Top 9 Self Sufficiency Skills You NEED

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Do you think everything will stay the same as it is now? Are there some self-sufficiency skills you could learn that would make your life better today?

Self-sufficiency skills you need

Having skills to care for yourself and those around you are more important than you might think. Try to imagine with the recent flooding from the hurricanes and the recent fires that are burning all over several states how things can change in a moment without you having any time to prepare for them.

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Knowing how to take care of yourself and help others will be helpful in times of any crisis. Having water and food stored is always a good idea. You never know when you may need it. Even DHS has daycare providers prepare supplies for sudden evacuation. It’s always a good idea to be ready for anything. Click here to see more reasons to be prepared for unknown things that may come. 

There are a few skills you can learn that will help improve the quality of your life now as well as come in handy for disaster times should you encounter them. You have basic needs and if all supplies are cut off such as in the recent disasters, what would you do? Do you know how to find food, water, and shelter?

Basic needs in times of crisis

The best thing to do in times of crisis is stay put in your home. Of course, there may be times when that could prove impossible, but in most cases, staying home is the best and safest option.

If you have shelter, food and water and the next things of concern. There are 9 basic things you need to know how to do to survive times when our current systems may fail. But these 9 self-sufficiency skills will also improve the quality of your life today.

See the bottom of the post for information on how to become more self-sufficient.

Food skills for self-sufficiency

Your family can save a ton of money by growing your own food. Learning to produce food is a great way to be self-sufficient and save big time on your budget. If our food systems fail, you will be prepared to take care of your own family. Click here to see how to start a garden. 

Learning to save seeds from your garden is a great skill to have that will help you continue to produce food in the future. Click here to see how to save your own seeds. 

It’s a good idea to have seeds stored for a basic garden should you need to start producing food, but remember, if all of the food suddenly is unavailable, you’ll need to have some things growing because it takes time for food to grow. Foraging is another great skill to have for finding food when the time comes that it’s needed. There is food all around us, but we have to have the skills and knowledge to know how to find it.

Self-sufficiency skills in getting meat

Obtaining meat will be important if the time comes that food is no longer available. Spend some time thinking if you would like to hunt for food. If so, how will you kill what you find? Do you have a weapon that will help you obtain meat?

Another option for protein is fishing. Do you have the basic fishing gear to help you find food if you need it?

You could raise meat animals. Tilapia, rabbit, and chickens are all easy animals to care for that are great for meat. You could also consider cows, pigs or goats if you have more room. You’ll need to know how to kill and butcher them if you decide to eat meat.

Crisis times aren’t the only times obtaining meat is a good idea. Hunting, fishing, and raising meat animals are great ways to keep costs lower for the food you eat. If you think killing animals for eating is gross or mean, think again about your diet and where it comes from.

When you kill animals yourself, you at least know you did it in a clean way and that it was done humanely. We really don’t have any guarantee of that with store-bought meat.

Click here to learn more about raising your own chickens and here to see more about hunting your own meat.

Cooking from scratch is self-sufficient

Knowing how to prepare food in the most economical way is a great skill to have for daily life. With fast food and tv dinners, we are losing our ability to cook for ourselves. That’s a shame when home-cooked food is so good and so much better for you. You can control the quality and ingredients in your food that makes it healthy for you if you make it yourself.

Practicing cooking self-help skills helps you save money by cutting down on waste as well. Using every bit of what you grow or buy is a skill that takes time to master, but just a little practice and mindfulness is all you need to get there. Learn some basic cooking skills to get you started here.

Food preservation for self-sufficiency

If you grow your own food, what do you do with the excess? How will you keep from wasting what you can’t eat? The garden will produce a lot of one thing at one time and the same is true when you butcher an animal. Do you have room in your freezer to store it all? What if you lose electricity?

Do you know how to can? Do you know how to blanch things for freezing? Many things can be dehydrated to save them. You can even dehydrate them in the sun. Food preservation techniques are great self-sufficiency skills.

Foods can be cured, canned, fermented, dehydrated or frozen. Spend some time learning how to do those things in order to save what you produce for later. Click here to see how to dehydrate.

Click here to see how to blanch vegetables for freezing. And here to see how to can foods in a water bath and here for how to pressure can foods. Also, here to see how to ferment foods and beverages. And here to see how to cure foods.

Self-sufficiency for getting fresh water

Water is the second most important thing you will need for survival after air. Having a little water stored is always a good idea in case of an outage or worse. We have a few jugs of water we keep stored that we change out every few months. You can store it in buckets, 2-liter soda bottles, or other food-safe storage containers. Stored water will only last for so long.

Getting water in crisis times can be done a few ways. If there is a lot of rainwater available, you could harvest it in buckets. It’s best not to collect it from the roof of your house as shingles have harmful chemicals, but you could set buckets out if you have a lot of rain.

If there is a body of water, you can use filter straws or water purifying chemicals to clean the water for drinking.

Be self-sufficient by using what you have or not wasting

Using the food you have root them stem, your animals nose to tail, and your money in a careful way will help you save more for your future. If you have times of crisis, you’ll already have the skills to do it as well.

Click here to see how to cut down on food waste. 

Click here to see how to live a frugal lifestyle and here to see how to cut down on shopping and make things for yourself. 

Eliminate debt for self-sufficiency

If you own everything you have, you will not have to worry about that in times of crisis. You’ll be paying much less for things you need if you pay cash for them rather than borrowing and owing interest. It’s hard to pay down debt, but if you are systematic about it, it can be done. Click here to check out how. 

Not having debt is a great feeling because you’re keeping more of what you earn, but it’s also good to know if there were crisis times, those debts cannot be called back in and you can’t lose what you’ve been working hard for. Put a plan in place to eliminate your debt today.

First aid self-sufficiency

Knowing basic first aid is a great way to plan for the future. There are many times in your daily life that first aid is needed, but in times of crisis, more people need these self-sufficiency skills. Think again of the recent hurricanes. If people needed help and couldn’t get to a doctor, knowing basic first aid can save a life. Enroll in a first aid class as soon as you can and gain the skills to help others in times of need.

What you need to be self-sufficient health

Taking care of your health is a great way to be self-sufficient. Eating healthy food and getting exercise will help you be able to take care of yourself for longer in your life. Being in good shape could make your survival possible when something happens. Say you were displaced from your home and you needed to build a shelter. Being in good physical condition could help you get that done.

There is no guarantee of the future and what it holds. Make sure you are prepared with some basic self-sufficiency skills and a basic plan of what you would do in a crisis. You’ll be so glad you took the time to learn it ahead of time.

Click here for self-sufficiency supplies you should have on hand! 

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