Anyone here close to being self sufficient and “living off the land” to a significant degree?

By self sufficient, I don’t mean literally by yourself, it can include you, your family, neighbors, immediate community even. My ideal would be me, my family (immediate or distant) and neighbors or people who live close to me.

If you are growing or raising 75% or more of your food please share.

If you have figured out a way to keep your lifestyle cost very minimal please share some tips.

If you have figured out how to live this life with no full time job please share.

Edit:
I think a big part of this lifestyle is living simpler, doing things efficiently so a simple example of that would
be building a smaller sized home (one that still meets your needs and still comfortable) so it’s easier to keep heated and less to maintain, and having south facing windows to heat it up in the winter time.

Growing perennial crops, foraging and hunting. Taking advantage of the land, climate, etc you live in to grow the most yielding and lowest work foods and animals.

Thanks

When I was in MN in the 80s I encountered a gentleman who was living in a hogan. His land was paid for. He was off grid.   He had a job that he needed only minimally.  This life style cost him his marriage and child. Oddly, to me, the wife did not leave with the child. The wife left. A couple of years later social services came for the child due the living conditions.   The hogan  was one large room…there were no bathing facilities…as far as I know, he still lives there.

I'm nowhere near self sufficient in food, but am having a lot of fun learning to grow in my location (not as easy as it was further South). I am however almost self sufficient in seed, which is a step forwards. Since I run a small grocer store, food supply has been less of a priority for me.

When we set up our home here, we have tried to build in resilience rather than self sufficiency. So we have a wood burning stove (before I learnt about Rocket mass stoves) which doesn't need electricity to run and heats the house, is my cooker and also heats hot water for washing. We planted most of the land with trees to coppice for wood fuel (sort of long term cut and come again!) and that currently supplies at least half our fuel needs.

Lots of ideas in the frugality forum on saving and being economical with spending money.

Hi Nancy,

While my goal is to continually become more self-sufficient.  It has never been to become self-sufficient.  Mostly, I am having fun.

Well Zack, this tale isn't exactly totally living off the land but a reasonable approximation, with room for improvement.
In the early eighties I was following a dream, that was the time of the "Back to Landers" type of homesteading. I saved money, bought 40 acres with certain requirements such as , must have a source of water, heavy brush for game and heavily wooded. The piece I ended up with has a creek running through it with a rocky bed and clean water, land is in a transitional zone with a huge selection of hardwoods softwoods and conifers.
These woods have been carefully and respectfully harvested throughout the years to make household utensils, bowls, plates , railings and shelving. Wood has also been used for poles for garden fencing and for woodshed supports. And of course running the wood heat which is essential in Minnesota and the wood cook stove. There is no grid here and no electrical infrastructure. There is a small 1,000 watt generator for phone charging and viewing recorded videos, mostly educational or some just for fun.
Walked in a half a mile from the nearest road with a backpack an ax and a chainsaw, camped out in a tent 2 weeks and built a 10x10 log hunting shack. Well the hunting shack grew.
A Sand point well was put in, pounded by hand and is still producing water today.
Added on and now it's a seven room two-story building with a root cellar under one of the rooms. All of the trees, sand and rocks used in the construction were found on property. Building still survives quite well today and I'm still living there.
Years later a large two-story log Barn was built using the same materials.
Over the years a subsistence garden was put in and probably close to 75% of the food consumed here is raised on the land including, an assertment of fruits and vegetables, most notably storage types such as potatoes dry beans shell corn and other Root cellar storage root crops.
Small grains such as wheat oats and the aforementioned corn (field, sweet and popcorn) have been grown here.
All of the sugar and syrup requirements for the household are made from the sap of maple trees.
About 15 gallons a season.
Poultry has been raised here mostly for the eggs and in the past game such as grouse and whitetail deer were hunted for meat. I have since given up the hunting, adopting a more live and let live attitude and have a mostly vegetarian diet.
Raised five boys here who didn't quite appreciate it at the time, though they now as adults realize it was quite an accomplishment, of which they were heavily involved.
Needless to say this lifestyle involved very little cash and yet was very rich and experience and even material goods. There is no need for a full-time job, homesteading was my job.
You can be the judge of where this falls on the self-sufficiency scale!

