Being in the wilderness would make it a little easier to find constructive things to do than living in an apartment in big city USA where you can’t chop wood or grow a vegetable or hunt a deer or build something or cut wood or even trench around your little shack to make it more water proof or make a million things that were made by hand in the day. Right now people aren’t looking for labor, they just want you to quit hanging around and to stay out their way unless you are going to purchase something.
Things to do in a small apartment:
Crotchet, knit, sew...anything. Clean the closets. Litter partrol the hallways, offer to walk the neighbor’s dog, keep an eye on the neighbor’s cat or kids for that matter.
Not enough...litter patrol the street, parking lot...
The point is we’re way to lazy as a group to even begin to endeavor in a new pursuit.
In the late 60’s, early 70’s, I was a young married mother. We lived in a rental in a mixed-race working class neighborhood.
I borrowed a sewing machine, got a book from the library and began by remodeling our old clothing. Then, the Beatles craze hit and everyone wanted Carnaby Street fashion, which was impossible to find in the US at that time.
First, I sewed for others to barter for things I wanted, like a hair cut. Then word got out (I charged cheap prices) and people began paying me. They would bring in the fabric and I would revise standard patterns to make trendy clothing. It was the beginning of the Art Fair movement and that is how I marketed my work.
Today, even though I live in the country and can do all those things you listed, I live in the North and have had to learn how to container garden and grow hydroponically through the winter. I provide most of our tomatoes and lettuce from this hobby.
People today want to stay warm for less energy. Microwavable flax or rice packs, vests, wraps, booties are all popular, take few sewing skills and help folks stay warm for less energy. Sewing machines are available cheap in many second-hand/antique stores. Repair manuals are available for $10 or so online. Vintage parts, ditto. My husband just repaired a motor pulley for an old Bernina with epoxy to save the $25 it would have cost to purchase a new one.
Several years ago, my husband purchased an industrial sewing machine. He wanted to make sails for the boat he is building. He has repaired other folk’s sails, a catamaran trampoline, made sails, sail covers and dodgers. He also has a following for his laminated tillers, a woodworking project that could be done in a kitchen or spare bedroom. He has paid for the machine, so far, and made some money, too.
Your head and hands are the means of production. People do not stop having needs just because the country collapses.
Again, back in the day, young people banded together, set up real estate land trusts, pooled resources to buy a small, run down farm in the boonies, figured out how to make cash, pay the bills and manage semi-communal living arrangements. We were known as the Back To The Land Movement. Not everyone remained a hippie.
A young friend, after a disastrous breakup, with a child to support, began making a trendy fashion accessory in her living room. She sublet what had been her business office, cashed a small life insurance policy and maxed out her cards to finance this business. She lives in New Jersey in a rental. She sold on the street and made cold calls to boutiques. She grew it into a a business grossing $150k/year, all by herself, at the age of 35. Then, realizing she had good marketing skills, she set up another business doing event planning for companies that had fired their in-house planners. She is doing very well.
A real estate agent with 6 kids went together with family members to set up a credit card processing business. They target local small proprietors who had lost their bank credit card processing in the crash, as the banks cut back on risk. The kids do whatever they can, mostly manual labor, housecleaning and a yard care business to afford their private Christian school tuition.
Outlet stores sell 1 pound skeins of acrylic yarn for $1 each. Knitters and crocheters can work anywhere. There are online video tutorials. My own mother made money during the war years by knitting baby items and placing them on consignment in shops.
It can be done and is being done and has always been done everywhere if the need is large enough.