Taking the leap

filthyjabba

Hey,

My Girlfriend and I are looking at the prospect of moving to the countryside to become more self sufficient.
We were thinking about moving to Kildare,Roscommon,Galway, or Donegal. renting a house with a bit of land.
We would grow plenty of Fruits and Veg outdoor and in a small greenhouse, along with keeping a few chickens,Ducks, and possibly Rabbits.

Has anyone ever tried this? I guess you need to have some sort of income to support yourself right? we were going to just fill our bank balance with 10k and then try our hand at it for a year.

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Neil

Doc Ruby

Have you any experience with livestock, butchering, food preservation, or farming in general? You'll need a lot more than a small greenhouse to become self sufficient, an acre of spuds at minimum and probably a couple of cattle if you want to be comfortable - if you know how to churn milk into butter, among other things. Farming is really hard work without machinery. I'm also assuming that ten grand is your spending money after you've covered all the other expenses.

There's a really long tail of skills you're going to need to make this happen, you can learn these on the fly but you'd probably be better off either picking them up piecemeal or making certain you have a safety button to push if things go south. I mean have you ever caught, cut the head off, plucked, prepared, and roasted a chicken in an oven you cut the fuel for yourself?

Best of luck with it whatever you decide, sounds like a great adventure!

Tallon

If you do this, please document it.. Please

Pictures and a blog post or two would be great

Khannie

Tallon wrote: »

If you do this, please document it.. Please

Pictures and a blog post or two would be great

Big + 1 to this. Very best of luck with it. I have some semi useful advice from allotment gardening that I'll pass on when at a computer.

filthyjabba

Anyone know where would be the cheapest place in the Re of Ireland to do this? Roscommon.

The cheapest house I found on daft was €110 a month in galway or roscommon, can't remember

Tallon

Are you planning on only working on your 'farm' for the year and no other job?

filthyjabba

Yeah, but i'll have a 5-10k safety to buy food that I might need bills etc.... I'm not going for 100% self sufficiency... probably somewhere near 50%

Doc Ruby

filthyjabba wrote: »

Yeah, but i'll have a 5-10k safety to buy food that I might need bills etc.... I'm not going for 100% self sufficiency... probably somewhere near 50%

Eh spend a few hundred on a decent camera and load up your adventures on youtube, with a bit of luck the advertising revenue might cover a few bills if you get the word out there.

More substantially, this €50 a week house, does it come with the greenhouse and room for animals, and is the landlord okay with that? I'm not trying to be negative here but you need to have a few concrete plans in place.

There's always room for mad adventures, a student in NUIG is spending the year camped out beside the river to save money, and a guy that used to post in these parts, Camperman he was called, went to live in Germany on a very limited budget also, last we heard of him he was trying to offload a crate of cold war gas masks.

Have you made any solid plans about your day to day living arrangements? How detailed are your plans?

mawk

this sounds awesome.

10k sounds pretty tight though unless you already have a lot of tools/sundries.

but I guess if two of ye qualify for social welfare on top, its probably pretty managable.

filthyjabba

filthyjabba wrote: »

Hey,

My Girlfriend and I are looking at the prospect of moving to the countryside to become more self sufficient.
We were thinking about moving to Kildare,Roscommon,Galway, or Donegal. renting a house with a bit of land.
We would grow plenty of Fruits and Veg outdoor and in a small greenhouse, along with keeping a few chickens,Ducks, and possibly Rabbits.

Has anyone ever tried this? I guess you need to have some sort of income to support yourself right? we were going to just fill our bank balance with 10k and then try our hand at it for a year.

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Neil

Best of luck with this - and can I second other posters when I say if you do this, please blog about it (I follow several blogs of this nature).

If you've any experience using firearms, depending where you live, it would most likely be more practical to shot wild rabbits as opposed to keep them (cheaper too!). (Though only take this road if you are an experienced shooter!)

You need a good deal of land to be truly self sufficient (as has been pointed out). There's a body of work in growing your own veg (to begin with anyway, as the land needs to be prepared). I'm assuming that you have some experience in this arena anyway!

Myself and my wife try to be as self-sufficient as possible (we live in a semi-rural area), but to be honest it's mostly supplementary - the dream is to one day own a patch of our own land and take things further. Till then, it's the veg garden, foraging and hunting as much as possible, and preserving foodstuffs when we can.

In any case, go for it - the more people that try this, the better! Best of luck!

Druss.

