The Oil City Plan
Readers suggested a topic on alternative life choices. “There has been some discussion of the ‘oil city plan’: that is, save up, buy a cheap house cash, homestead for veggies, work a McJob for walking money, and generally live a low-level life. How about some discussion on building a checklist of how to determine a suitable location for such a ’strategic withdrawal’ and the other planning needed? And how it relates to ‘post-materialist,’ ‘threshold earner’ lifestyles?”
A reply, “There are quite a few groups trying to putting Oil-City-like plans together. Community Solutions is a sort-of eco community that they want to build in a post-peak-oil Yellow Springs, OH (near Dayton). One of the more organized homesteading movements is Backwoods Home Magazine. Personally, I like the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, which encompasses quite a lot of the US. Anything south is too hot and buggy, anything north is too cold, anything west is too dry.”
“I admit, if I really wanted to, I could probably go on the Oil City plan, but I’m deathly afraid to pull the trigger on it, at least now. Also, while people claim to want to unplug from the system, that system gave us good medicines and flush toilets and cars and hot showers and electricity and pesticides to help the crops, not to mention computers and internet. I am not quite willing to give that up.”
One said, “Friends of the family did the ‘back to the land’ thing. They were very conservative Republicans and they had more than a little bit of contempt for the hippies who were also surfing this trend. They were very offended by the hippies’ lack of a work ethic. They just wanted to hang out and party. What they didn’t want to realize is that going back to the land is a lot of hard work.”
“OTOH, my friends were the types who worked for a living. They did their ‘back to the land’ work after hours. Fast-forward to the end of the story: My friends got on in years. I’m told that they sold the homestead and moved back into town. I heard that their reason for moving was that they needed to rest.”
Another added, “I have been thinking about this topic for a while - not so much for me as for my descendants, because I see myself as a casualty in a SHTF situation (too old, bad joints). My criteria in choice of location:”
1. Climate - decent rainfall, temperate.
2. Susceptibility to natural disasters - tornado, hurricanes, earthquakes, drought, wildfires.
3. Proximity to population centers - not too big.
4. Susceptibility to man made disasters - pollution, nuclear plants, riots, militias that could evolve into warlord type strongmen.
5. Traditions - democratic, self-sufficiency, community, propensity for cheating/stealing/violence.
6. Potential for sustainable power generation - wind, water, sunlight.
“No area is without risk. Some risks are more manageable than others.”
To which was said, “I pulled this one off about twenty years ago, and it was far easier than I thought it would be. My requirements were that the entire PITA would have to be less that what I was paying in rent, that any mortgage would have to be paid off within ten years, and that I’d have to have the place self-sufficient in that time. I looked for title to reliable water sources, plant-able (though not necessarily tillable,) acreage, and a climate that would support a wide variety of food crops I could grow and harvest myself. My income would eventually have to come from my efforts on the property. And it had to be within a day’s drive and back of Los Angeles.”
“I started looking on the perimeter of the area. The western coastal boundaries were heavily populated and expensive– so I looked to the other side of the valley and found a geographic area very similar to Santa Ynez for about a tenth of the price. There I bought forty isolated acres of fenced, raw land with an excellent well and a small, decrepit-but-serviceable double-wide already on it, and went to work.”
“A few VERY important considerations if you’re buying raw land with plans to build yourself. (Eventually, I built the house I’m now in on the site, but that’s a whole other adventure.)”
1. CHECK OUT THE MINERAL RIGHTS AND EASEMENTS THOROUGHLY –don’t rely solely on the title company and DEFINITELY not the realtor. Go to the county recorder’s office and research it yourself. Talk to your county commissioner AND the planning commissioner for your property.
2. BUY AS MUCH SURROUNDING LAND AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN to reduce the likelihood of someone buying on your border and putting in a barking dog-breeding operation. Or an ATV/motocross track. Or a community pot farm.
3. NEIGHBORS!
4. ACOUSTICS!
5. COUNTY GOVERNANCE (or selected enforcement of same.)
6. And if you possibly can, live (or at least periodically camp,) on the land for several years before you build on it so you get to know the wind patterns, the seasonal variables, your insect and animal tenants, site considerations, and accessibility in adverse weather.
7. Buy from the third owner. (The first fences, grades, and puts in a road– then goes broke and sells. The second puts in a water well, electricity, septic, outbuildings– then goes broke and sells. The third puts up a house– then goes broke and sells. That’s where YOU come in….)
“Finally, and I can’t stress this enough: Insinuate yourself into the old-timer’s network down at the general store or the local bar and grill (often one and the same,) to learn the intricate history of the local feuds so you don’t get caught up in them or inadvertently offend someone you shouldn’t. If you’re looking for local labor to help build your place, the grapevine is an invaluable resource of who NOT to hire. And for all the question about what not to plant, how not to build, where not to drill, who not to trust, all you’ll have to do is ask, because someone has already made that mistake for you and will be glad to bend your ear.”
“Everybody stay cool and hydrated out there. Currently the lower level of my little ‘green’ house is a cool comfortable (no air con here,) 64 degrees F.”
