Hello everyone,
My name is Craig, and I had found Ayn Rand years ago. Started with Atlas Shrugged, then The Fountainhead, and had to read them all. I immediately became a Libertarian.
Then, a couple of years ago, I found Mises and Rothbard. There was no turning back after that. I am now a full fledged Anarchist/Voluntaryist. I have made a great many mistakes in life, as have most, and now see the errors of my thinking, and consequentially, my behavior.
I want to live as free as I possibly can, and yearn to be surrounded by like minded people. My wife and I plan on moving to N.H. in about a year. We would now, but need to get some things in order before we do. I would certainly appreciate any and all assistance in the transition.
We came across this forum while looking on the FSP website. I would enjoy being part of your community. Thanks everyone in advance.
Welcome, Craig!
To where are you considering moving in the Shire? Let us know how we can help.
We are actually not sure yet. We would eventually like to find a place that has a little land that we can farm, and make ourselves as self sufficient as possible. Not looking for neighbors 3 feet away. Just putting our feelers out at the moment. Find out about things. Jobs that are usually available, cost of housing, etc. And thank you!
Welcome to the forum! As a new mover myself I can tell you that this community has been very helpful and accommodating.
Hi Craig. Iâm Michael. Our family of four moved to Alstead NH in 2011. Since then Alstead & Langdon, which share the same zip code, has had multiple FSP families move into town. A couple business owners, a school teacher and a few farmers. By my current count around 14 not including their kids. Just this past weekend we helped a new FSP family put up their Yurt on their new 20 acre plot.
The natives have been friendly and compassionate to our cause to protect liberty. When you visit NH please check out Alstead. There are regular meetups at the local FSP bbq restaurant. Any questions you might have Iâm happy to answer if I can. Best of luck to you and yours!
Welcome to the Shire forum. Atlas Shrugged and Rothbard would do that to it. âYour brain on Rothbard.â I love it. For as small as this forum is itâs helped more the FSP forum has, for me anyway. Hopefully you get all the advice you can get here.
Welcome home
Hi Michael,
Thank you so much for your offer of assistance. It is much appreciated. My wife is actually a teacher as well. I am sure we will be picking your brain before long. This next year will be a tumultuous one for us as we need to extricate ourselves from some âstatistâ entanglements, and build our financial nest egg for the move. I appreciate you reaching out.
Craig
Hi Kenny,
Hahaha. âYour brain on Rothbard.â That gave me a chuckle. Youâre not kidding. Woke me up like so quickly that I almost didnât know how to react. Got furious at first, then started looking for ways of how to change it. I think this is a beautiful idea, and I will be joining you and our fellow liberty lovers as soon as I can. We just need one more year unfortunately. I am sure I will be picking your brain, as well as others in the near future. Thanks for reaching out, and remember⌠âTaxation is theft!â
Craig
Thank you Starrychloe! We will be home as soon as we can!
welcome
Brain-picking is fun. Yeah, I know the feeling about saving money - Iâd already been there a couple years ago if not for that. Hope to see you up there.
Iâll be up there. Itâs a done deal. I just canât deal with statists anymore. It takes every ounce of energy that I have to not go full psycho on them as it is now. I understand that you canât fix stupid, but damn⌠Sincerely happy at the prospect of living in a community that sees what I see, and refuses to abide by it anymore. Iâll be there brother. Connect with me anytime. I get choked up just thinking about where I am going to be in a year. Pure awesomeness. We may plan a trip up there this summer. Any ideaâs of where we might go for a couple days? Any events, or people you suggest we meet? Besides you? lol
Thank you sir! Extremely liberty minded here as well. I believe in TOTAL freedom btw. As long as I donât hurt another individual, I should be able to do what the fuck I want.
Hi, Iâm from the Keene area and Iâd 2nd the suggestion at looking at Alstead if you want to be around other principled libertarians and voluntaryists and get some cheap land to live off for farming (Iâm not a farmer mind you). There are lots of people up in Alstead and south of Alstead (20-25 min or so) is Keene, NH. Keene is the biggest âcityâ nearby with lots of shops and things. Alstead has a gun shop and a BBQ place and a laundry matte. I think there is one other bigger employer in Alstead. There is also Concord and Manchester semi-nearby. Concord is like an hour 10 min from Alstead and Manchester an hour 20 min. Keene has some employment opportunities. There are insurance jobs in Keene and a company that does something with managing groceries for the north east. This is not a grocery store in Keene- but like headquarters or something. There are lots of grocery store jobs, a walmart, etc too. There is PC connection. Apparently they do something with manufacturing motherboards (? having a hard time understanding what they do cause nothing is really manufactured in the US and apparently they send the motherboards away to China to be finished). There are also a number of restaurants in Keene. We have a bunch of technical people living in Keene. Three are working directly in tech (one software developer, another does a help desk sort of job, Iâm CEO of a tech company, another is a data scientist or something like that at the grocery- and I think there is another person doing something similar at that company), and we had another person who was technical whose doing help desk, and another whose done some other stuff, we have had a handful of other technical people, one technical person is running a store now, etc.
