Self Sufficient Lifestyles: Extreme DIY

As we see access to tools and information getting easier, more people are opting to simplify their lives and do things themselves. They are becoming increasingly wary of constantly hustling just to buy or consume, and instead, creating more self sustainable lifestyles. From growing your own food to generating power (in both urban and rural areas) it’s becoming easier and more cost effective to “DIY.”

The San Fransisco Chronicle has an interesting article about a couple who scrapped their rat race lifestyle to embrace this new spirit of going it alone.

By most standards, Carl had been a successful urban businessman. He started a small company when he was in his 20s, and it flourished and grew in the dot-com era and beyond. He was happily married, and he and his wife owned their home in the East Bay. Finances had never been a problem.

Now, on the cusp of 40, Carl found himself living in a double-wide trailer and buying cans of beer from a 90-year old bartender in a Podunk Nevada town. And he had never been happier. His eyes were shining in a way I had never seen when he lived in the city.

A year ago, Carl evacuated from San Francisco and moved to the Nevada desert. He sold the business, sold his house, bought some land and relocated his wife and dog to what he calls the “deep desert.”

Now he’s obsessed with self-reliance and ingenuity, and told me about plans for a windmill that will generate some of the electricity used in the double-wide. As we talked, it became clear that his emigration from city to country had radically changed Carl’s perspective on money, and that living in a scrubby wasteland had forever changed his notion of what is valuable.