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My overall goal is to be more self-reliant in 2019 than we were in 2018. Self-Reliance means we will be able to do more for ourselves and save money in the process.
The time between Christmas and New Year’s is a wonderful time to reflect and set goals for the coming year. I am taking lots of me time while my husband is home from work to focus on reflection, goal setting, and planning for 2019.
Homesteading & Self-Reliance Goals
My overall goal is to be more self-reliant in 2019 than we were in 2018. While this is my goal, it is definitely going to be a family affair. I need buy-in from my husband and children to help keep our household running smoothly. Nothing done at home or on a homestead is done alone. Becoming more self-reliant will probably take us some time as we adapt and get used to a new way of doing things, but in the long run, it will save us time and money.
Gardening & Agriculture
- Redo the garden beds in our backyard and build them deeper to be more efficient
- Grow lettuce indoors so we don’t have to worry about yet another recall
- Grow more medicinal and culinary herbs
- Start our own seeds
- Save our seeds
- Grow enough tomatoes to can tomato sauce & salsa
- Eat from the garden as often as possible
- Learn to properly prune the fruit trees
- Continue to compost, and learn about additional items that can be added to our compost bins
- Add to our pollinator and cutting gardens
- Tap the maple trees to collect sap, and cook it down to make maple syrup
- Learn to forage for wild edibles and medicinal plants
In the Kitchen
- Bake bread more frequently so we rely less on store-bought
- Make more of our own snacks
- Learn to make a variety of crackers
- Continue to preserve our harvest and what we get from our local farmers’ markets
- Make my own extracts for baking
- Use fruit scraps to make vinegar
- Make my own mustard
- Purchase a side of beef and side of pork
- Render lard from the pork we get at the butcher
- Make our own convenience foods and freezer meals for busy nights instead of ordering carry out
- Menu Plan on a monthly basis
- Grocery shop weekly instead of daily
- Use a refillable water bottle and filtered water instead of purchasing bottled water
- Turn on the whole house fan when baking to pull the heat from the kitchen through the rest of the house
- Shop in bulk and practice food storage
- Make our own mixes for pudding, cornbread, rice pilaf, and pancakes
- Make our own cheese & yogurt
General Household
- Learn where the best areas are for fishing near our home
- Learn how to clean a fish that we caught
- Shop thrift stores for books and housewares
- Host a yard sale to get rid of the items we no longer need or use
- Fix it instead of replacing it
- Switch to LED light bulbs
- Make our own cleaning supplies
- Continue to make our own laundry detergent
- Pack lunches for field trips instead of purchasing food while we are there
- Use reusable containers instead of disposable ones
- Perfect my homemade soap formula
- Make our own skin care items
- Utilize our library for free events & activities
- Group errands to use less gas
Self-Reliance Challenge January 2019
Make a resolution to be more self-reliant in 2019! Being more self-reliant helps save money and increase your confidence and skills. I’ve pledged to share my self-reliance posts, tips, and plans with you in January 2019 as I challenge myself to learn new skills!
Follow our Pinterest Board for Self-Reliance Challenge posts.
Stop By & Visit The Self-Reliance Challenge Bloggers
Kathi – Oak Hill Homestead
Nancy – Nancy On The Homefront
AnnMarie – 15 Acre Homestead
Farmgal – Just Another Day on the Farm
Candy – Candy’s Farm House Pantry
Kristi – Stone Family Farmstead
Marla – Organic 4 Greenlivings
Heidi – Healing Harvest Homestead
Victoria – Modern Homestead Mama
Shawna – Homegrown Self Reliance
Stephanie – Happily Homegrown
Bethany – Family Growing Pains
Dianne – Hidden Springs Homestead
Julie – The Farm Wife
Lacey – Home & Harrow
Robin – A Life in the Wild
Sheri Ann – Experimental Homesteader
Lisa Lynn – The Self Sufficient HomeAcre & The New Homesteader’s Almanac
I always enjoy making new self reliant goals and learning something new. We also do new goals seasonally
Great goals! I can’t remember if I added it to my list, but I really want to make more personal care products too!
Hi Stephanie,
You have a lot of great goals here and they are very realistic ones that I am sure you can achieve. Sometimes people don’t realize how important it is to learn how to make your own cleaners and be self reliance, but it is not only to our families but to the world as a whole.
I would also like to invite you to join our FB group Natural Living Bloggers helping each other – Lisa is a part of it. Check it out on FB and if you are interested just request to join and I will approve you. We are closed until January 2nd but I do go in a check regularly. If you decide to join we would be glad to have you.
Have a healthy, happy & blessed New Years!
Thanks for the invite to your FB group. I’ll check it out!
Very good ideas with your resolutions. Thanks for sharing
You’ve set a wonderful list of goals, Stephanie! I’m looking forward to hearing about your progress on these in the coming month!
My cousins tap their maple trees and make syrup…I’m lucky to get a gallon or 2 every year! I remember helping gather sap as a kid. 🙂 I hope you have a great harvest!
We live in the suburbs, so we only have 4 trees that we can tap so we get about a quart of finished maple syrup. Its so much fun, and the kids loved helping out last year. Happy New Year!
Love your goals and look froward to reading more as we progress through January!
Now that was a pleasure to read, great goals, so many seem simple but do in fact take time and skill but will yield great results. I look forward to seeing how it goes over the coming year.
Sometimes, it is the simple things we take for granted and then they slip away from us. By focusing back on what’s simple, I’m hoping life will simplify itself.
Great goals! It’s odd because I have never set down and made goals. I just keep working on what I need to do instead of writing it down. I think I need to make a list too!
I am such a list person (a bit Type-A) and if I don’t write it down I don’t see the progress of getting things done, even when I am. I need to be able to tick all the boxes. Good luck with your goals for 2019!
I love your goals! I want to try to make my own crackers, too, although I am pretty intimidated by it! I guess I’ll have to see how it goes. Have you ever made them before?
I’ve never made crackers before, but I figured I know how to make bread, cookies, and pie crust. Crackers must fall somewhere in the middle of all that. I’m going to try out a cracker recipe later this week, and we’ll see how it goes.
Making crackers is something I really want to be good at. I’ve done it once or twice and it seemed to take forever to make them and just seconds to eat them all. Now that the kids are all grown it might be time to try again.
I love your goals. So many I want to try as well, like making crackers and I seriously need to pack better lunches for field trips. Ugh!
I think packing lunches for field trips is the most challenging. My kids are grazers and like to snack through the afternoon, so having to sit and eat a mid-day meal while we are on the go can be a hassle.
Wow, this is a fantastic list! There are many that I would love to implement myself this coming year, like baking more bread and making my own cleaners. I need to improve my gardening skills. It would be amazing to grow more of our own food. Good luck with your goals this year!
Every small step we take adds up to make a big impact. Have a great year!