Off The Grid: NOW!

OK so here’s the deal. I’m going to try the “off-the-grid” lifestyle. No really. I’ve decided to DO IT!

I’ve had it with renting, and never owning anything of real value. I’m tired of paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent and never actually having anything of value. THAT SUCKS!

I’ve been renting in Southern California (one of the most expensive states in the United States) for about 6 years this month. In the 6 years I’ve been here, I’ve paid an average of about $2000 per month in rent and utilities. That’s a total of $144,000 in 6 years! Seriously? $144k. That is a whole lot of money. That’s enough money to buy a very nice home in a nice area with nice schools, and still have money left over for a nice car, and medical insurance. (which I cannot afford for my family right now, because I rent!)

This number also doesn’t include my gas money, car insurance, cable, internet, clothes, school supplies or food. (Entertainment? What is that? We haven’t been to the theatre to see a movie in over a year)

All, these are incidental expenses and something I’d really have anywhere, so what I did was subtract all those from the total, and add up all the rent money, water bills, electric bills, and other miscellaneous expenses associated with renting and come up with an average. When I first moved to California rent for my 1 Bedroom apartment was $975/mo plus utilities which were around $300+ per month depending on the month. Then rent would go up by $25/50/mo each year for the cost of living increase which all property management companies impose on their tenants. Then I met my girlfriend 5 years ago, and we moved in together. This two bedroom apartment was something like $1100 per month plus utilities which ran about $400/mo or more. We stayed there for about 2 years or so, then moved into a 3 bedroom place. The rent on this place is nearly $1500/mo plus about $500+ in utilities and other miscellaneous expenditures.

This is relatively acceptable IF your wage is also increase at your job, but since for 4 out of these 6 years I’ve been self employed, and the economy took a nosedive in the summer of 2008, it’s been rather hard to do anything but pay bills.

In fact, I’ve gone into debt about $40k. Now that is a WAKE UP call! Another wake up call was just last month the power went out in the southwest United States. San Diego, CA, Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of northern Mexico had a MASSIVE BLACKOUT for about 6 hours. I won’t go into detail about this, but I’m STUPID for not seeing the writing on the wall sooner. We scrambled and worried for 6 whole hours, while we wondered whether the power would come back on soon. I was seriously thinking of how we were going to get out of town (considering we have no transportation; both our cars were repossessed) if the power stayed off for any length of time.

Think about it. The NorthEast United States had a BIG blackout a few years back. This blackout lasted for days for some people. The blackout in San Diego could have easily lasted days. If it had lasted a week or more there would be some serious danger to families living in the city. Looting, possible water and food riots, and not having transportation compounds the problem. There’s real danger there, and it’s not something I want to be un prepared for.

I was born and raised in Hurricane country. Florida is a great state, and we had our share of hurricanes over the years. So, hurricane preparedness was top on our list. We always had supplies, just in case. For some reason, I became complacent and when the power went off this time here in southern California, I was completely un prepared. Not again!

Now, we’re in a position that renting is just NOT an option any more. The amount of money we’re wasting is ridiculous! Seriously, all the money we’ve spent on renting over the past 6 years could have already paid off a 3BR 2 BA 2500 square foot home in just about any state in the union. Adding insult to injury, not only could we have owned our own home by now, but we could have land too. A lot of it. Land prices in southern California, Arizona, and Nevada are very inexpensive. CHEAP even. In fact, with this down economy it’s a buyers market right now for those with money or the know how to buy a home “creatively” with a “No-Money-Down” deal.

Realtors, and landowner/homeowners are willing to deal right now. Housing prices have dropped so low right now, it would be silly to miss this opportunity to buy a home with some land on the cheap.

According to the experts the housing market is at or near the bottom of the market right now. They don’t expect it to get much worse. In fact, in SOME areas of the country, the housing markets are actually growing. Imagine that. Growth, in this economy.

I’ve done some research and looked at literally hundreds of properties in the southwest USA. A trend I’m seeing is that land is being bought up left and right by companies and individual investors right now faster than the ink can dry on the real estate contracts.

Now is the PERFECT time to buy. The way I see it even if the market take a bit of a dip from here, in 3-5 years, it will probably increase and start to recover. I don’t mind losing 10%-20% of the value of a property in the next year, if I hold onto it and don’t freak out with a market drop, I should be able to pull out a nice little profit on the home sale in 3-5 years with improvements  if I’m able to get into a property now with some creative financing.

With it being a buyers market right now, I’ve tested the waters with a few “test” offers with some real estate agents. What I found was they were VERY receptive to my No-Money-Down offers.

