10 Ways you can Homestead Anywhere

You may think that you can only begin to homestead if you live on 50 acres with a herd of cows, chickens and a giant garden with all the preservation methods easily at your disposal. At the very minimum, many think that you have to be married with kids and live on property with farm animals. I ESPECIALLY thought I could not homestead just anywhere.

I have since discovered that narrative is a giant misconception. There may be a relatively natural progression of wanting all of those things. However, I have realized that homesteading is mostly a state of mind. This state of mind tends to involve a constant state of learning everyday skills for long-term nourishment. Both self and community reliance are also created in this process. 

Since food is a large part of our everyday life, you may have started your journey by investigating what is in their food and how it is made. That’s how I started my family down the homesteading habit hole. However, there are many ways to start homesteading no matter where you are. 

The following list includes 10 ways you can practice the homestead life (almost) anywhere. In fact, I began learning many skills while living in a one bedroom loft apartment.

Homestead Anywhere Skill #1:

Repairing items before replacing

Many popular or easily available clothing stores and brands are not made to last more than a few years. Even when you buy high quality and durable items, wear spots eventually develop, fabric gets pilled or a sharp item pokes a hole in your pocket. Instead of repurchasing at the first sign of wear, patch the wear spot, sew up the hole in the pocket or get a fabric shaver to remove the pilled lint. These small repairs could extend the usable life of your items months or even years and ultimately save you money. If you can’t repair the item in order to use it for the intended purpose, try thinking of other ways to utilize the item. This may look like using socks as scrub rags or making a linen skirt into a towel or two. 

Homestead Anywhere Skill #2:

Use all of the food you buy

To me, there are two important pieces to this. The first is not throwing away leftovers. The second is to use all ingredients you buy.

An important piece of not throwing away leftovers is making meals that can reheat well. It may take some trial and error to figure out exactly what foods you and your family enjoy eating a second time. When a recipe calls for a portion of an item (i.e., half of a head of cabbage) make a plan to use what remains. If a recipe calls for one cup of broth & you only have a 4 cup container of broth, find another meal that calls for broth & make that meal the same week.

Homestead Anywhere Skill #3:

Make Bone Broth or Stock

Making bone broth or stock is a great way to add a depth of flavor and many nutrients to home cooking. Also, have you seen the price of good bone broth in the store? Many recipes use chicken or beef bones but almost any animal bones will work. To add even more delicious flavor to your bone broth, save scraps from vegetables you chop up.

If you are unsure that you will be able to make bone broth in the next few days, put those scraps in the freezer! They will still be wonderful additions to broth. My go to veggies typically include onions, garlic, carrots, and celery.

Do you want to try making bone broth for yourself? You can find my recipe HERE.

Homestead Anywhere Skill #4:

Buying in bulk 

My bulk buying journey definitely had a learning curve but it has been well worth it. I would advise to take this step slowly so you don’t waste a lot of money and resources. Some questions to help you begin a list of items to bulk buy include: What does my family eat or use the most? How long does it take to go through each item? How long does each item stay good for? Can we use this item before it expires or goes bad?

For me and my family, we like to buy meat in a full or half a cow, canned goods and other staples like flour, sugar, butter and frozen fruits and veggies. If you can source your chosen bulk items locally, that’s great! But DO NOT feel bad if you go to a bulk store like Costco or Sam’s Club.

If some items are too expensive or you can’t use/store the whole bulk item(s), reach out to friends and family to see if they want to split an item with you. This will help build your longer term food storage alongside building your community.

Want inspiration on which items to bulk buy? See my list of items to stock up on HERE.

Although places like Costco and Sam’s Club are available in many places, they are not available everywhere. If you have a local Co-Op or grocery store, you may be able to ask them if they can special order something for you. If you don’t have either or those stores don’t carry the quality of items you are looking for, I suggest looking at Azure Standard.

Azure Standard is an online based Co-Op that stocks almost anything you can think of. They stock items for the kitchen, the pantry, personal care, first aid, the garden and livestock needs. Unlike other bulk stores, they do not charge a fee for you to order. They also offer non-bulk sizes of pretty much everything they sell.

Homestead Anywhere Skill #5:

Practice preservation methods

Food preservation involves a wide range of methods. My favorite methods included dehydrating, fermenting & water bath canning. These methods are great for a beginner because they can be done with little investment and they provide a great benefit. 

Homestead Anywhere Skill #6:

Baking your own bread products

When I began my homesteading and home making journey, bread and bread products were some of the first items I quickly discovered could be made easily and cheaply at home. In the homesteading space, sourdough is EVERYWHERE. Although starting and using a sourdough starter may be a goal of many, it may not fit into everyone’s schedule or skill level at first. Starting with yeast packets is a good place to start in building your baking confidence. If you choose to make the move to a starter in the future, go for it! If you want to start with a starter, that’s great too! 

Homestead Anywhere Skill #7:

Become familiar with plants and what the can do for you

Many plants can provide healing and nutrition. However, knowing how to spot those plants and knowing the differences between one that will help or and one that may harm you could quite literally mean the difference between life and death. Descriptive books with detailed pictures are my go-to resources for plant identification. To go along with this, being able to identify herbs and recalling their healing properties is something I’ve enjoyed. 

Homestead Anywhere Skill #8:

Visiting your local farm or farmers market

Knowing who and where food is produced has become a magical experience for me. I first started this journey by regularly visiting my local farmers market. At each visit, I would ask a few questions to or just speak with each vendor I visited or purchased from.  By doing this, I was not only able to know who and where my food came from but I was also able to make connections and build relationships with the people producing the food my family ate. The love and passion many of these food producers radiated was unbelievably amazing to experience. 

Homestead Anywhere Skill #9:

Simplify the products you use

This homestead practice is rooted in discovering the items that serve you best. As a relatively universal first product category, I’d like to mention the category of cleaning solutions. Many modern households were taught to believe you must have a different cleaner for each surface. These cleaners can tend to be harsh on human skin or not great to breath.

After many years of cleaning my home, I’ve found I can get away with using an all purpose cleaner, vinegar baking soda & a soap to clean almost any surface in my home. Although you don’t have to have these few cleaning products, downsizing your arsenal of cleaners as you run out of them to be just a few that serve you and your home can be freeing. 

Another common category of products is hygiene or self care. For me, this has evolved to look like one shampoo, one conditioner, one body wash or soap, one body lotion and one face lotion. Again, this Downsizing doesn’t need to be immediate. However, finding products that serve me well has been encouraging to cut out everything I don’t enjoy. 

Homestead Anywhere Skill #10:

Learn to cook your own meals 

No matter your starting knowledge of cooking, this homestead practice is a lifelong learning opportunity. Being able to create even just one or two meals a day from simple ingredients can also be very rewarding. I’ve found it rewarding in the sense that you don’t have to rely on highly processed and packaged foods. It also brings me joy when I’m able to gather around the table with the food I’ve created and put together with love. No matter the level of intricacy, food brings people together. So, this last homesteading practice can fuel the beginning and continuation of your community building. 

Thank you for joining me! Let me know what homesteading practice you want to try first in the comments below.

If you’ve enjoyed this, you may also enjoy reading 20 Amazing Tools you need in your Homestead Kitchen

Do you use any of these tips to homestead? I’d love to know! Comment below or tag @MissysHomestead on Instagram.