Moving Off Grid

Its a question I hear a lot, what is moving off grid? and in reality there is no specific answer or specific protocols to follow as every journey is as individual as you as my definition of moving off grid to me means anything someone does to reduce their reliance on the system by taking it over themselves and using their own energy to replace that reliance on the system and it can be something as simple as a few projects such as composting their waste to moving fully off grid by living in the middle of a wood with no services where an individual hunts for fresh meat and grows all their produce for fruit and veg.
Many people begin to remove themselves from the grid because of financial difficulties or debt as they look for another way to adapt to their circumstances to a low income through being unemployed and being into a low paid job and they struggle to survive, or they struggle through rising prices while wages remain the same; others may have an issue with the environment and not like food grown in a poor environment and being shipped half way around the world, others may not like the rampant consumerism of the one world agenda currently being played out.

What can I do to come off grid and how do I go about it? in essence its down to individual choice and your specific issues or reasons which dictate your starting point and if its for financial reasons you could begin to grow your own food and put your energies into this and reduce your shopping bills substantially, if its for environmental reasons then you could put some guttering up around your garage, sheds, or any other outbuildings and collect the water for garden watering and use your tap for drinking water only and reduce your water bills if you are on a meter, or you could compost your waste and provide your own compost for free. What you do need to do before embarking on any project, large or small is to do a lot of research as there are a lot of good ideas out there from people who actually do it rather than talking about it and these are a valuable source of ideas and information which you can use in their entirity or adapt or modify for your individual circumstances as most people dont have the land I have to cultivate to become self sufficient in food, and you may want a number of projects you choose to be interconnected which means you can cherry pick elements from several ideas to make it work for you.

How long do projects take? again this is asking "how long is a piece of string" because the variety of projects you can undertake can be so simple that they can be undertaken in a day and others may be complex and take weeks, months, or years; and this does factor in what skills you have and what skills you dont have and if you need to pay for the skills you dont have, or if you can barter for the skills you dont have and the time it takes the people you have bartered with to complete the work. This is where community spirit comes into play as if you have a number of like minded friends in your community they will all bring different skills to the table for you to exploit and many of these skills can be taught or learned to improve your practical skill sets which can be used for the benefit of others to repay your debt without entering the world of commerce and paying using cash.
Many things may involve your family making a change, if your wife/husband doesn't like running to the compost heap with food peelings then she/he wont do it for long and the excuses will begin to flow such as "its raining and I am not going outside; small children may relish the idea of helping and run outside to the compost heap with peelings and compostable waste and often run outside with little clothing or shoes on, so you need the input from the entire family and a willingness to make changes to your new lifestyle.

If you are looking to move away from the grid then you need to evaluate what you want to achieve and set a schedule, you need to keep this flexible with regards to cost and time for larger projects, and ensure you work out the costs for everything, most people begin with:

Gardening - this is a cheap way to produce your own food and you can often begin harvesting some crops within months or grow some crops nearly all year round now, this saves money within months, some crops may take a few years to establish such as fruit bushes before they begin cropping.

Water harvesting - many people see this as a nice way to save money if they have a water meter and they begin by putting guttering around one outbuilding and collecting water in barrels for their garden, as time and finances permit they begin work on another outbuilding to harvest the rainwater from its roof meaning this is an evolutionary project as it evolves.

Composting - this is a nice easy project to undertake and can yield a lot of compost from your waste products and it also fills the ground with a nice rich liquid fertiliser composting produces which is why many people build two composting bins and fill one and when its full of compost they switch to the second composting bin and begin emptying the first bin and resite it in another location and use its original location for planting to use that nicely nourished soil.

Log burners - these are a nice way of saving on energy bills as great savings can be made of you have a source of wood or logs as you can fire a log burner up in Autumn when temperatures drop, then run it through winter until Spring and easily make savings of 50% or more on your gas bills.

Remember that any project needs a financial outlay, a couple of pallets still require you to fetch them which uses vehicle fuel and nails to attach the sections together and while this may be a small initial outlay something such as a log burner may require an outlay of several hundred pounds and take a couple of years to recoup so be prudent.