3 Reasons Why Self-Sufficiency Has Never Been More Important

Here at the Light Blue Longhouse, we’re all about taking small steps toward self-sufficiency. But why? What’s the big deal? Today, I’m going to share with you three reasons why I think self-sufficiency has never been more important.

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1. Unforeseen circumstances can limit your access to essentials for several days or even weeks.

Look, I’m not suggesting that you go full-Mormon and stocking your pantry with two-year’s worth of shelf stable foods (though if that’s how you want to go about prepping, go for it!). I’m also not suggesting that you become a dedicated, the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it (TEOTWAWKI) prepper. But if COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that we shouldn’t trust the supply chains.

Y’all remember how it was, right? Need toilet paper? You’d better have some stocked up already. Hand sanitizer? Dream on. Businesses shut down and supply chains (at least for some essentials) halted. How do you prepare for something like that?

For starters, you can make a list of essentials for your family and keep a couple weeks’ supply on hand. At all times. Make sure you have enough food, water, and other goods (toilet paper, we’re never leaving you off that list again!) and keep your stash updated.

Rotate through your goods. For example, if your family eats a lot of rice, keep enough rice stashed in your pantry or freezer to feed your family for a couple weeks. But when you buy more rice, make sure you eat the older stuff first and stash the new bag.

Also remember, building your stash doesn’t have to be expensive! Take it slow, maybe by adding one or two things each week or each month—a bag of rice or beans here, a pack of ramen there. Don’t break your budget; instead, start budgeting for your emergency stash.

Another essential that’s often overlooked is gasoline. Personally, I don’t keep extra gallons of gas in my garage (there's really no point, since its shelf life is only six months or so), but I do try to keep my car fueled up. One piece of advice that’s stuck with me is that you shouldn’t let the gas in your car drop below half-empty. That way, if there’s ever a shortage (or if prices skyrocket overnight), you won’t find yourself waiting in gas lines (or just overspending to refuel).

2. Unforeseen circumstances can limit your access to essentials for months or even years.

Disasters can shut down the supply chain at any time. I’ve already mentioned how we saw this play out with COVID-19, but this is also an issue for areas prone to natural disasters. I experienced this in my hometown after Hurricane Harvey; afterward, driving around town felt like navigating a post-apocalyptic film set.

But most of these supply issues are remedied within a few days, maybe a couple weeks at most. What will happen when the grid shuts down for months?

One of the YouTubers I follow is concerned about solar flares. In the past few years, we’ve had a couple of issues with solar interference disrupting cell service. But the flares we’ve seen in recent decades are nothing—if something like the Carrington event occurred today, the entire planet would shut down for months, maybe even years.

Personally, I don’t think it’s a natural disaster or a pandemic that threatens American’s most; I think it’s a foreign attack on our grid. An EMP (electromagnetic pulse) strike would disable anything that runs on electricity. A Carrington-type solar event would do the same, but it would strike the world without discrimination. A targeted attack would cripple Americans.

Think about it for a second—how would Americans react to losing access to the Internet? To cell phones? To working cars? To air conditioning? There would be mass chaos; we wouldn’t be able to function.

The novel Lights Out by David Crawford deals with this exact scenario; it’s not fantastically written, but it’s an entertaining and thought-provoking story. Unlike in most TEOTWAWKI books, the hero doesn’t lone-ranger his way through his problems. Rather, he and his neighbors find ways to work together. It’s worth a read, IMHO (for additional book recommendations, check out my homesteading library post here).

3. Just because circumstances may be unforeseen doesn’t mean you can’t prepare for them now.

While this post might sound like the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist, I figure that my family is better off safe than sorry. I’m not living in fear that the sky is going to fall tomorrow… but if it ever does, I want to know that my family will be alright.

Obviously, no one can plan for every scenario, and hindsight is 20-20. Post-COIVD, we might all keep a stash of toilet paper in our pantries… but the next disaster may leave us kicking ourselves about some other essential we forgot. The point of this post isn’t to spark fear or promote panic-buying; rather, it’s to point out that maybe we should take self-sufficiency (as opposed to grid-dependency) seriously.

In the meantime, whatever steps I take to prepare my family should benefit us now, in that they should help us save time, money, and energy. As a busy suburbanite on a budget, I want to take small steps to prepare for the worst, even while I hope for the best.

How about you and your family? Are there any steps y’all are taking to prepare for unforeseen circumstances? Let me know in the comments!