What are you doing to learn to be self-reliant in your simple life?


Some things that I am doing right now is learning to garden and bake bread. Last year and this year we have an experimental garden. Next year, we already know, we will have a much bigger garden and we will try to grow enough vegetables to last us through the following year. I have my new bread machine and am learning bread that way, but I also want to learn to do it by hand. One day, I would love to homestead, but it's just not possible right now.

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Wendy~Self-proclaimed hippie momma to Bob and Jamie

I garden and that is always a work in progress. Right now I have a beautiful crop of weeds! And I think I'm going to talk to my brother about me learning minor plumbing. My husband, bless his heart, is not what anyone would call handy and right now he doesn't have the time to learn. That leaves me.

That's a good idea! I am pretty handy with a plunger, but that's about it.

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Wendy~Self-proclaimed hippie momma to Bob and Jamie

We do almost all the work on our house ourselves. We have painted, drywalled, built walls, put up fences, poured concrete,put new flooring in, installed new toilets and sinks, etc. Food wise, I am all about buying what I need That is simpler for me.

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~Happiness is a large family~

We do alot on our own. I really would like to do more.

This year we are cleaning up our flower garden and going to begin planting a partial herb and vegetable garden. It will be small but will help our food bill out big time.

I bake bread, however I need to get back into this habit as we've been buying our bread this past months. But in the spring and summer months I bake all our bread. This summer I will be making up the bread mixes and freezing them so come winter/fall I'll have the mix prepared to be thrown in the maker.

I sew alot of my dd's clothing. I sew our own cloth napkins and potty training unders. I sew my own mama cloth. We do buy our meat from a market but we boil it to make our own broth. I bake all our goodies so we don't have to buy any store bought.

I also make all our household cleaners and our own dishwashing detergent as well as our own laundry detergent.

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Happily married to my geek
Proud homeschooling, cloth diaperin, attached parenting, slinging, simplier, breastfeedin, sewing mama mades, christian and funky mama

We could be called 'homesteaders'. It's a learning process and we are always learning/trying something new. My DH is very handy, and if something needs to be done, he does it. If he doesn't know how to do it, he buys a book and teaches himself how to do it. I'd like to say I do the same, but he is much better at it than I am.

We raise almost all of our own meats: beef, pork, and chicken. DH goes on a fishing vacation once a year and stocks our freezer with panfish for the year. We have our own eggs year-round and (goat's) milk about 6 months of the year, sometimes longer, sometimes not so long (if we need the milk to bottle-feed babies). We may try to go longer this year with milk prices so high. I don't like to milk in the winter when it's so cold, but I think this might be our year for that (LOL).

I hope to make cheese and soap this year as well. Homemade laundry soap and fabric softener are on the short-term goal list (I already have the supplies).

We raise a large garden each year. If the garden goes to weeds or has other problems, then we buy from local farmers when the veggies are in season, and then can them for our use throughout the year.

We also freeze and dehydrate fruits.

This year we made maple syrup for the first time. Next year we hope to make enough to last our family for the entire year.

I cook from scratch most of the time and buy our necessities in bulk (four, sugar, coffee, etc). We could go a month or more without going to the store. We'd run out of fresh fruits/veggies, but we would have plenty to eat (frozen and canned would do fine).

We enjoy this way of life...I guess it's a 'simple' life, but it's a lot of work

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We hunt and most of our red meat comes from that. We also fish, but that goes pretty quick. I do most of the processing - all of the deer and game, and DH and I share the fish (Well, we have a thing of whoever catches the most cleans them, and I usually catch more LOL!) We get some of the deer smoked, but I'd like to learn how to do that.

My garden didn't do well last year, but this year looks a lot better. I would like to do more canning.

DH is very handy, and I'm pretty good in a pinch. He's done some electrical, plumbing, drywall and flooring in this house, and takes care of the maintenence of our cars. I've done a lot of flooring work. We both are pretty good at making things work in a pinch.

I do baking from scratch now - DH has a major sweet tooth, and if I make stuff, then he doesn't buy stuff at the store. I also make a lot of jerky for us. We rarely eat out, and I think we eat pretty good here at home. We also have two large freezers, and a third that could be used, so I can freeze all the game meat, milk and bread and frozen veggies.

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My husband is an amazing handyman. His job is a computer engineer. At home he is a plumber, electrician, welder, carpenter, painter, mason, mechanic, landscaper, etc.

I cook, bake and clean very basic. I make everything homemade but I do buy the ingredients from the store. I hope to have a garden next year.

I try to sew but am still learning. I do all of our mending and have made a few things.

I started coloring my own hair last year, that saves us $300 a year.

Hi Everyone,

I already have a garden, bake bread, cook from scratch, try to fix things myself and repurpose things. Today to add to my self-reliance skills, I tried making yogurt for the first time.

Home*-*simplylivingsmart.com is an excellent website to learn about food storage, emergency preparedness, and self reliance. That is where I learned how to make yogurt.