Living off grid (kind of)?? As few bills as possible?

[Cottagelife1]

Ok so I have had a little revelation? We are moving into a small cottage for about a year while we save and build a new house? So I have decided to try to live with as little bills as possible?? Has ANYONE ever done this?? Aibu to think this is possible?Posting here for traffic but there may be a better group??
So we will have no rent/mortgage, no tv or tv license, no water bill, we will need electricity obvs, but we will have a stove and our own wood, and a gas bottle for the hob.

We were thinking chickens , a pig to feed our waste food too (and the compost heap obvs). Am I missing anything?? Any ideas from those who try to be self sufficient??

Just realized I forgot phone bills (they also have unlimited internet so no need for broadband etc

Will you have a septic tank or mains drainage? You’ll need to have the former emptied or pay charges for the latter.

How are you planning to avoid a water bill? Surely you will need fresh water?

@AlexaAmbidextra
@KitKat1985
We don’t have water bills here anyway but it has a well and septic tank yes. So it will need emptied at points yes but even that takes a few years as far as I’m aware

If you're planning on growing food, you need to think about storage. Many foods have a small harvest window then need to be stored carefully or made into jams, chutneys, canned or frozen. Some things can't really be successfully stored long term at home and it takes a fair amount of time and space.
If you are going down that route, store up jars etc and think about extra freezers.

Harvest time is lovely but can be exhausting as a lot of things can all be ready in a short space of time.

@Sindragosan thank you!!

Grow your own veg, but as much as it's admirable, is it going to make you happy? I couldn't live without some kind of media for instance (my preference is bbc). We get a coal delivery annually (smoke free) as it's easier than wood (burns for 3x as long)

What about council tax?

We have chickens but I don’t think it saves us money. By the time you’ve bought the coop, the chickens themselves and the feed the resulting eggs will be considerably more expensive than just buying eggs in the supermarket.

@AnnaComnena not in uk no council tax

@anniehm well I will watch movies on Netflix if necessary but daily I don’t watch tv at all

Clothes/bogrolls/washing powder-liquid-etc/car payments/bus tickets/replacing tech/taxis..

From the OP what I’m getting is why bother to build your new house? You sound quite excited by it and as you have no rent / mortgage you clearly own the cottage, so why not make that the long term plan?

Surely a TV Licence is less than a Netflix subscription though?!

@PotteringAlong because my children are young and can share a room at the moment but as they get older I suspect that may be harder as I have one girl and one boy. So more space will be be necessary. We’re hoping that we can save enough to fund the build ourselves😬🙏

@HelloViroids our Netflix subscription is a lot less than our TV licence!

@HelloViroids it’s my mums Netflix that I use as I only use it once every two weeks or so. She has very kindly let me use it.

Solar panel maybe to generate electricity. Grow your own veg, might be able to swap goods with other people rather than buy (clothes, seeds, eggs, veg etc). Mooncup to save on buying sanitary products.

Off grid means off the electrical grid.
Is the house building self sufficient too I. E will you be recycling your plastic into plastic bricks or something? Are you doing the building work yourself?
Or are you 'self sufficient' growing some veg whilst a big non self sufficient building project takes place making you a new house?
Either way it sounds like a fun temporary camping type trip. Good luck

I’m curious- where do you live? This sounds like so much fun, but I feel tired just thinking of all the work involved!

Depending on the families size you probably could get away with no pig and feeding waste to the chickens.

You could probably like the wood stove to the hot water tank, that would cut the cost of hot water.

Look into pressure canning to store food.

Got mobile phones? Use solar chargers they are excellent, also work for tablets. Chickens, veggie plot, I’d get the well water tested to make sure it’s ok to drink. But I’m paranoid! How hot is it? You might benefit from Water Butts for watering the veggies rather than pulling it up from the well?

@TwoBlueFish yes I already use a mooncup!! AMAZING!!

@SnowyAlpsandPeaks Ireland 👍