Homesteader Living: 12 Top Tips for Homestead Beginners

Lateet March 18, 2019

Starting out as a homesteader may seem completely overwhelming. How do you transition from a life of luxury and travel or simple comforts such as a flushing toilet? Slowly is key.

While advice from family and friends may be of some help in the beginning, too much information can also be detrimental to your homesteading journey.

To help you become a homesteader, here are 12 essential pieces of advice to take with you into your new way of life.

Become a Homesteader With These 12 Simple Tips

When you just start out on your journey you’ll soon realize there’s much to learn. And just when you thought you had the hang of things, something will come up and throw you off course.

This is not to put you off – this is just the reality of the journey. The key to making a success of homesteading is to let go of your innate urge to control every aspect of your life.

What works for one homestead, may not work for you. It’s all about giving yourself time to learn and grow and then reap the rewards!

Use these tips to help you along the way:

1. Start With Baby Steps

There’s no use in rushing off and buying a huge piece of land that you don’t know how to cultivate. Start off with smaller, baby steps and begin homesteading in your own back yard.

No matter how small your backyard is, you’ll need to try your hand at growing your own produce. Turn your garden into a vegetable, herb, and fruit patch with containers and vertical gardening tactics.

Alternatively, try your hand at community gardening and set yourself up a patch of vegetables to cultivate. By the time you look into purchasing your own land for homesteading, you’ll have a good idea of how to work the land.

If you plan on keeping livestock on your land, start with smaller critters such as bees, rabbits, and chickens. Learn the ins and outs of keeping them alive and thriving before moving onto larger livestock.

2. Be Reasonable About Your Goals

Avoid frustration and giving up on your homesteading dreams by setting realistic goals for the size and type of homestead you plan to run.

If you take on too much in the beginning, you’ll feel stretched too thin and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work to be done.

Set your sights on attainable goals for each season, instead of stretching your efforts across too many projects.

3. Make Provisions for Backup Income

The ultimate goal of homesteading is to be 100% self-sustainable i.e. not require money or an income to support your lifestyle. But let’s be honest, this is not always realistic. Life happens, accidents happen, people get sick.

Make sure you have some form of backup income for when you need it- especially during the transition period to a homesteading lifestyle.

Take a look at how you live and what your family enjoys. If you’re not willing to fully give up those things, then backup income will be necessary.

4. Settle Your Debt

If possible, you’ll need to establish a plan to settle your debts before transitioning to homesteading. The point of a homestead lifestyle is to detach from money and how it controls our lives. And debt is one of the greatest money traps of our time.

Even if you cannot pay off all your debt, make provision for it and set aside some money to ensure your debts are covered during your homesteading transition.

5. Keep a Close Eye on Expenses

This is a major consideration when purchasing land for your homestead. You’ll need to think about whether you want to buy the land with cash and build on it with cash. Or whether you’ll buy an established home on a piece of land and pay off a mortgage.

Take into consideration how you’ll pay off this mortgage, heat, cool and provide electricity to your home.

If you don’t have monetary provision for all of this, you’ll need to establish sustainable sources of energy i.e. solar power, wind, and geothermal power.

Most homesteaders choose to live ”off the grid” and provide their own forms of power as part of their self-sufficiency goals!

6. Forget About Aesthetics

Aesthetics will quickly become a thing of the past, with practicality and self-sufficiency quickly taking over.

There will no longer be much time to make things look attractive. Instead, that time will be used towards the efficiency of your homestead.

The truth is, it’s an unrealistic goal to try and ”pretty up” your homestead. This is because much of your energy will be spent on all the tasks that need completing for each season.

However, this is not to say you cannot take pride in the way your homestead looks. If you are happily meeting your goals, then by all means, take the time to create a beautiful flower arch and hang some pictures!

7. Familiarize Yourself With Local Soil

If you plan on growing all your own fresh foods, then familiarity with your local soil is absolutely vital to homesteading success.

Different soils are all comprised of sand, clay, and other organic matter in varying amounts. These amounts determine what kind of plants will grow and how happy they will be in a particular type of soil.

Take time to acquaint yourself with the soil on your homestead – a large homestead will most likely be home to many different variations.

8. Work on Your Tool Collection

A large part of being a homesteader is owning an impressive tool collection for an array of physical tasks across your land.

Learning new skills to tend to your land and your new home will require new tools. This includes carpentry tools, gardening tools, power tools, and even a backup generator for emergencies! Check out generators portable, here.

9. Seek Out the Knowledge of Others

There are undoubtedly fellow homesteaders in your region who are willing to offer their help and expertise – take advantage of this!

There’s nothing quite like shared experience and if you have questions about homesteading, don’t ever feel ashamed to ask. This is how you grow and learn.

If you’re really struggling, talk to a local professional such as a farmer, butcher or vet for advice on vegetables, fruit, and livestock.

You’ll find that fellow homesteaders love to share their advice and help out wherever possible because they needed the same help once.

10. Learn to Sacrifice Your Personal Time

There’s no doubt that homesteading is an all-consuming way of life. The honest truth is that when you take a day off, your homestead could suffer.

This is where the sacrifice of personal time must be embraced. You will have to make peace with the fact that self-sufficiency is your ultimate goal and has to become your way of life – not just a hobby.

You will also need to separate time from money. Forget about how much you could be earning per hour in the corporate world. Instead, focus on the fact that you own your time and how you live – no one else!

11. Learn to Roll With the Punches

On a homesteading farm, things are going to go wrong. Everyday. The sooner you make peace with that, the easier it will be to roll with the punches and let go of control.

Homesteading is an organic process- it’s all about growth and time. When things start to go wrong, try to keep your perspective. Take it easy on yourself if you don’t reach your goals right away.

Remember that you are your own ”boss” and don’t have to achieve success according to anyone else’s timeline. Enjoy the small wins!

12. Learn From Your Mistakes

If there’s one way to become a successful homesteader it’s through experience and persistent effort. The only way to learn the ins and outs of homesteading is through the value of mistakes and experience.

Before you dive into homesteading, you’ve got to be open to learning new things and embracing difficult situations. Because this is where you grow.

These difficult times teach important lessons, and this is how you become a strong, self-sufficient homesteader.