No matter how big your farm is, being able to save money is an important part of running it smoothly. You might have a small homestead, or you could have a sprawling farm, but finding ways to save is a vital part of surviving. Running a farm doesn’t make you a lot of money and one bad season can upset your careful balance easily. You need to have a variety of methods you can use to make savings wherever possible. If you’re looking for ways you can be saving money around your farm, start with the following smart ideas.
Saving Money on Your Small Farm
DIY Some Processes
Consider whether you’ve been paying anyone to do something that you could do yourself for less money. If you buy pre-treated seed, you might be able to start saving money if you buy the equipment to treat your seed yourself. Learn more here about how you might be able to do that and make some big savings. There are plenty of ways you could save by taking the DIY route. Learning how to repair something instead of having someone do it for you might not save you a lot for a one-time repair, but over time could save you a lot more.
Prevent Huge Vet Bills
If you have animals on your farm, you need to keep them healthy. Calling out a vet to see an animal that’s ill or injured could run up some huge bills. Prevention is always better than cure, so taking steps to keep your animals healthy is essential. There are various things you might do to promote their health. Feeding them the best diet and giving them good living conditions will obviously help. You can do things like check for anything that might injure your animals, from plants that they shouldn’t ingest and anything man-made that could hurt them.
Take Care of Equipment
You need to take care of any equipment you use if you want it to last a long time. This is a surefire way of saving money. Keeping it in good condition will help you avoid the need for repairs and replacements, as well as make your farm more efficient. Cleaning and servicing equipment, no matter how big or small, might take up some of your time, but it could save a lot of your money too. It’s better to service a piece of equipment to keep it running smoothly than to have to make major repairs later.
Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
There are always ways that you can reduce, reuse and recycle various materials and save money. For example, water can often be used more than once. If you can no longer use a piece of equipment for its original purpose, it’s likely you can put it to use in some other way. Sometimes you have to get creative, but if you struggle with thinking creatively, you can easily find plenty of ideas online. People are always willing to share how they have recycled or reused something, or how they cut down on an expense.
Conserve energy
As with any home, your homestead could be subject to huge electricity bills, especially in the colder months. However, there are ways to make savings. Ensuring there is no possibility of heat escaping from your home is one way, as you won’t need to crank up the thermostat. Make repairs to your roof and windows if there are any cracks, or contact a professional, such as Hoel Roofing & Remodeling to make these repairs for you. Consider other forms of energy too. You could go off-grid and produce energy through solar panels, or you could set up a biomass heating system to warm up your home
It doesn’t take much to start saving money on your farm. A few changes to how you do things could help you save a lot. These 3 ideas are a great start. Do you have other suggestions for saving money on your farm? Please share them in the comment box below.
