Becoming More Self-Reliant in the New Year

Sharing is caring!

The new year is just about here and this means it’s time to be setting goals and working on ways of becoming more self reliant.    What does being self-sufficient mean? 

Simply put, it’s being more dependent on yourself rather than others.  Living within our means and for me, replacing the grocery store.  

Goals For The New Year – Becoming More Self Reliant

Setting goals means looking back over the past year and seeing what worked and what failed.  What was worth the effort and maybe not. 

Admittedly, several of our goals were not accomplished, but this new year – I intend for them to be COMPLETED! Notice the “finish” in this years goals.  

I’m intentionally breaking our goals down into 2 groups:  1) No help needed – it’s all me.  2)  help will be needed to get it started, but I can manage to finish. 

1)  Goals Can Do Myself

• Continue and finish replacing raised bed walls with metal (started Oct 2018)
• Work on and continue debt snowball
• Build garden shed to get garden supplies all in one place 
• Learn how to make ketchup, mustard, barbecue sauce, and minced onions
• Pay off credit card
• Buy a whole beef for the freezer
• Close in and insulate back porch for canning storage and pantry
• Build the fence next to the garage
• Build kitchen herb bed 
• Learn how to make our own beef sticks
• Make our own household cleaners and skin care products
• Dehydrate even more herbs for canning and cooking 
• Increase our emergency preparedness
• Finish perennial vegetable garden  (started July 2018)
• Begin making all dog treats and food (cats too)
• Read more self-reliant, homesteading books (books are knowledge)
• Paint our house 
• Install rain water capture system for the garden
• Grow my blog to be more successful

2)  Goals: Help Needed

• Finish hooking up wood furnace for winter heat (purchased furnace 8/2017 – it’s in place – never hooked it up)
• Complete and finish the green house  (this was started in 2017)
• Remove large dirt piles from the yard 
• Get dirt work finished around the house for proper drainage
• Have gravel put on the driveway
• Install a hand pump to get water out of well when have no electricity
• Build a barn (an old barn was given to us, that we took down – now it needs to be put back together on our property)

I feel the need to tell that all our goals for 2018 were not met.  And this is ok!  If a goal is not accomplished, push it back and continue to work the plan.  

Sometimes, as I said, life gives you road blocks that slow things down a bit.  This year, my husband has done a lot of traveling, and his time at home to work on the property, and has been very limited. 

Looking Back to Last Year

You can read last years goals and find that we have over came many obstacles along our homesteading journey.   I tell you this so that you don’t become discouraged and give up. 

Homesteading and being self reliant does take a lot of work and honestly it is not cheap.  But, the freedoms that come with it are well worth the efforts.  

Set your goals, make a plan and implement your plan.    Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail (Ben Franklin).    There will be road bumps appear in life.  But, having a plan, being prepared and ready to face whatever comes your way – keep pushing you will succeed!  

Goals We Have Accomplished and Now Do Regularly:

We started our adventure of becoming self-sufficient in 2015 and have made headway, but it has taken time.  By far not totally there, but much closer than we were when we started.

We will never be completely self-reliant, but are able to go for several weeks without going to the grocery store.  But I know I will never be able to grow coconuts or almonds to make flour. And since we are a grain-free homestead, I will have to continue to buy these.    

• Grow a large amount of food in our raised bed gardens (27 beds right now)
• Cook and bake from scratch.  No processed foods in our house
• Eat healthy and exercise daily – YOGA
• Start all seedlings indoors for spring planting
• Grow extra seedlings to sale for extra income in the spring
• Compost kitchen scraps into garden soil
• No longer use a dryer – have a clothes line
• Preserve everything we grow (dehydrating, freezing, canning – pickles, relish, beans, tomatoes, salsa, beets, carrots and more
• Store root vegetables for use in the winter (potatoes, onions, etc)
• Start beds with lasagna gardening – use leaves, grass clipping, aged manure and such
• Grow and preserve culinary herbs for cooking and canning
• Buy a quarter beef from a grass fed farm
• Installed a in-line whole house water system and no longer by water in plastic bottle
• Plan the garden each year and have tripled yields so far
• Grow extra produce to sell in the summer 
• Paid off over $30K this year (I tell you this because we have committed to becoming debt free)

Unless you are driven to live a simple life, homesteading goals may not be of interest to you.  We all should strive to grow and do more as individuals and we have chosen to live a life of self-sufficiency and being more self-reliant.   

We do have a ways to go in obtaining our goals, but each year, we get closer and closer to the dream.  What about you, what goals and dreams do you and your family have?  Is it to be more self-reliant, to be debt free, or what? 

Feel free to share your goals in the comments below.  I’d love to hear them.   Or even, what have you accomplished.  Let’s share and learn more about each other.  

Sharing is caring!