How To Make An Income From Your Homestead Successfully

So you are a homesteader now! You have your land, you are growing vegetables and herbs. You have learned some new skills. So, you are well on your way to enjoy your new lifestyle. Now that the foundation is laid it is time to figure out how you will make an income from your homestead.

We all need money. As homesteaders, money seems to be even more important and harder to come by don’t you think? You probably already have some source of income whether it be a spouse or significant other with a full-time job, or a job yourself. You may even currently make an income from your homestead, even if it is minimal. Today I am providing you with a list of possible ways to make even more money with the homestead you already have you may not have thought of.

How To Make An Income From Your Homestead

There are so many ways to make an income from your homestead. Some are obvious and others you may not have thought of. Freelance Typographers often ply their trade from a homestead. Other ideas may not pertain to you, such as selling fresh eggs if you don’t have chickens, for example. I have tried to break this list down by the different “areas” of a typical homestead to help you easily identify ways of making money that relates to you. Shall we dive in?

Making an Income From Animals

There is always a way to make an income when you own animals on your homestead. Everything from cows to chickens and alpacas to puppies includes some way to make money. Let look at some of those money-making options first.

Cattle:

  • breeding and selling of calves
  • raising cattle for others until butchering
  • sale of beef (especially grass-fed)
  • sale of milk

Sheep:

  • selling wool
  • breeding
  • selling for meat

Goats:

Donkeys:

  • breeding
  • selling as trained haulers and cart pullers

Ducks:

  • breeding
  • sale of eggs
  • selling for meat
  • fertile eggs

Chickens:

  • Selling farm-fresh eggs
  • sales of fertile eggs
  • breeding (especially certain breeds)
  • selling as stewing hens
  • offering feathers for crafts

Horses:

  • racing
  • breeding

Pigs:

  • breeding
  • sell for meat

Making an Income From Your Land

Owning or even renting some area of land can also provide an income for your homestead. These ideas are ways to use the actual land as an income, as gardening will be discussed next.

make an income from your pastureOpen Land:

Open pasture can be rented out to other people if it is fenced in for cattle, sheep, goats, or horses. You decide per acre what you will charge for a monthly rental and they, in turn, will pay you to keep their animals on it. Please make sure there is a concise and clear agreement on who is responsible for what. The last thing you need is a coyote or worse coming onto the property and killing someone else’s animal and the owner comes after you for it. Make this clear right from the start.

Open pasture can also be planted for the season and cut to provide hay to local farmers. Besides hay, if you know of an in-demand crop for your area, why not plant that in that open field and sell the harvest!

Lastly, you could consider renting the land for weddings, outdoor festivities, or even for camping. Just make sure you check local zoning ordinances first.

Buildings:make an income with your barn

If you have a barn on your property you have an excellent way to make an income from your homestead. Barn weddings or other parties are quite the rage where I live and a lot of homesteaders will rent their barn out for events!

You can also rent stalls in your barn for horses as a good way to make an income. Some people have converted their barns into homes and rent them as a vacation home or an Airbnb.

Do you have a workshop or an empty building? You can make it into a DIY workshop and teach classes for just about anything. I know a few homesteaders who teach candle making, canning and pioneer skills in workshops on their homestead.

Wooded Land: 

Do you have a lot of trees on your land? When you clear out some of the lands why not chop and sell firewood. Maybe you have Maple trees. Start making maple syrup! Both allow you to make an income.

Making an Income From Your Gardens:

You can easily make an income from your gardens! Selling fruit, berries, produce and herbs are all money makers! Instead of planting just what you need for your family why not grow extra and sell them at a produce stand both on and off your property?

make an income from a vegetable gardenVegetable Gardens: 

Selling your excess of vegetables can provide an income for your homestead. Check out the local produce markets in your area. If grown organically you can even get a better price for your veggies. And once you establish a reputation, customers will buy repeatedly. Also, check your local zoning, you may be able to sell canned vegetables too! Where I live we sell vegetables from a farm stand right at home on our property.

You can also start veggie seedlings and sell the starter plants locally. If you save the seeds from your vegetables, package them up and start a seed catalog. Heirloom, non-GMO and organic seeds are in demand and will be for a long time.

Herb Gardens:

Just as in growing vegetables, herbs are big sellers! Why not increase your herb garden and sell those extras. There are so many ways to sell herbs. A few suggestions are listed here;

  • Sell them freshly pickedmake an income from an herb garden
  • Offer dehydrated herbs for longer keeping
  • make oils with herbs infused in them, sell at market
  • talk to local restaurants, they may buy fresh herbs on a constant flow from local growers
  • use the herbs to make soaps, bath products, and other products to sell
  • sell starter plants and/or seeds

make an income from berry patchesOrchards and Berry Patches:

Do you grow an orchard with fruit? Or how about a large blueberry patch, for example? Why not start a u-pick during the harvest season? Popular U-picks include oranges, peaches, blueberries, blackberries, and grapes. But any fruit or berry grown in abundance on your property can make an income for your homestead.

We sell blackberries and passion fruit on our property. Even if we don’t make a huge income, every little bit helps!

Make an Income From Your Kitchen:

You have the means to make an income from your kitchen too. Do you bake bread or pastries, or maybe cookies regularly? Why not make extras and sell them locally. At our farmers market, we can buy bread, cookies, pies and more!

Do you preserve by canning? How about jams and jellies? If you make these, there is another way to make an income!

Do you cook from scratch? Maybe you should consider making an e-book and offering it on Amazon Kindle. Or make a printed version and market it to local places. Self-publishing is hip right now so jump in and try it out.

