If you’re new to homesteading, it can feel a little overwhelming at first. Chances are, you have dreamt of living a homesteading lifestyle for a long time, but now that you’ve finally committed to it, you don’t know where to start! In fact, you can actually start implementing homesteading techniques no matter where you live. It’s important to set some small goals to keep you motivated as you begin this exciting journey. Here are a few feasible homesteading goals for your first year:
First of all, your goals should always be measurable. Don’t say something general like “save more”. Instead, say “spend $100 less than the $500 I spent last month.” You need to be able to see that you’re reaching (or exceeding) to maintain the momentum you need and to build your confidence!
Start an herb garden
Grow (and use!) at least 3 herbs
This starter kit makes this goal completely attainable.
Start a vegetable garden
Grow at least 3 different kinds of vegetables. You can even start your own seeds for cheap, cheap, cheap using these suggestions.
No land or not the right season? No problem! Try this cheap indoor vegetable garden!
A good place to start is zucchini, tomatoes, and peppers. These plants will give you buckets of yummy produce and they’re relatively easy to maintain.
A word of caution about zucchini…if you plant them too close together, the fruits may become hidden under the leaves. You have to regularly check your garden or you’ll end up like us with zucchini the size of watermelons that have seeds the size of pumpkin seeds. Seriously. You’ve never seen zucchini this ridiculously big in your grocery store. We grew sumo wrestler zucchini. Don’t be like us. They grow FAST so keep an eye out.
Start a stockpile
Not only is this a great homesteading goal, it’s incredibly important for money-saving as well.
If you stock up on things you can’t make or grow yourself when they’re cheap and store them properly, you only have to supplement with a few things each month.
For example, we can’t grow rice or lentils, so we stock up when there’s a great deal and store them in these food grade buckets. A good first year goal is to maintain at least a month’s worth of food for the entire family. Make sure you’re actually stockpiling things you’ll use and using what you stockpile or you’re defeating the whole purpose.
Get chickens
If you want to have animals on your homestead, chickens are a great place to start. They’re easy to care for, they give you added benefits like cleaning fleas and ticks from your yard, and they can free range on your property and cut down the cost of chicken feed.
You can pick up a starter chicken coop incredibly cheap and search Facebook groups for hens.
Sell eggs
With chickens come eggs (hopefully) and once they start laying, you’ll be amazed at the number of eggs even a small flock can produce. A lot of first time chicken owners think you need a rooster in your flock to get eggs from your hens. This is simply not the case.
Side note: Our rooster hated us and was mean to our hens. One day, I’ll write a post about how I honestly thought he was a hen when I picked him up from a local farm, but that’s another story for another day. It wasn’t until the stupid thing started crowing that we realized our hen was a cranky rooster.
If you have happy hens, you’ll have dozens and dozens of eggs. If you are getting more than you can reasonably use, why not sell some?
People go crazy over the taste of fresh eggs over store bought, myself included, and will pay a premium for them. With chicken feed costs around $15 for a 50 pound bag, it won’t take you many eggs before your chickens are actually paying for their own feed.
Start making your own:
Bread is a good place to start. Pick up a bread machine at your local thrift store (or grab a brand new one here), some flour, yeast, and salt. Before you know it, your house will smell heavenly and you’ll never want to go back to store-bought bread again.
Something we didn’t realize was that the paddle of our bread maker was going to get stuck in the bottom of our bread loaf. Lots of people just pull it out or chisel it out. In my experience though, bread maker bread is shaped like a brick and it makes it very awkward to use.
A better solution is to let your bread maker mix up the dough and rise it for you. You can then take out the dough and transfer it to a greased bread pan and bake it in the oven. You still get the convenience of not kneading and rising your dough, but you also get the attractive and more useful shape of a regular loaf.
If you have the ingredients to make bread, you have the ingredients to make lots of other things, like tortillas, naan bread, even crackers. Look up simple recipes for things you use all the time and try to make your own. You’ll feel so accomplished!
Consider purchases you make on a regular basis and set a goal of switching out store-bought for homemade. Good examples might be jam, soaps, household cleaners, etc.