And finally, “We pretty much followed your plan. Fortunately we did well on selling our house almost at the bubble peak so we’ve been able to do everything comfortably for cash. 120 acres of mostly hilly West Virginia foothills with a 7 acre plateau up top where the 1800 square foot concrete block house is sited. Free gas (we own half the mineral rights) and a water well as backup.”
“The first big vegetable garden went in this spring…..”
My Oil City Plan: Discover within my community people who have a surplus of something - say, avocados when they are in season - and become their newest best friend.
They supply the tree, I’ll supply the labor needed for the picking.
Lots of times they are old and are in ill health and need a bit of labor for other things as well so I’ll supply some of my labor for these other things as they come up.
It’s a win win: They have a surplus of fruit and a shortage of labor. I have a shortage of fruit and a surplus of labor.
I had such a situation working for me for years but it ended when the person sold her house and moved away.
(darn)
If you take up canning, some people will let you take all the fruit from their trees you want in exchange for a few jars of the jams you make…
I made some sauerkraut this spring, which nearly resulted in a divorce, thanks to my wife’s reaction to the various smells which resulted from the production process.
which nearly resulted in a divorce, thanks to my wife’s reaction to the various smells ??
Which is why most of the older Portuguese people that I know have gas stoves in their garage…All the fish is cooked in the garage…
We’ve been doing something similar with the Marin Open Garden Project. They email us to glean a fruit tree, we provide the labor, give some of the fruit to the owner, some to various food banks and can the rest. Had some preserved lemons from last year in sun-dried tomato cous-cous. Taste a little of the summer…
Interesting topic! I like to browse the urban survival links. I know a guy who made a lot of money as a contract engineer and bought a house on Long Island on the water front - before the run-up in prices, probably in addition to $2,000,000 net worth and became a father in his late 40s. He has these survivalist thingamajigs he told me about at his house. He uses solar energy and other contraptions.
I think urban survival is the way to go. As I get older I am also keeping in mind that I won’t have the physical ability to be as self-sufficient as a 30-something would. I would keep it as simple as possible.
My survival house would have a pantry for dried food such as beans and canned food, a diesel generator, a tank for water to store for showers, flushing and bathing in case the water supply goes out, and I’d simply have an additional three month supply of drinking water in those 2 and a half gallon containers and buy a new two and a half gallon container for every one I use up. I won’t have to be in Apache Junction or Eloy. I could do this in the southeast community of Phoenix known as Ahwatukee.
I am not a great shot with a gun, but that means I have to rely on good relations with neighbors as well as the police and National Guard.
When I worked for the Navy in China Lake, one of the safety stand down meetings impressed me about earthquakes. China Lake and Ridgecrest would be isolated and put on the very low priority list in case of the big L.A. earthquake, we were told. There would be no power. Roads could be impassable. So people needing medicine or help for wounds would not have a chance of survival in the suburbs. Law enforcement (National Guard) would be focused on L.A. And Ridgecrest would only have the Ridgecrest police department, no National Guard.
Most people these days point to New Orleans/Katrina and say that urban survival failed. Yet how long did that crisis without adequate law enforcement last? A month? A year? Probably a month at most, including the looting. And people then got their lives back together.
I figure for places with less likelihood of natural disaster (Phoenix and Tucson), civil unrest would not last over a month if at all. No natural disasters would leave civil unrest for a threat. So as long as you don’t stand out as wealthy compared to your neighbors and you have plenty of cash, plenty of silver coins and gold coins stashed away, no debt and an income stream to pay your rent (or own a house entirely), there is nothing to worry about.
Bill,
How long did you live in Ridgecrest? Burroughs ‘58.
You could easily head for the Sierra’s in a 4X4 for some deer meat. I still go back once a year to take old friends out to eat.
1985 to 1986. You must have gone up to Kennedy Meadows or Troy Meadows often! I used to go up to this place called Grumpy Bears. They had this awesome barbecue! And some of the best steak I ever ate was at http://www.mcnallysonthekern.com/index.html along the Kern River. Had a nice looking girlfriend those days whose parents lived at Wofford Heights and we’d go to McNally’s.
I have been to mcnally’s many times. Fished the little kern and the kern too. Moved there in 1955 before everything was fenced in. Used to ride my MC and horse anywhere. Those were the good ole days. Many of my childhood friends stayed there and worked at China Lake. During summers while in college I worked for Stauffer Chem. Co. in Westend.
Grumpy Bears still exists too. It also has a web site. They opened up full time this year around June 20! I guess their season lasts through Labor Day.
I used to go white water rafting with a bunch of other young China Lakers on those guided rafting tours down the Kern River. And once did the metric century bike ride from the Ridgecrest library to KernVille over Walker Pass.
Walker Pass would be quite a challenge, even more so at this stage of life. I remember biking up it in the 50’s.
gone up to Kennedy Meadows ??
Fished there many times…
Yes, Kennedy Meadows is where Grumpy Bears is.
http://www.grumpybearsretreat.com/
Very relaxing great barbecue.
That’s 1985 to 1996. 11 years, not one year!
