How to Start a homestead from scratch

The short and simple would be to make a budget, check the laws and plan…

My Story

So how do you start a homestead from scratch? Well, let me start by telling you a little bit of my story. I grew up in the country and my mom had animals and a garden. I never really helped her much and really did not care for it at all, I was to cool for that, ya know what I mean? For the first few years of my marriage, I lived in the city. It was then that I realized I hated the city and could not wait to move back to the country. Not that I was ever one of those kids that had to get out of the country life but I just did not realize how much I missed it until I was gone. It sounds silly but I felt so suffocated in the city and got this feeling that I could not breathe. The country is so open and refreshing.

Anyway…

…finally, my little family and I moved back to the country and got our own house. It only has 2 acres, but we love it. We actually never planned to start a homestead it just kind of happened. My husband was into prepping and I personally did not want to prep and save a bunch of stuff that would just go bad. When I was little we had a scare called Y2K, my parents got all these buckets full of food and of course, nothing happened and we had all this food that we could not even eat through. So as I started thinking about it I decided that it made much more sense to become as self-sufficient as possible. I wanted to have animals and produce for us and that would continue to sustain us. That way we can take care of ourselves if something big happened and if nothing happens nothing is going to go to waste and we will still use all the things we grow and raise.

We started small…

and continue to add things to our homestead each year. My husband works outside of the home so we can’t get too big to fast because he is not around to do it full time. I have been amazed at what we have been able to do in such a short time and never dreamed we would be able to do so much on our own. I thought to homestead and becoming self-sufficient would be so hard and time-consuming. But I have been really surprised at what we have done for way less work then I thought. As far as finances, we have taken it slow and do what we can afford. The great thing is that if you do things yourself it is very affordable. If you are interested in learning more about the finances of a homestead check out my post here.

As I said I never thought I liked being in the garden or raising animals that much. I never cared about it growing up and actually hated the fact that my mom made me work on a farm. But the crazy thing is I have come to love all of it. I find it really relaxing to take care of my garden and be outside. Spring has just sprung for us here and I am so happy to be outside getting my garden going again. It is extremely rewarding to grow and raise my own food and I love that I can feed my family with such good healthy food. I feel that our culture had gotten away from hard work and the fulfillment of working for ourselves. I want to bring that back not only for myself but really for my kids.

My goal…

of homesteading is obviously becoming self-sufficient but also I want to raise kids that know how to take care of themselves, have a great work ethic and know where their food comes from. I want to raise kids that are not entitled and that can fend for themselves. But enough of my story I want to help YOU start a homestead from scratch. Below are my tips for you as you begin to convert your family to a better and healthier lifestyle. It is hard at times but I promise you will not regret it.

Benefits

Before we dive in I want a share a few of the benefits of homesteading. These are the reasons I want to homestead. But feel free to start making a list for yourself. What makes you want a homestead? Why does homesteading have you excited? What is YOUR reason?

• Self-Sufficiency

As I said My husband & I want to be as self-sufficient as possible. We don’t want to fully rely on anyone else to fill our needs. Did you know that if something big happened and the trucks of food could not be delivered, the grocery stores would be empty in 3 days? 3 days!! And most people do not have any extra food. Now I don’t know that something big is going to happen but It is not a bad idea to be prepared and have your bases covered. I believe that it is my job to take care of my family an I want to be prepared for anything. Now don’t let this scare you or be a burden. Just do your best to be thinking about ways you can be more prepared.

If you want s few ways to have food stocked before your homestead gets going I would recommend getting some food in bulk. You can get beans, rice, oatmeal etc. But again get things that your family is actually going to eat. We get things in bulk and start eating it so that we can rotate through it.

• Health

This point is huge for me. We seriously have no clue what we are feeding our bodies most of the time. I have seen a few videos of how our food is made and processed and it is enough to make you sick for weeks. Even when we buy “natural” or “organic” foods we still don’t know exactly how they are grown and raised. The standards that our foods have to go through are pathetically low. So if you can do it yourself, it is so much better! When we do things ourselves we know what is happening each step of the way. We can choose if we want to use chemicals or not. We can choose what the animals are being fed Etc.

• Work Ethic

Having your own homestead is a great way to instill a good work ethic for yourself and your kids. I feel that our culture is lacking greatly in this area and I want my kids to know what it is like to have to work hard. Personally, I don’t want my kids always taking the easy way out. They need to know that if they want good things they will have to work hard for it. I want to get rid of the entitlement that our kids think they have. I will be the “mean mom” that makes them work hard and that’s okay! My mom was the “mean mom” an I appreciate her for that now that I am an adult.

• Learning

I can’t even begin to tell you how much I have learned from having my homestead. It is so good for us to grow and raise our own food and see what goes into the process. We become so much more appreciative when we see the hard work that goes into it. I don’t ever want to stop learning. Believe it or not, we can be our own teachers. We can decide we want to learn something and go for it.

