Thinking About Homesteading ? Core Checklist To Start

This will be the first in a series of Blogs to help your thoughts, desires, goals and ultimately decisions to be made. I would suggest you document your answers to these baseline questions in writing. Either electronically or physically on paper so that you can go back to them 1 week, 6 months or longer to see if they've stayed the same or have changed and why they've changed. In coming weeks, we will dive deeper into many different areas of homesteading from finding the right property, financing, food production both plant and animal based, ways to create income, cost saving methods, and many more.

Let us begin at the Genesis: understanding your thoughts, ideas, pre-conceived ideas, and goals before any final decisions and actions are carried out.

1. What are the core reasons you decided to consider homesteading?       Friend or family discussions, video or program you watched, you feel your life is in a rut, you used to live in a more rural area, cultural pressures, desire to simplify, wanting more physical space/privacy, be more self-sufficient, desire to have a healthier lifestyle physically and mentally, have a property where multi-generational family members or multiple friends can share the land.                                                                                                                                                                                 
2. When you think of homesteading do you have a beginning and end goal in mind? What does homesteading mean to you?         You will begin to grow some of your own vegetables at your existing residence ( even if just an apartment or condo ) but want to eventually own or build a home where you can raise your own chickens. Or you already live in a single-family home on an acre or more but eventually want to have gardens, livestock, and a second home for a parent to live in or rent for income? The differences are endless and there is no right or wrong because every situation and person or family has their own set of unique desires, budgets, and circumstances that fit the.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
3. What type of research have you done?         YouTube homestead videos/channels, TV shows, Books, friends or family who are already homesteading. A couple of ideas would be to visit a couple of the people in person that have put into practice similar practices you want to pursue. Try one thing that you think you want to put into practice in a small scale even if just growing a couple pots of vegetables or herbs on an apartment and see how it goes. Or work or volunteer for someone who is homesteading already to learn firsthand.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
4. What is the cost to get started? How do I budget what I want to accomplish with my goals and timelines? Will I have to make more money, or will my monthly expenses be lower in the future? These are three questions that no doubt will change over time but important to estimate from the beginning to keep expectations realistic and less stressful over time. Having any plan with baseline goals and financial numbers tied to goals is always better than none at all. Being able to adjust as you put into action various goals are critical to keeping life and goals moving forward. A destination or goal delayed is still something that will be achieved. While other goals thought from the beginning to be a must have will be decided that they are no longer wanted or needed. But instead, another wants, or need has taken its place. Not getting too high or too low when plans change is very important.