Tell me what a self sufficientish lifestyle is

[Flo]

Well why are we here, what do we have in common in trying to live a self sufficientish lifestyle and what are we trying to do?

At the moment my answers would fit on a small postage stamp!

[Brewtrog]

For now I'm just here for the booze, well the foraging/growing my own so as to get there. Or I will be when life settles back down.

[ina]

I think it's a very individual outlook on life - hence the "-ish" label. I think none of us want to be entirely off-society... I definitely don't. I try to grow as much as I can in my little garden, still have the ambition to get some hens (other livestock would be nice, but not in a council house...). And I re-use, re-cycle, and re-anything as much as possible. That's the way I can enjoy an halfway decent quality of life despite being what's commonly termed as p*ss poor... :)

[Green Aura]

I'm like ina, grow what's possible, make what I can, cook from scratch (and that includes making my own bacon, yoghurt, some cheese etc). Definitely re-use/recycle as much as I can.
Although I doubt we'd qualify as p*ss poor I agree that we have a much higher standard of living (certainly foodwise) than many others on a similar income.
I don't need foreign holidays (visits to family don't count), nights out or expensive clothes, makeup or jewellery. As long as we are warm, clothed and can put good food on the table I'm pretty satisfied and -ish.
I also realise that I'm completely out of step with all my old friends. I still love them dearly, see them periodically and enjoy their company (not for too long though) but we have very little in common now, which is possibly the downside of our lifestyle. They enjoy our hospitality but can't understand why we left the city for this.

[KathyLauren]

I come here to try to stay in touch with some of my core values. It doesn't necessarily mean that I always live by those values, but I don't want to abandon them altogether.

I prefer to live frugally. I joined one forum that claimed to be about frugal living. I quit when I saw one member's definition of frugality that was: "living a lavish lifestyle economically". In other words, they were into cheap consumption. Not my thing at all. To me, living frugally means not consuming more than necessary and, as much as possible, doing so sustainably.

As a systems guy, I "get" sustainability: inputs equal outputs. Anything else is unsustainable.

I prefer to build my own projects rather than hire someone to do it, and I prefer to re-use old lumber instead of having the old stuff hauled away and buying new. I prefer to eat locally rather than eat out-of season produce that has been shipped halfway around the world. I like to eat what I grow myself. What I don't grow, I like to buy from a local farmer.

Sooner or later, civilization will face a crisis. It might happen in my lifetime; certainly it will happen in the lifetime of today's younger generation. When petroleum products are $100 per litre, those who survive will be those who are self-sufficient(ish).

[Uller]

What KeithBC said!

By some standards, we would probably be considered p*ss poor, our income is very low. But we have chosen to live a life that does not require us to spend all our time trying to earn more money. We are much more ish than self sufficient at the moment, turns out we don't have very green thumbs, but we are trying our hand at new things, re-cycling/re-using/mending what we can, cooking from scratch (pretty much a given when you are vegan in Portugal). We're not offgrid, we don't have solar or anything like that but our electricity & water consumption is far less than 'normal' and we keep trying to reduce it. We just try not to waste stuff - resources, money, time spent doing a job we don't enjoy. It works for us.

[diver]

I have been trying to be self sufficientish for at least 10 years now. I consume very little, grow as much as I can, cook from scratch, make jams, chutneys etc, but have yet to get hens. The bees are doing well.
I burn wood that I collect, use little water and electricity , don't own a TV but do own a car.