When I lived in the high-rise, I was amazed at how many people live a just-in-time life. No pantry whatever. They depend on shopping weekly, or if they have no car or bike to carry, almost daily. I’ve seen a few souls who ate entirely from the 7-11, living literally hand-to-mouth. It’s not much different in Manhattan or most of Europe, where they rely on small dorm fridges and go to the market or the restaurant every day.
When I lived in the Midwest, we had 18 inches of snow in one day which froze solid. I discoverd that “deaths blamed on the storm” also included people who died simply because they couldn’t get to the pharmacy to refill life-saving prescriptions. And for some drugs it’s very difficult to buy and store an extra month of medication for emergencies (insurance won’t cover it.)
I keep a food storage, but only six-week’s worth. I figure that if the stores can’t replenish their food supplies in six weeks, the country is in deep doo-doo anyway.
What was the name of the bar in New Orleans that never closed during Katrina?
My cousin owned a house a few blocks from Burbon Street, he said all of the houses build on land above sea level came through just fine. It was the places below sea level that suffered.
So like all real estate it boils down to “location location location”.
nuts. crazy. fail
We visited SIL, hubby and family during our vacation last week. They bought an old farmstead style home w/ large backyard near the Wasatch Front in UT. The house is smallish but so are their kids; they plan to add on to the home as their family grows. But the really cool thing is the large backyard, which they intend to use to set up a garden, chicken hatchery and honey production facility. They got all this for a price tag just a little north of $100K…
the Wasatch Front in UT
Beautiful area…their employment Sit-U-ation is?
(Howdy Losty! wherever yer at these days…)
Hubby = USU professor (and also knows how to drive a tractor
)
I like college towns — especially for state schools. Self contained, with fairly steady employment, hospitals, Wal-Marts, radio stations, some culture.* Plus they tend to be surrounded by farmland, so there’s bound to be a Tractor Supply Company** or similar place that will have all the needed homesteading implements.
Barring a small college town, I like the boondock small towns on the outskirts of medium-sized cities which have a university, like Knoxville, Columbus, Lexington, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Austin … there’s still plenty of land and housing for OK prices if you go far enough away from The Jobs.
—————–
*This is one reason I’m a bit leery of the actual Oil City. There seems to be very little within 50 miles.
** TSC’s motto is “For Life Out Here.” I remember it being “The stuff you need our here.”
Austin is the 14th biggest city by population in the United States.
Oxy, Pittsburgh is within a 100 mile radius.
A lot of folks who are much more practical-minded than I am about these things say to stay away from the “drift lines”, e.g., away from the population centers.
Just sayin’.
OTOH, I’d have a heckuva time convincing the kids to come visit out in Siberia. Umm.
Back to the drawing board.
Jane, do you mean in “drift” in the creeping sprawl sense, or in the apocolyptic sense where hordes of city folks will march, zombie-like, on nearby homesteads to raid pantries and six-tree orchards?
I’m talkin’ ’bout the march of them zom-beez, Bay-bee!
(I’m sort of making fun of myself, and of my timid nature, here.)
The story line: even in a slow wave catabolic collapse, there will come a time where the center does not hold - where the ranks of the marginalized in the population centers begin hearing “I’m hungry, Daddy!”.
When safety nets can no longer be funded, when the boundaries of neighborly charity erode into insurance lest the hungry storm the house, when the annual winter flu chips away at the children, when the last of the voluntary charity has dissipated into determined non-engagement - at that point, the motivated members of the marginalized will enlarge their search perimeters.
In this hypothetical scenario, the timid are well advised to have attained self-reliance, and to be hunkered down beyond the range of easy pickings.
Your imagination may lead you to alternate future scenarios. Given my particular leanings and skill set (timid, bookwormy, and not physically imposing), I would feel most comfortable in a small population area where I have engaged with my neighbors, and can look everybody in town directly in the eye and be comfortable that I know them.
Hey, Hwy, a great big howdy back! I’m in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, but have been in the desert until now, except was in Canada last summer. Am leaving tomorrow, maybe back to the Moab area, maybe to Montana. Won’t know until I get up and have a cuppa mud and see how I feel.
Funny, first time I’ve been on this blog for a long long time and glad to know y’all didn’t forget me!
Whoa! Hey Lost, I hope all is well. I’m sure it has its tough moments, but I’m envious of your mobile lifestyle. Still have the dogs with you? Cheers!
Thanks, Sleepless, good to hear from you! I do still have the dogs - or rather, they have me, I’m their driver.
You know, the cool thing about being a nomad is you’re always a moving target. And you also get to see what other people live like, as I occasionally do house and petsitting for people.
It’s kind of scary how stuck most people are. Yikes!
Nice to hear from you lost…Check in occasionally…
“It’s kind of scary how stuck most people are. Yikes!”
Everyone seems stuck in their own kind of way.
- Those with jobs willingly accept their anchor in exchange for a paycheck.
- Those who are unstuck buy freedom for less material security.
- Those with ample material security face the perceived, self-imposed shortfall which confronts anyone in possession of more money than is needed to provide for subsistence.
Welcome to planet Earth!
Thanks, Dave, that’s a Big Will Do!
Nice to see you’re still checkin in Losty! Miss you here.
