Once you find an old single-wide mobile home, dirt cheap or even free and in need of some TLC, you can set up your own homestead in a rural area. Not so different from people homesteading in the cities, taking over abandoned and derelict areas and bringing new life to them.

Trailersteading is taking it to the rural places where there isn't a large population (or options for jobs) and making your own self-supporting homestead (or as near to it as possible). Running a trailerstead is a chance to live without debt, growing much of your own food. Living off the grid is possible too. You can create your own green living homestead, living out of a trailer with a very small carbon footprint.

Homesteading On The Internet: "Trailersteading" Makes Beginning Homesteading Easier

Trailersteading: How to Find, Buy, Retrofit, and Live Large in a Mobile Home - Anna Hess

All the advantages of a tiny house at a fraction of the cost!

Imagine what you could do with your time if you didn't have to spend $16,000 a year on rent or a mortgage. Old single-wide mobile homes can often be found for free (and installed for a couple of thousand dollars) in rural areas, so trailersteading is akin to dumpster-diving. A trailer allows you to live without debt, to keep your ecological footprint to a minimum with energy bills at or below the national average, and even to blend right in alongside traditional-house dwellers after a few years.

Trailersteading profiles thirteen mobile-home dwellers who have used trailers as a stepping stone toward achieving their dreams. Some have spent the cash saved to expedite renovations involving extra insulation, pitched roofs, classy interiors, and even basements, while the found money has allowed others to go off the grid. Many also took advantage of a low-cost housing option to pursue their passions, becoming full-time homemakers or homesteaders.

In addition to the case studies, this book presents easy methods of minimizing the negative sides of trailer life and accentuating the positive. For example, did you know a single-wide is easy to retrofit for passive solar heating? That a simple plant-covered trellis can break up the blockiness of the trailer's external appearance? Learn which parts of installing and upgrading your trailer are easy for a DIYer and which parts should be left to the experts, along with how to cheaply heat and cool a mobile home.

"The Silent Book Club is a global community of readers and introverts, with more than 800 chapters led by local volunteers around the world. SBC members gather in person and online to read together in quiet camaraderie. Find a chapter near you or a virtual meetup at http://silentbook.club."

My local chapter has gone dark. I think it happens a lot to groups like this. Someone gets inspired to start, works at making it go, then gets discouraged when it doesn't work as well or as fast as they would like. Some hang in there, a lot don't and move on to the next fresh inspiration. People don't understand, or don't want to know that nothing starts out big. The groups that hang in and trudge along are the ones with a chance to grow and become popular, or at least get a regular attendance.

I thought about offering to take up the local group myself, to re-start it. But, I pulled myself back and waited. Its so easy to take on a new challenge when its fresh and you feel enthusiastic. For me, I'm better to wait and see if I still feel that way a week from now. I'd rather wait now than have another project started and left unfinished/ unsatisfied.

There are times you make a go of something and then something else comes along to muck it up. Its not always in your control. But, some of it is. Know yourself and don't jump in with both feet right away. Make sure its really what you want before you commit to it.

Why don't more people produce solar energy from their own homes? If you have a roof over your head you could also have solar panels producing energy. Save on the energy you pay for each month and use a source of energy which does not cause pollution to produce or deliver to your home.

I'm sure a lack of knowledge is a big part of the reason we don't see more solar energy panels. There is also some feeling of making change, taking the time to learn about solar for the home and the cost and effectiveness of solar panels versus just leaving things as they are.

I think it would help solar energy if people were aware of how it all works and how it benefits themselves.

In the future we may see buildings with built-in solar power.

Apartments, office towers, tall condominiums would be smart to utilize all those windows as a source for collecting solar energy. Will someone come up with a way to turn windows into solar panels? Or, does this already exist? No one would want to give up their view but there should be some way to keep the windows functional while also harvesting solar power. I've seen ads fully covering the sides of city buses. But, from inside the bus you can still see out the windows due to small holes in the painted on ad. Could that also work for solar windows?

The answer to America's energy problems could be right under our noses---or, rather, right over our heads. According to a recent study by the Energy Department's Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), America's rooftops are full of untapped potential. In fact, up to 39 percent of America's energy could be generated just by installing photovoltaic (PV) solar panels on urban rooftops.

Popular Science reports that NREL analyzed rooftops in 128 cities across the United States, representing about 23 percent of all buildings in the U.S., according to an NREL press statement. The researchers assessed the buildings' suitability for hosting PV solar panels and measured how much power could be generated by each location. They found that 83 percent of small buildings had the technical potential to host PV panels on part of their rooftop areas, while 26 percent could host an entire rooftop's worth of panels.

Source: 39% of America's Energy Could One Day Be Generated by Rooftop Solar Panels | Mental Floss

More information: Consumer Affairs solar energy guide

This is only getting worse. Not only do things not work, they don't last long either. So everything is continually being replaced by an even more inferior product, that does not work. Or, at least, it does not work as well as the original product, years ago (if it ever worked).

Petrovic: Yeah, because when you feel good about yourself, you don't buy stuff. Paranoia, fear, inadequacy---that all sells products. It's also a part of the ad's job to create and continually foster an environment where you're perpetually terrified into purchasing things that don't work.

via Selling Shame: 40 Outrageous Vintage Ads Any Woman Would Find Offensive | Mental Floss.