Does homesteading save you money?

When I look at the input costs on our homestead, I often wonder if it is costing us more than we save. There are feed bills, the cost of caring for sick animals and all the seeds for the garden.

Do all of these things cost way more than they’re worth? While I haven’t meticulously tracked all of the costs on our homestead, I believe the answer is no.

So, does homesteading save you money? I definitely believe that it can. While it may take a little planning and a frugal mindset, you can save money by homesteading.

Start with the right mindset.

People homestead for many different reasons. But whether it’s as a hobby, self sufficiency or a business, we can all agree that we don’t want it to cost us more than it’s worth.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that the food we produce on our homestead is so much more nutritionally dense than what’s found at the grocery store. That makes it’s worth great. But if it cost us an extravagant amount just to produce a couple dozen eggs each week, there wouldn’t be much motivation in raising laying hens.

If my garden was picture perfect and full of produce, but the cost to keep it up was breaking our bank account, then I would let everything grow up and forget about it.

That’s when I think a frugal mindset is a good thing to have when it comes to homesteading. Even if you have the means to buy tons of beautiful land and fill it up with animals, gardens and barns, do you really want to drain yourself financially for it?

What about if tough times come, and you have to figure out new ways to feed your animals or grow food without buying everything you need at a store? Farmers 200 years ago didn’t have the convenience of running to Tractor Supply for another bag of feed. While we have a lot of things they didn’t, and we can use that to our advantage, there is nothing wrong with working to come under budget on your homestead.

So, let’s start with the most basic things that most beginner homesteaders have.

How much do our chickens cost us?

It costs us around $100 a year to feed our chickens. We have hatched our own eggs over the last two years. We keep the hens and butcher the roosters. When the hens get too old, we butcher them as well. That means we are getting eggs and meat from our chickens.

On average, we probably get almost two dozen eggs per week spring through fall. Even through winter, our hens only stop laying for about one month. That’s a lot of eggs in one year. They are of better quality than anything you can get at the store. We sell a few dozen during the spring and summer to make up some of our feed costs. When just talking about our hens, we more than make up for a lot of the feed cost. Not to mention, doing things like raising them in chicken tractors and fermenting feed also cuts down on the costs.

The roosters we raise for meat don’t have nearly as good of a feed to meat conversion as commercial breeds. It takes longer to get them to a weight that we can butcher. However, we still get a decent amount of meat from them. Whatever is left is turned into lots and lots of broth.

Between the meat and eggs that we get from all of our chickens each year, I would say they save us money.

The garden is the real money saver

Our garden produces food year round for us. Currently, the only produce we buy at the store is bananas, apples and the occasional oranges. Eventually we want an orchard to grow all of those things (except for the bananas). We grow staples like green beans, sweet peas and cowpeas. We also grow lots of tomatoes and peppers, winter squash and summer squash. Sweet potatoes and potatoes are two more staple crops we grow each year. Most of these things are preserved since we can’t eat it all fresh.

During the fall and winter, we mostly eat fresh out of the garden. Still, that sustains us and we have more than we can ever consume.

All of the garden extras go to the chickens and turkeys which cuts down on our feed bill even more.

Garden input needs to be lower than the cost

It can be easy to go overboard with the garden. Every spring I have to practice self control when I begin getting seed catalogues in the mail.

I also think about how perfect my garden could be if I could only buy organic compost and cover the entire garden it. Or if I could expand the garden and plant even more to preserve.

The truth is, I should only be planting what we can consume. With maybe a bit to share or sale at the farmer’s market. This is where garden planning comes in handy. I begin planning my spring garden on New Year’s day. It would be Thanksgiving, but I have to practice self control again. I try really really hard every year to only plant what I can practically preserve and what we can eat fresh.

Although I tend to go a little overboard every spring, we still maintain a not too big garden that feeds us well.

We also have to be conscious of the amendments we purchase to put on our garden. This past spring we bought bulk wood chips and covered the entire in-ground section of our garden in them and it was so worth the price. However, in the fall and winter, I collect wheel barrow after wheel barrow of pine straw and fallen leaves for mulch. I try to use our goat’s poop to full advantage, and we also scoop cow manure from a family member’s fields.

While that may seem like a lot of work, it does keep our gardening costs very low. With that low cost comes lots of savings in all of the food we harvest every year. So yes, our garden saves us a ton of money!

