Clair Schwan

I’m happy to be a founder and regular contributor here at the Self Reliance Exchange. This platform gives me an opportunity to provide information, insights and personal experience that I hope will encourage you to be more self reliant, reasonably self sufficient, and increasingly independent in many aspects of your life. Many people ask me, “why is self reliance so important?” And, I’m happy to tell them.

I believe independence and voluntary cooperation with others is our natural state, and the more we focus on our own self reliance, the more we can be of help to others that have similar interests. Self reliance makes us stronger as individuals and as a society.

At the same time, I recognize that being entirely self-sufficient isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. It requires time and can be labor intensive. It can also be quite a financial investment as well. The trick is to recognize when and how to cooperate with others, and identify areas of self reliance that make sense for you to focus on.

My passions include growing fruit trees and small fruits and a wide range of vegetables in homemade greenhouses. I enjoy helping others enjoy a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables so much that I created a separate website called Vegetable Gardening and Greenhouses just to address this aspect of self-sufficiency in greater detail. Growing our own vegetables and fruits can be a real money saver, and if we follow organic methods, it’s much healthier for us as well.

Since I live in the country I raise chickens, mostly for eggs, but occasionally for meat. If you limit the size of your operation, raising small animals can even be done in an urban environment. My home on the prairie of Wyoming is heated with wood, and I’ve created my own hydronic heating system to maximize wood stove effectiveness. I’m big on heating with wood and big on staying warm during those cold and windy Wyoming winters.

I also have a large shop to satisfy the do-it-yourselfer in me, and plan on sharing some of my more creative experiences with you. Along those lines, I’ll be offering hints and tips on how to do things better, faster and cheaper. I invent some of them myself, and others I learn from my self-reliant friends. In any case, I’m happy to share them.

As you might have guessed already, many of my posts here at the Self Reliance Exchange will address frugal living. It’s so well ingrained in me that I started a website focused on just that. Visit Frugal Living Freedom if you’re interested in living a more frugal and self sufficient life where you make the most out of your hard earned money.

Having worked myself from bankruptcy to early self-retirement and debt free living in just 7 years, I consider myself to be somewhat an authority on starting and operating a small enterprise as a “one-zee.” So if you’re looking for advice on being self-employed, getting out of debt and being more self sufficient with respect to income, I’ll probably have plenty to share on those topics as well. If you’re interested in starting your own small enterprise, Sensible Small Business Ideas is a good site to visit. It provides advice and resources as well as profiles of individuals who have taken the plunge and started their own businesses.

With all this emphasis on doing it yourself and being self-employed, you might surmise that my political leanings are libertarian in nature. And, you’d be right. I strongly believe in individual freedom and responsibility, free enterprise, limited government, personal choice and justice (fairness). My views and analysis of topics related to personal liberty and limited government can be found on Libertarian Logic, a site dedicated to individual liberty and core American values like those envisioned by our founders. There you’ll also find some of my experiences as a citizen lobbyist in the State of Wyoming, where I interface with other freedom-minded organizations, individuals and members of the legislature.

Enjoy your time here at the Self Reliance Exchange. I think you’ll find it to be a good source of quality information, instruction, insight, and opinions that all support the idea of being the hero in your own life – being more self reliant and less dependent on others for your basic needs.