How and Why We Chose to Live Off-The-Grid

I sincerely appreciate all the response to my first off-the-grid post here. Your interest rewarding and inspirational. This blog entry is in response to many of the questions concerning how or why we chose to do what we did. I hope it answers those questions. Its a slightly long post but hopefully will help put you inside our heads during the process. enjoy.

First off, this is our story. No one who reads this or asked the question is going to find my answer as the "magic bullet" for change. Keep that in mind as you read the story.

It probably started five years before we actually made the change. So ten years ago. In our own ways, my wife and I were becoming more unsettled in our feeling of how our lives and surroundings were playing out. We had many discussions, and started reading an article here, a web page there, talking to others in our neighborhood, casually asking them questions. We were trying to understand where our feelings fit in "reality."

The first realization came in recognizing things about our lifestyle that were no longer working for us. The neighborhood dynamic, our long daily commutes, the rising cost of living, community development choices. Pretty much the usual for everybody. But there were other things as well. We were realizing that the picture we had of our lives and the one we were actually seeing didn't match up. What to do? Was it us? Could we change it? These were questions we had to find answers to. 

This process unfolded over a period of about three years. We both discovered that the idea of living off the grid in a different environment and becoming more self sufficient was a direction that sounded good to us. The question was, how were we going to get there?
It took a combination of things, its never just one thing. First we realized we needed to downsize everything. When we finally moved, we left behind many pieces of good furniture, even a 60" big screen tv. We knew we would not be able to consume as we were in the suburbs and started learning about "self-sufficiency."

You just don't wake up one morning and say, "Hey,I think we'll live off the grid self-sufficiently."  Not if you intend to be successful at it. So the next step in down sizing was to eliminate debt. That was going to be tough. So the next step is what everyone wants to know. 

We had good equity in our home, and fortunately a once in a lifetime opportunity came up, the housing bubble. It inflated our home's selling price that combined with our equity, we were able to pay off the credit cards and purchase our new property out right. So that's the big step. But in doing so we left careers and family behind. That's a hard decision. So another step had to be made. What aspects needed to be considered in our choice of property? 

First and foremost, property taxes had to be considered. Where we used to live, property taxes jumped $500+ a year and the taxes were going to increase significantly the following year due to the community building a new high school. Our new property's taxes are one tenth of our old property's taxes. That's a huge help, but we had to move 2000 mile away to get that tax break. We also live in a 800sq ft smaller home and the majority of our property is taxed as timberland.

The cost of living in a remote rural area are far lower than in a large urban suburb. Its just mathematics. But, employment here is non-existent so our incomes are also one tenth that of our previous residence. This is why practicing self-sufficiency is so important. Its mostly a lifestyle change. Being comfortable with the lifestyle change is as important if not more important than the physical changes. In other words you have to be content and satisfied inside before you can recognize you want to make a lifestyle change like this.

So to recap, we were at a point in our lives where a change of lifestyle was eminent. We took advantage of a financial bubble that we made work our way, just barely in time. We chose a totally opposite lifestyle than what we had lived for 50 years before. The physical aspects of this change are done, now how do we go about living here. You have to be stubborn, committed, and resourceful. You can't throw in the towel if something goes wrong or not exactly as you imagined it. Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.

The first night we were here, even after all the research we did and discussions we had, I felt I had made a terrible mistake. We started a fire in our wood stove and slept on the floor and our feelings. In the morning we started work on the house and by dinner time, I had a whole new perspective. 
Hard work helps change one's perspective on things. If we hadn't planned a variety of possibilities, we would not have been mentally and emotionally prepared to take advantage of the housing bubble. More over, we were initially going to take a loan out on our existing equity to purchase the property before the bubble. But that didn't fit into downsizing our debt. 

We got tired, dead tired of paying utilities and bills of convenience. We threw our cell phones away, shut off our cable, cut the electric bill, and the heating gas bill. This adds up to significant monthly advantage. We cut our dependence on gas and oil products by 60% with in one year. Again that's significant. But its a lifestyle change. 

Lots of people can't stand to be without any of those things. They like their Starbucks, McDonalds, shopping malls and restaurants. They also made twice as much income as we did. So they feel why should they give it all up?  But again, this choice is not for everyone, the majority of people in western worlds wouldn't seek this way of life, although 2/3's of the world lives like this and even more basically. An interesting dynamic.

So to wrap this up, be aware of what you want out of life. Seek alternatives to getting it. Be open to variations in how it comes about. Start with research and discussions with your partner, living off the grid is double tough doing it alone. 
Oh, some wealthier residence here, (its a recreation nirvana albeit still un-commercialized) have homes off the grid, and they paid four times as much as we did, for everything, but they don't live here full time. They never will. Living self sufficiently is not a part time hobby like a camping trip or hunting excursion. Its totally different. That's what you need to teach yourself. 
Its how you live that supports you. No one takes all the hard work away from you at the end of the month. I see my efforts all year long and its gives me a lot of contentment, something I didn't get living in the city. Its what you don't spend that you have to count as a very real part of your income. If you produce your own energy, grow and can your own food and harvest your own wood, then you have to include that in with the actual income that you earn. 
Its best described this way, I refer to what we are doing, homesteading as " home-insteading" You are trading your 9-5 commute and bedroom community existence for a 24/7 self-employed, self-sufficient lifestyle. 

Each day, each month, each year we learn a little more. Many old timers tell us, "oh we used to raise animals, we used to can food, we used...." so why not now? I would say about a third of the people here do some portion of homesteading practices. I thought it would be more, but then again, even here, most people live on the grid and pretend living urban/suburban lifestyles. I don't know why. Everybody, man, woman, child loves their toys. If I had to guess, I'd say less than ten percent of the people here live as we do. 

If I didn't cover all your question, email me and ask, I'll do my best to answer them, we are still on a vertical learning curve ourselves. Its exciting, challenging, and very rewarding. I'd never work this hard for anyone for wages, but then again I'd never get the same rewards either.
Best of wishes to all who read this.