MountainGaurdian
Songster
We manage it by first owning our farm, no mortgage payment or anything. We keep our bills quite low, ie for a family of six we spend about $275 a month on food, we spend about $100 a year on heating, $1,200 a year on electric.
I can fix most anything so all my tractors, bulldozer, backhoe, dump truck, vehicles etc were all non working junk when I bought them and I repaired them myself on the cheap. Most of my equipment dates back to the 40's and 50's some of it clear back into the 1800's. I have had to get pretty creative, I gave up on updraft carbs so I designed a simple piece of plate metal with two holes drilled and a tube welded beneath connecting them. Around one hole I drilled holes to mount where an updraft carb would mount and around the other I drilled holes to accept a mid seventies downdraft carb which I could still get a kit for unlike the old updraft. Things like this have allowed me to acquire my equipment on the very cheap. On our last farm I put in everything from the driveway to the sewer and drain field, the electric, a mobile home, built all the outbuildings with an old Alaskan mill that I made etc. I run down to the local livestock auction about every three months and I buy a 600 to 800 pound boar hog and I buy them for anywhere from a dollar for the hog up to 1 cent a pound which is $6 to $8 for a 600 to 800 pound boar. I haul it home and slaughter out 350 to 450 pounds of pork which covers our meat. I trade off some of that meat for elk, deer, moose etc for some variety. We also raised a milk goat herd for many years which supplied us about 5 to 20 gallons of milk a day depending on time of year and how big we let the herd get.
While we are worth a bit as far as the farm goes, cash wise we are pretty poor, but we have never been short of food and our kids have grown up free and healthy. They also grew up poor enough that they are quite motivated to get out and work and make money. The wife and I wanted our kids to turn out as much like us as possible and so it made sense to raise them as we were raised. I admit there has been many a time I missed working advanced electronics making more money than I knew what to do with, but after this 20 year break raising our kids and them all adults or near adults now, it is clear to me it has been a worthwhile investment.
I can fix most anything so all my tractors, bulldozer, backhoe, dump truck, vehicles etc were all non working junk when I bought them and I repaired them myself on the cheap. Most of my equipment dates back to the 40's and 50's some of it clear back into the 1800's. I have had to get pretty creative, I gave up on updraft carbs so I designed a simple piece of plate metal with two holes drilled and a tube welded beneath connecting them. Around one hole I drilled holes to mount where an updraft carb would mount and around the other I drilled holes to accept a mid seventies downdraft carb which I could still get a kit for unlike the old updraft. Things like this have allowed me to acquire my equipment on the very cheap. On our last farm I put in everything from the driveway to the sewer and drain field, the electric, a mobile home, built all the outbuildings with an old Alaskan mill that I made etc. I run down to the local livestock auction about every three months and I buy a 600 to 800 pound boar hog and I buy them for anywhere from a dollar for the hog up to 1 cent a pound which is $6 to $8 for a 600 to 800 pound boar. I haul it home and slaughter out 350 to 450 pounds of pork which covers our meat. I trade off some of that meat for elk, deer, moose etc for some variety. We also raised a milk goat herd for many years which supplied us about 5 to 20 gallons of milk a day depending on time of year and how big we let the herd get.
While we are worth a bit as far as the farm goes, cash wise we are pretty poor, but we have never been short of food and our kids have grown up free and healthy. They also grew up poor enough that they are quite motivated to get out and work and make money. The wife and I wanted our kids to turn out as much like us as possible and so it made sense to raise them as we were raised. I admit there has been many a time I missed working advanced electronics making more money than I knew what to do with, but after this 20 year break raising our kids and them all adults or near adults now, it is clear to me it has been a worthwhile investment.
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