Self Sufficient People

As a genreal consensus on here I believe most of us are self
sufficient or were at one time. I recently moved out and now don't
have the access to the garden I helped put in for the last 23
years(yeah I was playing in the dirt as a baby) Ours is about 80x80
and we have a lot in there. Then out in the field we did 12 rows of
potatoes about 75-85 yards long and 18 rows of sweet corn that
are about the same length. We give or sell most of the corn and
potatoes but save enough to can or freeze and last us the year. We
make our our sauerkraut, apple cider, apple butter, stewed
tomatoes, you name it. We can, freeze or use about 95% of what
we plant trying to waste very little. What doesn't get eaten by us
goes to the chickens or the compost pile. We also repair our own
equipment and cut all our own firewood. I know we try to rely as
little as we can on big brother for help. So what does everyone else
do to try and stay as self sufficient as possible?

PS I know we don't have the self sufficient energy that some on
here have but I have been trying to figure a way to get on that.

PPS sorry for the extremely long post that didn't cover a 1/4 of
what we make all year.

Well lets put it this way cause that is faster than list what i do myself.
The only thing i farm out is trucking a liner load of Bison and i buy most of the groceries cause i can buy it way cheaper than growing it myself BTDT.
I only grow the taters nowadays.

We grow or raise maybe half our own food, heat with wood from our own land, and have solar electric. We never pay anyone to do anything except dentists and doctors. That being said we can never be self-sufficient due to taxes and age. First of all "we" implies several people who rely on each other. Taxes mean if we don't cough up money to pay taxes that get wasted - we lose our home and land. In regard to age -the older we get - the less we can do - or at least - the slower we do it. The only truly self-sufficient people that might exist are homeless people who live out of garbage cans, own nothing of value - and never receive hand-outs or sleep in public shelters. Do any of them really exist? I don't know - but if so I bet they do not last very long.

It's hard to be self sufficent yet post on this site without the internet.

somewhere in there you need a good gun ,to scare off the modern b/s human vultures and zombies,...50 yrs ago , one 410 shotgun for squirrels , and a good 22 hollow points could get you by ...my folx were as country as turnip greens and rai8sed 8 of us the same way .sorta like the waltons . many a day,went by that everything on our bountiful table came off the farm ,, except for the salt,,. you need devotion and team work and joy and praise in a job well done ,, and most of all faith in the man above ..WE WERE RICH AND MY DAD HAD THE AIR OF A KING taking us all to church each sunday ..we didn't have much money ,,but we could borrow and barter from 0ur neighbors who were just as wealthy as us

I prefer to think of myself as self-reliant.

It would be impossible for me to be self-sufficient. If I had to make my own clothes, weapons and shelter I'd have to become a caveman with a stick, and there aren't many trees or caves around here. Even the cavemen formed small societies, had specialized labor, and traded with other groups.

I agree with you on the groceries. We buy most of our canned goods and frozen vegetables, usually in the fall when on sale. We can buy most of them cheaper than we can afford to grow and process them ourselves. Canned veggies 29 cents and frozen 69 cents a pound, good quality store brand which I think are better than some name brands. I will agree that some things are better home processed though. If people would figure their actual cost on supplies and equipment they would be surprised on what it cost to do their own.

I can 100% relate to what you wrote, my Grandparents worked every day of their lives, the majority of that time was for basically a subsistance living, they never gave up or felt sorry for themselves and eventually bought and paid for their own farm in 1948 when granddad was 56. Through it all they bowed their heads at every meal and thanked the Good Lord for what was on the table and never asked for or received anything that they did not earn. Anytime I feel like I got it rough I wind up feeling ashamed for not remembering just how good I do have it.

You have to marry into the same mentality and raise your kids that way. My wife believes a garden is to much work, so it is all up to me.

The cost of supplies and equipment is an issue, but knowing where it came from and how it was raised is a bigger issue to us.

(quoted from post at 06:37:26 08/02/14) I agree with you on the groceries. We buy most of our canned goods and frozen vegetables, usually in the fall when on sale. We can buy most of them cheaper than we can afford to grow and process them ourselves. [b:7a3826814d]Canned veggies 29 cents [/b:7a3826814d]and frozen 69 cents a pound, good quality store brand which I think are better than some name brands. I will agree that some things are better home processed though. If people would figure their actual cost on supplies and equipment they would be surprised on what it cost to do their own.

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omebody is making good money it seems!.Canned veggies are up here near $2/can :shock:

tractor300, where in the world are you located? (Well, I don't want your address, just the state will do). Because canned and frozen veggies are NEVER that cheap around here, (N.C.) About the best I can find on store brands is 2/$1.00.

Never really been "self sufficient", but when the kids were young we grew a large garden. We had a good arrangement, I loved to plant and tend a garden, she didn't, but she loved to prep. and can or freeze it. Worked our very well.

JD,
There is no such thing as self sufficiency,even with money you have to buy meds to keep alive,grow your own seed for next years produce to keep alive,self sufficiency is a falacy, if you run that term to the very end.Maybe some tribes who haven't been touched by modern man are self sufficient in other countries, but even then they rely on others in the tribe to be help.
Each and every one of us has a different concept of self sufficiency, it all just depends on ones definition.JMO and I'm stuck with it.
Regards,
LOU

No.1 is stay out of debt no matter what it takes to keep from borrowing $$$.I get my clothes mostly from yardsales,drive older vehicles most of the time and its amazing the things I have gotten that people were going to throw away.
I do most of the mechanical work on my tractors and equipment,raise a nice large garden and my wife cans and freezes about anything you can think of,eat lots of deer meat.and I don't want to buy many so called consumer goods.Also keep a good stock of things to be able to deal with people that don't have cash but have something I might want or need.

Lou is right. There are very, very few people even approaching anything close to self sufficiency anymore. My neighbors from the NYC area think they are self sufficient because they have a farm now. There is s freight truck passing my house most everyday dropping off their latest gadget that makes them more self sufficient. Meanwhile these "self sufficient" people hire my Amish neighbors wife to come in do the dishes and fold laundry so the lady can go out and be "self sufficient. He can't figure out why their dishwasher won't get dishes clean when he won't add salt to the water softener and he's so "self sufficient" he won't take advice.

Some mentioned self reliance and that's probably a more accurate term.