Homesteading is about trying to make your home work for you by producing vegetables, meat, or products. This sounds great in theory, however it can and often does require extra funds from you to help you create this dream. Especially when you are just starting out or if you want to upgrade. Fences, coops, wells, plumbing, vet bills, home repairs it all adds up! My husband and I frequently say “It’s always something!” You can check out my post on Ways to Make Money on the Homestead or follow some of these Ideas to SAVE money on a homestead.
Many of these same strategies can be used to help save up for a homestead if you are planning to make this lifestyle leap. These simple strategies can be pieced together to create a nest egg for future repairs or allow you to fast track your homestead dreams.
Make it fun!
The most important money saving goal is to try and make it fun! Saving and doing without can totally suck. I know I personally don’t like being told I have to wait or can’t have something. Sure, I don’t throw a fit because I’m not a three-year-old but if we are being real most of us want what we want.
This is why it’s soooo important to make it a game or competition. You are more likely to stick to it or at least not hate it so much. Channel your inner competitive nature to make it fun!
Create a competition with your spouse or compete against yourselves each month to see how much you can save or who can find the best deals. This creates a frame of mind that makes you want to save more instead of focusing on what you can’t have. It’s all in your attitude.
Designate a spending hiatus
List out monthly bills and these get paid. Give yourself a very small food allowance and there is absolutely no other spending! Eat up what’s in the pantry, use coupons, shop food sales. No other spending allowed. To be fair on a homestead you may have to make small allowances for necessary seasonal expenses like seeds, etc. but you can cut out all entertainment spending, clothes, décor, etc to help save money.
Remember, this is a temporary hiatus. Knowing it has an end makes it much more feasible.
Cut the cable
You don’t even have to give up the shows but customize what you want by using options such as Amazon fire stick, hulu or force a decrease in screen time by only allowing what comes in the on the antenna. Party like it’s 1984 baby!!!
Optimize computer equipment
If you need computer equipment consider refurbished Macs instead of a new PC. They cost about the same and will last longer. I did throw a bit of a hissy fit when my husband initiated this switch because I worried about having to learn a new system but it’s pretty easy and even my mom is able to operate hers (with minimal grumbling lol)
This might not seem like a farm item but farm records and financial info should be kept on a secure database and copied at intervals to maintain good records for you and tax purposes.
Optimize your phone bill
Evaluate if you are using all your minutes or if you would be better off with a bundled plan that is unlimited including texts and minutes.
Negotiate or eliminate other monthly bills
Music or subscription services, are there any that you forgot you signed up for and can cancel? (ummmm, totally guilty here!) Can you change your electricity provider and save money? It’s actually pretty ridiculous how often threatening to leave a service suddenly brings out the savings offers that the new accounts were getting already as an incentive anyway.
Convert your lightbulbs to LED lights
These have been vastly improved from the original LED lights. The light they give off looks normal and not the funny blue light of the originals. They last longer, they reduce electricity, they don’t get hot so they aren’t heating the house and increasing AC bills, and the cost has come down. They aren’t as cheap as a regular bulb but over time they come out as cheaper because they last so much longer.
Cash-back programs
Consider using programs such as E-bates that give you a percentage of Cash Back on certain purchases. It’s a small amount but it can really add up.
Double check online prices
Always double check the price to see if it’s cheaper online or vice versa sometimes Amazon is actually more expensive. Remember though, that if you live farther out from town the gas and time it takes to scope out prices may actually make an item cheaper online if shipping is free. Basically, you have to always analyze cost:benefit ratios.
Evaluate your vehicle situation
How many vehicles to you really need? My Top Gear loving husband would say “You mean I have to pick a number?” but the reality is if you are in a bind you may think about if you can get by on one vehicle for a year or more and save money.
Do you need a farm truck? Do you have to have something to haul kids around? Look carefully at the cost difference in buying a used car (DO NOT BUY NEW AND TAKE A DEPRECIATION HIT!!!) or if you aren’t going to drive all the time it may actually be cheaper to have a lease and not have to worry about maintenance.
