How to Start a Homestead While Working Full-Time: The Complete Guide
Have you ever dreamed of gathering eggs in the morning, simmering your own broth, or harvesting herbs from your backyard—but you also clock in at 9:00 a.m. and can’t imagine adding one more thing to your week?
Homesteading isn’t just for people with acres of land, free time, and a full tool shed. Modern homesteading is a mindset—a way of living more intentionally, connecting to your food, and becoming more self-reliant. It can look like growing herbs on a windowsill, learning to bake sourdough, or spending weekends tending a backyard garden. In short: it’s about doing what you can, with what you have, where you are.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through exactly how to begin a homesteading journey even if your calendar feels full. We’ll talk about what modern homesteading really means, how to start small, and how to build a lifestyle that nourishes you, not one that burns you out.
Jump to:
- What Is Homesteading Today?
- Is Homesteading Possible with a Full-Time Job?
- Homesteading Mindset: Start Where You Are
- First Steps to Start Your Homestead
- Work-Life-Homestead Balance Management Tips
- Weekly Homesteading Routines That Actually Work
- Learn as You Go: Homesteading During Downtime
- Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Bonus: My Favorite Tools & Resources
- 💛 You Can Build This Life—One Habit at a Time
- 🌟 Start Here:
What Is Homesteading Today?
Homesteading used to mean living off the land, growing all your food, raising livestock, and being nearly self-sufficient. And for some, it still does.
But modern homesteading is more flexible and deeply personal. Whether you’re on a half-acre in the suburbs or an apartment with a windowsill herb garden, homesteading is about choice. The choice to slow down. To live closer to the rhythms of nature. To create a more grounded and nourishing home life.
Is Homesteading Possible with a Full-Time Job?
Yes, absolutely.
Many modern homesteaders balance their goals with full-time jobs, families, and busy lives. (My father-in-law is a cattle farmer and a full-time lawyer!). The key is starting small, building systems and routines that work for your schedule, and focusing on what matters most to you.
You don’t have to "do it all." You just have to start. You might not be planting an orchard or making sourdough every day. But you can:
- Roast a chicken and turn the bones into broth
- Tend a small raised bed after work
- Keep a flock of low-maintenance hens
- Prep your pantry on the weekend
- Learn new skills on your commute or in the quiet of the evening
Think of your homestead not as a destination, but as a practice—one small habit at a time.
Homesteading Mindset: Start Where You Are
Too often, we wait for the perfect moment to begin—more time, more land, more skills. But homesteading thrives on small starts. The mindset shift is everything:
- Progress over perfection
- Tiny tasks over massive to-do lists
- Seasons, not schedules
Let go of the Pinterest-perfect version of a homestead. Yours might look like mason jars in a rental kitchen or a balcony full of potted greens. That’s enough.
First Steps to Start Your Homestead
You don’t need to do everything at once. In fact, please don’t. Here’s how to begin:
1. Define your Why
Are you drawn to healthier food? A slower pace? Sustainability? When you came across this article, what were you looking for?
2. Pick a Focus Area
What excites you most? You can choose two to three of these or go all in to one as you are getting started.
- Food (scratch cooking, preserving, growing herbs)
- Gardening (flowers, vegetables, orchards)
- Animals (chickens, bees, rabbits)
- Home (natural cleaning, handmade projects, self-reliance)
3. Start Small & Seasonal
Choose one seasonal project to try. For example:
- Spring: grow salad greens in a container
- Summer: make infused honey or herbal vinegar
- Fall: try a small batch of pickled carrots
- Winter: bake bread or start a pantry staple habit
4. Track Your Wins
I'd highly recommend you start a simple homestead journal. You can write things out or log them on a social media page, either privately or publicly. Track what you're learning, doing, and dreaming of. Pretty soon, you'll see how far you've grown.
Work-Life-Homestead Balance Management Tips
Once you start planning what you want to do for your homestead, you might need some help with figuring out how manage everything that needs to be done. I keep a very detailed list of tasks that I know needs to get done int morning. There's also some steps that you can take that can help manage your work-life-homestead balance.
