One of the biggest motivators to live off-grid is cost reduction. The theory goes that if you can minimize your monthly expenses, then you’ll have significantly more freedom in life. You wouldn’t be required to work for money (as much), or you could retire much earlier than most people. 

If you go online and look around at different off-grid budgets and comments on Reddit or other sites, many people will share that off-grid living requires a LOAD of money and the lifestyle can actually be equal or greater in cost than “conventional” lifestyles. Most comment that spending monthly on rent, insurance, utility bills, interest on loans, etc. is actually cheaper than off-grid living, where you need to spend a huge bulk sum upfront to acquire equipment that provides for your basic needs (and then pay to maintain it).  

So, I’d like to explore the two scenarios dollar for dollar using my actual household expenses living in a conventional home versus my best projections for what a rustic off-grid lifestyle would cost.  

Before I get into the numbers, it would be good to define what I mean by off-grid here. There appears to be a lot of confusion and dare I say “gatekeeping” around what it means to live off-grid. Some might say that you must live remotely and completely isolated from society, 100% self-sufficient, to qualify for their definition of “off-grid”. They are broadening the meaning of the “grid” to be civilization as a whole, it seems. 

In my case, I’m mostly motivated by an off-grid cabin lifestyle for economic reasons, and I don’t care about being a purist. So when I’m talking about being off-grid, at least initially, I’m talking about living in fairly rustic accommodations on a raw piece of property with basic amenities. This would be what I call Tier 0 and Tier 1 off-grid living.  

off-grid living tiers  

This is how I’ve organized in my mind the degrees of comfort and efficiency (and expense) of off-grid living. In quick summary:

Tier 0 is barely a step above camping, but could not— and should not!— be called glamping. It’s what you’d do if you went to a raw piece of land and setup a basic temporary living area on the cheap. It would be the first 0 to 30 days of living on a new area of land.  

Tier 1 wouldn’t be classified as camping anymore, and it has more efficient off-grid systems and a more livable longer-term structure of some sort. It could be a canvas wall tent on a deck, a quick 10×12 cabin, or similar. This would be a setup for 30 – 365+ days on the land. It probably wouldn’t be too comfortable in the winter, but it’d be livable. 

Tier 2 approaches a conventional lifestyle in comfort and efficiency. This would probably be considered a permanent setup by many off-grid folks. This would be Year 1 and beyond and would involve building a larger house to accommodate a family (although could still be only 500 –1,000 sq. Ft),  PV systems, septic, well, and so on.

Tier 3+ might be an off-grid house that has the same (or better) luxuries and comforts as a conventional on-grid house, with standards of living that are good or better than the average Canadian. 

I would be likely to agree that going from a conventional lifestyle to a Tier 2+ off-grid setup right off the bat is likely to be financially prohibitive for most people, probably not because of the ongoing monthly costs, but due to the upfront infrastructure and building requirements and the difficulty of financing those things. If Tier 2+ off-grid is what you imagine when I say “living off-grid in the bush” then please for this discussion know that I’m just looking at Tier 0 and 1 living for now.  

When you talk to people about money, bills, crazy news headlines, and war these days, it’s pretty common to hear only half-joking, “Why not just escape to the woods and live in a cabin?” and I believe Tier 0/1 is all about this cheap initial escape. It’s a middle ground between the huge monthly expenses of conventional life and the somewhat huge upfront costs of Tier 2/3 off-grid living. 

Honestly, my wife and I have been promoting the “the cabin escape” plan to each other for a while and I’d say at this point it’s less than one-eighth joking now. So I’m just curious if Tier 1 would even be cheaper than a conventional lifestyle when everything is compared directly.  

The thinking is that you’d move to a property and rush a Tier 1 home/camp, and then use the savings (if there are any) to bootstrap a Tier 2+ homestead without having to use loans and saving a lot of money because you can self-build, use natural construction techniques, and other cost-saving measures.  

Our Conventional Lifestyle 

First, let me tell you about the lifestyle I currently have. This is what I will compare against the Tier 1 off-grid setup. I live in a small rural Ontario town. It’s cheaper than other areas in the province, but compared to Canada as a whole, probably in the mid-tier of expense for real estate and taxes. Utilities, groceries, and fuel are probably not far from the average across the country.  

