### <center>It's decision time and I'm stuck on money, convenience and practicality!!!</center>
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![](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmUrtDx49ZAWQA7xxhTXP1PhfaQgT9HYKWAiacCraMteAY/image.png)

<center>*From fear of spending too much time and money...  I'm having a hard time deciding on a warm place to live in for next winter!*</center>



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### <center>Taxation is theft...</center>
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Ok, I can hear it all, *but how would we build roads*, and so on...  Well this is not quite what this post is about. Whatever side of the political circus you stand on, I'm pretty sure you would prefer to see less taxes being taken away from you, every time money moves in and out of your hands.  I've been researching different things lately, one of them has to do with [retiring early and becoming independently wealthy](https://steemit.com/wealth/@senorcoconut/going-down-that-rabbit-hole-of-wealth-building).  Every *money expert* I've been looking at have one thing in common and that is to use all the loop holes available to pay as little taxes as possible.  

When I look at my pay checks, the government takes roughly 30% of it.  That's enormous, I mean maybe people pay even more taxes in Europe, but 30% is still a huge number, especially in *the land of the free*.  If we wanna talk about taxation a little, I'm sure not much of it goes to things other than *war related* politics. 

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### Making a decision
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I get stuck pretty often on making decisions, especially those that involve a commitment.  There are a couple of things I'm thinking of for next year's winter dwelling.  All the factors that make up this decisions are driving me nuts!

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*  **The building types**.  I want to have structures built out of mostly natural materials and I want them to be mostly without hard corners... I like the curves, like a river, it flows so smoothly because of of its soft turn.

* **The location**.  There are a few places we would like to live on this 19 acre parcel, some are reserved for certain types of buildings, each having their own practicality.

* **Time and Convenience**.  We decided I would only work as little as possible to keep our heath insurance on the super cheap side of life (for the US).  I work a little over two hours away, so I play *weekend warrior* for a couple months every six months. In return, we get a lot of time together, being home, therefore having more time to [build our dream homestead](https://steemit.com/permaculture/@senorcoconut/the-homestead-with-anarchist-tendencies).  That still only gives us a few months to plan, build and grow into a successful homestead.  

* **Money**.  I would like to find ways to pay as little real estate taxes as I can for as long as I can on this property, with more financial capital in hand we'll can dig a well for example!.  For now, whatever building we chose to build, it needs to be filed under some sort of *art space*, *barn*, or some kind of *equipment shed*.  I know, I know...  who would pay for the public school system if no one paid their taxes.  But I only plan on deferring higher real estate taxes imposed on *real homes*, a little while.  I wish I could defer it for ever but you know, we also must protect ourselves too!


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### And that's where I get stuck.
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We were able to narrow down the idea down to a small timber frame cabin, in the woods with an awesome mountain view or a large equipment shed/barn near the north east corner of the property where we want our *MakerSpace* to be.

With a small family of three, it's easy enough to live in a tiny house, so if we chose the *barn*, we could make part of it into a real cozy little winter home, up in the hights of a 24' by 48' structure.  I found timber frame kit company called [The Jamaica Cottage Shop](https://jamaicacottageshop.com), they  use locally sourced wood (the north east region of north America), which made our decision to work with them easy, and their prices made it even easier.

I know you must be laughing, a 48' barn may not qualify as tiny living...  but the apartment in it would be pretty small because I'm not really looking to insulate the whole structure, not yet at least.  That barn, the whole timber frame structure with the roof and siding goes for around 15 thousand bucks.  I can probably source most of the material for building out an apartment for a 3rd of the typical price.  

Here's the photo, bellow on the left:

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The photo to the right of the barn is the 20' by 30' cabin.  That one, with a four season package goes for a little over 30 thousand dollars, probably without the porches.  That's where the convenience and time thing comes into play.  We would still have to put either structure together one our own time and labor, but with this little cabin, everything but the interior layout is ready to go.  

### Making sense of all this...hmmmm!  
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Well ok, let's see the Barn, costs less and perhaps in the end would cost about the same as the cabin.  It will probably take us longer to build but we also would have a massive space for art, yoga, gatherings and workshops away from the rain in the warmer months.  It could very well take the place of that *MakerSpace* we want to have too.  The apartment could become artist living spaces, studios or offices once we build our earthship.  

Remember I mentioned some areas are reserved for other structures?  Well yeah, we want to build an earthship, and we already know where it will be,  there are other parts of the property we are saving for different natural building *workshops* to come.  

@Eco-Alex, I will always think of you now, anytime I talk about earthships, thanks for your inspiration! And for all you who don't know what an earthship is, check out [Earthship Karuna](https://steemit.com/earthship/@eco-alex/the-big-reveal-earthship-karuna-is-complete-the-remarkable-diary-of-an-eco-builder-part-11) to get an idea of what these homes are about.

The little cabin, while it may just be more about convenience, it may also be the better option when it come to managing our precious time.  Like I was saying before, it comes practically built and fully insulated.  All we would need is a kitchen, a lofted bedroom and a bathroom.  If we cant pull through the full build, we can live in an open space o problem, giving us time to work on other projects without the worry of *Old Man Winter* coming to bite us in the ass too much!

Come to think of it, in case we don't finish the apartment in the barn, we could pull out trailer into it , close the big garage doors with some sort of see through plastic or windows and voila...  *old man winter* would be out of luck with this solution too!

We will still need to figure out a water system, sort our electrical system and keep in mind that either structure we chose to build will still need a building permit and therefore proper footing/foundation.  There are many hidden costs I can't even think of but I'm ready for them.  And you know if we can avoid having that *elevated tax rate* of *proper dwellings*, we can offset other building costs.  

**Personally I would love to chose a smaller timber frame with a roof, than use strawbales, natural plasters and paints.... but again, comfort vs time...  The sooner we can be living full time on this property, the sooner we can create a *School for Natural Building Techniques*.**

### Now the question I ask you is, what would you do?  I really take your advice to heart, I consider a lot of you my mentors in this world of modern homesteading, and I want to thank you in advance for all your help.  
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