Anyone can be more self-sufficient

“A blog designed to help you become more self-sufficient, no matter where you live”.

That’s the mission of this blog. I want, through my attempts, failures, and successes, to show that it is possible to be more self-reliant, even if you’re combating asshole homeowner’s associations, live in a tiny apartment, or a house with no suitable land for gardening. Because being self-reliant is so much more than growing your own food (which you can do pretty much anywhere, and we’ll talk about gardening a few weeks).

In fact, for the purposes of this site, being self-sufficient means you:

• Use your money wisely. Frugality is an essential component of the pioneer lifestyle.
• Fix what’s broken. It’s not always necessary to replace something that breaks. And if you can’t fix it, you find a way to repurpose it.
• Utilize available resources. It’s amazing what we have at our disposal.
• Learn to make your own stuff, and use stores more for the raw materials than the products themselves.
• Practice contentment with what we have instead of coveting everything our Facebook friends claim to have.
• Cook your own food. Even if you can’t grow it yourself, you can cook it yourself.
• Are organized. It’s hard to practice the pioneer lifestyle if you, and your home, are a mess.
• Possess the pioneer spirit of determination, dedication, and the ability to keep on keepin’ on (thanks to my friend Steph for that one)

I’m sure there are some characteristics I’m leaving out. But the point is that absolutely none of those qualities of the self-reliant are contingent upon living in a farmhouse with 76 acres of land to garden and have livestock (which, for the record, is something I have no interest in. You will never see a post on here talking about how excited I am for our new chicken coop).

If you know you possess those characteristics, you’ve won half the battle on your quest to become more pioneer life. You need that foundation before you can start practicing the skills.

But maybe the skills are where you get tripped up. You’re not sure if you can build up those skills because you don’t have the right equipment. I maintain that you can as the equipment isn’t as sophisticated as you think.

Just to be sure, I’ve come up with 5 questions you can ask yourself to decide if it’s possible:

• Do I have a stove?
• Do I have hands?
• Do I have windows?
• Can I read?
• Can I get to a store or order from Amazon?

If you answered yes to at least one of those, you’re good to go. You can work on being more self-sufficient even without living on a farm in a remote part of Montana (which I think might actually be redundant). There are dozens of projects and skills you can conquer with just those few resources, and if you stick around, I’ll show you lots of them.

I’ll admit that in the world we live in, complete self-reliance isn’t entirely possible. I mean, it might be if you try hard enough, but there are some modern conveniences that I’m just not willing to give up (like electricity. I love electricity). However, it is possible to decrease dependence by trying just a little harder.