Other options:make an income from making soaps

make an income from your tractorMaking An Income From Equipment and Tools:

You may be surprised how many options you have to make an income on your homestead just by using the tools and equipment you already own. Have a tractor? Offer your services with it! Any piece of farm equipment can be used to make money. Start offering your services to others!

Do you own blacksmithing tools? Why not start teaching the trade? Many preppers will buy knives, bows, arrows, even self-made bullets! Offer your services to the elderly, like weeding and planting or mowing and trimming shrubs for example.

Making an Income With Your Voice:

Did you read that right? Yes, you did. You can easily make an income by talking. How about speaking at homesteading events and local events on a topic you know a lot about? You may not get paid from all events but many do especially if they get to know like and trust you. Teach at 4-H, try the local agricultural center.

Another option…start a YouTube channel. Share what you do on your homestead or teach something a few times a month. It takes a while to be able to make an income on YouTube, but it is definitely possible. Do you feel funny being live on a camera? Then record your voice as you record something you are teaching.

Make an Income With The Internet:make an income with a blog

My best option for making an income while homesteading is starting a blog! It is super affordable and there are so many ways to monetize your blog to make an income! For less than 20 dollars a month you can start blogging today.

Don’t want to type? Then how about selling pictures? If you have a beautiful piece of property, why not take some pictures and offer them for sale on the internet. There are endless sites that will pay you for your pictures! And trust me, bloggers love real pictures! You can also use the internet to invest in commodities like oil for example – moreover, in recent years online trading platforms like Oil Profit have soared in popularity so do not be afraid to check some of them out if trading sounds like something that interests you – accordingly, you can read some reviews of Oil Profit (erfahrung mit öl profit) on the ETF Nachrichten website.

Final Thoughts:

There are many ways to make an income from your homestead. These listed ideas above are only a small portion of the ideas you can use to get started today. Most don’t require any investment and can even include things you already have or do on your homestead! So take what you have and what you already do and figure out how you can make an income on your homestead right now.

35 Comments

  1. With me looking at unemployment in the eye, this post comes at the perfect time. I like the thought of feathers to sell for crafts. I learned something new!

    1. Author

      I am so sorry that unemployment is in your future. You can do it! Be creative! There is a way for everyone to make money, you just have to find yours! Keep your head up!

    2. Feather do have value, you can offer them on your local facebook crafting groups if you don’t want to “use them” yourself. Its worth noting that while harder to find, there are folks out there that make earing and more with bone and if you can find a artist that works in bone, that is also a area that you can market.. (having said that.. you will need to learn how to use beetles or larva to clean the butcher leftovers to leave you clean bone. They do not want soil darkened bones)

    3. Author

      That’s interesting Farmgal!!

  2. These are all great ideas for making and earning income off of the farm. Found you on Homestead Blog.


  3. Great suggestions for earning some $ for your efforts, Annie! It is important to make those animals and projects pay for themselves and extra for the labor!

    1. Author

      Right on Lisa! If the animals only cost you money, you really aren’t benefiting from it!

  4. Great ideas! We have sold eggs, sold honey from our bees and sold the wood off our property. Hoping we can do the same in our next location!

    1. Author

      It helps so much to have a few areas of income instead of having your eggs all in one basket!

  5. Excellent suggestions! Right now I live in the suburbs on less than a quarter-acre lot (sad…), but we have a lot of land in the family. I would love to see us take advantage of the land more than we are now. It’s not far from where we live, but it is over an hour so it’s not reasonable for my husband to make that commute since his job is our livelihood (and even if it wasn’t, he loves his job and wouldn’t want to leave!) I’m hoping to find a way to take advantage of the potential productivity this summer.

    1. Author

      Sounds like you have a great plan for your future! Good luck in your future endeavors!

  6. Great ideas! I grow a ton of herbs each year and I am considering selling them since I dehydrate most of them for later use. I also infuse oils and make tinctures and homemade deodorant and salves. Hm, I like your ideas, thanks and I should really implement them. Awesome stuff!

    1. Author

      As I said previously, herbs sell! And if you know how to diffuse them in oils, you have a second way of selling them! Kuddos!

  7. I love these ideas! I grow a bunch of herbs each year and dehydrate them. I have thought about selling them. Love these ideas! Thanks!

    1. Author

      Herbs sell quickly at our local market here! People love the idea of fresh herbs and even dried! Selling herbs is a great way to make an extra income!

  8. This is a fantastic list! You know I’m moving in this direction, and I’m thinking I’ll print this post to put into my homestead goals binder and set goals based on these things! Thanks for sharing!

    1. Author

      THat’s a great idea! I am so glad you found it helpful! I wish you the best!

  9. I make a bit of pin money form our smallholding selling meat, eggs and veg to friends. Our holiday home guests also buy some veg and eggs and always comment how tasty the veg are and how yellow the egg yolks! I sold some of our ewes before Christmas and jokingly said I had some turkeys for sale as I had slaughtered them the day before – they took a turkey for Christmas Day too!

    1. Author

      Sounds like you have some smart ways to make a little extra income! I also get told that the locals that my eggs love how yellow the yolks are too! Keep up the good work!

  10. Awesome ideas!! So many things I didn’t think of! My wheels are spinning now!! Thanks for sharing

  11. Great list, don’t forget manure.. Gardeners will pay for high quality well done compost, they can be sold in reused feed bags at certain weights.

    1. Author

      Great suggestion!! I will keep that in mind too! Thanks!

  12. Some of these ideas are great even if you don’t have a homestead and you just have a little bit of land! Thanks for sharing

    1. Author

      Oh absolutely Addie! You don’t have to have a huge farm to make money! Thanks for reading!








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