in the planing states | New Member Introduction | Forums

I haven't been able to convince my wife to quit our jobs, sell all of our stuff and move completely off grid... yet. So "we" compromised and decided that we would find a property in southern Virginia that has a house, running water, sewer and electricity. We still live in Hampton, VA with 3 kids 1,5 and 7. 3 dogs and 6 hens. We're currently working on getting out of debt after my wife was unemployed for over a year and while we're doing that we're waiting for the perfect property to show up and I'm working on planning exactly what I want to do and what we're going to need to do it.

At the moment I want to ease into self sustainment. I've been talking to my wife about the idea for the last couple years but now that things are moving towards that she pretends that we've never had conversations about it. I'm going to have to do some things behind her back so that she wont stop me but once it's done she wont fight it. I'm talking about slaughtering meat birds and a sheep every now and then. Once she's had good quality meat and gets tired of driving 45min the grocery store I'm sure she wont mind a freezer full of chickens and mutton.

My main goal is being as self-sufficient  as possible and exposing my kids to the idea while hopefully teaching them the value of hard work and self reliance. I also hope to develop close relationships with people that live near me and work together with them and share our resources, knowledge and talents.

we're still a few months to a year away from starting this adventure so I have some time but once we officially begin I want to hit the ground running.