Homesteading

So many of us have been looking forward to 2021 since the middle of 2020. We all hoped the pandemic would be over by now and we could go back to our “normal” lives.

Afterall, 2020 was rough. Last week I wrote a year in review post for 2020. If you’d like to see how our year went, that’s the place to go.

I am an optimist at heart, so no matter how bad last year was, I still look forward and make goals for the new year.

This is a habit I’ve been doing for several years. If you would like to look back on those homesteading goals, check them out:

12 Months of Homesteading Goals

Looking Towards the Future: Our Goals for 2018

Our Homesteading Year In Review and Next Year’s Plans

Homesteading Goals for 2020

Our Homesteading Goals for 2021

Gardening

After we moved last year, we restarted our water trough garden. It went really well and we grew lots of veggies.

But by fall, we had more than we could handle. Most of the squash and cucumbers sat uneaten on the counter and by Thanksgiving I just threw it all away.

We don’t have the space in this new house for cold storage of vegetables, even though I think it works great when you do.

We could have canned or frozen the remaining veggies, but time just got away from us.

So this year, I plan on just growing a salsa garden. We love to make and eat salsa, so hopefully that will take care of our waste issue. 

I guess squash and cucumbers just aren’t our favorites.

For our salsa garden, we will grow:

• tomatoes
• onions
• cilantro
• bell peppers
• hotter varieties of peppers
• garlic

I’m excited about this because we can make our own salsa with variable heat, depending on what kinds of peppers we grow. 

Chickens

We are planning on getting chickens again this year. We haven’t had them in 2 years because predators at the old house and moving last year.

Since we are in town, we are only allowed to have 6 hens and no roosters. So we will probably just buy a little chicken coop and have 6 hens.

I love having fresh eggs from the backyard. They are so much better than store bought.

Emergency Preparedness

Since we’ve been living in a perpetual emergency for almost a year now, emergency preparedness is always on our minds.

Making sure we have less debt and more savings is key.

We also want to make sure we have extra food storage at home in case we go back on lockdown in the future. I will discuss that in the next section.

Food Security

I’ve been focused on food storage for several years, but this past year food security has really become my focus.

What is food security? Not only storing what you have for longer, but being able to get more food if the grocery store is out.

Where do you get this food? Here are just a few ideas:

• Your garden
• Your neighbors garden (barter)
• Animals you raise on your homestead
• Farmers market
• CSA (community supported agriculture)
• Direct from farms online
• Online monthly subscriptions

It’s important to know that your local grocery store isn’t your only option. You need to know how to get food locally and online from good resources.

Then when your local grocery store has empty shelves, you don’t have to panic.

We already do this, but we will be focusing more on this in our family this year. I hope to meet and get to know more local growers at the farmers market this year and try more online sources as well.

Living below your means

In times of uncertainty, it is natural to want to gather things in and protect what you have. Whether that is food, money, family or other resources.

Since we sold our larger homestead last March, we have been practicing living below our means in order to have extra money for other things.

This means buying a home that is way less than the mortgage lender thinks you can afford. It means not buying a new car as long as the old one still works. It means evaluating what you are spending your money on and if it really fits this new mindset.

So in 2021, we will continue to focus on living below our means so that we can make the most of what we have and prepare for the future.

Health

We are continuing on our health journey as a family. My husband and I started the 75 Hard Challenge again last week (this is his first challenge, my second). It is helping us get back to eating right, exercising and other good habits that make us feel good.

I didn’t finish my weightloss goal from last year, so I am continuing that quest. I think the optimal weight for my height is 150 lbs, but we’ll see when I get there.

I have been keeping a list of mountain hikes I would like to do in our area (on my phone), so I would like to do those with the family this summer. Hiking and camping keeps us in shape and helps us stay close as a family.

These are our goals for 2021. We’re keeping it simple because who knows what life’s going to throw at us this year.

I hope that you have made a few goals for your homestead as well.

If not, maybe these goals will help you think of what you want for your homestead this year.

