How to Become More Self-Sufficient This Year

Life always has a way of surprising us with changes and challenges. Over time, I’ve realized that the more I can rely on myself, the more confident and prepared I feel no matter what comes my way. That’s why I’ve been focusing on ways to become more self-sufficient.

It’s not about doing everything alone, but about learning practical skills, saving money, and creating a lifestyle that doesn’t depend too heavily on outside services or resources.

What Exactly is Self-Sufficiency?

Financial independence is one thing, but I’m definitely trying to become more self-sufficient in many different areas of my life. Becoming self-sufficient means that you can provide for yourself and maintain your lifestyle without a lot of outside aid.

At its core, being self-sufficient means you’re able to provide for yourself and maintain your lifestyle with less dependence on others.

Now, I’m not talking about moving off the grid, raising my own livestock, or living without electricity. For me, self-sufficiency is more about finding ways to “insource” instead of outsourcing everything. That could mean learning to cook more meals at home, taking care of simple household repairs, or even growing a few of my own vegetables. These small steps build valuable life skills, and often lead to saving (and earning) more money in the process.

How to Save Money With Self-Sufficient Living

Start a Garden

This is the one thing I’ve seen a lot of people start doing in recent years while others have been gardening for a while. I plan to expand my garden area next year since I’m currently just working with a GreenStalk vertical planter and a few 5-gallon buckets. But even with this small set up, I’ve been able to grow tons of tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, lettuce, and some peppers this past season.

Gardening is hard work but it’s rewarding and you’ll learn a ton during your first years. Start slow with just one type of vegetable or seed. I’m not going to lie, I often cheat and buy some starter plants that I can just stick in the ground and water. Other times, I try to work with seeds.

You can also start growing your own herbs indoors (this indoor growing system makes it super easy), or start regrowing produce. I absolutely love the idea of regrowing things. You don’t have to throw out the celery stems or even garlic or potatoes that are getting older. You can actually regrow produce from the very vegetables you buy from the store.

Check out the video below to see how this works.

Start a Compost Bin

Do you toss out a lot of food waste? When you’re cooking and discarding certain foods, stems, banana peels, etc. your first thought may just be to throw it away. Instead, consider starting a compost pile. If you’re considering gardening, you might as well start composting too.

Compost is an important nutrient-rich supplement that needs to be added to your garden and lawn soil. The nutrients from your compost will help the soil retain its moisture. Other benefits from composting include:

Offering a natural alternative to chemical fertilizers that are often applied to lawns and garden beds
Warding off plant disease (due to the microscopic organisms that help aerate the soil)
Less landfill waste and possibly a lower your garbage bill

So what can you add to your compost pile? Here are a few ideas:

Wood chips
Table scraps
Shrubs
Newspaper
Leaves
Grass clippings
Fruit and vegetable scraps
Flower cuttings
Eggshells
Coffee grounds
Cardboard

Do not compost meat, bones, fish scraps, or fruit peels that could contain pesticides. Store your compost pile in a bin or bucket with a lid until you are ready to transfer it to a composter. This compost bin is only $28.

Cut Back on Waste – Especially Food Waste!

Cut back on waste in your home by being more intentional about what you buy and repurposing things. Paper waste is something we are trying to cut back on but paper plates are so darn convenient 🙂 especially during busy nights when we barely have time to wash dishes.

However, we’re cutting back in other ways like opting for paperless billing, opting out of receiving credit card mail offers (go here to do this), and buying reusable coffee cups that we can bring on the go with our homemade coffee. You can also use reusable containers, rechargeable batteries, and meal plan more efficiently.

I like to plan out meals for two weeks then create a shopping list based on those foods. Each meal is listed out for the coinciding day so even if plans change, I have a good inventory system of what’s in my fridge or freezer. At the end of every week, I reorganized the refrigerator and push certain items forward so they can be used before going bad.

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Learn Some Survival Skills

Basic survival skills are important for anyone to learn. Modern conveniences are all around us, but you may have to leverage survival skills on a whim or in an emergency situation. It’s important to know how to do things like:

Start a fire
Purify water
Navigating and reading a map or compass
Learning CPR
Tying a knot (an underrated but VERY necessary skill)
Using a tarp
1st Aid

You can find online guides and YouTube videos helping you learn all these things. Make it fun and get the whole family involves as a weekend activity.

Start Preserving Food

If you haven’t already, consider investing in a deep freezer so you can store food for longer periods of time. Freezing helps slow the deterioration of food. Also, consider learning canning or pickling for some of your foods.

With the fall season right around the corner, I plan to can some fruits or make apple butter just as an experiment.

Basic Car Maintenance and Repair

Cars are a depreciating asset and they’re going to break down often at the least convenient times. Instead of running out to an auto mechanic, I’ve been wanting to challenge myself to learn how to do some basic auto maintenance and repair work.

A few years ago, I learned how to change my car’s air filter. This year, I need to learn how to change a flat tire along with how to change my oil.

Of course, there are YouTube videos out there that can help with this along with some great tip articles.

How to Become More Self-Sufficient And Earn More Money

Learn How to DIY Something

DIY became trendy again in recent years, but back in the day I know a lot of people did stuff on their own and didn’t make too big of a deal out of it. One easy way to become more self-sufficient is to find one thing you pay someone to do and try to learn how to do it yourself.

It could be something small and something you feel completely comfortable with doing. This could help you save money or even help you earn more money too.

If you develop a skill that helps your family save, you can consider starting a side hustle with your skill and selling a service to other people as well.

For example, learning how to sew is something I don’t have the patience for, but my sister who went to school for fashion design sews all the time. She can sew up clothes for people in the family and even made our younger sister’s dress when she went on prom.

Earn Passive Income

Earning passive income is one of best ways to build wealth. The average millionaire has at least 7 different sources of income. However, this doesn’t mean they have 7 jobs. Prioritize diversifying your income and exploring things that you can invest in to build passive income.

This may mean investing in realty shares, writing an ebook or getting involved in peer lending. Or, it can involve creating a course you can sell online, making money with affiliate marketing, or even earning cash back and loyalty rewards. Check out my post below for more passive income ideas.

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Start a Landscaping or Gardening Business

If you’re already doing a good job with your own garden and landscaping, consider starting a lawn care side business. Depending on where you live, this may be a seasonal business or just something that you do on weekends.

You can mow lawns, trim bushes, do light planting, and help people tend to their gardens throughout the year. You may need some equipment to get started but you can make anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000 during your first year with a small landscaping business.

Pay Down More Debt

Some people say paying down debt is like giving yourself a raise. This is because it’s true. When a lot of your income is going toward debt each month, it can feel like finances are tight or you’re not making nearly as much money as you should.

When I paid off the bulk of my debt, I felt instant financial relief. I no longer had to put thousands of dollars toward a bill each month. Instead, my money could start working for me.

This is why one of my best self-sufficient tips for modern times would be to tackle your debt. Get organized and implement a plan. Put extra toward your debt when you can and enjoy freeing up your income for other goals when the balance gets eliminated.

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There are quite a few things you can start doing ASAP to adopt a more self-sufficient lifestyle that allows you to save and earn more money.

What are some of your favorite ideas from this list?