Posted: 4/30/2025 6:01:56 PM EDT
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I'm looking to move out of suburbia FL and buy a property in GA or TN. I want 10+ acres in the country to provide a more outdoorsy, rural lifestyle for my family (2 boys 10 and 12 years old). I found the perfect place (20 acres, great home, nice shop, etc), but it is about $100k more than the desired budget. That isn't that much in the grand scheme of things, but I'm on track to be able to retire in 4 or 5 years, so taking on a new mortgage could delay that plan. Are there any practical ways to make a little bit of income from a small homestead, or is everything pretty much break even at best? I don't want to be a full time farmer, but not afraid of a bit of work; especially after I retire. I guess that I am just trying to rationalize going over budget for the perfect place. |
| It isn't really a monthly budget thing. I'm at the point now where I can pay off my current mortgage, so I set my budget at what I can buy with the equity in my current house plus cash. Going over budget just means that I have to take out a new mortgage, which seems like a bad idea close to retirement. Income potential from the property is more of an excuse/justification than a need. |
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What farm products does/would the local area support? What equipment do you have, what infrastructure would you have to buy and install? Most smaller row crop farms around here are only a going concern due to inherited land, equipment, and infrastructure and many times an older retired relative filling in the labor gaps. |
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What's your age now? Can you work a couple more years to ensure you can get your dream place? I wouldn't plan on much homestead income unless you manage to find a specialty niche. |
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The Youtube thing mentioned above is a one in a million (or at least many, many thousands) shot at making it big. Finding some super niche product and getting out ahead of the market and doing it very well would be a great money maker, but you better have a heck of a plan and be very motivated. So aside from the fraction of a percentage of homesteads mentioned above, pretty well everyone else is doing good to break even with a bunch of "free" labor. The good news is, if the homestead life is the life you want for your family, selling some type of ag product is a great way to subsidize the lifestyle you wanted to live anyhow. I sell butcher beefs and the hay that comes off my farm. The profits from those will never pay for my barn, shop, tractors, baling equipment, etc. I wanted to have acreage that I can use recreationally. I needed all those items to do that anyhow, so the farm was more or less just an excuse to get them. Although the farm makes little to no profit, as my tax guy taught me early on, it is a business, not a hobby. The good news is that a lot of the time and money spent is improving the property, which should offer a decent rate of return if I ever sold out. |
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Originally Posted By ColtRifle: What's your age now? Can you work a couple more years to ensure you can get your dream place? I wouldn't plan on much homestead income unless you manage to find a specialty niche. I agree here too. I make exponentially more at my "real" job so I would just work a year or so more to make it happen. |
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We live on ~8 acres a commute away from a big city. On paper the sheep pay for themselves, plus a little bit. But I just like having animals, and the horses suck up any profit from the sheep, and then some. I'm adding rabbits as something I can eat myself, and easily process at home, and maybe even sell some, not sure about the market. I wouldn't count on moving somewhere and having a market right away, plan for a few years to get up to speed. We use our day jobs to pay for the lifestyle that keeps us incredibly busy after hours. Few around here make money with animals, and the only ones that make a real business I'm aware of off the land are hay producers, and cattle guys. I know a few guys that do a little better than break even on sheep, but they are using it as a way to pay for more and more land, and are doing specialty sheep. Have you done this kind of living before? I'd plan on focusing on your primary job, and socking away the extra money you'll need. Can you pay the extra mortgage out of any retirement income? |
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I'm 51, and want to retire at 55. I'd be OK with working an extra year to pay for the perfect place, but not sure how much longer my company has. If it went belly up in the next couple of years, I'd probably be able to scrape by without getting another job. A new job would likely require a move, so not an ideal situation if I just bought my dream homestead. Financially, the smart move is to wait until retirement, but a large part of the reason to move is to enjoy the country lifestyle while my boys are still young. You guys have confirmed my suspicion- It sounds like most homestead money making ideas are pretty much a break-even proposition (ie selling eggs pays for the chicken feed). |
