Our Uncertain Future is Shifting
New Collaborator + Paid Subscription Offers
For the past few years, this newsletter has been a side project for
. Starting this month, now that he has the plumbing in a mostly functional state, will begin contributing as well.
This will be more than just another Substack. This will be more than a place where we share our questionable life choices, passion projects and intimate thoughts on things both beautiful and despairing. This is a call for community. This is a gathering place. This is a place where we strive to build hope for the best possible future through preparing for the worst.
For the couple behind these words, this has meant pursuing a lifestyle that is at once independent, freelance, minimalist and off-the-grid (literally). It’s been an experiment spanning two decades during which we’ve learned a lot of valuable lessons that suddenly seem very relevant in a world approaching peak uncertainty.
So we’re going to redouble our efforts to share what we’ve learned here and invite you to join us by becoming a paid subscriber, which will allow us to focus more on this meaningful work. Your subscription includes not just access to our insights, DIY tips and deepest thoughts, but also inclusion in a community we hope you’ll help us build (if you want, lurkers are fine, too).
Together we can’t guarantee we’ll make the future any less uncertain, but we can build a more fulfilling present.
You can still receive plenty of content for free, that won’t change. But we will be putting some content behind paywalls for subscribers only. $5 a month is the cost of a latte, so we’re not asking for much, just a little incentive to keep at it and keep writing more. Our plan is to write two letters a month with insights on off grid living and our own experiences, as well as tips and tricks for those who want to give it a try.
We’ll also be asking all subscribers how involved they might like to be in the community we hope to build, and what platforms (Slack, Discord, forums, etc…) might work best. Click here to give your input. Stay tuned for future perks for founding members, as well.
If you’re ready to upgrade your subscription now, use the link at the bottom of this email. Otherwise, navigate to the Subscriptions section of your Substack account and click on "Edit" next to Our Uncertain Future. You will be directed to click on "Upgrade to paid subscription.” Thank you for your support!
Our future and nearly everything else is uncertain. Except for the present. It is certain, because it is happening now. And now, something has brought you here, to this Substack. You’ve chosen to spend the only thing that is certain, this moment, here with us, and we appreciate it.
Let us know if there is anything you want us to write about. We encourage your input.
More About Us
Eric and Johanna moved off the grid in 2020 to a strawbale home on a high mesa in Northern New Mexico. But this was not our first time living off the grid.
We met in Alaska in 2002, in an Athabascan village off the road system where you had to fly in and fly out or take a full day boat ride down the Yukon to Fairbanks in the summer. We had plumbing and power there, but we were living in the “bush,” off the grid of the road system. In the summers, we lived back on the road system in Talkeetna, Alaska in dry cabins without plumbing. Eric dug an outhouse by hand. We hauled water in 20 gallon jugs and showered at the laundromat, a quarter per every 2 minutes.
We moved to New Mexico in 2005 after backpacking around Asia for 6 months. Even travel is a form of living off the grid. Without a home or job, without a mailing address or phone number (this is 2004), with only the belongings on our back, we stepped out of the system for a few months of freedom and have been traveling intermittently ever since.
When we got pregnant in 2007, we began our homesteading journey in a small mountain village in the Sangre de Cristos. There we felt mostly apocalypse-proof. We lived on a river and had water rights to an acequia ditch that ran through our property where we could get all the water we needed for our very large garden. We had our own well. We used propane for cooking fuel and we heated the house with wood that we gathered ourselves with a chainsaw from the nearby forests. Johanna became proficient at canning, gardening, wildcrafting and making herbal medicines. Eric began learning basic electrical, plumbing and construction skills.
At the same time, we also took on our freelance lifestyle. Freelance meant that we didn’t rely on work away from home for our economic sustenance. Throughout the years, Johanna has worked in physical locations as side jobs, but we mostly work online.
Our time at that home came to an end and we began a brief foray of living a more conventional lifestyle but ultimately when the pandemic hit, we knew we needed to go off the grid for good (read more about that below…)
How We Got a Mortgage Free Home
While most people dream of owning a big beautiful home, I dream of owning a small home without any debt. For me the idea of never having to pay rent again and continuing my debt-free lifestyle means being free. Without that simple payment in my life, I am free to do whatever I please and always have a place to go home to. The financial pressures of maki…
Living off grid for the last three years has given us a lot of knowledge about the off grid lifestyle. However, the “off grid lifestyle” means more to us than just solar panels (though we love those too). It’s about living within our means, minimizing our carbon footprint, connecting with nature, living in integrity with our values, being conscientious about how we use our spending power, being independent of corporations whenever possible, exploring alternative social structures and dismantling societal programming, particularly around materialism and lifestyle choices.
Marriage and family life are the ultimate creative collaboration, of course. Eric and Johanna are both professional writers (read more about Eric’s writing here and Johanna’s here) and love writing, so it only makes sense to collaborate on a writing project. Looking for a new way to collaborate on a creative project since the This is Marriage Podcast (more here) ended, we decided to take the knowledge that we have accumulated and share it with others.
We believe that real change can come from everyone taking more steps toward independence from corporate and government grids. We also believe that the best way to do this is in community with others. We don’t need to be rugged individuals roughing our way through life when we can make it easier for everyone and collaborate with others in person and in online communities. Local communities are essential. Online communities are still experimental. How do we create community from afar in this digital world? We know that the online universe has been an irreplaceable asset for us (read more here) but it needs to be balanced in a way that is healthy for humanity and the planet.
More links to check out:
https://www.allofusstardust.com/
https://www.johannadebiase.com/