The more children that we have, the more I seem to get into wanting to live a more natural or a “crunchy” lifestyle. I’m not sure what it is about that, but that’s how I feel!
I thought it would be good to come up with something of a list of ways that a person can live a more natural life. That way, you have a checklist of sorts to go off of and work your way down if you are also interested in living more naturally.
I’m putting the whole list with details here, and then I’ve also got a printable checklist for you (scroll to the bottom of the post) if you want to print it off and hang it up to have your own little challenge!
Let’s dive right in!
✅ Easiest Upgrades (Quick Wins)
Low effort, low cost, and great low-hanging fruit for those wanting to jump right in.
- Start a weekly herbal tea routine (nettles, chamomile, peppermint, sage, ginger, etc.).
- Swap disposable items for reusables you don’t already use (unpaper towels, glass spray bottles, cloth gift wrap).
- Begin a sourdough or fermentation habit beyond basics—like water kefir, sauerkraut, or sour pickles. I recommend the book Wild Fermentation for this.
- Switch to bulk food buying (beans, grains, flours, spices). Check out my Azure Guide for Beginners for more!
- Add basic natural remedies to your home apothecary
- Elderberry syrup
- Fire cider
- Garlic honey
- Create a simple rhythm-based home schedule
(cleaning/laundry days, weekly prep day, baking day). Rhythms over routines is where it’s at! I have a lot of this in my book, Living Slower. - Start using cloth bags or glass jars for shopping—no plastic grocery bags. You could even make your own bags if you are feeling extra homemade!
- Simplify your wardrobe with natural fibers and secondhand clothes. Just try for basics like cottons and watch the thrift stores or rummage sales. There are online secondhand stores as well.
🌱 Moderate Difficulty (Lifestyle Shifts)
These take more consistency or learning but are still very achievable.
- Switch to whole-herb remedies instead of pre-bought supplements (tinctures, salves, infusions).
- Line-dry laundry regularly — Not only is this better on your wallet but it’s better on your clothes. Here’s my post about living without a dryer.
- Start making your own household staples – Things like:
- Build a deeper pantry for seasonal or local eating year-round, and just overall cost savings and security. Here’s all about Building a Frugal Pantry.
- Learn basic foraging for your region (dandelions, berries, plantain, wild mint). Look for books that are specific to your area or go with someone locally that knows what they are doing.
- Meal plan around “pantry-first” frugal cooking — Meal Planning is such a good skill to know and use. Use up what you have first! If you have a lot, a pantry challenge is where you need to go to.
- Compost in a more advanced way, like:
- Hot composting
- Vermicomposting (worms)
- Use a dehydrator for preserving fruits, herbs, garlic, greens, and powders. Using your freezer more for preservation is good as well and very simple.
- Move toward slow fashion—mend clothing, buy natural fabrics, maybe learn to sew basic things.
🌾 Advanced Crunchy (Skills + Systems)
These steps take more commitment, but they give major lifestyle transformation.
- Make your own salves, tinctures, oxymels, infused oils, and build a herbal “medicine cabinet.” Things like Healing Balm and Burn Salve should be in your cupboard now!
- Render your own fats (tallow, lard) for cooking or skincare. Tallow is really so easy!
- Expand fermentation into long-term projects—like kombucha or longer ferments.
- Stock your pantry with a year’s supply of key staples (oats, beans, wheat berries, honey, salt). Here’s all about building a whole foods stockpile.
- Build a gray-water–friendly cleaning system or drastically reduce water waste. This is a hard thing to do but a really helpful skill overall if you ever need to live without running water or have your water off temporarily.
- Switch to handmade or thrift-only clothing for the majority of your wardrobe. – This becomes harder the more people that you have in your home!
- Start bartering with friends or local homesteaders—food, skills, handmade products.
- Preserve food beyond freezing
🪵 Expert-Level Crunchy (Major Lifestyle Changes or Skills)
These aren’t required to be “crunchy,” but they’re peak-level natural living choices.
- Make your own soaps, shampoos, laundry soap, or cleaning solutions from scratch. I have a ton of recipes here on the blog for this as well as in my book, Little House Living.
- Grow or source herbs for year-round herbalism, and create seasonal apothecary restocks. Growing plants indoors in the winter can be a challenge, but it can be done!
- Install or build a root cellar, cold room, or outdoor pantry for long-term food storage. Eventually, you will need this if you want to preserve more of your own foods longer term without electricity. We love our root cellar!
- Keep small livestock (chickens for eggs, goats for milk, etc.). A challenge since they come with a lot of work but worth it if you really want to know where your food comes from.
- Practice zero-waste grocery shopping (bulk bins, reusable containers, no disposable packaging). This is a really hard one in the world we live in today.
- Complete DIY home projects like:
- Shift to regenerative gardening practices – I can’t recommend this book enough!
- Compost-only fertilizer
- Hugelkultur
- No-till beds
- Learn mid-level homestead skills like hand-milling flour (we have this mill), making cheese, or curing meat.
🌙 Crunchiest-Level (Lifestyle + Mindset Shift)
Where “crunchy” meets slow living, self-reliance, and intentional community.
- Seasonal living with circadian rhythms—early mornings, low lights after sunset. This one is actually easy for me because I hate overhead lights. Soft lighting is where it’s at! This is hard to do when you have to be places during the day though.
- Practice basic and simple cooking methods (cast iron, open fire cooking, long-simmer stews). The top of my wood stove is the ultimate slow cooker. No electricity to run it and food cooks low and slow!
- Create a home culture of rhythm instead of routine—slow mornings, weekly rituals. Again, I have a lot of info on this in my book, Living Slower.
- Participate in or host a community skill-share circle (herbalism, sewing, baking, natural crafts).
- Aim for low-tech or off-grid systems for portions of your home (solar drying, water collection). This is not as difficult (or expensive) as it’s made out to be. Start by living with less that uses power and go from there! Our solar system is very small.
- Make your own clothing or knitwear regularly. This is a really fun project if you want to get into it. Who doesn’t love custom made clothing?
- Grow medicinal herbs and create a yearly “harvest-to-apothecary” cycle. – Don’t forget to garden too!
Want this entire thing in a printable checklist so that you can watch your progress? Enter your email below and I’ll send you the file!
What am I forgetting that should be on this list? Where do you think you fall on this scale or are you doing some from every category?
Merissa Alink
Merissa has been blogging about and living the simple and frugal life on Little House Living since 2009 and has internationally published 2 books on the topic. You can read about Merissa’s journey from penniless to freedom on the About Page. You can send her a message any time from the Contact Page.