I was straight up and honest with the brokers, and made sure I wasn’t leading them on. I made it crystal clear I was not interested in a traditional bank loan or mortgage, and would only consider a deal with Owner Financing. This way we both felt better going into the deal. I found that some realtors were not receptive to this technique, and of the many phone calls and conversations, one was completely turned off to the idea. The rest of them were “open” to it. In fact one very NICE property I looked at has a 3BR 2BA log cabin/home, solar and wind power, and a 1500 square foot barn on 50 acres of land. I will probably make a real offer on this property if there are not any big problems with it.

I’m ok with walking away from any property right now. There are so many out there the market is literally FLOODED with brand new homes, and cheap land from land and home owners looking to “get out” of their properties and cut their losses. Buying in a buyers market is just plain smart business. Especially in a down economy IF you can make it work. That’s still a big if, and there’s still risk, but I’m willing to walk on a property if it’s not the right deal.

So, what am I going to do? Well, the plan is to find the right property, whether it has a house, or it’s vacant land, it doesn’t matter to me. The off-the-grid lifestyle is the goal. I don’t mind being hooked into the grid voluntarily, as long as the grid is paying me for excess the electricity.

My biggest goal is self-sufficiency with connection. I must have internet to run my business, and to do that I must find a place that’s close to the civilized world, but far enough away that I can live off the grid, and build onto the property.

I have family, and they’d like land too, so I want the option of being able to parcel the land out, and give or sell a smaller parcel off to my family members so they can build their own home as well.

Building a greenhouse, a small pond or lake, and installing solar and wind power systems is a given. But the home(s) I want to build myself. I’ve never built a home before, but I’m not inexperienced with construction. I’ve been in construction and design all my life. My father is a plumber/pipefitter (who taught me the trade), my uncle an electrician whom I worked for about 2-3 years, and I’ve done everything from concrete work, to carpentry and roofing. I’ve even laid carpet and flooring, and just about anyone can paint a house. I have about 10 solid years of new of old construction experience. So I think I’m more experienced than most who are just starting out, but I’m far from knowing it all for sure. Suffice it to say, I probably know just enough to hire the right people for the jobs I don’t know how to do myself.

Finding land with a home already on it is an option, but it’s not ideal. I’d rather build my own home. What’s the point of building on land that already has a house? Unless you buy a section of land large enough to split into parcels. Which is what this 50 acre ranch is that I’m looking at purchasing. This property is nice, and I’ll probably make a real offer on it. If I don’t get it, I’ll move on to the next one. NO big deal.

That’s the great part about living off the grid, and building your own home.

With the money I’ll save from not renting, I can put that money back into something I own, and within 2-3 years I can most probably sell it for a profit. Having an exit strategy is important. Mine is simple. Move in 2-3 years.

Why would I buy land, build my own home off-the-grid, and then just sell it in a couple few years? Because this is just the first step in getting to my families dream home.

See. We would like a ranch. A big one. One where my girlfriend and I can raise our baby daughter and her boys. I’m a new dad. I never thought I’d be a dad, and my baby girl Haley is 16 months old now. I know in about 3 years she’ll be going into Kindergarten, and I’d like to be ready to that. I want her to experience the outdoors, and I want the boys (10 and 12) to experience what it’s like to live outside the city. I want to be able to diversify their lifestyle and let them experience the world, and create good memories of their childhood. Being cooped up in an apartment is no way to live your life.

When I was a child I spent ALL my time outdoors. I hunted, fished, hiked, camped, rode bikes, motorcycles, go karts, swam in the river, ponds, lakes, and road in the boat. I loved the outdoors, and I regret spending the last 6 years of my life, and that of my family’s, indoors, in a crappy little apartment, in the middle of the city.

Living off the grid is not easy. I’ve done it before when I was growing up, but it wasn’t by choice. My dad as you know by reading above was a construction worker. Many times he was laid off work from the union he worked for and couldn’t find work. He worked all over where and when he could, but sometimes that wasn’t enough and our electric was turned off. There was a time during my childhood, that for nearly two years we lived without electricity or telephone. Back then there was no internet, and it was about as off the grid as you could get.

This kind of change is a major lifestyle change. Fortunately, with modern technology, cell phones, and satellite we have the ability to live just about anywhere in the USA and still be relatively connected.

We’re not getting any younger. I’m 38 years old as of this writing. In ten years I only hope were in good enough shape to continue building. I’ll be 48 years old, Jaime will be 45, and the boys will be grown and moving out or moved out. My baby girl will be 11 and a half getting ready to go into middle school. I want to be able to provide the good memories and secure lifestyle they need. That will make me happy.

It’s time for a change. It’s beyond time. It’s time to stop talking and start doing!

Now!

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Read my article about my $25k shipping container home

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