# Advice on how to prepare for homestead retirement?



## kjansen (Mar 25, 2013)

Any advice on retirement planning? As part of our current plan, we have paid off our retirement acreage and house in WVa and are working on paying off our primary house here in Delaware. We are trying to cover all angles but I am sure there are things we have not thought of. 

Any advice from people who have already retired and have found roadblocks they wish they had thought about ahead of time?


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## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

A lot depends on how you define "retirement". Are you looking to truly being retired off of money, and saving you have already earned, or are you looking to make supplemental income? Are you looking to travel, or do you plan to pretty much stay on your retirement property? Do you plan on keeping your primary house, and only vaction at you retirement property?
I guess the one thing I would throw out there, with not knowing what your plans are, is to look at how WVa treats retirement income taxes, and property taxes. This is something that varies alot from state to state.


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## ET1 SS (Oct 22, 2005)

I went onto pension in 2001. We own our farm without any debt. Our taxes are fairly low [around $600/year]. We can do okay financially on my pension [about equal to Minimum-Wage]. Our gardening has been producing about 80% of what we eat. We breed pigs and sell piglets. Our fruit orchard is coming into heavy production now. I am not certain of what we will be doing with all the fruit.

We shifted to solar-power last fall. We plan to shift to solar-thermal heating this year.

So long as you live within your means, you will be fine.


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## gundog10 (Dec 9, 2014)

Here is what we did. We bought a new 1 ton 4x4 and paid it off prior to retirement ($900 a month) sold our two homes in Kalifornia and put the ALL the money we made from the sell in the bank. We put a portion of this money into a emergency savings account. We bought our homestead an my VA loan with very little down but where the monthly payments are easy to afford. We moved ourselves to save our money and split the rest of the money between my DW and my self. My DW spent hers on new hardwood floors, new furniture and other fixings for the house. I spent my share on 9 head of calves, 35hp tractor with FEL, brush hog, tiller and scrapper blade, hay and straw. We both got what we wanted/needed to make our lives complete and still have a good reserve of spending money in the bank without touching our emergency account. My point to this is to think ahead and buy what you need/want now and plan your way to purchase the things you need to be happy.


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