32 going on 33 with bad credit and I have a bad job. I hate it takes money to go off grid and live off less. Even worse I'm in California.
Just venting guys.
Anyone else annoyed by their situation.
Question,if you feel like maybe going off grid is too g to takes years what other alternative have you thought of life style wise.

https://wwoofusa.org/

Takes very little money to go off grid and live a minimalist lifestyle. The barrier is not money but our perceptions of reality. Why do we consider a particular situation good or bad? Why do we value what we value? Why do some things seem 'off the table' while others are 'must have'? The lens through which we see the world is the most powerful driver of our disposition and yet it is malleable.

Justin Durango wrote:https://wwoofusa.org/

Takes very little money to go off grid and live a minimalist lifestyle. The barrier is not money but our perceptions of reality. Why do we consider a particular situation good or bad? Why do we value what we value? Why do some things seem 'off the table' while others are 'must have'? The lens through which we see the world is the most powerful driver of our disposition and yet it is malleable.

X2 for what Justin said!

My wife and I LOVED our six month WOOFing experience. We had to give it up in order to actually start a homestead. I WISH we had had the time to take a full year off and do a full season on a coffee plantation in Hawaii... all room and board, a year in HI, learning about farming, up to your eyeballs in delicious coffee... WOOFing can be amazing. And you're young :) I didn't start homesteading until I was 40. Before that I was a corporate slave. It was crushing my soul and I realized life was just plain too short for that BS... I'd rather struggle to make a living on my own terms than remain plugged into that system of "golden handcuffs."

You can WOOF for a week, two weeks, a month... months... a year. Whatever sounds good to you! Whatever you're curious about... look to see if you can find a host doing something that interests you in a place you'd like to visit. It can be an excuse to explore potential places to call home when you're ready to take that step.

You can always plug yourself back into the ratrace if that's what you have to do to survive. But that is just one way to survive :)

Chase your dreams! You're the only one who knows what's right for you. Trust yourself! You'll make a pile of mistakes, we all do. But the way I look at one should always TRY.  You can only succeed or have learning opportunities. What have you got to lose? ;)

Even all those options require someone is debt-free, increasingly a mark of wealth in today's world.

Money is not my limiting factor, but I'm limited all the same. I'm the only child of 4 older parents (divorced & remarried) separated by 300 miles, one of whom has severe arthritis and is the primary caregiver for another who has a severe degenerative neurological disorder, and oh also the caregiver for my ancient grandpa. That means I spend a lot of time helping out my parents, often on a moment's notice. It means a lot of driving and a lot of living with baby boomers who produce incredible quantities of trash, smoke cigarettes, and generally live a lifestyle very different from my goals.

All that is to say I don't think aiming for a specific lifestyle/endpoint is all that it's made up to be. Just try and make the smaller decisions that you can with your current means. Maybe that means is money, maybe it's time, maybe it's freedom from responsibilities.  It's easy to watch a YouTube video of someone living a way you imagine would be great and be frustrated at everything in your way. But in my experience each of us have to find our own path.

Kyle Neath wrote:Even all those options require someone is debt-free, increasingly a mark of wealth in today's world. ...

Ah debt... Indeed! Unless one wants to build a career in finance/investing (not likely many Permies are) or you're an entrepreneur trying to do a startup with a great business plan, avoiding debt is likely a great idea :)

And I second the idea of consciously avoiding falling into the trap of "The grass is always greener..."

Kyle Neath wrote:... But in my experience each of us have to find our own path.

Beautifully said!

A wise old man once told me: "You WILL have one chief asshole in your life. If you don't chose to fill that role yourself, someone else will."

I remember sitting at a hearing, looking at my ex-wife on May 4th 2011 and telling her lawyer, through my lawyer that there was no way I could afford what they wanted me to pay. It was dire times and I saw no way out of the debt.

I never realized how many things would turn around. This is not pie in the sky kind of stuff, but I managed to pay her off in every way, and every time it was required. I also managed to get 161 more acres out of the deal as I did so, am now out of debt, retired 2 years ago and farm my farm full time. Not everything is rosy, I have cancer, and property taxes are killing us, but my new wife and i are very content at age 43 and 38 respectively.

There is always hope. Always. I have lived it...

I love it when someone says that having money or the lack there of is NOT a barrier when you want to go off grid or develop a better, more Earth friendly life.

You can WOOF for a week, two weeks, a month... months... a year. Whatever sounds good to you! Whatever you're curious about... look to see if you can find a host doing something that interests you in a place you'd like to visit. It can be an excuse to explore potential places to call home when you're ready to take that step.  

You can't do that forever. There also isn't a lot of money (if any) in WOOFing so you can't save for your own land. Also, have you ever tried to take a "break" from the rat race to pursue your passion and then in a year, try to get back in? If you are older, it can take awhile to get a new job just to afford to pay for a place to live. If you don't inherit land/money you work your rear off to get it.

