On the Quest for Self-Sufficiency

We chose this lifestyle with the dream of self-sufficiency.  I think that's true for most people who also make this choice.

The problem with it is that no one can just wake up one day and decide to be self-sufficient from now on.  It's a long slow gradual process that requires plenty of money to get to a situation where you can be off the grid and doing it all for yourself.

We still have housing costs, whether those costs are mortgages, rent, rates or insurance, not counting maintenance costs.  I can't grow the money to cover our mortgage.

I still require petrol to get me to the shops to buy the things that I can't grow for myself - coffee, dishwashing liquid, toilet paper.

I have to pay for electricity, telephone and my internet connection.

We're looking at ways to generate our own electricity.  Solar panels are popular, but the starter kits I was able to find are only recommended for use in holiday homes and start at $13k.  I found a website with kits for generating your own hydro-electricity that are much cheaper ($1k - $2k) but from what I was able to gather, our stream isn't fast enough and is too far from the house to be of much use.  I've read in a magazine about a local guy who has a pelton wheel set up in his drain, so each time the water goes down the drain it's generating electricity.  I need to find out more on that subject.

But aside from that.  Growing fruit and vegetables doesn't happen overnight.  Seeds and small plants can be cheap but it still requires the initial outlay to get them.  Then it's a matter of months before your crop is ready to use.  Growing animals requires the money to buy the first ones too.  While we were given our first pig, he was a boar and it takes two to be breeding.

When we got our first two cows, my hubby was pretty much expecting meat rather quickly.  I told him that I planned for these two girls to be our breeders and possibly house cows.  It took him quite a while to understand that first they needed a few more months before they were big enough for a bull.  Then nine months to carry a calf to term.  Then a good 18 months to 2 years before their offspring will be worth eating. That's a fair bit of time - a long term investment.

We've been very lucky in a lot of ways.  Our place had become quite run down when we bought it, which made it cheap.  The previous owners (I'm guessing) started to find it a bit too hard to manage while also working full time jobs.  But they left a lot of stuff behind, some of it just junk, but some of it very useful.

We've found:

At least 20 metres of chicken wire (which costs $200+ for a 50m roll).
18 metres of windbreak (which costs $4 - $5 per metre).
12 metres of frost cloth.
Several bundles of those triangle seedling protectors - the little plastic ones.
A fence wire tensioner.
So many old tyres.
Irrigation pipes and fittings.
Gardening tools.
Electric fencing standards, outriggers, wires and tapes.
A box full of herb and vege seeds.
2 boxes full of Maxicrop concentrate.
A litre bottle of Tordon (gorse and scrub poison).
Tanks, troughs, and ballcocks (that's not counting the ones in the paddocks - these were spare parts).
Fencing wire - both single strand and the big mesh variety.
Steel waratahs.

We've also been given a lot of things too.  Once I bought a spinning wheel and started to teach myself how to spin, I became the grateful recipient of a woolsack full of Alpaca wool.  Friends of mine used to keep alpacas and have heaps more in storage that they don't have a use for.  I've been given more wool than I think I can use in a few years.  A friend's brother found it at a garage sale, my friend has had first pick and he's given me the rest.  I'm talking boxes and boxes full.  All he wanted in return was a warm jumper knitted for him.  That took about a month to do and used hardly any of the wool he gave me.

The new chooks that are still coming have been given to us too.  We met a lovely couple at a party who are moving from a lifestyle block into a town section.  As a result they can't keep all their hens and especially not their rooster.  New Zealand by-laws say up to 6 hens in a residential area and a rooster ONLY if you can prevent him from crowing between 10pm and 7am.  They made us feel as though we were doing them a huge favour by taking on their much loved flock for them.

It helps to have friends who like to grow their own veges.  Some very good friends are keen vege gardeners and he always starts more seed than he needs so that he can be sure of getting enough if some don't sprout.  Somehow that led to him giving us 14 pumpkin plants and 2 courgette plants this year and we're not the only recipients of his overzealous planting.  In return, I went a bit overboard starting seed for red onions, so I've promised them some of those when they're ready.

We are realistic, we don't expect this to be achieved easily or quickly but it is something that we are determined to do.

By reducing our costs in some areas, hopefully that will free up money to be spent on those things mentioned earlier that cost to set up but save money afterwards.  I'll keep you posted.