A big part for many of living self sufficient is to move of the city and enjoy rural living. Rural living has so many benefits to it there are however the some negatives given, well, its location.To make the most of rural living there are some things you can do which will make the transition easier and make life in general more efficient. Here are a few tips to succeed in rural living.

While the idea of living self sufficient in a rural living condition is the goal, we do however need to go into the city now and again for supplies. Before heading out, plan your trips and consider the big picture. Try to map out a route that will hit many of your errands in one big drive rather then having to run back and forth to the city many times over a short period of time.

Much like the first step for success in rural living, consider what type of events your children, spouse or yourself may have planned and try to work them into your errand schedule. If you know you have to drive your kids into the city for something, work your errands into the run to save yourself time and energy.

Find local stores to serve the need of most of your rural living wants. Granted big grocery stores or supply places like Home Depot or Lowes can make life convenient but when you are in a rural living situation, find local stores that you can go to. The more you can support your local economy will make life easier on you for less driving time and overall improve relations with your neighbors.

I talked about why you should build a hydroponic garden but to fair about it, I should explain some of the drawbacks to building a hydroponic garden.

Unlike building a garden in the backyard right in the soil, when you build a hydroponic garden it takes a great deal more time and more money. Equipment costs to set up the hydroponic garden not only costs more money but finding it may not be easy.

Once setup, the long term costs are less then a normal garden but start up costs are much higher and take more time to create the environment.

Another big disadvantage of building a hydroponic garden is that it is all energy driven. There is a pump which keeps the water system movement which means it a power outage could ruin your garden. When you build a hydroponic garden, consider alternative ways to power your pump so that an outage does not mean the end of your garden.

Finally, you need to have some understanding of what it takes to balance pH levels, proper amounts of nutrition and be able to spend time to monitor where your garden is at. In the soil you start out with a certain level of pH balance and natural nutrition in the soil itself for your plants. When you build a hydroponic garden you start out with a clean slate an you create the environment from scratch. This takes additional research on your part to ensure you set it up correctly and at the right levels for whatever you are planting.

Overall, the hardest part of building a hydroponic garden is just the initial creation stage and learning how to maintain it. Once you get that under your belt it is a much more rewarding garden then your traditional gardens if you have the time and money to build one of your own.

Let’s start with the basic definition of what a hydroponic garden is and go from there. A hydroponic garden simply defined is one without any soil use but grows solely in a different medium such as water.

Why would someone want to do this? Well as a plant tries to grow its roots need to expand. In order to do this the plant needs to push through at times thick soil for the roots to grow. This is inefficient while in a hydroponic garden, there is no pushback or waste of energy for a plant to grow. It simply expands without resistance.

Another great reason build a hydroponic garden is that the plants receive constant supplies needed to survive. In soil, plants need to search for nutrients. The roots expand and search out water and nutrition from the soil which it may or may not find. When you build a hydroponic garden you build an environment where the plant is constantly provided water and nutrients in the medium in which it is growing.

Additional benefits of building a hydroponic garden includes the ability to have complete control over pH level, less instances of pests and insects and complete control over nutritional intake of the plants. The end result is a healthier garden that grows much quicker if you build your own hydroponic garden.

Before you get started on building a hydroponic garden, be sure to learn the negatives of a hydroponic garden.

Put simply, homesteading is started with a purchase of land with a farm. Now the details of how much land do you need to homestead or what size farm should be included to homestead really depends on what you plan to do when you are homesteading.

Many people want to live self sufficiently so they decide homesteading is the right option for them. If their complete intent is to raise livestock and crops for both personal use and commercial use, they will have much larger requirements then say the family that wants to homestead for personal use only.

Homesteading starts with really defining what it is you intend to do with your land and farm. Figure out if you want to raise livestock what types? What is the purpose of raising the livestock? Different animals have different land requirements. So be sure to research what it is you want with your homestead and then you can figure out the land requirements.

The same goes true for your farm house if plan to move out to a homestead. Do you plan on having chickens, what kind of crops do you want? Again is this for personal or commercial use? The goal of moving out to a homestead is to live off your own land but be sure to not overkill with purchasing more then you need or worse not enough land.

Do research. Understand what your needs are, that is the first step to get started with homesteading.

To start out with let’s define what a renewable energy really means. Renewable energy is any source of power that is quickly replaced by nature. The most common forms of renewable energy used include sunlight, wind, and wood.

The application of these renewable energy can result in a house that is completely using energy which its use has no impact on the environment. What I mean is that each time you use energy not from renewable sources you are burning energy that is not replaceable within our lifetime. Coal is a great example of this.

The sunlight is used to power up solar panels. Solar panels can be used to provide energy for anything from a full house to simply powering up a light in the garden. Any application of solar power means you have helped the environment by making the most of renewable energy. Find out if your house is a good fit for solar energy.

Wind is channeled in the use of a windmill to generate power. The turning of the propellers at the top of a windmill generates friction translated later into power. This power can be used to power anything. The main issue most local areas have with using a windmill is that they are tall and many neighborhoods would stop a person from building them.

Wood is all around us and can be used when it is burnt to produce energy. This energy is usually used to heat houses and backyards all around the world. Rather than turning up the heat in the winter which requires the use of energy which will run out at some point in the future, using wood to heat your home will be around and available year after year.

Renewable energy are sources that will promise you to be available long into the future. They pay for themselves within a few years as your utility bills go down and help the environment on a whole. How we use renewable energy now will make a difference to what is available fifty or one hundred years from now.

So what does it take to really live the self sufficient life fully? It is something I wonder about a good myself as I work to get there on my own. Here is what I think it takes on how to live the self sufficient life.

Food: You need to provide completely for yourself. So this means having land to provide your own crops and livestock. This can take many acres as you would want a range of cattle, pigs, sheep and horses. You would also want to have room for a coup for your chickens. These I would believe are the core animals for living a self sufficient life.

Home: The home should be able to be fully powered on its own and heated. This requires solar panels or windmills to generate power to run the appliances in the house. You would also want a wood stove and solar heater to help in the winters.

Money: While you can cover what you eat and where you live at the end of the day you will need money for taxes, children and other expenses that come up like medical. You need a job that allows you to work from home and be your own boss. These are not easy to find and require a lot of work to get there. Most people who live a self sufficient life work as farmers.

For me when the question is asked how to live a self sufficient life it boils down to just those three categories. Food, Shelter and Finances. If you can figure out a way to be completely independent and manage those three things you have earned the right to call yourself 100% self sufficient.