Consider quality brands, too. Sure, the Kia Rio is cheap but it’s not going to stand the test of time or have a good resale value. Ideally, you want to think long term with all major purchases. Well built cars today go waaaaaay beyond 100,000 miles.
Decrease hay cost by buying in bulk or look for local growers
If you can store larger amounts of hay you will likely save money versus buying it bale by bale at the local feed store.
Increase food scraps to chickens to try and offset feed costs.
Plant a chicken garden that will provide food to feed to your chickens and buy less commercial feed.
Sprout grains for your chickens
This increases nutrient value and keeps feed costs down.
Build a chicken tractor
Let your chickens safely ‘free range’ to provide some of their daily calories.
Look on Craigslist for building/fencing supplies
Sometimes you can even get them for free if you go tear down the building or structure for them.
Repurpose and Reuse materials
Can you convert an old shed into a chicken coop instead of buying one? Can you use old lumber from the torn down fence to create a goat barn? Or can you find creative ways to use pallets even indoors like this one turned into a shelf?
Repair it yourself
If you have basic technical skills, some grit, and YouTube you can do many repairs yourself instead of hiring someone else. It’s also a good skill building exercise.
Ask at construction sites for left over or un-useable supplies
They may not be able to use a warped 2×4 but guess what? Chickens don’t care and it will work totally fine on your fence
Do you have second hand home building sites?
Our local Habitat for Humanity has a fund-raising store with second hand doors, windows, fixtures, etc.
Buy high quality tools secondhand
High quality tools may be more expensive initially but they will last far longer and it’s even better if you can find them secondhand so someone else takes the initial depreciation hit. Even if you can’t find it used still consider if buying high quality will save you money in the long run.
Choose DIY Projects Carefully
This helps to make sure the project you are going to DIY will actually save you money. Often doing it yourself does save money but do a little cost analysis first. In short if it saves you money it will cost you time. If the project is going to take you a week working 12 hours every day and you can’t get other things finished on the homestead that would make you money are you really saving anything since you didn’t produce income while you were working on the ‘saving’ project
If you have zero cash flow and the project has to happen you may have to just do it yourself but if you have a choice it may be in your best interest to consider outsourcing a job.
Second hand clothes
If you need clothes check out thrift stores, second hand shops or even look online at sites like ThredUp Just because you have to save money doesn’t mean you have to give up all sense of style. This site is great, especially if you know which brands fit you and you can order everything from shirts, jeans, shoes, hand bags, even formalwear! You can even sell your older items to them for a profit.
Watch for local resales of children’s clothes
There are often large consignment sales for kids’ clothes where you can score great deals especially on special occasion clothes. They are going to outgrow it by next year anyway so if you can spend $5.00 or less on a dress it is waaaaaay better than the $25-40 or up that you see in the stores.
This is a great time to stock up on mud boots in sizes larger than what your kids currently wear.
Dry laundry outside on a clothesline when possible
If you don’t want to dry clothes outside where they could potentially fade you can at least do the sheets and towels then just fluff for a few minutes in the dryer to soften them up. There are even really pretty clotheslines that make this chore a little less tedious.
Decrease paper towel consumption
Worn out clothes that are beyond even the donation pile can be used as rags and rewashed.
Cloth napkins
Don’t keep throwing away napkins but instead buy a supply of cloth ones and resuse them.
Make Your Own
You woud be amazed at the number of products that you can make at home for way less than you’d normally spend at the store and without a lot of the chemicals. Everything from household cleaning products, laundry detergent, and even food items like bread. Besides then the house smells like bread which is like HEAVEN! Mmmm….warm fresh carbs! You can even buy sprouted grain flour in stores if you don’t want plain white flour.
Cook it Yourself
Speaking of food, cut out the take out and cook at home.
Meal Plan
You waste far less food when it’s all organized. Many sites will even plan out the meals for you and give you a printable list. Hopefully, your house has less picky eaters than mine to make planning easier!
Use coupons for groceries and look for matchups online
Let someone else do the hard work for you.
