Top 10 Good Reasons to Give Homesteading a Pass

Since you have landed on this article, it’s safe to assume you’re thinking a lot about homesteading. You might even dream about it, both when you are asleep and awake! I know I sure did. I couldn’t wait to get back out of the city and return to a simpler and more fulfilling way of life.

And I stand by my decision. I don’t regret a thing, and I’ve spent a lot of years and time telling people on this website and others about how great homesteading is.

But more importantly, I know more than a few people who regret making the lifestyle change more than anything else they’ve ever done.

Maybe they got seduced by those pretty photos on Instagram or those video tours of homesteads that look so idyllic they can’t be real.

Whatever the case, the reality was very different from the dream. If you’re having second thoughts or doubts, you’ve got to get honest with yourself.

Below are some compelling reasons why might not want to start a homestead. Read on, and see if any of them resonate with you – and give them some thought before you start…

Animals are Frickin’ Gross

There’s no other way to put it. Animals, great and small, every kind, can be disgusting. Adorable, entertaining, endearing. Yes, yes, and yes again. But absolutely gross.

Livestock poop and pee everywhere at any time. They stink to high heaven. They have sex right in the open, get infested with insects and parasites, and generally create a whole lot of hard, smelly work for you.

Animals are at their most fun when you get to spend time with them and pet them and then go back home to your nice, clean, quiet house.

Leave someone else to shovel their crap, change out urine-soaked straw, and go elbow-deep with an exam glove on because it’s time to artificially inseminate them.

If the idea of doing any of that, any number of times, makes your skin crawl, homesteading is very likely not the lifestyle for you—unless you don’t plan on keeping any animals, that is!

And you really don’t have to, because homesteading is about so much more than livestock. Think gardening, food preservation, sewing, knitting, woodworking, DIY, and so much more!

Growing Food is Hard

Let’s say you don’t want any animals. You just want a great big garden, or maybe a small farm with some crops. Great!

I know one of the many reasons folks get into homesteading is because they want to get closer and more connected to their own existence, and specifically closer to where their food comes from.

It’s hard for me to describe, at least to someone who’s never done it, just how fulfilling it is picking a perfect, plump, and delicious tomato off of a vine warmed from the sun. A vine that grew from a single seed I planted and painstakingly cared for. What a feeling!

It’s almost good enough to make me forget about the misery of attending to those plants day in and day out, fighting off mosquitoes, picking off slugs and aphids and beetles, and agonizing over soil pH levels and a whole lot more.

The bottom line is that growing your food can be difficult. It’s just as much art as science, and sometimes you can do everything right and still be denied the harvest you’ve worked so hard for. It’s devastating, believe me.

I lost my entire garden one year due to a combination of blight and pest infestation, and I bawled over it like the heartbreak it was.

If you can’t put up with that, I can promise you that homesteading will hold only heartbreak for you.

Your Hobbies and Free Time Will Vanish

There’s no two ways about it: unless you want to live on a hobby homestead and staff it with workers paid by your own independent wealth, you need to go ahead and have a little funeral for your hobbies and your free time both.

When you start homesteading, you’re going to get up even earlier, stay up even later, and work faster and harder than you ever have before. That’s because everything, and I mean everything, is on you.

You’ll have to wake up and take care of all the animals. Water the garden. Look for pests. Do chores. Research a problem, implement a solution, fail, and then go back to square one. Now the animals need you again.

Whoops, looks like the weather is turning; I have to run and cover hay, put animals in, and do a whole lot more…

Take 5 minutes, have coffee, and stuff a donut in your mouth. Back to work. Repeat this about 10 times a day until you collapse into your bed exhausted. Do it 6 days a week.

That’s homesteading. Lots of folks think that fatigue and aggravation won’t get to them because they’re really doing it for themselves, finally, but that’s just not true.

All the things you used to enjoy doing after you clock out will be distant memories because there’s always something on your property that will demand your attention.

Making Money Off of Your Homestead Isn’t Guaranteed

Another big delusion so many blossoming homesteaders have about the lifestyle is that they will somehow open a tap on their property and money will magically flow out of it. That’s not how it works…

You might have animals, you might have an amazing garden, and you might even have lucrative skills that will appeal to or help other homesteaders or any other clientele. None of that guarantees you an income.

Even if you were going back to a simpler way of life and a simpler way of doing business, it’s still business.

