10 reasons for homesteading
by Poultry farmer – Miriam Rolling| Last Updated– 09 March 2021
What are the 10 reasons that we want to homestead.
Number one, first and foremost, we are preppers. I have the saying that prepping buys you time. Homesteading buys you a lifetime. We’re prepping for things such as job loss, which we have experienced for, for catastrophic events, such as an earthquake, which I have experienced.
If you guys haven’t checked that out, do so having a, something like a pantry will buy you, maybe depending on how long your pantry lasts, we’ll buy you a couple of weeks to go buy you a couple of months ago, could buy you a year or even longer, depending on how long your pantry last, but what happens after that period of time, depending on how detrimental or how long or how extended your, event is, which maybe it’s job loss. And you’re out of a job for three years, what happens after your pantry runs dry?
You need to have a plan B and that’s where homesteading comes in. Homesteading is the extended plan to prepping.
So reason number one, why we homestead is for prepping purposes.
There’s a number two. Homesteading is adventurous. It is a constant science experiment. You’re constantly learning, building, improving building systems, solving problems. And that really appeals to us, um, rather than a nine to five where you’re doing the exact same thing every day, every day on a homestead is pretty much a new adventure. And we like it.
Reason number three, quality of food.
I know exactly how this beat was grown. I know exactly what went into it, and I know that it’s going to taste phenomenal, but if you buy something from the grocery store, even if it’s marked organic, you don’t know that it’s going to taste good. You don’t know what conditions it was grown under.
Matter of fact, just the other week, because we don’t grow strawberries here. I bought two different types of strawberries. One was a conventional grown strawberry that was grown locally. And then there was organic strawberries, which were grown a couple hundred miles North of here. And I tasted both of them. And the conventional one tasted better than the organic, just because something’s marked organic doesn’t mean that he’s better. And doesn’t mean that it necessarily is better.
I know exactly what went into my soil. I know exactly what nutrients are in this beat. And reason. Number three is that I want better tasting food. So the only way to do that is to do it yourself.
Reason. Number four, freedom, the freedom to invest in our future and not in someone else’s bottom line. The freedom to set our own hours, our own schedule, not working nine to five, not fight traffic, not have a commute, not waste gas, not wear and tear on vehicles, all of the trappings of excessive consumerism and the debt trap, that goes along with that freedom from all of that, that is one of the biggest reasons that I homestead freedom.
Number five, self-sufficiency Jeremy and I are both very independent people. And we like to be in control of our own lives. We’re not under any disillusionment that the government or FEMA or any other national organization is going to always be there to take care of us, not the banks, not anyone. And we want to make sure that we’re able to take care of ourselves, at least to the best extent that we can now are we self-sufficient right now? Not hardly, but we’re definitely on the right path. And we’re definitely going to make strides to get there. And homesteading is going to be our way to do that.
Number six diversity. We’re just not meant to do the same thing every day. Like I said, doing a commute to a nine to five, sitting at a desk, punching the clock, doing the same thing every day. I did it for a long time and man, it got old. It was miserable. Now you never know what’s going to happen day in and day out. There’s a different project all the time. A new challenge, things that I never have tried before, never have done before you learn a lot, you gain a lot of experience and you learn the skills that are at risk of being lost. People just don’t do it anymore. So diversity,
Number seven, working with livestock. Just because I don’t like cats and dogs does not mean I don’t like animals. I can’t tell you how many people tried to deter me from going down the homesteading path and getting animals because I didn’t like dogs or cats turns out I absolutely adore animals. And I just never really had the opportunity.
I never grew up with farm animals or anything of the sort. So I never got to work with them, but I enjoy it. I enjoy every minute minute of it. I enjoy their antics and enjoy their little fluffy fluffiness. I’m like a little kid at a petting zoo all the time. I love working with livestock.
