9 Frugal Homesteading Ideas
Figuring out how to homestead can be a really fun activity. The specifics of each home setup can flex to each particular scenario.
On the one hand, if you’re working with a tiny apartment, you can establish an urban garden, get a few chickens, and generally set yourself up to be as sustainable as possible. On the other hand, if you live in the suburbs or a rural area and you have some land to work with, the world is literally your oyster.
Of course, the one major hangup to most homesteading projects, regardless of location, is the price tag.
The Hidden Costs of Homesteading
Often the costs involved in properly starting a homestead can be deceptively sneaky.
Take chickens, for instance. One day you wake up and think “I eat a lot of eggs. I bet you if I had chickens I’d save 15% or more on my egg expenses.” (And yes, that last bit should totally be read in the Geico lizard’s accent.)
That same day you stroll into your local Tractor Supply and pick up a dozen of the little fellas for a couple of bucks apiece. Before you know it, you’re heading home with the whole gang cramped and tweeting away in that cute cardboard box filled with air holes. Twenty-five bucks down, infinite eggs to come. Not a bad price point, right?
We’ll call this the “honeymoon” phase.
A couple of weeks later, you’ve got a dozen teenage chickens in a bin in your garage, stinking the whole place up. Even worse, you’ve now spent dozens of dollars buying equipment for food and water, bedding, chicken starter feed, and heat lamps to keep your malodorous new friends warm. Okay, at least you’re still talking dozens of dollars, right?
We’ll call this the “shine is coming off” phase.
Then a few more weeks go by and you need a coop. Sure, chickens only need a few square feet per bird, but that still likely means a couple of hundred dollars spent on a homemade coop or quite a bit more if you get a prefab model.
We’ll call this the “reality is setting in” phase.
Once you actually get your chickens outside, and enough time goes by that they actually start laying eggs, chances are you’ve spent hundreds of dollars on equipment, food, and housing.
While the results are rewarding, the entire process isn’t necessarily cost-effective, and there’s the rub: homesteading can be expensive.
It doesn’t matter if you’re dabbling in a new garden technique or going all-in on a multi-acre farm, there are certain activities that can quietly-yet-efficiently drain your bank account.
Frugal Homesteading Ideas
Before you close out the window and move on from the whole “I’ll homestead to save some money!” idea, there’s still hope!
The truth is, while homesteading can be expensive, it doesn’t have to be. When you start a homestead you’re dealing with such a broad topic that you can always find methods to do it your own way.
If your current goal is to figure out how to start homesteading frugally, we’ve got your back. Here are a few options that we’ve discovered over the years that enable you to operate a monetarily savvy homesteading operation that would even make Ebeneezer Scrooge jealous.
1. Start an herb garden
With coronavirus racking the world for months on end and severe agricultural economic implications a very real possibility in the near-distant future, a lot of folks have gotten into their heads to set up a garden. After all, all you have to do is dig a few troughs through the ground with a stick, toss in a few seeds, and pretty soon you’ll be setting out your harvested bounty like the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, right?
Except, you guessed it, gardening is yet another homesteading activity that can quickly spiral into hella expensive setup and maintenance costs — at least if you go about it with the wrong mindset. If you’re looking for simple-yet-effective ways to save some money, you may want to start with something small and relatively easy to manage, like an herb garden.
A fraction of the size of a regular herbivorous plot, there are plenty of herb garden ideas that are easy to set up, can exist right on your front doorstep or back porch, often needs minimal watering, and can provide plenty of fresh herbs with low overhead and minimal upkeep.
2. Strategically set up a full-size garden
If your herb adventures go swimmingly, you may be able to upgrade to a full-size garden. However, you’re going to want to plan this one out with a bit more care if you want to save money as you go along.
Start by researching your options. If you live in the country, look for a patch with good sun and easy water access. If you live in the city, there are tons of urban garden options for you to consider, too.
Once you have a location and style chosen, a few other tips include:
Trying to start plants from seeds: This can be difficult, but it can save you money by avoiding purchasing already started plants partway into the season.
Considering cost-effective gardening methods: Things like square foot gardening and hugelkultur garden beds can often be worth the time to set up if you want to save money in the future.
Plan on canning and preserving any food that you can’t eat before it goes bad: This can be a great way to boost your prepper supply in anticipation of the next disaster.
Try to reuse and repurpose wherever possible: From salvaging chicken wire to building raised beds out of old pieces of wood, look for ways to save money as you assemble your garden.
If you take the time to do things thoughtfully and you look for ways to cut costs as you go, you can certainly save some money and gain access to fresh, homegrown fruits and veggies at the same time.
3. Set up a compost
If you want to save a little extra on your gardening costs, you can also create your own compost pile. After all, waste is never really waste.
