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With today's growing issues of globalisation, global warming along with the need to "go green", an increasing number of folks are seeking a far more environmentally friendly way of life, including self-sufficiency. To be self-sufficient is to rely on yourself for your survival, in other words, you grow your own food, produce your own electricity, and so forth. Living self-sufficiently is quite an obstacle, which is then further compounded by society's demands for everyone to be interconnected. Thankfully, there are things you can do which will greatly reduce your need for the grid without much of an impact on lifestyle. Here are some tips which can help you be self-sufficient: Growing fruits and vegetables Growing your own food may be a really pleasant experience. You can take it a step further and even have your own compopst bin to make fertilizer. The fact is, if you don't live in a farm area, you won't produce nearly enough food to completely sustain your self. So what is the point of growing food if you are unable to fully sustain yourself?, you may ask. It's really simple, the food tastes better, is much healthier, is a more rewarding experience. Renewable energy Saving and generating electricity is also necessary if you wish to get off the grid. Lots of people living in outlying aeas today are also living off the grid therefore it is certainly doable. To get off the grid you must make use of renewable electricity sources, which will most probably be solar power or wind power. A typical sq meter of solar panel will produce about 1kWh(kilowatt hour) daily. Considering that the average home uses approximately 900 kWh's a month, it will prove to be difficult to fully power your home. To fix this, you need to make your house more energy efficient. Here are a couple measures you can take to reduce your electricity use: - Add insulating material between the cavities of your walls so the heater will not be used as much during Winter - Set up ceiling fans. Ceiling fans can be use of use both in the Winter months and Summer, during the Summer they will blow off cool warm air while in the Winter they'll blow warm air down. This offers you the ability to rely less on your heater and AC unit - Substitute your old windows for double-glazed windows. - Place an insulating jacket around your water heater. Doing this will ensure less energy is used needing to constantly keep the water hot. There is certainly far more that that can be done, but because it is known that almost two thirds of energy is used up on heating and water heating, focus your efforts on those. Water Since only 2% of all water on Earth is drinkable, catching your own drinkable water along with conserving as much as practical is among the biggest factors to consider when attempting to become more self-sufficient. The initial step is to have a rainwater harvesting system set up. A rainwater harvesting system will typically save about 30%-50% of all the water used in an average house, while that is a reasonable amount, that percentage can be stretched even further by integrating a few water conserving measures into your house. - If you're using a faucet and waiting for the water to warm up, collect the cool water so you're able to reuse itin your garden. - If your washer is old, replace it with a newer, more water efficient washer. Just seek out the Water Efficiency Labeling Standards(WELS) sticker. Also make sure that you choose to buy a front-loader as they usually use 30% less water in comparison to the regular top-loader - Make sure there aren't any dripping taps. This can be carried out by closing off all the water in your property, and observing your water meter reading. After a few hours check again, if the reading adjusted, water is going to waste Remember that these steps is only going to make you more independent, not completely self-sufficient, because becoming fully self-sufficient calls for a massive change of life style for most people and is often quite difficult. However doing these is a step in the right direction. For further information on how you can become self sufficient , visit the Self-sufficiency-today webpage
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