I am against the college “scene” and people think that I am against learning. But that is not the case at all. I love learning and encourage everyone to continue it on their own. When it comes to the homestead I push myself to keep learning and trying new things. To find ways to make the food better or new ways to save money. No matter what it is I strive to not stay “comfortable”.

Starting your homestead

Now, like I said, I am a small homesteader. If you are looking to quit your job and go into homesteading full time you might want to take these steps a little more in depth. I am just sharing with you how I started and how I slowly am growing my homestead. These are things that were helpful to me as I got started. Like I said I just kinda jumped in and learned as I went but I wanted to do my best to help others as they got started on their journey.

Budget

First of all, you need to think about what you want on your homestead and compare that with your family budget. If you can’t do everything the first year don’t worry. Take your time and add things in slowly. Look at your list and see what things you want or need to do first and go with that. For example, having a garden is very cheap and can make a huge impact.

You can preserve so many things for the next year from your garden and this will help your budget immensely. If you need help planning a garden for canning check out my post.

I am a budget person and love putting ours together. I blame that on my parents who both are accountants and love math. Don’t be overwhelmed by a budget it really is not that hard and we have so many great resources now thanks to the internet. If you need a little help in the budget area I got you covered. I explain it a little more in-depth here.

Check the laws

Depending on your area there might be laws pertaining to starting a homestead. I would look into them so that you are not surprised when you are in the middle of starting your homestead.

It’s a bummer when you start a project and run into problems down the road. Most likely if you are out in the country you should be fine. But you never want to assume. So it is always safe to just look into it.

Plan

Now that you know what you can afford to do that year you can begin to plan. If you decided to start with a garden then you can go ahead and plan out your garden on paper. Draw up where you want your plants and so forth. I like to just draw up a little blueprint for my garden. If you like to just wing it that’s fine too. I have totally done that before. I have just bought the seeds and planted them from there.

If you decided to start with animals start doing your research on what you will all need to do to get prepared for them. For example, with chickens, I would be preparing a couple months ahead of time. You will need a little more for them then you would a garden so I would start researching and seeing exactly what you will need.

Make Connections

I would strongly recommend that you make connections with local farmers and other homesteaders. They will be a great resource for you as you begin your journey. They will be able to answer questions and might even be able to help you with where and how to get the things you will need to begin.

My favorite thing to do is make connections with older farmers. They are a wealth of knowledge and so interesting to spend time with.

Don’t get overwhelmed

Do your best to not get stressed out. The point of the homestead is to simplify your life. If it is causing you to be stressed out, you are causing the opposite effect of what you were going for. That is part of the reason we started small. If I would have done everything the first year I would be losing my marbles. I am so thankful for how we did it. This way I can learn slowly and enjoy the process.

Google it

We have this great thing called the internet. I promise it will be your best friend. If you have any questions along the way I am sure you can find the answer online. If I can’t figure something out that is my go-to!

Listen

I have a tendency to do things my own way even when I am told differently. I would suggest that you don’t do that. Here is a good example… When it comes to raising chickens each chicken needs a certain amount of space. I thought that I could cram 65 chickens in a space that was only big enough for 25. How did that work? Well, I ended up with meat chickens that weighed 2 lbs…

…Yeah. Turns out people know what they’re talking about. When people have done something before and have been successful it turns out it is for your good to listen to them. Common sense huh?

Get Started

Once you have figured out what you are ready for……. DO IT! You won’t learn until you start doing. When the season comes around to get your animals, plant your garden Etc. If you keep putting it off you will just continue to put off your learning. You are going to make mistakes….and that is okay! That is how you learn. Stop making excuses and go for it. Like I said I don’t have much land but I am making the most out of what I have.

It is crazy what you can do on 2 acres of land. Just imagine how cool it would be if all of those who have just a few acres would use that land to feed their family.

Write things down

Try your best to keep track of what you are doing. Write down what you planted and what you want to plant again next year. Write down what things worked and what did not so that you don’t have to make the same mistakes twice. This is a downfall of mine and I need to get better at it, so I don’t keep repeating the same mistakes.

I used to be so organized. I need to get back to that. What you could do is get a binder and have a section for each thing you are doing. You can continue to add notes as you learn new things. Kind of make your own book. I am old fashioned and like seeing things on paper, but you can totally just keep it all in a folder on the computer as well.

Keep Learning

As I mentioned you will continue to learn each year as you make mistakes and as you do things the way you like. I personally love to learn from “doing”. But I would also recommend that you learn through books, videos, and other homesteaders. If you know anyone who has a farm or a homestead spend some time with them. Learn how they do things and if you could implement some of the same ideas. Use the internet to your advantage and search for anything you can’t figure out. The internet is such a great resource and it has never been easier for us to get answers. But books are not out of style. If you are working on a certain project I would suggest having the proper books as a reference point.

If you have any other ideas that I forgot to mention please let me know in the comments.

Happy Homesteading!

~Courtney