I would like to say that I’m pretty frugal, but if I’m being honest, I certainly don’t pinch pennies and I’m not super disciplined with budgeting. What I do like however is reviewing my average monthly costs on a regular basis, which is what allows me to provide the data below with a fair degree of accuracy. 

I have a wife, no children, and one cat.  I own a house with a loan and a beater car without a loan. Thankfully no student loans. My wife and I have an average Canadian household income. 

Let’s break down what we spend in an average month. 

House Mortgage: $1,388/month (25 yrs) + $26,000 upfront 

For most lucky mortgage holders, their largest monthly cost is mortgage principal and interest (P&I) payments. Yippee!  

I currently pay for a house that cost me the signing of a paper that said “$260,000” a few years ago. We gave 10% upfront for it and now carry a mortgage with 23 year left. It’s a semi-detached house and built in the 1950s. Fairly leaky (we had an energy audit done). This is one of the cheapest properties available within hundreds of kilometers, while still being somewhat “nice”. 

This cost is not all a black hole. It’s true that some of the monthly mortgage is converted to equity, and the value of the home might increase over time. There are also many other tangible benefits to living in a ready-made house in a built-up area, compared to off-grid living, which can make it hard to compare Tier 0/1 with 100% apples to apples precision.  

Here are a few things to consider when comparing.  

Real estate has so far tended to appreciate in value. If all real estate moves at roughly the same rate along with inflation, then by the time we pay off the house, we will have an asset that’s worth maybe $426,000 after the 25 years of ownership at a compound appreciation rate of 2% per year (assuming nothing crazy happens in the world, which is a pretty huge gamble at this point). 

However, over the whole loan, on a $260,000 purchase price house we will pay $434,000 (that’s the combined total of principal and interest payments).  

Let’s call it a breakeven for ease of comparison. House is worth $426k and you spent $434k plus renovations and maintenance over 25 years.  

Thus if you wanted to, you could look at the monthly mortgage cost of a house as putting money in a really inflexible form of savings account. The trouble is that you are threatened into making this deposit on a schedule (if you don’t contribute, the entire savings account from the very beginning will be taken away from you by force) and you also live in the savings account, making it very difficult to access the money and also greatly increasing the severity of not making monthly “savings”. It’s very different to putting money in an actual savings account or investment fund.  

Of course, the benefit after 25 years of working and paying this loan is that you’d now have a place to live that’s pretty affordable. You also do get the ongoing benefit for the 25 years of a place to live with relative ease compared to off-grid.  

These payments are typically made during the energetic and healthy years of life, usually somewhere between age 25 and 65. This is a big source of lost freedom and a mortgage creates an enhanced need for security seeking in life, or risk aversive behavior – to a fault. A mortgage can significantly shape your life path and decision-making process. 

However, if you’re going go think like this for the conventional living scenario, then all of the same considerations apply to the off-grid cabin and land. You aren’t “throwing the money away” in either case when it comes to paying for buildings and land. 

Property Tax: $167/month 

This is a reality of life underneath a government structure, and it’s honestly not a bad deal to pay property tax in a town. For this tax you get garbage collection, roads, police, fire, libraries, and more. It’s a subscription fee for society. But, regardless it is a monthly expenses that never stops and it’s not an insignificant amount of money.  

Property tax in a town versus in a city is not a straightforward comparison of cost. You are paying less tax in a rural property but also receiving less intangible benefits. How do you measure the value of having a fire department nearby versus a 20-min drive on country roads, for example? 

House Insurance: $148/month 

This can’t be avoided for a mortgaged house, as the bank requires you to hold it as a condition of the loan. Of course, even aside from this requirement you definitely want insurance. The house is so expensive that even a relatively minor incident could quickly sink you. Also, a neighborhood kid could slip on some ice while they are trespassing in your front yard and their family could sue you and likely win! The risk is too great to be uninsured even if you don’t have a mortgage. You would be gambling with a huge sum of money otherwise. What I’m saying is that you’re stuck with this cost forever and it’s going to go up regularly. 

