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Frankly, most people i know who live in the country (and by "country" I mean at least an hour to the nearest WalMart) don't live a subsistence life, either.
Most farmers and ranchers today are working far fewer hours than their grandparents would have dreamed of, and doing much better in spite of it.
Chris, wait a second here - I forgot - are you actually living a self-sufficient lifestyle now? Are you dependent on your garden for food or else you go hungry? Have to go to the creek for water? Feeding livestock every day, day in - day out? Riding a horse as everyday transport? Using a mule to carry your stuff? Milking a cow at 5 am every morning? Feeding the chickens? Depending on the hay field to feed the cows and horses this year ('cause you staunchly refuse to associate yourself with the ugly city and hence have no job or cash)? Do you even know how to ride a horse? Or a carriage?
I am now doing about 1/2 of the above stuff. Still have a job in the city, still driving to get to it. But, I know the meaning of "can't leave my place unless I can find someone to tend to the horses for a few days". I know the meaning of fencing 2-3 acres of land by drilling holes into rock to put the t-posts in so the horses can stay put. I know what it takes to build a 24x10 hay storage from scratch (while working a full-time job in a 40 mile away city). I know how pissed off I get when I see my salads eaten up by caterpillars or when the first frost comes over all the stuff I have in the garden (thank God for the grocery store in the nearby town)
If you are not doing anything of the above, I would say you are trolling! How can you pass judgment on anyone if you are not in these shoes?
My goal is to grow a lot of my own food for the health benefits of it. Other goal is to be fully debt free so I can really be free. Final goal is to have a nice cabin somewhere pretty (like Wyoming or Montana) and split my living between that and Florida (already have a house there) so I can have the best of both worlds - ocean and mountains. Being able to work from home so I don't have to commute. Being debt free so I can choose what job I can have without having some a**hole sit on my back every day and I have to take it 'cause otherwise the bank gets my house.... you know, the FREEDOM you keep talking about?
OD
You're digging too deeply into my post. Read what was originally stated and then read my response. I assume you are responding about my comment about "what if everything you said was enjoyable was not... blah, blah, blah."
What I meant by that is "what if the things in the city hold absolutely no potential for enjoyment?" What if a given person doesn't care for museums, symphonies, night clubs, restaurants, and the other stuff that was mentioned. The idea I was getting at is whether or not a person like that would have had such a bad experience living rurally.
Yes, the OP was talking about the extra work, but was also talking about the things she missed about the city. THAT'S what I was responding to.
It wasn't a troll post at all. It was an attempt to explore another angle of the psychology of the "rural vs urban" question.
The freedom I talk about here all the time has nothing to do with rural vs urban. It has to do with the ability of the individual to chart his/her own course in life without outside interference. That needn't be rural or urban.
We have never been self-sufficient; however, we have lived off-the-grid in our hand tool-build strawbale. We lived up against national forest down a rough forest service road, chopped wood for all our heat, hauled water from our solar well, set up solar for the cottage. The hardest thing for me was having to fire up a chofu woodstove bathtub in order to have a weekly bath. Filling the tub with hoses, heating the water.... we only would do it weekly and less during forest fire season. I missed my daily tub soak! My dirty, aching muscles from the physical work needed a bath. What a primadona, huh!?
Frankly, most people i know who live in the country (and by "country" I mean at least an hour to the nearest WalMart) don't live a subsistence life, either.
Most farmers and ranchers today are working far fewer hours than their grandparents would have dreamed of, and doing much better in spite of it.
Because they're not trying to be self sufficient. They have all the conveniences the townspeople have except for a longer ride to the stores and entertainment. They're not greening it off the grid.
Done it all my life, not a big problem.
I started working in town when I was young due to severe life threatning allergies. I seem to have outgrown them and they don't bother me anymore. I still do most of this on weekends/holidays/vacations as my family is still rural and I work with them. I will retire to the land again as soon as I can.
It isn't better than city living if you like city living, I don't. Just as you don't like the country.
Neither is the best, just the best for what you want. I can't stand the city, you can't stand the country. Lucky we have the choice to live and do what we want isn't it?
You didn't add the person's name who you replied to. The person who replied to me. Why did you remove their name?
While we aren't quite 100% self-sufficient, we did clear our land, build our cabin, set up our own power system, get heat and water etc etc. Now that the structures are in place, we'll be able to focus more on food production. Anyway, here are my answers (keep in mind that I was the instigator of our backwoods move, not my husband... so this might not help you with your wife):
1) How much money did you have when you made the jump?
We'd paid off the land, 2 years of food storage, enough cash to purchase the materials and tools to build the cabin, and a bit left over for incidentals.
This is good. And at least one of you are employed so both can have health Ins. Don't down-put health Ins because one broken leg or something like cancer can wipe out every penny you have.
2) Are you happier now than you were when you lived in the "modern system"?
Yes, without a doubt. I was miserable back in civilization trapped in the system.
How were you "trapped?" Here in the USA you could have changed jobs, changed neighborhoods, even changed friends if you didn't like the ones you had. Only welfare people with no motivation are trapped - self trapped.
3) Why are you happier (or not happier) now?
