How we fund our homestead

How we fund our homestead. A list of the few ways we fund our homestead and how we let my husband retire from painting houses.

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This is what we have been working towards for the past 6+ years.

Pretty much ever since we got married.

We knew we wanted to run our own business from home and that we wanted to be on land with animals.

It was a dream of ours.

So we started hustling.

Luke painted houses for a long time, working long hours and sometimes being gone for almost 12 hours a day while I was alone with 2 toddlers and pregnant with our third. It was a rough time.

But it was all worth it.

Because this last month Luke was able to quit his painting job, and come home to work on the homestead.

So how do we earn money now to support ourselves?

I’m not going to share actual numbers, but I will give you the general ways we make an income.

How we fund our homestead

First I’d like to say that a big way we are able to afford our homestead is that we save money where we can. We bought a place that had a lot of land, but the house is in some desperate need of remodel. It has holes in the floor into the crawlspace, every wall has a different pattern and color of old paneling, the foundation is shifting and floors slanting. It’s a big project. But we would never have been able to afford 10 acres (especially in this market), without giving up something.

We hardly ever spend money on eating out, 99% of our meals are cooked and eaten at home. But that allows us to be able to afford very healthy food for our family, raw milk, grass-fed meat, supplements if needed.

You have to sacrifice in some areas if you really want something. Like I’ve heard Dave Ramsey say…you must live like no one else, so later you can live like no one else.

You might have to live in a house that is falling apart if you want the land. Or you have to give up the dream of land if you want a fancy house.

Resources from the farm

One of the ways we afford to homestead is by raising our own food and selling extra.

So for example, organically raised pork is super expensive if we were just to go buy some packaged local meat. But if we raise 4 hogs, sell 2 at butcher, and do all the work ourselves, we save a ton. Even if we didn’t sell extra, and just raised 2 hogs each year for ourselves we would still save money compared to if we bought the same quality of meat from someone else.

We did the same thing with beef last year. We raised 2 steers and sold 1.5 at butcher time, and saved a half for our own meat. Which pretty much made our beef free!

Same with the garden. We start extra seedlings in the spring and sell everything extra for way more than the seeds and supplies cost. Then we plant a bigger garden than we actually need so we have extra to sell (and give away to family and friends).

Blogging / Instagram / YouTube

This is our biggest home-income. Our online business.

I have written blog posts, shared on instagram and made youtube videos for years before I ever saw a dime from it. I enjoy the creative outlet, especially from writing, and I’d do at least some of it regardless of if I earned anything from it.

But starting about 2 years ago I began to earn money on my YouTube channel and then about 6 months ago I started earning from Instagram and the blog. It has steadily grown and provided a steady income ever since then.

It is such a blessing from God, and all the credit goes to Him!

I’m very thankful that Luke and I can work together on this business and both be home with our kids while doing it!

Handmade items

The third way is through selling our handmade items that are produced on the homestead on my online shop.

Luke makes the most gorgeous end grain cutting boards and coasters. I have a hard time listing them in the shop because they’re all so beautiful that I want to keep them!

I make all our own soaps, lotions, balms, etc, and while I’m making it for us anyway I do a big batch and sell it in the shop. We used to sell them at the local farmer’s market, but once we had more than one kiddo it got too difficult, and it’s more worth it for me to sell them online and ship them.

We work. All. The. Time.

We work hard, all the time. I love hard work.. It is satisfying. It is character building.

We don’t buy really many new things around the homestead. We don’t have fancy chicken coops, they are built out of cheap slab wood, they aren’t perfectly square, but we did all the work ourselves.

Most days have at least some fence fixing, building, moving animals, carrying heavy buckets, bucking bales of hay, you name it. You have to work HARD if you want this lifestyle to work and you don’t want it to break the bank.

When I get my mind set on a homestead project I’ll find a way to get it done, with or without money. We build things out of duct tape and baling twine if we have to.

I don’t want to tell you how many fences and gates are held together with baling twine.

If you are willing to work hard then it takes care of a big part of the financial piece.

And blessings.

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