Why a self-reliant lifestyle?

My mother had always taught us to be frugal.  Always check the sales/clearance racks first when shopping, clean your plate, never do less than a full-load of laundry, cook from scratch, etc.

I remember the occasional treat to eat out.  We always ordered water and when we wanted a dessert, we were told, “You don’t need that.”  I despised those words as a child... “You don’t need that.”  Truth is, it’s sort of become my mantra.

When growing up, my family had been encouraged through our church leaders to have a two year supply of food storage.  So, we had the obligatory two or three barrels of wheat and whatever my mother managed to can from our garden tucked away on shelves in the basement.

After I married and we had started our own family, we often found ourselves unemployed.  My husband did contract work, and it seemed it was always feast (sort of) or famine.  I remember having a distinct thought of “What would I do if I couldn’t feed my family?”  Would I beg, borrow, steal?  At what point would I find myself sacrificing my spirituality and character for a loaf of bread?  I didn’t want to find out.  It was shortly after this, that I was asked to be the Preparedness Person for our church group.  That was a real blessing in helping me get started.

I decided I had to get my food storage in order, and that I wanted to be as self-reliant as possible.  Since we weren’t wealthy, I had to start small.

At first it was simply digging in the bottom of my purse for the loose change to purchase an extra can of soup or a light bulb, or attempting to grow something edible in my yard.  It wasn’t much, but I had a real desire to make it happen and felt the blessings from trying.  Sometimes it was really discouraging.  Just as I was beginning to have a few extra cans on my shelf, we would suffer a set back and I’d find myself having to use my precious jars of food stuffs.  While it made me sad to have to deplete my storage, it was a real blessing to have the food for my family.  I didn’t have to rely on church leaders, family or government agencies to support us.

Over the years, we were blessed with better times and I continued to grow our food storage to overflowing our small basement storage space.  We were able to can and dehydrate our own garden goodies and we purchased long-term storage items in bulk.  I shopped sales when possible for cases of food items.  I began buying the necessary equipment to help us better live a self-reliant lifestyle, such as a water filter, a wheat grinder, a dehydrator, a pressure canner, emergency supplies, etc.  I cannot tell you how many times we HAD to use these items.  This lifestyle has been a huge blessing to me and my family.

At first it was all about "store as much as you can and save it for a rainy day" but I quickly realized that I needed to adopt this as a lifestyle.  Soon grinding our own wheat for pancakes and bread became the norm.  Eventually I moved from my gourmet type of cooking to a simpler routine wherein I rotate my stores.  I find that I’m not always good at it.  Sure I slip and buy a hamburger or a loaf of bread because there isn’t anything to eat at home (at least that’s what my kids say:), but those times are less often going forward.  This truly has become a lifestyle for our family.  In these tough economic times, it sure is easier to sleep knowing we have a meal coming the next day even if we don’t have work.

Two years ago we were blessed with the opportunity to move to rural America on 40 acres.  Now my dream of being self-reliant is even more achievable.  We have chickens for eggs, a large garden, and lots of opportunities to learn about wild edibles and foraging.  We have plans to further these dreams as time and money permits.  This lifestyle doesn’t happen over night.  It is a process with set backs and much learning to be had.  There are still lots of holes in our preparedness efforts, but with a prayer in our hearts and a goal in mind, we will achieve.

For those of you who think, “I have my can of seeds.”  I would say you need to seriously rethink your storage situation.  There is a huge learning curve to growing, harvesting, storing, using your preps.  Start small, but do something.  Even after gardening for several years now, it would be a challenge to live off our own efforts.  Having long-term food in storage will certainly fills in the learning gaps should purchasing food become more difficult going forward.  Keep moving forward.

Our new living situation still leaves much to be desired.  I no longer have a basement.  Currently we live with our supplies surrounding us.  There are crates of home-canned goods on one wall, buckets of wheat under the beds, soup cans behind every book on the shelves - you get the idea.  It’s not pretty, but we have it.  It provides a sense of security, freedom and peace.