City Water & Sewer Fees: $135/month 

The water and sewer connection is mandatory in our town partly because there are no meters or ways to stop flowing sewage. If you don’t pay you’d get a lien on your property. This expense is also increasing at a faster pace than projected inflation in our rural town with low population density.  The infrastructure is straining under the weight of age with not enough people to pay the bill for replacement and maintenance.  

Natural Gas for Heat: $86/month 

This bill can’t really can’t be reduced much. There are mandatory service fees just for having an account with the company. On my statement, the actual “gas” is only half of the monthly bill. I suppose you could disconnect from the service and live in a frigid house with a lot of blankets. You could setup a wood stove in the living room and huddle in there. But, this isn’t a realistic option due to the size of the house and the poor level of insulation. The house is constantly leaking the combustion heat. You’d also cause significant property damage with bursting water pipes running in all corners. In effect, this natural gas bill is mandatory, and it’s actually one of the cheapest available options to heat our large drafty house. 

Electricity: $75/month 

It’s a similar situation with the natural gas. You could probably cut this bill by 10-25% per month if you bought different appliances, had extreme energy discipline, and installed some photovoltaic power to supplement. But why would you? The upfront costs for the PV system or marginally more efficient appliances would very likely exceed the lifetime benefit of the savings, and you’d still end up paying account maintenance fees for electricity since we can’t practically disconnect from the grid while living in a house on a suburban street. If you run a net-present value calculation on the money needed to sink into decreasing your energy bill while living in a conventional house, it is very unlikely to be financially viable. The only benefit in some cases might only be psychological. 

Water Heater Rental: $42/month 

The person who dreamt of water heater rentals and actually sold the idea to hundreds of thousands of consumers deserves applause— even if cynical and/or sarcastic. I have reviewed options for breaking our inherited contract for a 10+ year old water heater and installing our own. It makes financial sense to do this if you’re going to stay in a place for a few years or more, but since I’ve been thinking of making a transition to a different lifestyle, I’ve hesitated. I keep imagining that I’ll make the switch only to sell the place within the pre-breakeven window.  

Internet: $117/month 

In the “modern” age this feels just as (or more) critical than a water bill. No internet, you say? What is this—Victorian England? Seriously, internet is fairly important for conducting business, connecting with family, accessing online services, and shopping today. Now these things don’t have to be done in our house. We could make a regular trip to the library that we are already paying for through our taxes. We could also simply reduce the cost of our monthly bill by about $20 if we downgraded to a different internet plan. But let’s say that if we are buying into a conventional lifestyle, it doesn’t seem right not to have internet with which to drown our sorrows . What would we do without a regular IV drip of videos of cats playing on trampolines?  

Maintenance & Repairs: $70/month 

This is a variable expense, but our house has averaged $800 – $1,000 per year or $70ish dollars per month in leaking pipes, lawnmower parts, broken handles, and the list goes on. By the way, I didn’t put in the budget the thousands of dollars spent on renovations, which we could count as frivolous spending and not include in the shelter costs as they weren’t necessary. That being said, there is a modern pressure to renovate and to keep the house “updated”. Wants do magically turn into needs. My wife is always sad when we talk about renovations, because I feel anxious that all colours used for wall paint need to be grey or beige or in wild fits of creativity maybe griege. There is the sense that the property needs to be saleable and ready for prospective buyers. You can’t get too complacent and you can’t just let the property fall into disrepair, or you risk your investment in both the house and the lifestyle. Many people go beyond concern about disrepair and get worried about something looking too “last Spring” 

Total Conventional Lifestyle “Shelter Only” Costs: $2,228/month + $26,000 upfront 

This is the total for our monthly shelter. I haven’t touched food, vehicles, etc. but I will soon. 

Bonus: After 25 years, these monthly costs would (ignoring inflation) drop to $890. 

Off-Grid (Tier 1) Lifestyle Costs

Now, let’s compare shelter costs for a Tier 1 setup. These are projections, since I haven’t yet personally lived in this type of situation before. This is based on research and guessing. But I will try to make it as accurate and realistic as possible. 