You’ve got to offer the right product at the right price to the right people and cultivate those relationships to keep them coming back or else keep your customer base expanding. Otherwise, you’ll be right back to square one and looking for a job.

Don’t expect to just jump in with both feet and then have the money follow. You’ve got to sharpen your pencil, make a plan, and then work your plan just like it’s an actual job.

And do that on top of all the other things I talked about in the previous section…

You’ll Have to Make Agonizing Decisions

I won’t sugarcoat this one. A whole lot of homesteading is making really, really hard decisions.

For instance, if one of your animals gets badly injured, let’s say a cow or horse breaks its leg, the prognosis on those injuries is never, ever good. It’s highly likely the poor thing will need to be put down.

Now, are you going to pay a vet a small fortune to give that animal the pink juice or the bolt stunner, or will you save a boatload of sorely needed cash and do the deed yourself? Can you do it yourself? Can your family handle you doing that yourself?

Another example. Let’s say you have chickens and turkeys and one of them comes down with devastating avian influenza. It spreads like wildfire and is highly lethal. It can also easily spread to other nearby flocks.

If one bird gets sick, then another, do you wait for it to spread even further, or do you go ahead and cull the entire flock to firebreak the epidemic?

It’s a horrible thing to consider, but do consider that your neighbors and other flock owners that you don’t even know will be affected by your lack of action.

I could go on and on, but I don’t want to depress you. You would be wise to have a long, honest talk with yourself about these issues before you ever sign on the dotted line.

Your Property (And Home) Will Look Like a Mess

There’s no other way to put this: chances are very, very high that your home and property will never look like those beautiful, prim, and proper homesteads we all drool over on YouTube and elsewhere.

Your property will probably look like barely contained chaos, that or a refugee camp that was trampled by animals. I guess in a way it was!

Homesteaders tend to be highly practical people, and the practicalities of living on a real, working homestead means that raw necessity must come before niceties, and niceties often include cleanliness and order.

You Actually Like the Perks of City Life

And there’s nothing wrong with that! It’s a strange sort of mental illness, I think: there’s a certain segment of people out there that really like living in the city or the suburbs, but they convince themselves that they shouldn’t be the kind of person that does.

I don’t know if it’s peer pressure, groupthink, or just some weird contrivance! There’s nothing wrong with preferring a different setting and a different way of life!

And let’s get real, just because you like a little bit of barnwood decor or like to repurpose pallets doesn’t mean you need to go whole hog and move out to a remote, rural property and start living off the land!

Let’s stop the silliness, folks!

Things Will Go Wrong Over and Over Again

If you don’t handle frustration well, don’t even think about homesteading. In fact, if you are easily agitated or get upset at constant setbacks, if you even have a dream about homesteading again you better wake up and apologize to yourself.

It never fails that things will go wrong over and over and over again on a homestead. Problems compound and snowball. Little issues turn into huge roadblocks. When you finally check everything off your list, six new problems will spring up that need your immediate attention.

It’s enough to drive anyone crazy, believe me.

You Will Lose Friends

This one really hurts to say, but it’s true. You will lose friends when your lifeways change. Maybe your change in latitude and change in attitude will take you away from them physically, and so your friendship will cool.

Maybe they just won’t agree with your choice and will view you with suspicion, pity, or even disgust.

Maybe the aforementioned lack of free time or hobby time will prune off the only meaningful connection you had with this person. Whatever the reason, and however it happens, just know that it does.

Some friends you have right now, maybe even some ones you genuinely cherish, won’t be accompanying you through the season of change that is homesteading. Can’t handle that? Then don’t do it.

Your Time is More Valuable Working a Job

And last on our list, the big one. And this one borders on heresy to the homesteading faithful.

Make no mistake that if you are thinking purely in terms of dollars and cents, you should almost certainly stick with your job or just try to further your career rather than switch to homesteading.

For every homesteader that I see advertised online or off as giving up their life and throwing off the shackles of the nine to five to start a business on a homestead and find huge success, I know about a dozen people who crashed and burned and ruined their lives.

Bills, obligations, taxes, and everything else don’t go away just because you start homesteading. Even if you are living completely off-grid, self-sustaining, you still got to have money for some things.

Maybe that’s a critique of late-stage capitalism in America, or it’s just maybe the way things have always been on this planet. Whichever it is, don’t kid yourself: you’ll be working harder than you’ve ever worked in your life and, very likely, doing it for far, far less money.