Living off the grid.

Growing vegetables to feed yourself is actually ridiculously easy and cheap to do.


Buying land? Not so much. You'll be long gone by the time you pay it off.

 

Sounds great. Sell good bread, too. That will really bring in the dough.


Good luck.

 

sounds great. wish you all the best on your endeavor towards real independence. sounds great really hope you can achieve it,.

 

Good luck with your endeavor I am jealous and wish you very well. Remember though that the government might try and fight you too, they want you to rely on them.

 

Check out the angels nest concept house out in New Mexico. lots of off grid strategies... check out underground greenhouses too, they are a great way to grow year round.. good luck

 

As someone who actually did this once, good luck to you.

 

Fuck that! I enjoy my home comforts & on hand amenities.

Sent from my SM-T210 using Grasscity Forum mobile app

 

I would like to try something like this sometime in my life

 

Tree house! My vote is for a tree house.

 

My advice is start small, like with the garden. Start growing everything you use on a regular basis like lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber ect and ween yourself off grocery store produce. While your doing that, start saving for/purchasing off grid solar panels and batteries. Check your bill to see how many kW your using each month and try to find a system that meets your requirements. You want to pay attention to both storage capacity(don't want to run out of juice at night) and peak wattage. After that you'll want to invest in a GOOD water filtration system, as well as planning/budgeting for septic and waste water disposal(you cant just pump it out into the woods these days, though our trees in that area were always very healthy) and heat. Geothermal/solar heat is the most efficient, but having a good oil heater around for emergencies can really save your ass(literally). After all that is ready I would worry about a final property/erecting a building which is a whole other can of beans, and for the first few years you have to make sure you're close enough to someone/somewhere that you can get food/water/health care in case of emergencies and also sell your products to so you can pay your cell/internet/fuel costs.

 

Since you asked, here's an unedited answer.


It was fine. I knew everything about what I was doing, and I brought in professionals for things that I didn't. In the end, it cost way more than it should have and end results were never 100% fully reached in a way that I'd wanted. As this applies to what you posted:


1. I thought it was cute that you wanted to build a little library to read lemony snicket books. You will not have time to read any book for about 5 years if you were to start doing this today. If you read anything, it's going to be about trying to figure out what you just fucked up.


2. I did this with cash in the bank, working on it full time, and it took 2 years to complete. By full time I mean 80 hours a week. I literally started this living out of a canvas tent onsite, getting up, working until it was dark, and then repeating day after day. If you're working at a call center and doing this, I don't know how long you think it's going to take, I'd guess at least 4 years after starting, maybe more if it even gets completed.


3. You will never have enough money for what you want or need. Especially when it comes to solar and wind power. That's not cheap!


4. Unless you are a plumber or electrician, you will have to hire them. If you don't, you are going to risk having your building condemned during an inspection, and there will be inspections and permits and all that. Just because you're "off the grid" doesn't mean you don't have to do that shit. Also, if you don't hire an electrician you will likely end up either killing yourself or burning down your home. Without a plumber you'll likely just end up with sewage all over the home. Plumbers and electricians charge a day about what you make in a call center in a week. Plan accordingly.


5. Building will take up all of your time until it's complete. So, you won't be able to be a farmer and construction worker at the same time. Don't try, otherwise one or both won't succeed.


6. Being realistic, if you do this, you will likely work really hard for 2 months and then spend the rest of the year trying to figure out how to unload the property.


7.If I were to do this today, I'd buy a property has a well. I'd put a septic tank and a trailer on it. Then I'd bring in solar and wind power which is cheaper and more efficient for a trailer. After that was up and running I'd get to work on whatever farming and outbuilding building that I'd want to do. Unless you know how to build a house, that house will never be built and it if it somehow does get built, it will never stop giving you headaches and there will always be something to do. Not so much with a trailer.


Just my insight. Take it as you will.

 

I've been working construction and farming most of my life, and let me tell you $30,000 cost and 2-3 weeks of time is not in anyway realistic. I'm over $250,000 invested into my property and $160,000 of that is the value of the buildings (1100sqft house, 750sqft shop). If you have no assets/cash to start with this will be very hard to do, I'd take Sneaky Snakes advice about the trailer, you can probably find one for under $50,000 that's mostly livable and then you wont have to worry about inspections which would be near impossible to pass without help from certified journeyman tradespeople.

 

Again, don't take this as me being down you and your ideas. I think you should go forward with your dreams, but you really don't know what you're talking about until you start doing it. Nobody does. Just kind of working backwards, from your comments.


1. You are in the US. There isn't a county in this country that "doesn't really have building codes". ALL mothertrucking counties will have inspectors and building codes. It doesn't matter if you are in the middle of Manhattan or the middle of BFE. There's a guy who gets his salary from your taxes who is going to come out and inspect your building site before it begins. Another guy who is going to look over your blueprints (yes, you need to have those because they won't give you a building permit without them), and another guy who will come out and inspect your plumbing, and another guy who will come out and inspect your electrical, and another guy who will inspect the finished product and say it's safe to inhabit. If your not lucky your county may have other guys that come out to check soil and other things on the property. And even though your taxes pay their salary, you will be paying thousands for these guys to come out, for permits, for the blueprints to be okayed, etc.


2. You want to have a farm, so you are going to need several wells on your property. Growing food takes a lot of water. Animals take a lot of water. Your description may work for you and a girlfriend living in there, but you have fields to irrigate and animals to water. You will be going through thousands of gallons of water a week depending on your set up. One acre, which if you farm the hell out if is the bare minimum to sustain yourself off of. Depending on the plants, you will need anywhere between 1000 to 4000 gallons a week just for that. Rain water isn't going to cover it. Your buried tanks will be gone in about 2 days or so. Most wells aren't going to even be able to handle that. So you're going to have to have several found and dug. Not just that, but they're going to have to be sourced so that they don't interfere with one another. Meaning, if you dig 3 wells that all tap the same water source, that source will dry up in a matter of days and take weeks to fill back up again, which doesn't work. Chances are you will be in a situation where there is only one source of water under your property and there's not enough for farming. This is why most farms are traditionally situated next to a large lake or river that they tap for irrigation purposes. And all the water table analysis and digging also costs money. And you do have to have it analyzed or the county doesn't allow you to use it. And yes, even in the deepest, darkest, reaches of Alabama there is a guy who works for the county that again you have to pay for that.


3. Honestly, if you think "there will always be time to sit back and just read a book" then you probably won't be able to do any of this. There's a reason why the printing press wasn't invented until a few hundred years ago and why books weren't really common until around 150 years ago. It took that long for civilization to make leisure time. The thing is, when you're doing it all yourself and from scratch, living off the land and all that, you have no leisure time. Because every minute wasted translates to a day that you aren't eating down the road. When you have to scramble to survive, there is no leisure time, at least for a long while. You don't realize it today, but you will pretty much be living like a peasant from the middle ages for at least 3-5 years, which means no vacation, no free time, and no spending money.


4. $30,000 may last you a week or a month, depending on what you're doing that week or month.


5. It doesn't matter that you're doing this to 'know who you are'. That doesn't make it any cheaper, easier or quicker. If you're trying to find yourself, take the $30k, buy a backpack and wander the world for a couple of years. You'll have a better time, see better things, and meet interesting people. Neither backpacking or building your offgrid fantasy is going to help you find yourself, but you'll have better memories of backpacking.


Do what you want, just do it with eyes opened and know what all the steps are. Even building an earth ship, you need to know a lot about what's in the soil you are using. Dirt's not just dirt, and all dirt isn't the same.

 

sounds good if you have the money