What if the only bill you had to pay was for the internet?

Imagine what you could do with all of that extra money. Imagine how little you’d have to work for the man! You would be able to sustain yourself on very little monetary income, and invest more of your time into the things that mattered.

That’s exactly the lifestyle Josie Moores and Abe Connally are living. Josie and Abe live on a 10-acre property in a home that they built with their own hands, with almost all of the modern conveniences we are accustomed to; they just access them in a more self-sustaining way. Their water comes from a rain catchment system, and their power comes from solar and wind that they generate on their property.

It’s a lifestyle that’s free of debt, in harmony with the natural world, and even child-friendly. But let’s start at the beginning of the story, when Josie and Abe fell in love.

Abe’s early life as a young adult very much fit the mold. He had attended the University of Texas and majored in Aerospace Engineering. During college, he got a job with a major advertising company in the Austin area as the Vice President of Internet Marketing. He stayed there for five years.

Abe had, however, grown up in a rural area. When a massive flood swept through Austin, he took the opportunity to relocate to an area closer to his roots: Brewster County. Located in the middle of the desert, Brewster County is one of the least populated places in the country. There, he bought some land and parked his school bus, which he had refurbished into living quarters.

Josie Moores was born in Africa, spent her formative years in Portugal and attended school in England, majoring in languages. Her studies prepared her well for her future lifestyle of travel, as she was always on the go, taking jobs in different fields as she went. For a while she was a teacher. Then she worked in the sailing industry. She even worked as a waitress.

Eventually she found herself in Big Bend, Texas, where the star-crossed lovers met. She moved into the bus with Abe, and the couple started work on their very own home.

When most people start work on their own home, what they’re really doing is paying architects and general contractors to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together for them. They coordinate, wait and fund while the plumbing goes in, the walls go up and eventually they’re able to use their key to enter the abode they paid for.

Not so with Josie and Abe. They gathered rocks and adobe from their massive property and started putting the thing together themselves.

“Abe grew upon a series of ranches, on the outskirts of small towns, and neither Africa nor Portugal were particularly ‘modern’ while I was growing up,” explains Josie. “I think once you've known the benefits of rural life and tight-knit communities, the city can seem a little alien. Of course, we both tried city life and all its glories, but it didn't give us as much as a youthful mind might expect.”

“We were both drawn back towards the natural world, but land in beautiful places is not normally cheap. So, we ended up with land that was miles from any kind of mod cons like electricity and water, which made things like solar power and rain catchment logical steps. And once you start on that path, it becomes addictive.”

Truly addictive. So much so, that when Abe and Josie were ready to start a family, they knew they had to be closer to modern conveniences, but weren’t willing to give up their off-the-grid lifestyle. They sold their nearly-finished home and moved to a ten-acre plot outside of a small village that had things like schools and doctors. When they arrived, they lived out of a tent as they started work on house number two.

After ten months of tent living, their eldest child, a boy, was born. They had just upgraded from the tent to a one-room home. They continued building, and by the time their second son was born they had a fully-functioning house, all operating off the grid. Today, they record their experiences on their site, Vela Creations.

You may assume that they had specialized training or skills in order to build all this themselves. But they didn’t. What they did have was learned experience from a series of trials.

“We don't claim to be experts in any of what we have done,” Josie says, “so there have obviously been errors. The trick is finding reasonable solutions to problems that have arisen and learning enough from them to never repeat the mistake. The internet has been invaluable in our learning curve, and it is usually our go-to for information and advice.”

As their homestead has gotten larger, there have been new obstacles, too. Organization of all of their animals has been a task, but it has also created opportunity. Josie and Abe are currently developing an app to keep track of record keeping and breeding schedules for rabbits, of which they have over 100. They don’t plan to stop there. They hope to develop it to a point where it will help them manage all of the animals, plants and other systems they have on their homestead.

The challenges Josie and Abe have faced pale in comparison to what the couple has gotten out of it, though.

“Although we're busy and working most of the time, we get to set our own schedule. Our cost of living is extremely low, with internet being our only actual ‘bill’, so we don't have to earn much money to make ends meet.”

“We work from home, either on the computer or around the homestead, so we've both had the benefit of being around each other and our kids whenever we want. We know where (most of) our food comes from, and never have to buy things like meat, eggs or milk. We don't have immediate neighbors, which makes life very peaceful, but can go into the village any time.”

Josie and Abe know this lifestyle isn’t for everyone, but it’s amazing how Josie’s advice to potential off-the-gridders is so applicable to all of our lives.

“Take things one step at a time and be happy with whatever you've got, and gradually you'll have a lot more,” Josie encourages. She also warns to stay away from debt of any kind, as it forces you to start earning dollars for someone other than yourself.

“Other than that, we would recommend doing as much research as you possibly can. There are always problems involved with any endeavor, but chances are, someone else has come across them and can warn you about what to do or avoid. If you feel this life might be rewarding for you, I would say go for it -we have never regretted the path we've chosen.”