We have lived in the city like regular people for about 7 years - thankfully no house payments as our parents were amazing to buy us an apartment and we are eternally grateful for that despite our differences. We had jobs, gas bills, electricity, water and garbage bills, internet bills, we bought all the food we needed in a supermarket and we were OK. For a while.
Then we moved to the countryside in a regular village - bought a crooked house with a small piece of land with what money we had saved (kept the apartment but didn’t rent it) so we don’t pay house bills for too long, fixed it, lived in it for 7 more years, learned gardening, paid bills there too - electricity, water, bought most of our food, bought gas tanks to cook, bought wood to keep warm. Like semi-regular people. Still kept our connection with the city.
Now…for the past 4 years we have moved to a much larger plot of land, built with very cheap and on site materials (straw bales and earth bags) to keep the construction cheap and didn't go into any debts, sold the other country house, bought solar panels and the entire solar system with the money we got, built a well for water, expanded the garden every year.
Yeah, it’s been hell at the beginning - we didn’t even have windows on the house when we moved in, no comfort, no cooking facilities, no fridge, no bath. And I didn’t regret moving in not even then.
Now, we don’t pay for electricity, we cook on electrical stoves we power ourselves or with our own wood mostly (we still buy some wood but just to save our small forest and allow those trees to grow), we haven’t bought a gas tank for cooking in about 18 months, we don’t buy water, we select our garbage and whatever burns, we burn - the rest metal and glass we pile for now and we will find a way soon to take it to be recycled in the city, I can bathe in a decent manner, we produce some of our food and we expand the garden each year.
We still buy some food, some from local producers, some from the supermarket, but I expect that to change each year. Last year we got bees - taking care of them has been difficult with the severe drought last summer, but some survived winter and we can expand the hives. I wanted to get birds this year, but I can’t kill them so having them just for eggs is too much work, too much time lost I can invest in personal development. So most probably I will skip birds and buy eggs. We still buy meet, but we eat much less than a few years ago. I no longer eat pork and beef. The guys ate much less this year in pork. Not having meat at some point in our lives - we will survive. So…no I don’t regret moving off-grid or partially off-grid. I would never go back to bills and I am looking forward with confidence that things will get better and better.
All the best,
Geo
Yeah...that's our garlic in the picture 😉😀
