We love hearing from you, so here is your chance. Introduce yourself and tell us what makes you selfsufficient 'ish'. Go on don't be shy, we welcome one and all. You can also tell us how you heard about us if you like.
Hi everyone, I'm already quite self sufficient but this site seems very useful and I hope to learn alot from you guys.
Is there anyone else here who is planning to move to the country at some stage? I need help, I despise the city and am saving up for a place, luckily my mother bought my first house for me and I have no morgage. If anyone is in a similar position then please contact me maybe we can help each other.
Manchester eh... my home town! I'm now in the middle of rural Aberdeenshire... but would like to say that living in the city doesn't mean to say that you can't be selfsufficient-ish!
A lot of us are in your predicament (including myself) but I am intersted in being as self sufficientish as I can while I am here. I for one would be interested in what you have done up to now to be self sufficient and I am always looking for new ideas. So how a bit of detail, mate?
Basically when i moved into this house (in cheadle, terrace) The garden was paved over!!!!!!!!!!! I ripped it all up till all that was left was soil. It has been my plan since I was a wee nipper to live on a smallholding and this is my first step. (I am now 18, young I know)
At the minute my self sufficiency level is minimum as I have been very busy sorting out the house to make it respectable (I am developing it to sell for profit and get me one step closer to my goal)
At the minute I have an old treasure chest (yes and actual one!) Filled with compost and I have planted every herb known to man, its doing rather well I must say, they all taste as they should hehe, thats about all I have now because I left all my veg in my mothers garden, I didnt feel right transporting them when they are thriving for her :)
I am what you would call a begginer but 2006 and six will hopefully be a good year, any ideas for what I could plant now?
Have to say, I'm not in a similar position to you at all - your mother didn't buy me a house! Other than that, we seem to have some aspirations in common.
A few years ago, I had the idea of being a property developer too, and bought a house in Manchester for, IIRC, about £15k. Sounds unbelievavble now, doesn't it? Unfortunately, before I could do anything to it, it was wrecked by the local riff raff, and I was left with a shell in need of a roof and an inside, and then the council put a repair order of some sort on it. I was left with a property that was a liability, and would have cost me more to renovate than it would have been worth. In the end I sold it for less than I paid for it just to save me from an early heart attack. So I sincerely hope that your venture goes better than that.
These days I'm in two minds about property development as a means to profit. I have done a bit of it myself (usually more successfully than the above example), but too many people do it in a way that doesn't really seem to add anything to the locality. Maximum gain for minimum input, and little regard for anything else. They just force prices up and so deplete local resources without making any real contribution (I'm not saying this is you).
But I'm sure there is a way of doing it that enhances the local environment - by improving a house you can, in a small way, benefit the locality by helping to improve the general standard of an area. If people have a decent home, they may be insipired to take more care of it, of themselves, and of their environment. Perhaps it will help them have a little more self-respect, with all the knock on advantages that has. Maybe I'm deluded, but I like to think that is possible. I hope there are two or three places where I left things better than I found them. More pragmatically, it can also put a bit of money into the local economy, and perhaps provide a little work for people.
So good luck with your ambitions.
BTW, in the 70s I spent several years living in a caravan in the middle of a field about 15 miles south of you in Holmes Chapel. Formative years of my adulthood, they were, but that's another story.
I lived in london all my life and hated it last summer we moved to grimsby but I would happily move more out into the country. I'd love a small holding (since I was little, like you) but have no way of raising the money needed But we have a pretty big garden and I have a veggy garden not far of the size of the allotments here!, bake bread, cook from scratch, reuse/recycle all we can and keep chickens. Yesterday we started building a bike trailer. I've wanted one for a while but have had other things to do first, inculding building 2 six foot fences (about 25ft long) out of pallets. Took a while but looks good now its all up. Trailer is also being built from old pallets
wow all your activities sound amazing guys, i find alot of people seem to buy properties cheap then sell for much more without "developing" atall. The only thing they develop is the price. 15k! impressive, my auntie and uncle bought their house for 5k! Where is the world going, its even at the stage where to even begin smallholding you must be a millionaire, which defies th epoint really. I hate the way i must pay such high prices for land which doesnt actually belong to anyone, i better stop now this subject gets me so mad
anyways good stuff guys, im abit of a handyman/inventor myself! I can build anything from anything, with the correct planning permission of course!
Muddypause wrote:
But I'm sure there is a way of doing it that enhances the local environment - by improving a house you can, in a small way, benefit the locality by helping to improve the general standard of an area.
Hi CityBoy
I think you've already done something to improve the neighbourhood - by ripping up the pavement and starting a garden! I wish everybody would do as much. I remember one of my profs who got into trouble with his neighbours for planting potatoes in his front garden... It was quite a posh area, and I suddenly had a much better opinion of him, for his courage to go against the general attitude!
Anyway, yes, I'm another one who'd love a small holding, but lack the necessary small change. On the other hand, I already live in the country, four miles from the nearest village, but as it's not my house (comes with the job), I can't do everything I'd like to, and I would like a bit more land, too. Sort of CountryGirlDreaming
wow thats great ina, i think in a few years i will be able to move out of the city and get a nice little place, i will probably need to be a few miles from a town though so i can work a few days to keep things going, im not afraid to drive 30 miles to work if it means im out in the silence :)
hope I can contribute to the other forums the best I can and I hope to get to know you all much better,
Hi CityBoyDreaming - i have lived in both the city and the country - & i know which i prefer
I have always rented & love it - we tend to go more for the more run down houses that most family oriented people may not necessarily go for - then we have way more scope to do to the place what we what - the owners are always more than happy with any improvements we make.
Perhaps looking outside the square for opportunities to suit your needs could lead you in the right direction ...
I would never consider anything that wasnt run down, I dont think that a modern done up place can be considered a smallholders house, I have found that nice small shacks ar ebetter as you spend th emoney on the land, rather than the house, thanks for the tip though :)
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