When Lyn Webster started her journey, saving money was her goal. She never thought she’d end up with interviews on The Project and Seven Sharp.
“It started as a necessity to get through a really tough time, but now it’s just my lifestyle. It’s odd because people look at me and think I’m the weird one. It’s a mindset shift,” Lyn says.
Lyn is a 50:50 sharemilker in Northland, milking 380 cows. But dairying wasn’t always her dream. While now she’s got ambitions to keep moving up the ladder, when she was in her 20s, she was a keen writer. She grew up in town and didn’t get a taste of farm life until she was in her 30s when she met her then-partner in Taranaki.
“My partner at the time was working on a dairy farm, while I was a freelance writer. He loved it so much, and his father ended up buying a dairy farm. We worked on that farm for a time,” she says.
“Through my writing, I’d go to all these dairy events, so I was meeting these cutting-edge Taranaki dairy farmers in the 90s. As a writer, it was really motivating, and as a townie, it was an eye-opening experience. But these people were just so inspiring and motivating.”
When the relationship ended, Lyn found herself in a sticky situation of needing a place to live and extra income to support herself and her children. Through a twist of fate, she was offered a job on a 150-cow farm as a farm manager.
“The farmer had broken his leg and through circumstance, ended up hiring me; a female single parent. That first season I managed to beat the farm record, which I think gave me the confidence I needed at the time in my life,” she says.
From there, she worked her way up through the ranks to her current job as a 50:50 sharemilker. She even joined the ranks of those inspiring dairying farmers she met during her writing career by winning Taranaki Variable Order Sharemilker of the Year. She had ambitions of going 50:50 and achieved that dream with the help of a business partner. But amid an $8.20 pay, the opportunity was too good, and she found she was on a different page to her business partner.
“They decided they wanted to sell the cows and get the cash. It was devastating. I’d worked hard to buy those cows, and I wanted to milk them. We were just on different pages. I went to the bank to see if I could buy them out, but they laughed at me all the way to the door,” she says.
Deciding to take the bull by the horns and find a way to make it work, she sat down that evening and went through her finances. Like so many of us, she found she was spending an extraordinary amount of groceries. She decided to make a $100 a week budget for herself and her two daughters in a bid to stop wasting so much money.
“I ended up writing a general farming column for the Taranaki Daily News, and I wrote about my experience. It started to get me thinking and questioning a lot. Why do I have to buy washing powder for $8 a week when I could just use baking soda? I started making a lot of my own household cleaning things, including toothpaste, laundry powder and shampoo,” she says.
She started doing classes that allowed people to come along and pick her brain, and there were quite a few people who were keen to learn some of Lyn’s thrifty ways. An appearance on Seven Sharp caused an influx of people wanting recipes, tips and ideas, so she then formalised all of her knowledge into a website.
“This was probably around 10 years ago. So I was farming, writing my column and had this website on the side. It’s become my passion to not go to the supermarket now. If I can grow it or make it myself, then I will,” she says.
A move to the Waikato saw Lyn’s writing being picked up in the Waikato Times, where she had a fortnightly column. This was quickly followed by a call from Penguin Books, who wanted Lyn to write a book. Pig Tits and Parsley Sauce became not just the name of her column, but of her book too. The business took on a life of its own, bolstered even more with the help of Facebook.
“While I’d love to say I had a plan with all of this, I don’t think I did really. It’s grown all by itself, and it ticks along fairly nicely in the background, which I like, because it means my focus can be on the farm,” she says.
Lyn took on a $1000 a year grocery budget that she has smashed out the park since then. But it hasn’t all been easy. As a female single parent entering a brand new industry through her writing and business, she says there have definitely been times when she’s wondered why she does it all. But it all comes down to passion.
“This isn’t just a side hustle. Yes, I sell things on my website, and I make money off it, but realistically speaking, it’s just my way of life. I choose to live this way, make what I can, grow what I can, and go without many modern-day supermarket conveniences,” she says.
“I produce very little rubbish through this way of life, and honestly, I couldn’t imagine things any differently.”
Her children, who were 11 and 16 when she started out on this new way of life, embraced the journey every step of the way. Now both in their 20s, they have kept some of her teachings and ways of life with them. Lyn says she’s proud that her daughters embraced the journey growing up and that they each continue to do small things towards living sustainably.
“I had a lot of people saying that I was starving my kids when I started on the $100 a week grocery budget. We all ate well, I can assure you. It’s just a nicer way of living, fewer things, more outside time learning about important things,” she says.
While she admits being from a farm helped in terms of access to milk and other animal products, it was still an adjustment at the start.
“I think a lot of people think making your own food or cleaners or such is hard. It’s not, and it doesn’t have to be. The other day I made cheese in my test bucket. I threw in the two ingredients, left it and got some wonderful cheese,” she says.
She continues her story via her Facebook page, and while she doesn’t have any plans for the business any time soon, she hints that she might have another book in her. For now, she’s enjoying living a life a little more sustainably.
“I don’t think business has to be all business plans and strategy. Yes it helps, but you have to love what you do. I love the lifestyle I have, even though others may think it odd, but I sometimes think maybe they’re the odd ones. It’s just getting back to traditional roots at the end of the day.”
