So, you’ve decided to start a homestead in an effort to live a more sustainable lifestyle. That’s exciting! There’s so much you can do with homesteading, and you’re about to start on a journey that will completely change your life.
The only problem is that there are so many options open when you begin on your homesteading journey that it can become overwhelming.
You might not know what steps to take to get to where you want to be in a few years’ time, or you may not even know where you want your homestead to end up.
Don’t worry—that’s why I’m here. This blog post will help you take your first steps into homesteading and set a solid foundation for a sustainable and enjoyable future doing what you love.
I’ve been running my farm for 20 years and actually apprenticed under Joel Salatin himself.
I made this detailed guide to starting a homestead because I’ve seen many well-meaning, intelligent people fail because of some really common (but avoidable) mistakes.
By the end of this guide, you’ll know:
- The answer to the most important question that ties your entire homesteading endeavor together
- How to create a fool-proof plan for your homestead
- How to think through your biggest decisions…whether you’ll buy, rent, or use the land you have, for example
- And much more
Step 1. Answer This Critical Question (Most People Miss This)
When it comes to homesteading for beginners, you want to make sure that you don’t miss this valuable first step: having a clear vision.
Don’t think about everything you need to do right now. Instead, empty your mind and try to picture your life in five years’ time.
What does your homestead look like? Are you producing the majority of your own food for you and your family? Are you making an income from selling some of that produce?
Do you have animals on your homestead? Are they small livestock, such as chickens and rabbits? Or do you have larger animals, like cattle or dairy animals?
What does your daily life look like? Do you have people to help you, or are you doing everything on your own? Is it you and a partner or are there children involved?
Is your homestead’s purpose going to be to feed you and your family, or do you want to make a profit selling produce or organic products at a local farmer’s market?
Picture your perfect homestead and everything about it. Once you have that mental image, take note because that’s your goal.
Now, you can work your way back from that and determine where you need to start now. You can’t decide how to begin without a clear vision for the future.
Remember that you can’t reach your goal without hard work and determination (and time!). So, take it one day at a time and pick one or two things to start with at a time.
Now that you know what you want, you can plan ahead. Just know that things don’t always go according to plan when you’re homesteading. You need to adjust and be prepared to make changes as new challenges come up.
But with a clear vision, it will be a lot easier to get through the tough days.
Step 2. Figure Out Your Finances
How Much Money Will You Need to Start?
If you’re wondering how to start homesteading, it’s like most big life projects… you need to figure out how you’re going to pay for it.
Before you even plant a single seed or determine what land you’re going to use, you need to take a look at your finances.
While homesteading is a simpler and more sustainable way of life that limits mass consumerism, it’s not cheap to start off.
For example, blogger Our Simple Homestead talked about the costs of setting up their homestead.
For a fruit orchard and irrigation, they spent $200. For a used tractor, they spent $10,000. To build a bigger barn, they paid $20,000. And for two heifers and a bull, they paid $950.
These are all once-off costs. More recurrent costs they’ve encountered include $500 per year to grow (planting trees, grapes, irrigation, and landscaping) and $5000 over a few years on tools they use on the homestead.
Remember that these are only some of the costs that they have faced during their time as homesteaders.
But one of the great things about homesteading is that you can start as small as you like. This means you can begin on a tight budget and expand as you have more money to spend.
It’s important to know exactly how much money you have available to you at the beginning. It’s advisable that you don’t go into homesteading with much consumer debt, like credit cards and store accounts. A mortgage is okay because it’s almost impossible to buy land in cash.
Having savings available is going to make your homesteading journey a whole lot easier. It’ll give you a financial head start and give you room to fail if you need to.
Once you know how much cash you have in savings, you can work out how much your homestead is going to cost you to start.
Look up the cost of absolutely everything involved in your project. For example, if you want to start an edible garden, look up the price of irrigation, fences, soil, compost, seeds, containers, and pest control.
Enter all of this into a spreadsheet so that you have it all in one place. That way, you’ll know whether you can realistically afford what you want to start with.