Upfront Costs and Starting Capital  

Just like in conventional living in a regular house, there are upfront costs to consider. For sake of argument and in making the comparison valid, I’m going to use the exact same amount of money in this off-grid budget as I had to use to acquire my conventional house, which was 10% of $260k or $26,000. I acquired this through intensive saving, living with my parents, and a government program that no longer exists but was very helpful at the time.  

 I am going to assume the same amount of money is on-hand for the person buying into the off-grid lifestyle. The financial figures below assumes $26,000 of “startup” funds to keep the comparison valid. (If this doesn’t align with your situation, I quickly discuss this at the very end of the article).  

Buying or Financing Land: $316/month (5 yrs) + $16,000 upfront 

For the moment, let’s assume that I’m buying land in rural Canada for $30,000 for reasonable acreage on municipally maintained roads. This land would also have the proper zoning to allow off-grid living using Tier 1 methods. There are even better deals out there, and they aren’t just swamplands or landlocked or haunted. I haven’t found anything like this in the desirable parts of Ontario with the right zoning for a Tier 1 off-grid lifestyle, so you’ll have to look in other provinces… or maybe Northern Ontario which I consider undesirable personally. I’m looking in New Brunswick right now. 

In this scenario, I would carry a $12,000 loan (7% for 5 years) on a $30k property. That’s an $16,000 or 53% downpayment on the land. This results in a $316 monthly loan payment for the land for five years. 

Sidenote: Buying land is obviously easiest with 100% cash. However many who are considering off-grid living for financial reasons don’t have enough cash to do this in most places.  Financing land is very difficult, but I’ve been able to do it in the past with a credit union. I worked with a mortgage broker and was able to put down 35% on a really small vacant lot at a fairly good interest rate and 20-year amortization. There are other ways to buy land without 100% cash, such as VTB mortgages (the seller finances the deal), private family loans, personal loans, or lines of credit. All have disadvantages. 

Living Structure (10×12 Cabin): $0/month + $6,000 upfront 

There are many ways to shelter yourself while living on the land, including wall tents, yurts, domes, teepees, RVs, vans, etc. But they lack the security, comfort, and homeliness of a small cabin. I think it’s important to build the cabin yourself if the main priority is cost reduction. Construction is a pretty important off-grid skill anyways. Contractors, Cabin kits and those hardware-store-sheds-turned-living- space dealios and the like are just so expensive for what you get. 

Based on my experience in construction and renovation, I’ve roughly determined that $5,000 is enough for the materials to DIY build a very simple 10×12 cabin including insulation, windows, all lumber, metal roofing, foundations (just deck blocks), and wood stove. No indoor plumbing. I’m also assuming that you can scrounge a few bargains such as used windows and a door. An “earth pity privy” (outhouse) would be constructed nearby and would probably add about $500 to the project cost. The somewhat educated assumption is that both structures could be put up by two people in 3-4 weeks of full-time effort depending on level of skill, energy, determination, and forgetful trips to the hardware store 30 minutes away. You’d be living in some temporary shelter for the first few weeks of living on the land, like a 12-man camping tent or your vehicle if it’s big enough for a mattress. 

I must admit that I already have the tools necessary to construct such a cabin, but if you didn’t, I’d estimate around +$500 upfront in various used or cheap power and hand tools. I factored this in above. 

If you did need to finance this, $6,000 in building materials and tools would be roughly $527 per month (10% interest) for 12 months for which you could use a variety of loan methods. I will be using my upfront capital for this comparison. 

Land Property Taxes: $20/month 

These will probably be 1/10^th or less of what you’d pay in a conventional home. I’ve seen some vacant properties with 1/25^th my current annual property tax. Of course as you live and develop the property, a Tier 2+ setup will probably raise your taxes. 

Insurance: $70/month  

Do you need to pay for insurance for a vacant lot? It appears many do, but not for property damage or loss. The reason it’s valuable is due to the Occupiers’ Liability Act or similar laws. It basically means that you are liable for anyone getting injured on your property, including guests, and even if they are trespassing on your land. Even if the guest or trespasser doesn’t sue you, their insurance company probably will try. I may be misinterpreting this and do need to do additional research. But generally this signals to me that insurance is a wise idea, just to cover liability.  

