The reasons that draw people to living off-grid it are as diverse as the people who seek it.
Some of what calls people on this journey:
- The simplicity of living with less and knowing where your water and electricity come from.
- Living without utility bills and a generally lower cost of living.
- Taking responsibility for our lives by learning to live lightly on earth.
- Reassurance that, if supply chains wobble or the grid stutters, we will still be able to meet our basic needs.
- … and some people are drawn to it because at it’s best, it can be a beautiful way to live.
While some off-grid setups are barely distinguishable from conventional on-grid homes, most of them are a true departure from the mainstream. They’re created by brave folks who want to learn to live differently, more courageously, more authentically, and with health, simplicity, and respect for the earth.
The Journey of Going Off-Grid
Matt has lived completely off-grid in NC and Southwest VA since February 2017. He hasn’t had a power or water bill to his name since then.
He has built dwellings, set up his own water catchment and 12v solar systems, and learned to deal with a thousand challenges he couldn’t have anticipated before actually being out there, in the woods, trying to be OK!
For Matt, off-grid was often far from easy. Having to learn everything himself without a lot of money or much experience was sometimes a trial by fire. Though the internet was full of useful how-tos, there were still a thousand questions that were hard to answer online. Many of the mistakes he made were hard to deal with and left him wishing he’d had more advice going into it.
Yet seven years into it and with his whole family living close to the earth and thriving, Matt couldn’t be happier that he didn’t give up. He can say conclusively that the rewards of living off-grid can by far outshine the difficulties. For those who are called to it, it can be the most beautiful way to live in the 21st century.
A Beautiful Life Rooted in the Earth
An off-grid life at its best is like a poem. When friends come to visit Sheilah and Matt’s off-grid home – a home without buzzing in the walls, constant wifi, harsh lighting, or most appliances, they often feel a peace settle into their bodies that it almost impossible to find in the hum and howl of modernity.
In times where money has been scarce, living off-grid has given Matt a security that would be hard to know otherwise. In times where the world has felt like nothing but a growing list of disasters, the resilience of being off-grid has been a great comfort. For Matt’s need to do something positive for the earth and his communities, the low-resource simplicity of living off-grid has meant that everyday life becomes participation in something positive.
Off-Grid Mentoring and Consulting
Matt wants more people to live off-grid. The more of us who step into living off-grid, the more that we have collective resilience when disasters arise. Beyond that, Matt just really wants to help people live beautifully. Matt loves sharing the simple truth that we need far fewer things than the advertisements tell us we do!
His seven years off-grid have been laced with a continual magic that comes from closeness to the wild. When he gave up his alarm clock, a cardinal began pecking on his window reliably every morning at the time he needed to wake up!
And… Matt knows first-hand that going off-grid can be overwhelming. We often have to gain expertise in a dozen topics we’ve heard of and a hundred more we haven’t. Too many people encounter mounting hardships and give up. The emotional side, too, can take its toll. Without support, going off-grid can introduce tremendous stress to our bodies and our relationships.
Matt would love for both his expertise – and his mistakes! – to be powerful resources for you in your own journey home.
From his experience living off-grid and his love of people living a life closer to the earth, Matt is offering his services as an off-grid mentor. Similar to working with a coach, Matt flexibly provides as little or as much support as you need to set out on the courageous journey of rooted simplicity.
(… and just to be clear, Matt is not the person you want to call if you want a giant modern house that just runs on thousands of dollars of batteries instead of the grid. He thinks that’s sort of missing the point of being off-grid…!)
Some of the many topics Matt has direct experience in include:
- Helping you set up your own 12v off-grid solar systems and figuring out how much solar you need
- Setting up water catchment systems and figuring out how to work with water
- Choosing the right kind of off-grid dwelling – cabins, yurts, campers, natural building, etc? kits, self-build, other-build?
- Compost toilet and waste options including safe disposal and use
- Dancing with permitting, neighbors, and officials (not legal advice 🙂)
- Selecting, buying and financing land for off-grid living
- Deciding what to prioritize in each season of living off-grid
- Doing off-grid on the cheap – living off-grid without a whole bunch of money
- How to work with the specific hot and humid climate of the Southeast – including without AC!
- Wood stoves, wood cooking, and sustainable wood harvest in the Southeast
- Off-grid kitchen options – indoors and outdoors
- Tools that are indispensable to living off-grid
- Basic “hippy carpentry” skills – building your own cheap homestead structures
- Setting up gardens, forest gardens, and growing food including animals
- Tending land towards regenerating the water and soil
- Harvesting and making your own herbal medicine, including herbal first aid
… and other skills not listed here!
For anyone who works with him, Matt also offers himself to all off-grid clients as a good listener and a source of emotional support. He has walked this path for years and he has made mistakes. He will be in your court, wanting you to succeed and to be well along the way in body and spirit. On that week where the water line breaks, the ducks get out of the fence and eat the garden, and raccoons tear up your outdoor kitchen, Matt will be a source of kind and steady encouragement and help you know what to focus on to get things moving in a better direction.
Working Together
Each off-grid mentoring relationship is different. Matt’s favorite way to support is to have an ongoing relationship over a year. For some off-grid consultation, remote sessions are possible. Contact Us to discuss how we can work together.
You Can Do This
Matt didn’t begin this lifestyle as a rugged backwoods guy. When he moved into the woods without roof, power, or bathroom, he didn’t feel like Aragorn from Lord of the Rings but like a kid who played a lot of video games about the forest and who had just gotten in way, way over his head. Over time, Matt has learned that you don’t need to know everything to live closer to the earth, but you shouldn’t have to figure it all out by yourself.
Very few aspects of our current structures are set up to support living off-grid. Matt would be honored to be a source of steady support as you take courageous steps in the direction of your wildest dreams.
Welcome Earth Into Your Home
In the first Fall season spent in Matt’s second off-grid homestead with Sheilah, he found himself saying, “This is the best Fall I’ve ever had.” And then, in Winter, he said the same about Winter. And in each season since (minus a few hard weeks and one difficult Summer), he found himself saying the same.
When the flicker of the wood stove is the only illumination on a long Winter’s night; when watching the birds becomes your television and tending the land becomes your play; the wonder that all those bright buzzing screens exiled from your life returns as reliably as the rains in Spring and a new life begins to grow in the peace and awe of earth welcomed into your home.
