10 Ways to Save Money as a Large Family | Homesteading

As a large family of 9, we manage on a smaller budget than most 4 person families! Much of it has to do with homesteading and homeschooling. These are the top 10 ways we currently save money as a large family.

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Everything is getting more expensive. Prices are rising everywhere we look. This is impacting everything from groceries to the housing market. And unfortunately, there is no sign of anything getting any cheaper. So, what can we do about it? Many of us can’t work more hours or get side jobs to help us make more money. But, most of us can do multiple things to save money!

As a large family of 8 (now 9), we manage on a smaller budget than most 4 person families for groceries, utilities, personal items, and more. In this post, we will share with you things that we do to save money as a large family. You may not be able to do all of these things, but maybe this will inspire you to try some new things, or think of creative ways to save the most money for your own family. Here are, from our experience, the top 10 ways to save money as a large family (in no particular order).

10 Ways to Save Money as a Large Family:

Save on that grocery bill and eating out!

The average American family spends anywhere from an average of $6,000 to over $7,300 per year on food! That includes groceries, eating out, etc. If that isn’t enough of a reason to start looking for ways to save money on your grocery bill and eating out, then I don’t know what is! I think this information is just as motivating to start homesteading.

The order of highest expenses for the average U.S. family is housing and mortgages, transportation, taxes, utilities, and then food. Depending on means and payments for transportation and utilities, food can actually be the largest costly burden for families.

1. Gardening

This is a no brainer for anyone who is already homesteading or has been thinking about starting to homestead. Gardening also has the incredible benefits of knowing, and feeling secure in the healthy source of your food. But, today we are talking saving money.

With so many options from indoor aquaponics to outdoor raised garden beds and crop rows, there are ways for anyone, anywhere, to garden. The best way to make gardening save the most money for your family, is to think about the food your family eats and spends money on the most. Grow it wherever you can, and always save some seeds! I think about what we eat weekly. For you, it may be a different time frame.

But, say you eat and spend money on potatoes weekly. One seed potato can produce 8-10 potatoes equaling approximately 3-5 pounds of potatoes. So, depending on the size and need of your family, you can plant a couple rows and source potatoes for a whole season or more. Save some of those potatoes, let them grow roots, and plant them in the next season. Continue the cycle and your seed will multiply!

Other good examples are peppers and greens. One bell pepper plant can produce 5-10 peppers per plant while smaller pepper varieties can produce anywhere from 20-50 peppers per plant! I save seeds from just a few peppers each season, and I have way more seeds than space. So, I probably won’t ever have to buy pepper seeds again!

Lettuces and greens are my favorite because most varieties are ‘cut and come again’. That means that during the growing season you can cut the lettuce as you need it and it will continue to grow back over and over until the end of the season. You can even grow greens indoors. Check out more tips for Ways to Garden Frugally. So, if your family eats and spends money on greens regularly, growing them would be one of the ways to save money as a large family.

2. Bake all bread, bread products, and desserts at home

In 2022, U.S. households each spent an average of over $700 on cereals, breads, and bakery products. I don’t know about you, but I could use an extra $700 a year! This is INSANE to me.

Baking all bread, bread products, and desserts at home is one of my favorite ways to save money as a large family. First off, I did not start baking bread to save money. I made a commitment to baking all of our bread products and desserts at home after learning about all the harmful genetically modified and highly processed ingredients in these store-bought products. As I learned more about the impact those ingredients had on our health, we quit buying them cold turkey.

Once we stopped buying theses products, and started making them at home, we immediately saw a large decrease in our grocery bill. You will especially see a decrease if you were trying to buy “healthier”, organic, or “natural” products in the bread and dessert family. After learning regular bread making, sourdough bread making is another great skill to save even more! Learn here in this Simple Sourdough course by Lisa Bass!

Bread is one of the first recommended food items to learn how to bake at home from scratch. Other easy bread and dessert products you can switch out for healthier and cheaper homemade products are: crackers, cereals, granolas, breadsticks, biscuits, pancakes, cakes, dinner rolls, and more! This is not only something we urge families to do for health purposes, this is also one of the best ways to save money as a large family. Especially if you are/were buying snack cakes and crackers for your kids each week.

-Mill your own grains

Go a step further and learn how to mill your own grains at home for the healthiest, most nutrient-dense products, as well as the most cost effective. Fresh milled wheat is said to have about 40 of the 44 most vital vitamins and nutrients our bodies need. Also, you can store wheat berries for years, and they are way less expensive to buy. The initial purchase of a quality grain mill is an investment, and you can make it in payments if you’d like, but the health benefits and shelf life are far worth it. Check out our grain mill here and other grain mill and sourdough products here.