Once you have your goals, then it is time to get to work making them happen. After all, goals by themselves don’t do much good. It is our action towards these goals that make them happen.

I hope you have a great 2021 and get going on your goals today!

For weeks I have been trying to decide if I was even going to write this post.

I have written a similar post for the past 3 years, since I’ve had this blog.

2017 Homesteading Heartbreaks and Breakthroughs

2018 Our Homesteading Year In Review

2019 Year in Review of Our Homestead Happenings

But of course, 2020 was different. Way different!

I would just like to move on and forget it. But that isn’t helpful for the future. That doesn’t help me grow and learn.

So today, I’m gonna review 2020: what went right, what went wrong and what we learned for the future.

2020: What went right

1. We moved!

Even though 2020 was very hard and frustrating, it wasn’t all bad.

The big thing that happened to us in 2020 was that we sold our house in the country and moved to town. That happened in March, just as the pandemic was blowing up.

So we moved from our 3000 square foot home on 4 acres to a 2000 square foot home on a city lot. It was a big change.

Why did we do this? Mostly for budget reasons. We had 3 high school boys last year, one of which graduated in 2020. So we needed to get our finances in order to help them thru college in the next few years. My husband also started another MBA program in the fall, so we are paying for that too.

So we moved into town to live under our means and leave extra money for college and other expenses. It’s kinda a bummer to not have the space for our homestead we had before, but we are making it work.

2. Started a new garden

We moved the water trough garden we had at our old house to the new one. It worked out really well, and the garden was a bright spot in an otherwise dreary summer.

We grew carrots, tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, and lots of different kinds of peppers. We ate most of them fresh and froze the rest.

3. Focus on food security

As you know, food became scarce this year. Going to the grocery store became a major hassle and some of the shelves were empty of certain items. We are still having this issue in our little town, even now.

So our family became even more focused on food security and making sure we could feed our family for months, even if we couldn’t go to the grocery store.

I wrote this blog post last year that explains more about what we did to ensure our own food security.

4. Focus on health

We continued our focus on health that we started in 2019. Mostly a stricter diet and more exercise. 

We spent a lot of time hiking and camping as a family for exercise. The mountains were a great place to go to escape the pandemic. 

I also participated in the 75 Hard Challenge this fall to get me more focused on my goals.

5. We got our budget under control

We sold our house to pay off debt and get our budget under control. So we wanted to make sure that we didn’t incur new debt once we moved.

We use the YNAB app for monthly budgeting and as a digital check register. We paid off all of our credit cards and are working on knocking out the rest of the debt (car, RV, student loans, house) as fast as possible.

It’s so exciting to have money left at the end of the month to use on things we want/need or to pay off more debt. I definitely suggest living below your means if possible.

6. More family time

Because of the pandemic, we spent many weeks in quarantine at home with our boys. And while I explain below why that wasn’t always a good thing, it did have a good side as well.

We have teenagers and in a normal school week, we may see them an hour a day at home during waking hours. They are busy with school, homework, sports and other activities.

This pandemic brought us together physically like we would not normally be in this stage of life. We played games, put together puzzles, watched movies, went camping and hiking together. And (most of the time) it was great!

2020: What went wrong

1. The pandemic wreaked havoc

Obviously, the Coronavirus has rocked everyone’s world and it isn’t over yet. Luckily, our family got mild cases of the virus towards the end of the year. Nothing more serious than the cold or flu.

But my husband works in healthcare and 2020 was crazy for him. Not to mention the whole wearing masks and social distancing thing. 

We were quarantined several times during the year and the kids went to online school at the end of spring and the end of fall. It was tough.

2. We missed out on family trips and milestones

Because of the virus, our family missed out on many milestones we have been looking forward to for years.

My oldest son graduated from high school with a drive by ceremony that none of our extended family could attend. He also missed track season, prom and all of the other senior activities that happen in the spring.

My middle son had his school play cancelled and my youngest son had his baseball season cancelled. Not to mention going to school online, which they hated.

