The Simple Truth is Homesteading is Hard But Worth It

Have you been dreaming of your future homestead life filled with bountiful harvest baskets and a dreamy chicken coop? Maybe others have tried to discourage you from taking the plunge because homesteading is too hard for you, you’re not the type. The truth is that homesteading is hard, but it’s worth it.

Why Homesteading is Hard

Homesteading can be defined differently by people in and out of this lifestyle, and of course, throughout time. No, we aren’t settling unclaimed land in hopes of producing so our federal government will agree that said land is now ours. 

By and large, modern homesteading is the act of leaving the convenience of systems that we’ve relied on while focusing on relationships to make it happen.

That requires learning skills, growing food, and aiming to produce more than we consume. 

Homesteading is hard for several reasons. I always say that everything we do revolves around growing our own food. Leaving the convenience that the grocery store has brought to generations will challenge a new homesteader in ways they didn’t imagine. 

From simply making a life change to actual physically demanding work, you should expect great difficulty in these areas:

• Labor-intensive exercise
• Emotionally taxing
• Learning how to care for sick animals
• Coping with death
• Finances
• Lifestyle Shift

Let’s dive into the details of what sort of difficulties you should expect if you decide to begin this homestead life.

Homesteading is Hard Work

Lazy will get us nowhere in anything we attempt, but homesteading is especially hard work. There’s a reason that gyms were created around the same time that droves of people left the family farms. 

They headed to the cities for easier jobs, and more of those became desk jobs. For the first time in history, people began spending most of their days sitting. Time had to be carved out for “exercise” but that wasn’t enough. A proper gym with fitness instructors became needed because people didn’t even know how to properly move their bodies.

When you’re putting your hand to the land, tilling, hoeing, digging, and pulling, squatting, dragging, carrying, and lifting, you’ll never need a gym. Your back might be sore along with other muscles you may not have been using in your old lifestyle.

You can’t control the climate. When the days are blazing hot or frigid cold, you still have to go out and repair that fence so the goats don’t get out. When there’s a hurricane bearing down on your location, you still have to go feed your animals.

I know you’ve heard me harp on the demands that come with keeping a dairy animal. A full squat with poor posture so you can reach under a short cow might leave you needing some extra daily stretching time.

​You’ll work until you can’t work anymore, and then do it all over again the next day.

The physical demands of homesteading are not too difficult for most people. I just want you to realize what you’re up against so that you know what kind of labor to expect.

Homesteading is Hard on the Emotions

Once you’ve reconnected with your food source, particularly your own meat sources, you’re sure to find a gratefulness that you didn’t know you needed. The relationship that we have with food has become unhealthy in more ways than one over the last century.

You might be expecting to dispatch animals for meat, but have you done that before? What about medically treating a sick animal only to lose it in the night? Have you considered the expenses of infrastructure? Or vet bills? What about losing an entire garden to the neighbor’s drifting weed killer?

When your hard work falls apart or you unexpectedly lose an animal, you’ll find a darkness that comes with homesteading. Processing these emotions is hard on one’s spirit, but it’s all part of the lifestyle. You are choosing heartache at some point when you choose homesteading.

But isn’t life full of heartache anyway? There are job losses and illnesses, etc. Don’t run away from something just because there’s a risk of anguish.

Choosing to Cull Animals

​Culling an animal means to remove it from the herd, whether by selling it or to end it’s life. Choosing when this happens is not easy.

I’m currently wrestling with thoughts about my favorite sheep. She is prone to a high worm load, and that’s not a genetic line that I want to keep. Breeding her doesn’t make sense, neither does keeping her if I’m not to breed her. I should cull her, but she’s my favorite, and she’s the matriarch to the rest of my flock.

Ending the life of an animal is the hardest thing you’ll ever face on the homestead, but doing it before you planned is much more difficult.

Homesteading is Hard on the Wallet

Many dreamers come into this producer-over-consumer lifestyle because they think they’ll save money. Maybe one day you will, but the truth is that homesteading is hard on the family finances. Consider spending money on infrastructure like:

• fences and cross fences
• buildings, barns, shelters
• tractors and implements
• soil amendments and seeds
• trenching waterlines and electrical hookups
• coops, stalls, cages and panels
• gates
• building roads
• meat processing equipment
• a home
• well and septic
• establishing an orchard
• food processing equipment
• solar power generating equipment
• trailers

Not only the big things, but the small stuff like hoses, trellises, incubators, sinks, and more seem to perpetually come up. 

Animals Are Not Cheap

And then there are the animals. Building flocks and herds takes time and money. Quality genetics will cost more money.