Repurpose all items possible
Did you use a baby food jar to store your safety pins instead of picking up a small container at the store? Did you use an old t-shirt for rags instead of buying overpriced pieces of cloth you’re just going to ruin anyway? Get creative and find solutions to things you’re tempted to pay for a solution to.
“Put Up” Your Harvest
If you successfully grow some veggies, you can start to learn to save some for later when your plants aren’t giving you fresh produce. You can learn to can or even just freeze some, depending on the type of produce.
I always have chopped carrots, celery, and onions in my freezer, so those are great places to start.
This is an awesome way to save your food.
You can also can tomatoes or make your own pasta sauces and pizza sauces. You can go ahead and take credit for this one twice! – putting up your harvest AND replacing a store-bought product with your own!
If you’re new to homesteading, set some goals and don’t stop until you reach them! Make your own bread products, grow your own produce, and stockpile some of your favorite items for a rainy day. You’ll be motivated and feeling accomplished before you know it!
Do you homestead with your family? What advice would you give to newbie homesteaders? Let me know in the comments!
Re: zucchini. Even if they get big, as long as their skins are still smooth and one colour you can totally still use them. You may have to peel them and scoop out the seeds, however.
I routinely let my zucchini grow that big, and then peel/scoop them out and grate them, and freeze it for baking later or use them to make relish. Small/tender ones I will dehydrate to use in soups/stews throughout the winter.
Mmm I never thought to dehydrate zucchini to use later! The huge ones make great “zucchini boats” for pizza toppings too!
We run them through the food processor and then use them as noodles.
There’s a small tool they sell called zoodles that turn them into noodles, if you don’t have that, too.
Hi Jen, I’ve heard of this awesome spiralizer thing and I have yet to get one. I’m anxious to try zoodles too. Anything made out of zucchini is a win in my book! 🙂
Totally!
I shred large zucchini and use it to thicken my homemade spaghetti sauce
Great ideas, thanks for the list! First time visiting, I will be checking your blog for some other great ideas.
Thanks, Cheryl! I’m glad you found your way here 🙂
Already experimenting with various ways to grow food. We have muck in the yard so after the first successful year of growing in it, the subsequent years failed. I think it is because the trees around it are fuller with leaves. Yes, I’m growing in a shady mucky area which my city husband assigned to it not wanting to admit or acknowledge that gardens need full sun and better soil. Anyway, I tried straw bale gardening. Had more success, but still issues with the shade. I’ve even let it lay fallow a year hoping for a less buggier place. Yes, I also have more bug issues! I think chickens would help the bug issues. I like the idea of that symbiotic relationship. No chickens allowed where I live now. I have had better gardening years in other places we’ve lived. I’ve started processing produce from the garden and prefer homemade to store bought processed foods.
Hi Suzy, I’m starting to really try to get away from store-bought, processed and packaged foods. Growing your own is absolutely the best way to go – even better than buying organic in my opinion. We had a lot of issues growing veggies in our yard this year – it’s our first year trying to garden in North Carolina. In Pennsylvania, we could completely neglect our garden practically and it would produce like crazy. Considering a move back to PA so I don’t have to learn a new way haha
Giant zucchini makes for good zucchini fries or shred for zucchini bread. We homestead too. I have a small herd of triple-purpose sheep for warm, soft wool, milk and sometimes meat. I spin my own yarn, grow herbs, can and freeze fruits, vegetables, meat and fish. My whole family hunts and fishes and we all like different things so it keeps a variety of foods in the house. Don’t underestimate the amount of food you can get for your family just by hunting and fishing. We also forage for asparagus, morel mushrooms, chestnuts, potato beans and all sorts of other wild edibles. Also, chickens are highly underrated as the helpful little things they are. They compost, they debug, they fertilize and loosen the soil, they even eat mice, all while pooping breakfast every day.
Hi Leah – haha I literally laughed out loud at your “all while pooping breakfast every day” comment! Haha oh how I miss the taste of fresh eggs from our chickens. We are actually vegetarian so we focus on saving and storing veggies – but I’ve never tried to forage for nuts or mushrooms. That sounds like a lot of fun. Wow and you spin your own yarn? You’re wonder woman!
We have been homesteading in the city for about 3 years now. We have our eyes on some land. About to transition. It’s kinda scary and exciting all at the same time. I love reading articles like your’s. Inspiring for sure!
