Practical Projects for Self-Sufficiency: DIY Projects to Get Your Self-Reliant Lifestyle Started

Living a more independent lifestyle is a rewarding goal. By learning to do more things yourself you gain control of the how and when and what of modern life. The projects in this book are designed to help you reach the goal of self-sufficient living. The best part is that you don’t need to sell your townhome and move to 80 acres in the mountains to make use of these projects. Pick off a few here and there and you can participate in the self-sufficient way of being without making the sacrifices required when living off the grid.

Why aspire to self-sufficiency? Because the pace of modern life can be overwhelming. All too often, the amazing technology that was supposed to free us and make life better and better instead becomes a drain on our money, time, and joy. As we’ve tried to improve our lives through progress and efficiency, we have ironically gotten further and further from many of the things that make life healthy, rewarding, and fulfilling. It’s just a matter of cause and effect. Medical advances that allow for gene therapy are used to create GMO foods of unproven safety. An ever-ready energy supply has ensured that our lives are more comfortable and convenient than ever before; but our environment pays for that convenience in the fallout from fracking, the pollution of coal-fired power plants, and the occasional devastating oil spill. All the while, modern life seems to demand that we move faster, do more, make more, and consume more. Along the way, we’ve become less able to do for ourselves, and more in the habit of buying everything we need regardless of the environmental and personal consequences.

And make no mistake, there are consequences. As we continue to fill landfills at an alarming rate, see our water tables and well water increasingly become contaminated, and learn more about how corporate farming is creating a less diverse food-supply chain, the global and environmental benefits of what’s come to be known as “self-sufficient living” become more relevant and more apparent. By saving water, raising food that doesn’t involve long-distance transport (and all the fuel and pollution that transportation entails), and finding new ways to create what we need using only the energy in our bodies, we’re not only helping ourselves, we’re helping the world.

Those upsides are attracting growing numbers of people to the self-sufficient lifestyle. The fact that you’re reading this book means that chances are, you’re one of those people.