The Everything Guide to Living Off the Grid Read Online Free PDF

your skills, you find you have skills that are more down-to-earth. Are you handy around the house? Do you have excellent carpentry, painting, remodeling, or plumbing skills? These skills are very much in demand, especially as baby boomers age and need help around their homes.
    Are you an excellent cook or baker? Can you build a kitchen in your home that can be FDA certified so you can provide baked goods to local restaurants or gift shops? Can you start a catering business?
    How about accounting skills? Do you have the background to start a bookkeeping service for local businesses?
    As you look at these options, be sure you study the area where you are going to be relocating. Speak to the Chamber of Commerce and the local Extension office to get ideas about the needs of the community. Speak to the director of a nearby senior center to discern the need for a handyperson or other services the senior community might desire.
    Be creative as you explore your options for income so it meshes with your new lifestyle.
    Bartering and Dealing
    One of the oldest methods of commerce is bartering. The late James Harvey Stout wrote that bartering was in its third cycle in the United States during the early 1980s. The first cycle was the colonial era: “During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, money was scarce, so the colonists relied primarily on bartering, with commodities such as beaver pelts, corn, musket balls, nails, tobacco, and deer skins (from which we get our modern slang, “buck,” for the word “dollar”). Colonists also used the money of other cultures—the Native Americans’ wampum (which consisted of beads made from shells), and the coins of foreign countries.”
    The second era of bartering happened during the Great Depression. During the 1930s, money was scarce, so people established barter groups like the Unemployed Citizens League of Denver (with 34,000 members) and the National Development Association. The League was developed by Charles Dunwoody Strong, a community activist whose own business, an architectural practice, folded in 1929. He modeled the League after a similarorganization in Seattle. An excerpt from his biography at the Colorado Historical Society gives a little more insight into the League:
The organization sought to relieve the distress of the unemployed and underemployed through cooperative production. Meetings were held in mortuaries because schools were closed in the summer and churches were reluctant to open their doors to the unusual, and in some eyes, questionable organization.
Membership surged. In 1932, Strong met with the governor, labor leaders, and veterans’ groups to plan an “economic takeover” of the state upon the reelection of President Hoover. With the election of Franklin Roosevelt, the initiation of his New Deal programs, and the subsequent relief of some economic suffering, interest and membership in the League wavered.
    According to Stout, the third era of bartering began in the early 1980s. During the long recession, bartering resurfaced and was featured in many magazine articles and many new books. Barter clubs were created throughout the nation. More companies learned about the advertising industry’s “trade-outs,” international commerce’s “countertrade,” and the other possibilities for bartering in business.

When you barter, have a clear idea of what you need ahead of time. Offer a concise description of the goods or services you need and the goods of services you can offer. Have your description slimmed down to a sentence or two.
    Arguably, you can see a fourth era of bartering regaining popularity as websites like Craigslist.com offer items for trade, and e-mail services like Freecycle.com offer members the opportunity to trade for items no longer used or needed by other members. In an off-the-grid situation, you can barter produce, services, eggs, milk, or anything that has value with neighbors.The key to successful bartering is to be sure that you