Community Chat

[Tinkrbl44]

I think there's a somewhat romanticised notion about being carefree and "off the grid".   Of course, it depends on where you live and how cold it gets in the winter ....  not to mention  accessibility to various food sources. 

From what I've read, a great deal of time is devoted to survival ....  I'd rather be "on the grid" and happily pay for the creature comforts I've come to  enjoy ... air conditioning, good health care, etc etc.   I will pass.  

[LilyAnne1]

I live off the grid. It was too cost prohibitive to run power lines to our house. We have solar, a generator and batteries. Solar and generator charge batteries. House is powered by the batteries. I have internet and Dish. You wouldn't even notice except for the solar panels.

[blackhole99]

We live on a homestead in the woods, but not off the grid. I grow some of our food and we have a composting toilet, but our house pretty much runs on electricity. We have a whole house generator because where we live we could be without  power for days if there's an outage. It takes quite a bit of work to live off the grid and you better know how to do things around the place yourself unless you have unlimited funds.

[LilyAnne1]

We have lived off grid for 5 years. We are in the woods but very close to everything. I have a small garden in summer but that's it. The only reason we are off grid was because it was too expensive to run the lines down our road. Husband and I are handy. He works from home. I drive 20 miles to work. It's not for everyone but it works for us.

[SeaMaiden]

Nope.  I like comfort, electricity, my internet, grocery stores.....the good life. I do not want to struggle, or kill my food.  It is what I know.  I cry when the power is out for 24 hours....one time it was out for  four days....I was a basket case.

[LilyAnne1]

Well I guess the only difference for me is I get my power in a different way. I have all the conveniences of internet, washer and dryer etc. I live in the country but stores are nearby. And we buy our food in grocery stores. We don't kill animals but we have a lot of pets!

[happycat]

@LilyAnne1, wow, LilyAnne1, thats interesting. What I see on the shows looks like a very hard and difficult life. It sounds like it isn't at all that bad for you.

[LilyAnne1]

I guess for us living off the grid means just having an alternate power source, whereas on the show it is a whole different kind of life! That wouldn't be for me!!

[chiclets]

Do not entertain camping, and blizzards and hurricanes and being without power for days and days have been enough of off the grid. An absolute NO.

[Stormygirl]

We have lived off grid for years, but now with my health declining we have elctricity and all that. We still live way out in the woods, no other homes in our view and we like it that way. For years I grew my own food, we both can hunt and at one time rarely went to grocery store. We ate much more healthy back then too. I miss doing that and although is some work we were in great shape doing for ourselves.. I even tanned and made shoes, clothing and rugs as per my native tradition. Is a certain peace knowing we could look out for ourselves in case of emergency and were in touch with the natural world. Is wonderful an peaceful having critters as neighbors not so much human encroachment.  Still living out in the woods on our homestead but not off grid anymore. I am thankful for having had that experience.