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TechnoratiEconomic Survivalists Take Root
When the economy started to squeeze the Wojtowicz family, they gave up vacation cruises, restaurant meals, new clothes and high-tech toys to become 21st-century homesteaders.
![[Gabrielle Wojtowicz, left, and her father Patrick feed animals on their 40 acres near Alma, Mich. (Al Goldis for USA TODAY)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/survival_economy.jpg "survival_economy.jpg")
Now Patrick Wojtowicz, 36, his wife Melissa, 37, and daughter Gabrielle, 15, raise pigs and chickens for food on 40 acres near Alma, Mich. They're planning a garden and installing a wood furnace. They disconnected the satellite TV and radio, ditched their dishwasher and a big truck and started buying clothes at resale shops.
"As long as we can keep decreasing our bills, we can keep making less money," Patrick says. "We're not saying this is right for everybody, but it's right for us."
Hard times are creating economic survivalists such as the Wojtowicz family who are paring expenses by becoming more self-sufficient.
Reviving "almost lost" skills and preparing for tough days make people feel more in control, says Charlotte Richert, consumer sciences educator for Oklahoma State University's Extension Service in Tulsa County.
Karen Gulliver, MBA program chair at Argosy University in Eagan, Minn., expects the movement to grow as the sour economy forces people to reassess priorities. People are asking, "Do I really want to be 100% vulnerable with no self-sufficiency skills if something happens?" she says.
Some signs of the trend:
•Stockpiling. When the stock market drops, orders surge for freeze-dried food, survival kits and emergency supplies, says Nitro-Pak president Harry Weyandt. One best seller: a $3,375 food reserve that feeds four people for three months.
•Gardening. Sales of vegetable seeds and transplants are up 30% from 2008 at W. Atlee Burpee, the USA's largest seed company. The National Gardening Association says 7 million more households will grow food this year than in 2008 - a 19% rise. A book on building root cellars is the top seller at Johnny's Selected Seeds in Winslow, Maine, supervisor Joann Matuzas says.
•Canning. Jarden Corp. says sales of its Ball and Kerr canning and preserving products are up more than 30% from 2008. Sonya Staffan, owner of The Jam and Jelly Lady commercial cannery in Lebanon, Ohio, is offering twice as many classes this year.
•Sewing. More people are learning to sew so they can mend clothes and make home décor, says Rachel Cohen, spokeswoman for SVP Worldwide, owner of sewing-products makers Singer and Husqvarna Viking.
•Relocating. Steve Saltman, general manager of LandAndFarm.com, a national real estate company, says more customers want to "live simply in a less-expensive place." Jonathan Rawles of SurvivalRealty.com says more people moving to rural areas "are specifically worried about economic and social instability."
Patrick Wojtowicz's family decided to transform their lives when his paycheck began to shrink last year. A truck driver, he was spending more time on the road, paying his own expenses while waiting for loads. He disliked being away from home for weeks at a time and worried about losing his job. Melissa Wojtowicz is self-employed and works from home.
Their dual paychecks allowed them to live comfortably, but they weren't satisfied, Patrick says. "We would basically buy stuff to feel good," he says. "When that stuff stopped filling the voids we had, we started analyzing what it was that we were really missing. We were missing being around each other."
The Wojtowiczes made a list of the things they could give up if Patrick quit his job and they relied on Melissa's income. They already lived in a house on property Patrick inherited from his father a few years ago.
Gabrielle "put up enough resistance to qualify as being a teenager," Patrick says, but soon she was reminding her parents to turn off lights to save electricity.
Steps such as that, and keeping the thermostat set on 63 degrees this winter, cut monthly electric bills from $300 to $150, Patrick says. He hunts deer and turkeys. Instead of buying books and going to movies, they visit the library weekly. For Christmas, they got canning gear so they can preserve the food they grow.
"The earn, spend, earn era has come to an end for us," he says on truenorthfound.blogspot.com, their blog. "The idea of living a fuller, more satisfying life seems simple to us now. ... Money, cash, credit, maybe they don't matter. Maybe, just maybe, it is those things that impede our ability to be truly happy."
Whatever happens to the economy, the Wojtowicz family hopes to remain self-sufficient. Instead of spending their tax refund, as they usually did, they used it to pay down debt. They stopped using credit cards and they're trying to build up savings. "I'm working harder than ever," Patrick says, "but it's more satisfying work and ... it's much easier to sleep at night."