Cost of housing now⌠hmm I think that depends on what you plan to rent or buy. Itâs probably going to be cheaper in Alstead or anywhere outside (but near) Keene. The place I bought was a 3 bedroom ranch /w two car garage. That was around $200,000 USD which basically would have gone for $350,000 in New Jersey where Iâm from. With a mortgage and insurance youâd be looking at about $2,000 / month for my place. If youâre looking to rent a bedroom I think people are paying in the $400-700 range possibly with all utilities included, etc. And up to $1,200 for 4 bedroom apartment/house. 1 bedroom apartment might go for $700-1000 range. 2-4 bedroom $1,000-$1,200. This is Keene mind you. I would imagine Alstead is cheaper. Keene has higher property taxes than the surrounding areas. Itâs the one down side to Keene. Though the up side is living in New Hampshire and around here is pretty cheap compared to many parts of the country and there are good jobs available. We have people living in Keene making $12 / hour no problem. So unlike places out in say California/New Jersey/New York/Boston/etc you donât need six figures to survive here even if we have at least some people making six figures or close to six figures.
Probably the most successful people here financially speaking have jobs they work remotely or are otherwise in business for themselves. So for instance we have a security researcher here who does well for himself, I have a company I run, I know some people who have remote jobs (helpdesk, etc), another person does computer repair (this can actually be quite lucrative and bring in $65,000 / yr which is more than adequate to live well here in NH).
I think the real question is what skills do you and your partner have? Thatâs probably going to dictate employment opportunities. But even if you donât have much in the way of skills/education youâll probably still be able to do decently here. There are jobs that pay adequately for people who donât have much in the way of skills or education.
Iâd suggest checking out Somalia Fest and Porcfest. Somalia Fest is June 16th-20th and Porcfest is back to back with it June 21st-25th. Both events are held at the same camp ground (hotels nearby too) in Lancaster, NH. Best time to come up as there are thousands of people that merge together in one place from around the world/country/New Hampshire. Mind you that not everybody is as liberty-friendly so donât let the few infiltrators discourage you (95% are pretty darn liberty-minded, but you can catch a few republicans in attendance for political purposes that when questioned want to utilize violence against peaceful people, I always ask âdo you want a closed board or an open boarder?â cause a closed boarder means a dependence on violence against peaceful people to keep some people out). There is a reason Somalia Fest got started by a different group of people. We liked the old Porcfest better (more freedom/liberty and âfamily friendlyâ didnât mean catering to statists or religious zealots).
If you come up outside of this time period Iâd suggest checking out Concord, Manchester, and Keene. And maybe Alstead if you come up on the last Thursday of the month. Youâll see the different styles of living up here. From city conditions to towns to villages. All these places are within an hour 1/2 and nearly all of the population is centred in the southern part of New Hampshire. Outside of Porcfest/Somalia Fest there are very few people up north. There are some- but it seems most donât even know the few liberty-minded neighbours that they have and I know that at least some regret having gone so far north that they have few if anybody to interact with. In comparison there is a lot going on in the south. Particularly Alstead, Keene, Concord, and Manchester. Keene is probably the most active in terms of activism (weâre frequently got more people from Keene at the state house for instance than anywhere else for instance, we have people who cop chase near every weekend, etc), but there are more people in Manchester. Manchester and Concord have social clubs that weâre lacking at the moment in Keene, but we have more events and stuff going on near us. Like for instance Social Sunday, Taco Tuesday, weekly Bitcoin meetups/activism, Bacon Breakfist Wensday, and nearby there is Thirsty Thursday. Those are just social gatherings mostly with one focused a bit on activism. We have also had a cop chaser/ cop block meet up or two. There is also a Western NH Libertarian party meetup once a month. Then there are other events and things going on like protests, rallies, carpools to the state house to testify on proposed legislation, etc.
Thatâs pretty much what my partner and I are hoping: good-paying jobs fairly quickly. Weâre both hard-workers with rigid work ethics. A working manâs PhD? If those kinds of jobs are easy to get then weâll struggle financially for a few weeks until we find a home rental or trailer.
Whatâs funny, is that Kentucky statists weâre surrounded by say New Hampshire is expensive to live (but then gasp in disbelief about the lack of most taxes other states have, such as the income and sales taxes).
What sort of work r yâall doing? And you said âtrailerâ. You mean like a mobile home? Unless you want to love the oil company then avoid mobile home living in NH. At least any older ones. Winters here ainât no joke. I lived in trailers in NC and can say first hand you DO NOT want to live in one here unless its a necessity. That said they are around.
Cost of living here is higher in my experience. That said so are the wages. Property taxes are far higher than what youâd expect to pay down south. We have a $90K property and the yearly ransom is $2400. Thatâs cheap by comparison.
The average âcheapâ rental cost in Alstead is $600 - $800 and thatâs sort of slumming it. We found to get what we were used to in NC we needed to spend $1200 per month.
Work-wise weâll do pretty much anything. Right now, sheâs a nurse aid (CNA) and Iâm a housekeeper and dietary aid at a health center that is like a five-star hotel to the residents. Weâve both worked in plenty of factories both through temp agencies and hire-ons, sheâs done a lot of CNA work and some construction, and Iâve done a lot of work in fast food, customer service, and industrial cleaning.
Skills worth mentioning: we both cook well (she specialized in Hawaiian food and I specialize in chili and burgers), she knows cars/mechanics and driving (sheâs been a bus driver), among other skills, and I write and donât think Iâm âtoo goodâ for any work.
For the heating thing I hope not to do mobile homes, but if thatâs what we can do weâll do it. We have no doubt weâll find work, itâs just finding a place at first that is the issue. Personally, Iâd live in the car if I have to. Yeah, property is more expensive in New England - but thatâs to be expected - but in the long run itâd be worth it.
Weâve found good deals, but we have a house-broken lapdog we canât and wonât give up. Sadly, most landlords have a âno pets allowedâ policy for the good deals.
When do you anticipate arrival? Sorry if youâve said this somewhere already.