The Old Way of Living

People now days treat 'living off the grid' as a fad, a 'new' venture to try. But it really isn't. Fact is, living ON the grid is the thing that is 'new'.
Electricity was first installed in city houses in the late 1800's, about 1870, but rural cooperatives didn't reach rural areas until much later.
"The idea of providing federal assistance to accomplish rural electrification gained ground rapidly when President Roosevelt took office in 1933. On May 11, 1935, Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 7037 establishing the Rural Electrification Administration (REA). It was not until a year later that the Rural Electrification Act was passed and the lending program that became the REA got underway.
Within four years following the close of the World War II, the number of rural electric systems in operation doubled, the number of consumers connected more than tripled and the miles of energized line grew more than five-fold. By 1953, more than 90 percent of U.S. farms had electricity." (NRECA website)
In the late 60's I can remember visiting my grandparent's house in the Big Thicket of Texas and while they did have electric, they had not had it long. There were not numerous plug-ins, and the light fixtures were all drop lights with pull chains. And, there was no wasting of electric, ever, even into the 70's. The only things that received constant 'juice' were the refrigerator and the freezer. Nothing else. Grandpa watched the ten o'clock news, so the television was turned on at ten o'clock and turned off as soon as the news ended. Often family would visit and watch football, but Grandpa most usually grabbed his shotgun and went to the woods to hunt squirrel or talk to God. If it were just he and Grandmother, lights came on when it got dark outside and they went off as soon as you left a room or went to bed. They lived frugally; first out of necessity because Grandpa was an old time preacher and he and Grandmother were never even middle class. Secondly, they came from an era where you did not waste anything, be it food or electricity. You used what you needed and no more.
In 2001 I had the wonderful opportunity to meet a very special elderly lady who was in her late 80's when I met her, and was also a spinster. I would eventually become her home health aide where I would wake her every morning, help her out of bed, prepare her breakfast, I cleaned her home, and in the evening I would come back and help her into bed, locking the house behind me when I exited. Being that she was also my neighbor, we became great friends and I would often visit just to enjoy her company.
She was the granddaughter of slaves, her own parents having been born into slavery but freed before they truly understood. She had worked in the fields, on the family farm, and as her mother's constant companion until her death. She knew poverty, she knew prejudice, she knew hard work, and she knew how to live 'sparingly', or frugally as we know it today.
She lived in an older drafty house that was fully wired for electric. She had two freezers, a large refrigerator, a propane stove, a microwave oven, a washing machine, a propane gas dryer, a propane hot water heater, a small propane heater in the bathroom, one window ac unit, one window box fan, a television, and a wood burning heater. When she was in her early 90's, she was out chopping firewood one morning when she stumbled, fell and broke her hip and her ankle. This was the reason I became her home health aide.
She tried to 'play dumb' on many occasions, but her wisdom was something that I shall take with me now as I begin this 'off grid' journey.
Her electric bill was usually twenty-five to thirty-five dollars a month, and even that offended her and she would say, "I have got to cut back!"
1) She kept her freezers packed full of meats and produce. If they were full they didn't have to work so hard.
2) She left nothing plugged in all the time except for the freezers, the refrigerator, and one wall clock. If she needed the microwave, she plugged it in, used it, and then unplugged it as soon as she was done. The same with her television, window ac, box fan and so on. She said that the microwave pulled 'juice' just to keep the little display light on. The other appliances and such she unplugged in case there was a lightning storm.
3) We did laundry one day a week and if it was not raining, I hung all of the laundry on her long clothesline to dry. We only used the dryer if it was raining. No exceptions. I also starched her pillow cases on the stove, hung them on the clothesline and ironed them once they were dry. She said that the starch helped keep them cleaner longer.
4) She only plugged in and turned on the window ac if it was hotter than 95 degrees out, but rarely even then. Instead she preferred to sit outside on her front porch and catch a breeze for free. if it was unbearably hot, she did allow me to turn on the window box fan at night in her bedroom, but only on 'low'.
5) In the winter, no matter how cold it was, she refused to sleep with ANY heat on. Instead, she slept under a pile of old handmade quilts and she would only get out of bed the next morning after I had a good fire going in the wood heater in the living room. And, once she was up, dressed, and had eaten breakfast, the door from the living room into the hallway was shut. She said, "I don't need to heat this whole house. I'm only going to be in this one room." (She did the same on the few rare occasions she allowed me to turn the window ac on.)
6) Only one light on at a time, unless I was cooking in the kitchen and she was sitting in the living room. "It was a waste," she said, "to burn lights in rooms when nobody is in them."

As I prepare for my new 'path' in life, I look around my current on-grid house and I see waste everywhere! Not only does my microwave stay plugged in with a little green light to let me know it's ready for use, but I also have a digital clock on my electric stove. A blue button is lit on my coffee maker and another green light flashes on my counter top ice maker. There are three people in this house now and there are three televisions on. There are 8 'rooms' in this house, six of which currently have lights on, and as I wrote above, there are only three of us inside this house. Television satellite boxes, computers, X-Boxes, digital clocks, fluorescent lights over sinks, phone chargers, electric razors charging, electric toothbrush charging, and computer modem constantly flashing lights 24/7, 365 days a year. This does not include window acs, electric space heaters, or any appliances.

We have become a spoiled bunch of people dwelling upon this earth, taking so much for granted, and we don't have a clue as to what it really means to live 'sparingly' anymore.

This is not some romanticized idea or 'fad' that I have driving me as I am hurled down this path of learning how to live carefully and frugally. It is, in fact, a desire to get back to the 'old' way of living, where my husband and I have more control over how we live and where we spend his hard earned money. It is a path born out of necessity: either follow this 'new' scary path and build a dream, or stay imprisoned by an electric company and allow our dream to slip away.

The old way of living worked for thousands of years and this new 'electricized' way has been around only about 146 years and not only has it made people 'soft' and careless, it's simply not working for some of us.