We cancelled several family trips and my husband had his work leave taken away for several months.

And my oldest went off to college, where there were no incoming freshman activities, mostly online classes, mask mandates and when he went to class he had to sit 2 seats apart from other students. Not a great environment to make new friends!

So just like everyone else, we spent lots of time at home and with our immediate family. That’s not all bad, but it can get old. Especially with teenagers that are used to having their freedom.

3. We used our food storage

I have been a food storage fanatic for years, but I never thought I would have to use my food storage at home for weeks during a pandemic.

We consumed some of it before we moved and then the rest came with us. We used it when we didn’t want to go to the store or when the store was out of certain things.

By using our food storage, we learned where the holes were in it and what we need to stock more of in the future. These were great lessons that you can’t really learn unless you are in the trenches of a pandemic.

4. Frustration and depression snuck up on me

I love being at home. I love being at home with my children. I hope that our home is a safe place from them, away from the rest of the world.

But being at home for weeks on end sucks. There’s no other way to put it.

And like many people in 2020, frustration and depression started to sink in. I had a hard time staying on a diet. I worried constantly about the world and how the Coronavirus would affect my family and their activities.

There’s no way to sugar coat it. It was hard.

I didn’t think I was a social person until I was cut off from society. Then I realized how much I needed interaction from those outside my family.

I feel for those people that had to quarantine alone. I hope we don’t have to do that again. Ever.

2020: What we learned for the future

1. Food security is huge

I’ve always been a big proponent of emergency preparedness, but this pandemic has opened my eyes to our food security in this country. 

In 2020, we had lockdowns, protests and weather that all affected how food gets delivered to the grocery stores in our community.

We need to have adequate food at home for our families and we need to know how to grow food and source local food as well.

I will be focusing more on this in 2021 because it is basically why I became a homesteader years ago. Food safety and security are essential to health and happiness.

2. Only grow food you like and will eat

Our garden did great this year, but I didn’t maximize my harvest like I should have.

Much of the things I grew aren’t my family’s favorites. Zucchini grows like a weed, but you can get tired of it pretty quickly. And because it grows so well, your friends probably don’t need it either.

So I had lots of zucchini that went bad on the counter because I kept thinking “we’ll eat it soon” and we never did. Therefore, I will not be growing zucchini next year. If I need some, I have plenty of friends growing it. I can get it from them or the farmers market.

3. Living below your means is freeing

I mentioned this above, but it’s worth stating here again. Living below your means is freeing.

We are taught in America to buy as much (or more) than you can afford. Get the biggest house, the best car, or go on the best vacations you can afford. Use credit to make up the difference. After all, “Life is short”.

But we have found this year that if you live below your means you can live in peace. You don’t have to worry about credit card debt or living paycheck to paycheck. 

You have extra money to do things like help kids pay for college (he took out loans too) or go on a reasonable vacation.

The stress and worry of living beyond your means is actually shortening your life. So while I miss my house and 4 acres, I am happy. Happy in my smaller house in town with the smaller mortgage. 

And when we pay off that mortgage in a few years, I’ll be even happier.

4. Protecting your sanity is key

I also learned in 2020 that you have to protect your sanity. Pay attention to what you are allowing in your life. You choose what influences you. Don’t let other people choose for you.

Here are a few things I did in 2020 to protect my sanity:

• Stopped watching the news
• Limited social media
• Unfollowed social media accounts that stressed me out
• Spent more time in the mountains, enjoying nature
• Limit toxic people in my life
• Use exercise for stress relief

It’s your life. You decide who you spend time with and who you listen to for opinions and advice. Just because everyone is yelling at you doesn’t mean you have to listen. It’s your choice.

2020 was a big year, and one we aren’t likely to forget. But as with everything else, it wasn’t all bad. 

If you are reading this and you lost a loved one to Coronavirus, my heart goes out to you. I know it isn’t fair and there’s nothing I can say to make it any better.

Just because I’ve chosen to look at the good as well as the bad doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how many people got sick or lost their lives to this virus. I just have to make sense of it for me and my family. 

