I am seeking out a similar lifestyle - living off-grid and becoming self-sufficient. You will have to start thinking differently, and the challenges you face w

I am seeking out a similar lifestyle - living off-grid and becoming self-sufficient. You will have to start thinking differently, and the challenges you face will be unique. This new critical thinking may even improve your mental effectiveness at work. It will be like running the small business of taking care of yourself, with many tasks to complete, inventory to monitor, and expenses to pay attention to (few of which will be paid to large companies that provide services to aggregated clusters of people). The stigma and social isolation you are anticipating will be a good thing. Through your efforts to craft a truly customized lifestyle, you will filter out those who desire dependency on traditional society. The ones that want to spend time with you will be those seeking out a similar change and adventure. I recently visited several large cities across the US, and I have always lived in a rural setting. This experience made me realize that the founders of places like Rome and the US all went "off-grid" in the sense that they retreated from the crowded, complex societies they were born into and crafted their own life where no one else had ventured. Personally, I view my off-grid plans as training over the next couple of decades to become an expert at taking care of myself when my body and mind deteriorate and I am no longer useful to society. I think of it as the ultimate retirement plan - gardening, solid health, and home construction as base stats to comfortably live out my final years without a dime spent on hospice.