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What is a Homesteader?

I’ve had a lot of people ask me why I’m a homesteader, or why I use that word over some other term.

• It’s about home.
• In Old English a homestead meant “a settlement”
• In modern times, it evokes the image of a small farm
• A family working together towards common goals
• Tight knit family dynamics
• It allows us a greater amount of freedom and liberty
• For me, freedom means not having to rely on an employer to pay me, or to rely on the grocery store to feed me.
• To me being a homesteader seems like the best way to live a real, honest, responsible life.

Am I independent yet? Heck no! We still go to the grocery store, but now we go once or twice a month.

Now, we spend a lot of money when we go, but think about the self reliance we have already built into our lives! We can live comfortably for at least 2 weeks!

This year we are stepping things up BIG TIME!

• Expanded Garden
• Hatching 100 chicks (layers, cull birds meat, sale of layers)
  • 50% males is 50 meat birds – losses, and small birds – 40 harvested @ 3# ea = 120#
  • that makes almost 5# every other week
• New Duck flock
  • Spring 20-­30 eggs a day
• Beef and Pork going in the freezer
  •  500# beef (almost 10# per week)
  • 100# pork (almost 2# per week)
• Rabbit operation expanding
  • Puppies
  • Lawn mower for feed
  • Meat harvest
  • Manure

How are we cutting feed costs with all those birds? Raising crickets, earthworms, BSF, and maybe looking into mealworms.

Reasons to be a Homesteader

Why am I a homesteader? Because I want to live free. I can’t be free if I buy a car and clothes to go to work, and stay at the job so I can replace the car and clothes. I did that kind of work. I never want to do it again. We live on very little now, and my life is better! I get to see my children grow up, I get to come inside at lunchtime and kiss my wife. When I had a job away from home I had to kiss the feet of my boss at lunchtime. Big difference!

Why Homesteading? Because I get to grow better food than I could afford to buy. Catie and I calculated what it would cost for us to buy the food we are raising. For the meat, dairy, vegetables, and the little bit of fruit we harvest now, it would cost us $75,000 a year. That means I would have to be making about a quarter of a million dollars a year and I would still be living paycheck to paycheck.

Why? Because I am free to teach others now, I am free to help others. Sure we only have one vehicle. We go without many things that modern people call essential. But we have full lives.

And that’s what I want for every one of you! I want you to be working towards greater freedom and liberty. I want you to get out of debt, grow something that will benefit your family. If you live in suburbia and can’t have cattle, goats, chickens, a large garden, etc… Make a small garden and grow some tomatoes. Get some quail, and grow some premium meat. Get some rabbits, and grow some good meat cheaply, use the manure for your small garden. At the least, grow some basil or other fresh culinary herbs! They’re great to cook with, and much better for you to use fresh than dried in a bottle from a supermarket shelf.

Don’t get overwhelmed with all this and say you can never be where I am, or you can never achieve the level of self sufficiency that you really want in your life. Don’t dream about it. Make a plan and stick to it! Start budgeting, do the Dave Ramsey debt snowball – pay off your smallest debt, then roll that payment into the next smallest debt, and keep doing that till you are debt free. Cut up your credit cards, keep one for emergencies or car rentals, and don’t use it unless it really is an emergency!

Save up one month of expenses as an emergency fund. If you have to dip into it, the next time you are redistributing your paycheck, restore that emergency fund to full. Keep chipping away at those bonds that are holding you in a lifestyle you don’t enjoy!

But back to homesteading, don’t think that this term is only usable if you are way out in the country, you can live a homesteading style of life and have that homesteader mindset wherever you are. If this kind of life is what you want to achieve for yourself, start with small things, keep building, keep paying off debt, because when you are free of debt, so many more opportunities will present themselves. Always live below your means. That’s what sustainability is all about. Come to think of it, I just might make my next episode all about sustainability, what that word means, and why it’s important to stay in that mindset.

These are the reasons I’ve chosen to live as a homesteader.

If you’d like to get in touch with me, please send an email to

nick@homegrownliberty.com

I hope you have a wonderful day, and as always “Go Do Good Things”