3. Make all meals at home from scratch

Many American families spend massive amounts of money on eating out and ready made meals a year as well. The average American household spends about $6,000 a year on food with an average of $2,700 spend on eating out. That is almost HALF of the average yearly amount spent on all food. Another source actually says that an average of over $7,300 is spent on food per year per U.S. family. So, half of that would be over $3,500 spent on eating out.

Ready-made and frozen meals from the grocery store are also sources of highly processed and genetically modified ingredients. But they aren’t just unhealthy, they add up to higher grocery bills and more money spent per year. People think that they are saving money by buying cheap ready-made or frozen meals for their family. I would personally never trade my family’s health for the appearance of constant low cost. What people don’t realize is that cooking everything from scratch actually ends up being MUCH cheaper over time. You can even cook and grow your own healthy ingredients!

People also believe that they can not afford to buy healthy, organic, safe ingredients to cook all their meals from scratch. This will vary depending on the meal. Healthy seafood and pasture-raised meats can be more expensive than regular store bought products. But the trade off is in buying ingredients for your sides, cooking from scratch, and growing as much food at home as you can. Cooking from scratch makes so much more room in your grocery bill for organic ingredients, pasture-raised meats, and other items you may desire. Making all meals at home from scratch is one of our favorite ways to save money as a large family.

4. Raise chickens for eggs

If you’ve followed us on any platforms or read this blog, you know we are huge advocates for raising backyard chickens for eggs and meat. This was an adventure intentionally pursued with the purpose being one of the ways to save money as a large family. Depending on the size of your family, it really doesn’t take very many chickens to provide enough fresh eggs daily. Nothing beats the freshness and taste when you care well for your ladies. You take care of them; they take care of you.

Of course feed can be a small expense, but if you are allowing them to free range at least part of the time and feeding them kitchen scraps, they will eat less feed. For us, we expanded our flocks to make fresh, healthy eggs available to our community because it was really missing in the market around here. Selling eggs doesn’t make us rich, but it sure helps pay for the feed making the feed (and our eggs) almost FREE. In the Spring to Summer season, we actually were selling enough eggs that the chickens were paying for their own food. So, raising chickens for eggs has definitely been one of our favorite ways to save money as a large family.

5. Raise chickens for meat

Raising chickens for meat is also one of our favorite ways to save money as a large family. You will be able to know what your chickens ate, that you gave them a better life outside in the sunshine (unlike chickens raised by big companies even if they say “pasture-raised”), and that they were handled and processed humanely with care.

When you see how many pounds of chicken you end up with, break down the amount you spent on feed. You will see that it is comparable, if not cheaper, than the not-as-healthy, inhumanely raised chicken at the grocery store. Especially if you free range the chickens and feed them kitchen scraps. Your homegrown chicken will also produce the best, healthiest chicken broth, and can feed your other animals. Even though it can be tough to eat animals you’ve raised, especially if you haven’t done it before, it has been one of the most rewarding ways to save money as a large family.

6. Stick to a budget for groceries and household products

Even with rising prices, we have LOWERED our grocery budget for the past few YEARS! Of course we may have overspent here and there, but we mostly stay within a budget by making sure we are pursuing and reaching goals in our homesteading. Growing more, cooking from scratch more, eating eggs more, etc. When you begin to really transition to making everything, or almost everything, from scratch it can save you a lot of money. This is because instead of paying higher prices for quick, convenient foods, you are just buying ingredients that can last longer. If you buy your ingredients in bulk, you can save even more money.

It is also important to stick to a budget for household products, kitchen tools, bakeware, cookware, etc. Shop discount and dollar stores for products or even items in bulk to help you make your own household products like jars, spray bottles, ingredients, etc. This has been one of our most important ways to save money as a large family.

Large Spray Bottles, 28 oz. – $1.25
from: DollarTree

7. Make all household cleaners, detergents, and hygiene products

This can save us a LOT of money every single week and month. We have not transitioned to making every single product yet, but we make almost all of them. We infuse vinegar with citrus for a strong cleaner, and we make our own powder laundry detergent (get the free recipe card in our FREEBIE resource library). The MOST versatile ingredient that we DO purchase to make a bulk of our products is non-gmo liquid Castile soap from a family-owned company.