Purchasing animals that are already producing may give you an instant supply of food, but they are far more expensive than their younger counterparts. However, buying the younger animals means you’re investing money over time to feed them until they can produce food for you.

There’s a cost associated with learning. Losing animals as you learn does happen, and it costs money. Livestock veterinarian farm calls can be expensive, and so are some medicines. Let me share some stories with you.

Real Homestead Scenario #1

I bought a dairy cow for $2500. She is beautiful cow, producing plenty of milk to sell and recoup some of the cash spent to get her here (plus she was probably short bred with a calf). I should’ve been able to feed her and sell her milk for 50 days to break even financially.

After just three weeks, she became ill with a subclinical mastitis, a story that I recently shared with you. I spent about $500 on various medicines for her, paid the vet $190 to see her a few times and leave supplies with me, $100 on labs, and $50 for the ferrier to treat her feet. 

This doesn’t include the meds that I was able to secure from friends at no charge, the gas that it cost to see her, pick her up, and then drive six hours total to the vet supply store during the illness.

It also doesn’t include the loss of milk that I couldn’t use or sell from a sick cow. I have been paying to feed her, spending time on milking her extra, and then pouring out the milk to the ground. 

This has been a huge financial loss for my farm budget and a drainage on time for me personally.

Real Homestead Scenario #2

How about the cost of 75 meat chickens that were ready to process when they were mauled to death. That’s right, $300 for chicks, and then $200 plus to feed them for ten weeks. My time in moving them at least once a day should be accounted for too.

I went out one morning to find almost all of them killed in my field by either coyotes or the neighbor’s dogs. It appeared to be a joy kill, which would indicate dogs. 

We lost food for our table, but we also lost the income that would’ve come after selling to our local community. Pastured chicken went for $4 per pound at the time and those birds dressed out at 5-6 pounds each.

Other Real Homestead Disasters

I once had a thriving garden that was flooded with a tropical storm. That was not just food lost, but it was purchased soil and amendments plus the cost of plant starts (It was early in my gardening journey still, and I didn’t start anything from seeds.)

​Twice, we’ve lost entire freezers filled with meat due to power or equipment failure. That was a large portion of a cow that took two years to grow, plus fish, pork, and chicken.

Stuff happens in life, and that’s no different when it comes to homesteading. The point is that it all costs money. Expect the unexpected, and plan for loss.

A Simpler Life Does Not Equal an Easy Life

​For some reason, we sometimes feel like if we could go back to the “good ol’ days,” when life would be easier.

To be honest, I don’t want to hand wash laundry at the creek. That might be simple, but it is tedious, time-consuming, and laborious. I don’t even want to the do the laundry now.

However, even the modern homesteader seems to be a glutton for punishment. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told “yeah, I’ll just go to the grocery store” because they see how much work and how much time is spent growing food and maintaining the farm. 

There is a beautiful simplicity that comes with dropping some seeds into soil and bringing forth food for the dinner table. A special taste that is unmatched by even what we can find at a farmer’s market. But it’s not easy. 

Tending that soil, pruning the plants, hand-picking the pests, and then hand-watering so that you grow the perfect tomatoes for your family’s roasted salsa is an example of how homesteading is hard. But it’s romantically plain and traditionally old. And we love it.

Homesteading Means Staying Home Sometimes

Think about the word homesteading. Let’s break it apart: HOME and STEAD.​ The act of homesteading is literally translated into the act of staying home. To be home in place of anywhere else. That’s because the homesteads needs you.

It needs you, the manager, to complete necessary projects so that it can properly function. Declining dinner invitations because you have to milk the goats is a real thing. So is leaving the party early. Skipping a beach weekend with the girls because your cow is due, and you’re the only one she trusts to milk her might be needed.

Often times, the new homesteader moves to a more rural area. There is no nearby big box store for convenience. Homesteading is hard, and I think that many new homesteaders don’t realize the impact that rural living will have on their lives.

You don’t want to drive an hour round trip for a missing ingredient while you’re making dinner. Staying home and learning how to improvise in the kitchen is another skill to add to your homesteading repertoire.

Honestly, though, we’ve set up our homestead to be the place we love. Yeah we could use an occasional vacation for focused family time, but we never feel like we need to leave to “get away from it all.” We’ve never really understood this mentality from others. Perhaps because we’ve chosen a life that makes us want to be home.

Growing Food

The most rewarding homestead thing is to place a meal on the table that was completely grown at home. The meat, the side dishes, the herbs, the butter, the cheese, all of it. A fully homegrown, home-prepared supper is a beautiful feather to add to your homestead hat.