That is how we move on. And we have to move on.

Next week, I will talk about my goals for 2021 and what’s coming up for this blog. Until then, Happy New Year!

We have moved from our 4 acre lot in the country to an in town lot (still in the country).

The house is a fixer upper and the lot is about 1/4 acre total.

That’s not alot of room for a “homestead”.We are definitely going to have to change some things about our homesteading life to fit this new situation.

But before I discuss what these changes are and how you can homestead on a small town lot, I want to talk about why we made this move for our family.

Why did we move into town?

When I first started this blog 4 years ago, I wrote a blog post about why we moved from the city to a small town in SW Colorado.

If you are interested in that post, you can read it here —> How A City Girl Becomes A Modern Homesteader.

The land we moved from last month, we had lived on for 8 years and built 2 houses on it (you can read about our house fire here).

Let me just say, I loved that house. I loved the space, the finishes, the view and the land. It was amazing.

But I didn’t love the toll it took on our finances and our debt. I wanted desperately to be debt free again like we had been in the past (before kids).

We also have 3 kids in high school (senior, junior, and freshman) so that means soon we would have 3 kids in college. We wanted to help them financially and we didn’t have much wiggle room in the budget with a large house and debt.

We had tried to sell 2 years after we built the second house, but the timing wasn’t right and we took it off the market after a year.

So when we decided to put it back on the market in January 2020, I thought it would take a long time to sell. Long enough for my first child to graduate in May and go off to college.

It was under contract in 11 days. To the first family that looked at it. Crazy right? That doesn’t happen much in our part of the country.

What are we changing?

So how are we going to make this change work for us? Here are some plans we have for this property.

• small water trough garden: we will be using our water troughs again, with a few changes. We have 5 troughs, so they will each hold 1 type of produce.
• small flock of chickens: we gave away our last 2 chickens before the move (predators ate the others), so once we build a new chicken coop we will start with a few baby chicks, probably this fall.
• plant 3 fruit trees: since it’s a small property, 3 is probably all we can handle. Many fruit trees need similar trees to pollinate, so we may get 3 of the same kind. Not sure yet.
• joining a CSA for more fresh produce: we have already signed up for a local CSA and will start getting produce straight from the farm in June.
• buy a whole cow for the freezer: right now we are buying small quantities of meat straight from the farm, but we will buy a full cow after fair season.
• continue cooking real food meals for the family: this is an everyday thing, and it won’t change. We cook real food for every meal with one weekly date night to go out to eat.
• preserve the harvest from the garden and CSA: we will be canning and freezing (takes less space) some of the food we get from the garden and CSA for winter consumption.

Growing, raising, cooking and preserving real food for our family will still be our priority. The scale is just a little smaller than it was before.

We will be utilizing our community more to find organic produce and meats to feed our family. I don’t think this is a bad thing. Just a small pivot to help us keep our food security and values going.

Are we still homesteaders?

Going from a 4 acre homestead to a small town lot will be a big change. It isn’t the ideal when it comes to homesteading.

But homesteading isn’t about acreage or production. It’s a state of mind.

To me, homesteading is a way of living more self sufficiently in a modern world. In a world that wants things instantaneously and done for you, homesteaders want to learn how to do things themselves.

You may not be able to grow all of your food or raise all of your own meat. But you can grow some of your own food and learn how to raise meat on a small scale.

You can learn how to cook your own food from real ingredients and maybe make a few less trips to the grocery store each week.

You can learn how to preserve food for later, whether you get that food from your own garden, your neighbors garden, the farmers market or the grocery store.

For more ideas on learning homesteading skills, check out this blog post —> 15 Homesteading Skills to Master for Better Self Reliance.

I’m not gonna lie. This transition hasn’t been smooth. I miss my old house, with all the space and isolation and view.

But our new situation has benefits too and we are going to be here for several years. So we are making the best of it and committing to staying out of debt in the future.

Then when our kids are out of college, we will probably look for place to build a retirement home . One with peace and quiet, a view and a big porch to sit on and rock.

