Finding a balance.

I get great satisfaction from self sufficiency. The personal satisfaction of providing for myself and my family, the knowledge of where my food comes from and what is in it, the taste and quality of home grown/made food.There is also the idea that I am contributing less to environmental destruction.
I measure my level of self sufficiency by how little I spend, it is a great indicator.
It is almost 5 years since I began my latest self sufficiency project. In order to have the necessary time to do things myself, I do not work much in the outside world. So income is limited enforcing the constraint on spending.

January this year our per person income available to our lifestyle halved, so now surviving on AUD $100 each per week. Vet bills have given us a hammering, I put them on the credit card, then had to draw on savings we were building up to pay other expenses due in the coming months in order to clear the credit card without paying interest. When the margin is so very tight, one can not afford to make expensive mistakes.

We remain on the electricity grid, we make money from it, and a home battery setup would just be a cost that would never be recovered.Going off grid would be a huge disaster for us. Our surplus solar power pays for our home and contents insurance and both mobile phones.
Local government taxes and internet costs have to come from our minimal living income.

We have town water, it is compulsory to be connected, but not compulsory to use it. It has been very dry here, we water gardens from free underground sources, powered by out independent outside solar setup. We made this ourselves as it is not grid connected. This water is unsuitable for drinking. We have not insed rain water tanks, in recent years we have not had much regular rain and the saving would be minimal and the water would run out quickly. We pay AUD $2-85 for 1000 litres of water, which equates to 1 cent Australian per US gallon.It would cost us about $1500 to have a 5000 litres rainwater minimally insed. Based on recent rainfall patterns this would yield us
20,000 litres per year. We use 56.000 litres per year for internal use. So a rainwater tank would save us $57 a year and take up garden space. Not a viable option.

We currently run 2 vehicles, very fuel efficient, diesel cost for both is under $100 a month, but insurance and registration are our gest annual cost. Something we are looking into but not getting very far with our transport authority in regard to electric vehicles for local road only use.

The point of this post when I finally get to it is money.
We USE money. We make use of it. Not in amount but as a tool.
We barter as much as we can, but money has its uses.
End of this week is yoghurt making, it costs less than $1 per litre to make as I have access to cheap milk, 50 cents per litre. I could buy cheap ice cream for $1 per litre, but it is not healthy and full of chemicals.
We buy some food because we either cannot produce it ourselves, and often because it is less expensive to buy it than to produce it. Milk would be a perfect example. Going vegan and trying to produce nut milk would be even harder.
Even our egg production is not inexpensive as we do not have lots of land for chooks to forage.
The reality of our situation is that we need money, to cover the costs of living in a money based society, but also as it is not possible to provide everything we need ourselves. Buying some things is the more sustainable option for us.
May 31st this year is our deadline for the establishment of our home. June 1st onward we aim to have our systems including financial bedded down. No room for luxuries, but certainly less work than what we have had to do during the past 5 years, so maybe between chores more time to relax and enjoy.

This is my 3rd attempt at self sufficiency, the first was on acreage and worked well for 7 years, though I did have decent cash reserves that I dwindled away during this time, I also had kids to educate, so went mainstream again. One advantage I had then that I don't now is that I had that running under a corporate entity, invested well under the company name, and the returns paid all the external costs, the Tax office was satisfied that it was not a profitable venture and left me alone.

The 2nd attempt was looking great but I got ripped off and lost the place as soon as it was finished. There are many lessons that need to be learnt.

If there were others in my locality interested in self sufficiency I could look into things such as car sharing, but sadly, money is king here, rent is impossibly high, land prices keep sky rocketing, celebrities are currently buying up within a bike ride. sigh !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!