I’m sure that a fair few of us have had “a River Cottage moment” over the years. To wonder, even fleetingly, what it would be like to learn to live off the land; to grow and rear your own food; to become less reliant on buying everything in and have a stab at a much simpler, potentially more satisfying and wholesome existence.

But how many of us can cope with the total loss of a regular income? Who can give up everything and scratch a living far from the city, often with kids in tow (some more willing than others)?

Some Guardian readers may recall my own efforts at a major downshift, chronicled in the Money pages. I have also interviewed a lot of smallholders and the truth is that most are not completely self-sufficient anyway, and – unless society completely collapses any time soon – neither would they want to be.

Total downshifting is not for the faint-hearted. Channel 4’s Eden show kicked off in July with 23 volunteers keen to get back to nature on a remote Scottish peninsula for 12 months. Several quit early on, not least, reportedly, because of the midges.

The truth is that such shows are a far cry from the reality of most downshifters’ lives. Many make a modest income as small-scale producers, while more than you might imagine still set off to work in an office every day.

My family and I downshifted to west Wales more than six years ago. For the first few years we ate almost entirely seasonally from much of our own produce and lived extremely frugally, learning to repair and make most of what we needed, and that was fine. Actually, more than fine, it was an adventure.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kim Stoddart and her family in the garden of their Welsh cottage. Photograph: Gareth Phillips

But with a mortgage to pay it wasn’t financially sustainable. Nowadays we have a lesser degree of self-sufficiency, but one which is realistic to us as a working family. I grow fruit and vegetables for enjoyment rather than necessity, so it’s on a smaller scale than before. We keep chickens for eggs and have a small number of sheep. This way it’s a genuine pleasure rather than an all-consuming chore.

Yet what we’ve learned has stayed with us, given us a greater resilience and down-to-earth appreciation of food and the material goods that, prior to our move, we’d just taken for granted. And it’s heartening to note that we are certainly not alone in having downshifted, with people all over Britain having chosen to live a more simple life.

Canon Frome Court, for instance, is a farming co-operative in Herefordshire, with 19 self contained units for singletons, couples and families. Many residents have independent jobs, but all help out on the community farm. Ellie Chowns moved there in 2003 with her husband and two children.

“This was the first place we’d ever bought and we paid about £160,000 for a large three-bedroom property,” she says. “Accommodation here is valued in line with local property prices but it’s an amazing amount of space for the money, and you get all the extras that go with it, including the 40 acres of land along with a beautiful walled vegetable garden. It’s an amazing place for children to grow up. A survey was done a few years ago and all the kids gave it 10 out of 10.

“Living here comes with responsibility for helping out with the community farm, where we grow our own organic food and help to tend the animals (though there are no set hours that we have to help). My husband and I both work full time – I’m a university researcher in Sheffield and he works in London – so families like ours have more limited input, while others that are retired, or those with young children, tend to have more time to give. It’s so well organised but in a really nice collective way.

“It’s not a super cheap way of living, but we generate a lot of our own electricity from solar panels and our water comes from the bore holes, for which we pay a small maintenance fee each month. Plus there are a lot of ways to save cash and co-operate such as buying wholefoods in bulk, lift shares and helping each other out with childcare. Around 30%-40% of our food is home produced in the summer and in winter maybe 10%.

The attraction of a community like Canon Frome is that you can have a foot in both worlds

“We live in separate units and have a lot of personal space, coming together once a week to share meals, as well as on special occasions or for activities such as haymaking. Decisions tend to be made by consensus which is great in a lot of ways, but sometimes there can be a stalemate. It’s important to have a degree of give and take.”

Applicants can try before they buy by staying at Canon Frome in its guest rooms. Clare Murphy spent three weeks there in 2013 with her two children. “I hadn’t milked a goat before I went, but if you presented me with one now I could have a reasonable stab at it,” she says. “We stayed in the ‘playroom’, a fantastic experience for all of us. We helped with gardening and planting crops, feeding and milking animals, collecting eggs and making cheese. And we met some lovely people. It was a great way to glimpse that kind of life. If you’re interested in living green and producing most of your own food, without the relentless slog of being a sole smallholder, this could be for you.

“The attraction of living in a community like Canon Frome is that you can have a foot in both worlds. You get to produce and eat incredible organic food, but as the work is shared you can have a job outside and take weekends and holidays away. You are surrounded by like-minded people who care about the environment, but can escape to your own space when you need to. There’s a shared meal each Saturday, but otherwise it’s up to you how much you socialise with the other members.

“But it’s not for everyone. You have to be prepared, quite rightly, to pull your weight and feed those animals or dig those spuds when you’re on the rota to do it, even if it’s pouring with rain. You have to be willing to discuss decisions, sometimes at length, and go with the consensus, even if it’s not your preferred choice. It didn’t quite fit in with our circumstances in 2013, but we’re still thinking about it.”

One major drawback of downshifting is that it’s often a middle-class thing; you need money in the first place to be able to do it, as buying a smallholding in the UK is far from cheap. But there are more affordable routes.

One Planet Council, an independent voluntary body in Wales, helps applicants find land and build simple, sustainable and affordable homes, with entry prices in developments such as the Lammas Eco Village of around £35,000-£40,000. Erica Thompson from One Planet Council says: “Normally, you need to inherit land or buy a smallholding for upwards of quarter of a million pounds. Most people aiming at small-scale land-based enterprise don’t have that kind of capital. One Planet Development [a local planning policy] offers a way for them with a much smaller ‘entry fee’. The trade-off, of course, is the ongoing commitment to a low-impact lifestyle and monitoring to ensure you meet that commitment.”

The Ecological Land Co-operative in England and the Scottish Crofting Federation also offer affordable options in their respective regions.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Leander Wolstenholme: ‘We’ve got hot water, our own water supply, a shower, phone line and broadband internet.’ Photograph: Amanda Jackson

Elsewhere, botanist and forager Leander Wolstenholme lives with his wife, Katie, and their three children in Lammas in Pembrokeshire. Their community received planning permission by way of Policy 52 (a forerunner to One Planet Development) which stipulates they had to make 75% of their functional livelihood needs from the land by the end of year five. This goal was achieved, but Wolstenholme says: “It surprised me how much pressure it put on us all. There have been a number of arguments and fallings out among the smallholders, so now we prefer to work with people on an individual basis instead.

“We are very much in the set-up phase despite being here for more than six years. We’re desperately focused on building our house at the moment – it’s become really pressing. Our eldest daughter is now 15 and we’re essentially all living in just one big room.”

The couple bought into the Lammas community in April 2010, obtaining a six-acre plot for £35,000 with money Katie inherited from her grandfather. Their involvement in the eco-project also provides them with a share of the 19-acre woodland and use of the community’s facilities such as the village green and community hub building. “It’s a safe place for kids,” says Wolstenholme. “In Liverpool we lived on a busy road, and though there was a playground across the way we couldn’t leave the children alone for a minute.

“We now have a hydroelectric turbine that provides electricity for us all, but for the first two years we were using just one solar panel, which meant in winter the lights would often go out at eight in the evening. We’ve got hot water, a compost toilet, our own water supply and, since March, a shower housed in a shed outside. We also have a phone line and broadband internet. To be honest I don’t feel that we’ve started yet. Once the house is ready we can really begin.”

• Visit Diggersanddreamers.org.uk for a full list of UK smallholding communities.