Holistic homesteading is a symbiotic relationship between you and your home.  Its philosophy is simple — home takes care of us and we take care of home. Holistic homesteading allows families to build health, wealth and happiness from their homes. We’ve been living this way for the last 10 years and here’s what we’ve learned.

Holistic Homesteading Principles

A holistic homestead focuses on 3 core areas of life: health, wealth and happiness.

Health Benefits of Holistic Homesteading

Homesteading activities such as gardening, animal husbandry and outdoor projects contribute significantly to physical health by promoting regular exercise, which is beneficial for the heart, muscles, and overall body strength. We’ve lost over 300 pounds together through this natural lifestyle. It’s increased our physical activity, we ditched processed foods and we seek out the highest quality food we can grow, raise or buy. Fresh air, clean water and sunshine have helped us heal old injuries, chronic disease and to feel decades younger than we are.

You don’t have to garden and raise animals to be a holistic homesteader. Not every pioneer grew food or had livestock. Many traded their products for fresh food. The blacksmith shoed the horse of the rancher who often paid him in meat. The seamstress made dresses and traded for grain to last her family a year. The important part is creating things you love and are interested in. You’ll be using these interests to provide income. This income is used to provide higher quality food, natural medicines and eliminates the stress of working in the 9-5 world. All of this works together to enhance your physical and mental well-being.

The mental health benefits are equally important, holistic homesteading provides a sense of accomplishment, reduces stress and enhances mindfulness. The connection to nature inherent in holistic homesteading practices is linked to improved mental health, offering tranquility and a serene environment that encourages relaxation and mental well-being. Indie suffers from lifelong PTSD from childhood abuse, this lifestyle has done more to decompress anxiety than anything else she’s ever tried. Raz was diagnosed with two terminal conditions before undertaking this lifestyle change, he’s recovered from both and is healthier than he’s been since his 20s.

Nutritional Benefits

Growing your own food (or buying from someone who does) provides fresh, nutrient-rich produce. Studies have shown that vegetables and fruits lose nutritional value during transport and storage. Homesteading allows for a diet that is lower in processed foods and higher in whole foods, contributing to better overall health. Eggs are one of the most nutrient dense foods on the planet. If you can’t have your own chickens, go the extra mile to get eggs from someone who does. Our chickens provide so many benefits — eggs, tick control and endless antics that entertain us for hours.

Building Real Wealth on a Holistic Homestead

Financial Stability Through Self-Sufficiency

Homesteading can contribute to financial stability by reducing the need to purchase food and other goods. By producing your own food, you can save on grocery bills. Additionally, homesteading skills such as carpentry, sewing, and other DIY projects can reduce the need for external services and products. The practice of permaculture and holistic financial planning can create opportunities for monetization and sustainable living, even during economic downturns.

Creating Sustainable Wealth

A holistic approach to wealth creation involves not just the accumulation of financial assets but also investing in knowledge, community, and sustainable practices. This approach emphasizes the importance of creating wealth that is not only financial but also enriches your quality of life rather than detracting from it. Let’s face it, most of us hate our jobs. Commuting, Zoom meetings and corporate BS robs us of precious time and happiness.

Predictions are that by the year 2030 over 60% of the American workforce will be freelance. Jobs are changing and we have to change with the tides of society. Do not rely on social security to support you when you can’t or don’t want to work anymore. We all have to take steps to ensure we’ve got a way to take care of our families. Holistic homesteading faces this head on and says, “we can have a higher net income & quality of life right here from home.”

Having a holistic homestead doesn’t mean you have to quit your job or ditch the world. Keep your job but start building a way to use the resources you have at home to generate income. That could be using your laptop to build affiliate marketing content, making jewelry to sell or using your 3d printer to make parts….the possibilities are endless. This is the future of commerce and work. 93% of consumers polled recently said that they buy products because they saw an individual creator recommend it. 

Happiness is a Holistic Homestead

Holistic homesteading is about living intentionally and with purpose. It involves making choices that lead to a fulfilling and meaningful life. It encourages us to live slowly, make decisions intentionally and in harmony with our home. It’s brought us tremendous peace during anxious times and a security we didn’t have before this journey.

We wish we could say all your struggles will disappear with holistic homesteading. They won’t. The difference will be in how you cope with the struggles. Having the security of a home generated income, food stores and like-minded relationships gives you a bigger wheel to guide your ship through the storm. Your house is built on rock instead of sand.  This one thing has brought us more happiness than we thought possible. 

Holistic homesteaders typically define happiness as peace. The certainty that all is truly well in your world, even if circumstances in the outside world are chaotic. In the past our homes provided the means for our support. Each landowner built out an estate, no matter how small. The land supported the families who lived on the estate. We can live in modernity and borrow what worked from the past. Our holistic homestead has gigabit fiber, this was a must have for us because our home based income requires fast internet. We may live in the middle of nowhere, but we have all the comforts of an urban home. The point is that happiness is completely subjective and unique.

Starting a Holistic Homestead

You don’t have to move to start a holistic homestead. It’s possible to live this lifestyle from an urban apartment, you’ll just have to make effort to get out to the rural areas to purchase fresh foods if you can’t get them in town. We purchased land and are slowly building a house while living in an RV on the property. One of the primary tenets we follow is to stay out of debt. We’d rather it take a few years time on the front end to own everything outright than to have it immediately and be stuck with 30 years of debt. We started this lifestyle while still living in the city and have made it work for us whether we’ve been in a rental or on our own land.

Start Small

One little change will lead to others. We started with changing our source of food, skipping the grocery store and buying direct from farms on the outskirts of the city. That one change fueled our desire for more and that single step led to others.

Two Steps Forward, One Back

We failed at our first two attempts to have a “homestead” the way you see people doing it on YouTube. The reason we failed was because we tried to do everything at once — build a house, have animals and a huge garden. Our advice is to focus on things in the following order.

1. Generating an income from home. 
2. Housing. If your on a new property or your house needs work focus here first.
3. Preserving food. It doesn’t matter if you buy it or make it yourself. Focus on having 3-12 months of food put up in the pantry. This can be as simple as purchasing dehydrated veggies, canned meats and powdered eggs & dairy. Don’t forget water.
4. Producing food. Buy your food until housing is secure, then focus on the food production you want to do. Raising animals for meat, eggs or milk and growing food.
5. Building health self-sufficiency. Learn how to make remedies and care for your family’s health from home. Nothing replaces solid medical care in an emergency but we all know that good health begins at home.

Questions?

Follow us over on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube for behind the scenes tips, tricks and how-to videos to start your own holistic homestead.