Self Sustaining Families, Planning For A Barter Future

This post was inspired by a thread on the SurvivalistBoards.com forum with regard to what items should be prepped for bartering in a SHTF or EOTWAWKI (End Of The World As We Know It) situation. There were some excellent posts about what to plan to barter, and more importantly what not to barter and whether or not you would want anyone to know that you did have stuff to barter.

No matter what the 'survivalist catalyist' is, skills would be first and foremost on the list of things you should have.  If you have skills, you'll always be needed, and if you have the skills which are always in need in order to produce things that are always in need, your safety is almost guaranteed.

What Skills Would Be Useful For Bartering?

1. First Aid/CPR and other medical skills- these are basic, easy to learn skills.
2. Ability to make medicines like penicillin- all drugs are derived from living organisms. Do some research on them and learn some basic chemistry.
3. Ability to desalinate and distill water
4. Ability to create fire
5. Ability to make weapons
6. Ability to mine for ore to make weapons
7. Ability to build shelter
8. Ability to build boats
9. Ability to harness, transfer and store solar power, and wind power.
10. Ability to grow food
11. Ability to hunt and trap animals, including fishing.   

Obviously if we faced an 'end of the world as we know it' global crisis that wipes out 2/3 of the human race, leaving us in a Mad Max or Waterworld situation, safety will be a main concern and having any kind of food, water or other perishables could make you a target for those who never bothered to prepare for such a day.  If we still have farmable land, becoming a squatting farmer will most likely be what we turn to for our survival.  In a Waterworld situation, boat building and fishing will become the ways of the world.

I got to thinking that if all I had was a few skills and water and food, I could be self-sustaining, and I could most likely protect myself, but I've always been the type who wants to have an 'edge' so I started to think about what isn't 'necessary' but what people would want and miss should 'the end of the world as we know it' come to pass. The first thing I thought of was what I could grow that people wouldn't necessarily 'need' but would want.

Tobacco
Cocoa beans
Cotton
Coffee Beans
Peanut seeds

Plus, the ability to make homemade wines, beers, and other liquors.

Assuming that the EOTWAWKI event leaves us all with an abundance of land that we can farm, I'm going to order tobacco seeds, cocoa beans and cotton seeds from Amazon and store them in my provisions. I was told it's illegal to grow cotton here in Florida, but if it's not or if I can get around the law somehow with a greenhouse, I may grow it just to keep producing seed.  I don't know about laws regarding tobacco or  cocoa either, but if the end of the world comes, I won't need to worry about the idiotic laws that protect businesses.

I'm already planning the distillery supplies for wine, beer and booze, and I collected the 'how to' books on these subjects a long time ago.

I found the video below on the SurvivalBoards.com forum, and now plan on building one of these man made floating islands.  The one in the video is the size of a tennis court, but just as Richie plans to make his bigger, I plan to start out with a 10 x 20 pontoon built much the same way, and then expand it until it is 5 acres in size, and I can put my solar powered green houses on it to grow food, stock it with animal life and float away.

Some ideas I have for creating a self-sustaining and survivalist lifestyle...

When we launched our crowdfunding project for "Two Bites" the healthy eating game for kids, on Kickstarter.com, it really started to irritate this itch I've had for years to teach my kids about being self-sustaining and about survival.

Barring a cataclysmic event oft apocolyptic proportions, financial survival will be covered.  As long as there's an internet, our income and finances will survive any natural disasters like hurricanes, (this one's pretty much a given considering we live in Florida and have survived enough of them), but of course, all the self-sustaining income and food gardens in the world won't mean a thing to us if there is a world wide event like the predictions in 2012, or The Day After Tomorrow, The Core, or any of the 'end of the world movies'... none of our self-sustaining activities will mean much of anything.  Unless we learn how to survive them.

So while we can, we'll work on being self-sustaining, and prepare for the time when survival will precede that.

List of things we need to do to be self-sustaining:
Create income- done

Grow our own food- ongoing project, pictures and updates to come

Desalinate water-  since we live near the Gulf of Mexico, DIY desalination can help us irrigate our garden, provide drinking water, and in the event of a hurricane or other natural disaster that might contaminate or wipe out water and power supplies, water to bathe and wash with.

Purify water-* see above

Harness solar and wind power- *see above

Build a boat bike- this will serve us no matter where we live.  It can provide food from the sea from our family, and give us some great physical, recreational fun too!  We've seen a lot of different kinds of boat bikes, but have yet to decide on a plan for our own.  Here are some examples of boat bikes...






Obviously, we need to modify these plans and designs to be able to carry the 4 people in our family and for our survival plans, but these are great for getting out to fish, and to have some physical family recreational fun too.


Build a sailboat- ok so the boat bike will cover the inshore fish supplies, but the  sailboat can get us further out into the gulf, and possibly outside of the U.S. should the day ever come that we need to get out, and I daresay that I see that happening in my very own lifetime.  This article is filled with all kinds of information and ideas on how to build boats, houses, even your own submarine in case the events of the movie 2012 actually do come to pass.

Build a portable shelter, powered with wind and solar energy-  we've both actually faced the prospect of homelessness and though it never came to that, it came incredibly close... living in a house that was in foreclosure, with no heat and no water.  When I saw these eco-friendly outdoor cottages, I wanted one just for my back yard, but I wanted it to be portable to put on a 'floating' barge and take with me if I'm forced to pick up and move for some reason.  We haven't decided how to make them portable yet, but it's on the list of things to do.

List of things we need to do to survive the apocalypse- or any cataclysmic event.


