Why I Upgraded to a Lifetime Membership with Pioneering Today

Pioneering Today

Pioneering Today is a private membership group owned by Melissa K. Norris, and I've been a member for several years now. Recently, I decided to upgrade to the lifetime membership, and I wanted to share my experiences and reasons for making this decision. Mind you, I have paid for all of this myself and receive no kickbacks for sharing my thoughts.

Don't have time to read the article? The main takeaways for homestead access are that a private membership can help to bring you more reliable information and a supportive community where you can share details you wouldn't otherwise share in a more public space and ask very specific questions. You can also find the motivation to stretch yourself through challenges. The downside is of course, cost, but the higher cost can bring more content, moderation, and support, which may be what you need. Personally, as I went from living in the city to trying to ramp up homesteading as quickly as possible in many areas, including cooking, food preservation, gardening, small livestock, and a lot of infrastructure changes, I found this resource indispensable.

I have tried a couple other memberships and have found that I most appreciate the sheer volume of high-quality content in so many aspects of homesteading (from years of making content - including videos, blogs, and podcasts), the supportive atmosphere (everyone is supportive, from staff to other members), the challenges to get me moving, the live meetings to be able to ask questions, and the quick answers to questions on the forum anytime. I like that nothing has to be perfect or pinterest worthy to be welcomed and your scale is okay, whatever it might be (you can have a patio garden to lots of acreage and still find content here and get your questions answered). Being off the public internet to ask questions is super helpful (if I want to mention a family medical issue or what resources I have or don't have or just don't want to wonder what employer or distance family member or stranger is going to think if they read about meat chickens etc. then I feel safe posting the information here.

The downside? The price. It's hundreds of dollars a year for an annual membership (I believe mine was $250 ish) so that is a solid chunk of change to be paying. When signing up as a lifetime member I believe I figured out it would pay itself off in five years, and I will definitely still be homesteading then. I do understand the price, however. With employees I am able to get answers quickly to my questions, often same day or next day. When I've tried a couple other memberships my questions often didn't get answered or it seemed like the stock google answers I was trying to avoid.

The challenges can also be incredibly motivating but also go a little too quickly. The challenge is quarterly, with a once a week meeting to discuss that week's "homework" and then you post on a dedicated thread on what you worked on that week. I don't know that I would change them, despite the speed...because there is a lot of good information and everyones' situations will be different so they may want more information on one topic and don't need it on another topic. The upside is, you can choose how you participate (I've started and not completed challenges or skipped a week that I didn't have time for or wasn't pertinent to me. Overall, the challenges help "force" you to actually watch the good content you signed up for and to try the things you either already wanted to do, stretch you out of your comfort zone, or up your game in an area you've done before but haven't tried anything new in a while.

There are also prizes (smaller items as you go then a grand prize) to help keep you motivated to keep up. I won the grand prize on two challenges, getting homestead conference tickets (I don't think I otherwise would have dragged my family to Idaho but am so glad I did), and a Lehman's gift card for a fan for my wood stove. I also got a pop up prize for Farmhouse teas and ordered my favorite kombucha second flavoring teas.

When it comes to homestead accessibility, I believe the private membership makes homesteading more accessible because you are more likely to find quality helpful content (versus a lot of things that bounce around on social media that may or may not be a good idea) and allow you to ask questions you may not ask in a public space (such as what natural remedies would be suggested for certain health problems or what is the best way to process a meat chicken or to know when to rehome an animal; all important topics that can be completely misunderstood by non homesteaders). I will add, I've been part of some facebook groups that are very extreme among homesteaders (never use western medicine, always use certain methods or tactics on your homestead, etc.) but I have not found this to be the case in this group, and with the high level of moderation from a good group, I don't believe that will be an issue in the future. Private facebook groups, for example, are not as moderated and can have thousands of members that may or may not be active, lurking, or inactive, because it's free with minimal barriers to entry.