Living "Off the Grid"

[Rich Riddle]

Rich,your question is one for a psychologist .

Mel,

I am a psychologist. Believe it or not there is no diagnosis for the people who live this way. It doesn't break any clinical thresholds. Strange but not enough to identify. They have to show other significant problems to meet diagnostic criteria in the DSM-5.

Thanks to the one who used the word "preppers." That was one I was looking to find.

[Kevin Bourque]

It wasn't too long ago that everyone lived off the grid. They all had outhouses, washboards, and wood stoves. They had to fetch water from the crick, or pump it from a well if they were lucky.

If you wanted something to eat you had to grow it, butcher it, store it, prepare it, light the stove, and then you could eat it.

All this fancy livin' is a relatively new phenomenon.

[Shawn Pixley]

It wasn't too long ago that everyone lived off the grid. They all had outhouses, washboards, and wood stoves. They had to fetch water from the crick, or pump it from a well if they were lucky.

If you wanted something to eat you had to grow it, butcher it, store it, prepare it, light the stove, and then you could eat it.

All this fancy livin' is a relatively new phenomenon.

We humans became dependent upon others with the initial divisions of labor and a the agricultural revolution say 3-5000 BCE. Even most who live off the grid, got some potion of their belongings from others (easy examples, clothes, shoes, cooking pots, stoves, etc.). It is true that a great proportion of our arctivities were conducted by ourselves 100-150 years ago. I remember outhouses, pumping water, etc... Todays life is easier, we live longer and better in our society than ever before.

[David Weaver]

Todays life is easier, we live longer and better in our society than ever before.

Ditto that, and if we need to have a connection to doing things with our hands or conserving for the sake of no waste (vs. other reasons), we can always:
* bake bread from scratch
* repair and maintain or own cars
* shave with a straight razor
* turn the lights off
* walk short trips instead of driving
etc.

Otherwise, it certainly makes sense to me to take advantage of the grid. The grid is just another tool to manage. The likelihood that "living off grid" in a major disaster is going to be a scenario where you sit on your own stockpile and nobody bothers you is very unrealistic. It works in fantasy right now for folks because nobody has a life and death need for their goods. Far better to prep for disaster by getting to know your neighbors and making friends.

[Shawn Pixley]

I really don't know anyone who lives off the grid outside Alaska. There are people there who live very similarly to how humans lived 100-150 years ago. Their life is "short, brutish and nasty" to quote Thomas Hobbes out of context. It sounds much more romantic than it lives I expect. There is a book called, "Into the Wild" that explores this sort of adventuring. Wilderness survival can be learned and it makes for great adventure stories. But adventure is hardship seen at a distance. My great grandmother told me of the winter she experienced before emigrating to the United States. All they had to eat was cabbage that winter. Sounds horrible.

Me, I'll stay on the grid.

[Mel Fulks]

Rich,I remembered you were . Guess I was just saying "You're the expert here". I know a guy in his fifties with no SS number who is kind of an itinerant worker ,I think he probably just doesn't want to pay taxes. There are still farm families ,in the mountains, that are just used to being isolated and seem strange to city folk. Maybe they just don't have any reason to go anywhere. So some are born off grid. I saved an old news paper article about a family that lived in such in inaccessible place that the children didn't go to school. Principal had such a hard time getting to their house that he told
the parents that he was giving up on trying to make the children attend. At least one child was insulted enough to start
going to school.

[Judson Green]

I don't know maybe us normal ones are really the ones that oughta have their heads examined.

Spend money on things we haven't the time enjoy cause we're to busy making money to spend on things haven't the time to enjoy and so on.

Oh and the expensive mortgage so we got a place to sleep and eat. Expensive car payment... well at least that one we enjoy on a count of the two hour round trip commute.

I'm not really sure what "living off the grid" means, as others have said I'm sure its not a cut and dry kinda thing. But all the excessive consumerism is kinda ridiculous.

[Rod Sheridan]

Rich, your friend isn't living, he's existing.

Big difference.

As a Technologist, I'm always amazed at how little thought people put into the modern world. I work for one of those modern companies, in satelite communications.

We're a 24/7 company flying spacecraft and making sure your stuff works like magic. As with all utilities, it's "just here" whether it's electricity, gas, water, or any of the functions modern society produces.

I can't think of anyone who can live without support from society, even people who "live off the grid".

They're often the people with the most reliance on society as they acquire all the stuff they can't make themselves prior to putting up the "do not disturb" sign on the end of their driveway.

I'm all for conservation and sound environmental decisions, however I don't want to sit in the dark trying to make my own axe head..............Rod.

[David Weaver]

I really don't know anyone who lives off the grid outside Alaska.

Heimo Korth! Great Vice video out on the internet about how Heimo lives. But he does get stuff (fuel, ammunition, food, etc) delivered by plane and he trades his wares from being a trapper to get those things. I'd imagine there are some others like him, just not living where he lives.

More on the minimalist side, my mother's brother (one of the chicken runners in the outhouse story) lived on almost nothing his whole life. He had an egg route that he serviced every day and if he spent money on something, he was proud of it (because it was something he didn't do often). He got up at some odd hour, like 4:30 every morning and never would pay to get an alarm clock, never had one. When my grandmother got older, she convinced him to spend some money to buy a plane ticket to visit another brother who was living 1000 miles away. While he bought the ticket, he refused to spend $5 to buy an alarm clock to make sure he'd wake up in time to make an early morning flight.

