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Just to clarify, I use the word "worried" in my title to refer to being concerned for the safety of my family, close friends, and the earth itself in coming years - not paranoid about everything. So anyway, I am a guy in his early 20's who lives in the urban northeast. More and more as I live here, I come to dislike it. The whole rat race mentality makes me depressed. As it is, I am in few ways, if any, self-sufficient.
As for my desires to be self-sufficient, it comes not just from a desire to be able to support myself by myself in the event of some global economic meltdown or something, but from a desire to live in harmony with the earth itself, rather than destroying it for more human development (yes, I'm a tree-hugger to a degree as well). The difficulty here is excommunicating myself from the society that I've become dependent on. On one hand, I have to deal with previous poor financial decisions (namely, student loan stuff). The other is my family, who have always been good to me, but they wish me to finish college, which goes against every desire I have.
I don't mean to bore everyone with my story, but I'm looking for some generic advice and how a young man steps out from the confines of society and establishes himself as truly self-sufficient. If this thread goes anywhere, I'm sure I'll ask some more specific questions. For the moment though, one thing that has been fascinating me recently is the concept of earthbag building. Is anyone familiar with it? It seems like a home-building method that is eco-friendly, affordable, and durable. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
your biggest mistake was posting here as the content is monitored continually by gov't funded scientists using algorithms to identify and turn over to their masters the data necessary to track subversives such as yourself.
Just to clarify, I use the word "worried" in my title to refer to being concerned for the safety of my family, close friends, and the earth itself in coming years - not paranoid about everything. So anyway, I am a guy in his early 20's who lives in the urban northeast. More and more as I live here, I come to dislike it. The whole rat race mentality makes me depressed. As it is, I am in few ways, if any, self-sufficient.
As for my desires to be self-sufficient, it comes not just from a desire to be able to support myself by myself in the event of some global economic meltdown or something, but from a desire to live in harmony with the earth itself, rather than destroying it for more human development (yes, I'm a tree-hugger to a degree as well). The difficulty here is excommunicating myself from the society that I've become dependent on. On one hand, I have to deal with previous poor financial decisions (namely, student loan stuff). The other is my family, who have always been good to me, but they wish me to finish college, which goes against every desire I have.
I don't mean to bore everyone with my story, but I'm looking for some generic advice and how a young man steps out from the confines of society and establishes himself as truly self-sufficient. If this thread goes anywhere, I'm sure I'll ask some more specific questions. For the moment though, one thing that has been fascinating me recently is the concept of earthbag building. Is anyone familiar with it? It seems like a home-building method that is eco-friendly, affordable, and durable. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
I am in the same boat as you. My motivations for trying to be self-sufficient are to a) be "easy" on mother Earth in terms of energy requirements and water consumption as well as pollution, b) to eat healthy and c) to insulate myself from societal turmoil (as much as possible). At the same time I do not want to deny myself access to good medical care (if necessary) or to go without things I consider to be necessities (this is obviously highly subjective).
There are simple things you can do: incinerating/composting toilets, water collection system, solar/wind for energy production. Start a small garden to produce whatever you like to eat. These are all things that can be accomplished even in the city, if you have a house. If you live in a building obviously things will be tougher.
My advice is to start having a reductionist/DIY mindset. However, people over-do this also - for example, if you have the opportunity to make $50/hr and pay someone $10/hr for labor, obviously, earn the $50/hr and pay the person $10/hr for labor, you will keep $40/hr in the bank AND get the labor done! People get blinders on and forego the income to DIY and lose out on the money. Worse yet, they get ideological about the taxes they would owe and decide to forego income in order to not owe taxes. In my humble opinion, that's stupid - if you are earning a good salary you will pay the taxes and still have tons left in the bank - something you wouldn't have (in the bank) if you decided not to earn the money.
My other advice is to start being self-sufficient where you are. People get all carried away, bug-out-locations, storing rounds of ammo, buying guns, burying containers full of cans and toilet paper, dreaming of multiple acreage properties to build earth bag, adobe, cordwood etc. homes. All great goals but all cost money and all delay your journey which you could be starting right now....
Finally, the best way to setting yourself up for success is to be financially independent. You can live on surprisingly little once EVERYTHING is paid for and there is no debt. You should also have a healthy bank account and investments that are diversified - bonds, stocks, precious metals (you could opt to own the actual gold and keep it in a safe in a bank or at home) etc... Once you feel financially comfortable and everything is paid off, you will be able to live on next to nothing. The difference between you and someone who lives on next to nothing but has no bank account is that they are living one step or hospital bill away from disaster.
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