home at last ...

I shopped around for land yesterday and realized my house in the country dream may not be dead after all. It's all contingent on selling my CA land though. If sold I could afford the new land, containers, fixtures, and have a bigger nest egg than I do now. If I don't sell I still have a place to go where no one can throw me (and good friends) off of it. Sold or not I wouldn't be living there anytime soon because I'm gonna be living mobile first for a while. This is strictly for the future. Taking to heart the wisdom of a good friend who said "don't count on that money and plan without it". So let's just say it doesn't sell and I pay for the new land out of pocket. I found some choice pieces of property in NM and AZ.  I found a semi remote place where they're selling at $500 per acre. I'm calling them Monday to verify as well as ask a bunch of other questions about it. If everything checks out I may buy 2 acres with my next bonus check (in May). It's too good a deal not to! In AZ I found a few 20 acres plats for around 10k. I picked them because of the price and remoteness of the area. The size helps to keep neighbors at a healthy distance. The problem is the cost takes me away from debt freedom. Not possible unless the CA land sells. *crosses fingers*

For the country house I researched shipping containers homes which I'll call SCH's from now on. The cost of SCH's are affordable enough to where (had I the money and land now) I could purchase and have them placed on my property if I wanted to. Using recycled housing materials will help to further drastically reduce the costs as well. What really draws me to SCH's is how easy and versatile they are for building. They have insulated models which carry the same R rating as conventional housing insulation. All I really need to do is cut holes in it to install the doors, windows, plumbing and could move in right then and there. In reality I would probably spend the total allotted cost on making the inside nice and leave the outside looking as is. These things are built to withstand ocean weather so I know they can handle whatever the desert dishes out easily. However the two things I would do to the outside are to build a deck/porch and an angled roof for water collection. Then I'll plant my veggies get some chickens, and Bob's your uncle!

Now if this seems like I plan too much in my life. I'm really not since it's most likely 3-10 years away from starting. I like to start early and take my time thinking big decisions like this through. The reality is that circumstances change and the benefit of starting now is that I can plan to incorporate any advances while also discarding whatever becomes obsolete. I've learned some pretty hard lessons in not employing providence in my life. I'm not making that mistake again good, bad, or ugly.