If there ever was a time to be as self-sufficient as possible, that time is now. With extreme shortages of baby formula, grocery store shelves often bare and inflation steadily climbing we need to do for ourselves as much as possible. My mother and grandmother made it through the Great Depression by buying locally and doing for themselves. Somewhere along the time from the Depression to now, easy convenience took over and most of those self-sufficiency skills have been lost or forgotten. Now is the time to relearn and reactivate those skills.
Being self-sufficient means using our own energy to replace the easy convenience we all have come to rely on. I am blessed at the age of 79 to have the good health and energy to do many things for myself. My garden in my backyard is finally growing well in spite of all the rain we have had this spring. Will I still have to buy some groceries? Yes. I can’t raise meat in town, but I am growing beans for plant protein, so I won’t need to buy as much meat and when I do buy meat it will be locally grown. Most of the foods that I don’t yet have the ability to grow, I will buy from a nearby Amish settlement to preserve for winter.
My “wise” advice is:
- Drive as little as possible to save money on gas. Combine all those errands into one trip. Plan out the errand trip so that you don’t go back and forth over the same areas more than once.
- Grow as much of your food as possible. If you don’t have a yard in which to plant a garden, grow food plants in containers.
- Visit Farmer’s Markets to get food. The produce you buy at Farmer’s Markets is fresher than what you get at the grocery store and it hasn’t taken a long fuel trip to get to you. And the money you spend is helping someone locally, perhaps your neighbor.
- Learn to buy necessities at second-hand shops. The set of dishes you buy second-hand has already been loved by someone else. Wash them, use them, love them again in your home. That saves the earth’s elements and energies from being used to recreate an item that has already been produced. The energy that was used once to create an item of clothing does not need to be used again for the same thing. Buy it second-hand. Give it another useful life.
The predictions are that inflation will continue, shortages of products will continue, and gas prices will continue to rise. All of us need to be as prepared as possible. Start looking at the ways people survived during the Great Depression. Many of the skills used during that time are applicable for use today.
As an aside, if you have 34 minutes to spare, watch “The Great Simplification” on YouTube. I found it very interesting. At the very least, it is thought provoking.
Have a pleasant Memorial Day. Love each other. Blessings to you all!
EcoGrandma 