By Shayla | Mountain Mama’s Home
If you’ve been around here for any length of time, you know I don’t sugarcoat things. I’m a midlife homemaker, wife of over 20 years, homeschool mom of six, and a woman of faith who has been building and mastering homemaking and homesteading skills for over 33 years. We’re a family of eight living on our dream mountain homestead — still finishing the house, still figuring things out — and real is exactly what you will always get from me.
Today I’m pulling back the curtain on our kitchen, because that is the number one area I get questions about whenever I talk about living richly on less. People look at what we’ve built and assume we spent a fortune. We did not. What we spent was time, patience, and intentionality.
So let’s talk about it. (Read the blog post below the video).
Tip #1: Try to Never Pay Full Price for Anything
This sounds simple, but it is a discipline. It means waiting. It means watching. It means being willing to go without for a season.
Everything you see in our kitchen has a story. My husband built some of it. I found pieces at thrift stores for a few dollars. My dishes came from Dollar Tree and Goodwill. The wooden crates are a mix of antiques, clearance finds, and secondhand scores from various places over the years.
Did I pay full price for a couple of things? Yes. I paid full price for a new Instant Pot because I genuinely didn’t trust buying one secondhand. That was a practical decision. But the principle stands: if you can wait and watch, you can almost always find what you need for less.
We actually went six months without a stove to find the right one. Because of our family size, a standard four-burner range just wasn’t cutting it — it was stealing hours from my day. We needed something bigger. So we waited until we found something within our budget. That is living richly on less in practice. It’s not always easy, but it works.
Tip #2: Invest the Most in the Rooms Where the Most Industry Happens
This was one of the hardest lessons I’ve ever learned, and I had to learn it the hard way more than once.
For most homemakers, that comes down to two rooms: your kitchen and your laundry room.
If your kitchen tools are poor quality, you will spend more money in the long run — constantly replacing appliances, constantly replacing cheap pans and gadgets that break down within months. The math does not work in your favor.
If you are a from-scratch cook (and I hope you are, because it saves significant money and it is better for your family), you need tools that can keep up with real, daily use. That means:
- Buying quality appliances even if it takes longer to save up for them
- Shopping at industrial kitchen stores rather than big-box chains for frequently used tools
- Choosing items without welded seams — measuring cups and spoons with seams will break down quickly with heavy use
- Investing in good countertops — cheap countertops eventually lead to water damage and mold behind the sink, which costs far more to repair
Five years is the maximum we experience getting out of cheap countertops before they begin wearing thin. Quality countertops, even financed wisely with zero-interest plans, will serve you far longer and cost you less over time.
Tip #3: Build Your Kitchen Around Ingredients, Not Products
A rich kitchen does not need to be filled with specialty items and convenience foods. It needs to be stocked with basics that you can turn into dozens of meals.
Think: flour, butter, potatoes, rice, beans, onions, broth, garlic (lots and lots of garlic), eggs, oats, and spices.
These will stretch further than any expensive meal solution or convenience product ever will. When you stock your pantry with foundational ingredients, you have the raw materials to feed your family well even on the tightest week.
Tip #4: Don’t Overlook Frozen Vegetables
This tip came straight from my Depression-era grandmother, who worked in a vegetable packing plant and knew something most people don’t: frozen vegetables are often fresher than fresh.
They’re harvested and flash-frozen quickly, which locks in more nutrients. And most of the time, they cost less than fresh. For a from-scratch cooking family on a budget, good quality frozen vegetables are one of the smartest tools in your pantry.
Tip #5: Protect Your Energy Like It’s Part of the Budget
This one might surprise you, but hear me out: burnout costs money.
When a homemaker is exhausted and running on empty, she is far more likely to:
- Scroll through her phone and make impulse purchases
- Call her husband on the way home and ask him to pick up dinner
- Forget groceries and make extra trips to the store
- Make less-than-ideal decisions simply because her brain is too tired to think clearly
Simple systems, manageable meal plans, and reasonable prep routines are not just lifestyle preferences — they are financial strategies. Protect your energy.
And while we’re at it: batch cook every single time you cook. You are spending the same amount of electricity whether you make one pan of something or three. Make extra. Freeze it. That habit saves both time and money week after week.
Tip #6: Keep a Pot of Stock Going
Old-fashioned homemakers who managed to feed large families well on very little had one thing in common: there was always something simmering on the back burner.
Every vegetable scrap, potato peel, chicken bone, beef bone, and leftover bit of anything went into the pot. Simmered low and long, those scraps become something extraordinary — rich, deeply flavorful broth that honestly rivals what you’d find in a fine restaurant. The cartilage breaks down, the marrow releases, and you end up with liquid gold that forms the base of soups, beans, gravies, and so much more.
Nothing is wasted. Everything is used. That is the old-fashioned way, and it works.
Tip #7: Cook with Cast Iron
Cast iron is one of the most durable investments you can make in a kitchen. One well-seasoned cast iron pan will outlast fifty cheap non-stick pans — without exaggeration.
A couple of notes: you’ll want to supplement with some stainless steel or ceramic for acidic foods (tomatoes, citrus, vinegar-based dishes), since acid can damage your seasoning and leach iron. But for everyday cooking? Cast iron is hard to beat for durability, heat retention, and the quality of food it produces.
Tip #8: Build Skill
The more skills you build, the less you have to pay someone else to do something for you.
Learn to make a handful of simple meals really well — homemade soup, bread, beans and cornbread, roasted chicken with potatoes. When you cook those things with skill and intention, they stretch. A whole chicken becomes dinner and then broth and then soup. Simple becomes abundant.
Learn to tile your own backsplash. Learn to cake decorate so you’re not buying birthday cakes. Learn to sew basic repairs. Each skill you add is money you keep in your own pocket.
A Word on Patience and Perspective
Everything you see in our kitchen was collected over more than two decades. Not a year. Not two years. Decades.
There is also a difference between low income and poverty — they are not the same thing, and low income looks different depending on where you live. Some of what works for us may not work for you, and that’s okay. Take what is useful and leave the rest.
But if there is one through-line to all of these tips, it’s this: living richly on less is not about deprivation. It’s about being strategic with where your money goes so that your home is a place of nourishment, beauty, and peace — even when the budget is tight. It takes time, it takes patience, and it takes a willingness to wait for the good thing rather than settle for the cheap thing that will cost you more later.
That is the old-fashioned way. And in my experience, it is the best way.
Want to go deeper into building a home that works — on any income? My course Restored and Radiant: Mastering the Art of Homemaking, Faith and Family Management walks you through all of it, from systems and meal planning to the deeper rhythms that make a home truly thrive. You can find it at singinganewsong.com/homemaking-courses.
Related posts you might enjoy:
- How to Live Richly on a Low Income (Video Series)
- Old-Fashioned Kitchen Tips That Still Work Today
- ALL MY Kitchen Posts