If it is truly vacant land, then  whatever home insurance you pay automatically extends to the vacant land, but since we are considering not owning a primary house at all, and the land won’t actually be vacant for long (since you are building a 10×12 cabin or similar structure, and an earth pit privy) this isn’t too helpful. 

 How much will insurance cost? Using a boutique insurer that specializes in cabins and rural recreational properties or cottages may be the best bet. I’m unfortunately going to need to put out a wild estimate here, that it would be half the cost of home insurance. So, $70 per month. 

Maintenance and Repair: $50/month 

This category will be pretty minimal in the first year, since you are building the cabin from scratch. I’m going to suggest $50 as it’s a small space and it will be heavily used.  

Wood for Heat: $67/month  

The wood estimate for a 10×12 cabin would be 2 cords of seasoned hardwood at $400 per cord, or $800 total for a whole heating season. There are a few calculations you can do to determine how much wood is needed in your particular situation. Basically, you total the amount of BTUs (British Thermal Units) your structure would need over the course of the entire heating season, and then divide that by the amount of BTUs a cord of your species of wood can produce. You should also tally up how much wood your wood chuck can chuck. You should also factor in stove efficiency and insulation quality. 

Ice: $10/month  

Besides heating, there is also cooling of food. Unlike your mortgaged house, the land will not come equipped with a fridge and an ice maker! You won’t be able to run a conventional fridge using the basic PV setup described below. You’ll have to consider very cheap or free options like an ice box, or earth berm food barrel. Ice for occasional grocery store runs to preserve meats, dairies, and some veggies and fruits might be a few bags per month ($30) in summer and $0 for much of Fall, Winter, and Spring. 

Simple Photovoltaic Electricity Setup: $0/month + $2,000 upfront 

You’ll generate your own (this is “off-grid” living after all) using a basic photovoltaic, generator, and battery setup. I would consider this element critical as it will allow you to use and charge your communication devices, battery power tools, LED lights in the cabin, and laptop. I have calculated that a 100Ah battery and 200w solar panel would work, along with the inverter, solar controller, fuses, wiring, etc. which will cost around $2,000. It’s possible you might be able to get a used generator included for this price which would be very beneficial. Over time you’ll have to expand this system as you’ll probably desire an electric disco ball at some point.  

Drinking Water: $28/month  

I estimate a monthly need for 240 liters for two adults for just drinking and cooking. The plan in Tier 1 is to purchase drinking water. This can be purchased at refill stations in several stores and public depots from between $0 (municipal supply or spring) or $2ish per 5 gallon jug. With a need for 14 x 5 gallon jugs per month that’s $28 roughly. You could also factor in the time and gas needed to drive to the water refill station every two weeks, but it would probably be done alongside other chores. If you don’t buy drinking water initially, then you’d have to use some sort of filtration or treatment (be safe).  

Non-Potable Water: $0/month + $2,000 upfront 

Bathing and sanitary water will be provided by a different system, such as rainwater collection or a sand point well. I’m not sure how well either would work in cold, snowy weather. Perhaps the sand point well could be enclosed or frost protected in some way. I’ve seen estimates thrown around online with material lists that show a DIY sandpoint somewhere between $1,000 – $3,000 so I’ll just average it out. A rainwater system would be much cheaper but less reliable. This would be the final purchase from my initial capital. 

Internet Connection: $45/month 

We would use a mobile data plan. There are a few packages available right now for $45/month which covers talk, text, and 50gb of 5G data. These plans change all the time and so I won’t say who is providing this plan. 

You wouldn’t be able to work much using this internet limit, but it’s good enough for basic connectivity. Better ensure that your land has cell service. 

It would not be possible (it seems) to get the same level of internet speed and data usage limits as my $117/month service at my current house, unless Starlink is used, but this is a pretty energy intensive setup and it comes with steep upfront and monthly fees. Data internet is the best for Tier 1, I think.  

Total Tier 1 Off-Grid “Shelter Only” Costs: $527/month + $26,000 upfront 

Bonus: After only 5 years, these monthly costs would (ignoring inflation) drop to $211. You could also work extra hard and pay off the land loan much quicker, saving interest costs and hitting that lower monthly cost much faster. 

