The 3 DIY Homestead Projects That Saved Us Thousands (And What I Learned the Hard Way)

I was standing in the feed store last month staring at a $89 feeder, doing math in my head about how much we’d spent on chicken supplies in three years, when Martha from the next farm over tapped my shoulder. “You know Ben’s building those now, right?” she said, pointing to a wooden version that looked identical. Turns out, the affordable DIY homesteading projects to make your own homestead supplies and tools that actually save money aren’t always the ones you expect.

That conversation got me thinking about which of our homemade solutions actually paid off, and which ones were just expensive ways to feel productive. Because let’s be honest – not everything we’ve built out here was worth the lumber.

Getting the Soil Right

Our first spring, I spent $300 on bagged compost from the garden center because our soil test came back looking like concrete. Ben thought I was crazy. “Just throw some grass clippings on it,” he said, which is peak Ben optimism about fixing things.

But here’s what actually worked: building our own three-bin compost system using cattle panels from Tractor Supply. Cost us $45 in panels and zip ties. The key was getting the ratios right – browns to greens, about 3:1. Kitchen scraps, chicken bedding, fallen leaves, grass clippings when the neighbors weren’t looking.

By year two, we were making about six cubic yards of compost annually. At $40 per yard delivered, that’s $240 we’re not spending every spring. Plus the soil actually holds water now instead of shedding it like a roof.

What Martha Told Me

Martha’s been farming longer than I’ve been alive, and she has opinions about everything. When I mentioned we were thinking about getting goats, she just laughed. “You’ll spend more on fencing than you save on brush clearing,” she said.

She was half right. The fencing did cost more than expected – $800 for field fencing, T-posts, and gates. But Pepper and June have cleared about two acres of overgrowth that would’ve cost us $1,200 to have brush-hogged professionally. Plus we get the entertainment value of watching them escape every few weeks and terrorize the chickens.

5 Steps to Building a Chicken Coop on a Budget

This is the project that actually saved us the most money. A decent pre-built coop for 12 chickens runs $600-800. We built ours for $180 using mostly reclaimed materials.

1. Start with a frame from old deck lumber
Our neighbor was tearing down his deck. We got 2x8s and 4x4s for free, just had to pull the nails. Ben spent a Saturday with his cordless drill and a lot of muttering.

2. Use cattle panels for cheap walls
$16 each at Tractor Supply. Zip-tie them to the frame. The chickens can see out, predators can’t get in.

3. Salvage windows for light
Found old storm windows at a garage sale for $5 each. They’re single-pane and drafty, but chickens don’t care about energy efficiency.

4. Build nesting boxes from milk crates
Seriously. Zip-tie plastic milk crates to the wall, add some straw. The hens love them and they’re easy to clean.

5. Use a tarp for the roof
Not pretty, but it works. Heavy-duty tarp from Harbor Freight, $25. Stretch it tight and it’ll shed water for years.

The whole thing took us three weekends to build. Ben wanted to add a automatic door system, but the chickens still won’t use the regular door consistently, so that was a hard no from me.

I Still Buy Half Our Groceries

This bothers me more than it should. We’ve got chickens, goats, a half-acre garden, fruit trees, and I’m still spending $200 a week at the grocery store. Ben keeps reminding me we’re not trying to homestead in 1875, but it feels like failure sometimes.

The chickens give us eggs, but they eat $40 worth of feed monthly. The garden produces great tomatoes for six weeks, then it’s back to buying them at the store. The goats clear brush but they’re not dairy goats, so no milk or cheese.

Maybe the goal isn’t self-sufficiency. Maybe it’s just making some of our own stuff and knowing where it comes from. But try telling that to the voice in my head that calculated how much we spent on seeds this spring.

The Fence, Again

Hank was sitting on the fence post yesterday, watching me patch the same section of field fencing for the third time this month. Pepper got out again, somehow squeezing through what looked like a chicken-sized hole.

Ben thinks we should just accept that goats escape sometimes. “It’s their nature,” he says, like that’s helpful when I’m chasing Pepper down the road at 6 AM in my pajamas.

The fence was supposed to be a one-time investment. Three years later, I’ve probably spent another $200 on patches, extra T-posts, and better gate latches. Martha warned me about this, but I thought we were different.

Does Any of This Actually Save Money?

I kept receipts for everything the first year because I’m a bookkeeper and that’s what we do. The numbers were depressing.

Chicken coop: $180 to build, saves about $200 annually on store-bought eggs
Compost system: $45 investment, saves $240 yearly on soil amendments
Goat fencing: $800 initial cost, saves maybe $300 every few years on brush clearing
Garden infrastructure: $400 for raised beds and greenhouse repairs, hard to calculate savings

Ben says I’m missing the point, that it’s not just about money. “You can’t buy the satisfaction of eating your own tomatoes,” he tells me. Easy for him to say – he’s not the one tracking expenses.

The truth is, some projects pay off financially and some don’t. The chicken coop was worth it. The compost system definitely was. The elaborate herb spiral I built? That was $150 in stones for herbs I could buy at the farmers market for $20.

TL;DR: Three years in, the chicken coop and compost system have saved us real money. Everything else is either breaking even or costing more than buying the equivalent. But we keep building stuff anyway because Ben thinks every problem can be solved with lumber and zip ties.

Ripping Out the Tomatoes in July

Last summer I spent six weeks building an elaborate tomato trellis system. Researched varieties, started seeds under grow lights, hardened them off properly. By July, they were all dead from some blight that turned the leaves brown overnight.

Ben found me in the garden at 7 PM pulling up $60 worth of tomato plants and throwing them in the burn pile. “Maybe we should stick to buying tomatoes from the farmers market,” I said.

He just handed me a beer and helped me pull. Sometimes the projects fail and there’s no lesson, no silver lining. Sometimes you spend money and time and get nothing but compost material out of it.

The trellis is still there, though. Ben thinks we should try again this year with different varieties. “Maybe paste tomatoes would work better,” he says, already planning the next project that might or might not save us money.

I’m thinking about it. The question is whether I’m building things because they make financial sense, or because I need projects to feel like I’m making progress on something. And honestly, I don’t know the answer to that yet.