| Depending on the work involved you probably need to budget for a decent sized compact tractor. Figure at least $20k for anything used that's in good shape with implements, all the way to low $30k if you want new/financed. We just bought a rural property with a little over 2 acres, but I want to use a substantial amount of it for a large garden and possibly a few animals (we have an 800 sq ft barn that needs work) and I will definitely need a small diesel tractor with a loader in the near future. |
| I would do specialty meats myself. You can offset the difference in your mortgage by selling beef. Grass fed organic beef can sell well above market. 10 acres you could raise 4-5 steers annually to sell. Hanging costs = about 1200$ (maybe more-it's probably area dependent. We have a lot of small beef farmers). Since you have a barn you are almost ready to go. |
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Originally Posted By frankiebagadonuts: I'm 51, and want to retire at 55. I'd be OK with working an extra year to pay for the perfect place, but not sure how much longer my company has. If it went belly up in the next couple of years, I'd probably be able to scrape by without getting another job. A new job would likely require a move, so not an ideal situation if I just bought my dream homestead. Financially, the smart move is to wait until retirement, but a large part of the reason to move is to enjoy the country lifestyle while my boys are still young. You guys have confirmed my suspicion- It sounds like most homestead money making ideas are pretty much a break-even proposition (ie selling eggs pays for the chicken feed). I would generally assume it'll cost you for at least a few years, even given best case scenarios. Start small, track your numbers, and increase when it's economical. You can treat it like a business, just don't go into debt for it thinking there's massive returns. I track most of my sheep/rabbit/hay numbers in word documents and spreadsheets. I have started tracking the animals in a simple database program for tracking age/genetics/etc. |
| The wife had a busy full time hobby growing flowers that she cut on Friday to sell at Saturday farmers market in Houston. 2 greenhouses, a deer fenced 2 acres were not cheap to install. The tractor was already here and i did all maintenance on all her machines. She put 10 hour days 7 days a week into it. I wish I could say it made it worth it, but she would have been better paid at Walmart. Did help with property taxes, now we are on wildlife mgmt exemption |
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Originally Posted By QueenDeNile: I would do specialty meats myself. You can offset the difference in your mortgage by selling beef. Grass fed organic beef can sell well above market. 10 acres you could raise 4-5 steers annually to sell. Hanging costs = about 1200$ (maybe more-it's probably area dependent. We have a lot of small beef farmers). Since you have a barn you are almost ready to go. The farmer that cash rents our family farm does this. He gets $9.50/lb for grass fed hamburger. No idea how much he sells. Obviously direct to public marketing is a serious time investment. And my understanding is that finding someone to butcher and package is an issue. |
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Originally Posted By makintrax73: The farmer that cash rents our family farm does this. He gets $9.50/lb for grass fed hamburger. No idea how much he sells. Obviously direct to public marketing is a serious time investment. And my understanding is that finding someone to butcher and package is an issue. Originally Posted By makintrax73: Originally Posted By QueenDeNile: I would do specialty meats myself. You can offset the difference in your mortgage by selling beef. Grass fed organic beef can sell well above market. 10 acres you could raise 4-5 steers annually to sell. Hanging costs = about 1200$ (maybe more-it's probably area dependent. We have a lot of small beef farmers). Since you have a barn you are almost ready to go. The farmer that cash rents our family farm does this. He gets $9.50/lb for grass fed hamburger. No idea how much he sells. Obviously direct to public marketing is a serious time investment. And my understanding is that finding someone to butcher and package is an issue. You need to find a USDA certified butcher to start. In my state there's not many at all, and the local guy I like isn't. |
A tractor shouldn't be a problem. We are trying to locate close to my sister, and my brother in law has 5 tractors (one compact JD, 3 vintage Farmalls, and a vintage Ford), mostly unused. I'm sure that he would permanently loan one to me  . I would have to buy implements. RE: Youtube- Unfortunately, my wife isn't as adorable as Laura Farms and nobody wants to watch me piddle around the shop/yard. I don't think that I'm going to become the next youtube sensation. 
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Set up some hog feeders and charge people to shoot the hogs? GA has plenty of hogs, an acquaintance had a pretty good business where he provided transport, suppressed rifles with night vision and charged something like $500 a pop for people to shoot the hogs, made quite a bit of money too. |
Think of how stupid the average person is and realize half of them are stupider than that.
