I love living in the country, as it is so quiet and everything seems so much slower. But this does mean I have a bigger yard and a lot of my own space. I thought about how I could use all of this area I own to make it useful. I thought long and hard for about two years until one day, I accidentally ran my car off my own driveway in the middle of the night.
The tow truck driver mentioned getting my hands on some solar driveway lights. After getting them installed and seeing how well they worked, an idea popped in my head. What if I made my whole house run on solar energy? I know now that I was thinking a little ahead of myself at the time. But after looking around online I found some people who will come to your house and help you find out how many solar panels you need of this and that to power your home.
I said “why not” and dug into my nest egg. We started to install more and more green energy around my house. It did take a little bit of time but the people were so friendly and curious. I guess I had bought enough to receive some free panels and they installed those to tell me my meter would hopefully spin backwards and I would receive a check instead of paying for my electric.
After a few months of this, I started to enjoy the lack of bills appearing on my doorstep and started to save for a new car. I thought maybe I could get one of those electric cars and power it off my panels. Then I could reduce my gas bill every month as well.
It’s all said and done now and they have paid for themselves in a few years alone, and my retirement is going a lot better than I thought. Now the only concern is the kids fighting over who gets the house now that it has doubled in value.