Peak Living Standards

[JavaScriptDonkey]

smallholdings are taking ages to sell, so perhaps I've misread the situation.

Said it before, no doubt will say it again...

If they are taking ages to sell it is because the vendors have an unrealistic idea of the true open market value. Drop the price and it will sell in 2 weeks.

Exactly.

+1

Damn it's becoming a love fest.

[Catweazle]

smallholdings are taking ages to sell, so perhaps I've misread the situation.

Said it before, no doubt will say it again...

If they are taking ages to sell it is because the vendors have an unrealistic idea of the true open market value. Drop the price and it will sell in 2 weeks.

That's obvious, my point is that if people were making the decision to move out of the suburbs into smallholdings then the money would be available to buy them. I can only assume that people aren't doing it, so either I've misread the situation or very few other people are "getting it"yet.

[Little John]

smallholdings are taking ages to sell, so perhaps I've misread the situation.

Said it before, no doubt will say it again...

If they are taking ages to sell it is because the vendors have an unrealistic idea of the true open market value. Drop the price and it will sell in 2 weeks.

That's obvious, my point is that if people were making the decision to move out of the suburbs into smallholdings then the money would be available to buy them. I can only assume that people aren't doing it, so either I've misread the situation or very few other people are "getting it"yet.

I would say it just comes down to the numbers CW.

Your average citizen with an average paying job who may wish to sell up his box of bricks and move to a small holding is going to have to deal with numbers roughly along the lines of the following:

Assuming a house worth approximately 200k; if he is relatively young, then he will probably still owe about a 100k on the house and so will only be able to walk away with 100k. This would be nowhere near enough to pay for a small holding in cash. Given that he is probably going to have to give up his main job to work on it, he is not going to be in a position to pay a sizable mortgage on a small holding.

Assuming he is old enough to have paid all of the mortgage off his house, he is probably going to be too old to realistically consider moving to a small holding with all of the physical work involved. Again, he is probably going to have to give up his job to work on it and so how is he going to feed himself, pay for the upkeep of the smallholding/prepare for an old age pension etc?

Assuming he has enough money to pay for the small holding outright, assuming he has enough spare cash to keep him fed and pay for maintenance/improvement on the smallholding in the early days, assuming he is still young enough to be able to gather enough resources to see him right when he is too old to work the land, he is probably going to be leaving a significant portion of his extended family behind, possibly miles away from where his small holding is. The ties of family are incredibly strong and most people would, if forced to choose, prefer to be economically insecure in the bosom of their family rather than economically secure, but in isolation.

Having said all of the above, there will be a very small number of people for whom all of the above variables are pointing in the right direction. But, it will be a very small number indeed. This is why the market is as it is. The only way it changes is if prices for smallholdings come down. Frankly I don't see that happening anytime soon. Indeed, I can easily see the opposite happening

[stumuzz]

Couple of points. We ran a smallholding between 92-96 and it was incredibly hard work. I was inspired to get the holding after reading John Seymore. As a twenty something and money being tight, well more than tight, non-existent, we did most things without machinery. An acre of spuds with a spade, pigsties out of scrap and chicken houses out of a Morris Minor. I soon realized that there was better ways to make a living. The bonus I did have was a large family, goods friends and a lifetime of contacts to call on when needed.

Think long and hard about droping out and going to live in the middle of nowhere. Your neighbours will probably be very conservative. Having inherited their place they will feel some form of connection with the area. You will be a stranger. The neighbours will be outwardly nice and pleasant but that deep rooted trust built up over generations will be missing. The GVA of Anglesey is the lowest of any place in the UK. When money comes to Anglesey it dies a death! This is because most of the Island is an informal economy between people who have grown up together (a transition town before the words were thought of) Money rarely changes hands, deeds are exchanged and most importantly when you are in a position to purchase something, the purchase goes to someone you know.

There are better ways of planning for a low energy future than running a smallholding.

[clv101]

There are better ways of planning for a low energy future than running a smallholding.

Answers on a postcard?

[Little John]

Couple of points. We ran a smallholding between 92-96 and it was incredibly hard work. I was inspired to get the holding after reading John Seymore. As a twenty something and money being tight, well more than tight, non-existent, we did most things without machinery. An acre of spuds with a spade, pigsties out of scrap and chicken houses out of a Morris Minor. I soon realized that there was better ways to make a living. The bonus I did have was a large family, goods friends and a lifetime of contacts to call on when needed.

