content: Doing this right now... I agree completely.  I wake to one of two things.  A rooster or a baby.  I don't have a watch. I nailed my watch to a tree years ago and it hung out there on that tree for years until the battery died.  The alarm was still set for 5:00am.  I go look at it sometimes. I nearly never know what day it is. Sometimes I don't know what month it is.  People think I am crazy and its awesome. All my electricity (with rare occasions in the winter) comes from the sun.  My house is made from the trees on my own land.  I have big gardens and pigs and chickens.  I never go to the doctor. I never get sick.  I sleep whenever I want and wake whenever I feel like it. I could live nearly indefinitely off of $500 a month.  I can live like a fucking KING off of $1k a month.  I could go for a year with only minimal difficulty with nearly no money at all.    It takes about 2 hours a day to feed a small family around 80% of their calories and other needs from the land.  I do a lot of small stuff and do some work for people and have a lease on part of my land for paper.  Every month I have extra to buy silver or something I can't really make.  The setup is A LOT of work. Like 2 years balls-to-the-wall 18 hours a day learning and building. Once things are set up thoug there is nearly nothing to do for weeks at a time so I play with my kids and make stuff and sell it at my roadside stand. My wife works part time from home.    Some gardens and a swarm of chickens and some pigs is the deal.  10 forested acres with year-round water and decent rain is all that is really needed.  Trees are life. They are food and fuel and shade and heat.  Getting land is the real trick BUT there are a lot of tricks to get decent land reasonably cheap.  ANYONE in good health who can dump their debt and camp for 2 years  without bitching out can build a real life and future for a family.  If you dont know how then ask me and I will tell you everything I know.