Articles

Welcome to Rejecting the Rat Race

Welcome to RejectingTheRatRace.com, a site geared towards people who are considering a change to a more self-sufficient lifestyle.

To us, self-sufficiency means personal freedom, allowing us to set our own pace and priorities, rather than conforming to those of a society which, in our opinion, has lost its way.

Rejecting the rat race in favor of a simpler, more self-sufficient lifestyle also has the advantage of offering some protection against the effects of our troubled economic and political system, issues that we feel may have a substantial impact on our society in the very near future.

Our goal is to provide our readers with useful, practical news, information and resources to help them along in their personal journey towards self-sufficiency.

Since we're just getting started on that goal, we'll be adding quite a lot of articles and information over the coming weeks, so check back often. Meanwhile, we hope you'll explore the links on the left and enjoy our latest articles, which are linked below.

Why Reject the Rat Race?

To say the United States is in economic trouble would probably be the understatement of the century. Our current financial crisis has been building for years, and despite the constant blather about recovery from the government "experts," chances are it's going to get worse before it gets better. The fraud, corruption and incompetence that led up to our current circumstances continues unabated, ensuring that real solutions will not be considered, much less implemented.... Read More

Health and Wellness

Health problems in our young people have reached incredible proportions. I, personally, know very few families in which all the children are healthy. Allergies, autism and other neurological disorders, various forms of cancer, auto-immune diseases, obesity, diabetes, asthma, high blood pressure and chronic infections are just a few of the issues that seem to affect alarming numbers of children today.... Read More

Chickens and Swinging Apples on a String

A very huge part of sustainable living is raising your own animals. You know for a fact what the animals ate and how they were cared for. This alone is enough of a reason to raise your own animals in today's world. With factory farms adding arsenic to chicken feed and loading livestock up with antibiotics and chemicals, a little peace of mind goes a long way.....
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Solar Home Cooling with a DC Powered Car Fan

Setting up a solar system is an expensive proposition. However, there's no reason that it has to be done all at once if you, like us, are on a limited budget. A couple of solar panels and batteries can give you what you need to start slow, removing a couple of things here and there from the power company's system to gradually reduce your dependence on the grid. Here is an example of one of those piecemeal solar projects, and it has certainly taken a bite out of our grid-power usage....Read More

Use Recycled Water for your Gardens

Living in the desert, we have to purchase and haul water to fill the 1,000 gallon tank that provides our household water--no city water out here in the middle of nowhere. So, when we started planning our garden, we came to the conclusion that if we wanted fresh produce that didn't cost a arm and leg, we had to come up with a way to recycle our water for garden use....
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Ghost Town and Flying Cars

Pegasus Global Holdings is building a ghost town in Lea county, New Mexico to be a tech test bed, a research center for technology and testing. Now when I read this story and saw that they were interested in intelligent traffic systems and wireless networks, my brain went wild. What if I could design a traffic system and marry some of the new smart cars and flying cars into the building design of this city?....Read More

Small Steps to Sustainable Living

Never look at the ads that are everywhere about sustainable living and think that it is impossible to accomplish. Solar advertising for example, would led you to to think that you need at least $10,000 to get started. And, that is just not the case. Building any sustainable system is possible taking small steps and small amounts of money....Read More

Build Your Solar Hot Water Heater From an Old Electric Water Heater

Our solar hot water heater has been in operation for three years now and has worked very well. And the best thing is it cost me to build it is the price of one can of black spray paint and a little bit of time....Read More

Use Recycled Water to Flush the Toilet

Nearly a third of the water used by the average household goes right down the toilet. In the U.S. alone, 5.4 BILLION gallons of water is used for flushing every year. By using recycled water that has been captured with a gray water system to flush, you cut down the water usage in your house hold by at least 30 percent....Read More

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