I have been a city girl my ENTIRE life.  We moved to a very rural area 7 months ago on my dream hobby farm.  Can you say the sky is….WOW!!  You’ve never seen a sky like THIS one until you’ve seen it in the country.  People always chuckled when we told them we were moving to a farm.  ‘Culture Shock’ was what they said.  For me, dreamy, right?

After being out here for a little while now, I’ve come up with 10 “creative” ways on how you can save money by living on a farm.  Here I go!

1. We have propane.  With a propane tank.  We are responsible for filling this thing up to be able to heat our house, our water, and our stove.  THIS year, the weather has been ridiculously cold.  And propane has reached nearly $5 a gallon!!!  At that price, to fill our tanks, we might as well buy a nice used car and live in it.  With that being said, we turn down the thermostat, throw on more clothes to stay warm, and throw stuff in the crockpot.  BAM!

2. Continuing from number 1, because we live out here, in the middle of nowhere, it’s ok to wear multiple layers of really warm clothes.  Because no one in their right minds will probably just show up to visit you, there’s no need to worry about what you look like.   So no need to worry about buying fancy clothes.  DONE!

3. Hubby thought it would be super great to get chickens for food.  So we raise chickens.  Really doesn’t cost a whole lot to feed them.  And they give us meat and lots and lots of eggs.  Popovers, cake, scrambled eggs anyone???   Oh you want to come visit?  Here’s some eggs.

4. Buy a car that gets 37 miles to the gallon.  Why?  Because the nearest ANYTHING is 30 miles away.

5. We have a grass field that gets cut a couple times a year and the hay is sold to local farmers.  We don’t have any animals that need this hay as of now, so why not make money off of it??

6. Hender-where???  Hold on you’re breaking up!!  Cell phone service??  Forget it!  You might as well change to the smallest cheapest plan being you probably won’t be using much of it at home.  (We do have landline)

7. Our electric bill went from $30 a month (in our city house) to $180!!  Ouch!!  We have nearly every single light bulb changed to LED, buying all the new appliances Energy Efficient and washing all the clothes on the quick wash cycle with cold water.

8. Being we could only afford one vehicle with great gas mileage right now, that means I don’t travel much.  Really almost never.  And when I do, I’ve got the entire trip planned.  Whether it be grocery shopping, doctor’s appointments, and trips to the hardware store all in one day.

9. We cook home cooked meals nearly every single night.  Not a SINGLE place delivers ANYTHING out here.  So we go to the grocery store, pick up everything we need, and we cook.  Saves us TONS of money each month.

10. We entertain ourselves.  The closest movie theatre has 2 screens, the library is as big as our house, and restaurants are only open certain hours (which none are convenient to us) unless you want to go to one of the 6 local bars to eat.  This is ok to us.  We like going out occasionally but with 3 kids and 15 chickens and a cat and a dog, we aren’t able to getaway, or go out much anymore.  In the summer, it’s nice here.  People come to visit us to sit out on the porch and relax.  People come to our house to getaway.  We like that.  We are perfectly fine with that.

So, there you have it.  My own personal list of things we do to try and save a little bit more money each month.