Self Sufficiency an Expensive Luxury
I’ve had my work cut out for me lately, we’ve moved and I’ve been flat-out trying to set up our new 40 acre block as a self-sufficient farm. It’s a whole “family community” enterprise and while we’re all excited about the longer term potential, the workload and expense has been astronomical! We’re twelve months into the project and the “to do list” has grown – NOT shrunk. And all the while, inversely, our bank balance has shrunk – NOT grown!
It’s clear that setting up a farm for truly self-sufficient living is downright expensive. Fruit trees for our food forest have been expensive. Fencing materials are expensive, building materials are expensive. Every infrastructure upgrade has gone over budget. And quite frankly the initial workload has been overwhelming.
I took a look at this website’s server log the other day and there were a number of search string queries for the term “self sufficiency lower standard of living”. It got me thinking about my own largely self-sufficient lifestyle and I realized that I had fallen into the trap of doing too much myself – being too self reliant for my own good. Doing too much myself has caused me to neglect my online marketing (which I highly recommend as a complimentary income source because no matter how self-reliant you are you still need money). The point is, you can be too self-reliant for your own good and it can be a form of slavery which does lower your standard of living in terms of leisure time. You do need sensible boundaries and balance.
Now back to the topic… Setting yourself up for self sufficiency is expensive and apparently it always has been that way. When the Roman Empire fell the rich were able to escape the ensuing mayhem – in many ways they caused it…
You see, the empire didn’t fall apart from the top down. Instead, the empire fell apart from the bottom up. People became disaffected because the Roman system had increased the layers of bureaucracy and complexity to a point where the system no longer served its constituents. The benefits of participation were evaporating. The rich, who could afford the luxury of self-sufficiency, simply left! The poor were left behind to pick up the pieces
Self-Sufficiency IS a luxury. Sure it costs to set up but after you’re set up, being self sufficient does not necessarily equate with a lower standard of income.
What do you think? Go ahead and have your say. I’d really appreciate your comments.
Leave a Comment
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
Self Sufficiency an Expensive Luxury…
I found your entry interesting do I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog
…
I try to be as self sufficient as I can and I do agree it does cost heaps to get set up and it takes heaps of work. I don’t do it to save money I’m just trying to live a more sustainable life and show the kids a better way.
I think the INITIAL costs are high, however when you work out what it costs you per day for a year’s worth of being self-sufficient (eg fruit trees vs buying fruit at the supermarket) it is a much more palatable figure.
One thing that has gone down in price is solar power systems. I’ve just signed up for mine and can’t wait to get it installed!! It will be great to start generating my own eco-friendly electricity.
Agreed,
Doing everything yourself will only get you exhausted. But let’s not forget that building a self-sufficient home means getting your family involved. That way you won’t be alone.
I agree with Friska’s comments.
It may also help with sustainable living if everyone shared what they had, sort of like a bartering system, or giving away things no longer needed or sharing fruit from trees etc.
Yes AK. Sharing is the way to go. We have a large veggie garden here because I find it easier to do things on a larger scale with small tractor. We share the excess with others, particularly those who help us in some way. A study of intentional communities revealed that all successful communities shared a common element and that was a culture of “gift giving”. These are simple things that build local community. Strengthening local community whether it be your street, neighbourhood or town is a beg step on the path to sustainability.
Yeah George, we have an extended family situation on our “self-sufficient family community” and there are many tangible benefits over the traditional nuclear family. Actually nuclear families ( as opposed to extended families) has only become a possibility since widespread availability of cheap fossil fuel.
Hi Darcy,
Firstly, I am the treasurer of a forming self sustainable intentional community group that is developing on the mid north coast of Australia. I hope these comments can help you further and seen as a positive addition only. I would also like to add that this is not a hippie style commune as it is also being registered as an eductaion facility as well as an outer community support centre for crisis & respite housing as well as supporting the homeless and other community facilities. We are looking at a reality style TV program that will also help others to learn how to live in a more affordable manner considering the latest talks of the world food crisis we are apparently heading towards.
Your comments are interesting, however, we beg to differ on the overall expensive side. We have many real examples of how it does become a better lifestyle and also a much more affordable life. The first comment would be that you need to start with the right knowledge and information, for this I would recommend you look at more inexpensive forms of doing each thing that are available. i.e Earth garden magazine are fantastic, also environmental housing and building options are also very inexpensive, and very energy efficient also such as straw bail, etc.
To provide one of many examples; one of one of our community members was able to build a very modern and nice 2 bedroom home for herself and her kids for only $10k au. This was out of recycled materials. They also provided for them selves with 2 large structured reproducing gardens with alot of vegies, fruits and herbs that were also used in a full trading system to obtin other items; as well as simple animals such as chickens, geese, goat & ducks that also provided in various ways.
One thought is your article refers to a family community, however, you seem to be only the one person, as commented it is best to share, this is how fully functional communities work close together.
I hope this is helpful for all that read it, we will be eventual putting up our website when we get to that stage of development being http://SEEEDS4LIFE.com
Kindest regards,
Richard
I would like to ask if anyone knows what has happened to published university studies on intentional communities, there was a number of them that did strongly summaries that we all need to head back to smaller intentional communities to survive as a human race. These have since been completely removed and no evidence of their existance can be found. Am also concerned what this is implying that they have all been removed.
