Self-Sufficiency

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Homesteading-book review

Homesteading, it’s a buzzword that means different things to different people, back in the day, it meant getting land for free as long as you lived on it and improved it for x number of years. It was a way to get people to move west (in the USA), back when travel was slow and painful, even dangerous.…

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Going fridgless

Going fridgless, to most people would be paramount to going topless, many people couldn’t imagine living their lives without having a 19+/- cubic foot energy eating, leftover storing, inefficient cold box sitting in their kitchen. Now days refrigerators do so much, in my old life, I worked for a big box electronics store, the one with the blue shirts and the little yellow price tag, they were starting to put computers in the door, not just electronics, but a real computer screen that could access the internet and help you with your shopping and let you watch TV on your fridge.…

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Solar powered clothes dryer

It’s funny how your perspectives change as you grow. When I was a kid, I used to be embarrassed because my mom hung our laundry out on the line to dry. I hated the smell of line dried clothes, sheets and towels, to me that meant we were poor, we couldn’t afford a dryer. All of my classmates had soft, fabric softener fresh smelling clothes, our clothes, towels and sheets were stiffer and to me were just second rate.

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No knead bread

I love making and baking bread, who doesn’t enjoy eating fresh, homemade bread hot from the oven? The problem is the time it takes to make, the mixing, the kneading, the rising, the kneading again, the shaping, the rising again… it just takes too much time and attention.

 

About a year ago, I started seeing books and recipes for no-knead breads, it looks almost too good to be true, this method makes what is often referred to as “artisan breads”, the kind that cost a small fortune in the specialty bakeries, who knew how easy these breads were to make?…

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Community

DIY rocket stove

kent-ivey-diy-rocket-stove

I like rocket stoves, these are usually small, usually portable, mini-cooking-heating devices that are very efficient. You can use twigs instead of larger pieces of wood, these tend to be safer since you aren’t using a lot of fuel (twigs) and it goes out if you aren’t there to feed the wood into the stove. I have seen a lot of different methods of building a rocket stove, from simple bricks without mortar to very elaborate and expensive rigs.…

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Community

Dirt-cheap survival retreat-book review

There are people who have seemingly unlimited funds to purchase whatever goodies they want. This book is not written for them, though they could glean some great ideas. It’s really written for the rest of us, those who have limited incomes but still want to go off-grid and live comfortably.…

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Bulk food supplies

With food prices going up and up with no end in sight, some of us have already started buying extra food to put away for hard times, and believe me, hard times can come at any time for many reasons, from weather incidents to terrorist (domestic and foreign) attacks. It can be something as simple as losing your income because of being fired, laid off, cut hours, downsizing and such. Wouldn’t it be nice to have one less worry, one less thing competing for your hard earned money? Well if you have a store of food, then you can spend your money on fuel, mortgage or rent, insurance and such instead of worrying about where your next meal will come from or having to choose between buying groceries or paying for other things. Food is expensive, buying in bulk is usually less expensive, but you have to have the money to pay upfront for your bulk purchase. I have learned of a place where you can buy foods in bulk and in #10 cans on the cheap.…

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Food and medicine

People, it’s time to stock up on what you can now, things aren’t getting any better, and our money is losing value every day. The best way to maintain the value of the money you have now is to go ahead and buy the things you need now, you can just about guarantee that what you buy now will be going up in price in the near future.…

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Community

Dehydrate your own chicken

I found this today on YouTube, these guys are dehydrating chicken, it looks very simple and I suspect you could do this with other meats as well. This will save you major $$$s over buying dehydrated meat from a commercial source. Watch and enjoy!…

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