My Biggest Homesteading Obstacle (challenge)

I can’t even remember how I came to my desire to homestead. It was only 4 years ago but for the life of me I have no idea the exact moment I discovered what homesteading was. I do know that I came to it out of a desire to eat healthy foods that I could GUARANTEE weren’t genetically modified or sprayed with chemicals. At the time I had no idea who Sepp Holzer, Justin Rhodes or Joel Salatin were. I wasn’t familiar with pasture rotation or food forests. Little did I know it was going to be a rabbit hole with apparently no bottom and I’m perfectly okay with it!

Through I was obsessed with learning about homesteading for the 2 years before we got our property, I failed to realize the impact it would have on my employment. I figured if I needed to I could go to work outside the home but hoped it wouldn’t be necessary so I could focus on the homestead and possibly have kids. Turns out working outside of the home is extremely difficult for us for various reasons I’m not going to get into. Suffice it to say it made me feel crappy. Money is a hardship for us right now and has been for the last 2 years. Not being able to contribute financially speaking was depressing. Let’s just say starting over when you move back from another country is expensive. I felt like not having a 9 to 5 career somehow made me less successful. I even have a bachelor’s degree that’s sitting around completely unused. Nothing like a worthless degree to make someone feel bad about themselves.

Then one day I realized homesteading is my job. More specifically making our homestead fund itself is my job. When you have a small property you need to diversify your income. We can’t support enough ducks to make it by on egg sales alone, not without having to buy 100% of their feed. Instead, between eggs, feathers, feed tote bags and down stuffed throw pillows I might be able to make enough to buy their feed and bedding. Sure this isn’t an income exactly but it will allow us to eat eggs for free. If you apply this thought process to the whole homestead it could potentially save us $100s in grocery bills every month. Plus we will be able to eat a higher quality food than we can currently afford.

Having your homestead make it’s own money sounds great but it takes time to find these revenue streams. You have to find a market, figure out how to do it and sell the item. This takes sooooo much time, especially in the beginning when you’re figuring it all out. Sure, I could go to work every day in the second car we would have to buy, to a job that would pretty much only pay for the car I needed. Or I can stay home and build our property, produce our own food and have a higher quality of life for myself and my husband. The trick is remembering to gauge my success not by the standards of our society but by the things that truly matter to my husband and myself. I cannot describe what a struggle this is for me. Growing up I ALWAYS envisioned myself as a career woman. I was going to be an archeologist, an architect or a FBI agent. I never thought I was going to be a stay at home wife and mom. Now the quality of life for my family is the most important thing to me but being able to see that in my everyday life when finances aren’t going well or someone makes a judgy comment is a struggle. Even though I have recognized that what I am doing is my home business, it’s difficult to remove myself from society’s expectations. Mindset is the greatest obstacle when you are attempting to do something different. “Live like others won’t, so you can live like others want.”-unknown

What is/was your biggest homesteading challenge? Join the Challenge