But growing food is hard. Learning how to garden comes with a learning curve for several reasons:

1. Understanding Plant Needs: Different plants have specific needs in terms of sunlight, water, soil type, and temperature. Learning the requirements of each plant and how to meet them takes time and experience.
2. Pest and Disease Management: Gardens are vulnerable to pests and diseases, which can be difficult to identify and treat. It requires knowledge of organic and chemical treatments, as well as prevention strategies.
3. Weather Variability: Unpredictable weather conditions is probably the number one reason that homesteading is hard. Droughts, heavy rains, and unexpected frosts can all damage plants, and gardeners need to learn how to adapt to these changes.
4. Soil Knowledge: Understanding soil composition, pH levels, and nutrient content is crucial for healthy plant growth. Amending soil appropriately can be complex and requires trial and error.
5. Time and Patience: Gardening is a slow process, and results aren’t immediate. It takes time to see the fruits of your labor, and patience is key. Mistakes can be discouraging, but they are also part of the learning process.
6. Seasonal Timing: Planting at the right time of year is essential for success. Learning when to plant, prune, and harvest can be tricky, especially for beginners.

Over time, these challenges become more manageable as you gain experience and confidence. Learning to garden is just another way reason that homesteading is hard.

Better Ways to Homestead

It’s not all doom and gloom, and I hope that I haven’t scared you away at this point. I just want to be clear about the different ways that homesteading is hard.

It’s a lot of time, work, and money to build and maintain a homestead, and a lot of folks suffer from homestead burnout rather quickly.

Let’s look at some positive ways to set you up for success once you’ve decided homesteading is for you.

Realistic Expectations

Setting realistic expectations about how the homesteading lifestyle might fit you is important. This will keep you going when hard times fall on you and your farm.

Don’t start an acre sized large garden if you’ve never grown food before. Instead, go for a small vegetable garden with just a few crops. You can enlarge that growing space later. Likewise, maybe start with dairy goats over cows and learn to milk lesser volumes at a time.

A small homestead to learn on, say an acre or two, is far more manageable than a hundred acre plot of land. Choosing an established homestead with outbuildings, well, and septic is far easier than building up from raw land. However, you’ll obviously pay more for the built-out place.

Homesteading is hard, that’s true, but don’t underestimate the value of hard work. The hard stuff is the good stuff.

Set Goals for Your Family and Your Homestead

​Set goals, break them down, and then chase the dream one little step at a time.

Every year or so, sit down and consider the things that you want to do. Brainstorm the pros and cons of each before deciding to make them actual goals. Write them all down. 

Next, go through each item on your list, and choose what can be done in the short term versus the long term. Circle the smaller things that you think you might accomplish in the short term, say a year or less. Maybe one of those items is “get laying chickens.” 

​Then, list all of the things that you need to do in order to accomplish that goal. For laying chickens, after careful research about breeds, you’ll need to budget and source:

• chicks
• feeders and waterers
• a brooder
• heat source
• a coop with run or a tractor to pasture
• nest boxes
• supplements
• a rooster is optional
• feed supply

Don’t forget to carve out time in your schedule to care for your feathered friends. Daily feeding, watering, and egg-collecting is needed. Cleaning out nest boxes should be done periodically, and a full coop cleanout should be done at least weekly. Moving tractors or temporary fences can be done every couple of days in some cases.

Figure out how many chickens your family needs to feed yourselves. If you’d like to cover the cost of your project, consider increasing the size of the flock and their space. Selling a few eggs won’t make you a decent living, but it might make enough to keep your family in free or cheap eggs.

Repeat

​Repeat this step of creating detailed lists for each goal you want to work towards. These are actionable steps that you can take towards your simple life of homesteading, removing some of the “hard” from your dream.​

Make a Budget

​One thing that seems to constantly come up when I hear people express a desire to homestead, it’s that they don’t think they can afford it. For starters, don’t quit your day job when you leave the city. Plan to commute until your finances are in order, or you can find work from home. 

Do not think that the homestead will pay for itself. The truth is that most families have an off-homestead income. Someone in the family has a full time job, whether as a corporate employee or self-employed.

You can work some side hustles by selling your extras to gain a little income. Honestly though, that’s going to be peanuts compared to what’s needed to actually pay the bills. 

When you make your list of the things that you want to add to your homestead, begin researching costs. Lumber and materials, animals, supplies required to maintain, feed, and more should all be accounted for. Add in extra for unexpected expenses that may arise because they will undoubtedly come up.

​Homesteading is hard enough before even considering money, but it’s even more difficult when the savings account is slowly drained by endless projects. Bootstrapping your way through will save you some money. Stick to the budget.

Learn to Diy Building and Repairing Projects

​Maybe you aren’t planning on building your own home, but you should learn how to make simple repairs. When a tree branch falls on the fence, there will not be enough time to wait on a fence repairman to show up before your animals escape their field.

