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Episode-1500- Home vs. Homestead

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This is Only One Version of a Modern Homestead

This is Only One Version of a Modern Homestead

Today most feel the word homestead simply means a house with a garden, perhaps some chickens and a little workshop and a few fruit trees.  Many true homesteads do have those things and some don’t.  Today I will discuss something I first discussed on TSP back in get this, July of 2008 in Episode 20 of The Survival Podcast.  Yep back in the Jetta TDI Mobile Studio Days.

Homesteads today come in may shapes and forms.  Some are rural homesteads and some are urban homesteads.  Some are primarily agricultural endeavors and others are simply well planned homes not tied to overwhelming expenses.

Instead of teaching the value of homestead thinking today Americans are marketed to with a very different message.  The message today is clear, home ownership is the way forward.  It is the most important thing you can do for yourself and your family and any sacrifice is worth the cost.  We are not literally programed this way from grade school onward.

The reality is far too many Americans have homes today!  What?  How is that bad?  You will understand what I mean today as I explain what a home is vs. a homestead.  In some ways this can be explained as Robert Kyosiki puts it,

“Most Americans consider a house their single largest asset, the reality is it is usually their single largest liability”

Indeed this is sadly the case but that is only one way of looking at this issue.

Join Me Today to Discuss…

  • How the original homesteads were built and why they were built
  • How a CFO would look at your home if it was a “company asset”
  • How debt elimination is the best first strategy for your homestead and lifestyle design
  • The case for a garden
  • The case for perennial plantings
  • The case for a functional home based business
  • The case for the small home/tiny home movement
  • The case for the large home, or compound approach
  • Where alternative energy fits in, where it doesn’t
  • Why this is absolutely tied in with buying local/regional
  • How the internet has changed things even since the first time I discussed this subject
  • How a homestead is powerful but a community of them is more powerful
  • The story of the Urban Farming Guys – this is the power of a homestead!
  • Why the homestead is a path to liberty

Resources for today’s show…

Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon. Also please enter our listener appreciation contest and help spread the word about our show. Also remember you can call in your questions and comments to 866-65-THINK (866-658-4465) and you might hear yourself on the air.

Comments

Episode-1500- Home vs. Homestead — 20 Comments

    • successfully shared hardships.. 😉

      If you don’t make it thru, the relationship may not survive.

  2. Great show, Jack. Have you thought of doing a far more in depth business planning show? I know you’ve done other shows on it, but they didn’t really get into the step-by-step process. I’d love to hear you talk on your experience with that!

  3. I love talking to the old guy at the bottom of the hill. He tells stories of the pony express riding through where the markers are on the top of the hill. The day to old school house was built. Which was a one room small school. Sad day when they tore it down for mcmansions. This guy knows so much of the history of our area from stories from his dad. How they homesteaded. The things he himself lived through. How he made money. He is in his upper 80’s now and says I don’t give a shit what the government says I do what I want. I only care about my garden (which his entire place is planted) and my motorcycles. He has 13 + of them the coolest bikes you have ever seen. The stories of the old log cabin homestead and some of who lived there. I just love talking to older people.

  5. I’m loving the shows this week and last. I think its great that Jack is revisiting the earlier episodes.

  6. I’m not debt free. I was a couple years ago, I “owned” my home free and clear with no car payments, student loans, paid the balance on my credit cards every month etc.
    But it wasn’t really MY home. The master HOA controlled everything, the sub HOA owned the land, the exterior walls and all the parking. The city required us to submit paperwork once a year to continue to have the right to live there, the HOA required I pay them for the right, and miss a 1/2 day of work waiting for them to inspect my garage once a year to get a parking permit for my car to be able to park on the street, and my favorite part: I was allowed 4 potted plants not 3, not 5, but 4 (as long as they were of approved size and color of course) that I could grow my fruits and vegetables in, and I was MISERABLE.
    So I sold it, below what it was worth but I had to get out, and I bought a house that I fully control. I have enough land to plant anything I want, and no HOA to tell me I can’t. No city restrictions other than pay your property tax to speak of, but I now have a mortgage and a couple 0% interest loans on improvements I’ve done (Solar Panels, windows).
    It was nice to not have a mortgage to pay, but I have no Mello Roos and double HOA fees to help offset that. But I’d do it again to be able to take back control of my life. I’ll pay off the debt as soon as I can, and in the meantime my equity is rising a lot faster than the debt and interest payments cost me as long as I continue to make improvements that increase the value of the home. I’m not a fan of debt, but in my circumstance, it is worth it for the time being.

    • Did the same thing as you. I had to get out of the Stepford Wives like subdivision we lived in, with the HOA Nazis Zombies roaming around policing where we kept our trash cans and how many potted plants were allowed on our front porch. Now, someone would have to go out of their darn way to see what we do on our property.

      It’s a much longer commute to work, a much older house (meaning a lot of renovations and maintenance compared to the house we had built a few years ago), and a bit more debt (nothing outlandish, but we almost had our other house completely paid for at the time of sale – now it will be a few years).