Happy to see this thread and others like it. Have been devoting more time/thought/preparations to leaving the rat race behind and living a simpler, quieter life, with PA as a favored locale.
I wonder if this is another sign of the 4th Turning. The Master of the Universe thing is losing its flavor fast.
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/510-W-3rd-St_Oil-City_PA_16301_M32951-55838
Whoa. Talk about affordale quality housing (homes built back when people cared about workmanship).
That’ a Craftsman-style interior. Compare to the modern McMansions with stark white walls, which has to be decorated to hilt. This older housing, you barely have to put in any furniture because the room itself is the decoration.
That would be a terribly expensive house to build today…The price of these houses just amazes me…I guess its about jobs as always…That house in Palo Alto California would be 4-mil or more…
No sale here….. acreage is 0.16
I think it’s pretty funny that someone would borrow $4M for that house. I can’t imagine making $4M in salary in my lifetime — the finances would never work out. And if I made a salary high enough to $4M house, then I could hunker in a nasty apartment for a couple years, then quit and retire on the interest income.
Bill The Nomad is doing something similar to that.
My wife’s parents got divorced and sold their house in Skaneateles.I am bummed because I am a big fan of these little Finger Lakes towns in upstate because they can oscillate between the dark ages, technotriumphalism, and post-apocalypse without really changing anything.
The houses are fine, the shops are fine, there is fresh water, arable land etc. and it’s all built to scale in a healthy proportion, in ways that serve horses, cars, and pedestrian traffic all the same.
This is the first summer I won’t be in Skan, but in summers past there were days that we ate local food, walked around town, and used no electricity other than the clocks and fridge. My wife and I loved sitting by the lake and thinking about how that very moment could be repeated a hundred years in either direction and still feel the same.
I think that would be a simple metric: what did this place feel like 250 years ago. If your answer is, “bug-filled swamp” as opposed to, “small town” then keep looking.
I know Ex disagrees with me, but I don’t think any of us needs a “plan.” If the SHTF we’ll just move to these towns and that momentum will gt them up and running again.
Florida is livable, but you have to be built for it, and I am not. I hate heat, I hate seafood, and so on. Others that I know would do well fishing and living in a tent here.
But the thinking about this plan is NOT just planning for if the SHTF, it’s about finding a better quality of life through a modified set of material priorities.
But the thinking about this plan is NOT just planning for if the SHTF, it’s about finding a better quality of life through a modified set of material priorities”
Gotcha, but that can be made right where you are, rather than “finding” it somewhere else. And note, it starts with “affordable housing” and “jobs.”
Nobody wants to move to Oil City. I bet most of us here would rather have affordable homes in one of two places 1. by friends and family 2. by a great job. Preferably both.
It’s not Oil City that is the solution, it’s market-priced housing, and the end of Era Robber Baron II.
It’s not Oil City that is the solution, it’s market-priced housing, and the end of Era Robber Baron II.
Hear hear.
Most of that whole Rte 20 area would do just fine having not changed much since years back. The houses are new and there is new technology (cell service, cable) but I agree, with all the surrounding farms and the small town social networks, it could easily slip back w/o much upheaval. I think survival in these towns will boil down to who you know (talent and ability) and how well you’ve kept your nose clean w/those you want or will need to trade with. Some people will go w/o. It will boil down to how much you embrace supporting the community.
I did my version of the Oil City move when I moved here from LA in 1975. It would be great to get farther out of town, into some real rural areas, but…I’ve seen a lot of people here do that, move up the Bitterroot and build their dream home, only to move back in because of health problems. Esp cancer, if you need surgery and chemo it’s just a constant back and forth.
So, if you’re getting up there in years, you need to be near hospitals. My dad stayed in LA, never wanted to leave, so when he got sick he had easy access to the USC medical center & LA county general hosp.
There is a well known organic farmer here who just hung it up, because it was just too much work for her as she turned 50.
Also, in most of the smart people leave when they’re young, so what you have left is not so great. It can get a little boring.
…in most of the *small towns*…
Yeah this is what I figured to be the case. City slickers cowed by talk of urban riots, terror, pollution, taxes, and socialists (er, urban organizers) look wistfully to the countryside. It works for the very wealthy who can easily have two palatial estates - a loft in San Francisco and a survivalist camp in Incline Village. But for the middle class, it does not work too well. No good paying jobs for the young people. No high tech industry for the middle aged people. And “everyone” wants to go to the country, so the wages tend to be too low.
I remember the “survivalists” on television talk shows in the late 70s, wearing fatigues, and on the Phil Donohue show. Then morning came to America.
That was the late 70s. Then, in the 90s, there were militia organizations in Michigan and elsewhere and Timothy McVeigh. Now this topic has come up again. Something about having a Democrat stirs something up in the brains of a certain type of Amercian.
I meant to write having a Democrat in the White House.
Before I bailed out of being a Navy employee in the 1990s, when Bill Clinton was Pres. An older friend of mine who worked in another organization (I’d see him out in the hall outside my office and chit chat with him back in those days) told me “I think, buy gold.”
I took that as just his protest against having a Democrat Bill Clinton in the White House. But my friend of course was right in ways he did not know. In the late 1990s and over several years into the 2000s I remembered “I think, buy gold” as I drove to the coin dealer.
