The Wider Benefits of Choosing Life Off the Grid
From The Observatory
Source: Island Press
Going off the grid isn’t just about solar power and gardens—it’s about slowing down, prioritizing what matters, and creating a life rooted in self-reliance and personal freedom.
This adapted excerpt is from Ryan Mitchell’s Living Off Grid: 50 Steps to Unplug, Become Self-Sufficient, and Build the Homestead of Your Dreams. Copyright © 2025 by Ryan Mitchell. It is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) by permission of Island Press. It is adapted and produced for the web by Earth • Food • Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
“The Wider Benefits of Choosing Life Off the Grid” by Ryan Mitchell is licensed by the Observatory under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
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So, is living off the grid worth it? If you asked me on that particular night, maybe not. If you asked me today, after not having had a power bill in over a decade, I’d definitely say yes. I like telling this story to help others realize that unplugging from society’s standard systems—public utilities, sewage systems, housing developments—and instead creating your own self-sufficient homestead isn’t always the fantasy you imagined. But if you plan ahead and set yourself up for success, you’ll have more good days than bad.
Despite all the hurdles, I now live on 11 acres of land, in a house that I designed and that I power with solar; I get my water from a well, have a composting toilet and septic system, eat from my garden, raise baby quail, and run my own business. My expenses are a fraction of what they were when I paid rent and utilities, and I have infinitely more free time to pursue the things that fulfill me.
I never thought I’d live this way. Like many, I had followed the common path, going to school, getting good grades, heading off to college, and then later to graduate school. I landed my first adult job, believing that with a degree and hard work, everything would fall into place.
This is, after all, the American dream: pay your dues and move up the ranks, earn a good salary, and ultimately receive your reward: a nice home with a white picket fence, married with 2.5 kids, and a red convertible parked in the driveway that you jokingly refer to as your midlife crisis.
That was my worldview right up until six months into my career, when the Great Recession hit. The company I worked for closed its doors one Friday afternoon, leaving everyone standing in the parking lot with stunned looks on our faces while holding cardboard boxes filled with the contents of our desks.
It was there, in that parking lot, that I promised myself I’d never find myself in that position again. I realized that I had been following a script—a script that I had not given much thought to, but instead blindly followed because it’s what you “should” do.
I won’t disparage that lifestyle out of hand because, for some, it works just fine. But I will say that it’s essential for you to be the decider in your own life. You want to be intentional about your choices: where you live, how you spend your time and money, how you interact with the broader world. If you don’t, others will be happy to make those decisions for you, to their benefit.
This doesn’t need to be some boisterous protest against the status quo, but a quiet consideration of what is important to you. For me, simply deciding what I wanted for myself was the most impactful thing I’ve ever done. After leaving that parking lot with my cardboard box, I set about building my new life.
That new life led me to build a house nestled in the woods, away from the hustle and bustle of the city. I had decided that by building my own home, I could skirt the need for a mortgage entirely. I chose the location because, after a year of reflection, I discovered I felt most comfortable in the quiet of nature. It was here that I realized that pursuing a simpler life was often filled with complexities.
In my case, I wanted to live in the countryside, away from it all. But that came with its own set of challenges. I found out that city hall wouldn’t grant me a permit for a septic system, but instead wanted me to connect to the sewer lines. The first quote I got was for tens of thousands of dollars and didn’t include the government’s fee of $11,000 for the privilege of installing the meter to facilitate their charging me monthly for utilities.
I also learned that the power company wanted tens of thousands of dollars to run the power lines to my house. All these were significant setbacks because I didn’t have that much money to my name. It was then that I went searching for solutions and discovered a new way to solve these needs: going off the grid.
Your own interest in disconnecting may be different from mine, but maybe you also want something better for yourself: self-sufficiency, empowerment, ownership, intentional living, and a slower way of being. There are many reasons that you might be drawn to living off-grid, from saving money and learning new skills to living closer to nature and shrinking your environmental footprint. Whatever your motivation, make no mistake, this is a lifestyle.
It’s important to realize that pursuing this lifestyle isn’t something that will happen overnight, and it’s not without its challenges, but it’s possible if you don’t shy away from hard work. Off-grid living focuses on developing a self-sufficient life, and eating food is the core of living, which is why I think that producing both your own power and your own food are equally important.