Composting 101 is extremely simple and everything from food scraps to cow poop can be composted at home. By creating, caring for, and feeding a compost bin on a regular basis you can save yourself a bundle on gardening fertilizer and increase the effectiveness of your crop at the same time.
4. Bake your own bread
Baking bread is another activity that can quickly become an inefficient and expensive proposition, especially if you’re comparing it to a $.99 loaf of Wonder Bread at the store. However, if you fancy a more extravagant loaf or you’re gluten-free or have a similar dietary restriction, the cost of that prebaked, presliced bread can go up by 500% or more.
If that’s the case, you can probably purchase ingredients both in bulk and on the cheap and save some money by looking up an easy bread recipe and learning how to bake bread right in the warm comfort of your own kitchen.
As a bonus, by learning this skill, the next time there’s a pandemic and everyone makes a run on the grocery stores looking for toilet paper and baked goods, you won’t have to fight through the crowds to get that last, squished loaf. Instead, you can pull out your favorite bread recipes and bake some bread at home.
5. Raise chickens
Okay, you’re probably thinking “what a bunch of hypocrites??” and we get it. How dare we suggest chickens when we just used them as an example to tear efficient homesteading on a budget to shreds.
However, once again, while chickens can cost an arm and a leg, they don’t have to. You can raise chickens in a cost-effective manner by:
Only getting enough chickens for your needs: Research how many eggs each breed lays per year and calculate how many you’ll need.
Allowing your chickens to free-range: This can dramatically cut down on feed costs.
Looking for ways to repurpose an old garage, shed, or dog house into a chicken coop: This can save you hundreds of dollars, just make sure you take extra precautions to make it safe from predators!
Consider raising extra chickens in order to sell the eggs: Just make sure you can sell eggs wherever you’re located without an expensive permit tacked onto the deal.
If you take the time to set your chickens up in a fiscally sustainable way, they really can help you save money over time.
6. Make your own cleaners and soaps
Fancy homemade soaps and organic cleaners may cost twice the grocery store prices when you buy them premade, but when you go about making them yourself you can often save a bundle on the price tag — even when compared to cheap store alternatives.
Even if you’re not interested in how to make soap from scratch, you can instantly cut your cleaning budget down to the bone by shifting to vinegar and baking soda as your primary cleaning ingredients. They may smell bad when you’re using them, but they get the job done, and for pennies on the dollar, too.
7. Create reusable napkins
The price of paper goods can quickly add up. That’s why we don’t use paper plates every day, right? But you can go further than simply using reusable plates, bowls, cups, and silverware by making reusable napkins, to boot.
Just look for some scrap material or an old t-shirt or sweater and you can easily turn it into your own line of reusable cloth napkins. It’s the kind of activity that would make The Pioneer Woman proud.
8. Make homestead gifts
Sometimes the best frugal homesteading ideas don’t involve cost-cutting so much as what you do with what you produce. From homegrown eggs to garden products, jam, soap, and any other homesteading product that you create, it’s always worth considering how you can incorporate the bounty of your homesteading labor into homemade gift ideas for others.
But wait, you say, that doesn’t have to do with how to start homesteading with no money. Ah, but it does, though. Here’s how.
Remember that bar of soap that you saw at the local farmers market? It looked fancy, had adorable inconsistencies, and they were charging $5 freaking dollars for a tiny block of it. If you start mass producing this kind of stuff in your own home — and in affordable bulk batches, no less — you can use it to create valuable gifts from your own homestead that involve minimal costs to yourself.
This can indirectly save you gobs of money that would have been spent on expensive handmade gifts, thus keeping your spending down and that homesteading budget under control in the process.
9. Invest in a chainsaw and wood splitter
Finally, if you’re looking for some long-term savings, you can invest in a good chainsaw and wood splitter. We personally recommend looking into a decent Stihl chainsaw. Yes, they’re the prime rib of saws and they can cost a lot of moolah upfront, but they’ll last a lifetime. If you pick up a wood splitter, too, you can save a bundle on heating bills over time.
You should be able to pick up a good saw and splitter for around $2000. That might sound like a lot, but a log load can easily run under $500 — and that’s if you don’t already have free wood available on your property. A single log load can easily heat a modestly-sized house for your entire winter.
Do that for a few years and the savings add up pretty quickly.
Even if you don’t currently have a woodstove option, you may want to consider either installing or having one installed. It’ll take longer to recoup your investment, but you should still eventually save money — and you’ll also have a trusty heat source even when the power goes out.
Homesteading on a Budget
There are plenty of ways to homestead on a budget. If there’s one theme that has run from one end of this list to the other, though, it’s the simple fact that you need to keep both eyes open with each and every decision you make.
Whether you’re just figuring out how to start homesteading or you’re an old pro, there are always new activities that you can take on in order to save money right from the comfort of your homefront.