How We Got Here

Two Quick and Cheap Ways to Have a Home in the Woods

Like many of you, we had a dream of living off grid out in the wild somewhere. About twenty years ago I had a full-time job doing inside sales of wood, pellet, and gas stoves for a retail dealer. I dreamed of living in the woods but hadn’t quite figured out how to manifest that dream. I was not making much money, didn’t have any savings or own a home, just living paycheck to paycheck. I hadn’t met my wife-to-be yet. She comes into the picture a little bit later in this story.

Anyway, I was at work one day and this strange old vehicle pulls up to the store. It was an early 50's Chevy school bus only it was really short, something like 5 windows on each side. It was outfitted as a living space. Out of the bus steps this guy about my age (I guess I was about forty at the time) and he came in to get some wood stove parts. He was making his own wood stove. He had a sparkle in his eye and it seemed to me that he might be up to something - something really cool! I just had to ask him what he was doing and where he lived.

Jack lived fifty miles from town, with twenty-five of those miles a dirt road, at a remote off-grid homestead in the mountains. He told me where it was and I thought, “I am going to have to go visit this guy.” A couple of weekends later a friend of mine and I set out to try and find him. We drove and drove and were sure we were lost. The road was rough. There was no sign of any human habitation for miles. Finally, we came around a bend and there was this beautiful meadow with a log cabin, two barns, and several sheds. The place was so picturesque, like it was from another time.

Cheap Rent for Off-Grid Properties

 

Jack also had the dream of living wild but his approach was quite unconventional. Most people’s dream is to buy some land, build a cool house, etc. Jack just started driving around the western U.S. in his bus exploring dirt roads in the National Forest looking for abandoned homesteads. When he would find one, he would go to the county and search out who owned the land with the intention of asking if he could live there. He didn’t want to buy land. He didn’t want to own anything, really.

Eventually he found Paddock Place. It had been vacant for over a year so he found the owner and rented it for $250 per month. There were no utilities at all.  Cell phones didn’t work there. There was no electricity – no generator, no solar panels. It was oil lamps and candles for lighting. What else would you need electricity for? It was primitive awesome.

 

About a year later he invited me to move there. I was doing some art at the time and had my paintings in a gallery in town. I sold one every now and then but did not make much money. But, with my rent dropping to $125 a month, and no utility bills at all, I didn’t need much to live. The art sales would do it. I quit my job and moved out to the woods. I lived there for about two years.

The lesson that can be learned here is that there are rich people who own properties they rarely, if ever, visit. If a house in the wild is not lived in it quickly starts deteriorating. Rodents move in, vandals break in, stuff starts degrading in a hurry. It is worth it for a land owner like this to let someone live in it for cheap or free. It protects their asset. This is one way to live off-grid without having to buy property.

I met my wife right about the time I was moving out there. Nita was still living and working in town and was renting a house. On her days off, she would come up and stay with me and when I came to town, I would stay with her for a night or two. We both loved Paddock Place but it wasn’t “our place.”

We wanted our own place in the woods so we made a plan. The plan was to buy a house in town, work hard, build equity and use that equity to eventually buy some land and build our dream. We managed to save up a down payment and bought a cheap house in 1997.

For ten years things were working as planned. I had a shop in town where I made gates and railings and sculptures out of steel. Nita worked as a part-time teacher. Of course we were still living in town and not living our dream yet. We were doing what most people do - make some kind of roundabout plan that is supposed to eventually get you where you want to be. It didn’t work.

The economy crashed in 2008. People weren’t buying much art and home construction, my major source of income, virtually stopped. School budgets were cut and it was hard for Nita to find work. We were having trouble staying afloat. The value of our house dropped like a stone. We started to think like our friend Jack. Maybe we don’t need to own land. Maybe we could figure out another way to live our dream.

 Get Paid to Live Off-Grid

We decided to subscribe to a newsletter called The Caretaker Gazette. This newsletter lists caretaker opportunities all over the world. There was quite a variety of possibilities from taking care of someone’s downtown apartment for a few weeks to managing a large ranch or estate long-term. Some were even salaried positions.

This is how we found where we are living now. We were hired two and half years ago as live-in caretakers/managers of a remote biological field station run jointly by a couple of colleges. In exchange for maintaining the property and coordinating the schedule of user groups, we get to live here for free. A super sweet deal!

So that’s how we got ourselves out to the mountains to live our dream. We didn’t have to buy land. We didn’t have to have money. We got hired and moved out here. Awesome!

So there you go – two ways to get yourself off-grid without having to go into debt or spend big bucks.