We wouldn’t choose the more difficult path unless we thought it was worth it. While we each have our own reasons for wanting this lifestyle, people often cite a few common motivations for disconnecting from the grid.
Going against the grain is not without its challenges, but I’ve learned that with enough resolve and a little bit of grit, this is all achievable, and the payoff is enormous. When I finally moved into my off-grid house, I went from paying $1,500 a month in rent and utilities to $15 per month. And yes, that is not a typo.
Having flipped the script on life, I saw many advantages you can enjoy, too. Here are some of the main benefits of going off the grid:
- Simplifying your life
- Going green
- Developing self-reliance
- Escaping debt
- Eating healthfully
- Living on your own terms
- Building community.
One of the main reasons people decide to live off the grid is that it’s an antidote to the chaos of the modern-day rat race. Many of us are glued to our devices, the world is moving faster and faster, and people brag about being busy like it’s a badge of honor. All this hasn’t worked out so well for us.
People are finding their quality of life going in the wrong direction, and their happiness with it. We’re plagued by debt, unhealthy food is poisoning our bodies, and society is seeing an increasing level of mental health crises. It can be unsettling when we take stock of the state of our world.
Despite these troubling trends, the very fact that there is a growing interest in this path suggests an underlying optimism. After all, people don’t sign up for years of hard work to create their own homestead if they think it will all be for naught. That spirit of building for the future is summed up nicely in the adage: “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.”
Even if you’re a cynic, the best practical course of action is to work to build a better life for yourself and those you love—regardless of what is going on in the wider world. As individuals, we may not have the power to change governments or institutions on our own, but we can take concrete steps to improve our situations and those of the people around us. The cosmic joke for a true skeptic is that positive action is the best bottom-up approach I’ve encountered. If enough people take ownership and lead through example, change can filter up.
Taking ownership means slowing down and being intentional. In fact, intentionality is the great superpower of modern life. In an age where we are equipped with endless information at our fingertips, if we just pause long enough to figure out what is right for us, we can leverage that information in the best way possible.
For many, myself included, being intentional leads to a simpler way of life. The idea of simplifying can have many meanings to different folks, but for me, it’s about focusing on the things that are important and reducing the things that are not as important. Figure out what you want more of and do that; figure out what you want less of and don’t do that. It’s simple.
Figuring out what is and isn’t important to you is challenging when you are too busy to think for yourself. I find that it takes at least a few hours of slowness to get my mind to settle before doing the deep work that is uncovering what matters to me. You might be different, but we’ll go through how to do this in a later part of this book.
Living a simpler life takes some adjusting to, especially if those around you are still stuck on the hamster wheel. After moving into my off-grid house, my bills were cut by more than half, which meant I didn’t have to work as much. I was saving more money than ever, but also working less at the same time.
It left me with a lot of time to fill and the challenge of doing it in a way that was right for me. Around this time, I made the jump to working for myself, and I could do it from anywhere; this was before working from home was commonplace. So, I found myself reading books in a cozy coffee shop, taking afternoon walks every day, and grocery shopping at 3:00 p.m., when the store was less crowded.
It was a stark contrast to the way I had lived—and the way all my friends continued to live, working 40, 50, or even 60 hours a week. I found myself chatting with retirees I’d cross paths with on my walks, taking monthlong solo trips at times of year when most had to be at work or school, and I got lost in the books I read.
I had the flexibility to build and tend my gardens instead of struggling to keep the weeds at bay. I could check on my chickens and quail every morning instead of having to run off to a cubicle. I spent more time outdoors and in nature, which left me feeling happier. I don’t think it was just a placebo effect: studies have found that digging in the soil exposes gardeners to bacteria, which helps with serotonin levels, buffers against stress, and creates other positive health impacts.
In short, all those things I never had time to do, I suddenly had time to do. I sat down and wrote my first published book, setting me on a journey I couldn’t have imagined, this book being my eighth. I spent more time with those closest to me, something I barely got to do before this shift because I had to spend hours away on business.
It also gave me a lot of time to think and, more importantly, time to slow down enough to do it with a clear head. I woke in the mornings with energy. I suddenly could make a cup of coffee and enjoy it on my front porch before heading off for the day. I went on long hikes that left me feeling centered and having a better sense of equilibrium. All this was possible as a result of my decision to go off-grid, escape the rat race, and simplify.