Here are some examples of what you can expect to pay for certain things when starting on your homesteading journey.
Crops
Getting started with growing crops might be more affordable than you think.
Initial expenses usually include buying seeds or young plants. Depending on what you want to grow, expect to spend between $50 and $200. To keep costs down, go for seasonal and local varieties.
But there’s more to gardening than just seeds. You’ll need the right tools—think shovels, rakes, and probably a hoe (a rototiller is super helpful for anything bigger than the smallest garden plot). Tools could set you back another $100 to $300.
If you’re aiming for a larger-scale operation, costs will naturally be higher but still manageable with proper planning.
Livestock
If you’re set on raising livestock, I highly suggest you start with chickens.
They’re low-cost and low-maintenance. Initial costs are around $2 to $7 per chick, although fancier breeds might cost up to $20 each. Setting up a cozy coop and a safe run for your chickens can cost between $500 to $1,000.
For a small backyard setup, starting with 4 to 6 chickens is manageable and provides a good supply of fresh eggs. The total initial investment might be around $700 to $1,200, including the cost of chicks, coop, and initial feed and bedding.
Thinking bigger? Cows might be on your radar.
Whether it’s dairy or beef, cows represent a bigger investment. Prices vary widely, from $900 to $5,000 per cow. They also need more land and more food, which means higher ongoing costs. But the payoff? Fresh milk, cheese, or beef right from your backyard.
If you have enough space, even keeping one or two cows can be rewarding. The initial cost for a cow and its basic setup might range from $3,000 to $7,000.
Goats and sheep are another fantastic option, especially if you’re looking at both milk production and natural land clearing.
Depending on the breed and purpose, goats can cost between $100 to $500 each. They’re hardy, versatile, and can help manage your land.
Starting with 2 to 4 goats is a good idea for a backyard setup. The initial investment can be around $900 to $2,500, including their fencing.
Equipment
Try to purchase quality used equipment as you grow. The cost of new equipment, especially bigger equipment like tractors, is hardly worth it in the beginning. You may have to pay more for maintenance, but it will likely work out cheaper in the long run.
For beginners, I recommend starting with basic gardening tools:
- Hand Trowels, Pruning Shears, and Watering Cans: These basics might run you about $100.
- Raised Beds: A simple raised bed can cost between $50 to $150 each, depending on the materials used. Kits are available for around $100.
- Chicken Coop: If you’re starting with chickens, you’ll need a coop. Building a basic chicken coop can cost between $200 to $500 for materials, or you can purchase a pre-made coop for $500 to $1,000. Don’t forget about bedding and feeders, which might add another $50 to $100.
- Compost Bin: A simple compost bin helps soil health. It can be made with pallets, fence wire, or other materials on hand, or you can purchase a ready-made one for around $100 to $200.
If you plan on scaling up or getting serious about homesteading, you’ll have to invest in more (and more expensive) equipment like:
- Tractors: A compact tractor is a must-have for serious farming. Prices range from $10,000 to $30,000, depending on the size and features.
- Tillers: A tiller helps prepare the soil for planting. Prices vary from $500 for a small, walk-behind tiller to $2,000 or more for larger models.
- Plows and Harrows: Attachments like plows and harrows for your tractor are great for soil preparation. These can range from $500 to $2,000 each.
- Irrigation Systems: Drip irrigation systems can cost from $500 to $2,000 depending on the size of your garden. Larger, automated systems for farms can range from $2,000 to $10,000.
- Greenhouses: For year-round growing, greenhouses are invaluable. Small hobby greenhouses cost between $500 to $5,000. Larger commercial greenhouses can range from $10,000 to $50,000 or more.
- Livestock Equipment: For larger livestock operations, you’ll need feeding and watering systems, which can cost from $500 to $5,000. Milking equipment for cows or goats can add another $1,000 to $10,000.
- Fencing: You can’t raise livestocks without proper fencing. Costs vary widely based on materials and length, ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 for several acres.
