Five things you should do right now if you are living off the grid

1. A daily and constant draw is as simple as a light switch. If you switched out the light bulbs in your house with fluorescent bulbs you will see an overall savings in your energy bill
2. In addition to changing the type of bulb, people leave lights on all of the time when they don’t need to be. Living off the grid means to only use what you need to and not waste anything. Install occupancy sensors so when you leave the room for a period of time the lights go out. When you return they come on.
3. Everyone loves bottled water as they know it is clean and filtered however this gets expensive and adds to the garbage output for your household. Install a water filter and stop buying any more water bottles. This will help on many fronts when you live off the grid.
4. Water bills are another expense that you need to control when you live self sufficiently. Be sure to add low flow versions of your faucet and shower head this will help cut your monthly expenses almost in half. That is the type of savings anyone trying to live self sufficient should strive for.
5. Ensure your home is buttoned up properly for winter and summer. You are spending money in summer to cool down the house and in winter to heat it up. Thirty percent of your heat or air conditioning escapes through windows. Ensure you have well caulked windows and seals to limit your loses.

What causes the high pressure and the low pressure? These are differences are caused by the fact the sun does not distribute heat evenly across the planet. Some areas are warmed more than others and this variation of the sun’s heating causes the high pressure and low pressure areas which result in wind and subsequently, wind energy to be created.

What is wind energy? Some of the most common and historical uses of wind energy include sail boats which captured the wind to propel their craft around the world. Farmers have also taken advantage of wind energy capturing the wind with windmills and would use that energy created to pull water from wells or run grain mills. Facts about wind is that it is a renewable energy that is clean and a growing source even though currently globally only provides energy to a small amount.

More Facts about Wind and Wind Energy:

• Renewable Energy source
• The largest wind turbines can generate enough wind energy for over six hundred homes in the US
• Capture and use of wind energy causes no air or water pollution of any kind
• The largest expense that comes with wind energy is the construction costs of the turbine. Once built wind energy has low or no operational costs
• Many government incentives and breaks are available for business or individuals who invest in wind energy

The largest complaint commonly held against wind energy is the noise created by the large wind turbines as well as the aesthetic look of the machine itself. Another unfortunate facts about wind energy is that if the wind is not blowing, no energy is being created so that it is not the best solution for all locations and careful consideration needs to go into the location chosen for investing in wind energy.

Health: The more self reliant you are, the more you are forced to do in a day. If you are not paying someone to mow your lawn, to rake your leaves, to clean your gutters you are doing it yourself. If you don’t pay someone to walk your dog, paint your house or reseed your lawn you are doing it yourself. The more self reliant you are in your every day life the more active you become and the more self sufficient you are, the healthier you are. Not everyone has the motivation or time to carve out to exercise but if you exercise by just learning to be self reliant and not depend upon others you will burn calories naturally by just maintaining your day to day living.

Money: If you can be self reliant and not pay someone to do something you are capable to do you can put that money in the bank. Each time you get lazy and grow less self sufficient and outsource a task you could have done you gave away your hard earned cash. That cash in this current environment could have gone into the bank for a rainy day. The best example of cash savings is dining. It will always be cheaper in the long run to buy groceries and cook for yourself than to eat out on a daily basis. Cheaper, and healthier to be self reliant. When you learn to live self sufficient you find all aspects of your life improves as you work harder and force yourself not to be lazy.

Online Writing – This is always a popular option when you are researching on how to work from home full time. The main reason is that there really are endless ways to earn enough income to work for yourself while investing very little of your own cash in the process. You can earn passive income from creating your own blog and adding SEO focused content to drive traffic and earn income using advertisements. You can also use content sites that are out there and add articles however my experience is that if you use an existing content site to place your writing, you see quicker income streams but you run the risk of that company going away and losing your revenue stream. Be self sufficient and create your own blog or website with your online writing is my suggestion in how to work from home.

Contractor Positions – If you have a specific skillset market yourself and learn how to work from home by selling your own skills as a product. This is a wide open bucket that can range from sewing, cooking, typing or pretty much anything you can do that you can figure out how to market which would allow you to learn how to work from home. You would be surprised how many people are NOT self sufficient and more importantly for this topic would rather pay someone to do something so they don’t have to be. Cash in on other people’s laziness and then you can learn how to work from home.

Money breeds Money – the last way I am going to describe in this article on how to work from home involves you investing cash into a business. Real estate rental properties is a classic example where if you own a few rental units you can earn enough to cover the business and your personal expenses. Of course, this route involves a big cash investment on your part. Other ways to you can learn how to work from home if you have cash to invest include buying up dividend earning stocks and taking the cash each quarter instead of reinvesting your dividend. CD Laddering is another approach but not in these times where the interest rates are low. Basically money makes money if you have it to invest.

If you have had wine splash on clothing before, you probably know how badly it stains. Have no fear – there is a way to prevent wine from staining your favorite materials. The best part about this is that the stain remover is inexpensive and likely in your kitchen cabinet.

