For People who Like to Grow, Make, and Figure Things Out
Gardening, food, preparedness, recipes, quiet reflections, and old-fashioned know-how — shared weekly from our Wisconsin homestead. To subscribe, just enter your email in the sign-up form below.
Can’t see the sign-up form?
Some browsers and privacy settings block embedded forms. If that happens, you can comment below and I’ll add you manually.
What you’ll receive
- A weekend newsletter with new and seasonal posts
- Practical gardening, food, and preservation guidance
- Calm, realistic preparedness ideas
- Recipes, home remedies, and wild food knowledge
- Occasional updates on free classes, guides, or trusted partner offers
Free Subscriber Bonuses
- Common Sense Homesteading 101 Printable Guide
- Printable Garden Planner
- Bread Baking Troubleshooting Guide and Q&A
- and more
This newsletter is for you if you…
- Enjoy learning practical skills at your own pace
- Prefer real-world experience over quick fixes
- Want to be more capable without being extreme
- Like a calm, thoughtful approach to preparedness
- Appreciate occasional reflections from life on a working homestead
You don’t need land, livestock, or a perfect plan — just curiosity and a willingness to learn.
A Note about Common Sense Home
I’m Laurie Neverman, creator of Common Sense Home. Common Sense Home is run by our family from a small homestead in northeast Wisconsin. We grow and preserve much of our food, experiment with practical resilience projects, and share what works (and what doesn’t) along the way.
We’re not perfect, and we don’t do everything ourselves — but we believe in learning, adapting, and using sound judgment to build steadier lives. Along the way we’ve gone through job losses, economic upheaval, and the Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020. (More about us here.)
What Readers Say
“You make us readers feel like family, and you have solid advice because you and your family have paved the way for us to follow however it best fits our lives. I also love your recipes! ❤ Thank you for all you do.” – Krystal C.
“Your newsletters always feel like a note from a friend.” – Heather N.
“I like the sense of home and family and down to earth real living. You’re like my country cousin who teaches me the good ways.” – Roxyann B.
“I love the free guides. They are such a big help for me. All of the ones I have down loaded I have saved in my I-books. My husband and I have been slowly working on homesteading for the past four years and are planning a big move during this year. All of the information you share is awesome and I love it!!” – Nikki D.
If this sounds like a good fit, we’d be glad to have you along.
To subscribe, enter your email in the sign-up form above, or leave a comment below if you can’t see the form.
We send one main newsletter most weekends, with occasional extra emails when something feels especially useful. You can unsubscribe anytime.
— Laurie, Common Sense Home
I can not subscribe and would LOVE TO!!!!! Please let me know what needs to be done.
Hi, I don’t see a box either but would to subscribe! Please let me know what I need to do!
Thank you!
Jess, I’ll enter your information and you should receive a confirmation email shortly.
Not seeing a subscribe box. Please subscribe me. Perhaps time to get another website manager. Using firefox as my browser.
I could get a new website manager – if I had a website manager. As it stands, I manage the website, do the projects and research covered in the posts, take the photos, edit the photos, write the posts, answer the comments and pretty much everything else on the website – all while homeschooling my kids and growing and preserving much of our own food. Over 19,000 people have signed up without a hitch, but for some reason once in a while someone has a browser issue and the form doesn’t display. I appreciate everyone’s patience with the vagaries of website glitches, and their understanding that it is just me manning the place on a day to day basis, not a team of people.
Hell of a great page with a lot of cool features, but you still have no link to subscribe. You do have a link to a subscribe page off your “Getting Started Homesteading” menu option but that just leads you here, and there’s no place on this page to input your data and fire off a request.
Please subscribe me. Thanks!
Shelah
There should be a subscription box on the page, but it doesn’t appear in some browsers (and we haven’t been able to identify why). I’ll get your information entered manually.
Laurie, I’ve subscribed but haven’t received any new emails from you and I would love to download your free copy of your book. I truly love your site and am so glad I got to hear you speak on Self-Reliance Summit this week. Awesome interview Laurie.
Thank you for the kind words. Check your email for the download link.
Hello Laurie. I just subscribed and I for some reason cannot download the free copy of the book. Can you help? It looks like a ton of great info and would love to read it. Thanks.
Robert R Manners
A copy is headed your way.
Laurie,
I just subscribed and was unable to download your book as well. Would you mind sending me a copy too?
Thanks,
Josh Beall
On its way!
Me too! 🙂 didn’t get the evil link.
Glad to have found you, please subscribe me.
Connie, you should receive your confirmation email shortly.
Please manually subscribe me to your posts. My browser is Firefox. Thanks!
Subscribe please!
Not seeing the “subscribe” button, either. Can you manually enter us?
Julie – taking care of it right now. You should receive emails shortly.