Think long and hard about droping out and going to live in the middle of nowhere. Your neighbours will probably be very conservative. Having inherited their place they will feel some form of connection with the area. You will be a stranger. The neighbours will be outwardly nice and pleasant but that deep rooted trust built up over generations will be missing. The GVA of Anglesey is the lowest of any place in the UK. When money comes to Anglesey it dies a death! This is because most of the Island is an informal economy between people who have grown up together (a transition town before the words were thought of) Money rarely changes hands, deeds are exchanged and most importantly when you are in a position to purchase something, the purchase goes to someone you know.

There are better ways of planning for a low energy future than running a smallholding.

I would, perhaps, argue that there is no better way to prepare than by owning a smallholding, but that this option is denied to most people for the reasons I have mentioned. That being the case, other options must be considered as being the best of a less desirable bunch.

[stumuzz]

I would, perhaps, argue that there is no better way to prepare than by owning a smallholding, but that this option is denied to most people for the reasons I have mentioned. That being the case, other options must be considered as being the best of a less desirable bunch.

Fair point.
However, the changes we will face in the future are all energy related. When I first discovered PO I reduced the energy usage in the house for a year by 60%. It was quite straight forward and cheap to do.
The 60% drop was just Gas and electricity, the same could have been done with embodied energy in stuff and food if needed.

The point I have learnt from running a small holding is this: The energy input is mostly your own physical energy. So do not get old,sick or have a lazy day.

Thirty years ago i remember being in my Granddads house a few days before Christmas. His six children and their many children were all in the house dividing up sacks of carrots,spuds and other veggies which were bought wholesale at the veg market for a fraction of the costs of buying in the shops.
The bigger network you can make now will be a lot easier than running a smallholding.

[UndercoverElephant]

The vast majority will continue believing TPTB can rescue the situation, long after the well-informed, independent-minded people have rightly concluded they cannot. This is the throwing-good-money-after-bad error that humans are very prone to making. The longer you go on believing the system can be rescued, and basing your decisions on this assumption, the harder it seems to admit to yourself that you've been wrong and that you need to change your strategy ASAP. It is completely irrational. Evolution seems to have got our hard-wiring wrong in this case. Instead of thinking "this is where I am, things are not the way I thought they were, I have to forget about the past and plan for the future based on the situation I am in right now" we naturally think "I don't want to feel like I've wasted the last five years pursuing the wrong strategy, so I'm going to keep trying to make it work for a while longer..."

[stumuzz]

There are better ways of planning for a low energy future than running a smallholding.

Answers on a postcard?

1. Sell your car and hire them instead.
2. Whatever you do for a living do it from home
3. Make your home part of a supporting family or other network
4. Learn how to identify and measure energy in all its forms. Find out what energy you are buying and cut down get two or three uses out of your energy.
5. Learn how to repair things.
6. Learn how to value add to allow for successful barter
7. Learn how to harvest food from the wild, it is really enjoyable
8. Learn how to cook
9. Learn how to make and source all of your own food and drink.
10. Grow the expensive not for sale varieties of expensive veg. Herbs, salads etc. leave the growing of the bulk stuff to people who are better at it. Giving up your job to grow five sacks of spuds (£30) is silly.
11. Super insulate
12. Then insulate some more
13. Learn basic plumbing. 50% of the energy needs in your house is heating water. Heat the water for free with homemade solar panels.
14. Remember the low energy future will be a journey. Some people want the above to happen NOW. It won’t.
15. Try to remember what part of the ten stage journey you are on.



First stage is shock:
OMG this will change everything. Oil is in food, clothes and travel. Come to think about it everything I bloody use and touch has it.

Second stage:
Find out more and invent a hitherto unknown carbon free renewable fuel.

Third stage:
OK, the new wonder fuel ain’t gonna happen. Settle on the pragmatic compromise of only using oil for absolutely necessary things (everyone has different suggestions on what are absolutely necessary things and become quite forceful and stubborn in their opinions)

Forth stage:
Become a ‘Jesus’. You will start to spread the gospel of peak oil amongst your unenlightened cohort of friends and acquaintances.

Fifth stage:
After most of your unenlightened cohort of friends and acquaintances have told you how boring, dull and out of touch with reality you are, you decide that it was too complicated for them and from now on you will only blog and discuss with like minded people and opinion formers.

Stage six:
You see the consequences of PO everywhere, but politicians and the press rarely discuss them in any detail. You come to the conclusion that nobody wants to know because for most people they cannot do much about it. The highly complex system they were brought up in does not allow for stepping off to try out nomading for a year or two. If only they had not got married, had kids, took on a mortgage, it would be easier to live in a tent and eat brown rice salad.

