A lot of
people seem to be tossing ‘simple living’ around these days, when talking about
ways to save money or how to lighten their ecological footprint. But what does simple living really mean? Well, it
means many different things to many different people; getting back to basics,
creating a maintainable lifestyle, being mindful of the earth and how you’re
living affects the earth, and so on. Simple living doesn’t, however, mean that
it’s necessarily an easier way to live or that living simply takes little effort. At least not right away.
I’d say it’s become increasingly obvious that simple living is the most sustainable lifestyle and that when you decide to live a life that is free of the material clutter and heavily dependent upon what you can do for yourself and your family, living lighter on the earth will come more naturally and ways to save money will abound.
If you were to have a chat with David, the founder of New Jura Natural Building, visit the sites on which he’s built 5 pallet houses, or see the diy videos that he’s posted in which he builds wind turbines, solar water heaters, and composting toilets, simple may not be the first word that springs to mind. But, for David, his lifestyle, and the emphasis that he has put on natural building and living and working in a way that “places the highest value on social and environmental sustainability,” is what simple living is all about. It’s getting back to the way things used to be and how things used to be built. It’s simple: it’s better for the earth and better for him, his family, and his community.
But David wasn’t always so environmentally conscious, building houses (yes houses) from recycled, re-purposed, and natural materials, creating the devices (wind turbines, solar water heaters, etc.) that he and others require to live off-grid, and teaching people how to be more self-sufficient. The birth of his daughters spurred a significant change in the way David thought about his trade and, consequently, his own lifestyle.
“I have been a conventional residential home builder for 25 years, I worked and thought just like everyone else, I never thought of what I was doing as it put food on the table and paid the bills of a life in which I thought was the way things were supposed to be,” David says. “My oldest daughter was born in 2002 and the emotions of protecting my child started to turn my thoughts towards the things I was doing and the reality of the impact my actions had not only on my family immediately but on the environment I was subjecting them to. I look towards the interactions I had with the world and those realizations started me on the path. In 2007, my second daughter was born and this event catapulted my desire to be a better father into warp drive.”
Since then, David and his family have been living off-grid--without relying on any public utilities—off and on for three years, as he works on getting their solar power system online and establishing back up systems for heating water. In February of this year, David will have finished building two pallet houses for him and his family (one main house and one small one for housing their solar power equipment).
Through his company, New Jura Natural Building, David and others are using their practical skills to do something truly amazing: “We are using permaculture methods to create a sustainable community where the idea is to become a learning center that teaches a yearly curriculum as well as offer live-in situations for people looking for the same type of lifestyle,” David explains.
When you visit the New Jura website or watch David’s You Tube videos where he documents his building of the pallet houses and a cob house, to name a few examples, you can really see how a knowledge of practical skills is absolutely invaluable. But New Jura isn’t just about employing practical skills to build a self-sufficient community; New Jura also aims to only use natural building materials and methods such as, natural plasters, cob (an old building technique that uses a combination of clay, sediment, sand, fiber, and water), straw bale, and pallets. And what makes New Jura’s methods even more in-line with frugal living and earth-friendliness is that they use a large quantity of re-purposed or recycled materials. And, get this; David often gets these materials for FREE!
“Craigslist is king!!,” David says. “We are constantly scouring classifieds and publications with free listings, but for the most part Craigslist has been a goldmine! But, I also post ads in those same listings asking for homes that need to be demolished and if we get some we go dismantle them and store the materials for later use.”
Imagine, having the know-how to not only build your own dwelling for you and your family but to also be able to find a large quantity of the materials needed to build the house for free!
Besides the obvious satisfaction that one would get from knowing that they’re able to live so autonomously, to build their own fully-powered and indoor-plumbing-equipped home that’s so earth-friendly, David says that there’s also significant monetary rewards because there’s no utility bills in off-grid living, and they’ve also protected themselves from feeling the affects of rising food prices.
“…being a vegetarian family makes growing our own food a breeze,” David says. “We rely on ourselves and that feeling alone is amazing!”
That’s not to say that sustainable living means you can do away with all bills completely. Just because David and his family choose to live as self-sufficiently as they can doesn’t mean they’re living in the middle of the woods and have cut themselves off from the rest of the world. David says that one of the few downfalls or challenges of living this lifestyle is that there are some things that still require money; gas, oil and insurance for their cars, cell phones, and the internet, for example. Still, no electricity, water, or natural gas bills? Now what homeowner doesn’t like the sound of that?
For David, however, the financial rewards and the ability to thrive in any economic or social situation are only worthwhile if paired with an understanding of how your actions affect the environment in which you live. Being able to harness solar power, collect water through a diy water catchment system, or grow your own food right in your backyard, will not only help you survive and thrive in any situation and save money over the course of your life time, but your efforts to conserve resources, reduce waste, and pollute less will also do a significant amount of good for the planet.
“It seems there has been an explosion in being self-sufficient, but for the most part, it hasn’t been on the side of helping the planet as much as it has been for making sure people survive any possible upcoming situation that calls for it,” David explains. “It is my hope that we as humans can drop the b.s. way of life we have adopted and understand the damage we have done and the understanding of what it is going to take to get it back on the natural track.”
If you live in or around Texas, you might be interested to know that David and his crew at New Jura offer workshops on a fairly regular basis, where you can learn how to build earthen homes and other sustainable techniques that will help you and your family become more self-sufficient in a way that’s in-tune with nature.
For those who are just starting to work learning more practical skills into their frugal living regime, building your own home and going off-grid might sound a bit daunting. But, if for nothing else, learning about what they do at New Jura, either through their website or videos, can be an amazing source of inspiration. It’s incredible to see what can and is being done with people’s own two hands and a little resourcefulness, that they are able to build the things that they need to live totally independently, often using re-purposed materials, and in a way that’s sustainable. If that doesn’t motivate you to learn how to cook from scratch or to learn simple diy plumbing skills, then I don’t know what will.
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