Wesley writes:

I wanted to share a book that really hit home with me in my collegiate days. It’s called Possum Living. Now granted, these folks take living cheap to extremes, but they make good points periodically. I’ve taken their advice, and I’m close to paying my house off at the ripe old age of 28….it seems to be working well.

Possum Living: How to Live Well Without a Job and With Almost No Money was written in the mid-1970s by a teenaged girl named Dolly Freed. She lived with her father on half an acre outside Philadelphia. The book was originally published in 1978.

Possum Living contains information on

  • Raising rabbits, chickens, pigs, and goats for meat
  • Catching and cooking fish
  • Gardening
  • Preserving food
  • Making moonshine
  • Low-cost housing
  • Utilities
  • Clothing

This book does take cheap to extremes. (It reminds me of Thoreau’s Walden.) Most of us don’t want to live like this. But for those interested in frugality or homesteading, there’s plenty to be gleaned from these pages.

In this book you will find much practical information for saving money, but telling you how to do so isn’t my only goal. Frankly, I hope to inspire you to do some independent thinking about economics as it affects the course of your individual life now and in the coming “age of shortages.”

(Ah, how I remember that “coming age of shortages”. When I was a boy, my parents stockpiled flour and dried fruit and sugar and powdered milk. We had a storage room filled with the stuff.)

If you’re interested in a “self-sufficient lifestyle in an urban setting”, check out Landbloglinks, which has a list of further resources.

[Possum Living: How to Live Well Without a Job and With Almost No Money]

This article is about DIY, Frugality  Tuesday, 24th October 2006 (by J.D. Roth)