I'd say it's more because we aren't living in close proximity to society, and not because we prefer having limited modern conveniences. For the most part, we don't miss the modern conveniences we don't have too often... you get used to it. The biggest plus for us is that we're no longer slaving our lives away to earn a percentage of what someone else is making on our labor while paying more than it cost them to manufacture it. We no longer sell our lives at wholesale wages while buying what we need at retail prices. We have much more say in how we spend our time and energy; as long as we meet our few external obligations on time, what we do with the rest of our day is completely up to us and we can pretty much do it however when want whenever we want... nobody has us under review anymore.
Then there is more to this than you're telling us. You have plenty of cash to live on if neither of you work fulltime yet can buy the things you need including gas for your car or truck, the already mentioned health Ins, clothing, food you don't grown yourself, your dentist bills etc. You're still tied-in or as you call it, trapped. You are not self sufficient. The money is coming either from your savings or investments or you inherited it from family. So what you are doing is playing Daniel Boone and it wouldn't work for someone with no cash-stash. Maybe you can tell us exactly what your monthly bills are so others can get an idea of the costs involved.
4) Do you have any advice that I could pass along to my wife, given that you're further down the road than I am?
Have her list the things she absolutely does and doesn't want... if she can identify the things she feels are important (separate from how they're done/obtained today) and why she feels they are important, she may just realize that she won't necessarily be giving anything up, just changing the method and means. Sometimes we get hung up on something because it makes us feel something (safe, secure, comforted, etc)... but the important thing is the feeling, not necessarily the object.
Not everyone can live in social isolation and isolation is part of the self sufficient lifestyle. Human beings are social animals and need other people.
For instance, my DH is a gamer, that's his form of entertainment and relaxation... so, we still have his video games but we no longer have every console platform ever made, the mega-screen TV or elaborate surround sound system. He still gets to game, but on a more efficient system and only when we're generating enough power. I'd love to have pressurized hot water on demand and an automatic dishwasher, but it's really no hardship to boil water on the stove and wash the dished by hand (or eat off paper plates when I can't be bothered).
And you've been doing this for how many years or decades now? Did you raise you children in this environment also? What is YOUR entertainment and relaxation while he plays his games?
Because they're not trying to be self sufficient. They have all the conveniences the townspeople have except for a longer ride to the stores and entertainment. They're not greening it off the grid.
What is YOUR entertainment and relaxation while he plays his games?
I don't want to answer her question for her, but I happen to know she is like me in one way: she is an introvert. As an introvert, outside stimulus is almost never needed for entertainment.
I think I'm, perhaps, more extreme an introvert that her (but, maybe not), and seriously, I can sit and stare at a wall for an hour and be entertained. My brain is 10,000,000 miles away. But, generally, an introvert gets entertainment by reading, hobbies, and other activities that require only one person. Mine are writing, artwork (watercolors, oils), music (classical guitar), and some other things. None of these require any social contact.
I don't want to answer her question for her, but I happen to know she is like me in one way: she is an introvert. As an introvert, outside stimulus is almost never needed for entertainment.
I think I'm, perhaps, more extreme an introvert that her (but, maybe not), and seriously, I can sit and stare at a wall for an hour and be entertained. My brain is 10,000,000 miles away. But, generally, an introvert gets entertainment by reading, hobbies, and other activities that require only one person. Mine are writing, artwork (watercolors, oils), music (classical guitar), and some other things. None of these require any social contact.
I'm sure she'll have a better answer, though.
You write a lot of posts here and I am betting on forums other than CD. That tells me that really you do crave human interaction - you have just found a way to do it without facing the people...
=^..^= All is well and good until the current dollar set up gets figured out. If you look at AMPEX you will find junk silver coins USD of 90% silver at face value costs 26 bucks today for all practical purposes.
1/26th of a dollar is what the current 1 dollar bill is worth TODAY, which proves the big Govt Feds subsidize dollars..
I don't feel like breaking that down any more than that to get what ever it would be. But what ever it ends up as today a gallon of gas at apx 43.65 ain't bad and that 12 or 13 Fed Res Notes are not really enough.....
Being the diesel is higher yet per gallon it isn't possible to burn that fuel to produce food for a lot longer before this bubble also bursts.
What will will do when a gallon of gas exceeds 5 to 7 dollars a gallon and perhaps a bag of tater chips cost 6 ton 9 dollars?
Or it costs $2,500.00 for a weeks worth of groceries?
Worse if the Govt comes out with the truth and tells us the dollar is a negative figure which it IS.
There is a reason the Govt does NOT print it's own currency anymore, and hasn't since it was turned over to a private press called Federal Reserve.
The people just discovered they could vote in largess.
lar·gess also lar·gesse (lär-zhs, -js, lärjs)
n.
1.
a. Liberality in bestowing gifts, especially in a lofty or condescending manner.
b. Money or gifts bestowed.
2. Generosity of spirit or attitude.
This will end the notion of money in the USA with no stated value..
A soul could say he wanted 100 USD for a bag of chips......... I guess then it depends on how bad someone wants chips...
That's ok for me, since i have charged over 100 USD to pull a car out of a mountain ditch.. CASH. But that cost will certainly go up if a bag of chips does...
There is a point where items are just not worth it, or worth the fix. I encountered this over the past summer.
Guy brings in a dead lawnmower. The coil that makes spark is dead. I spent the 1st hour removing that and testing it to prove it was dead. The cost is over 60 USD and it would take another 2 hours.
3 hours and the part isn't worth a lawn mower, so it was junked here.
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How can you pass judgment on anyone if you are not in these shoes?
