good bit. This property has a nice 200 yard area starting on a rise, dropping down about 20', then rising again with a major hill/mountain as a backstop. With proper preparation this can be a safe shooting range.
I've downloaded a lot of info from the county web site.
I put the probability I will go with this at 20-25%. But if not, it at least puts me in a mode to start looking at what it is going to take to move and with 20 months till I retire it is time I started figuring out what to do.
I plan on gardening between 3000sq-ft and 5000sq-ft so the tractor would be use full there too.
Another "must have" is a rifle range as I shoot a good bit. This property has a nice 200 yard area starting on a rise, dropping down about 20', then rising again with a major hill/mountain as a backstop. With proper preparation this can be a safe shooting range.
I've downloaded a lot of info from the county web site.
I put the probability I will go with this at 20-25%. But if not, it at least puts me in a mode to start looking at what it is going to take to move and with 20 months till I retire it is time I started figuring out what to do.
My mom has done a similar thing, buying a rural piece of property and developing it into a functioning nursery, selling plants. While this was to be a business enterprise, it wound up becoming a hobby activity, then a great burden. This continued until the arrangement no longer was feasible, ten years. Now she is in a more suburban situation, closer to family and health care.
I would have a plan to go from there for sure, if considering a similar deal.
My Dad has gone through four retirement homes, essentially purchasing, rehabilitating, and flipping each one as the market turns. Each home getting smaller and in more desirable areas.
I know my last home will be a rambler with no stairs!
I would have a plan to go from there for sure, if considering a similar deal.
My Dad has gone through four retirement homes, essentially purchasing, rehabilitating, and flipping each one as the market turns. Each home getting smaller and in more desirable areas.
I know my last home will be a rambler with no stairs!
We started the planning phase about 5 years before actual retirement time.....but then I never really knew when THE day would come. I could be sitting at my desk working with headphones on and not know that a coworker two cubes away was laid off. I didn't know "when" for sure until I signed the "lay myself off" papers, and even that date was extended.
Still My plans for exiting Florida in an orderly fashion were tossed when my house sold for more than it was worth a couple weeks after listing it, under the conditions of "being out of it in 3 weeks" when I expected it being on the market for months.
Built the website while I was still working, now beginning the new version. Running never really appealed to me, but 20 mile bike rides were common as are long walks. Not too many places to ride a road bike here.
For readers of this forum, I might suggest membership in a local makerspace/hackerspace - they're chock full of people making things out of electronics, computers, wood and metal. I'm surprised there's no speaker making activity in the local Atlanta spaces, though I knew a guy who refoamed his stereo woofers, having never looked inside a speaker cabinet before.
Usually, in a rural area, you are not going to find a maker space/hackerspace. the makers and hackers are real people like your fellow farmers and tradespeople. Get to know them, and you will often end up with rewarding new skills and insights. Like hunting, shooting, dressing game, welding, hydraulics, small engine repair, the list goes on and on.
As a city boy, I seek out these people even if we have totally separate political views. You just don't have to talk about those divisive matters. Connect on things you have in common....
As a city boy, I seek out these people even if we have totally separate political views. You just don't have to talk about those divisive matters. Connect on things you have in common....
2 years ago the wife and I bought “the place” - a 20 acre hay farm with the intention of building our retirement home in a corner of it when “the day” comes. I’ve been seeing the signs and seasons for about 3 years now and should be in a position to pull the plug some time in 2021 if everything doesn’t hit the fan sooner. I had been complaining about all the changes and idiot decisions at work for a while, and a good buddy of mine from Florida was considering moving out to TX near me and looking for some property. We were thinking about going in together on 42 acres, but it was more than I wanted to spend and he eventually backed out anyway and ended up getting a job. The wife got wind of this plan that spring and the next day we were out looking at property - and trying to figure out When I can pull the plug. I had originally planned another 10 years at that point, but I seriously doubted my situation will last that long - and the truth is i’m sick of it and it’s become just a J.O.B. now.
It’s undeveloped, other than mostly cleared with a productive hay crop. Water meter is already there - original owners might have been thinking about irrigation at one time but never did anything with it. I’m keeping the account active, paying $22 a month. Power line along the highway frontage so that shouldn’t be a problem. I figure on it taking about a year to build. - have to run water from the meter, electric, and about 500 ft of gravel driveway before anything can even start. The plan is to build with cash for about what my current home is worth, then move out gradually and put the old house on the market. It’s been paid off 10 years already, no need to put it on the market till the new one is liveable. I won’t even try to do anything other than infrastructure till I can be there on site full time.
After everything is built, or at least useable, the serious audio work can really get started. I’ve been building inventory for years, including quite a few lifetime buys before the thru hole components disappear forever. The budget will be more modest when I’m not working anymore, so we’ve got to plan for that. And I’ve got just 2 more years to get my new PA rig to the point where I can at least gig with it even if it’s not completely done.
It’s undeveloped, other than mostly cleared with a productive hay crop. Water meter is already there - original owners might have been thinking about irrigation at one time but never did anything with it. I’m keeping the account active, paying $22 a month. Power line along the highway frontage so that shouldn’t be a problem. I figure on it taking about a year to build. - have to run water from the meter, electric, and about 500 ft of gravel driveway before anything can even start. The plan is to build with cash for about what my current home is worth, then move out gradually and put the old house on the market. It’s been paid off 10 years already, no need to put it on the market till the new one is liveable. I won’t even try to do anything other than infrastructure till I can be there on site full time.
After everything is built, or at least useable, the serious audio work can really get started. I’ve been building inventory for years, including quite a few lifetime buys before the thru hole components disappear forever. The budget will be more modest when I’m not working anymore, so we’ve got to plan for that. And I’ve got just 2 more years to get my new PA rig to the point where I can at least gig with it even if it’s not completely done.
I stumbled into the barn of a fellow I used to know, he was jumping about helping the lambs, climbing the dividers (with a little bit of effort), moving the sheep and doing the chores with a practiced elegance.
He said: "In only 13 years, I'll be 100! Maybe I'll come visit and check out Oslo again."
What was implied was: He thought 100 was a good time to retire... Not ready just yet.
I think the only medicine against old age so far is being active in both mind and body.
On my part the physical aspect has been neglected for some years, but otherwise the mind stuff should be around "ok+" somewhere.
If I can somehow climb over fences and jump across streams when I'm 87 then I will most likely die of shock doing it.
He said: "In only 13 years, I'll be 100! Maybe I'll come visit and check out Oslo again."
What was implied was: He thought 100 was a good time to retire... Not ready just yet.
I think the only medicine against old age so far is being active in both mind and body.
On my part the physical aspect has been neglected for some years, but otherwise the mind stuff should be around "ok+" somewhere.
If I can somehow climb over fences and jump across streams when I'm 87 then I will most likely die of shock doing it.
One nice thing about this property is that in addition to water and electricity at the road, it claims to have cable (Internet is all I care about).
If it has internet, I can build the shop first, install a computer and security cameras, and keep an eye on the property when I'm not there.
Most of the county property I find has no cable or access to internet other than satellite. My late father used Hughes Net and cursed it on a regular basis, so I have no interest in going that route.
I'm waiting on a quote to remove the barn to see what additional expenditures I will have.
If it has internet, I can build the shop first, install a computer and security cameras, and keep an eye on the property when I'm not there.
Most of the county property I find has no cable or access to internet other than satellite. My late father used Hughes Net and cursed it on a regular basis, so I have no interest in going that route.
I'm waiting on a quote to remove the barn to see what additional expenditures I will have.
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