Here are some simple first steps. Shop around, look around your current home, and think about where you may want to start. Then just do it. Can’t you just smell that fresh-baked bread?

1.) Can, Dehydrate, & Freeze Food
A vital skill for any homesteader is what to do with your bounty once you have reaped it. With all of the gardening and animal husbandry skills you’ll be learning in the future, now is a great time to build a collection of recipes that your family will enjoy.
2.) Bake Your Daily Bread
Freshly baked bread is economical and frankly, it tastes better that store bought bread. The flavor and texture are so delicious. There is nothing like a warm fresh slice slathered thickly with butter.
3.) Make Homemade Butter from Cream
You don’t need to wait until you have a Jersey cow to make homemade butter. All you need is a bit of cream to see the magic happen as the thick white liquid turns into a golden ball of butter.
4.) Prepare Simple, Soft Cheeses
Dabble in home cheesemaking by starting with some simple soft cheeses. They don’t require too many extra ingredients, lots of prep time, aging, or special equipment, but give you the experience and confidence you need to dig deeper in the future.
5.) Grow Windowsill Herbs
Cultivate your green thumb, learn indoor seed starting techniques, and learn to cook with fresh herbs by growing a few pots of your favorite in a windowsill.
6.) Make Homemade Yogurt
Homemade yogurt tastes better, has no artificial ingredients, and is a very frugal alternative to store-bought yogurt. Plus it’s not really too much trouble to make- mix it, warm it, culture it, and incubate it. That’s it!
7.) Scratch Cooking
Don’t wait until you get to the farm to hone scratch cooking skills. Meal disasters will create chaos in the home at mealtime and throw off the rest of the day. Learn to prepare the foods you plan to grow and raise now so it’s nearly effortless later. Go through your pantry one box at a time and learn to replace those packages with homemade food.
8.) Make Your Own Soap
Soap making is frugal and fun (after you get over the fear of working with lye. Once you’re set up you can make 10 bars of soap for the price of one. Not to mention it cleans better and you know exactly what is going into your soap that will end up on the largest organ of your body, your skin.
9.) Grow Your Own Salad All Year Long
Your read that right! If you have a window, you can grow your own salad in your own home any time of the year. Self-sufficient salads in an apartment downtown is a big chunk out of your grocery bill and is better than many homesteaders on several acres are doing.
10.) Prepare Herbal Home Remedies
Creating homemade medicine with herbs is often just as powerful and effective as modern medicine. More than that, it is empowering to take charge of your health with using herbs, roots, and flowers that the Lord has created with healing properties.
11.) Basic Sewing Skills
Knowing simple sewing techniques, particularly hand-sewing, is incredibly useful for mending clothes, darning socks, replacing buttons, finishing knitting projects, etc…
12.) Make Homemade Cleaning Products
Making your own homemade cleaning products saves you money in a big way! Compare a bottle of window cleaner at $4 to the homemade version that works just as well at $.04! You can find a plethora of excellent natural cleaning recipes to try including homemade laundry detergent.

There is so much more you can do and you can read up on them at Reformation Acres.

No one said homesteading was going to be easy but what is so satisfying is being given a task and completing it. It may not be perfect the first time out but you can most definitely try again and again. Before you know it you will have a skill perfected and that will bring your homesteading desire all the closer to completion!

Start now, bake some bread, and watch yourself become more confident!