Creating a Homemade Life

Creating a homemade life is possible with small changes that you make over time. The result is a healthier life that not only benefits your family, but also your wallet.

Prior to my kids being born I didn’t think much about what I was consuming or using. I was a frequent visitor of fast food and rarely read a food label.

When I had a new baby to care for, that all began to change. Suddenly, I thought it was important to start paying attention to food labels and ways to have a healthier life overall.

The changes were slow, but over time I started to learn how to feed my family better and really take an active role in our health.

This seems to be an ongoing process because there is always something new to learn.

One thing that has been consistent through this whole thing and somewhat accidental, is that we have created what I call a homemade life.

With small, gradual changes it’s possible to create a healthier and more simple life for you and your family.

What Is A Homemade Life

A homemade life can mean very different things to different families. To me, it is when you try to create a life that focuses on less consuming and more producing.

It doesn’t mean that you are constantly tied down to your list of never ending tasks. It is a way of living that allows you to produce what is valuable to you and the end result is a healthier, more simple way of living.

Ways To Create A Homemade Life

• Make food from scratch. I don’t know about you, but I find it harder and harder to find things in the grocery store that I actually want to purchase. Even when something looks like it might be healthy, I often find at least one ingredient that stops me in my tracks. As a result, I find myself making more and more food from scratch.
• Grow your own food. One thing that has become very important to me is feeding my family organic food. I learned pretty quickly how fast our food bill can add up when trying to eat mostly organic food. My solution was to start growing our own.
• Make your own cleaning products. Many of the cleaning products available today are full of chemicals most of us don’t want to be breathing in when cleaning our homes and many of the natural ones are very pricey. After gathering a few basic items, you can easily make your own natural cleaners for next to nothing.
• Find alternative ways to replace frequently purchased items. After replacing a number of items with homemade ones because I couldn’t find what I liked, I learned how easy the process was and applied it in other areas as well. I naturally started looking for things that my family consumed frequently, and I started to make those homemade too.
• Develop your skills. Another thing that my husband and I have been doing is fixing, making, and building things ourselves. Thanks to the internet, all it takes is a little time to learn how to do any number of things. Your family can save a ton of money by just doing this one thing.
• Assess your consumption. A homemade life consists of making, creating, and doing things for yourself. By adopting some of these habits, it slowly starts to make you assess your purchases and naturally focus more on items you really need rather than unnecessary purchases that clutter up your home.

Benefits Of Homemade Living

Health

By making much of your food from scratch, your family is not consuming an endless number of unnecessary and sometimes difficult to pronounce ingredients found in our everyday food.

This is also true when it comes to household products like laundry soap, soap, shampoo, and cleaning products. By making as much of these items as you can homemade, you eliminate more and more of the harmful products from your home and keep them away from your family.

Finances

Initially, I started adopting many of these habits because it was the healthier choice for my family. As a result, I quickly learned how much money I could save by making and doing things on my own.

Your family won’t benefit a great deal by making a few items homemade. However, by slowly adopting some of these habits over time, you begin to see the benefits accumulate and they can have a real impact on your wallet.

Tips

• Starting to cook from scratch can quickly get overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Start small. Start by replacing one item at a time. Get used to incorporating that change into your life for a while, then add another.
• Starting to grow your own food is another thing that can get overwhelming fast. If you are interested in starting to grow your own food, start small. Find two or three items that your family eats frequently and only grow those your first year. By slowly growing your garden, you will have much more success, and you will be more likely to stick to it for the long term.
• When it comes to household products, start with homemade cleaning products. This is the quickest way to make a big change and you likely have many of the ingredients in your home already.

How Much Time Does It Really Take?

One of the biggest misconceptions about living a homemade life is that it is very time consuming. In reality, it’s not. It’s all about systems you put in place and your perspective.

You might spend a half an hour making something like laundry soap, but then you will have that to use for many months.

When it comes to food, some meals will take a little more time compared to purchasing already prepared items. That is when you have to weigh the pros and cons.

Making an entire pot of homemade soup may take 15 minutes of prep time and an additional 30 minutes of cooking time, compared to the 7 minutes it may take to open and heat a can of soup. Although it takes more time initially, the homemade soup will be packed with nutrients and will likely last a few meals. Compare that to the canned soup that is full of sodium, lacks real nutrition, and will definitely not last very long.

It’s important to remember that you won’t be spending your whole day doing these things. It’s about small changes here and there that can have a huge impact on your overall health and your wallet.