Homestead Checklist for Starting a Homestead

Looking to start a homestead this year? Then this homestead checklist is going to help you pinpoint exactly what you’ll need to do in order to start this new journey.

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Starting to live a homesteading lifestyle can be really overwhelming. It’s easy to get caught up on your dreams and big goals to become so overwhelmed you’re not even sure where to start. I can remember feeling that way, too, when I first started feeling the desire to start living a more self-sustainable, DIY sort of life…I had all of these big visions and dreams of how it would look in the end, but I wasn’t sure how to even get started on the path towards getting there.

Today I want to offer you a homestead checklist to help you out if you’re just getting started on your homesteading journey. This checklist can serve as a great starting point towards pinpointing exactly what you need to do in order to make your homesteading dreams and visions become actual realities.

Let’s dive right into this homestead checklist!

Table of Contents

• 1. Create an ultimate bucket list and/or vision board for your homestead
• 2. Start learning how to cook from scratch
• 3. Evaluate what to buy from the store and whether or not it can be created at home
• 4. Determine what your property can offer
• 5. Learn new self-sufficiency skills
• 6. Start composting
• 7. Learn food preservation techniques
• 8. Decide if you can add animals
• 9. Find other likeminded individuals to connect with
• 10. Prepare your mindset
• More on Starting a Homestead
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1. Create an ultimate bucket list and/or vision board for your homestead

When you’re just getting started with a new homestead, your first step on your homestead checklist absolutely has to be creating a vision. When you sit down and dream at night, what do you see? In an absolutely perfect world where there are no limits, what would your homestead look like?

Take some time to dream this out and then actually write it down on paper. Keep it somewhere that you can look at it often. Writing it down and continuing to remind yourself of this goal is going to help you to move towards it without life ending up drowning it out. Moving toward your homesteading goals is more than likely going to be challenging, frustrating, and will leave you wondering if you’re doing the right thing. Keeping a list of goals and dreams close by can help your weary heart and mind refocus, get back on track, and keep moving towards those end goals.

2. Start learning how to cook from scratch

A huge part of homesteading means being as self-sustainable as you possibly can. It means relying a lot less on the store and others to do the work for you, and more on yourself towards making your family’s food options.

Learning to cook completely from scratch will take some time, trial, and error, but once you’ve learned the basics, you’ll find freedom. Your grocery bill won’t be sky-high, you won’t be dependent on others to make a meal, and you’ll find that you can whip up a good, wholesome meal with very basic ingredients just like Ma Ingalls did.

I wrote a whole post here about how you can cook from scratch without a meal plan (and make delicious meals your family will actually enjoy!). It’s not as hard as you think, and I promise you, once you have these skills mastered you will feel so free from dependency on a grocery store for your meals!

3. Evaluate what to buy from the store and whether or not it can be created at home

Along those same lines of cooking from scratch….

Look at your family’s favorite meals. What kinds of foods go into creating them?

There are quite a few common food ingredients that are often purchased but could be made at home instead.

Let’s first think about your baking. Tortillas, noodles, breads, rolls, buns are all things that can be created in your own kitchen. Vanilla can be extracted at home, too. No need to purchase these from the store any longer!

How about produce? Can you grow your own instead of buying it? What about meat, dairy, and eggs? How do you feel about producing that on your own? Then, move onto sweeteners. Could you harvest your own honey or maple syrup?

The biggest thing to continuously remind yourself every time you open up a package from the store to add to something you’re preparing for a meal is can I make this myself instead of buying it? If you’re not sure, look up a recipe and evaluate: is this something you could do? More often than not, you’ll find out that it’s not really all that hard to make it yourself instead of buying it.

4. Determine what your property can offer

Every property has something to offer, whether it’s a big property or a small one. Maybe you have a large property with lots of land for creating bountiful gardens or hosting livestock. Or, perhaps you might live in an urban area, but there are still lots of opportunities for self-sufficiency here, too.

You don’t need a huge amount of land to be able to grow a fairly large amount of food. Food can even be grown in containers!

Evaluate your property and see how you can maximize the space to produce food for your family. Perhaps a flower garden could also be filled with herbs. Or, maybe you could turn a corner of your yard into a chicken coop. If you have a larger area of space, perhaps you may decide your property could be home to a family milk cow, beef cows, or pigs.

