Learn How To Get Off The Grid Here

I was at the same point as you several years ago - and I have to feed a family of seven for a year.

In the end I put my main calories depot into wheat and rye which cost me around 200$ for one ton (1000kG) and equal 3,4 Mio calories per ton (= calories for around 2000 days for a single person).

Thats dirt cheap and its leaves a lot of money to diversify. I brought seven empty metal barrels (with sealed lid) into my basement and poured the wheat into them with a bucket. I stacked them pairwise before filling so they take little space. Of course I bought a hand - driven mill too.
So a years stock of calories doesn't have to cost a fortune since wheat for 30$ (1 barrel of 230 litres) does it for one person.(230l = 140kG. (140kG x 3400Cal/kG)/365 days=1300Cal/day. When working physically double your daily calories at least)

Wheat price chart: [link to www.indexmundi.com]

Regarding price: I found a source where farmers buy and sell their harvest/ seeds and stuff. Dry wheat (<8% moisture) usually doesnt attract bugs and stays edible for decades if stored properly.

Last Edited by Vanzetti on 04/27/2015 06:17 PM

What does the shopping list look like for that amount ?

That's a good place to start, but man, wheat every day for a year!?

[link to www.mypatriotsupply.com]

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Hi Liberty's Teeth,

as I mentioned in between - my wheat stock leaves a lot of money to diversify. Of course you can do a lot more than a layman could imagine: its easy to produce sprouts for vitamins and malt from them for example - not to mention alcohol if needed (for disinfection) or the use as seed. So bread, noodles and cake is not the only thing you can make from it.

I personally have stocked tons of other food too (corn, beans, peas, canned vegetable, sugar, salt, marmelade) have in the meantime extensively raised rabbits (which was not as easy as one might think), started growing vegetable, stock hundreds of empty marmelade glasses usually thrown away and have for example got a huge stockpile of greenhouse glass which farmers here just give away since vegetables in Germany come mostly from abroad now.
Just to mention a few things I prepared from 2008 on.

The lesson from the wheat example should simply be that you can pay the twenty or hundredfold sum for your calories when you buy more refined products. In addition you have to see it as a barter object too.

In a crisis everything changes its value - and what is needed most will get up in price. Doesn't matter in principle what you've got as long as its scarce and desperately needed. Vitamin C powder for example today is dirt cheap - and it saves lives when there is malnutrition...

So please excuse if I derailed your off grid thread...

Last Edited by Vanzetti on 04/28/2015 03:21 AM

This is true. And they were pretty ingenious too. We have a 'vegetable room' way back in our basement that works well.

On the ranch where I grew up, the old root cellar is still in operation, cleaned up, white washed, wired for electricity. My sister in law keeps home canned food in it. It has double doors and is dirt covered. My brother pulled a chair in there, and he goes in there to escape the heat in the summer, sits there and reads.

Agreed, being off grid is akin to living off the land you have...So many think that it means supplementing your income by keeping the cost down until needed...

Using gas, for generators, autos, refrigeration and or cooking is not off the grid, you are still dependent on someone else to live in comfort...Electricity is not a necessity in off grid living, but instead a crutch and will hold you back...

I live in a desert and there is nothing I can't produce to survive...Food, fuel (wood), and even water are all readily available without any more effort than I can produce now while being "on the grid"...

Being self sustainable is very easy if you have your mind set right, the problem is, most talk about their garden and yet haven't started it yet...Gather your own seeds and learn how to produce more seeds from harvest...Learn water management, crop structure, canning and meat preservation, and animal production...

A family of four can live very comfortable on about 8 chickens and a rooster...Cook the males and preserve them for future needs...Goats and other types of farm animals are less problems than you would think...Just remember every thing you "grow" is not only for your own consumption but also for your animals, which is part of your own sustainability...

Clothing maybe the only thing that is hard to come up with, the Native Americans didn't see this as a problem nor did neanderthal...

Use your own common since to help produce every thing you need or you are just supplementing your income...

Comfort, is just that, so what comforts are you willing to give up for true off grid living...

Cz