I've had times in my life where I'd have to go without for a while. Times of abundance. Yes off grid too almost all the way for about a month. Times of being self sufficient.

All in all based on my experiences, I realize you need some sort of community. Whether it's just the folks in your road, town garden club, etc. we are not meant to make everything. That's why everyone is good at one thing and not the other. There's someone we could barter or share with when we come together.

I also realize it's about the women and children. Whatever form of survival you go with as a man and community you have to make sure women and children will survive and thrive.

I think that's why most people on youtube doing off grid or what have you, burn out. They think they need to do everything and live in the hills by themselves. I dunno just my 2 cents.

You still need each other. But I think it's more or less smaller pockets of folks coming and building together. Pockets of folks all over.

Although given the time and resources. I think most are at least capable of producing most of their food for the year via gardens and animals. Share the extras with neighbors I say.

Rad,

I 90% agree with the philosophy, and would like to extend it a little further.

Someone was facing some complicated family issues recently. I asked if there was any possibility to set up a wigwam that could house an invalid to lessen the pressure and the answer was no, no, and no. I think we don’t remember how to do it but that figuring that out is a good priority for self sufficiency because if a very sick person is okay enough there then it’s at least nurturing enough for that. It is a challenge, a difficult one, but maybe can be done given enough time, research, and so on.

There are also some very impressive women in survival and self sufficiency out there!

I'm currently at about 10% of my food (youngish family of 7), thanks mainly to super productive chickens. That percentage is creeping up as we figure out how to work with our small goat herd. Goat meat is already putting a dent in our meat budget; just need the dairy to replace grocery milk and eventually butter/cheese/yogurt. Been struggling with disease in our meat rabbits, but once that's fixed we'll be able to add rabbit meat, and, along with the occasional duck and fish from our pond, our animal product needs will be totally self-sourced.

Our fruit and vegetables are still mostly grocery buys, but I can see phasing that out over the next few years as our fruit trees and perennial garden get bigger and more established and we find out which kind of annual bumper crops will survive the neglect and pest pressure in our area. So far Jerusalem artichokes, chinese yams, sweet potatoes, asparagus, blueberries, mulberries, figs, tomatoes and okra all do consistently well, but we haven't established good systems for preserving them to cover the whole year. We also have pecans and chestnuts that we mostly leave to the animals which we plan to start keeping for ourselves.

Nothing in the works yet to replace grocery sugar - my eldest daughter is keen to start bees next year to rectify that.

Cereals are a major part of our diet and daunting to replace on our 5 acre, part-time human powered operation. My hope is that we can make grain amaranth - which grows easily, vigorously and self-seeds in  our area - a staple in our diet, but it has to pass the "can't be a huge pain to process" and "tastes good" tests. Also doing some experiments with lotus and growing corn on chinampa style floats on our pond to add to our grain arsenal.

Yes sir the women are the key. Your mother is your first teacher you go to school for 9 months before you graduate lol

Yea my go to are taters man aka potatoes. I grow a bunch give em away and save some to last me the winter. We have pallets at work. I'll make boxes in the pallets and fill em up as they grow. Pile up layers of straw and dirt.

In the summer I barely eat im always outside fishing in the creeks running around hiking or exploring something. I like the outdoors and being in nature playing guitar. Walking. I bought some cheap woodworking tools I want to try going to the park and picking up pieces of wood and making random things. Lime a fork spoon, flute, you know just create stuff like. Wild cordage would be cool. Or some pottery. I wanted to learn how to make rain barrels out of clay make em waterproof or include it as part of a house. Like a giant sealed wall of water etc. That's more if I ever get a piece of ground you know.