With the liquid Castile soap we make hand soap, dish soap, shampoo, dog shampoo, granite spray, floor cleaner, general cleaner, garden pest spray, and more. It can be used to make laundry detergent, makeup remover, bath wash, baby wash, and so much more. And my favorite thing about it is that even with making all these products for an 9 person family and dogs, one half gallon (a little over $20) can last us 2 to 3+ months! Just think of how much money you spend on all these household products each week or month. Making as many of our household products as we can is definitely one of the best ways to save money as a large family.

8. We homeschool and use as much free curriculum and resources as we can

Of course we are big advocates for homeschooling and saving money is not one of our top reasons at all. But, it truthfully does save us a lot of money. The part that saves us the most money is accessing FREE curriculum from The Good and the Beautiful for Math and Language Arts for all of our 6 children. Then, because our homeschool style aligns with their curriculum so well, we purchase History and Science from them. However, we save even more money because we can make ONE History course (in their 4 year rotation) actually last us two homeschool years. And we use their Science as a supplement because before moving to this curriculum, I used Abeka.

So, I still have Science, History, and reading books from Abeka up to grade 5. And I did not buy all of the curriculum new. I bought as much used as I could from places like Second Harvest Curriculum which offers tons of different types of curriculum brands. You can also check Facebook Marketplace for used curriculum, library stores, and you can take advantage of FREE and affordable printables across the internet. Teachers Pay Teachers is another resources I love for free and affordable resources where you are supporting other teachers and creators. We also take advantage of YouTube to supplement learning especially for subjects like Art and Science.

We are super passionate about making resources free and affordable for homeschooling families, because we understand the need. So, make sure to sign up to our FREEBIE resource library to access our free printables and to receive news about when we release new affordable products in our shop. Homeschooling, and using as many free and affordable resources as possible, is one of the ways to save money as a large family.

9. We do not currently spend money on sports or extracurricular activities outside the home

It is totally fine if people do, and we are not against it. When my first son was young he played soccer for two seasons, and my daughter danced for a few years. But, we have been in a season of life where we are slowing down from all the busyness, the rush, the over-scheduling, the hyperactive serving at church. We burnt ourselves out with years of pushing, serving, working multiple jobs, and just doing too much. And frankly, we don’t ever want to go back to that. It’s not that we won’t allow our kids to enjoy following their passions, in fact the do. We have become resourceful, and can also teach most of our children’s passions ourselves.

This may not be the case for everyone. But I was a professional musician and teacher/coach for most of adult life. Instead of teaching outside the home, I began pouring my time into my children who already showed such love and passion for music and instruments. I can teach almost any instrument, vocals, choir, theory, etc. So, I do! We have piano lessons, violin lessons, choir time, theory, hymn studies, and more. I outsource guitar to my dad, and I teach my daughters dance and also find other resources for them to practice.

We teach and play sports as a family, like basketball (my husband coached), and volleyball (I coached), and we will even be staring tennis (I played) with our kids. We have all our equipment ready! All in all, children tend to be interested in a least some things that their parents were, are, or can teach. And what better way to continue to spend time together than to follow and practice our passions and interests together. We feel like this change has really helped us live more abundantly and slower. Check out these Frugal Outdoor Water Activities for Kids too! This has become one of our favorite ways to save money as a large family.

10. Avoid single use items

I understand that every once in a while it may be convenient to have single use items. I think of hosting Thanksgiving or birthday parties off of the top of my head. We have such a large family, so hosting parties can create a lot of dirty pans, dishes, and silverware. However, buying and using single use items, like paper plates and napkins, regularly would be expensive for a large family. So, for everyday life we opt for reusable alternatives:

• Washing dishes and silverware
• fabric napkins
• Beeswax wrap for sandwiches and more that can be washed, re-used, and composted
• cleaning with rags instead of paper towels
• washable table cloths and runners
• a toilet cleaning brush and cleaner instead of single use brush heads
• cloth diapers (you can even make reusable, washable wipes)

It may not seem like much, but buying disposable or single use items really adds up. So, choosing reusable items is another way to save money as a large family.

This post is just the top 10 ways we save money as a large family. There are many more ways to save money, and some of these may not be for you right now, but we hope we inspired you or a conversation on how to save money in your family.

What ways do you save money for your large family? Let us know in the comments! And Sign up for our newsletter below for more on living abundantly through homesteading. Many of these things you can start right away. So, we hope you start saving money today and live abundantly!