The last two years my spreadsheet showed my precious metals allocation above 10%, as their prices continued to climb with stocks. My investing style is objective investing - taking all the emotion out. So even though I would love to buy more metals, I cannot. So the best approach is to build up T-bills, series I bonds, and TIPS.
At some point I would love to see precious metals get to 8% of my asset allocation and cash above 37% so that I can go to the coin dealer again - to buy.
What were this guy’s reasons for advising you buy gold? Was he expecting that Clinton’s election would lead to the high inflation that occurred with the previous Democrat?
One thing that you have to remember about investing is that some people just get lucky sometimes.
Something about having a Democrat stirs something up in the brains of a certain type of Amercian.
There are disadvantages to being the party of gun control. Not that nutty people can’t find other things to obsess about, but why give them a legitimate reason to be paranoid of you?
You illuminate the issue right there in your post. Nutty people and firearms are a dangerous combination. The incident with the congresswoman in Tucson earlier this year is an example. The challenge comes in regards to trying to do something about this danger. With so many millions of guns floating around the country, the problem may be insoluble.
It is not the guns that are the problem, it is the people!
If you don’t have a gun, and the SHTF, how in hell will you protect yourself from those who want what you have and they don’t?
Do you think that the west would have be won against the native Americans, if the invaders didn’t have guns!
Heck, it was hard enough with the guns.
The first thing you need to understand is that you have to have an equal weapon to any invaders, or you will lose!
And if you expect anyone to protect you, believe in life after death.
You must be prepared to kill to live, or you will be the loser.
I hope it never comes to pass, but it might, and if you are not prepared you will be the loser.
Sorry about that!
“Esp cancer, if you need surgery and chemo it’s just a constant back and forth.”
Dad’s mom had cancer, but was able to continue independent living out in her small-town country home thanks in large part to dad’s willingness to serve as her zero-wage farm hand and personal assistant. She also lived 90 miles from a big city with modern hospitals.
So perhaps the secret is living far enough from the big city to free oneself from it’s negatives, yet close enough to benefit from modern conveniences like hospitals with competent surgeons. It also helps much in your declining years to have a good family support network.
IMO, 90 miles from ANY city is too far. Even in the congested DC area, you can hit cow country just 30 miles from the Washington Monument at the city center. And of course there are hospitals further out than that.
Some of the larger hospital complexes are built on the outskirts to take advantage of the cheap land for parking lots and satellite offices. For a couple of those houses I’ve been posting, it would take far less time to get to a hospital from the boonie house than it would be from the inner city.
That’s another check mark for college towns, especially those with med schools. Takes only a few miles to get out of town, and there’s no traffic between you and the hospital. It’s no accident that Charlottesville (home of UVA) was repeatedly voted “best place to retire.”
With oil hovering around $100 per barrel (during an economic depression no less), I’d be very leery of buying anything way out in the sticks.
if you’re getting up there in years, you need to be near hospitals ??
And guess what…There are 75 mil of them coming online soon…Even with a healthy life style attitude you cannot stop father time…At least from my perspective here on the west coast, this demographic shift and the issue of health & heath care becoming a high priority for many millions the 2nd house feeding frenzy that I have seen over the past twenty years is over…As time goes on, I would predict further downward pressure on these houses particularly in the more remote area’s but even in the destination area’s like Lake Tahoe or even many coastal area’s…We have already seen the start of it in the last couple of years…
IMO, 90 miles from ANY city is too far ??
I have a good friend who had just retired…Great pension & health care…Owned a small house in a small town in the Sierra Nevada mountains…Not to far from a big city..Maybe 30 miles but it was 30 miles of two lane winding roads so in effect it was like 50 miles or more…He was up installing a new septic for the new house he was going to build, sell his silicon valley house and move there permanently…While working on the new septic he had a mild heart attack…He was able to get to a local clinic but they had to life flight him to a major medical center then finally home to his local hospital…Heart surgeon told him that the time that it took him to get to the hospital likely cost him 1/3 of his heart mussel…Now, with medications and the need to be very close to the hospital, he has sold his house in the little Sierra town…
It wouldn’t surprise me if we started seeing “hospital towns” the way we have college towns. Retirees have a nice assisted living near a hospital, the other residents work at the hospital and support industries…
In fact, wealthier retirees may be creating that already, by moving to any college town with a med school and teaching hospital…
Dave, this is one of the reasons we sold the ranch and
acquired our little lost oasis here in town. We wanted
all the benefits of ranch life, in a condensed form, and
all the conveniences of living in town. We are within
five minutes of the hospital, stores, and the Y where
we do our gym routine…
A small footnote: We looked for two years to find “the”
place that would satisfy our needs and it wasn’t until
visiting our best friends at their home did we find it.
He said, “Have you ever driven down to the end of the
street?”
“No, why?”
“Well, there’s a nice piece of property there and the owner lives in CA and has it rented, who knows, he might sell it…”
So for two years while we had been up and down the
river for miles in both directions, the place we finally
found was four doors down from our best friends…
Sometimes you get lucky.
