There’s more to moving your life off-grid than preparing for a disaster or apocalypse. As the economy becomes more and more unstable and jobs are less and less secure, the act of moving even a portion of your life off grid can help you stave off the type of disaster that comes in the way of a pink slip or worse yet, economic collapse.
Check out the six tips below to start moving off grid and see how you can begin to employ all the prepping you’ve been doing for real, well before it’s even necessary.
Reduce Your Expenses
First things first, you need to reduce your expenses. From Netflix, Hulu, and Cable TV to credit cards and car loans, debt generally equals the lack of freedom. By reducing your expenses you can pay off debts and start having more free money.
This free money can be used to purchase items for survival and general supplies. Extra money also means you can work less and even work for yourself.
Work for Yourself
Ah, this seems to be the real American dream. Start a business and be your own boss. While it’s not as easy as it might seem, working for yourself is a great way to help secure your job and income. While no career is 100% secure, when you’re the one controlling what goes on, they’re about as secure as they can be.
There are many online jobs as well as small businesses and even trades (more on that in a minute) that you can focus on to make a living. With your expenses lowered you’d be surprised how little you actually need to make to live happily.
By securing a job on your own, you’ll never be at the mercy of a fire-happy company or get stuck at the bottom of the ladder when you-know-what starts flowing downhill with the pink slips.
Learn to Use Reclaimed Building Materials
Living off the grid means not heading over to Lowe’s or Home Depot to pick up building materials, but instead making due with what you can find and make yourself.
Learn how to make furniture and other necessary items with recycled building materials. This means sources like old buildings and even wooden pallets can make for great reclaimed building supplies. Check out this site for some instructions on using reclaimed wood.
Buy a Remote Piece of Land
The best way to start living off grid is to find a nice piece of land in the middle of nowhere to call your own. You only need 1-2 acres and to begin with you don’t even need a house built. Just having the land and starting to camp on it is a perfect way to get used to the area and know what’s available. This can be the future home of your bug-out location but for now it can be a respite from the busy world.
Make sure to choose a location that is away from populated areas but still close enough for you to drive to. You want the location to be private but still able to be accessed, especially if you get wintry conditions in your area.
Choose a parcel of land that you could build a house on without any major land moving, and with your newly-found reclaimed building materials skills, you can start the process of building a cabin for yourself.
Learn a Trade
This is possibly the most important tip for starting to live off-grid. The idea of living off grid is to be self-sufficient, but in today’s world we rely on others to do just about any specialized skill. From car repair to plumbing to leatherworking and construction, most of us lack skills to survive.
Learn the basics of one trade at a time. Not only will you save money around the house by doing things yourself instead of calling a specialist, but you’ll be ready to get these done with all the professionals and specialists are gone. Once you get the basics of a few key trades down, try your hand at learning more difficult ones like welding. These will obviously require professional training but the skills learned now can get you safely off the grid later.
Start a Garden…NOW
Food independence is important for a number of reasons. First, this helps you save money and reduce expenses. By growing your own fruits and vegetables you’ll need to buy less, and you’ll eat far better than you do with the processed junk from the grocery stores today.
Second, you gain freedom from the grocery store. By growing enough food for you and your family, you’re making sure that if something bad happens and grocery stores aren’t around any more, you can survive.
Start a garden now so you gain the skills needed before they’re life or death. Practice gardening without heading to the home improvement store for supplies to see what it’ll be like when the SHTF and those stores don’t exist. This skill alone can keep you alive and thriving well into the foreseeable future in an off-grid situation.