During the summer If I get good sunlight I don't get hungry just snacks here and there and lots of fruits berries and good old juices. I'm always out reading a book, playing guitar enjoying nature...

I been growing bunch sweet potatoes this year. I'm thankful. I didn't plan on it they really took over. That will get me enough to last the winter. I found out you can eat the leaves. I leave some for the groundhogs so they don't mess with the other plants. Groundhogs love moringa too lol. But I like them personally because they eat all the weeds I barely have to do any weeding of any.

I don't have much room for canning or preserving nor do I know much how to. So I will probably buy or barter some for bunch of canned preserve food. Ramen in bulk is cheap. Get creative when I was homeless I got creative with ramen make your own seasonings etc etc. Mre are cheap online too.

My buddy makes sauerkraut and he adds juniper berries for flavor. It's really good it's the purple cabbage. Ill eat them with some corn beef and mashed potatoes and day.

I do plumbing on the side. If I fix someone's water they will usually give me a bunch of food and goodies too. That will last me a while.

Canned beans and corn are yummy too. I wanted to try canning all the nachos veggies, tomatoes beans peppers etc. And make nachos here and there with the canned. I bought a cheap vacuum sealer I might try that this year. I tried mylar bags in the last for dry stuff they work great. You need a piece of lumber and an iron to seal the bags.

Another good one is a solar dehydrator. You can rig one up all it is is just a bunch of trays. Dried tomatoes is a good one. Dried greens. Some folks dry okra and make okra powder. Mix em with soups. You can do that with any veggie though you know lol. Get creative.

Morning powder or dried moringa is another in trying this year. I also save up and buy a lot of honey. I eat couple teaspoons of raw honey everyday. That seems to help my health and keep the essential nutrients inside me. I love honey water. Honey water with some morning powder or aloe vera gel.

I drink honey water all the time.

If I get sick I'll make a lemon cinnamon and honey water and drink a bunch.

Black seed oil is good for resetting your body. Start with a drop a day. Then two etc etc. That will clean out for body. I'll do that maybe like once every two or three years.

I have a stash of beef jerky and fried fish too.
I prefer fresh though in the late summer. I eat lots of beef late in the summer around middle of september to bulk up for the winter.

Watermelon and cantaloupe. Got me a cheap juicer from the thrift store. Buddy got a big bag of carrots we made a gallon of freaking carrot juice. Mix w apple cider that stuff is good. It will give you a hard on for hours. When you're healthy man everything is flowing. Lol

I like greens too. Greens with some fried eggs and butter. That's simple and last me a while. Nettle leaves, bit of wild mint. Wild lettuce is good. Dandelions add a bit of honey is the vinegar dressing to offset the bitter. I eat em with eggs and butter. Pick the small dandelion they don't taste so bitter. Kale and spinach probably my favorite. And lettuce.

My buddy eats wild spinach with a little goat cheese. That stuffs good. I noticed when you cultivate wild plants they grow huge. My buddy grew dandelions in pots the leaves were massive. I want to try that with wild spinach. I could nibble on wild spinach.

This Amish lady sells bunch of produce for cheap I try support her. And she makes good strawberry rhubarb pie.

Zucchini is easy to grow. You can make bread with it.
Radish easy too. Squash good for soups. Three sisters garden will keep you eating good and it's easy.

I have a good time with this stuff. Don't see it as a burden or frustration. Enjoying it you know. You can't take this away when you're dead. At least try and make the most out of it and leave some to pass along to the next generation. If anything make it easier for them to keep pushing the envelope.

I meant to say, ye men-folk have no monopoly on ruggedness... I think I got what you were trying to say, in its essence, and only disagreed on the examples presented (but I could be wrong?) Anyway when we are at our moments of need—youth, sickness, old age, and so on, we are not necessarily going to be able to summon the same ruggedness and we need community to watch us and catch us if we fall.