With the current rate of economic decline, one should be able to find cheap housing in just about any city or town in this county when all is said and done.
Unlike other third world countries where the land is wholly owned by rich land barons, all of our land is leveraged to the hilt, so yes, I suspect in 10 years land will be dirt cheap and with few of us left in the economic game most of us will be equally dirt poor.
Of course we could also be ripe for break up as a country, military take over etc. I keep trying to come up with ways we get out of this mess in one piece, but it feels more and more like the day you wake up and REALLY come to terms with the fact you cannot make your bills and your credit is shot.
I mean seriously someone what is the next big thing and are we there?
My wife and I are looking at Ashville, NC as a possible …
Reasonable home prices, rain, forests, good outdoors activities and land.
Not too far from a Costco…
any jobs there?
My plan is to write a great Android / IPhone app and live off the proceeds. Until then San Diego is a nice place to live
This headline brought a smile to this longtime irregular lurker. I wonder where ByeFl is now?
Beanie Baby Swap Meet?
Didn’t Jane run into ByeFl on another blog somewhere…?
I sort of did the oil city plan in 1980. Had a farm south of there in Saxonburg. B ig garden, kids underfoot, some livestock and a professional job in Pittsburgh. It was ideal, except for all the work. Couldn’t and wouldn’t do it at this age. Simple and small is the key for me now. Life aboard a boat works just fine and is super thrifty.
TEOTWAWKI never happens.
I see a lot of points brought up here. A large group of Americans are getting to the age where they cannot handle all the work and lack of rest by living out in the country. The Oil City Plan seems to be about surviving in the big city instead!
TEOTWAWKI never happens.
Let that fact not impede those who begin each day with a personal self-applied chant: “crypiss&moan!”
I had to google TEOTWAWKI to see what it means. The other acronyms starting with T that I see a lot of are TTT and TANSTAAFL.
TANSTAAFL is going to once again be the final arbiter of the debate de jour - of default or raise the debt limit. The socialists hate TANSTAAFL, but it whups their a$$es every day.
I did this in the 80s, and just a few miles from Oil City, in Saxonburg PA. 12 acre farm, half acre garden, four kids and a full time job. Great life, tons of hard work. Things change and we move on.
Having had the decade of back to the land, the engineering career, city life as a boy, I’d say self sufficiency is best expressed by needing little, owning little and owing nothing.
Networking is easy for any honest person with something to share. You don’t need to pretend to be an old farmer and hang out at the greasy spoon to get connected. Rural young people you may find are very resourceful, and they can lift stuff too! Volunteer for something and you will meet people used to helping others.
I like living on a boat and moving around these days. Even with the price of everything way up, a little money goes a long way. No so with houses and farms!
Oh, I guess my first post went through despite the error message.
We sold our ranch six years ago. It was big enough to be sustainable and still have excess. Our problem was age.
My wife would tell me that I wasn’t 30 any more and it only took ten years for me to believe her.
We looked for a place to buy. It had to be close to town,
A minimum of 5 acres, a good well, and a place you wouldn’t
normally wouldn’t notice. By accident we found the place.
Six acres with everything and more.
We bought this small, hidden piece of land at the end of a dead end road that just happened to be right on the river. People in town who were raised here didn’t even know it existed. You need a minimum of one acre for a garden and it will take you a couple of years to get it going. It is a learned skill and if you think that you’re just going to go out there and plant some seeds and have enough for the winter, I’ve got a bridge to sell.
We can, freeze, and dry food. We have a huge pantry, a large basement, a well with the sweetest water in the world.
We are literally within walking distance to the hospital and
stores. We planted an orchard and it’s doing well. Plus,
we have two diesel generators and a 6kw Honda just in case.
We also downsized. We went from a 2,800 sq. ft. ranch home, with huge garage, out buildings, barn, loafing sheds,
to a 1400 sq ft home that is easy to handle. We gave away
6 truck loads of things to the local mission, took 3 16 ft.
trailer loads to the dump, and generally cleaned house.
We chose this area 16 years ago because the climate is
very similar to Napa valley, good hospitals, great farms
and ranches, accessibility to airports and I-5.
So I guess we’ve already moved to Oil city.
Nice to hear from you Rancher…Just went through town on my way back from Brookings last week…Maybe next trip we can meet in town for some coffee…
It would be my pleasure and I’ll host.
email me at dbmc@budget.net
Ok, here’s an idea - sort of along the lines of ‘tell us about the local market’ or whatever -
We have enough geographical diversity at HBB to kick off neighborhood tours all around the country. E.g., take an AMTRAK en masse, using one of those unlimited nationwide train passes. Stop off in the location closest to the HBB author domicile. Rent an Enterprise RentaCar or van for a day. Follow the email directions of the HBB author/authoress on the route to take for representative scenery/views, or pick up said author/authoress. Run ‘em and gun ‘em, town by town, over the period of the AMTRAK train pass.
Well, I didn’t say it was a FEASIBLE idea, a FRUGAL idea, or even a GOOD idea. I only couched it as “AN” idea.
