For instance, I was never particularly interested in high profit (that requires scale). I instead targeted minimal work and small income.

My one suggestion is to buy land with a house already on it. My land is not near my house, I planned on building a house on the land but it’s is a huge pain as it’s off grid. I’m slowly completing the necessary pieces.

I think you’d be best off scaling out slowly. Depending on what you want to do, you can often lease land. I found several farms already leasing their land and attempted to purchase (they fell through). When you try to start yourself there’s a lot of startup costs (hundreds of thousands). To mitigate that you can get 100 acres, lease 95 of it (someone else will farm it) and start small.

What I did required me to put all the money upfront and learn in real time. Much harder and imo not for the faint of heart.

Biggest thing that helped me was getting to know all the neighbors and meeting them ahead of time. Find a good community that’ll help (obviously you have to help back).