[happyhippy]

Well tbh I used to be alot more self suff than I am now.I lived in a different country,with younger kids back then,and only needed to work part time on my terms,which meant I could afford an easier way of living.Now living in the UK,we can't afford not to work full time (Unfortunately!)However.....we do grow alot of our own food,have had chooks in the past,have been car free in the past (What a joy that was!So nice not having a car)make jam from our own fruits,recycle as much as possible,only buy new stuff when we absolutely need it.Circumstances change,and sometimes we've had to adapt to those changes>Example:We were car free as we both worked in the town where we live,I could walk to work,and husband cycled.However my job became unbearable(I'll spare you the details!Lol).Initially I did try my best to source work within our town (Which is'nt very big)but unfortunately I was unable to.We ended up reluctantly having to buy another car,and I obtained work outside the town.I do use eco friendly cleaning/personal products,make xmas gift tags out of last years xmas cards,etc.I aim to get back to my true calling,and if that means living in a different (My home country or other)country to do that,so be it.There is more to life than working your butt off!

[Flo]

I find the growing food and cooking from scratch easy enough. Could do more with making clothes from scratch but don't see the point if the charity shop provides. That's in the recycle bit as well as reuse. Making coats and fleeces is outside my skill level anyway but sometimes it's necessary to buy new because nothing else is there (and then from local business). There's a lot of use of freecycle. Must admit that a lot of household furniture has been replaced over the last 12 years - charitable sources, reused where possible and from local businesses as far as possible. Things do wear out when they were second hand or hand-me-downs from older family.

And sometimes the temptation to buy new wins. But if push comes to shove, then I can do a lot more for me than I do at present. There's a certain amount of foraging could be done (even if it's only blackberries! ).

[mamos]

I think what unites us on this forum is a realisation that we are being sold a lie by the powers that be, the media and the ad men about the kind of life we need to be living to be considered a normal person.

We have realised that we don't need to keep upsizing our house and be forever in debt or have the latest car on lease and be forever in debt. We don't need the latest TV or even a TV at all (that will be come illegal soon. See 1984). We don't need the latest smart phone if our old one is still working, we don't need to by pre-packaged, pre-sliced vegetables and we would know what to do if someone gave us a fresh mackerel.
We make do and mend. We don't just make do. We make, We do and We mend. We see value in things that others throw away (wombles) We know forgotten stuff from our grandperents, we can rustle up a meal when the cupboards are bare. Not that thee cupboards are ever bare because we always have a little bit of this and a little bit of that put aside.
I don't think is is solely an environmental thing either. My motivation for a low impact lifestyle has little or nothing to do with the wider environment but the fact is that it will have a wide effect just as living a high impact lifestyle does.
Really my quest is to take ultimate responsibility for myself and my life. Don't screw up the earth and don't pi$$ anyone else off.

Paul

[ina]

I think what unites us on this forum is a realisation that we are being sold a lie by the powers that be, the media and the ad men about the kind of life we need to be living to be considered a normal person.

I agree. For example, I wouldn't expect anybody on here to go "oh, brilliant, just what we need" when reading an article like this on BBC:

Could tech reduce food waste and help feed the world?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36542244

I really don't think yet more tech will help reduce food waste - just the opposite. Nobody wasted food before we had all this technology - because food had a real price then, and we couldn't afford to waste it. I've not used a fridge or freezer for many years and I waste a lot less than the average person... And I don't need an "app" for that (let alone a smart phone!).

[bonniethomas06]

I was listening to Radio 4 this morning and they were talking about a brilliant but depressing book (sorry, can't remember the name of it!) about how the world population will spiral and we will all be starving from lack of food. This then sparked a debate about how we would start eating insects for protein.

Strikes me that if we all grew as much as we could, we could avoid chomping on locust cereal for breakfast! I think the reason I have been 'ish in the past (and hopefully will do again) is because I quite like the fantasy of surviving an apocalypse by eating from my garden. In fact, while my mates were playing with dolls inside, I was in my parents derelict greenhouse pretending to be on a remote island growing to survive and drinking from a well!!

[mamos]

Sounds interesting. Can you remember what programme it was?

I am no adverse to eating insects if I'm honest. Much of the world eats insects on a regular basis.

Paul

[bonniethomas06]

Eek no sorry Mamos, it may well have been a section on the Today programme, but then I have R4 constantly on in the background and it all blurs into one!