I'm not feeling too eloquent and I don't feel like taking the time to develope a well thought out and composed post so you get the usual. Short choppy incoherent bullets with maybe a smattering of misspellings thrown in for good measure.
I think self reliance is a more accurate term. To me self sufficiency is not needing anything from the "outside". Outside your own little piece of land. It includes growing ALL your own food. Growing includes gathering and hunting. You can take it even farther to the point where you don't need a job because you don't need money because you don't buy anything. That is the extreme.
Self reliance is a spectrum. You do whatever you can to not be dependant on others. It starts with living within your means. It means taking a hard look at your lifestyle. What good does it do to have a beautiful vegetable garden and fruit trees if you are drowning in debt because your toys are so expensive. If you live in an apartment it can mean having a tomato plant in a bucket on your balcony. If you have a house with a lot it can mean having a garden and fruit trees. If you have acreage it can mean more. It means preserving food. It means doing things yourself like repairing and building.
Self reliance is living within your means and doing what you can to limit your dependance on the world outside your own little space. It means different things to different people. What you do depends on your own situation. The BubblingBrooks live in Alaska, they depend a lot on wild game. Abi lives in an apartment, she depends on good buys and doing things herself.
