Now although my husband caught the self-sufficiency bug well before me and tried to bring me on board, it took me a while to really get interested in it. But, the more I started to do for myself, the more benefits I started being aware of and the more I wanted to do it. I’m sure every person who starts on this sort of path does it for different reasons and gets different benefits from it but these are mine.
I wanted more freedom in my life. I wanted to become less dependant on others to get what I needed. For instance, I learned how to make wine so I don’t have to depend on the LCBO or another store when I want a drink. I can just grab what I’d like from my own stockpile. By creating a large stockpile in my pantry, in my wine cupboard and in my freezer, I cut down on the amount of errands I have to run giving me more freedom in when I need to go shopping.
I also yearned to become more independent. I wanted to learn how to take care of myself and not need help for every little thing. Now I’m very much just starting my journey so still need help with most of our activities but every day I’m learning to do more and more all on my own.
A big draw to the self sufficient life style is the amount of money it saves. Sometimes we’ve found that initially it may be a bit of an investment but in the long run it saves money. The wine making is a good example of this. The initial equipment had a bit of a cost associated with it but now I’m making wine for less than $3 a bottle. Also things like, canning, freezing, baking, etc. They all require equipment and supplies to get started but once you’ve got that the possibilities are endless.
Something I hadn’t really thought of much going into this but am really enjoying about it is that I’m learning so much and also getting to further develop the skills I already had. I’ve always liked baking but now that we are solely relying on baking we do ourselves for sweets, I’ve learned to make a variety of new recipes and gotten some classic recipes to some new levels.
I also really like that becoming self sufficient has given me more control over what goes into my body. I’ve been able to cut out a lot of the unhealthy items in my diet and replaced them with options that are much better for me. I’m looking forward to getting to do more of this in the future. My next step is to get into making all my own cleaning products to limit the amount of chemicals that are used in our household.
Overall starting this journey has already given me so much and I’m looking for to seeing how this goes and what other things I will learn and discover along the journey.