And animals and vegetables aren’t the only thing you can add to your property! Fruit and nut trees are great long-term ways to add more sustainable food options to your family’s table.

Your property can probably offer a lot more than you’re giving it credit for!

5. Learn new self-sufficiency skills

Learning how to forage for wild edibles, grow your own food, milk a cow, sew, start a fire, bake bread, cook from scratch, etc. are all wonderful self-sufficiency skills that you’ll want to learn. By doing so, you’ll find yourself armed with the knowledge needed for freedom from dependency on others. You’re not going to learn how to do everything overnight. But you’ll be amazed at how much you can learn in just one year’s time. Have a mind that is eager to learn new skills, one that is always searching for knowledge. This type of mindset will take you far on your homesteading journey.

6. Start composting

Composting is a great way to naturally take care of food waste while creating soil needed to grow your own food again in the future. Stop throwing your compostable materials in the garbage can to head to a landfill! Instead, find a spot in your yard that you can start your own compost bin. It doesn’t have to be fancy at all! Even a pile on the ground is better than nothing.

7. Learn food preservation techniques

Once you have started growing food of your own, you’re going to need to know how to preserve them for the off-season of growing. You’ll want to learn food preservation techniques to help keep your bounty edible all throughout the year. Some ways to do this are by pressure canning, water bath canning, freezing, dehydrating, and/or smoking. You do need to be careful with food preservation, as doing it incorrectly can cause your family to get very ill. But, don’t let that scare you! As long as you follow directions carefully, you will be just fine!

I have a beginner’s canning guide that you can check out here to help you get started.

8. Decide if you can add animals

Animals can be a huge part of self-sufficiency and homesteading, but they are also a huge commitment time-wise, financially, and potentially space-wise. If you own a small urban homestead, I really encourage you to look at this post on urban homesteading, where urban homesteader Anna Timmerman shares her story. On just a very small parcel of land in the city, she has been able to raise various animals happily to serve her family.

Some animals that require less land/space include:

• Chickens (for both eggs and meat)
• Ducks (for both eggs and meat)
• Turkeys
• Rabbits
• Quail (for both eggs and meat)
• Pigeons
• Goats (for both dairy and meat)
• Honey Bees

If you have a larger homestead, you might consider adding larger animals, such as a family milk cow, beef cows, and/or pigs.

Whatever you decide, just be sure that you are willing and able to keep up with the commitment of raising animals. They’ll require your time daily for feeding and water (as a minimum), and will need fencing and shelter as well. Before purchasing any animal, take the time to research.

9. Find other likeminded individuals to connect with

This is a VERY important part of the homestead checklist! Sometimes it can be hard to start a homestead when everyone around thinks you’re crazy for even considering such an idea. See if you can find other likeminded individuals to connect with. Try locally first- are there other people who grow their own food? Raise their own dairy and meat? Reach out to them and see how they’re doing it. If you’re not sure where to start, a local farmer’s market might be a good place to start looking to connect.

And beyond the local community, there are lots of people all around the world who are homesteading. Join Facebook groups, follow blogs, watch Youtube vlogs, and realize that there are other people in the world just like you- you aren’t alone! It’s ok to be “weird” if it means you’re happy and providing for yourself!

10. Prepare your mindset

This one is also a really important part of the homestead checklist. If your mind isn’t in the right place, it’s going to be really hard to get yourself motivated to begin homesteading at all. In this post on how to start a homestead, I detail a lot about what helped me finally get my mindset wrapped around the fact that I could actually homestead and make my dream become reality. With a proper mindset, you’ll be able to start your homestead journey, too, and start living out the dream in your mind you’ve wished could come true.

More on Starting a Homestead

• WHAT 200 HOMESTEADERS WISH THEY WOULD’VE KNOWN WHEN THEY STARTED
• THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE YOU START HOMESTEADING
• READY TO START HOMESTEADING? LEARN HOW HERE.
• HOMESTEADING WHILE WORKING FULL TIME: CAN IT BE DONE?
• HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HOMESTEADING IN WISCONSIN
• HOW TO BECOME A HOMESTEADER: HOW THESE FAMILIES STARTED THEIR OWN MODERN DAY HOMESTEADS
• THIS IS WHY SO MANY PEOPLE ARE HOMESTEADING TODAY

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