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Don't count on making money on the homestead. The folks I know that farm (like big farm even) usually one of the spouses has an in town job as well. If you can pay off your home you live in now, do it. Then start saving for land in the country. Economy is most likely going to continue to slide for a while longer, might be some deals on property coming up. Try not to be in a rush. I'm a decade plus away from retiring (if ever, I like to work), but we are already knocking out some "big expense" type things before hand and have a list of things to do in the lead up BEFORE retiring. Ever retired person I've met, including those with tons of cash, seems to be cheap AF and don't want to spend a nickel. I don't relish the idea of having some huge monetary outlays AFTER normal money flows are ceased or slowed. I'm going to do stuff like re-roof the houses, get a new car, etc. in the years right before retiring versus afterward income slows. |
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I make nothing on my homestead. Smaller property than you for sure. I will say it helps offset grocery store runs but it really seasonal. I really like strawberries right now. In a few months I'll like raspberries and blueberries.  You get the idea. |
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I did the same thing with a similar size property. Cows, goats, chickens, pigs, huge garden and 30+ fruit tree orchard. The idea was to use all those assets to bring in some income but it just never came through. Dont get me wrong, my boys being raised on a farm in the woods has been a great blessing. We LOVE our property and all the hard work. The food is such a great thing for us harvest ourselves and it does really help with the grocery bill. We barter for honey and all kinds of stuff but the mentality that one can just grab a property and start selling homestead stuff is hard since everyone is doing it. It is possible to make 100k a year on a small farm ranch, you just have to start every year with 200k. |
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| Talk to the local Ag Extension in your county. Everything I’ve read is if you’re making $1000 an acre you’re way above average. That’s every year. You need equipment, fertilizer, and irrigation, at a minimum and none of that is cheap. And then the weather. Hurricane Helene set us back years after we thought this would be the year. |
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I'm working towards a similar underlying goal, of giving my kids a more rural and ag oriented lifestyle. I don't think I'll be able to make much money, but reducing living expenses is much more likely and obtainable. Providing for all of our protein needs is important to me, and that is what i want to achieve first. That then requires growing feed crops for some of the animals. One thing I do think is realistic is setting up a 'glamping,' and/or RV spot in a nice homestead setting. Harvest Host, farm RV spot example |
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Originally Posted By frankiebagadonuts: [...] I guess that I am just trying to rationalize going over budget for the perfect place. Perfect places don't come around very often. |
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I have around 47 acres, 44 of which is fields. My mom has 19 acres nearby, 12 of which is fields. I bought back in 2015 and had nothing but hand tools, a 22.5 hp Craftsman "garden tractor", and time. I had to buy everything else, so my depreciation expenses are quite high. Have a look at the numbers below. I leased the land to the guy that was leasing it from the previous owner for 5.5 years so I could learn from him. I didn't have any revenue until late in that term. Revenue has increased quite dramatically since 2019. This is due to growing my herd, a switch from selling calves to selling beef, and the insane cattle market right now. Without getting access to more land, my revenue will be limited to somewhere around this amount because I just can't support more cattle on what I've got. That means I have to get my expenses down. Yearly expenses are kind of fixed. It's the depreciation that kills me. I think I've bought my last big item for a while. I've said this many times before, but I've got nothing in my plans unless I get more land. I'm not sure what my losses were prior to 2019, but you can see that I've "lost" $180,000 in these 6 years. It's not really lost, because the equipment holds is value pretty well, and the land has gone up by 150% not counting improvements. For 2025 my revenue is already almost $33k, but I won't slaughter again until October/November so I won't have big income until then. Expenses are at $24k, but I built my last fence runs at $4,700, bought a flatbed gooseneck for $16,750, and bought and rebuilt a disc harrow that will rarely be used for $5,900. I borrowed one 4 or 5 times and I'm trying to get out of the business of borrowing. In order of revenue generation, we do beef, cattle, eggs, blackberries, peaches, and hay if we have any extra. We've been in a terrible drought for 5 years now. If I had no depreciation last year I would have made $3,500. My brother likes to point out how my labor is free. If I counted labor I'd lose my ass. I can't be sitting on my ass watching TV though. I have to have more purpose in life than just my regular job. My first goal was to get my income to exceed expenses not counting depreciation. Now my goal is to get income to exceed expenses and depreciation. YearIncomeDepreciationExpensesNet 2019 $5,665.00 $11,764.00 $18,336.00 $(24,435.00) 2020 $8,326.00 $13,017.00 $23,288.00 $(27,979.00) 2021 $13,279.00 $16,916.00 $32,191.00 $(35,828.00) 2022 $27,694.00 $20,581.00 $43,792.00 $(36,679.00) 2023 $40,115.00 $28,082.00 $42,203.00 $(30,170.00) 2024 $44,655.00 $28,238.00 $40,992.00 $(24,575.00) |