That’s great you found a combination of smaller home on more acreage like that in town. Most of what was built here is on postage stamp lots; even the larger homes. Unfortunatly if you opt for land there is probably some monster home on it. 4000+ sq ft and up niche. It is different in the surrounding towns if I wanted to change schools. But then I’m getting out into fuel and time back and forth to grocers/work.
Thank you for the nice details in your post. I found them most helpful.
“My wife would tell me that I wasn’t 30 any more and it only took ten years for me to believe her.”
Awesome, awesome line. Write a memoir and open with this sentence, please!
Scraping boot toe in the dirt and with eyes downcast in an absolutely disgusting display of false modesty and trying to give the impression of an embarrassed bumpkin.
I tried my version of the Oil City plan. I moved to rural Japan with the idea that I would start farming. I met a few foreigners like me out here. They all had farms, some they even built themselves.
A truth that all the local farmers who’d moved away already knew slowly dawned on us: Farming Sucks. You can’t pay the bills with it, you’re far, far away from the things that many of us enjoy in life, and we were dooming our children to a life of hard, menial work, low pay, and provincialism in an increasingly dynamic and changing world.
Also, the nuclear reactor taught us that nowhere is far away enough from modern problems when things go wrong.
So now I’m moving back to NYC. My new oil city plan is this: Enjoy life, one day at a time, take in all the modern conveniences that I can, spend time with family, friends, watch movies, go camping, eat good food, go to museums.
If the shit hits the fan, I’ll die off along with about 5 billion of my closest friends.
If the shit doesn’t hit the fan, I enjoyed my time and got my son educated in the meantime. I can always enjoy nature and gardening as a hobby, and not spend my time working out various end of the world scenarios.
Also, it seems that when planning for the future, different plans are mutually exclusive. You can either plan for the world to end, and hope for the best, or you can plan for a retirement and time with family, friends, and a modern career. It’s impossible to do both unless you’re rich.
Knockwurst, how incredibly courageous of you and your family to do that! What is the back story? When did you leave? How long did you stay there? I caught your post awhile back, where you recapped your thought process in making the economic calculation of ‘NYC vs. not-NYC’.
You speak an eternal truth: living as a going concern - with jobbe (if you are fortunate enough to have one in this economy), close enough to engage regularly with friends and family - is generally at odds with heading for the hills and assuming the self reliant lifestyle with mindfulness as a tenet.
The way an Oil City (any rural) alternative might work is if - as you say - you are wealthy enough to support both places now against a time you might need to abandon one of them later. A hard nut for almost everybody that is not part of the vampire squid class. Even then, it doesn’t work unless both partners are unified in purpose and are making an informed choice. For most people, it is difficult to split your focus that way, between two centers of gravity, if you are living a fully engaged life. If your domicile is just a ‘thing’ into which you plop yourself now and again, it’s very likely a different matter. I wouldn’t know.
It seems quite a few folks thought to do this after the mergers-and-acquisition era, when bonuses for the squid were as numerous as they are today. Quite a few went into the B&B business, buying up ‘picturesque’ places in upstate New York where one partner stayed during the week while the other returned to strive on manfully as a member of the BSD class. (BSD = ‘ Big Swinging D-’). The way RAL ™ (formerly Exeter) has recounted it here, the wives went batty without having anybody to impress.
The husbands caught on, within a year or two, that no amount of decorating was ever going to make the B&B pass as a tourist destination unless the whole town rose first and pulled the shack up with it. Meanwhile, the shack sucked money, although that probably was a secondary concern.
But what you did is epic. Just think - your choices have vastly increased your family’s share of capital in intellect, resilience and agility! How many children ever have an opportunity to understand the full spectrum of life - from mindful tending of a small farm in another culture, to the diversity of experience in NYC?
You may not be able to measure it now. But you have given your children a third eye, another perspective from which to appraise the choices they will have in life. This rich understanding will multiply its benefits over time. As Cody Lunden says, “The more you know, the less you need”.
(Said from the perspective of an erstwhile hippy bookworm, who has never actually made the time or had the dough to stray from an unimaginative path. I think it was In Colorado who described the model perfectly: strive mightily to get the Ivy League stripe, know it will produce entry points for interviews and jobz, knowing also that you will never be invited to sit with the top caste, and understanding that you now have a permanent shot at the hamster wheel).
But honestly, as long as I was in the company of the people from ‘that’ caste, I can truly say that I was not scr#wed as many others have been. On the contrary, the worst treatment I have ever experienced is the seething resentment of the ignorant. It really IS a class thing.
(This, of course, is why I call them all jobbes and jobz, rent my behaviour with vigor abandon, and prefer to view it all with a jaded eye.)
“A truth that all the local farmers who’d moved away already knew slowly dawned on us: Farming Sucks. You can’t pay the bills with it, you’re far, far away from the things that many of us enjoy in life, and we were dooming our children to a life of hard, menial work, low pay, and provincialism in an increasingly dynamic and changing world.”
Right. A total collapse means those farming without metal tools or machines will survive, and no one else will. With an intermediate collapse there are better options.
Paid off rowhouse in NYC. Solar electric power. Bicycle to work and much else. Good water out of the tap. Strong neighborhood keeps out the crime.