18 Comments so far
Show AllIt's fun to read stories of people "pioneering" their way back to "living off the land" and "being self sufficient" but not everyone has 40 acres, or 2, and there are many different niches in the world that need to be filled for our society to be successful and work. (We can't all just go do what this family did, even if we all wanted to.)I'm thinking people aren't going to be willing to give up all the goodies they have worked hard for.We can't go back, we have to go forward into something new and different, it won't look like the Avery's farm, with Charlotte writing "terrific" on her web. Buying clothes at thrift shops is nothing new, nor is cutting our spending, canning or growing a garden. There just happens to be some people who have never experienced some or any of these things, (Just as I've never experienced being given a lot of money to manage or a bit of land to care for) and we can learn from one another if we just share our educated and experiential resources for the collective good. Then maybe we can solve some of our problems. We just get so compartmentalized and inaccessible to one another in terms of differences in our ways of living, ignoring each other because we don't have any occasion to meet, that we don't understand what we can each add to the positive changes we need to make.
A few have mentioned Transition Towns, Permaculture and similar efforts as means to build viable community in preparation for the coming times. Yes, this is good work -- it's certainly better than working for the American corporate hologram.
And yet ... Most of the movement is based on faith in the same institutions, methods, and ways of knowing that produced our present circumstances in the first place, both now and in previous times.
Regarding our circumstances, the changes we're experiencing are less about economics than they are about human population dynamics, basic Earth systems, thermodynamics and other natural laws. North Americans, including Canadians, have language for economics and are engaged in our economic systems from birth, so that's how we perceive our situation. Our lack of attention to more basic factors doesn't mean they don't exist, or that they don't have great powers of change. Capitalist economics is important, but air, water and food (for example) are more important. They cannot always be bought.
A major aspect of most of this "movement" involves bringing local authorities into the fold. When things become truly serious -- and historically this has included currency collapse, infrastructure and supply line breakdowns, increased psychological stress and unhinging, and marked increases in violence and the use of armed force -- "the authorities" and our burgeoning "security apparatus" will sometimes (but not always) get serious, too. They will definitely act according to the hierarchies that feed them and control them, and in the short term the people who run those hierarchies are not necessarily interested in the viability of local communities. Thus, local authorities may sometimes turn TO the Transition Town folks for help, and sometimes turn ON those folks, simply because they've purposely identified themselves.
My points are three:
1) Things could become much more difficult than Transition Towns and similar efforts take into account, and their work could easily be overwhelmed by events and by the surrounding majorities who are not part of their efforts;
2) I personally think viable community will often hinge on invisibility from governmental, security and religious institutions, and so the less any "authorities" know about such a community's plans and actions, the better; and
3) None of these efforts are truly sustainable. In fact, the only humans who have ever even approached true sustainability are hunters and gatherers.
Cheers.
Interesting points, however, the term that comes to mind after reading this is: "A recipe for inaction."
These movements are not based on faith in institutions, but on faith in Nature and our ability to live within its means. Now, if you're talking about hiding from a fascist government, I can't answer that. I do agree that the less authority there is, the better, but people need to do things in organized ways or nothing gets done. Unless you mean we should all wait 'til the government collapses, then change things. I think that's a little too late.
Hunter/gatherers were/are indeed sustainable. Did you know that within Permaculture is the valued practice of foraging (gathering)? Pretty sustainable, huh?
"As long as we can keep decreasing our bills, we can keep making less money," Patrick says. "We're not saying this is right for everybody, but it's right for us."
Well, doing it exactly like that family may not be right for everybody, but what's no right about living frugally, consuming less, and wasting less?
This is EXACTLY what Americans should be doing.
Transition Towns and Permaculture are two ways of doing this while building community and the social networks that will be vital in the post-carbon, post-Ponzi world. And, uncoupling and living more simply can and should be done anywhere - in country, suburbs, and cities.
Those who see this as an aberration aren't paying attention. While we may not be feeling the need for it yet, we will at some point in the not too distant future. May as well get a jump on things and start teaching ourselves how to live.
HOWEVER BAD IT MAY GET HERE, IT'S WORSE THAN THAT IN WEST AFRICA NOW AND HAS BEEN FOR DECADES.
urban hunger is fun if you are a cannibal with a ten-speed. the future will be one big barbeque!
GO AMISH!!!
fudge you say, maplefudge? sounds like you need a supervisor for your newly formed security detail. let me know.
thanks blueskykate1 - the Transition Network looks brilliant.
As a rule, corporations will try to keep people over a barrel unless a significant part of the population has an easy exit.
As soon as Wal-Mart becomes a monopoly in a small town, all of the store's prices rise 20%. This has happened again and again in small towns. A foresighted small town would pay a competitor to stay in business, or to at least be able to ramp up a couple of weeks after Wal-Mart raises prices 20%.
When the factory down the street has a union in place, my boss can see the handwriting on the wall and she raises my pay without me asking.
When enough people can buy AAA insurance and their neighbors can see the advantages, the remaining insurance companies have to somewhat provide similar services.