I remember reading something on how Homo sapiens might have been particularly successful for being so social and living in villages or bands, whereas other Homo species including Neanderthals may have been less social and less inclined to form social connections.

At this point I’d say we are (para)social (my new word for the week) to an extreme extent that is unhealthy for us and the planet, and time in solitude is essential for developing an understanding—or even just a glimpse of—reality unmediated by language and dogmatic thought. And that the wordless understanding of the nature of being is also the basis of resilience, humility, and even great compassion.

I feel like there is a place that is neither wilderness solitude, nor extreme collective sociality, nor ordinary social dynamics. I think that it is possible to support and nourish each other as beings and yet keep our minds and bodies tethered and firmly rooted to the ground itself. I believe in some societies this is their conception of adulthood—being grounded by one’s village and ancestral lineage, yet also having one’s roots stretch deeper into Nature, and even further into the unspeakable, the mysterious, the blackness, the emptiness that is bursting with fullness—the ever-unknown.

Maieshe Ljin wrote:

At this point I’d say we are (para)social (my new word for the week) to an extreme extent that is unhealthy for us and the planet, and time in solitude is essential for developing an understanding—or even just a glimpse of—reality unmediated by language and dogmatic thought. And that the wordless understanding of the nature of being is also the basis of resilience, humility, and even great compassion.

I feel like there is a place that is neither wilderness solitude, nor extreme collective sociality, nor ordinary social dynamics. I think that it is possible to support and nourish each other as beings and yet keep our minds and bodies tethered and firmly rooted to the ground itself. I believe in some societies this is their conception of adulthood—being grounded by one’s village and ancestral lineage, yet also having one’s roots stretch deeper into Nature, and even further into the unspeakable, the mysterious, the blackness, the emptiness that is bursting with fullness—the ever-unknown.

I would have to agree with the above two paragraphs.
At the present our species is a dominant force on the planet,  both ecologically and geologically,
Although due to our success at reproduction and providing resources to presently maintain that reproductive success, most members of our species are not able to attain that connection with the Earth.
There are small pockets of peoples living as our distant Homo sapien ancestors did.
Keep in mind though that even these cultures in the Amazon rainforest and the Papua New Guinea Highlands, do not live without strife or conflict.
That is the nature of life. Our success has merely amplified the negative.
It's truly a paradox, we have proven our success and yet that success is proving to be our downfall.
It is truly an accomplishment in this day and age to be able to find and hold on to that grounded remnant of our past.

My wife and children and I grow all of the vegetables we eat, all of our fruit (maybe 30-40 different species in total, some in larger quantities, some in smaller, but an abundance overall), all of our nuts except for one Brazil nut every other day for a selenium supplement (mainly peanuts, black walnuts, hazelnuts, and chestnuts); all of our dairy (milk, butter, soft and hard cheeses...) comes from our own cows and goats; all our meat and poultry comes from our own animals besides game we trap or hunt; we grow/forage all of our mushrooms (shitakes, oysters, chanterelles, and several other species); we keep bees for all our honey (which we use for any ice cream or baked desserts we make, but we eat a lot of fruit and not very many desserts).  We could enjoy more fish but mostly do without fish, but sometimes neighbors will give us some fish they catch from nearby lakes or rivers, and we have gigged some frogs.  Other foods we'd like to eat but haven't, at least not yet, made ourselves and so have done without in the meantime are fermented meats (like salami) and soy sauce.  Beer might be nice -- we've grown some hops and some barley but never malted the barley -- but we make a little cider from our own apples and some mead.  (I used to make mead with regular extracted honey but now just make mead by rinsing my cappings.  I was surprised how much honey was still in my cappings even after letting them strain for a couple days.)  We've been growing our own mustard seed but we could enjoy eating more mustard than we've managed to grow.  We don't really miss chocolate at all, but we've grown to really appreciate desserts made with bitter fruits like elderberries and wild blackberries to fill a vaguely similar bittersweet niche as chocolate.

