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Old 04-22-2012, 01:39 PM   #12
Solumina
 
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Cali
Posts: 8,030
Well jumping headfirst into it without any experience can be a disaster so my advise is to start small and grow your own herbs and vegetables. If you have never grown anything before mint is pretty hard to kill (and it also has a tendency to grow through ceramic so make sure it is in a glass or metal container if you don't want it to spread). If you have a yard to make a garden in that is great, if not you can grow lots of veggies and some fruits in pots or window boxes (personally I think strawberries are the perfect plant for window gardens as they have those cute white flowers at the very beginning of spring and then those bright red berries as things warm up).

Living totally off the grid is hard, really hard, I know people who have done it and even with plenty of money to invest in solar panels and wind turbines (which do require a sizable amount of money if you want to use them to fully power your home) they have to limit their energy use. You also mentioned wanting internet, well if you're off the grid then you're off the grid so no cable or fiber optic lines, you can get satellite but for internet it gets quite pricy if you want anything that isn't atrociously slow. I'm not saying that you can't live comfortably off the grid, it just takes a lot of planning, you do have to invest in it, and you have to sacrifice some things to make it happen.
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