I am a 23M zoo-exclusive who is attracted to horses (mares and stallions) and other large farm animals. I am currently in college and live in a city.
Nobody in my family is a farmer or owns horses, I grew up in the suburbs. Thankfully, my parents are well off financially, so once I discovered my affection for horses I was able to take riding lessons, and have since become an avid equestrian. I even worked at a stable one summer, so I'm not totally inexperienced when it comes to horses.
Still though, it is my ultimate dream to one day own my own farm with plenty of horses, and each day I spend in my cramped apartment without horses in my life makes me more and more depressed.
Are there any older zoos who have a similar experience, who grew up in the city/suburbs but one day achieved their dream of owning their own farm?
I haven't accomplished your dream, nor do I have an interest in horses, but...
It's far more attainable than you'd think, as someone who IS looking for rural land, I can tell you that.
So long as you're fine learning to do some investment into learning home repair, you can snag a property with a few acres for ~120k if you're willing to scrimp and save. Saving the initial 20-30k needed for the downpayment is your biggest concern.
From there, you basically only have to worry about more minor stuff.
Mortgages are going to be cheaper than rent, so you'll save money there.
You can plant and harvest with hand tools to save on food costs.
Buying the property is your only real time-hindering barrier and it's not as bad as you'd think, assuming you're dedicated.
I'm ~8k into my saving up for a more rural property for some privacy with dogs. I'm finding decent plots with ~1 acre that run for a good 150k with minimal need for repair, so long as I look Southern.
And if you want to lower that mortgage and the interest on it, I'd recommend getting your credit up. That's not hard either, with Auto-Pay on a lot of Credit Cards. I pay everything with them and because I get cashback, it actually SAVES me money. 1.5% on my Discover and I just set it to Auto-Pay before the interest kicks in.
I've got a Credit Score of 750 and a FICO of 735 and I've never owed anyone a dime nor have I once payed a penny in interest. All I did was get a bunch of cards with cashback and assigned them for different things. Discover is my Gas and Rent card. Walmart is Grocery. Capital One is Subscription Services. Amazon is LITERALLY only for prime since I order small things every few days as needed for repairing stuff.
All of these set to auto-pay.
Having a good FICO means cheap mortgage, which means you can pay off the house sooner and pay for a stable, fence and such for your horses. Then finally, get your horses.
Yours is a LOT more expensive than mine, but the leadup is similar and entirely possible. Don't give up hope.
Also, look into getting a Tax agent. If you fix up your house, you can likely claim a lot of the repairs on your taxes to get more money to pay off your Mortgage.
Say you repair the kitchen floor, and that costs you 2k in new tiling. You can get an estimate from several contractors in your area, and use that to justify 5-8k off because your personal time is free to you, but not to them. They have to pay their workers for their time and if YOU do the repairs yourself, you can pocket the difference and pump that into the Mortgage.