That leaves us buying a few extra grains to supplement our main staple grains which we do grow for ourselves (we grow all our own wheat and corn, which is somewhere around 90-95% of the grain we eat), vinegar (which is probably simple enough to do that we could easily enough have made it from fruits we've had without too much effort, but we just haven't made it happen), oil (which we use for mayonnaise and salad dressings -- we also make salad dressing by substituting various combinations of homegrown sesame seeds/cream/sour cream/soft goat cheese/bacon fat, but haven't given up on oil-based dressings and haven't grown and pressed our own oil), maybe a quart of maple syrup per year (to supplement our own honey, which is our main sweetener, and some sorghum syrup that neighbors give us for helping at their harvest time), the Brazil nuts, salt, black pepper, cinnamon, and maybe a tiny amount of some other spices (nutmeg...)  I think that's everything we buy.  Except for vinegar and the salt, it wouldn't be too big a deal for us to do without the rest, and if we gave up purchased vinegar, I'm pretty sure that would pretty quickly motivate us to make our own.  

Altogether we average about 17 cents per person per day on purchased food (just under $500/year for our whole family), and that's all at USDA organic prices.  I don't think the USDA organic label counts for much, but that's what we buy anyway.  

Of course, that doesn't include the production costs of what we grow for ourselves, but we make our living mainly selling at a farmers market, so the dollar costs of what we grow are largely entangled with our farm expenses, but our farming style is relatively very low-input, too.  Very roughly our total farm expenses are around $3000-$4000/year plus mileage (which costs us a lot less than the standard IRS mileage rate but which at IRS rates is around $2600/year, mainly for driving to the farmers market.)  Fuel for our two tractors is under $500/year.  We've spent a total of around $10,000 for our two tractors and implements over the last 18 years, plus nearly that much for repairs, replacement parts, etc.  We raise our hogs entirely on feed we grow or forage (surplus dairy, acorns...); we've managed to save back enough honey to feed our bees without any purchased feed for the last several years but have bought sugar for bee feed in the past and might wind up in a situation where we would again; we spend less than $5/year on hay for our goats, around $100/year for hay for our cattle -- we feed our cattle and goats entirely off pasture (plus maybe some garden/orchard scraps) most of the year -- and maybe a little over a $1000/year for grain (mainly just conventionally grown wheat that we buy direct from neighbors) for our chickens and ducks, so our poultry is by far our least sustainable/self-sufficient animal enterprise, but we really value having eggs, and the manure is a really valuable fertilizer (and it's nice to have poultry to eat, too.)

That's an overview of my family's food self-sufficiency story.

One tip I would offer to anyone wanting to be more self-sufficient in food is that it seems to me that one of the most important steps to food self-sufficiency is learning to eat and enjoy the foods that you can reasonably hope to grow for yourself in your location.  If you've grown up eating mass-produced supermarket-type food, your tastes and preferences are probably grown out of that food system, so learning to cook from scratch and to eat and enjoy the foods that you can grow is a really important part of being self-sufficient.  Being able to grow your own food isn't much good if you don't know how to prepare it or don't want to eat it.  Train yourself and your taste buds to cook and preserve and to eat like someone in your area that is self-sufficient in food even if you aren't.

I think to do this, we need a tribe. The closest our family got was in I think 2011, we raised 60 meat chickens (store bought Cornish cross chicks fed store bought feed), had laying hens (super bought chicks and feed), raised beef with my dad, had a veggie garden, and drove over an hour a week to buy raw milk. Sometimes I made butter or yogurt from the milk. But we had a hard time keeping up with everything, and more I’m chronically fatigued and this year I didn’t even plant my own seeds, just bought a free plants and put them in the ground. We still having laying hens and a mobile coop, and we’re getting fruit from trees we planted in 2021. I’m elated when something I allowed to go to seed volunteers.

