Anybody Living the Good Life?

Cotta

Good Morning All,

I just find this concept fascinating and I was curious if anyone on here can live like Tom and Barbara? I would be fascinated to hear your stories.

Thank you.

lostinrates

You might like to join us on the Daydreamers thread?

Davesnave

lostinrates wrote: »

You might like to join us on the Daydreamers thread?

Yes!

Except none of us is like Barbara or Tom, and it's often bloody hard and not so good!

But when it is good, it's marvellous.

ALIBOBSY

TBH this is mine and OH's dream, but money stops us. Tom and Barbara were lucky, he had a good, well paid job and so had a big house and garden with no mortgage. In that situation it would be pretty easy to make the move.

We do what we can, keep chickens in the garden and grow as much as we can ourselves. Our long term aim is to try to get a small holding. OH is self employed and does some work on a local small holding to get experience working with animals. Its all just a matter of costs tbh.

Ali x

Davesnave

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

TBH this is mine and OH's dream, but money stops us. Tom and Barbara were lucky, he had a good, well paid job and so had a big house and garden with no mortgage. In that situation it would be pretty easy to make the move.

We do what we can, keep chickens in the garden and grow as much as we can ourselves. Our long term aim is to try to get a small holding. OH is self employed and does some work on a local small holding to get experience working with animals. Its all just a matter of costs tbh.

Ali x

I think you'll find that most smallholders have good jobs/pensions, benefited from the house price booms, inherited and so on. It takes years before significant profits come along, and for many they never do.

Keeping chickens and growing your own in a garden is often much the best, most cost-effective option for many people. Gardens need not be limiting if they are large enough. DW and I ran a plant nursery out of ours for 11 years. I know quite a few others who are doing similarly.

It's the 4 legged beasties that cost, especially once you try to go commercial.

Anyway, there is no land requirement to be a Daydreamer on MSE. It's free.

lostinrates

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

TBH this is mine and OH's dream, but money stops us. Tom and Barbara were lucky, he had a good, well paid job and so had a big house and garden with no mortgage. In that situation it would be pretty easy to make the move.

We do what we can, keep chickens in the garden and grow as much as we can ourselves. Our long term aim is to try to get a small holding. OH is self employed and does some work on a local small holding to get experience working with animals. Its all just a matter of costs tbh.

Ali x

I think also our idea of welfare has changed. Really to keep goats (herd animals) in isolation in small suburban gardens and say its 'better welfare' option is optimistic to say the least.

Uninformed smallholders and animal keepers are, IMO, a welfare issue of unknown proportions.


We couldn't afford to do it with out DH having a good city job though, its true. This brings its own costs, and challenges to the issue. . But there is not just 'luck', Its bloody well hard work, hard made decisions and hard won successes, with some wins and some losses.

aardvaak

Can you grow petrol - everyone needs it - new smallholder/goodlifers forget this.

lostinrates

aardvaak wrote: »

Can you grow petrol - everyone needs it - new smallholder/goodlifers forget this.

Bio diesel.......your first couple of thousand litres is tax exempt.;)

We removed our tractor powered back up genny last year, and will soon be looking for a small diesel one.


There is no way we good cope with out petrol though, personally. our hedge and brush cutter and the 'mobility lawn mower' are in use Every single small holding day.

ALIBOBSY

Perhaps small holding would be the wrong term for what we want tbh. What we would be looking for is to be as self supporting as possible whilst perhaps selling plants or other surplus but still doing our self employed work.

I agree about animals and we would not move into owning bigger beasties without further knowledge-hence OH gaining experience.

I doubt we would ever try cows, but I have dealt with goats and milked them-we live in a semi rural area and my friends growing up were mostly farmers. So we don't have rose tinted glasses on.

Ali x

tori.k

I think a lot of us on MSE try live a more self reliant lifestyle, but taxes/insurances have to be paid, and im doubtful a suburban plot could ever generate enough excess income needed to pay those.
What self reliance does give you is choice once you know how much your essential outgoings are (plus a little extra for contingency) you can tailor work around this and gain the ever precious commodity of time