Simplify Your Animal Care
Animals add joy—but also responsibility. Keep it simple:
- Use automatic waterers and feeders
- Choose hardy, low-maintenance breeds
- Stick to a predictable routine
Build Systems and Routines
The secret to balancing it all? Systems and routines. This is some of the harder work to implement but very well worth it. Make things as simple and consistent as possible to remember.
- Meal prep around your garden harvest
- Batch tasks (bread baking, canning)
- Organize tools and materials for grab-and-go projects
- Plant perennials where possible
- Automate what you can
Use Technology to Help You
Tech can support your homesteading goals:
- Use reminder apps for planting/watering/ daily chores. I basically live off of my reminders and notes sections.
- Use automatic timers and solar sensors for watering, irrigation, opening coop doors. Just be careful to watch for maintain. You wouldn't want to rely so much on the technology that you don't know the coop door hasn't opened in 3 days!
- Track garden yield or expenses in a spreadsheet
Focus on Making Meals Easier
Scratch cooking doesn’t have to be slow cooking. Focus on easy, healthy, sustainable shortcuts when you can. I'm not saying buy frozen meals or drive-through, but using pre-cut, flash-frozen-at-peak-ripeness vegetables can mean getting something on the table 20 minutes earlier.
- Embrace one-pot meals and batch cooking
- Learn 3–5 base recipes you can rotate
- Use your freezer like a tool. This is so key to success.
Include Your Whole Family
I have a toddler, so I know how hard it can be to homestead and have little kids. That being said, my motto is to try get them involved in everything. Get your household involved:
- Assign simple age-appropriate tasks and keep your expectations level (they will make mistakes at first, but they'll get better as they do more!)
- Make projects fun (garden treasure hunts, egg collecting)
- Celebrate wins together
This mindset makes homesteading sustainable alongside a full-time job.
Weekly Homesteading Routines That Actually Work
You don’t need hours every day. Try this:
Weeknight Micro Tasks (10–30 min)
- Feed chickens, water garden
- Start a jar of sprouts
- Plan meals around what’s in season
- Refill spice jars or prep pantry staples
👉 For More Suggestions, See: 15-Minute Homestead Tasks You Can Do After Work
Weekend Reset (1–2 hours)
- Bake bread or muffins
- Make broth or ferment something
- Deep clean the coop or garden beds
- Start a small DIY project
It’s about rhythm, not rigor.
Learn as You Go: Homesteading During Downtime
You can homestead with your ears and eyes before your hands ever touch soil.
- Podcasts on herbalism, scratch cooking, seasonal living
- YouTube tutorials on preserving or gardening
- Books and cookbooks like Broth & Stock from the Nourished Kitchen or Six Seasons
Many skills can be learned from the comfort of your home with mainly online tutorials like, Fermentation, herbalism, water bath canning and even some urban gardening. Start with one and go deep.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Let’s keep things gentle and real. Burnout is SO, SO real, especially when you're excited to try so many new things.
- Trying to do everything at once: Pick one area per season
- Comparing yourself to full-time homesteaders: This is your life, not theirs
- Neglecting rest: Homesteading is meant to bring joy and rhythm, not burnout
- Thinking you need land: You can homestead in the suburbs or a rental
Bonus: My Favorite Tools & Resources
- Cookbooks: The Art of Simple Food, Broth and Stock, Six Seasons,
- Websites: The Prairie Homestead, Farmhouse on Boone, Root Simple
- Tools: Canning kit, fermenting lids, cast iron skillet, grow lights
Choose quality over quantity. Borrow before you buy.
💛 You Can Build This Life—One Habit at a Time
Homesteading while working full-time is not just possible—it’s powerful. You’re modeling intention, resilience, and care in a world that often asks us to run faster and produce more.
You don’t need to move off-grid or overhaul your whole life. You just need to start—where you are, with what you have, in the time you’ve got.
🌟 Start Here:
- Choose one small homestead habit to try this week
- Subscribe to my newsletters, The Grounded Start or the Homemade Weekend for seasonal tips and encouragement
- Check out 15-Minute Homestead Tasks You Can Do After Work for easy ideas
