As people struggle to find ways to cut their living costs, the idea of self sufficiency has become more and more appealing. There are lots of areas of your day to day life in which you could live more self sufficiently. It might sound like a lot of hard work, but imagine not having worry about whether the price of milk is going up or whether you cannot to put fuel in your vehicle this week. Take a look at some of the self sufficiency tips below.
Maintenance
Maintenance of your home, garden and vehicles can have great financial cost over time. There are lots of ways you could go about saving money in this area. Firstly, you could look into having solar panels installed on your house. Over time the panels will pay for themselves and in some countries you can gain grants to help you with the initial set up costs of them. In the long run they can make you substantial savings on your energy bills. In addition, you could think about taking a class in basic maintenance. This could help you make repairs to your house and grounds without the need to call on outside maintenance services. Little things can also make the difference, such as sharpening your own tools and using a push mower instead of an electric one. These things do require more time and effort, but why shell out for something when you can easily do it yourself.
Food
With the right amount of effort, you can be almost totally self sufficient when it comes to feeding yourself and your family. It is easy to start with growing your own herbs, fruit and vegetables. It is relatively cheap and easy to start growing it and for some vegetables, such as potatoes, you can use store bought ones that have begun to sprout. Once you have begun growing your crops, you can cut costs by using local manure and using shoots from current plants to replant rather than going to store and buying them. Instead of paying out for expensive garden furniture, you could build your own shed/greenhouse in which to store all the equipment needed to grow your own food. As you become more experienced, you can start to think about rearing your own animals. Animals like sheep, bees, cows and chickens can provide you lots of vital foods, such as milk, eggs, honey, meat and materials like wool.
Clothing
Clothing can be pretty expensive, especially if you have a growing family. Being self sufficient in terms of clothing may take some getting used to, but is definitely requires a lot less effort than growing your own food. If you do decide to rear your own animals then you may be able to use some of their products for clothing, such as wool from your own sheep. As well as this you can make the best use of the clothes that you have already. For example, making and repairing your own clothes will mean that you don’t have to fork out money replacing them. Furthermore, you can help others out by swapping unwanted items with friends and neighbors.
Family
Finally, there are lots of changes you and your family can make in your lifestyles that will help you to become more self sufficient. It’s a big step, but one that you might want to consider. Home schooling your children will save a lot in things like uniforms and transport. You can become more independent by carrying out your own oil changes and basic services on your vehicles, and if you really want to help the environment out then you could cycle wherever possible.
Jocelyn Brooks writes about many personal finance issues on FinanceNet.org and her latest series of posts is about what we as consumers can learn from business when it comes to sorting out our own financial situation.