Build a bicycle plane-  just in case we want to jet to the Bahamas, or get off a collapsing 'ground' (again the events of the movie 2012 haunt me) a flying machine that can be powered by human pedaling, or a small engine, and can land on the water and float is a good thing to have.  Again, all of these ideas would have to be modified to carry our family of 4, at least until our kids are old enough to operate one of their own.

A hot air balloon is also another option.

And, last but not least, an underground shelter, as deep as we can find, fully stocked with all the supplies we'd need to ride out any tidal waves, or solar heat blasts.  This storage facility needs to be water tight, house soil and seed, fresh water, a hand held GPS scuba diving equipment... (maybe one of those DIY submarines) and a small inflatable boat.  Once the 'surge' is over, we should be able to use our scuba gear to rise to the surface, with our inflatable boat and supplies in tow in watertight cases.  At the surface, we can inflate the boat, climb in, power up the GPS and head back toward the last known 'land' until we find it again.

Ok so that last one is a little bit far fetched, but...

Self Sustaining Family Food Ideas

Even though we've wanted our kids to learn about becoming self-sustaining for a while, it was only after we created "Two Bites"- the healthy eating game for kids, that we finally decided to dig in and start planting our own garden. We created the game to get our own 'fussy eater' to try new foods, and learn about nutrition and healthy eating.  What could be healthier than eating the food you grow yourself?

Studies have shown that kids are more likely to eat the delicious meals that they got to help create, and so involving in them in the meal planning and cooking processes are great ways to get them to try new foods, but since mine are still too little to really help out with the 'cooking' part, having them help grow the food and care for it seemed liked a perfect solution.

 One of the 'rewards' we are using for our "Kickstarter Project" to raise funds for producing this game, is 'seeded paper.'

Theses seeded papers are made with a process similar to making papier mache, and are cut into various shapes.  I've seen them with string attached so they can be worn as a necklace, which makes a great conversation piece.  But even if you don't wear them, or after you're done wearing them, you place the whole piece into some soil, water, and watch your garden grown.

We had only seen flowers and shapes that really didn't have anything to do with food...

Except for this one in the shape of the cupcake-

so we researched how to make them, and we headed to our local flea market in search of cookie cutters in the shapes of food.

I tried to start an egg carton garden with my oldest a couple of years ago, but he was only 3 at the time and he just didn't have the attention span for it.  But now that he's 5, we're trying again and although the youngest is now 3, he's following his big brother and not getting distracted as easily as big brother did at the same age.

First we bought some potting soil and seeds for pumpkins, peas, zucchinni, onions, peppers, squash, watermelon, lettuce, spinach, parsely and cilantro.  We bought the plastic container garden for starting them, and went home and began our mission to growing our own food.

When we hit the flea market in search of the cookie cutters, we also bought a few plants.  I thought that having something that was already sprouted to plant in the ground would engage the kids more, and I was right.  We got 1 oregano plant, 4 basil plants, and 4 tomato plants, and planted them in the flower beds surrounding the front of the house.

Although I would have preferred having the food garden in the back yard, there are just too many trees and too much shade in our back yard.  One of my goals is to get Shane and the boys to build me a portable greenhouse, since we know we'll be moving to another house as soon as we find one with the land we want to be as self-sustaining as possible.  

This one from Amazon is perfect for my yard and budget.

Now our garden is almost fully planted, though I would like to add some cantaloupe and honeydew to our crop.  With the Florida summer setting in, I'm limited on what I can grow until I get that greenhouse.       

I can grow anything if I can control the climate, and that of course is what a greenhouse is great for.  

We've created our self-sustaining income, we've begun our self sustaining food growth project, and we're now ready to start learning about DIY alternative energies like solar and wind power, and since we live so close to the Gulf, we're also going to learn about DIY water desalination, and purification.                                       

Welcome To Self Sustaining Families

We are a young semi-suburan, semi-rural family, learning to become self sustaining in the aftermath of what we've seen happen during these early years of the 21st century.

I'm Dani, wife to Shane, and mom to our two sons Michael, 5 and Daniel, 3.

Back in 2007, after my business went under due to the economy, I started looking at new ways to be self-sustaining, both financially and in terms of my lifestyle.

I took an interest in solar and wind power.  I always enjoyed gardening, and started looking into organic growing, and I started thinking about ways to create multiple streams of income.

I started writing and blogging online for income, and in 2009 I met my husband Shane.  We got married in 2010 and agreed to turn my online income into a full time business together.  In 2011 we created "Two Bites," the healthy eating game that encourages kids to try new foods, develop healthy eating habits, and learn about nutrition.  We launched a project on a crowdfunding site called "Kickstarter.com" to raise enough money to get the game into production, and to promote the Kickstarter project, we started our first family garden, and other self-sustaining projects to share with our backers, fans and readers.

I'm Shane, husband to Dani and Daddy to our two beautiful boys.

I was an EMT when Dani and I met, and I've always enjoyed family life, the outdoors and nature.  Teaching our children to care for themselves, grow their own food, and learn how to make their own way in the world is important to me and to Dani..  I was a boy scout and I want the same thing for our kids.  The worlds agricultural land supply is diminishing, the costs of food and shelter are rising, and the economies of countless countries are taking a hard hit due to the changes in the way people want to live.

We want to go back to the simpler ways of life. Growing our own food, building our own shelter, and teaching our kids how to survive.  Even financing has gone back to more 'grass roots' ideals thanks to websites like Kickstarter.com and GoFundMe.com.  We're very happy and excited to be a part of all these new ways of living, and we hope to share as many of them as we can, with as many people as we can, through this blog.

This blog will look at things like self-sustaining income opportunities, crowdfunding ideas for exploring those self sustaining income opportunities, as well as other methods of becoming self-sustaining such as how to desalinate and purify water, how to grow your own food, how to build your own shelter, and even some other eco-friendly building projects, like boats!