Number eight less stress and enjoying the simpler things in life. It’s kind of weird, indifferent. When you actually slow down and smell the coffee, go out to your garden in the morning and inspect all the leaves to make sure there aren’t any bugs on them. Check on your chickens, make sure they’re all okay. You have to slow down. And that reduces your stress. I don’t hate Mondays anymore. I don’t care about alarm clocks. Most of the time, I don’t even know what day it is. That’s an incredible feeling of freedom, Less stress.
Number nine, having a sense of purpose.
My life is entirely different now than it was two, five, 10 years ago before I was always looking for something else. The grass, I always thought the grass was greener. On the other side, I was, uh, traveling the world. I was sky diving, scuba diving, always doing something adventurous and just, I don’t know, trying to get my kicks or trying to find my, my way, trying to find a purpose. And I kind of found it now. I found it. Now I’m content.
I’m satisfied and I don’t need to look every day. Now I’m working for us. I’m working for our family. I’m not just trying to make money. I’m not just trying to earn enough income so I can go on the next thrilling vacation. I’m not just trying to sock money away into a 401k. Uh, I’m building an investment in us and in our future. And for me waking up every day, I’ve got something to do. I’ve got a purpose and that is number nine.
Number 10, homesteading is a creative outlet. And I really need that. I love solving problems, designing solutions, coming up with new ways to do things, making YouTube videos, you know, drawing, painting, creating things, and homesteading is the ultimate way to express my creativity.
Also chickens. They’re really soft. Remember when you didn’t want me to get chickens or goats or geese and you weren’t going to be a farmer.
I’m a Ninja. You can’t see me. Those are 10 of the many reasons we choose to homestead. And, we spend a lot of time thinking about all the reasons and those are, I guess our top 10.
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Top 5 MISTAKES New Homesteaders Make
I want to talk about the top five mistakes that new homesteaders make
There’s five things that I’ve noticed that everyone’s kinda missing, and these are things that we missed as well. So I’m going to point them out to you, and hopefully you guys can learn from our mistakes here as well. And that’ll help you guys transitioning to this lifestyle.
These are in no particular order, but number one is certainly a doozy and that is underestimating the startup costs of a homestead, depending on what you’re getting into a weather.
In particular, if you’re getting into livestock, there can be a huge investment in materials for getting your homestead started. You know, the cost of a chicken isn’t very much, but when you start getting into things like fencing and housing and feed and bowls and all that kind of stuff, that stuff adds up significantly.
When you get into things like goats, you’re fencing for your goats, going to be ridiculous. If you have to have a structure for your goats, that’s a lot of money. Um, any kind of, um, minerals or any of that kind of stuff for your goats, all that kind of stuff really adds up. And it costs a lot of money.
Now, there are a lot of people that are say, they’re gonna gonna say that they can get materials for free, such as pallets, or they’re going to recycle or upcycle some items. And that’s true.
You can greatly offset that, cut your startup costs by having those items. But you’re still going to have things such as tools you need to buy and hardware you need to buy. And even this coop here behind me, which is almost entirely out of recycled materials, we still had to put a hundred dollars into the wheels. And because we couldn’t find a roof for that, that that was recycled or anything on Craigslist, we had to purchase the roof for that.
So there are different items that you’re going to have to invest in, for starting up your homestead. If you decide not to get into the livestock at all, even things for your garden, amending your garden or tools for your garden seeds, don’t cost very much money, but all this other stuff adds up. Cattle panel. If you’re trying to tell us all these things, all these things can add up.
And again, you can offset that by recycling or building your own, but you’re still going to find that a lot of these things are going to cost you money. So your initial investment into whatever you get into on the homestead would be my number one mistake that new homesteaders make, and that would be underestimating your startup costs.
So my number two mistake that I think new homesteaders make would be underestimating how long it takes to build new skills. Gardening is a great example of that. It it’s just takes time to learn how to deal with all the pests to learn, to deal with your, so you, if you miss that timeframe in one year, then you have to wait a whole entire year to try that again.
And if something doesn’t work one year, well, then you have to start all over and try something new the second year. And if that doesn’t work the second year, you have to try all over again and start the third year. So that just takes time.