Hi Josie, that’s so exciting! Enjoy the process of buying your land and starting a new level of homesteading. You’ll probably look back on these days as some of the most exciting ones that you’ve ever had. I’m so happy for you!
Start with live herbs not seed. Starting with seed has quite the learning curve. I drowned mine more often than I can count. Lol
Loved this piece! You made me finally realize that I am already living the dream! Here I have been waiting and getting frustrated that I am not doing enough toward my goal, but I already do everything you mentioned! Thank you Jamie for the encouragement!
Hi Kim, it’s all about the journey! If you’re already doing these things then you really are already homesteading in a lot of ways.
Great suggestions! I would like to point out that you do NOT have to live in the country to achieve most of these goals. With the exception of having chickens, I practice most of these. With local networking, I get farm-fresh eggs at cost, free apples and other fruits. I buy chicken from a local meat packing plant for a fraction of growing cost. Buying in bulk saves a ton too. You can’t grow 40# of potatoes for the less than $10 I get it for at the local Amish store. Being a homesteader doesn’t mean you have to do it all yourself. Research your local options and bargains you can get at discount stores. Certain veggies can be had in bulk for much less than the time/effort/space you devote to doing it yourself. When meat goes on sale for ridiculously low prices, I buy as much of it as I can afford and package it myself. If you loveI pickled beets like I do, I’ve found it is much cheaper to buy beets by the gallon and pickle/can them myself. Broccoli and peas are other space-wasters in my small garden for the small amount I harvest, so I buy in bulk, frozen, and repackage. Same with making jelly… frozen juice a big timesaver over fresh. Herbs take up little space and are easily dried in the oven. I cook almost everything from scratch. I could go on and on. Of course not all my ideas involve organic products- they are doable on my budget and limited time(I have 2 jobs).But my cupboards and two freezers are full and we eat well! All of this done on my small lot in a little midwestern town!
Hi Michelle, wow! You have this figured out! My favorite thing that you said is that you don’t have to do it all yourself. I completely agree. The way you’re finding great prices on great produce is a really smart use of time and resources over growing your own. You really can Homestead anywhere!
We’ve found that getting a food saver machine really helped us out! We’ve preserved everything from beef jerky and dried fruits, to fresh berries or cheese. It also helps break down the value pack size in the meat dept! No more freezer burn! We’ve gone so far as to save leftovers with it, to use later, when we aren’t bored with it!
Hi Jennifer! I’ve always wanted a food saver! We don’t really eat meat or dairy, so I struggle to justify buying it. It just looks entertaining to use and I used to watch the infomercial way more times than I should admit to haha
Great list. We are slowly moving to a homestead life. We want to have a few things that we already know and can do well before we quit our jobs and move. We own a small piece of land, less than an acre, that we have a garden on. So we have been doing that for several years. I think the only thing you listed that we aren’t doing already is have chickens, and sell the eggs. So this is a great feeling that we are already on our way. My husband and I both work full time jobs, and we have children.
The other small things I find is using herbs to make oils and salves, also basic ferments is always a bonus, mozzarella cheese is also really easy to make, while if you have a veggie garden then why not grow some luffa and have sponges all year round.
The other thing I try to focus on is multiple uses for the one product eg; vegetables I eat, peels feed the chooks and worms, worms produce fertiliser also feed the the chickens while chickens also lay eggs if that makes sense lol it’s not a huge farm but this productivity is menagable in a small house yard and it WORKS ?
Hi Renae, I would never have even considered growing my own shower sponges. That sounds fun! I haven’t branched out into creating my own salves yet, but that’s definitely on the short list for me. I hate using store-bought things when I can easily make something myself. Especially when it’s something I’m going to use on one of my little ones. You have it SO much more figured out than I do!
Remember that Rome wasn’t built overnight. It takes time to develope. Don’t go in debt, pay little by little as you can afford it. Do it right the first time. Learn from others…YouTube is awesome as well as podcasts. Give some farm chores to your kids.
Don’t be afraid ..I try at least one or 2 new things in my garden every year. I love to can tomato juice and plant romans as they are easy to use with my mixer attachment