Moody - The frugal homesteader: living the good life on less

If anyone has put in his 10,000 hours and 10 years of experience, its John Moody and family. That you and I get to glean from his experience and wisdom is a rare treat, a true honor.

Joel Salatin, Polyface Farm, from the Foreword

This book is worth its weight in goldactually, after a handful of years its likely to be worth more. Unlike so many books this is an account of direct lived experience: jam-packed with tips and tricks from doing the homestead life each and every day. This would have saved me a lot of time if I had read it at the outset of my land endeavors. The resourcefulness shown in this work is impressive and though the warmer climate doesnt always apply to my locale directly, nearly all of the content is applicable to my situation with minor adjustments. Much of it is simply brilliant and makes me think of a variety of opportunities and approaches for adjusting my own system 15 years in.

Ben Falk, homesteader and author, The Resilient Farm and Homestead

The Frugal Homesteader is a great resource for every homestead, proving that affordable doesnt mean junk. Even as an experienced homesteader, Johns storytelling pulled me in and kept me turning pages. He shares not only the great project results, but common pitfalls and problems to avoid.

Laurie Neverman, creator, Common Sense Home

Just when I thought I had it all figured out, John Moodys book comes along. Wow! Suddenly its time for a major re-fit. Not only is The Frugal Homesteader packed with well-thought-out innovations, it re-invents the word frugal to encompass the term eco-friendly. This is a rich bounty of ideas that will be equally usefully to old hands and shiny new start-ups alike, whether on rural acreage or urban lot. Its written with an easy-to-read passion for the Earth and I totally love how this book rejects consumerisms need for new in favor of intelligent re-use and re-purposing. Delighted to have The Frugal Homesteader on my shelf! Thank you, John.

Jenni Blackmore, author, The Food Lovers Garden and Permaculture for the Rest of Us

Ive been waiting for someone to produce a book that was worth my full endorsement and Ive found it. Full of UN-common sense and overflowing with wit, wisdom and wonderful advice, The Frugal Homesteader is definitely going at the top of the list of must own and read books for all of my clients.

Nick Ferguson, sustainable agriculture designer, consultant, and educator; and founder, Homegrown Liberty

In this hands-on book, John Moody gives readers the gift of practical advice they can use from the farm field to foraging in the forest. The result is a must-have for anyone looking to transition from homeowner to homesteader.

Scott Mann, host, The Permaculture Podcast

John Moody turned a run-down, rock-solid-clay, no-top-soil, 35 acres into a productive, ecologically vibrant homestead. The Frugal Homesteader is chock-full of practical advice for doing the same, together with warnings about gotchas potentially disastrous for the unsuspecting beginner. Frugal to this author means more than saving money by, for example, utilizing salvageable resources otherwise going extravagantly to waste. He considers as well frugality of time and effort, with strategies that meet several needs in the same projectfor example, managing pigs and chickens to forage natural feeds while making homestead-scale quantities of compost.

Harvey Ussery, author, The Small-Scale Poultry Flock and themodernhomestead.us

Copyright 2018 by John Moody. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Diane McIntosh.
Cover images: iStock Pig: 496988028 Coin: 697308644 + 533726165.
Text images: Adobe Stock: Igor Serazetdinov;
valeriyabtsk.

Printed in Canada. First printing September 2018.

This book is intended to be educational and informative.
It is not intended to serve as a guide. The author and publisher
disclaim all responsibility for any liability, loss or risk that may be associated
with the application of any of the contents of this book.

Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of The Frugal Homesteader
should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below.
To order directly from the publishers, please call toll-free (North America)
1-800-567-6772, or order online at www.newsociety.com.

Any other inquiries can be directed by mail to

New Society Publishers
P.O. Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC V0R 1X0, Canada
(250) 247-9737

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Moody, John, 1978, author
The frugal homesteader : living the good life on less / John Moody.

Includes index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-0-86571-893-7 (softcover).ISBN 978-1-55092-686-6 (PDF). ISBN 978-1-77142-282-6 (EPUB)

1. Self-reliant living. 2. Sustainable living. I. Title.

New Society Publishers mission is to publish books that contribute in fundamental ways to building an ecologically sustainable and just society, and to do so with the least possible impact on the environment, in a manner that models this vision.

by Joel Salatin

One of my favorite moments on farm tours is taking visitors to our cattle working chute in the barn and showing off the boards my dad and I scavenged from a tumble-down barn 50 years ago. Today we have a modern band saw mill and make lumber from logs we cut in the forest.

But back in the early days most of our lumber for building projects came from old barns dad and I tore down in exchange for the usable boards. We burned the junk stuff, but it had to be pretty junky to go in the burn pile. Today, wed probably bring that home too and put in a hugelkultur bed. My mentor and Stockman Grass Farmer magazine founder, Allan Nation, always said that profitable farms have a threadbare look.

Here at our farm, Polyface, some 15,000 visitors a year drive down our lane and one of the most common remarks is its all so practical and plain. Our buildings are not flashy. Our infrastructure is functional. If we can slap some boards together and make something work, thats what matters; not whether we can adorn the front page of an agrarian lifestyle magazine.

When my wife Teresa was a junior in college majoring in home economics, she had to do a 10-year-out plan for budget, housing, and family. We were high school sweethearts (now were old geezer sweethearts) and shared frugality from both of our families. For her project, she assumed wed be living in an underground house, growing all our own food, making all our own clothes, cutting our own firewoodyou know the drill. The monthly food budget for a family of four? A mere $200 (and most of that was toilet paper and facial tissue).

Teresa always made better grades than I did, so when this big project came back marked with a C it was highly abnormal. The professor simply did not believe it was realistic. About 10 years later, my mom and dad moved out of the big farm house into a smaller house outside the yard. Teresa and I had our two children by that time and the attic apartment wed lived in for 7 years was getting a bit cramped. As we cleaned out closets and began the move to downstairs, we found that old college project notebook and went through it.