I know, the next thing an optimist will say is, "there are always people looking for others to come onto their land and help." Working closely with a person/persons on their land in the hopes they will have you stay permanently is just like a romantic relationship or any interpersonal relationship. Sometimes no matter how hard you want it to succeed, it doesn't. Personalities clash, someone gets emotionally hurt, sometimes you don't see eye-to-eye, etc. So, yes, there are persons who are willing to have you stay on their land and help. There just aren't that many, and we are all human. It's just easier for us to NOT get along than to get along.

Steve,
There are hundreds, probably thousands, of places just begging for folks to come live with them permanently. You just have to do the research to find the right one for you. Spend time reading on ic.org. Or even just read the many "community" listings here on forums.  ~~~ Or, you can keep making excuses why getting on the land won't happen for you. Your choice.

Steven Willis wrote:I love it when someone says that having money or the lack there of is NOT a barrier when you want to go off grid or develop a better, more Earth friendly life.

You can WOOF for a week, two weeks, a month... months... a year. Whatever sounds good to you! Whatever you're curious about... look to see if you can find a host doing something that interests you in a place you'd like to visit. It can be an excuse to explore potential places to call home when you're ready to take that step.  

You can't do that forever. There also isn't a lot of money (if any) in WOOFing so you can't save for your own land. Also, have you ever tried to take a "break" from the rat race to pursue your passion and then in a year, try to get back in? If you are older, it can take awhile to get a new job just to afford to pay for a place to live. If you don't inherit land/money you work your rear off to get it.

I know, the next thing an optimist will say is, "there are always people looking for others to come onto their land and help." Working closely with a person/persons on their land in the hopes they will have you stay permanently is just like a romantic relationship or any interpersonal relationship. Sometimes no matter how hard you want it to succeed, it doesn't. Personalities clash, someone gets emotionally hurt, sometimes you don't see eye-to-eye, etc. So, yes, there are persons who are willing to have you stay on their land and help. There just aren't that many, and we are all human. It's just easier for us to NOT get along than to get along.

And the pessimist will tell you all the reasons that nothing will ever work out.  

If a person doesn't care about their credit score, no amount of debt will tie them down when it's time to cut loose and move on. Bad credit? Oh well, no plans in the next couple years to borrow money or apply for a job where a credit score is required anyways!

It's true that if you plan to work with other people, you need to get along. That's true in any living situation or job, including WOOFing. When I visited Cob Cottage Company there were a couple volunteers living there who were learning to build with cob and getting free meals and were camping on-site for maybe a year or so, and then planned to go to some South American location to help build a cob structure for several months at least. Other visitors at the same time were travelling across the USA, volunteering here and there as they went, and one had spent a year in Italy working on a farm.

There's nothing saying a person HAS to settle down and leave this lifestyle if they are enjoying it. Perhaps a lot of younger people get into it as they learn what their real interests are in life and then move on to those interests. If your goal is to get your own land without any initial money and no desire to work multiple jobs, then you can search for offers that are out there to work on someone's property and be paid by getting a piece of it to live on and keep. Or you find additional jobs that don't conflict with your current work schedule to save up, unemployment is really low and there is work out there for the taking. When I got out of college about 25 years ago, my method to pay off all my debts was to get 3 jobs and work about 76 hours a week between them. I had a 9-5 M-F, 5:30-9:30 M-F, and 11-7am F-Sat. It sucked but it allowed me to get out of debt in less than a year and also save up enough for my first house down payment.

The early retirement extreme and Mr. Money Mustache sites have a variety of ways to save money by either increasing income or reducing expenses. Some ideas are easy and some are harder, many boil down to how determined a person is to reach a goal.

Jim Fry wrote:Steve,
There are hundreds, probably thousands, of places just begging for folks to come live with them permanently. You just have to do the research to find the right one for you. Spend time reading on ic.org. Or even just read the many "community" listings here on forums.  ~~~ Or, you can keep making excuses why getting on the land won't happen for you. Your choice.

Before I got lucky, I was landless and wanted desperately to farm. I lived on an intentional community and loved it, but the community ended up dissolving because of unaddressed mental issues and personal clashes. It was very, very difficult to find another community. Sure, they exist in name, but very few are ideal places to live for anyone, let alone myself personally. I'm gay, on the autism spectrum, and religious. Many other people have similarly complex parts of themselves.


A lot of communities are religiously zealous, or are zealous preppers, or have visions for their farm and what they want to do that are different from what one might want. The community I lived on had advertised itself as wanting to farm, but really, when it came down to it, the other members (who I still love dearly) just wanted a very fancy and pretty, but very small, kitchen garden to show off to their friends from the city. They got anxious about a food forest or anything larger, as they wanted everything to be perfect.


Aaannnyway, I just would like to point out that it's easy to forget how difficult it really is these days for someone without land to acquire it. Even I forget it sometimes, and I just bought my place a few years ago. For someone who loves farming not having land is scary. You are then placed at other peoples' mercy and goodwill. It is a sad position to be in in a country which not too long ago had the tradition of buying a house and starting a family when one was in one's early 20's