Salt. That is all you’ll need to remove wine stains from your clothing. The trick is to use the salt immediately. As soon as you get wine on your clothing (or any material) simply cover the spot with a layer of salt and let it absorb the wine for several minutes. After approximately 5 to 10 minutes have passed, throw the material into the washing machine and turn on the cold cycle.

There are some instances where you can’t machine wash the damaged material. If you can, try hand washing the item in a large sink or tub. You should always use caution if the damaged item is a delicate material. If it is dry clean only, you should not wash it.

I once spilled a glass of red wine on my white cotton curtains. I used salt and the cold cycle immediately after this incident occurred and there is NO trace of the wine on my curtains today!

In order to winterize your garden a fresh layer of mulch should be applied before the colds sets in. There are several different types of mulch that you can use, but leaves are also a great option. If you have a mulcher laying around your house you can use it to shred your leaves easily. The shredded leaves can then be placed on top of your perennials that have been cutback and around your shrubs and trees. The insulation from the shredded leaves will protect the delicate roots of your plants during the cold of winter.

If you don’t want to use your leaves as mulch you can still add them to your compost bin. Keep in mind that you will likely have more leaves than your compost bin can handle. Shredding them before you place them into your compost bin is a great way to compact the leaves and free up some additional space. Leaves are considered a brown ingredient so you will want to add enough green ingredients to offset them.

Take a trip to your local craft store or hardware store around the time that leaves begin to fall. Many places will offer large garbage bags that have fun designs on them. Simply fill these bags with all of your leaves for a bit of entertainment. One of the most classic examples of this option is the large pumpkin bags you see at Halloween!

You will spend your whole summer watching your gourds grow. When you see them change from their standard green color into a pale tan color, they are ripe and ready to be picked from the vine. Be careful when you do this. You want to leave at least 4 inches of stem on your bottleneck gourd which you will later use to hang it!

Now you have to wait. Take your gourd and place it in a safe location for it to dry out. The location should provide the fruit with good air circulation and should be a bit warm. After a couple months, give your gourd a shake. If you here seeds rattling around inside, your gourd is ready to be turned into a birdhouse.

Wash the skin of your gourd well with warm soapy water and dry it thoroughly. Use a drill with a 1.5” bit to create a hole in the side for the birds. Take a small spoon and insert it through the opening and clean out any gourd guts that are still in side. You can also drill several tiny holes in the bottom of your gourd for drainage purposes.

Now that your bottleneck gourd has been prepped, you can have a bit of fun with it. Take some paints and create a design on the exterior. That’s really all there is to it!

The first thing you want to do is to cut back any perennials that are done growing for the year. There are a few perennials that may add some winter interest to your garden and you may prefer not to cut these back until spring. Pick and choose which perennials will be interesting, and which ones will just look like a mess in your garden over the winter!

You will also want to remove any annuals that you planted in your garden. In less you live in a warm climate these annuals stand no chance of surviving very long and they won’t reseed themselves before this happens.

It is generally a good idea to thoroughly mulch your garden beds to prepare for the winter. Mulch acts as an insulator and will keep the root systems of your plants warm in cold weather. You can recycle some of your yard wastes, like shredded leaves, as mulch. You don’t necessarily need to purchase wood chips from your garden store to accomplish this task.

If you have any evergreens growing in your yard you should spray them with an anti-desiccant. Evergreen needles actually have pores and this product will basically protect these pores from drying out because of the wind. Evergreens that are not protected can become dehydrated and eventually die during a cold winter.

One of the easiest ways to get a jump on the spring planting season is to start seeds indoors. A greenhouse will provide a warm environment for your seedlings to develop and protect them from the harsh conditions outside. While many people start seeds indoors, few have the luxury of starting them in a greenhouse. A greenhouse provides more sunlight for your seedlings than they would receive on a windowsill.

There are numerous greenhouse kits that you can find. Many of these kits are designed specifically for backyard gardeners. They are fairly easy to build based on the actual layout and size you select. Some of these greenhouses are very small while others are several feet wide.

Before you decide to build a greenhouse in your backyard there are a few things that you should keep in mind. Maintaining a greenhouse requires a lot of hard work and dedication. Make sure you have the time you’ll need to take on these maintenance tasks so you don’t end up wasting money. It is also a good idea to check your local building codes to determine if you need a permit to build a greenhouse in your yard!

Invest in a small pail for the kitchen

The first thing you want to do is find a great kitchen pail that you can use for composting. The objective of this pail is to allow you to easily store kitchen scraps for a few days before they are taken to your main compost bin which is probably located somewhere in your backyard.

The kitchen pail will likely be hidden somewhere in your kitchen such as under the sink. Because you are collecting organic materials in this pail it is a good idea to find one that has some type of carbon filter built in to cut down on the unpleasant smells. Burpee sells a kitchen pail designed specifically for this purpose.

Once you have filled your kitchen pail with your scraps you can dump its contents into your main compost bin. Keep in mind that you are placing a lot of “green” ingredients into your bin. In order to maintain the balance of your compost bin it is important to add dry, “brown” ingredients at the same time. If you have some dried leaves or newspaper laying around your home these would be great ingredients to add at this time.

Tip: Always remember to stir the contents of your compost bin well!