Why did we move off grid? This is a fair question. Some may well be wondering, why would anyone in their right mind, possessing even subtle vestiges of sanity, move somewhere that has no power lines? What kind of tin-foil hat wearing lunatic would one have to be to consider such a thing?

Well let me attempt to answer this. First, I'll assure you, we don't wear tin-foil hats. We don't even own any. For one, they don't really go with anything and silver isn't our color :-/

In all seriousness though, why make life more complicated than it needs to be? We get it ...

Let me take you back a few years. We were still looking for property and weren't sure if we were going to go with raw land or something that already had liveable structures on it. We had talked about going off-grid ... someday. That was our ultimate goal for power but we weren't really planning to go that route right off the bat. We knew little about solar and figured that it would be too expensive and probably complicated to do.

Texageddon

Well, while we were looking, Texageddon happened.

If you recall, this was back in 2021 when Texas' power grid came within seconds or minutes of complete failure. Partial grid shutdowns took place. This was catastropic enough but what made it 10 times worse was that it happened in the dead of winter. People literally froze to death (hypothermia). Some died of carbon monoxide poisoning from sitting in their running vehicles in their garages trying to stay warm. By the time the whole ordeal was over, 246 people lost their lives. Some estimates go as high as 702!

This was tragic to say the least and it made us think twice about going off-grid sooner rather than later. The folks who weren't reliant on the power grid fared much better.

So, skipping ahead, I remember the day that we stepped out of the truck onto the soil of what would become our property. Home. It was so quiet and peaceful. Really quiet and beautifully situated in an area surrounded by mountains. Love was in the air. This was looking very promisng. I can't tell you how many properties we had looked at over the course of those 3 years but this one actually had aspects of it that we all liked. Try to get 5 women to agree. Not an easy task.

But ... there was one thing that was clearly missing. Power lines. The property was off the grid. Tens of acres. Not a single power line running through it. But hey, no problem right? We'll just call the power company and see about getting some poles installed because although we knew off-grid was the way to go, we still didn't think that we were ready to do it right away.

The High Cost of Grid Power

Well that phone call turned out to be the deciding factor for us. You can say, in a sense, that it was when the Off Grid Girls were born because they told us that it would cost $25k just to run wire across the property!!! That was not even counting the cost of any poles and we would likely have needed several!!! So this could have easily approached 75 - 100k in cost. Guess what? We didn't have that! Maybe in our dreams but certainly not in our bank accounts. So the decision was made for us. Ready or not, off grid it was.

So the cut and dry answer is, we went off grid primarily because it was the most affordable option. Had it not been for that, we would've probably put it off until later but I'm really thankful that we did it sooner instead. It actually wasn't as expensive or as complicated as we thought it would be. It's basically about as complex as you make it meaning, how much power do you need?

Personally, I've been running off of a single solar panel and a 2330Wh solar generator for months without issue. Meena and her mom are doing the same with a 2048Wh generator with an expansion battery that brings it up to 4096Wh. Only Ally and her mom have an actual full solar system operating right now, so theirs was more complicated to setup. For both Meena and myself, its just been a matter of plugging our RVs into our generators and connecting those to a solar panel or two. How hard is that?

Off Grid Affordability

The honest truth is that it's never been easier or more affordable to go off-grid. We didn't hire any expensive contractors to get us up and going. We did a lot of youtubing. I highly recommend Will Prowse's YouTube channel. We have learned so much from this guy. He especially appeals to DIYers. Now you definitely need to be smart when DIYing things. Don't make the sad mistakes that I did.

Also check your state because some states do give tax credits for the purchase of solar equipment and of course there is the Federal Solar Tax Credit.

Solar isn't for everyone

Now for sure, solar isn't going to work for everyone. If you live in a state that has little sunlight, you might want to consider something else. I think that many equate off-grid with solar power but there are other energy options to choose from. There's wind power, hydro (water) power, and geothermal power just to name a few. Do some research and find out what would be best for you. Whichever way go you, we highly recommend off-grid living. Its sooooo nice to not have a power bill! And its additional peace of mind not having to worry about future power outages. When you're your own power company, you don't have to stress over things like that.