The Only Thing We Had to Buy Was a Bag of Flour

The back roads of western Ireland are beautiful, but eventually the need for lunch takes priority over the need for more gorgeous scenery and the search for a pub lunch begins. Once located, we sit down to a meal and observe people rather than flora, fauna and the landscape. Here in Ireland, the local folks are quite chatty and often approach us rather than the opposite.

Usually the accents start the conversation, Steve's Lancashire English and my New England American are fairly uncommon here. A little old Irish lady came up to us yesterday and inquired if she placed Steve's accent in the northwest of England. After a discussion about England, America and Ireland, Steve asked her what was going on in Ireland economically (there's been a big housing boom).

She talked a lot about what had happened here, but one thing she said particularly struck us. She said that when she was growing up the only thing they had to buy was a bag of flour, everything else they produced themselves. She said at the time they thought they were poor, but now she wonders. They owned their land outright, had no debt and the larger global economies and financial markets had little impact on their lifestyle.

Now everything seems to be a bit rose tinted when you look back through time, but I think there are also some lessons to be learned by understanding the different ways of living. There is a great deal of dependence today upon others to provide the things we need (employers, mutual fund managers, banks, truckers hauling food, etc.) and sometimes that dependency can get us into trouble - the job disappears, hurricanes happen, economic crisises occur. If you are completely dependent on X to provide you with Y and it doesn't, you're stuck. If the only thing you need to buy is a bag of flour, you're pretty insulated or independent from whatever chaos may be going on around you!

Not everyone can get to that level, but there are a lot of ways to create that independence. Steve and I reduced our reliance on employers to provide our income by becoming self employed (and quadrupled our income in the process). Our investments are things we can understand, managed by us rather than someone whose capabilities, intelligence and motivations are unknown to us. Having lived in hurricane ridden Florida and on the sailboat, we understand the value of having a few months provisions to hand - not from a hugely fear-based perspective, but more so because it's easier, it's cheaper and should it be needed it's there.

It's all about reducing dependency on people and systems, sometimes they fail - and it's a lot more comfortable when things are failing around you if the only thing you need is a bag of flour...