Solar on the cheap

This a rather long article I found but it is worth the read. I have done some of this and saved and scrounged many solar panels and items.:

t seems that the “green” (or brown) movement is growing faster and faster. It used to be the realm of unwashed hippies, tree huggers and other so called “degenerates” who lived off the grid, in the wild, on the fringes of society.

Lately, I keep reading about how more mainstream people are jumping in, purchasing solar panels, adding passive solar rooms, collecting rain water. I read about people who build $300,000+ green homes, that price doesn’t include the price of the land it sits upon! It’s all fine and dandy for those who have lots of readily available cash sitting around, or worse, they get loans to bankroll their ubergreen homes.I have no complaints about those who can afford the extravagant green homes, if you are wealthy and can afford to do it, then by all means go for it. But what about all of the rest of us, living on fixed or small incomes? Is it possible to live the green dream if you don’t have a cool million sitting in the bank? The answer is YES, you can!

In this article I talk about solar panels, but this can also refer to anything it takes to live off grid, solar power, wind power, water power…

That doesn’t mean you can go out and buy an entire setup of solar panels and everything that goes with it right off the bat. That would just be foolish. It would be even more foolish to buy on credit, there is no point in making this cost more than it has to, and buying on credit, unless you CAN and WILL pay off the balance before the next billing cycle, you will be paying more than necessary.

The way to bankroll your purchases is to do it one step at a time. I am assuming that you have taken the time to educate yourself on solar panels and everything that goes with it. You don’t need to go crazy, just do a little homework, learn what you need, figure out how you can reduce your power needs, the less power you can use, the less you need to spend on your solar setup.

Figure out how much money you have left over at the end of the month, after all of your bills are paid. Take that money, put some of it aside for a “rainy day”, and take the rest and purchase as many solar panels as you can. If that is one, then just get one. Set these aside and add to it each month. You will need more than just solar panels, but this will get you started. You will also need to get deep cycle batteries, there are several different types, again you need to educate yourself. They can be expensive, so buy them as you can. You also need to try to stay with the same size or as close to the same size as possible as well a the same type, you don’t want to mix wet batteries with gel batteries, again, you need to educate yourself. It might even be advisable to make those your latter purchases since batteries generally require some maintenance, they don’t like just sitting idle.

You will need to get at least one charge controller, don’t skimp on this, this one item will insure that you don’t overcharge your batteries, this investment will pay off big time in the long run.

For the solar panels, I have heard many different opinions about how much to spend on them, I find that they don’t have any moving parts, and either they work or they don’t, so if you can find them cheaper, then buy the cheaper ones. Harbor Freight has good prices on a range of solar panels, I find nothing wrong with them. Just a little bit of advice, I used to work in the electronics industry, in general, the sales people tended to disparage the “cheaper” generic items in favor of the more expensive brand name items. The only reason they did this was so their paychecks would be bigger, ie they earned commission on their sales. I even found this trend in a store where no one earned commissions.

I don’t know why they did it other than the bottom line of the store, but it happened, and it happened frequently. It was their perception that the higher priced, name brand products were somehow better than the lower cost generic products. The funny part about it is, usually the generic products were made by the same manufacturers that made the name brand products. These often had a lower price point AND a bigger markup, so if they had been “pushing” the generics, they would have been, in reality, making more money for the store in the long run! Go figure! So don’t get caught up in the “it has to be a brand name” solar panel, buy what you can afford.

If you do this, starting now, within a year you should have a pretty good stash of solar goodies waiting for you to hook them all up. If you think this will take too long, just think of it like this, the time WILL go by whether you are slowly stocking up or not, if you had started this a year ago, how much would you have now? So don’t let the perception of time passing slowly discourage you from getting started, the sooner you start, the sooner you will be in better shape to be off grid. The longer you put it off, the longer it will take for you to become independent!

If you don’t have enough money to purchase an item at the end of the month, then set aside the money you DO have, don’t blow it, just save it and add it to next month’s funds. Anytime you come into extra money, an unexpected raise, a bonus, Christmas or birthday money, put that towards your solar purchases. Try spending less on unnecessary things, instead of eating out, eat at home, bring your lunch to work, stop buying those $4.00 coffee’s, you know what I am talking about! Take the change out of your pocket or purse everyday and put it aside, every little bit adds up. Eat closer to the earth, stop buying all the pre-prepared, over packaged microwave junk foods, your body, mind and pocketbook will be the better for it.

Ladies, do you REALLY have to get your nails done every week? How about shopping at discount stores or even (gasp) second hand stores? I have found brand new clothes, with retail tags still attached in thrift stores, I can buy a pair of good jeans for a few dollars instead of paying $30.00 and up. You can even find deals on some of your groceries if you are willing to shop at salvage grocery stores, just look in the phone book. Also look at the dollar stores for some of your grocery needs, you can get lots of staples at a great price there. Just take inventory of what you are spending each month, decide which things can be trimmed or even cut out all together, what is more important, going to the movies this weekend or becoming free from monthly utility bills?

Do you really need to have 2 cars? Do you really need a NEW car? Buying an older model car can save you thousands of dollars in car payments as well as lower insurance premiums. What do you have laying around collecting dust that you can sell? What can you give up that will save you money, how much are you paying to watch TV? I’m talking about cable and satellite services, how about dropping the service all together, or if you are not willing to do that, how about dropping the premium channels? How much would that save each month? Shop around for internet service, you may be paying too much for your current service. Try this, turn off your modem, turn on your wireless card and see if there is a signal you can “use” to get free internet. Check with your neighbors and see if you can go in with them on an internet connection and share the bill.

If your company has an employee stock plan, or some other type of savings plans, especially if they match your contribution, then GO FOR IT! That’s exactly how I was able to buy my little parcel of land, I worked 10 and a half years at Best Buy, the last 7 years I worked part time. I signed up for the employee stock plan as soon as it was available for the part timers. I gave the maximum that I could, it was 20% of my paycheck. Working part time, that wasn’t much, on average it was about $70.00 per paycheck, we were paid every 2 weeks. I left the money alone, most of the time I didn’t even know how much money I had in that account. Too many time I saw this happen with the other people I worked with, they would get a couple of thousand dollars saved up, then they would cash it in and make a down payment on a new car, or something else that was equally unnecessary. I only became interested in how much I had when I started looking for a place to buy to live off grid. In the 7 or so years that I had participated in this program, I had saved/earned enough to be able to buy my land outright. I didn’t have to get a bank loan, I didn’t use credit cards, I just cashed in one investment and put the money into another investment, my property.
More at the following link: http://www.off-grid.net/2008/12/15/off-grid-on-the-cheap/