Blog:
www.huntforageharvest.com

Twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/druss_rua

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/HuntForageHarvest

Tzar Chasm

do you or the GF have any trades or skills that ye. would fall back on to supplement income?
do you have many tools?
what is your transport situation?
do you have experience in anyway related to what you plan?

not ot be a wet blanket but I live on a farm, I have tractors, machinery and tools along with the combined skllset amongst my family to design/grow/build/repair almost anything and we find it hard to be self sufficient.

granted most of us are full time employed but two who are here all the time are quite competent at both agriculture and engineering and still the to do list gets longer each week

still tho fair fecks OP, go for it, baptism of fire and all that, you will hopefully find new talents within yerself when the options are fix it or starve

bonniebede

check out the boards 'smallholding' thread, you might find that interesting.

Stock up on porridge, flour, beans, sugar, oil at tescos (see stocking up at tescos' thread. You should be able to feed youselves for about 1000 for the year, if you supplement it with veg and fruit grown and foraged, maybe throw in hens for eggs and meat, also rabbits are easy to keep and start producing meat within a few weeks.

as others have said, please please do document the adventure.

if you have the sort of money you mention, you could afford to buy a smallholding of an acre with a derelict cottage. You could renovate while living there and have something to sell on at the end of the year. It could be more of a camping style life, but fun.

make sure you know how to recognise the signs of hypothermia.:)

Tallon

Buying and renovating Is an awesome idea!

A couple weeks / months of sleeping rough would be a bit of fun in itself

I'm starting to really like this idea.

Would you consider doing it in another country?

filthyjabba

Anyone know how much a decent bit of land for this type of thing would cost, if I did decide to go with bonniebede suggestion?

filthyjabba

how does this look guys?

http://www.donedeal.ie/for-sale/sites/3739275

Doc Ruby

Looks about twice or three times as expensive as it should be to be honest, they're selling the planning permission too I guess. Make an offer of five grand if you're going for it and be sure you have the ground rights and game rights on it too, as well as passage. That's in the depths of Clare, just south of the Burren, terrible farmland but you have some lovely countryside within driving distance, not a whole lot else, so add a car to the costs.

Are you thinking about manually farming the land?

marizpan

I have personal experience of this. 2 yrs later I can give a few tips etc.
Renovations of cottages, sheds, fencing etc etc cost a fair bit of money. 5-10k will be gone on good tools, equipment etc assuming u buy quality that should last a lifetime if minded.
One acre is not enough, u will outgrow it very quickly.
One of u will need a part time job, this will make the diff between struggling or having fun.
It's a lifestyle change, it will take years to adapt n learn new skills.
U should do it, great memories n stories

Tallon

marizpan wrote: »

U should do it, great memories n stories

Care to share them? Maybe a new thread?

Would absolutely LOVE to hear them

aaakev

marizpan wrote: »

I have personal experience of this. 2 yrs later I can give a few tips etc.
Renovations of cottages, sheds, fencing etc etc cost a fair bit of money. 5-10k will be gone on good tools, equipment etc assuming u buy quality that should last a lifetime if minded.
One acre is not enough, u will outgrow it very quickly.
One of u will need a part time job, this will make the diff between struggling or having fun.
It's a lifestyle change, it will take years to adapt n learn new skills.
U should do it, great memories n stories

Start a new thread we need to hear that story!

filthyjabba

so can someone recommend a piece of land, where would be ideal for this kind of set up, If it has a basic cottage attached even better

marizpan

filthyjabba wrote: »

so can someone recommend a piece of land, where would be ideal for this kind of set up, If it has a basic cottage attached even better

Would u consider purchasing a property while still living ur current life for 12-18mths?
Going there at weekends and holidays to renovate etc. It would be really fun and motivating because of the balance. You would have a chance to save, establish fruit trees, start capital work and build up skills and tools/equipment, and very importantly get to know the way your land works ie. drainage, micro climates, wind direction, frost spots.
You could invite friends over for wkends for free helpin exchange for homebrew and to experience 'the good life'.
You both would be building on something real and ease yourself into the lifestyle change more gradually and hopefully build community.

I know people who bought a little cottage with ten acres of bad land who produce nothing because the land is so bad they couldn't even walk the dog in it. One acre of good drained land is better than twenty acres of bog in terms of production.

Doc Ruby

marizpan wrote: »

You both would be building on something real and ease yourself into the lifestyle change more gradually and hopefully build community.

Yes, don't forget that when you're buying land in these places, you aren't just buying land, you're very much buying into the local community as well.

marizpan wrote: »

I know people who bought a little cottage with ten acres of bad land who produce nothing because the land is so bad they couldn't even walk the dog in it. One acre of good drained land is better than twenty acres of bog in terms of production.