We had a term around there for folks who grew up in the depression and it was 100% self-denial of any gratification (i.e, if it's satisfying or fun, you probably don't need to do it for yourself - it could be a waste). There are probably lots of folks like that in the third world, but after the depression, there were a lot in my rural area who never grew away from that.

They weren't off grid, but they lived on less than a lot of people who are off grid.

There is a second type of off grid person who isn't remotely similar to the types mentioned in this thread, and that's the early retiree who goes "off grid" and then sets up a youtube series to try to generate ad revenue. For some reason, those types flash by my playlist on youtube, and they are filled with preachy self-righteous types claiming they're making a "back to the land" movement, but telling everyone to "only eat beyond organic food", and buying all kinds of expensive stuff no true off-gridder would buy (like large generators, expensive new hand tools, thousand dollar bread mixers, bulldozers, etc...all kinds of stuff). Fantasy off gridders, I guess.

[Moses Yoder]

Can anyone truly and fully enjoy life living like that?

There are various types of people. A true extrovert will never understand a true introvert. There is a person who must have a cell phone glued to his hand in order to be happy, so he can check the weather forecast every 10 minutes. He is truly happy so long as his technology is functioning. There is a different type of person who hates being dependent on technology. He is truly happy so long as there is no cell phone nearby.

This of course begs the question what is the purpose of life? I don't see how being happy has anything to do with my purpose. If it did, it seems to me that it would be a very empty life; the purpose of life is to be happy, and my happiness depends on external circumstances?

[Ryan Mooney]

Hmm, not sure how to respond here. I grew up for the first ~8 years of my life what I suppose y'all would consider "off the grid" and went back to live with my grandparents in essentially the same setup every summer until I was around 16 or so. From around when I was 9 or so we had electricity and hot and cold running water but still no TV and the phone was a party line and rarely used.

This meant we didn't have TV or electricity or telephone or running water (no hot and only cold at the main house not mom & dads cabin) or indoor plumbing. Radio was obtained by a long antenna (100+') and a handful of batteries. Food was whatever was fresh or canned or stored in the root cellar (this gave out around when the garden started to produce most years) or dried. Heat and cooking was wood. Night lights were kerosene. We did buy dry goods (some flour, sugar, oil, salt, and similar) a couple of times a year. Until Dad moved out all of the farming/ranching was done with horses (once he and my uncles left the round baler moved in pretty quick). My folks and aunts and uncles were mostly homeschooled (there was some boarding out - I boarded out for grade 1 and partially for grade 2 and then rode the school bus like "normal" folks).

I can say with a reasonable degree of confidence that

• Most of the people who think they want to live off of the grid are vastly mistaken in their intentions.
• Its not all that bad if you just roll with it, but the lack of reading material around mid winter kind of gets to you. Some members of my family were happier than others.
• Outhouses do indeed suck when its 35 below 0.
• This isn't to say everyone didn't work extraordinarily hard
• I suspect that at least part of the hoarding is from a scarcity mentality and part is that if you don't leave home much all those little seemingly useless parts can come in handy (knowing which is which is a challenge for me to this day).

I work in computers now.. you can take that to mean whatever you want.

[Larry Edgerton]

There are a lot of people out there in a different category. People that live on the grid but are preparing for the grid to be broken. I would not necessarily call them preppers, as that tends to have a negative connotation, but rather people that see the possibility of problems in the future and choose to be prepared. Some people do not have as much faith in the system as others.

My own house has provisions for extended power outages, so that alone must make me some kind of whacko I suppose. I have a large garden, can some of my own foods, heat with wood from my own property, and am getting it set so I do most of my work at home. I like being home, and the tradeoff of working away for things I do not need in the first place seems silly to me. But then I do not watch TV, so I probably do not have the right perspective. I'm missing out on all of those ads that tell me what I need to buy to be one with the in crowd. Oh, the pain...........

I also realize that in the event of a total collapse what I have makes me a target so hold no illusions of living through an apocalypse. If that was to come to pass, I die. So be it.

I have built several installations for people a lot smarter than I that feel there is a possibility of hard times, but I am sure they are just overreacting.

I will never be off the grid, where would I plug in my tools?

Larry

[Ryan Mooney]

I will never be off the grid, where would I plug in my tools?

Larry

And therein lies the bottom line.

Although I did find a property up in Washington state a couple of years back that had a several megawatt (not a typo) private hydro setup (they were big enough they were selling back to the local grid and reasonable rates) on it which I reckon would likely have run anthing I'd be interested in running (also brings in the problems inherent in maintaining a multi-megawatt power generator which frankly would scare the boots off of me).

[Andrew Joiner]

She told that when she was little, they had a rotten rooster for a while, and when the kids wanted to go to the bathroom, they would take turns running the rooster around the yard (there were 9 kids) until the rooster was tired and wouldn't chase them. Then they'd all go.

I just pictured that scene and it made me laugh. That's probably how they got by without TV or radio. The kids would provide constant entertainment.

[Brian Elfert]

I'm not a super social person, but I couldn't imagine living out in the boonies where you might not see another person for days or weeks. The outhouse I could do without. When I go up to the Boy Scout summer camp to help I will generally not use the latrines and instead walk to one of several places with a flush toilet. Most of the time when I am up at camp helping out I stay in a beautiful log cabin with kitchen, full bathroom, and central heat/air conditioning. (Really roughing it.)

I am trying to downsize my living situation. I just sold my 2,650 square foot house and am looking for a smaller house.