The Lykov family living in the Taiga is an amazing example of a family living without external inputs. The ability to be isolated enough to ignore outside inputs is problematic.  There are levels of self sufficiency. Food independence, housing independence, energy independence. one has to start somewhere.  Herd behavior is a convenience, but not necessary for humans.

I have also studied various spiritual disciplines and many contain hermits who live off of wild berries, leaves and roots. Many don’t but some do. For example in Zen Buddhism there is a book—I forgot which one it was but I would love to find it again—where the author recommended living off of wild leaves and roots as the superior manner of subsistence. Many of these people lived to a ripe old age, and in one story (Hakuin’s tale of meeting the master and learning the melted butter meditation) the master lived hundreds of years. (Take of that what you may, but according to what I’ve heard meditation can restore DNA thus reverse aging.)

I am personally inclined towards the idea that it’s good to know how to survive on your own in the forest, meadow and wilderness but also to cultivate connection with others and have people to lean against if things are not working out. However at times when I couldn’t rely on others and had to do hard things myself, even while sick, weak, hungry, tired, etc., there is a special energy that arises that is invigorating and liberating.

Monastic self sufficiency, another example to look at.  
https://pemptousia.com/2011/05/%ce%b2asic-everyday-needs-and-self-sufficiency/

I feel that today's lifestyle does not lean itself to self sufficiency.

Too many folks want to eat out and do not garden or raise animals.

That is not to say that there are not folks doing it the self sufficient way.

Joel Salatin is one:

https://permies.com/wiki/joel-salatin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyface_Farm

I bet the folks here on the forum can name more.

Hi Anne,

You approach an interesting observation. During the time I was running mainstream, it was common for me to have  13 to 14 restaurant meal a week.   I doubt if I have 16 restaurant meals a year now…. And that includes hot dogs at COSTCO.

We grow around 80% of our meat, and hover around 25-30% of our overall food needs.  We probably peak at 75% in the summer and fall when lots of veg is coming in.  Easy enough to grow plenty of food on 6 acres of fertile land in zone 7, but things get hard when it comes to cooking and preserving it for the off season. The rest of the family is not remotely interested self sufficient food production.  My wife enjoys a hobby level of production/preservation and the kids couldn’t care less, so I mostly go it alone on many larger scale food production/cooking endeavors. Last winter, I ate homegrown stewed/frozen pears and eggs for breakfast almost every day.  I do most of the cooking just so I can include home grown foods, which might otherwise become compost or artifacts for future generations in our home.  

In terms of calories, good old meat and potatoes do the heavy lifting.  We’ve raised beef, lamb, pork, rabbits, ducks, and a handful of other poultry.  Lamb and chicken eggs have proven to be the best fit for animal protein in our system.  I’ve never been willing to commit to dairy, so we buy a good bit of it.  I could be happy with dairy on occasion, but it is a staple for the rest of the family.  We grow a pretty standard veg garden.  Pumpkins and winter squash preserve easily, and we have eaten a lot of them over the years, but even I am a bit burned out on them.

Mulberries, blueberries, and figs have probably been our best producing perennials.  I can only eat so much of them though due to their high fiber and sugar content.  Our chestnuts are starting to produce meaningful quantities.  I have experimented with roasting them and they are okay, but this fall, I want to try using them like potatoes in soups and stews.  I’ve planted a lot of pecans and walnuts that are just beginning to bear.  I think they could be an excellent staple food for us, if they ever produce in large quantities.

Nancy Reading wrote:... When we set up our home here, we have tried to build in resilience rather than self sufficiency.

Similar path here. While the majority of my food comes through supply chains, I realize they can go kerflooey with little provocation. So I have the land, skills, tools, and seeds in place to quickly double or triple my food production. I think that in concert with my neighbours and local trading, we have the resilience to weather a storm.