Transition Network and other economic survivalists are keeping everyone else's food quality up and prices down, by assuring a free market. The rest of us are getting a free ride off of their hard work.
We need a foresighted local government to reward the hard work going on.
All of my survivalist scenarios end with hordes of armed refugees from a fallen America coming over the hill like locusts to descend on my struggling little fudge farm. And as a Canadian I would want to let them in, offer assistance, some fudge, but there's going to be 300 million of them...
Check out the Transition Network - there are all kinds of people, neighborhoods, small cities, even large cities, making plans for energy descent. The idea behind Transition is that its much better to plan for hard times than to wait until the sh-- hits the fan. These folks are going to be much better off than most, but even better off if they get with thier neighbors and figure out how they can all work together to help each other out. It will be very difficult even so, but impossible if families hole up and attempt to survive on thier own.
Disconnecting from information and communications sources will drive the willfully ignorant to superstition, but at least survival will keep their kids out of the mall.
they have a blog, so therefore they haven't disconnected....truenorthfound.blogspot.com
I don't quite understand the negative comments. I grew up rural and poor (early 50's). We had a large garden, hunted, and fished (maritime area). I suspect that about 1/3 of our groceries were free. I had the good fortune to live near salt water so a fish dinner could be had for free nearly all year around.
Personally I've relocated to a civilized, rural area near a group of universities; there's a tradition of education, learning, social responsibility. These folks are not going to fall apart and start eating the neighbor's pets. There's also a tradition of self-sufficiency.
Many survival skills are TRIVIAL. Take the root cellar - you need a dry, cool area around 55 degrees. The most primitive form of the root cellar is the "potato hole". You simply dig a hole, down about 3', line the hole with straw, dump in potatoes or other roots, cover with straw and dirt. Leave a passage down to the roots, stuffed with straw. When you want a potato, carrot, turnip or whatever, pull out the straw plug, grab your veggies, replace the straw. My dad, who grew up in the teens / early 20s, told me about this, it was common practice in the rural south. Root veggies, easy to grow, will keep all winter. Incidentally in much of the US you can grow root veggies by planting them in the fall, harvest in late fall or perhaps all winter if conditions are good.
Dried beans? Grow the beans - let them mature until they dry. Store in a cool place, keeps for years. You can buy 50' bags of rice. Rice & beans make a very good complimentary diet. Canning can be done with a pressure cooker, jars & lids, and a bonfire if that's all you have. No high tech required. Actually the pressure cooker is optional.
A self-sufficient little farmette might have an orchard, a pond for fish farming, a wood lot for fuel, propane tanks, wood stove, solar (it is trivial to set up a small solar installation to charge a bank of deep-cycle batteries, along with a $100 converter to turn DC to AC if you wish). Maybe some self-sufficient critters like ducks / chickens.
I suspect any major city has about a 2 week supply of groceries. What happens if deliveries are disrupted? After a month, chaos. People do odd things when they are starving. Meantime, back in the cabin, you grab another tater from the "potato hole", cook up one of the chickens (that beady-eyed one you never liked), and maybe gnaw on a turnip while you set back on the porch and read. (Books are cheap! :)
no kidding. a nitropak. what a concept.
ditto in my rural area as well. equally scary is the mental capacity of some of these individuals. there are a lot of short fuses out there, armed to the teeth.
'ol patrick better get those shoats fattened up and in the smokehouse before times start really getting bad. if not, his neighbors will be having fresh bacon.
And, that an awful fancy-looking fence he's using for the pen - looks like it came from Home Depot...
that was the first thing that came to my mind. let's see what happens in a few years with these folks. i wish them well, but to say that they are self-sufficient ("Whatever happens to the economy, the Wojtowicz family hopes to remain self-sufficient." )right now is probably a gross exaggeration. it takes a while to achieve that status. they say they are 'planning' a garden. well you can't eat plans, at least sustainably. "Instead of spending their tax refund, as they usually did, they used it to pay down debt." - as a self-employed person whose youngest child just left my income tax return, i can tell you there probably won't be a refund for them soon. when you are two people without an employer, you just can't offset your self-employment tax with earned income credit, even if you are low income enough to qualify. trust me.
old hippie curmudgeon here.
"They already lived in a house on property Patrick inherited from his father a few years ago." not everyone has that knee up.
While a $3,375 kit to feed four people for three months may qualify as a survival strategy, it is a very high priced one, considering that this article appears to be about cutting the cost of living.
Will moving to the country improve survivability in the face of social instability?
Judging from the number of people packing assault weapons and other military hardware in the rural areas I work in, I wouldn't say so.
Plus in rural area, you will be dependent on gasoline tires, and auto parts to a much greater degree.
And, when people encounter genuine personal economic disaster (rahter than paranoid imaginings of the well-off) and find themselves homeless, do they go to the city of countryside?