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The area we are in (ozarks) I was told bring the money with you as there are no real jobs. We have been here a year and I had to retire early at 48. Very true as there are no jobs besides $6hr dollar general If you are a carpenter, handy man, or electrician there is a big demand for that. Especially if you call people back. Local businesses are horrible in general as they are living on grand pappy's old land and pay nothing for taxes. If hunting or fishing is good they don't work or call you back. you can create or fill a need. I created a need in my area. I also have a homestead YouTube channel that at least pays the taxes. I also sell military surplus and outdoor gear. Lots of outdoorsy people and preppers in my area. I sell at shows and word of mouth now. Not brave enough to bring the business to my property (store front) Side note that my wife still works remote and makes OK money so currently we ate socking that away so she can retire early too. |
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Originally Posted By dayphotog: If you are a carpenter, handy man, or electrician there is a big demand for that. True, also if you have the equipment, an excavator makes money here. A little outfit not to far from here does real good with septic systems, assisting well drillers, firewood for a major resort and baling hay for land owners. These guys are making a good life for themselves letting the equipment do the work. They put money up front but it’s paid off big time for their two families. I know a guy that bought a John Deere tractor just to do farm work for others, he lives on 1/2 acre. |
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In this thread, OP learns where meth comes from. More seriously, instead of thinking about making your land produce something that you can sell, that ALL your new neighbors can also do so there's a limited market.... What skills can you offer your new community? Example: where ever I move to, I can fix motorcycles, ATVs, chainsaws, cars, trucks, automatic circumcisors, etc. I can do decent home repair, but lots of people can do that. Fixing a multi cylinder jap bike, though.... Is a little more exclusive. Like all these guys thinking that they will get rich running a lawn care business. Some people do, but literally anyone can do it. That's lots of competition. OP, do you have any special skill set that rural people can use? |
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I don't have a huge property (~ 30 acres) split between woods and open land. I did have the property logged. the first time, the property was ever logged. They focused on walnut and a few other hard woods. If the property has a "useful" wood that could be an option, but the smaller the property, the likelihood of doing it often goes down. For example, my logger said they would look again 7-8 years from our logging date to see if there was anything worthwhile. Im probably going to wait 10 years. Renting out for farming could be an option. The issue is that unless your farmer is right next door, 10 acres isn't much and worth to many. Ironically, my neighbor wants to till it, but i understand my land isn't prime farming because it hasnt been farmed in 30-plus years, so he needs to have the rent cheap enough to make it viable and profitable for him which i dont have an issue. I am under contract for a cellphone tower on my property, which i think needs 100' x 100' area. Could be an option for you if cell phone reception is limited or nil. I would recommend a good contract lawyer if you go this route. My original contracted wanted $400/month and wanted to have control of the rest of the property. Many see the money and do not look at the fine print, hence the lawyer recommendation My property use to be under CRP which helped my grandparents for many years but i wanted out when it came for my grandma to resign because i did not want to deal with the hassle of the Govt and wanted to do other things with the land (such as the logging). Currently, i am getting into goating for meat in an effort to make a little money, but more importantly, to decrease my property taxes. This isn't a bad option (or other small livestock), but based on the size of the property, you would need the auction yard and / or a butcher near enough to make it worth it. Lucky for me, both are within 10 miles. Of course raising mini goats for pets/4H kids could be viable and could raise more under the same land. You will need a certain infrastructure like all other livestock. So that's what we doing or have done with income. I personally would go to your local farmers market to see what people are doing (or, more importantly, not doing) to bring in the income. The smaller the property, the more you need to think about how to maximize your dollar by the foot vs. by the acre. Hope what i stated gave you some ideas |