Non-Shelter Costs 

There is no doubt that an off-grid cabin on your own land beats a conventional  house from a financial perspective. But, I think we’ll probably find that non-shelter costs between conventional living and Tier 1 off-grid will be very similar. Off-grid living Tier 1 is primarily focused on Shelter cost reduction. Other expenses continue in life, regardless of how you shelter yourself.  

Vehicle: $500/month 

Off-grid Tier 1 and conventional living in Canada requires transportation, and a car will be the only option in the majority of cases, unless you’re home is located in a well connected urban area, in which case public transportation fees could stand in for a similar cost for a two-person household. $500 covers the cost of fuel, insurance, and a repair fund for my beater 2014 car with over 200,000kms. This car was sold to us at a very good price by a family member, and we are lucky to have avoided a loan on vehicles so far. A loan for a dealership car would add $200 – 400 per month for several years or perhaps a near-junker could be purchased, repaired, and driven into the ground. Either way, off-grid or not, you’ll probably have a car. If you drove infrequently, did DIY repairs and maintenance, and had the cheapest insurance possible, I bet you’d still struggle to keep vehicle expenses below $400 per month. 

Off-grid properties are usually also further away from employers and customers, so you’ll probably be putting more mileage on your vehicle than in a conventional lifestyle (although I know that some in the Toronto area commute 1.5 hours both ways every day M-F 50 weeks per year).  

Food: $400/month 

My wife and I actually spend less to eat than the average monthly cost in food per person, which was $297 each in 2022 according to MoneySense for the average Canadian. You could definitely compress this cost more. Perhaps $200 for two people at the bare minimum. But, we want to eat healthy and diverse foods, and we like coffee (brewed at home now, mostly). My wife loves snacks. She bakes bread from scratch. We rarely eat out.  

I think the idea of moving off-grid to save money on food is noble but probably unrealistic, especially in the first few years. We won’t have sufficient experience or systems for even 50% self-sufficiency in food production until Year 3+. I’m thinking that food costs won’t ever be trivial, even if you are self-producing 50% or more. I’m not sure I’ll ever get to more than 25% self-sufficient food production, personally. 

Grocery store purchases will need to be supplemented with farming or animal rearing activities. These will have costs, in time and money. Add in chickens, fences, coop materials, feed even supplemented by scraps, water heaters for cold weather, etc. And it becomes hard to beat the cost of a store bought egg (of course money isn’t the only factor). For the garden there is a big shopping list for bringing a vacant property to productive crop growing levels. Once the flywheel is spinning, I’m sure it gets easier. But I would posit that this isn’t realistic for the first three years. Perhaps in the future I will do a deeper investigation into the cost of self-sufficient food production vs. 100% reliance on a grocery store. 

Household Goods: $75/month 

There will be things like toilet paper, flashlight batteries, composting toilet materials, toiletries, gasoline for the generator or power tools (chainsaw), candles, soap, cleaning supplies, and the list goes on. We buy many of these things and we don’t have an off-grid home! I believe that the idea of making all of these things yourself or using pioneer methods to accomplish every household chore is a romantic idea but unlikely to be followed through on, in our case. You’d have to decide how much you can strip away this category in your own comparison. $75 is already pretty low for us, honestly. 

Health, Prescriptions, Dental: $90/month 

This cost will probably vary wildly based on your working arrangements (benefits) and not so much on your off-grid status.  

Travel: $200/month 

This covers visiting family as well as trips away. 

Other Stuff, Things, and Experiences: $200/month 

I have to apologize for this catch all category, which covers things like clothing, furniture, hobbies, sports, bank fees, hair cuts, pet food, books, and the list goes on forever and ever. I do believe that life goes on even while off-grid and it can’t be assumed that the majority of your lifestyle will change instantly and you’ll suddenly be extremely frugal in all respects. I’m sure there are many items that could be taken out of this miscellaneous category, but it appears fairly consistent for me in my household. A more rigorous spending diet might root out some of the slush in this fund. But I’m playing it safe and saying that $200 per month is probably about right for both the conventional lifestyle and off-grid, for us. 

