Want to know the secret to never buying food again?
Its easy. Farm, hunt, fish, and forage.
Sorry, not really a secret… and I know it seems impossible in our current lifestyle to be totally food independent.
When you talk about someone who farms, hunts, fishes and forages, it sounds more like your describing a Native American and not someone living in the 21 century.
But honestly, you can provide most of the food you eat, and cut back on your spending for food BIG TIME, if you begin to focus your homestead on the best ways to provide for yourself with the least effort.
You need to treat your homesteading like the stock market.
Stock Market 101:
- Build a diverse portfolio
- Acquire some low risk sure growth stock
- Select some high risk big reward stock
The successful homesteader treats his time and endeavors on and off the homestead like a stock portfolio.
So the idea is, diversify so that you do not rely on just one company to preform well. Have a few “sure thing” stocks that may not make you rich overnight but will definitely grow over time (blue chip stocks are a great example of this) and finally, after lots of research, choose some more risky stocks that may be your home run stocks.
The successful homesteader treats his time and endeavors on and off the homestead like a stock portfolio. First, he diversifies.
For example, don’t just hunt. Hunting is a great example of a high risk high reward homesteading endeavor.
You may go out on opening morning, spend two hours in the stand, and shoot a big doe that would yield 90 lbs. of meat. (That exact thing happened to me this year! See the Pic Here) That would be like Investing in a Startup that becomes huge overnight!
Or… you could have a poor season, spend weeks worth of time sitting in a tree seeing nothing, and eat tag soup. Then your whole year will have been a waste as far as putting up food goes. The investment minded homesteader wants to have a diverse portfolio that protects him from complete failure.
On, the other hand, a investment minded homesteader would not want to only raise pigs. Pigs are very reliable. They will always grow, at the end of the season raising pigs, your very likely to put up hundreds of pounds of meat. But in the big picture, if your buying feed, a pig will not save you a whole lot of money, especially compared to a home run deer season.
So the best plan for an investment minded homesteader is to step back, look at the available time in the year to dedicate to these endeavors, and look at your own personal situation, and plan your food portfolio.
“The most important step of all is to begin investing.”
Here is what we do at our homestead:
Jan we plan our year. February, not a month we want to spend outside, we get all our chicks for the season. Meat and egg chickens arrive. Egg chickens are not a huge reward investment, they are more blue chip. Save you a little, but very reliable. Have some on the homestead. and spend February brooding them indoors. Meat chickens also are a good reliable investment. They are a quick turnaround, at 8weeks, and grow well. Chicken care lasts into March
April brings the opener of trout season. When fishing stocked waters, I know I can limit in less than 2 hours, so I always plan a few fishing days in April, and vacuum seal the catch to last thought the season. This is a low cost investment, with a good reward for the time and money spent. Almost like a penny stock, can’t lose much, only can gain
May through August pigs arrive and grow, until processing in September. High cost, low but very reliable reward. Now, when I say low reward, I mean that you will not save a ton of money. But pastured pork is one of the best quality meats out there, so depending on the way you look at it, this reward is well worth the time and effort.
September through December, all the meat animals are gone on the farm. This means I have more time to hunt. Hunting is like playing the lottery. You could spend a whole lot of money and time and get nothing, or your first morning out you could win big
Through this method, we are able to provide enough meat for our family, with extra that is used to trade for other meat which we don’t raise ourselves. Our family is completely meat INDEPENDENT!
Yours could be too. Just take the time to plan your homestead like an investment portfolio
An article I read recently about investing said this. No matter what you do… “The most important step of all is to begin investing.”
Now is the time to start diversifying your homestead portfolio. Maybe you already grow veggies. Or maybe you’re a skilled hunter. But perhaps their is another area in your homestead portfolio that is lacking.
For the next few weeks we are going to help you diversify. We’re going to help you start getting your hands dirty with some great homesteady starter projects! If you already garden, try fishing. If your a big time hunter, try some baking. We have lots of great beginner and entry level ideas for you Stay tuned.
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And if you really want to become self reliant, you can learn a TON more about homesteading and how to live off the land through our Pioneer Membership Program!
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