By then I think we will be thankful we made the choice to move into town and get out of debt.

This will be a new adventure and we are ready to get started. We will embrace what we have now and try to make the most of it.

And I encourage you to do the same. No matter if you live in an apartment, town home, small city lot or 40 acres. You can homestead no matter where you live. Make it count!

How much land do you homestead on? Let us know in the comments below. And if you found this post helpful, please share. Thanks!

Can you believe it’s January already? And we are starting a new decade!

What a great time to be setting goals and breaking thru barriers!

Every year, I take the winter to plan for the next spring, summer and fall. That is when the real work is done around the homestead.

Of course, winter is a great time to learn new skills indoors and try new things. Check out this post to get some ideas —> 37 Important Homesteading Skills to Learn This Winter.

But winter is also a great time for evaluating the good, bad and the ugly of the year before.

Here is a picture of my family after Christmas church service (that’s why we are dressed up!):

Here are a few of the goals we have set in past years:

12 Months of Homesteading Goals for 2017.

Looking Towards the Future: Our Goals for 2018.

Our Homesteading Year In Review and Next Year’s Plans.

So let’s discuss 2020 and our plans for the homestead.

Homesteading Goals for 2020

As I said in my previous post, 2019 was kinda rough.

You can read about it here –> 2019 Year In Review of Our Homestead Happenings.

As you can see, we did accomplish some of the things we wanted to this year, but not even close to all of them.

It can be disappointing when we don’t accomplish our goals, but that doesn’t mean we give up.

We just reevaluate our goals and make new ones for next year.

So here are our goals for 2020. They are more about our family’s physical and financial health than typical homesteading goals. You’ll see what I mean in a minute.

Health

• I lost 35 lbs. in 2019 and I am going to continue my weight loss journey until I get to my goal weight (about 45 more lbs. to go!).
• I want us to be more active as a family. That means more camping, hiking, biking and doing things outside. We have always done these things, but as I get thinner and stronger (I am doing CrossFit 3 times a week), these activities should get easier and more fun.

Finances

• 2020 is the year we get our finances under control again. Getting out of debt and saving for the future are big priorities. In order to do this, we need to get our budget under control.
• Because we want to get out of debt this year, we are putting our house up for sale at the end of January. It may take a year or two to sell, but hopefully not. This makes me sad because we love our house and homestead, but it needs to be done.
• I am committing to balancing our checkbook each day (I’ve been doing it every couple of weeks) so we can keep on top of unexpected expenses. We use the online software YNAB for our budget and checkbook.

Gardening

• We are going to redo our garden and use water troughs for the bulk of our raised beds.
• We are going to try growing heirloom tomatoes from seed again.
• We are going to have a smaller garden in case we sell our house.

Animals

• We only have chickens this year. We aren’t adding any new animals because we may be moving.

Emergency Preparedness

• We need to add more water storage.
• We would like to store a year’s worth of food.
• We would like to have a successful hunting trip for elk.

That’s quite a list, I know. But we are talking about the whole year, so it is doable.

I am really excited to get the house all cleaned up and on the market. I am one of those weird people that likes moving.

We will be downsizing to a smaller house in town, which means a smaller yard as well. I don’t know what the future brings, but no matter where we move we will still consider ourselves homesteaders.

After all, homesteading isn’t about how many acres your have or the number of animals. It’s about a self sufficient, back to basics mindset. You can have that no matter where you live!

Good luck to you and all of your goals in 2020. You can do this!

What are your homesteading goals for 2020? Let us know in the comments below. And if you found this post helpful, please share. Thanks!

It has been a great and frustrating year, all at the same time.

Our garden didn’t grow well, I lost 35 lbs, changed the name of this website and had lots of trouble with my teenagers.

What a year!

Of course, this is a homesteading website, so I won’t go into the details of our personal life. You are here to hear about my garden, animals and other homesteading adventures.

Here are the plans we had for 2019 that I wrote about at the end of last year: Our Homesteading Year In Review and Next Year’s Goals.

