My Self Reliance · Free Download
What Kind of
Land to Buy
An honest guide from someone who got it wrong first
What's inside
Seven things to think through before you buy.
The question I get asked more than almost any other is some version of this: what should I be looking for in land? How many acres do I need? What is the minimum to do this properly?
I have been thinking about that question for a long time, and living the answer for the last several years on two properties in northern Ontario. This is what I actually think, after doing it the hard way. Not the dream version. The honest one.
01
Start smaller than you think
Acreage is not the same as productivity
02
Look for cheap land with fixable problems
What undesirable really means
03
Water is everything
Surface water, wells, rainfall
04
Forget livestock until you have pasture
The honest math on animals
05
Grow what the land can actually support
Calories per acre, not aesthetics
06
Off-grid is a feature, not a flaw
Why no utilities lowers the price
07
Community matters as much as acreage
Self-reliance is not isolation
A note on this guide
Most homesteading advice tells you to dream bigger. This one does not.
I ran Dexter cattle on nine acres of poor pasture for a few years. By September the grass was gone and I was buying hay. I kept buying it through to late May. That is eight or nine months of purchased feed on land I was supposed to be farming.
I did the math on chickens for eggs too. At the price of organic feed, it is cheaper for us to buy eggs from a neighbour and trade her things we grow. That is not a failure. That is how it actually works.
None of this is in this guide to discourage you. It is here because nobody told me, and I think you deserve the honest version before you spend money on land that will not do what you are imagining.
"Find cheap land that is undesirable for a reason you are willing to remedy. Then find happiness on it. That is the whole strategy."
— Shawn James · My Self Reliance