Off Grid Budget with Kay

Alright friends!  I am so excited to post my second FREEBIE FRIDAY savings challenge available at my Ko-fi shop:  @offgridbudgetwithkay ! Keeping with the theme of using my own photography, the background is a photo I took after a rainstorm in Washington state. The fog was mesmerizing that day and I tried to capture it as it wafted mysteriously through the trees. I also arranged the numbers like they were climbing the mountain- to be a bit extra. Climb your way to $20 in savings with this mini savings challenge! Available as a FREE PDF DOWNLOAD at my Ko-fi shop:  https://ko-fi.com/offgridbudgetwithkay I'll be starting a handful of savings challenges in February with money earned from completing online surveys. I have a couple big purchases to plan for (including our bulk store membership renewal) and excited to try saving challenges to accomplish these goals. I'll also be sharing how I did in January with my online survey side hustle. It was quite surprising how much my S...

Have you ever considered coloring as a budgeting tool? Imagine creating beautiful works of art while building your emergency fund.  But coloring books can be expensive. So I went to the internet to find some free sites that offer coloring pages at no cost.  In my research, I found three free websites with downloadable coloring pages. With a little ingenuity, any of these can become your next savings challenge. (I am not an affiliate for any of these websites and will not receive any compensation.) 1. Color by Number: Crayola.com Crayola.com has free Color by Number pintables. Use each color number as the dollar amount and watch your savings grow as the picture comes to life. Crayola's site has about 16 Color by Number pages available, and new ones are posted all the time. Some are very simple, others are extremely intricate.  Don't see any images you like? You can create your own Color by Number by adding your own numbers to the over 1,000 coloring sheets Crayola offers ...

Alright friends!  I am so excited to post my very first FREEBIE FRIDAY savings challenge! I'm following some great budgeting channels on YouTube, and their creative budget challenges and games are a great inspiration.  One specific gal is Alaskan Girl Budgets at https://ko-fi.com/alaskangirlbudgets I just loved her idea of taking a photo and turning it into a savings challenge. Her "Getaway Savings Challenge" featured a photo of Homer, Alaska she took. It made me think about all the photos I've taken over the past several years.  I trained as a photojournalist at my last job. I loved taking photos and writing stories. But it got tough at the end when I suddenly lost someone I knew. I think about them often and the photos I took of their work are still imprints in my mind. Picking up a camera again has been a challenge, but I am proud to have found a place to share my work. Inspired by Alaskan Girl Budgets, I introduce my first Freebie Friday savings challenge! Squirre...

I started doing surveys as a way to spend my early mornings over a cup of coffee. I'm an early riser; Will is not. So, while he was sleeping, I would spend a few hours trying to reach my $1.00 goal for the day. Survey apps won't make me rich, but I have had some success and happily covered a couple months of streaming services with my little payouts. To date, I think I've made about $200 doing surveys in two years. In those two years, I've learned a few lessons along the way. HONESTY is the best policy with surveys. I try my absolute best to keep my answers honest and the app seems to reward me for that. Do EVERY bonus the app offers. Those $5 bonuses add up quickly. I only need to grind for about 10 days to hit the 3 surveys-a-day goal to qualify. Sundays and holidays are the slowest days for surveys. It can be a bit discouraging, but also a good reminder to take the day off and enjoy it with family. If the site I'm redirected to takes too long to load, or the surv...

Well friends, I finally sat down and got my planning budget done!  I decided to go with a zero-based budget format because I liked the idea of putting each dollar to work. Two Expense Categories Living off-grid means different types of expenses. I split my budget plan into two categories: Fixed expenses and Variable expenses. My fixed expenses are costs that stay the same, no matter the weather or usage. This includes things like car payments and utilities. Following is my list of fixed expenses: Cell Phone: $130 Car Payments: $1140 Trailer: $1000 Insurance: $285 Medical: $65 Waste Management: $47 Internet: $120 Subscriptions (i.e., streaming services, etc.): $58 Total: $2845 My variable expenses include the expenses that do change based on weather and use. Following is my list of variable expenses: Fuel (gasoline, kerosene, diesel): $490 Laundry: $120 Groceries: $800 Home Improvements: $2000 Propane: $100 Dining out/entertainment: $345 Total: $3855 Whoa. Those variable expenses ...

Hey there! My name is Kay, and I'm a novice homesteader. Will, my partner, and I moved to our mountain property in the Pacific Northwest about six months ago. We’ve taken on all the good (and the bad) of living off the grid. Big Costs - Check! We knew living off-grid was going to be a difficult task. Over the last five years, we've studied the major expenses, and scrimped and saved to ensure we could cover the big-ticket items: Well - Check! Water was the most important, and we made sure to have that well completed before we stepped foot on our land. Septic system - Check! Barn construction - Check! A place to live when the winter temperatures are too much for our little trailer to handle. Home build kit and foundation - Check! One of the bigger expenses, but this also means no mortgage! Solar panels and batteries - Check! With room to grow over the next several years. But what we didn't know (and the reason I started this blog) was that living this primitive lifestyle...