So let me break it down for you.

2019 Year In Review: What went wrong

Let’s start with the bad stuff. Then we can only go up from here.

Garden

We had a late snow (May 20), which just happened to be the last week of school for the kids.

So, needless to say, we got a late start in the garden. No spring veggies at all.

When we finally got the seed starts transplanted from indoors, they had a rough time of it. Peppers and tomatoes just don’t like the cold, even if you put walls of water around them.

Then, June 21 (the summer solstice), we had a freeze that wiped out my transplants. I had to go buy plants at the local nursery, which was very frustrating.

We used water troughs in part of the garden as an experiment. More on that below. They had many great qualities for a good garden, but we had several flooding incidents that killed the plants inside.

Overall, our garden did not produce as well as usual. I’ll talk about the harvest below, but let’s just say I didn’t have much to put away for the winter!

Animals

Rabbits

We decided to get rid of our meat rabbits this year. We were just feeding and watering them without utilizing them for meat. We did enjoy the fertilizer they produce, but it just wasn’t worth the cost or effort if we weren’t going to breed.

Chickens

We have battled predators on our homestead every year, and this one was no exception.

We lost several chickens to a badger, which the dog found and killed.

We lost 2 to a cold snap in early September.

We had a couple just die, not sure why.

So out of 12 chickens, we only have 3 left. We have moved them to a small coop, close to the house for the winter. We will reevaluate our chicken situation in the spring.

Orchard

Our fruit trees started off well. Several of them bloomed and produced fruit.

Then we had some windy days mid summer and all of the fruit was blown off. Therefore, we had no fruit harvest this year.

2019 Year In Review: What went well

Now that the whining is over, let me tell you what went right this year on the homestead.

Garden

We started a new gardening system with water troughs this year. I love the look and functionality of the troughs. They have several benefits, including:

• Blocking the moles that are digging in our garden.
• Less bending over to weed.
• The garden looks clean and neat.
• We can control the dirt (our soil is too clayish for gardening)

For the most part, the first year was a success. We know what we need to do to fix the flooding issue and the troughs are much easier to maintain overall.

We will be moving them to another part of the garden next year, but still using them.

To find out more about our garden experiment, check out this blog post —> Building A Metal Water Trough Vegetable Garden {an Experiment}.

The harvest from the garden was not nearly as much as in past years, as mentioned above. But we did harvest some vegetables to eat fresh (not much canning this year). Here is what we harvested:

• Banana peppers
• Squash
• Zucchini
• Tomatoes
• Beets

Yard

We planted 3 large evergreen trees in our yard this fall. We have been wanting to do this for awhile, but they are pretty expensive.

We may plant 2 or 3 more next fall if we have the funds.

Solar

We have had solar electricity at out house for over a year now and it’s working great. We produce more than enough during the summer and year around except for the occasional snow storm in the winter.

Our electricity bill for our home is $30 a month, which is just the fee to be grid tied. You can find out more about our solar package in this blog post —> Our Solar Power Experience: One Year Later.

Overall, this year was just okay. And that’s okay.

Not every year homesteading is going to be amazing. Life happens. Weather happens. Your kids are teenagers and have their own minds (when did that happen?).

Here are some other years I wrote about our homestead so you can get some perspective of different ups and downs in homesteading.

2018: Our Homesteading Year In Review and Next Year’s Plans.

2017: Homesteading Heartbreaks and Breakthroughs: A Year in Review 2017.

It is good to record what happens on your homestead so you can look back at the end of the year. This helps you learn what needs to change and see how much progress you’ve made each year.

I am thankful for this homesteading life and all the things I am learning along the way. It may get frustrating at times, but when things go right it makes it all worth while.

How was your homesteading year this year? Let us know in the comments below. And if you found this post helpful, please share. Thanks!

Solar power is just amazing to me.

We live in a place that gets a ton of sunshine each year, all year round. So it only makes sense to harness that power into electricity for our home.