Hey Richard — Thanks for the comment. The expense involved in self sufficiency depends on the level of self sufficiency you’re pursuing. I’m a bit of an extremist in many ways. For many people just getting into a position to work toward self sufficiency is very expensive if you consider purchase of suitable land or getting out of debt enough to actually pursue the lifestyle. My real point is just that of a caution; there are many dreamers (and good on them!) who strive to be self sufficient on a bush block and who then suddenly find it was all more difficult and expensive than previously imagined. With regards to published studies being removed – no I doubt there’s any conspiracy to remove them. My guess is they’re buried under “more important” stuff now!
good point. i thought that the whole system was going to fail, so i got my cash out of the banks and purchased a 100 acre farm that i thought i could set up for total self sufficiancy. the farm was also a stategic buy, being on a major river 20 miles from the ocean with fish galour, i soon learned that i had too big plans, i could be totally self sufficiant on 5 acres of this land, with orchard and chickens and veggies, too much food for us to eat, my point is dont think too big. i now rent this land out to a local farmer and get 10% return on my purchase right now as well as feeding my family, should have bought a farm years ago.
Self sufficiency is a myth.
We all use products produced by unsustainable means because we are tied to a system of governments that require us to live the way we do.
The best we can do is attempt to grow as much of the fruits and vegetables that we eat and store by a variety of means any excess produced. We do not use any chemicals in either the vegetable garden or orchard. For the past few years I have saved the seeds of a number of vegetables and so far have been successful and this has helped in the certainty of supply with the varieties we prefer.
We grind grain that we source direct from farmers and the flour is used for bread and other items. This in itself gets us away from a commercial product that is heavily infested with the chemicals that are used when grains are bulk stored. If we had to we could grow some grain but are not sure how much as we would be sowing, and harvesting without the aid of machinery.
I believe that within the next few decades when the lack of petroleum products starts to create major uncertainties in the world system, we will see people return to living in communities of about 30 families. Each of these families will be responsible for working or supplying part of that groups needs to survive. Vegetable gardens, orchards, tool making, poultry, sheep, goats, cattle, firewood, spinning of wool, treatment of hides, herbal remedies, buildings, sewage, drainage, water collection etc, will all be the responsibility of the community. No one will be able to evade their share of responsibility as unlike todays system there will be no big businesses to be taxed to aid those who cannot be bothered.
What many people do not understand that even to feed a family from your own land is a full time task for at least one member of that family regardless of its size. Land preparation, sowing, weeding, irrigation, pest control (insect as well as birds and rabbits), harvesting, seed saving, storing, fencing, feeding of animals, egg collection, slaughtering (rabbits, goats, poultry, sheep, cattle), milking (goats, cow, sheep) and the list goes on.
Living a life of self sufficiency in todays world is a myth, but, if it came to the crunch we could all do it if we are prepared to live in groups of like minded people.
@Bazza….
You’re right there. A lot of dreamers think self sufficiency in terms of food is just a simple vegetable patch — but it’s much more difficult and laborious when you try to produce adequate food consistently through the changing seasons.
Hi Darcy
I was just doing a blog search, looking for like minded bloggers – and found you! I enjoyed reading some of your thoughts, and wondered if you’d like to know a little about us at Bruadair in New Zealand, where we’re trying to create a self sufficient sustainable lifestyle…long term project – city kids going country. The journey of our story is on our website, http://www.makurugardens.co.nz
Cheers,
Di
I was just googling self sufficient communities, stumbled across your blog, great stuff by the way. We have been trying to plan out something similar, only difference being we were wanting to do it with a group of ppl. To share in the work load, for extra ideas/perspective/qualifications. We just havent found anyone else who wants to do the same thing. I need to read all these comments properly, link up with ppl who might be interested in doing it or maybe know of a place thats doing it and wanting more workers/community members. Im 30, married and have 2 beautiful little boys that I desperatly want to out of suburbia. We arent built for city life, its not for us.
Thanks for blogging your experience with self sufficient living … it helps everyone wanting to do it too. Together, humanity can achive great things for the earth and ourselves.
Hi there, thanks for your blog, it’s a good read and good to see so many people commenting and giving different perspectives. Information sharing is the only way that humanity has managed to get anywhere. Whether its been anywhere good is up for debate, but that’s another topic…
I was googling looking for communities of like minded people that may have already been established as I too plan to escape the city, the rat race of planet destroying consumerism, in the near future, and don’t anticipate that it will be an easy task. As Tash said, it would be easier if my family and I weren’t going it alone. Particularly as aside from my mum, I’m the oldest in my family at 24.
Feel free to email me ( possumvall@hotmail.com ) if you’ve any information on where I may find such communities or people interested in forming one.
Cheers, Amy
Thanks Darcy for your honesty.
Total self-sufficiency is a really hard ask, especially should you have kids, or more difficult, teens, who are under enormous pressure to participate in inane consumer culture.
We figure that the more we grow/trade/buy second-hand etc, the less we are contributing to, and the more we are preparing our kids for, the awful scenarios of collapse due to climate chaos and peak oil.
We have found that we are a much happier family (but, yes money is a scary problem. Oh well, you can’t have everything, can you?)
All the best,
cultivatingresilience.net.au