Becoming More Self-Sufficient

Garage Of Green Furrows

Ian Sane / Foter.com / CC BY

Even before we found our house, one of our goals late last year was to become more self-sufficient. Now that we have the house, it’s even more important for us to be self-sufficient as we won’t have all of the amenities of city living. Since it’s become more of a “have-to-learn” and not a “nice-to-learn” – it’s become much more of a focus for us. We have no plans to become doomsday preppers, but we do have a few things we want to work on once we move:

  • Growing more of our food. A garden is a must for us and we already have a pretty good idea where it will go at our new place. We love our Aerogarden and would love to be able to grow bigger plants like fruits and veggies.
  • Cooking more. Especially if we have a garden! We cook quite a bit right now, but we still use a lot of store-bought items. I’d love to spend more time baking our own bread, making our own pasta, and canning more so we have fresh food year round.
  • Learning basic skills. This includes a whole lot of things, but simple things like first aid and simple sewing for holes/patches. We really want to learn home repair and DIY skills for our house though, too, so we don’t always have to call someone for help when something isn’t working right or breaks.
  • Focus on homemade remedies/products. Partially for The Gnarly Whale because we’d love to expand the products, but we’d also love to focus on more natural/green living. From cleaning solutions to headache remedies, I would love to learn more about what we can do with herbs and household ingredients so we can stop relying so much on store-bought products.
  • Reduce, Reuse, and Upcycle. I want to waste a lot less than we do right now, which can mean something as simple as eating the food we have in the house before it needs to be thrown out. But I also want to repurpose what we have instead of buying a replacement or wanting something different. We already have plans to do this with some of our furniture for the new place.

do you have any recommendations for self-sufficient living?