Yeah, first thing I thought when I saw the vegetation in those photos of the linked property was 'bog'.

Cork boy 55

So you are taking one year out is that it?

bonniebede

heres my favourite for a country getaway.

http://www.myhome.ie/commercial/brochure/tom-duff-borris-co-carlow/1609105

I reckon it will sell for below the asking price. Previous versions of this ad showed the cottage, it is derelict indeed, but as far as I can find out you can renovate a derelict without necessarily looking for planning permission.
I would talk to the county planning officer, they are usually quite helpful. On the one hand wicklow coco have prosecuted people who moved into a derelict and renovated, but wicklow have notorious restrictions on all sorts of planning and this was in an 'area of scenic beauty' . on the other hand i know people who have just quietly moved in and gone about living there, in other counties, and renovating (not in wicklow) without anyone raising any objection.
don't forget that once you have an established dwelling, you can extend to a certain limit without pp and you can also add agricutural buildings like sheds, etc.

The land should have decent drainage, and being in the south of the country the climate might be nice, but obviously you would have to check out the locale very carefully, it could be on a northern facing slope for example Challenges are going to be water, electricity, sewerage.

personally I would go for composting toilet (free manure and no septic tank charge) with well or rainwater collection and something like homemade solar to stay off grid and bill free.

If the land is decent you could grow spuds and veg for self and livestock - hens, rabbits maybe a pig or milch goat.

Get an orchard started for fruit and nuts, nuts are a great replacement for grain in the diet.

all it would take would be several years of unending back breaking toil, so nothing to stop you there.:D

bonniebede

alternatively, what about buying your land subdividing it into 12 plots, and camping in each plot for 1 month a year.

according to this

http://www.meath.ie/LocalAuthorities/Planning/UnauthorisedDevelopment/

a scouting orgsanisation can use a piece of land for camping for up to 30 days a year.

if you had a mobile thingy like yer mans, you could roll it from plot to plot over the year, spending no more than 30 days in each plot.

not sure how to go about subdividing the plot legally but presumably you can, with the land registry. something like this would give you plenty of room for that.

or you could buy a larger plot. say several acres with like minded survivalists who want to establiskh a little country place, and reserve some of each acre for the mobile homes and the rest for smallhold farming.

filthyjabba

can I get some opinions on this, I'm now thinking about having this paid off for with 1-2 years. The location looks good. but I'd love to hear your opinions

http://www.property.ie/property-for-sale/Pollaneyster-Williamstown-Co-Galway/676934/

bonniebede

filthyjabba wrote: »

can I get some opinions on this, I'm now thinking about having this paid off for with 1-2 years. The location looks good. but I'd love to hear your opinions

http://www.property.ie/property-for-sale/Pollaneyster-Williamstown-Co-Galway/676934/

for what they are saying it is it could be worth it, expect to be able to knock a good few grand off the asking price. Check out the land available too, and talk to people who are actually farming down there.

one thing to watch for in some of these cottages is asbestos in the roof. Also check for flooding issues in the land.

have fun.

Tzar Chasm

it would really depend on the quality of the adjoining land but if you could get a decent price on the lot you would be well on your way.

the main problem is probably convincing some noddy in a bank to cough up the readies

filthyjabba

filthyjabba wrote: »

can I get some opinions on this, I'm now thinking about having this paid off for with 1-2 years. The location looks good. but I'd love to hear your opinions

http://www.property.ie/property-for-sale/Pollaneyster-Williamstown-Co-Galway/676934/

https://maps.google.ie/maps?q=Pollaneyster,+Williamstown,+Co.+Galway&hl=en&ll=53.665277,-8.560292&spn=0.005295,0.009645&hnear=Pollaneyster,+County+Galway&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=53.665295,-8.562227&panoid=lLbg9-dcFy1MhrtdUixUyw&cbp=12,200.08,,1,-0.28
Is this the house?

It looks like someone else already did a lot of work between the passing of the Google car and now.

filthyjabba

Not sure, it's off the market now. just sold.

thinking about this now http://www.property.ie/property-for-sale/harts-Cottage-Rannatruffaun-Geevagh-Co-Sligo/672977/

Khannie

filthyjabba wrote: »

Not sure, it's off the market now. just sold.

thinking about this now http://www.property.ie/property-for-sale/harts-Cottage-Rannatruffaun-Geevagh-Co-Sligo/672977/

Looks lovely. Probably not enough land for self sufficiency though.