Stretch out your meat by adding rice, beans or quinoa to the recipe
Buy meat in bulk
This makes it easier to still get grass fed but save money. Can you share a cow with friends or family and split it? Just make sure you have enough freezer space. Even half a cow is a whole lotta beef! You also need to plan some type of backup power plan for this freezer since an electrical outage could mean your entire meat supply for the year is ruined in one blackout.
Buy fresh veggies from a local farmer’s market
If you haven’t grown it yourself you can get local food for cheaper cost and you have the option to preserve some of them for later by canning or dehydrating them.
Watch for veggies on the clearance bin
You can incorporate these last chance veggies into soups or preserve. It can be a good supplement to your own garden or before you have a garden
Make your own Veggie or Chicken/Beef stock
If you don’t feed them to the chickens use the veggie scraps and clearance food to make vegetable stock. This is even faster if you already have an instapot. Save chicken bones and scraps for the same thing but make chicken stock.
Buy in bulk
You can buy large quantities of food staples like flour and salt at stores like Costco that will be cheaper than what you’d pay for the same amount in smaller bags. Just make sure you have a method to keep the food fresh for an extended period of time and that you can eat it all before it goes bad. The alternative is find a buddy to split it with saving you money and the worry of storing so much.
Grow a garden
Beware this is not always an automatic saving idea, especially in the beginning. If you can source free seeds from someone this may help but there is a learning curve. Overall, it is cheaper than buying Organic produce at the store and it tastes so much better but it is probably not as cheap as watching for sales at the grocery store. Check out my post on the 6 Mistakes I Made as a Beginner Gardener to try and save yourself some money in the beginning or take a look at these Steps to an Amazing Vegetable Garden.
Save your seeds
This is a double whammy in that it allows you to save on seed costs the next year but you are also not buying plants which is a more expensive albeit easier way to garden.
Barter with friends or neighbors
Do you have surplus food or skills that you could trade for something else.
Consider sharing supplies with friends
Does everybody need an incubator to hatch chicks at the same time or could this be rotated amongst a few people spreading out the cost.
Check for energy inefficiency in your house
Is the weather stripping good? Do you have drafts coming in windows or doors?
Change you air filters for AC
Clean filters mean the AC doesn’t have to work as hard which saves you money. You should also have your AC occasionally serviced. It’s much cheaper to pay for a cleaning/checkup than a whole freaking AC unit in the middle of July when it bites the dust.
Adjust the temp
Keep the house cooler in the winter and warmer in the summer. Small temperature adjustments can mean big savings on utilities.
Check out local free events
Look up when museums have free days and discounts on certain days to decrease entertainment costs. Eventually, you will want to leave the farm and it’s good to have entertainment that is both good and cheap.
Give homemade gifts
Have plenty of strawberries make jam for presents. Order tea leaves and herbs in bulk and make your own tea blends as gifts.
Order spices in bulk
Keep them in vacuum sealed containers to keep them fresher.
Consider a stock tank pool
Cheaper than a standard pool, it still provides lots of at home entertainment without major cost outlay.
Assess all livestock frequently
It’s much cheaper to deworm an animal that is starting to have some loose stool or just had eggs show up on a fecal than one that is completely anemic from intestinal parasites. The earlier problems are caught generally the cheaper they are to treat.
Cull livestock
This is a hard one but necessary if your livestock is for profit. If you consider them family that’s cool just know that you will be spending more since it’s not an economic decision but an emotional one. Which again I’m totally cool with so feel free to ignore this advice if it doesn’t apply to your situation.
However, if you are trying to profit take a long hard look at your livestock and sell or slaughter those that are not moving you towards your goal. Do they have trouble reproducing, not producing enough, hard to keep weight on them, causing problems? Any of these will likely cost you more in the long run. Don’t be afraid to cut bait if it’s not working out otherwise you are pouring feed costs into an unproductive animal.
Incorporating even just some of these ideas will help you save money on a homestead. Building your dream homestead can be a slow process but it is totally do-able especially if you keep working at it each day by both saving and making money on your homestead!