I recommend starting with basic tools so you can learn and adapt without risking huge investment.
As your homestead grows, you can also grow your equipment.
Do You Have the Land?
Do you already have the land you need to start homesteading, or do you want to buy or rent it?
If you already have the land, do you know what you can do with your land? Is there a good source of water and sunlight? What’s the microclimate like? Is the weather right for what you want to do?
If you’re renting land, you just need to look for a place that will accommodate what you want to do right now. In the future, if you decide to expand, you can always rent more land or move. It depends on how much of an investment you want to make in land that’s not yours.
If you’re buying land, you need to plan ahead and look for land that will suit your needs now and in the future (the clear vision you came up with earlier). You’ll own that land, so it’s worth investing in your homestead because it’ll be yours for years to come.
Step 3. Make the Most of Your Land
Before you make any plans, take a look at the land that you do have (no matter whether you own or rent that land) and decide how you can best use that land.
How much acreage do you have? Is it enough for what you want to realistically do? You can’t raise cattle with only a backyard. But you can produce a lot of vegetables on a relatively small piece of land.
Homesteading for beginners looks different for everyone. It all depends on the space you have to do it. But don’t worry if you don’t have a large plot of land, there is still so much you can do.
In fact, having more land isn’t necessarily better. Sometimes having a large piece of land that you don’t know what to do with can be overwhelming, especially in the beginning.
Once you know how much land you have and what you want to do with it, you need to know whether you can legally go ahead with your plans.
Check all homeowner and city/state restrictions to make sure that you’re not doing anything illegal in your area.
If you accidentally plant the wrong crop or raise the wrong livestock in the wrong space, you could end up having to start over from scratch.
Plotting out your homestead is an important step at this stage. You should know where you want things to go. While it’s relatively easy to move a chicken coop, it’s not as easy to move a vegetable garden.
Look at what areas of your land get the most sun during the day and plan according to that. There are some plants that thrive in the shade and some livestock that suffer in the sun all day.
Don’t just plot your land based on your needs right now, also think about your needs in the future. You want to be able to grow your homestead without having to move outbuildings.
It’s impossible to know what the future will hold and how your plans may change, but thinking long term can pay huge dividends down the road.
The worst thing you can do at the start of your homesteading journey is start a whole bunch of projects all at once.
Step 4. Start Small
You will overwhelm yourself (and your finances) and end up with too much to handle on your plate.
Instead, start small and scale from there. Pick one or two projects and see them through to the end. You’ll feel a sense of accomplishment and better understand how to homestead.
Starting small allows you to learn important lessons as you go. You also won’t be investing all your resources at once, leaving you at risk of losing everything.
When you start small, you make smaller mistakes.
You can easily start with a garden, edible landscaping, a medicinal garden, mushrooms, composting, small livestock, beekeeping, or herbs. These are just some of the ideas out there. There are so many options when it comes to homesteading for beginners.
If you want to know more about homesteading ideas for beginners, you can check out our blog post here.
Taking on one or two projects to start with will let you spend your time perfecting your skills in those areas. If you begin with more than that, you’ll end up with your attention, time, and energy being split between multiple projects.
Each project is going to take new skills and you have to take the time to learn those skills. You weren’t born knowing how to grow asparagus or grapes. And raising chickens isn’t as easy as you might think it is.
You need to be open to constantly learning something new each day. Use online resources, YouTube, community groups, and classes to learn everything you can about the projects that you’ve chosen.
Become an expert in one thing before you move on to the next. Then, once you’ve perfected one skill, you can work on the next thing.
To Wrap Up
If you’re looking up “How to start homesteading?”, you’re likely having a difficult time with the idea of where to start. And that’s perfectly okay.
Homesteading can be a little overwhelming at first. But you don’t have to worry. As long you figure out your finances, understand your land situation, and start small, you’ll be enjoying a more sustainable lifestyle in no time.
If you want a more detailed introduction to the world of homesteading, join our upcoming workshop! It covers situational advice, critical mistakes to avoid, and much, much more.