Here are a few ways to save in your garden each year:

• Save seeds
• Compost
• Mulch mulch mulch! Fallen leaves, pine straw, straw and even hay are all great options.
• Save your animals poop! Rabbit and goat manure are considered “cold manure” and doesn’t have to age.
• Focus on crops that are calorie heavy such as potatoes and winter squash.

If you want to know more about gardening frugally, read this article here!

Some things on the homestead will cost you more money.

Can homesteading save you money on infrastructure? You can cut costs in a lot of ways on a homestead. However, there are some things that are going to cost you no matter how frugal you can be. At least, they will cost you more up front.

Animal shelters, fencing, water lines, etc. are all infrastructure that most people have to invest in on their homestead. Up front these costs can seem like a lot. However, if you can build these structures, most will last you years to come. Throughout those years, they will get a lot of use and help you to produce lots of food.

There are some thrifty ways to have infrastructure on your property for the short term. Here are a few examples:

• Electric netting or wire fencing for animals such as pigs, cows and goats that can be rotationally grazed.
• Tent like shelters made from cattle panels and tarps. This has worked well for some of our goats.
• Pallet barns and shelters.
• Water hoses stretched across your property. While not the most convenient, it works temporarily and can save your back from lugging water back and forth.
• Thrifted items turned into something new!
• Learn to build it yourself! One of the biggest expenses is paying someone to build something for you.

What about the cost to feed larger animals?

So can homesteading save you money when you’re feeding large animals? The truth is, the answer is not always yes. If you have the land available to you, you can rotationally graze sheep, cows, and goats and cut the costs to feed them by making fresh grass available to them without purchasing it. You can even rotationally graze your pigs, chickens, turkeys, and ducks. If you don’t have the land, you will have to bring hay in for your ruminants. Grains pretty much have to be bought to feed your birds or pigs. Check out how to save money feeding your chickens here!

There is the cost of purchasing the animal as well. For some, this can be the biggest expense. One solution would be to buy the animal at a younger age and raise it up longer. This would mean you have to feed them more before you can butcher them though. And there are ways to save money on feeding these animals even if you don’t have the land.

• Buy hay and feed in bulk.
• Find a local farmer who sells hay and build a relationship with them. You may just get a better deal that way.
• Ferment pig feed and feed them scraps from the garden.
• Plant crops that will feed your animals if you have the space. Check out this article on animal fodder.

Sell from your homestead to make money back

Whether it’s feeder pigs, half cows or produce at the farmer’s market, you can make some of your input costs back on your homestead. Here are some business ideas for homesteaders to help you lower the costs of building a homestead.

• Sell produce at a farmer’s market or farmstand.
• Start a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)
• If you’re a baker, try selling baked goods such as sourdough or goods with farm fresh ingredients.
• While it won’t make you rich, sell extra eggs! Sell laying eggs!
• Sell larger animals in halves and wholes when it’s time to slaughter. In my community, local farm raised meat goes for a great price.
• If you have a special skill pertaining to the homestead, teach it!
• Sell plant starts in the spring and fall
• Sell the extra babies that your breeding animals have.
• Raise pastured poultry to sell!

What if I make a mistake and cost myself more money?

Oh boy am I an expert when it comes to this. I have made my fair share of impulse buys for our homestead. Two rabbits who ended up both being male, extra goats we didn’t need and maybe a few too many chickens.

When I mentioned the self control I use in the garden, well I’m finally learning when it comes to animals too. I am the type who will buy the chicken and worry about the coop later. Animals are my weakness. I have loved the idea of having a big farm full of every type of animal since I was little. However, we don’t have the land or the budget for tons of animals right now.

It’s important to know how much your budget and land can support. Not to mention the actual time it will take you to care for animals, especially if they get sick. When it comes to the garden, planting more than you can care for and preserve is always overwhelming. This has gotten me in trouble in the past. I always feel a lot of frustration when produce goes to waste.

So if you ask yourself, can homesteading save you money? The answer is absolutely yes!

If you want to homestead, but are afraid of the costs, start small. If all you can afford to do is learn to can store bought produce, go for it! Maybe it’s just learning to bake homemade bread.

Homesteaders who want to expand, start slow. Get one thing figured out at a time. Your sanity and budget will thank you for it.

If you have been homesteading awhile and need to reevaluate your costs, do some planning. Figure out if you need to cut back on some things. Homesteading doesn’t have to break the bank. With a little planning and ingenuity, it can save you money. Let me know if you have any frugal homesteading ideas in the comments!