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Self-Sufficiency in Style

capital ideas

Where do we find the capital?

You probably have enough already. You certainly can't borrow money to invest in a home that will provide no income and a lifestyle with no room for a job.

There are financial advantages in staying in the place where you worked and lived before trying to lead The Good Life.

You probably won't be living in the same street or even town, but things will be familiar. You will have the support of family and friends nearby. That can be a great help.

Tearing off to a remote area with a strange language and even stranger habits may seem exciting and cost effective, but your new life is going to be quite exciting enough for a long time to come.

The first instinct of most people is to take a look at the price of smallholdings in their own area.

Houses with land will often  seem very expensive and the temptation will be to look outside their home territory to an area where prices are cheaper.

That may well be a mistake.

 Your present house seems suddenly empty.

It seems time to look around for a similar place in the country.

Wrong! 

The mortgage, that once seemed so daunting has been paid off, or looks miniscule.

The kids have departed taking the costs of education with them, and you are rattling around in a house with empty bedrooms used a couple of times a year when the children come home or relatives come to stay.

You really need a smaller place with some land and it may not be in the country.

Tow it down to the meadow in the summer and they will be tickled pink. You will probably have a job getting rid of them.

You have just moved from needing a three, four or five bedroom house, down to a one or two bedroom cottage.

Ah! But we need a house the same size to put up guests!

No, you don't, not for a few weeks a year. It simply is not cost effective.

It takes a big effort to realise that you life is changing very dramatically.

You can leave behind the baggage of youth and start looking.

Finding a Place might help and Income may answer more questions.

If you are really short of cash Going for Broke or Inheritance might help.

Nothing more complicated than that.

And, if it sounds frightening, why worry? Roughly the same amount of your assets will be invested in a house and land as previously. And if you haven't moved away from your home area, it will be in the same currency.

It is just a different house and different land. You can always sell up if things go wrong.

"doing interesting things without taking chances."

at

 the eccentrically  named Hangman's Cottage, just to the south of Misery Corner.