There seems to be some discrepancy out there about whether homesteading is easy. Some people are saying it’s hard, while others are saying it should be easy. What’s our take? Join us for this episode of the Pantry Chat to find out.
Living this homesteading life is very countercultural to today’s modern lifestyle. Anytime we’re living in a countercultural way, it’s difficult. Mainstream is easy. Going with the flow, not making waves. No matter how you look at it, when we chose to live this life, we knew we would be making some tough decisions.
However, that doesn’t mean that homesteading has to be hard, so to speak. There are aspects of homesteading that have become so second nature to us that they now seem easy. But learning these routines and systems did take effort and hard work.
Convenience of Time
Human nature is to look for an easier path to life. Whether it’s looking for efficiencies to be a good steward of time and energy or to take shortcuts in life, we’re always on the hunt for convenience. This usually comes in the form of finding more time.
If we can find a shortcut or a convenience to something we have to do, this can free up more time for things we want to do. This seems ideal, right? However, what usually ends up happening is we’ve shortened a task, only to be filled with more. We never truly find the time we’re searching for because we fill it with more.
Why Homesteading is Worth It
If homesteading is so difficult, or rather “not easy,” then why would we recommend you follow in our footsteps? What value have we found that makes this countercultural lifestyle worth it?
- Producing Instead of Consuming – We have a natural consumer mindset, but it’s not healthy, and it doesn’t work on any level of human organization. Besides, we were created to be productive. When we’re being productive, we’re learning to produce things of value, and this is a recipe for success.
- Confidence Building – Though we don’t love the term “self-esteem,” we do acknowledge the confidence that comes from knowing you are capable and a valuable part of a team. When our children contribute to our family, they feel valued and important. We believe this is so important to children today.
- Delayed Gratification and Patience – Along with the confidence we see in our own children, we can also see the ability to accept delayed gratification through patience. Homesteading isn’t quick and, many times, requires great patience. These are valuable skill sets we want our children to have when they go off into the world. This is also applicable to adults. In our “microwave” culture, where we all want immediate results, the ability to grow patience through delayed gratification is wonderful.
- Creating Bonds and Relationships – Doing life together with a family (which it takes to run a productive homestead) means we’re building relationships and bonds that, in turn, equate to a healthy family unit.
- Save Money – Notice that saving money is low on our list of homesteading benefits. Though it’s not our main reason for homesteading, it’s certainly worth mentioning. Not only are we growing our own food for a year (and raising enough livestock for a year), but we’re growing and raising a higher quality of food than we could purchase in the grocery store for much less money!
We think many of you who have already started this lifestyle probably already see the benefits. However, if you’re struggling, let us encourage you to check out our videos on overcoming hardships and learning how to pivot when things go wrong.
When Homesteading Becomes “Easy”
Though you may find us talking about how “easy” certain aspects of homesteading are, this doesn’t mean it was always this way. We do think it’s “easy” to bake our own bread from scratch. We now think baking with a sourdough starter is “easy.”
We think growing a medicinal herb garden is easy, and using medicinal herbs at home is simple. But these are all skills we layered on one at a time and slowly implemented into our daily lives. It didn’t happen overnight, and we didn’t necessarily consider it “easy” while we were learning.
It’s a lot like driving a car. We’re in the throes of training teenagers how to drive. When they first get behind the wheel, it seems like so much to do all at once. However, after a few weeks or months of practice, we don’t have to pay as close attention to the speedometer or the rearview mirrors. Driving eventually becomes second nature, and it no longer seems like such a challenge to find the turn signal.
That holds true for homesteading. Once you have mastered each individual skill, you can layer them on top of one another and living this homesteading lifestyle begins to feel a lot easier and more second nature.
To wrap it up and answer the question of whether homesteading is easy… Our answer is no, homesteading is not easy, but it’s definitely worthwhile.