      But…

      My son gets to play in the woods – our woods. I can put a garden anywhere I please. I pay zero HOA dues. I don’t see 14 houses when I look out my back window. The people around here aren’t that homogenous upper-middle class “fake” type that makes me uncomfortable to even say hello to as we both would mow our grass to the prescribed height as defined in the HOA indentures. I split wood at 10pm if I want without the neighbors complaining. I shoot my compound bow in my front yard without the police showing up. Did I mention, I pay ZERO HOA dues? No more petty disputes about who is parking in the street overnight or keeping a work truck in the driveway. That little micro-government style of life just wasn’t for us.

      As you said, it is worth it for the time being.

      • I never thought about how bad an HOA could be with the constant watching. Never been in one. My friend that is says the head HOA nazi at his place will not give an accounting of where their HOA fees are going. They have to sue him for embezzlement. Life is too short to deal with crap like that.

    • @gpowers01 – it sounds like you’re in a better position than I am. Living in Southern California and making the move up in house I did, requires a lot of money, and therefore a larger mortgage than most homes cost throughout the rest of the country. It’s not Manhattan, you can still get some land, and you’re not out millions, but it’s close.
      I just filled out paperwork a minute ago so that one of my employees could continue to live in Section 8 Housing. He always refuses overtime when offered to him, and now I know why. And I thought to myself, why do we bust our butts, learning what we can, doing what we can to make our lives better, when you can live almost as comfortably, not stress about work, not be required to know much of anything, not work overtime etc. The answer I gave myself was, that I’d never want to live in a Section 8 Housing project, because of who my neighbors would be, who my son would grow up with, and who I’d be beholden to.
      Going back to your point about HOA Nazi Zombies, it’s funny how the upper middle class falls into the same trap, it’s just different people they don’t want as neighbors, different people they don’t want near their property, and different people ruling their life.

      • @USCPrepper – You’re still physically in a better place if almost every scenario, correct? They can’t repossess or foreclose everyone’s everything, assuming “they” even exist in that kind of scenario. And, in the mean time, I’ll also assume it’s a more pleasurable life you’ve created around you buy getting away from the HOA mess and onto some land. So good for you, good for me, and good for anyone who makes the choice for less regulation and oversight in their lives and the lives of their family.
        And, I agree with your comments regarding Section 8 and the rest of the handout mentality that even some of my own family exhibits (I have a brother-in-law that sits on his behind all day playing video games, complaining about how the world doesn’t understand him, and is now drawing disability for some made up ailment he was able to convince some quack stops him from producing rather than simply consuming) . I’ll choose integrity over convenience every time, and feel good about it as I fall asleep each night as well as when I’m on my death bed. I’ll do everything in my power to instill in my children the same principles – hopefully I succeed.
        Again, I completely agree with your last point regarding the suburbanites that willingly choose to partake in the HOA micro-government. Almost all of our former neighbors (there are obviously always exceptions) were quite simply narcissistic, egotistical, and petty. Good riddance to the lot of them.
        I just sat out on my back porch this evening and watched the squirrels playing and the birds foraging for whatever food they can find – and nobody was there to monitor me, or complain that I was just out back prior to writing this and making a lot of noise splitting wood at 9pm. Looking back on it, I wish I would have just done whatever I wanted to for the past five years – it would have made me move more quickly as the HOA deposited their sentiments of control into my mailbox demanding that I cease my activities. The experience was very similar to living in an incredibly expensive apartment complex (the houses were even build on a cul-de-sac with the buildings 12′ between corners).

        While I’m at it, here is a sincere thank you to Jack, the TSP interview guests and sponsors, and everyone else that has been a part of this community. It was because of all of you that I finally realized what was going on around me, and helped me figure out why I was so unhappy in our last home. Sometimes it takes an outside force to help someone see beyond the hamster wheel they are stuck inside.

  8. Congrates on 1500 ! this is an astounding accomplishment . Hope you have many more to come .

    PS. on the Year that is the number what about BC when you get to current years number ?

    • Jack, I know you love numbers, so in case you haven’t already run them, I estimate (very roughly) at present rates, you will catch up to the dates in April of 2017.
      I look forward to every one.
      Keep up the great work and that definitely includes Alex.

  9. Got me thinking now about more fruit trees. I’m 51, so I may see some production over the years. More apples, pears, plums. Not quite the zone for peaches up here. I just pruned my apple tree last week. My pear tree is four years old, produced the first three years (yes it did produce first year). Last year zippo, nothing. It is a graft of five…

  11. This has been one of my favorite shows yet. It’s funny though with the planting fruit tree concept, I work with some folks who find fruiting trees to be negative. They have them on their land, and they complain that the fruit drops, rots and attracts yellow jackets. I love our fruit trees (they have yet to bear fruit), but I look forward to the abundance.
    I’m very far removed from the main stream perspective, and the thought that fruiting trees is anything but good shocked me. Food for thought.

  12. Hey Jack , one way of a building raised bed gardens and using cheap lumber, is skip. the screws. You can drill a couple of holes on the end of each board and just use zip ties to connect the corners together holds just well enough boards don’t have to be exactly Square to make it work.

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