Our first home build 7 years ago had a 20% solar package with a solar hot water system.We were still grid tied, but it cut down on our electricity costs.

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After that home burned down (not related to the solar package), we decided to increase the size of the home and not have solar.

But after a couple of years in this house, we realized that solar really is the way to go. Even though we still wanted to be grid tied, we wanted to take advantage of the great amount of sun we get all year long.

So last spring, we started looking for companies that installed solar panels in our area. There aren’t a ton because we live in a small town in the country.

But we found one that we could afford and they installed our system in July of last year.

So now that it has been a year since we started the process, I wanted to share with you our experience and what we have learned so far.

Our Solar Power Experience

What to consider before getting solar:

When investing in something like solar, you should do your research. Here are some questions to ask:

• How much can you spend on panels?
• Do you want to DIY or pay someone to install panels?
• How much sunlight does your home get yearly?
• How many panels do you want (50%, 75%, etc)?
• How much does your electric company charge to be grid tied?
• How does your electric company pay you for excess?
• How do you want to monitor the panels?
• How much do batteries cost to be off grid?
• How long until your panels break even on cost?
• Can you add more panels later if desired?

What kind of solar package did we get?

Our solar system includes:

• 24 x Q-Cell 305 Watt Solar panels
• 24 x DC Optimizers
• 1 x SolarEdge 6000H-US Watt Inverter
• Monitoring via SolarEdge
• iPhone app to see how much we are producing

Why we didn’t DIY it:

There is lots of information online about DIY solar and how to make and install your own solar panels.

Since we have had our house burn down, we are just a little more sensitive to electrical problems and what can go wrong.

If you have the know how and ability to make your own solar panels and install them yourself, I say more power to you. But we just weren’t comfortable with it.

But if you want to DIY your solar project, click here for more info and some great project ideas —> 10 Solar Power DIY Projects To Save You Money.

Why don’t we want to live off-grid?

• We like the convenience and ease of being grid tied. I know that might not go along with the thinking of many homesteaders, but we have never wanted to be off grid.
• The purpose of the solar panels is to save money and use an alternative source of energy.
• The batteries you need to have to be off grid are very expensive and not in the budget at this time.
• We have a strong electric company. Our power rarely goes out.

What was our experience over the year?

Once we had the solar panels installed and working, we haven’t really thought about them much. We can check the app every once in a while to make sure they are working, but we don’t think about it most days.

About once a month, we get our electric bill. This is when we realize how much we are saving, and that the extra cost will pay for itself in a few years.

Besides that, we have had no problems with the equipment or function of the solar panels. They run like they are supposed to without us thinking about them at all.

How much did it save us over the year?

Now to the nitty gritty. The money.

We paid $24,156 total for the solar panels and their installation.

We pay $32 a month to be grid tied to the electric company.

Our electric company will send us a check once a year for the surplus we produced. This will be different depending on your electric company, so find out ahead of time how they deal with this.

Our normal electric bill would be any where between $100 to $300, depending on the time of the year, if we are running our air conditioner or using our wood stove. This is for a 3000 square foot house in Colorado.

So if you figure we are saving about $200 a month, times 12 months; we are saving $2400 a year in utility costs. So in 10 years the price would break even.

But since our loan is only for 4 years, we will have the total paid off by then. After that, we are only paying $32 a month for electricity, no matter what time of year it is. And we get a check each year for the surplus. Not a bad deal!

Do we think solar is worth it, so far?

Absolutely. We love having solar for these reasons:

• We like using an alternative source of electricity.
• We enjoy a small electric bill each month.
• We feel like we are using our natural resource (the sun) to produce energy wisely.
• After we pay off the panels, we will be able to pay virtually nothing (monthly fee – excess electricity produced) to power our home and lifestyle.

If you have been considering solar for your home, I highly recommend you do the research for yourself and find what works best for your family.

As for our family, we are happy we jumped back on the solar power bandwagon. We hope you join us too!

What is your experience with solar power? Let us know in the comments below. And if you found this post helpful, please share. Thanks!

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