Have had that feeling a few times myself. Luckily, learned alot from my parents, who both grew up during the Depression. Growing a garden isn't that hard, just time consuming. But very satisfying when the food comes in. Get a couple books on canning, if you've never done it before. I can not only from my garden, but beef and chicken. Freezer is nice, but if the electricity ever goes off for more than a day or so, lots of wasted food if it's summer time, and you just can't cook it all. Beside's, you can take the cheapest hunk of round steak, cube it up, put a little BBQ sauce in the jar, and it will marinate until you open it. Haven't had the chance to do any deer meat, but am sure it will be even better.
Within the week, am planning to pull up the shed I built a couple years ago, and turn it into a chicken coupe. Had it out back of my property for a storage shed for gardening supplies, but will be much better utilized for chickens.
As for heat, I have 2 air tight inserts in my house, one in the basement, and the other in the living room. Went thru between 5 and 6 cords of wood this last winter. The highest gas bill was just under $200, for January, I've got a 1700 sq. ft. house, and that includes gas water heater. But just a little hint on burning wood. Around here, in N.W. Ohio, have a choice of many different kinds of wood. Cottonwood,ash,maple,oak,linden, and a few others. I only spend time cutting and splitting the hard woods for burning in my house.(ash, oak and maple) They give out much better heat, than softer woods. You can Google up BTU-firewood, or some such thing, and there is a list of how much heat you can expect to get out of a cord of different woods.
And Myronman3, just a little food for thought. Back in the late '80's, about a year or 2 after Russia went thru it's great collapse. I remember a news story, about a man that beat his neighbor to death with a steel rod, or tire iron. His neighbor had stolen a sack of potatoes from him. It was the only food the man had to feed his wife and kids. I remember that at the end of the story, the police did not arrest him. They considered it justified. Let us hope it never gets that bad in this country. gypsyman