Savings, Investing: Variable 

This will depend highly on you and your personal goals and dreams. It will be determined by your retirement plan and lifestyle. I maintain an emergency fund for 3-months of expenses. In off-grid living I’d try for a 12-month or even longer fund. 

Total Non-Shelter Costs for Both Lifestyles: $1,465 

Overall Winner 

The winner in the comparison is clearly off-grid at approx. $1,992 per month versus the conventional home ownership route at $3,693. Of course, ease and comfort will be significantly decreased in return for those savings. Life will require a lot more chores.  

Naturally, this all depends on your goals. You are definitely saving money on shelter costs in the off-grid cabin, but you are living very differently. It just depends what you prefer—more freedom and creative expression, or more comfort and perceived security? (I didn’t mean to make that sound so leading…) 

The off-grid cabin lifestyle has many potential intangible benefits aside from the savings such as proximity to nature, enhanced privacy and freedom, the satisfaction and mental value of being more self-sufficient, etc. 

The conventional house setup is going to have automatic heating systems, unlimited running water, long hot showers, unlimited internet, a refrigerator, much more square footage, way more storage capacity for “stuff”, no dumping poopy compost toilet buckets in the backyard, electric stoves and lights, and just about everything else that is comfortable and seen as mandatory minimum standards by most Canadians ;). 

Another thing to mention is that an off-grid lifestyle is more intensive on saving excess money and making big purchases. If you want to expand and upgrade your comfort level and interior square footage, slowly, aspiring to Tier 2 over time, then you’ll need to earn and save much more than month-to-month survival costs. However, unlike a conventional mortgage breathing down your neck monthly, these small gradual improvements to your Tier 1 setup are not mandatory or scheduled. You can save, spend slowly, and not spend when you would rather take more time away from paid labour. 

The monthly costs are also for very different lengths of time. After 5 years, your off-grid monthly cost assuming you made no upgrades whatsoever would drop due to the land loan coming to maturity, whereas you’ll need to wait 25 years to get rid of your home mortgage, and then your monthly expenses will still be more expensive than the off-grid by nearly triple. 

Can You Quit Your Job if You Live in an Off-Grid Cabin? 

Unfortunately, if you are coming into this situation with enough seed money to get started, but no other savings, then you’ll still need to work for money. If you get paid, say $20 per after tax and deductions, the off-grid life would require about 100 hours of work per month (3 x 8 hour shifts weekly) and the conventional route would need about 185 work hours per month (6 x 8 hour shifts). These hours can be divided between two people. You might not be able to downright retire, but you could likely afford to reduce your work schedules or do something more flexible / adventurous. 

So, you’ll probably find that less work would be required outside of the home (not zero), but I will say that you’ll probably end up working more overall between your new and extensive home chores and the desire to earn and save additional money for expansions and improvements to your Tier 1 setup. You may however get more joy out of this arrangement despite technically working more. It may also suit you to work seasonally or otherwise irregularly yet intensely when you are working.  

Further Analysis Needed 

Comparison to Renting a Room/Apartment: The $26,000 capital thing might have thrown you off. You might be renting or don’t have such money set aside. In that case you’ll probably find this comparison frustrating, since I didn’t make a section on rental expenses vs. Off-grid. Perhaps I will in the future. I’d honestly guess that renting in a city and using public transportation is cheaper than even Tier 1 off-grid living if you don’t have any savings at all. The upfront cost of Tier 1, if you don’t have the cash on hand, will require expensive and high-interest loans that will outweigh the cheapest rent costs in a city for several years. It still could be worth it, though. The “low-capital” approach to off-grid living could also be achieved by forgoing land ownership. You could rent or borrow land, and scrape together a small loan for building materials for the cabin. It would be an interesting comparison to see. I think that living off-grid in Tier 1 is better than renting a cheap apartment in the city, even though it is more expensive, less comfortable, and more difficult, but this would come down to a personal preference. Just like how many probably already sense that a cabin in the woods would be cheaper than owning a conventional suburban house, but don’t even consider it because they prioritize comfort and safety.  

Photo by Dawn Agran on Unsplash