Ideas Please

Wldlife23 · #1 07/04/13, 10:49 AM

How do you all make a living on a homestead. Im looking for ideas to ponder on, so hopefully one day I can take the much needed leap into homesteading 100%. If you all left your city jobs and are living off the homestead no matter how modest, can you all please share your ideas...it owuld be greatly appreciated.

jwal10 · #2 07/04/13, 10:59 AM

It is a lot different living off the homestead than MAKING a living off the homestead. And I am sure more are working off to make a living. We have a retirement to help out. We haven't made a living off the land since we sold the farm. We do try to live off the land....James

doomas · #3 07/04/13, 11:26 AM

If you have the space you could board a couple horses for some cash. set aside a small building and board dogs and cats for week end travelers.
anything extra from the garden can be sold.

Callieslamb · #4 07/04/13, 11:27 AM

We couldn't live for a week what we earn from the homestead. But we can live for years off what we grow to feed ourselves.

uncle Will in In. · #5 07/04/13, 12:22 PM

produceing your own food is what most homesteaders get from their homestead. If you ever go to a doctor or fix your car, pay insurance or a slew of other things that take money, you will need an off homestead income. If you can make some money with your computer, then you possibly could make it right at the homestead. Having a homestead wouldn't be nesessary to do that.
Goats do make great pets. (and milk)

Taylor R. · #6 07/04/13, 01:01 PM

I know some homesteaders who make up that extra bit necessary to get along in our modern world when necessary by crafting and selling their wares (either online or at shows). Any craft that can be done with materials from the homestead are a particularly frugal way to do that.

JoePa · #7 07/04/13, 01:07 PM

Grow organic food - organic goat milk - organic beef - you name it - more and more people are wanting organic food - grocery stores are always increasing the amount of organic food they are selling - grow ginseng - it sells for around $400 to $500 a pound - dry - if you have enough land start a berry pick your own farm - there is no end to things you can do to make some money - you'll need to make money somehow to support your needs -

Ernie · #8 07/04/13, 01:33 PM

You're gonna have to decide what you like to do. If you do something on your homestead just to make money ... what the heck is the difference between that and going out and getting a job?

What hobbies do you have? What skills do you have? What do you like to do? Figure that out, and you might figure out a way to make money off of one of those things, or all of them. Often the things we like to do only can make a little bit of money, so we may have to do several of them to get by.

For me, I love making knives and working with wood and metal. So I have a small workshop here on the farm which earns me the trickle of income we need to keep homesteading.

I don't do the things I do to make money. I make money so I can keep doing the things I do.

For us, gardening and food production on the homestead is a sideline. We do it to keep us fed because the knife shop only barely covers the other essentials. If I also had to spend the average $30k a year a family does on food, then we'd never make it. Our entire business model depends upon us not having to spend much money on food.

The other side of the crafting, as opposed to what a previous poster is telling you about selling food, is that you can sell your wares on the internet straight from the farm and keep selling them for a very long time. If I have a knife that takes 4 months to sell, then it's just a 4 month old knife by the time I do sell it. Try selling a 4 month old turnip.

I wouldn't go into the business of selling food unless I just really loved producing food and had so much coming out of my ears that I couldn't eat or preserve it all.

greg_n_ga · #9 07/04/13, 02:08 PM

cannabis....dependin on where you are of course !!

luvrulz · #10 07/04/13, 02:39 PM

We grow 4 acres of asparagus and have about 600 blueberry bushes. We also have a bakery onsite and sell all of the above at the local farmer's market. We grow a garden, beef, chickens and turkeys for our own consumption....

Plus my hubby retired from the post office at 55 after almost 40 yrs of service.

We work hard at keeping everything going and have help on the things we don't like to do (weed whacking and house cleaning.) It all pays off......

emdeengee · #11 07/04/13, 03:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wldlife23

How do you all make a living on a homestead. Im looking for ideas to ponder on, so hopefully one day I can take the much needed leap into homesteading 100%. If you all left your city jobs and are living off the homestead no matter how modest, can you all please share your ideas...it owuld be greatly appreciated.

A lot depends on your skills, training, trade or education. I was able to set up my own bookkeeping business. Got to stay at home 90% of the time and choose my own clients and set my own work schedule.

It is completely possible to live off of your homestead - producing a lot of what you need and use - but I think to make a full living off of it you would be looking more at farming. Or at least producing enough surplus to sell to turn into the cash we all need.

greg_n_ga · #12 07/04/13, 03:59 PM

Honey also comes to mind although seasonal. It is rather high priced these parts !!

Ernie · #13 07/04/13, 04:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by greg_n_ga

Honey also comes to mind although seasonal. It is rather high priced these parts !!

Not quite as high margin as cannabis, but yeah.

But again ... if you don't love beekeeping then don't go into producing honey!

I know plenty of people who actually like their jobs and live on a homestead. The homesteading is just a better way of life for them and they consider that their jobs pay for the homesteading.

You're still a homesteader, even if you can't have your homestead pay its own way.

Sort of like how even Al Pacino had to bus tables at some point.

BigHenTinyBrain · #14 07/05/13, 07:33 AM

I love my job, modest as it is. I also love that my homestead allows me to work part time. I sympathize with the desire to sell what you produce on a homestead, but I prefer to think that not everything needs to be For Sale. Having a job allows me to give eggs and spare veggies to friends nd neighbors... what I cannot use, someone else can, nd I don't need homesteading to be a capitalist venture.

Alice In TX/MO · #15 07/05/13, 08:36 AM

Very few of us "make a living FROM the homestead." We have other income streams.

am1too · #16 07/05/13, 09:14 AM

For me I am not sure what to do. The locals poo poo everything with some trying to be manipulative to the point I think they might try to cause a legal problem. So I am not sure that I want visitors on the property. I like my peace. Of course these people are reliant on the system. Some are even called citiots which really belong in town for all practical purposes.

So anything I do will probably be off site at least.

It seems to me that folks would rather buy their garden stuff at Wally's than to buy good stuff at even the same cut throat price from a neighbor. Now if I want to give them the same stuff they will take it. Just can't seem to work for free. They will however pay someone from the city 4 times what they would even consider paying me. I have corrected some of that expensive work trying to drum up some business to no avail.

BoldViolet · #17 07/05/13, 10:45 AM

http://www.countrylivinginacariboova...your-family-2/

I think this link illustrates a good start. Good luck!