Furthermore, the cost to pay professionals of any kind to perform minor repairs is going to add up quickly. Again, homesteading is hard enough and costly enough before you even think about paying those professionals.

​If you build your own chicken coop, you’ll always know how to fix it when needed. The same goes for every other project on your homestead. Youtube channels can be your friend in these cases. Before you know it, you’ll be a Jack (or Jill) of all trades.

Homesteading is Hard Without Community

​I have to be completely honest here. As an introverted person, staying home is my jam. I will take any excuse to go home to my animals and my garden so that I can just be quiet in my favorite spaces. 

Self-sufficiency was my goal; I didn’t need anybody if I could learn how to do all the homesteading skills on my own at home. I was wrong. 

It turns out that I need community in so many ways. We aren’t created to go through life alone. 

When we got our first dairy heifer, I didn’t know a single person who milked cows, and I had to learn how to properly treat her by myself. I had to learn how to feed her as she grew, and how that diet would change when she became pregnant, and again when she calved. 

I had to search through books, websites and forums for the right answers on medicines and supplements. What would I do during a calving emergency?

Community Makes the Dream Work

Then when my oldest son and I dove into beekeeping together, we had a mentor. An experienced older gentlemen came to help us work our hives. He educated us in ways that books could not. He helped us with a hands-on approach through all the different things related to keeping bees.

I realized that I needed that hand-holding as I learned the new skill, and how much easier the milk cow life would’ve been in the beginning if I’d had a dairy mentor.

Additionally, I learned how isolating homesteading can be. I didn’t have any friends or family who were into the things I was doing. Nobody else wanted to learn how to make soap or improve their tomato growing knowledge. There was nobody to get excited over my endless supply of pickles when I hit the cucumber lottery in my garden.

I joined a local, ladies only homesteading group through social media and met some friends. I could post my exciting successes or serious questions there. We had some get togethers to learn how to can and swap seeds. Someone posted a group buy for fruit trees, and we all placed orders.

We need other people to rely on though this journey, and they need us too. Once you’ve experienced a difficult trial on your homestead, you have gained knowledge to share. The relationships forged through a give-and-take friendship with like-minded homesteaders have value.

Homesteading is hard even when you have others come alongside you. Don’t try to go through it alone.

Learn the Art of Resting

It’s so easy to fall into the excitement trap when you first get to your homestead, especially in that first year. You don’t mind the physical labor of constructing garden beds or pig pens because you see quick fruit from your work. 

However, understand that the flame is going to dwindle at some point, and it’ll completely burn out without rest. YOU will burn out without rest.

Make sure to intentionally sow rest into your days, your weeks, and your seasons. Give yourself a little time to recuperate after several hours in the hot garden, or after the harvest and preservation season. You’ll come back to the next task refreshed and ready to work hard again.

Homesteading is hard enough work. Rest is the only way you’ll be able to sustain this homesteading journey for the long run.

Failing Forward

​Don’t forget that experience comes with failure. There is not success without failing at a thing, but you can fail forward. That is to say that you can learn what went wrong and do better next time.

If it’s a crop of green beans that didn’t set fruit, what happened? Research growing green beans. Did you give them the wrong soil type or plant them during the wrong time of year? Maybe you tried a variety that doesn’t tolerate your climate very well. 

Learn what went wrong, and try again. I bet that you’ll do better, successfully stocking your shelves with several jars of beans.

There is a constant learning curve within the homestead lifestyle because we’re always growing our skills by honing those we’ve already learned or starting something new. 

​Homesteading is hard, but failing is harder. I always say that I’ve only failed if I quit.

Summarizing Why Homesteading is Hard

Yes, homesteading is hard, certainly not for the faint of heart, but it’s not impossible. If growing your own food or living off grid on your own land is your dream, I want you to chase it. Just make sure that you come with realistic expectations of what this way of life takes to keep going, a lot of work, back-breaking work. 

Ask lots of questions, watch all the You Tube videos, and start your homesteading journey right where you are. Start learning new skills that you’ll need on your own homestead, and then take those skills with you. Homesteading won’t be so hard then.

Happy Homesteading!

Donna and her family have been homesteading for most of their 20+  years together in some shape or fashion. She currently lives on their 20 acre farm where they grow as much food as possible. What started as a just a few laying hens, has grown into large gardens, pastured poultry, pork, and lamb. They are continuously evolving their small farm to not suit their family’s needs, but also providing to their local community. Donna’s favorite part of the family farm is her self-built micro-dairy, where she gets to love on dairy cows while serving her local community. Milking, cheesemaking, and processing dairy have become the soul of their homestead and the center of their farm.