If worst came to worst, all I would really need to buy is food.
Wow! I went to a non-resort resort this weekend and Escaped the Heat!
I thought to write about this because Doghouse Riley posted that he is in the Appalachian foothills of WV. Sounds like a really nice setup, too!
Anyway, I had thought to go check out a place that is talked about on the aging-hippie-intellectual grapevine around here: it is about 150 miles away near Mount Storm Lake, a place that is a destination swimming hole in the winter because of 90 degree water: effluent from the power plant. Lake supports clean water fishies, though, according to reports.
This place is about 2500 feet up, and is alongside a creek about which I read coupla years ago - it used to be acidic, but got the EPA approved lime treatment some time after that enviro-alert. So, I talked a reluctant fellow techie comrade into coming along for the ride. It was a delightful place, and I am happy to report data points: 150 miles northwest of DC Metro, with 2400 ft higher elevation, without the asphalt heat sink, produces a minus 13 degree (that is -13 Fahrenheit) temperature differential during the hottest part of the day. That is to say, 90 degrees vs. 103 degrees reported by weather dot com down here. We only went for the day trip - the cabins and camp sites were fully booked up, as is the case any time there is a hot weather alert. Further, both of us are skeptical about new places.
Despite skepticism, it was worth the trip, because now I feel it is a ‘familiar’ place and will feel comfortable just heading up there by myself next time I feel like a getaway that isn’t overrun.
The creek was at low water, and quite rocky, and relatively shallow - maybe 18 inches in the deepest places between the boulders that I explored in my trusty amphibious sandals. The minnows were larger than the ones in the local creeks back in CT, maybe two inches long and quite plump. Ten of those would have made quite the adequate “Dual Survival” -type dinner. You know, a la Cody Lunden. My favorite aging hippy.
Little known fact: one excellent function of minnows is their purposeful nibbling cleans off skin infections. Mosquito bites? Poison Oak? Bramble scratches? No matter. Stick those feet into a nice clear stream, and never mind the minnows. Half an hour later, head back to your comfy camp chair (or nice rock with your sleeping pad on it as cushioning, or whatever) and break out a brewsi from the cooler (or take a few lingering sips of some of that high quality Mex stuff from the plastic bottle in your backpack, into which you have decanted it to save weight - you know, that has come to substitute for Tequila, but which if it is the aged good stuff is much much smoother), sigh happily, and head back into the stream. It was nice to have some unpurposeful conversation, wander aimlessly through the paper, take some middle aged catnaps in the comfy camp chair under the trees and in the breeze, and loaf back into the stream every now and again. Next day, there will be no sign of previously scratchy mosquito bites, poison oak or brambles. Scout’s honor!
This was a quite serendipitous finding on my part ages ago, on long walks through woods with my current Akita on stultifying summer days.
Boy oh boy am I chatty today. $20K OIL CITY SPECIAL!!
Here is one of those $20K Oil City houses! Also on the southside, south of the Allegany River. It’s on Fifth Street. It looks like Oil City follows the South American plan - the higher up on the hill, the less desirable, the more humble the people who live there. Fifth street follows the curve of the river above the shore. Lower down are first, second, third, fourth and fifth streets. Way up overlooking the town is another street, reputedly, which has gorgeous old houses. I did not know about them when I made my lightning dash.
http://tinyurl.com/4yzqjxl
So, here is a location model where the more prosperous are lower down in altitude, close to downtown and the shore. My hypothesis: the prosperous will congregate around the “views”, bluffs and high ground. At least for housing stock built after petroleum transformed our way of life. For housing stock built BEFORE the petroleum age, the prosperous will have plopped themselves near to the sources of their wealth. The counting houses and wharves, and such, leaving the rabble to walk by foot through filthy streets to cramped quarters further distant.
Does that model fit Back Bay? Or San Francisco? New York has been paved over and rebuilt six ways till Sunday since the merchant ship age, so it doesn’t count, I don’t think.
Jane, thanks for your kind words. We did have a heck of a time, and learned a lot, and I was quite humbled by the whole experience, which is always good.
A lot of the other “back to the land” foreigners nearby are bailing as well. It’s funny how life is.
So, the back story is that I volunteered years ago on an organic farm through an organization called WOOOF. It stands for “World Wide Opportunities On Organic Farms”.
Basically, if you want to go anywhere in the world and work on a farm, you sign up with WOOOF, and they give you a list of farms that take volunteers. You find a farm you like, email them, and then work something out. Usually you work 5 or 6 , six hour days a week, and they give you room and board.
I did that in Japan with my family and had a really great time. It was so fun that I thought I wanted to live that way. What I learned is that a month’s vacation just about anywhere is fun, and living that way is not fun.
I got a job teaching English in rural Japan. I even made a video that got into the NY Times website:
http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/show-us-your-city-sean-sakamotos-walking-tour-of-gujo-hachiman/
I looked around for farms and rented some land here, but, as I said, it was too hard.
I do heartily recommend WOOOFing though, if you ever want a fun way to see a country it’s a cheap and wonderful thing to do, and a great way to make friends.
Thanks again for your nice comments. I enjoy your posts on here.