Stage seven:
You realise nobody gives a stuff about peak oil, so you apply peak oil principles to your own life. You stop telling people what they should do. You learn new skills, you source your own food and water, you cut down on commuting and you try to work from home using the latest technology to your advantage.

Stage eight:
Nothing that happens in the world or the economy bothers you anymore. Your income has gone up because your use of fuel has gone down. The quality of your food is vastly improved and you know that if teotwawki hit you could feed the family easily from diverse sources. In fact quality of life is at an all time high because you know how the world works and use it to your advantage.

Stage nine:
You realise that peak oil has made you into a ‘doer’ not a ‘moaner’. The doing bit is a brilliant life skill. The life skill of being made into a ‘doer’ is something that not all peak oil aware people will achieve. A lot of people get stuck at stage four.

Stage ten:
Is, whatever you want it to be.

[Little John]

There are better ways of planning for a low energy future than running a smallholding.

Answers on a postcard?

1. Sell your car and hire them instead.
2. Whatever you do for a living do it from home
3. Make your home part of a supporting family or other network
4. Learn how to identify and measure energy in all its forms. Find out what energy you are buying and cut down get two or three uses out of your energy.
5. Learn how to repair things.
6. Learn how to value add to allow for successful barter
7. Learn how to harvest food from the wild, it is really enjoyable
8. Learn how to cook
9. Learn how to make and source all of your own food and drink.
10. Grow the expensive not for sale varieties of expensive veg. Herbs, salads etc. leave the growing of the bulk stuff to people who are better at it. Giving up your job to grow five sacks of spuds (£30) is silly.
11. Super insulate
12. Then insulate some more
13. Learn basic plumbing. 50% of the energy needs in your house is heating water. Heat the water for free with homemade solar panels.
14. Remember the low energy future will be a journey. Some people want the above to happen NOW. It won’t.
15. Try to remember what part of the ten stage journey you are on.



First stage is shock:
OMG this will change everything. Oil is in food, clothes and travel. Come to think about it everything I bloody use and touch has it.

Second stage:
Find out more and invent a hitherto unknown carbon free renewable fuel.

Third stage:
OK, the new wonder fuel ain’t gonna happen. Settle on the pragmatic compromise of only using oil for absolutely necessary things (everyone has different suggestions on what are absolutely necessary things and become quite forceful and stubborn in their opinions)

Forth stage:
Become a ‘Jesus’. You will start to spread the gospel of peak oil amongst your unenlightened cohort of friends and acquaintances.

Fifth stage:
After most of your unenlightened cohort of friends and acquaintances have told you how boring, dull and out of touch with reality you are, you decide that it was too complicated for them and from now on you will only blog and discuss with like minded people and opinion formers.

Stage six:
You see the consequences of PO everywhere, but politicians and the press rarely discuss them in any detail. You come to the conclusion that nobody wants to know because for most people they cannot do much about it. The highly complex system they were brought up in does not allow for stepping off to try out nomading for a year or two. If only they had not got married, had kids, took on a mortgage, it would be easier to live in a tent and eat brown rice salad.

Stage seven:
You realise nobody gives a stuff about peak oil, so you apply peak oil principles to your own life. You stop telling people what they should do. You learn new skills, you source your own food and water, you cut down on commuting and you try to work from home using the latest technology to your advantage.

Stage eight:
Nothing that happens in the world or the economy bothers you anymore. Your income has gone up because your use of fuel has gone down. The quality of your food is vastly improved and you know that if teotwawki hit you could feed the family easily from diverse sources. In fact quality of life is at an all time high because you know how the world works and use it to your advantage.

Stage nine:
You realise that peak oil has made you into a ‘doer’ not a ‘moaner’. The doing bit is a brilliant life skill. The life skill of being made into a ‘doer’ is something that not all peak oil aware people will achieve. A lot of people get stuck at stage four.

Stage ten:
Is, whatever you want it to be.

That's quite impressive S

[featherstick]

Answers on a postcard?

