About Us

Self Sufficient Me is a blog about self-sustainment by growing our own produce (plant/animal), and self-fulfilment by looking after our health (physical/mental) through exercise and slowing life down a little.

At the same time, we focus on our environmental footprint and how we can improve our “patch of dirt” not only for our own benefit but also to better develop the surroundings for other plants and animals – it’s their world too.

Our common sayings…

We try to, “look, and see the Earth through her eyes;” and we say, “You don’t have to be self-sufficient in everything just be self-sufficient in something,” also, “respect your body and keep it healthy through regular exercise.”

The “Eye” for our logo with the pupil as the Earth signifies our desire to look and see how nature does things and how we can get the most out of working with nature rather than against it. For example, using indiscriminate pesticides might protect against pests in the interim but it also kills good bugs and bees which over time upsets nature’s balance to combat pests naturally, therefore, requiring more pesticide use and the cycle continues to get worse.

By observing nature and understanding the balance (that is often in our hands) we can create our own backyard micro-ecosystem that benefits all creatures, plants, and humans.

Our articles feature many of our own self-sufficient achievements based locally on our small suburban Bellmere property in South East Queensland, Australia, approximately 45kms north of the capital Brisbane. You can select from a range of categories in our top menu to read articles ranging from keeping chickens, solar energy, backyard fruit and veg growing, health & lifestyle, exercise, and even opinion!

Our videos are popular and we have a growing images collection in our own data base and also on Instagram.

You’ll see our forum Self Sufficient Culture is closely integrated into Self Sufficient Me and it’s a great place to discuss articles and videos or to find and share ideas about self-sufficient projects.

Overall, the vision is to create a diverse and interesting internet resource and forum on self-sufficiency and support the self-sufficient community who not only collectively helps to protect our planet through sustainable living and lifestyle, but also, benefits personally through the satisfaction of pursuing, creating and sharing their self sufficient successes!

About the Editor

Mark Valencia retired from the Australian Army in 2008 after 21 years of service and is married with two children (boys). He has always been passionate about self-sufficiency (even as a child) and he is now enjoying the opportunity to communicate this passion through his Blog and YouTube Channel. You can learn more about Mark through his writing, videos and various other media he produces.  Self Sufficient Me is a blog and YouTube Channel about self-sustainment by growing fruit and vegetables and keeping animals such as chickens for food. It’s also about lifestyle and self-fulfilment by looking after our health (physical/mental) through exercise and “slowing life down a little.”

What is Self Sufficiency?

Self sufficiency is the act of sustaining ones life without the direct aid or help of others. For most of us, “total” self sufficiency without the help of anyone or any organisation is not an achievable goal or even desired. Also, self-sufficiency (to me) means much more than “surviving” or being frugal – I think of it as a lifestyle and motivation to empower myself to learn how to do things rather than outsourcing everything. The benefits of this mind-set are HUGE because the more we do for ourselves the healthier we get mentally, physically, and spiritually… That’s why self-sufficiency is so important in my life and why I want to promote it so much.

But, Self Sufficient Me is not about me it’s about us! Here at Self Sufficient Me we want to explore, learn and teach each other about becoming more self sufficient. Why? Because (not withstanding the points made above eg health) by becoming more self-sufficient we save money, reduce waste, recycle more, and thus help to sustain our environment and planet.

And, that’s just some of the reasons self-sufficiency is so awesome.

Advertising and Sponsorship on our Website

We all like free stuff and to keep Self Sufficient Me online does cost money in internet charges, Website maintenance, and hosting fees. Also, as most people would appreciate, a great deal of effort and time goes into creating the content thousands of people enjoy for free when they visit our Website every week!

Therefore, we have established relationships with affiliates and sponsors to receive a small commission when someone follows a link from our Website to them and subsequently buys a product. However, it’s important to note Self Sufficient Me will not directly promote products we don’t think are any good and our articles/media will reflect an unbiased opinion regardless. These values are important to us and to our supporters who often visit our site looking for reliable information about various items or products.

You help support our Website by checking out products we link to here on Self Sufficient Me.

Some of our affiliate partners are:

  • Viglink – This is an affiliate links company founded by Oliver Roup (former Microsoft Director). Viglink helps our Website by automatically affiliating the links we create to products we recommend without us having to individually insert codes etc – this saves us a lot of time, which can be better used creating good content.  
  • eBay – I have to admit I enjoy shopping on eBay and have purchased heaps of items from them in the past to help with my own self-sufficiency. That’s why many of our product links go to eBay Australia, eBay USA, or eBay UK because it’s where we got them from…
  • Amazon – Self Sufficient Me is based in Australia but over half our visitors are international (most in the USA and UK) so when we showcase products on our Website we will often link to Amazon so our overseas visitors have the opportunity to purchase it or something similar closer to them. Naturally, Amazon has such an amazing product range and service it’s hard not recommend this online store.
  • Adsense – These are the Google display ads you see usually at the top or bottom of our Website or embedded in articles. Yes, they can sometimes be a little unsightly – I agree… However without advertising, publishers like us would die out and the internet would be left with only big companies pushing their products onto everyone. Monopolies are bad for humanity! Therefore, if you are blocking advertising please turn it off for our Website – thank you so much.  

The alternative to display advertising or affiliate links is paid subscriptions and donations but we’d prefer to keep open access to Self Sufficient Me for everyone.

Connect with Self Sufficient Me

Overall, we want you to contribute and discuss subjects important to you with other like-minded people, share information, learn from each other, solve problems, network, and above all just have fun!

There are several ways you can connect with us here at SSM:

  • you can join our forum and become part of the self-sufficient community;
  • you can comment on our articles through our comments system and also via Facebook directly under the article;
  • you can follow our Facebook page and feed;
  • you can join our newsletter (we don’t spam);
  • you can join our site here and then access our Reviews area and review or comment on products of interest to our community; or
  • you can simply contact us via email and say hello or ask a question.

Everything above is FREE.

Thanks for visiting.