And there’s no way of rushing that there are other things such as canning where if you get into something like canning, it just takes time to build up that skillset.
If you start getting into something like woodworking and building, it’s never built anything before your first couple of projects are going to turn out to be pretty crappy. Trust me, I know I built a couple of things and they’re just awful Wiley Jeremy to do all the woodworking things. So definitely number two would be underestimating your skillset. That’s why it’s really important that you start homesteading wherever you are, and start building those skill sets up wherever you are, and that will help decrease that time.
So my number three mistake, the new homesteaders make would be not having a financial plan and not having a backup plan for that financial plan. So what I see or hear about a lot of people that they want to do is they want to quit their jobs in the city. They want to cash out on that home. They want to go buy a place in the country, 10 20 acres. They’re maybe starting up a home business where they’re going to have a market garden. Maybe they’re going to sell some eggs.
They have XYZ planned out and that’s great, but what happens if that fails? What happens if you have a market garden and you don’t have your market’s set up yet, it’s going to take two years at least to build up your, your market. So there’s going to, that’s going to take time and you need to have some sort of income during that time period on top of that, what if you have crop failure?
That’s another thing that very possibly could happen. So you’re going to need to have a backup plan for that in case that in case of anything failing at all or everything, failing at all with your home business, you might end up having to commute to a regular job again. So are you putting yourself in a situation where you’re too far out where you can’t commute back to the city?
So not having a financial plan and not having a backup plan to that would be my number three mistake that new homesteaders make when trying to get into the homesteading lifestyle.
So my number four mistake that new homesteaders make would be a not researching your laws and restrictions for livestock and for any product that you produce commercially. So when it comes to things such as livestock, you need to do a lot of research on your particular area and what is allowed and what is not allowed.
This may mean researching your County laws, your town laws, and any laws or restrictions in your particular area, in your neighborhood, uh, by not researching these and understanding fully what is allowed and not allowed in your area. You could find yourself in a situation where you have to get rid of your animals or even relocate when it comes to producing things, commercially, such as a product.
This could be anything from deodorant to selling eggs, to selling chicken. You also need to understand the laws surrounding those. So some of your products may need to be made in a commercial kitchen. This may mean that you need to have someone come in and inspect your kitchen, uh, or it may mean you need to go and rent out a commercial kitchen to produce these products. Uh, when it comes to something like eggs, you may need to wash your eggs.
You may not need to wash your eggs, and there may need to be certain labeling on your eggs, uh, to be in order for you to be able to sell those on a commercial level, something such as processing chickens. I know in this particular area, if you sell below a thousand chickens, you can process them on your property, but more than a thousand chickens, then you need to go and have them processed in a commercial facility.
So make sure that you understand the laws surrounding both livestock and any kind of commercial products that you may be thinking of selling. And that would be my number four mistake that new homesteaders make.
So my number five mistake, the new homesteaders make would be and not being flexible. Um, I would say the flexibility is one of the biggest mistakes that new homesteaders making that something that they really need to consider when getting into this lifestyle, it’s great to have a plan laid out as to what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it.
But sometimes life just happens. Sometimes things just happen and you might not be able to do things exactly the way you want it to happen. So for example, you might want to be completely off grid and remote in the mountains with no access to anyone or anything, but you may find that you need to have internet access and high powered cable access in order to provide income for your family, for some sort of home business, or for example, you may find that, um, whatever home business you get into that it’s not profitable or that there’s no market for it.
And you might need to commute to a job temporarily or even permanently. And if you’re too far out, you might find yourself going a two hour commute, just understand that there may be different things that you have in mind. That sound really great, but they just might not work out for you.
So just make sure you keep an open mind and be flexible and whatever it is that you choose to do. So those are my top five mistakes that new homesteaders make. This is a great way to learn from other people’s mistakes. And it’s going to save you a whole lot of time and heartache. So go and check out those other channels, understand what everybody’s doing, that they consider a mistake. And that way you guys can avoid that yourself. You guys have any tips or tricks for mistakes that homesteaders make platelets down below. I want to hear from you.
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