1. Sell your car and hire them instead.
2. Whatever you do for a living do it from home
3. Make your home part of a supporting family or other network
4. Learn how to identify and measure energy in all its forms. Find out what energy you are buying and cut down get two or three uses out of your energy.
5. Learn how to repair things.
6. Learn how to value add to allow for successful barter
7. Learn how to harvest food from the wild, it is really enjoyable
8. Learn how to cook
9. Learn how to make and source all of your own food and drink.
10. Grow the expensive not for sale varieties of expensive veg. Herbs, salads etc. leave the growing of the bulk stuff to people who are better at it. Giving up your job to grow five sacks of spuds (£30) is silly.
11. Super insulate
12. Then insulate some more
13. Learn basic plumbing. 50% of the energy needs in your house is heating water. Heat the water for free with homemade solar panels.
14. Remember the low energy future will be a journey. Some people want the above to happen NOW. It won’t.
15. Try to remember what part of the ten stage journey you are on.



First stage is shock:
OMG this will change everything. Oil is in food, clothes and travel. Come to think about it everything I bloody use and touch has it.

Second stage:
Find out more and invent a hitherto unknown carbon free renewable fuel.

Third stage:
OK, the new wonder fuel ain’t gonna happen. Settle on the pragmatic compromise of only using oil for absolutely necessary things (everyone has different suggestions on what are absolutely necessary things and become quite forceful and stubborn in their opinions)

Forth stage:
Become a ‘Jesus’. You will start to spread the gospel of peak oil amongst your unenlightened cohort of friends and acquaintances.

Fifth stage:
After most of your unenlightened cohort of friends and acquaintances have told you how boring, dull and out of touch with reality you are, you decide that it was too complicated for them and from now on you will only blog and discuss with like minded people and opinion formers.

Stage six:
You see the consequences of PO everywhere, but politicians and the press rarely discuss them in any detail. You come to the conclusion that nobody wants to know because for most people they cannot do much about it. The highly complex system they were brought up in does not allow for stepping off to try out nomading for a year or two. If only they had not got married, had kids, took on a mortgage, it would be easier to live in a tent and eat brown rice salad.

Stage seven:
You realise nobody gives a stuff about peak oil, so you apply peak oil principles to your own life. You stop telling people what they should do. You learn new skills, you source your own food and water, you cut down on commuting and you try to work from home using the latest technology to your advantage.

Stage eight:
Nothing that happens in the world or the economy bothers you anymore. Your income has gone up because your use of fuel has gone down. The quality of your food is vastly improved and you know that if teotwawki hit you could feed the family easily from diverse sources. In fact quality of life is at an all time high because you know how the world works and use it to your advantage.

Stage nine:
You realise that peak oil has made you into a ‘doer’ not a ‘moaner’. The doing bit is a brilliant life skill. The life skill of being made into a ‘doer’ is something that not all peak oil aware people will achieve. A lot of people get stuck at stage four.

Stage ten:
Is, whatever you want it to be.

That's quite impressive S

Not going to fit on a postcard, though, is it? Plonker.

: ) Only joking, it is impressive, and I think I may actually print it out.

[biffvernon]

There are better ways of planning for a low energy future than running a smallholding.

Answers on a postcard?

Let's take a liberal interpretation of the definition of a smallholding. The post-climacteric economy should be dominated by the household, much of the food production and goods and services that a household requires being produced within the household or within other households in the immediate neighbourhood. It doesn't mean that everyone has to grow all of their own.

This was the situation in, say, medieval Britain, but the future will be different in that we will not have unlearned the last few centuries of invention and discovery.

(Leaving postcards till after the internet dies.)

[Catweazle]

Hmmm, nice list.

I'm at 6 1/2 wishing for 8 . I'd like to think that after 8 comes:

"You have learned enough to be able to teach your friends, who have finally realised the situation, how to make their own lives easier."

[Catweazle]

I would say it just comes down to the numbers CW.

All valid points for a youngish family, but there are thousands of people my age ( 50 ish ) who are living in paid up houses that are currently worth a silly amount just because they are near a commuter railway line.

That's really putting all your eggs in one basket, these people will be ruined if there is a crash.

[Tarrel]

I would say it just comes down to the numbers CW.

All valid points for a youngish family, but there are thousands of people my age ( 50 ish ) who are living in paid up houses that are currently worth a silly amount just because they are near a commuter railway line.

That's really putting all your eggs in one basket, these people will be ruined if there is a crash.

That's why I've got rid of the basket. The single stand-out lesson for me out of everything I've read and heard since "discovering" PO is; invest in productive things, such as land, tools, etc, that increase self-reliance, reduce oil dependency and allow you to have something to grow, make or trade in a future economy. I've tried to live this lesson to the letter, not always successfully. As was stated above, it is a transition.