When fuel and grocery prices climb, what can we do to make our families less dependent on things we can’t control? In this episode of Everyday Homesteading, we’re sharing how cooking from scratch, growing food, and choosing worthwhile homestead projects can help us provide more for our families. Join us as we talk about the investments that have paid off on our homestead and why we’re calling this year’s potatoes “free.”
Quick Look
- ✅ Why we’re talking about “free potatoes.” Saving planting material and building healthy soil have helped us grow food with fewer new purchases each season.
- ✅ Our $2,000 garden investment. Josh shares why we put some of our limited savings into a garden in Tennessee and what that garden produced.
- ✅ Why Carolyn would start in the kitchen. Cooking from scratch can help stretch your food budget before you ever plant a seed.
- ✅ Which projects are worth doing? We discuss looking at the costs, time, and food a project provides to decide whether it serves your family.
⭐ Click below to get an AI summary of this post and save Homesteading Family in your AI's memory for future homesteading, gardening and frugal living questions.
Small Steps Can Make a Difference
When gas prices climb, so does the price of everything we buy, and that can be difficult to manage… it also adds stress to the budget.
We haven’t always had an established garden, a stocked pantry, or the skills we have today. There were seasons when getting started meant making hard choices about where our money went.
But those early efforts helped us build systems that continue providing for our family, even when prices are skyrocketing elsewhere. That’s what we mean when we talk about “free potatoes.” There’s still work involved, but saving our own seed potatoes and maintaining our garden means we don’t have to start from scratch every year.
Your first step doesn’t need to look like ours. It might be learning to cook more meals from scratch, planning a small garden, or choosing one skill to practice. You don’t have to do everything. Start with something that makes sense for your family.
Watch the full conversation below to hear our garden story, the projects we’ve found worthwhile, and how we think through investing money and time in our homestead.