There is no “subscribe” button- I tried both Chrome and IE…what now?
There is no place for me to subscribe.
Sherry – I’ll manually enter your information. Not sure why the subscription box won’t show up for you. As far as I can see, it’s displaying correctly, but maybe it doesn’t work with some browsers or settings.
Just checked, and you are on the subscription list already with the email you entered above. If you’re not receiving emails (which come out 1-2 times per week), they may be getting caught in your spam filter.
No place to subscribe
Cannot subscribe!
I am unable to subscribe.
Please add me!! I cant get it to save…mgkoerber101@gmail.com…cant wait to absorb it all!
Done. Watch for your confirmation email.
I am unable to subscribe.
Sherry, my subscription service sign up forms are still down, but they are working to resolve the problem. I’ll email when they are functioning again.
I am unable to subscribe.
I’m not a gardener, I like home remedies and I like sharing stuff that I’ve read about.
I could be being really silly, but i can’t find a subscribe box.
Danni
That is not even a little bit silly. I don’t know what happened, but for some reason the script for the sign up box just vanished from the page html. Very strange. Thanks for asking, and it should be working now.
My Mom did a lot of preserving and growing her own food while I was growing up and know it’s instilled in me. More and more I am getting into growing my own medicinal plants. It is always good to get ideas from others who are doing the same.
Thanks Heather
Welcome! I was raised with gardening and preserving, too, so it’s great to be able to share that with my boys, and to connect with others. It might not be mainstream yet, but maybe some day. 🙂
The BEST cherries I EVER had were the really sour cherries we used to jar back when I was a kid. Unfortunately the tree stopped producing at some point and was replaced but it’s just not as good any more.
Thanks for the reminder! I think I need to buy a cherry tree!
We put in three cherry trees last year. 🙂
What kind of cherry trees and where do you buy them. We live in southeast Minnesota and have been starting to plant fruit trees and we are trying to become more self sufficient. so I love your site and I cAn learn so much you are so close to me. I think we will try to see solar this October. Would be so great.
We have some sweet and tart cherries, varieties that are supposed to be hardy to zone 4, purchased from Stark Brothers Nursery. Stark has a widget on their site that will screen trees and plants by zone hardiness.
Hi I am already signed up/subscribed.
You claim “With your subscription, you’ll also get access to my new e-book, “Common Sense Homesteading 101: 7 Steps to Become More Self-Reliant Now”.
Do I also get access to the ebook?
On it’s way to the email address you used to comment.
I was wondering the same question as Andrew
There’s a download link on the successful subscription page, and another in the confirmation email. I’ll also email you a copy.
I loved your bread presentation and how easy you made it look.
I am already a subscriber too.
Glad that you enjoyed the presentation. I’ll be sending out the link to the bread making printable in tomorrow’s newsletter for all current subscribers.
Watched your bread making presentation, really enjoyed it, thank you! Couldn’t find the subscription button in Firefox so tried this page in IE and it did appear. Thought I had subscribed (would love your bread recipe!), but have not received a confirmation email. Nothing in my spam folder either. Thanks so much!
hmmm… checked the subscriber list, and it’s showing you as “confirmation pending”. I’m suspecting that your email provider may be blocking my email service. Did you add “laurie at commonsensehome dot com” to your safe senders list? Sometimes that helps, sometimes I simply can’t get through.
All the recipes on the site are listed at https://commonsensehome.com/recipes/, including the sandwich bread I made in the video. (First recipe on the list under “Yeast Breads”.
Dear Laurie
HI my name is Russell & I am 42 years old, every sense I was a kid I was interested in learning the wild edible plants that grow around our home & property we live in central Illinois, I have bought several books from the net that all say about the same stuff, the berries, wild fruit trees, nut trees, and so on but I cant find the greens that grow here, & good info so that I get the right plant. What I am talking about is like wild mustard, ramps, sour dock & I think I know these plants but want to know for sure I do have the right plants, & what to do to fix them the different ways they can be eaten ? please help Thank You
Have you checked out the Weekly Weeder series? There’s a lot of info there – https://commonsensehome.com/wildcraftingweekly-weeder/
My favorite wildcrafting books and resources are listed here – https://commonsensehome.com/wildcrafting-books/ Sam and Katrina’s books would probably be the best fit for what you need.
Your well on your way . I have only been doing learning herb wild edibles and medical since covid .I self teach and curiousty will probably kill me one day I make all my medications no more death by Dr s . Your doing a great job info and knowledge should be free with all the love . Be well nice to know like mined people wow are will to share there fallers and success . Be well and be true . ANDY Savage
subscribe please very good information!!
Check your email for a confirmation link! Welcome.
Could not get the subscription link to work.
Bruce, I’ve sent you a direct email.