Step One: Think of Solar as a Possibility

Our first step in the process was a passing moment. I read a newspaper article that basically predicted the end of the world, or more specifically the U.S. economy. This isn't a politically aligned blog, so I'll spare you the details, but the short-and-sweet was this (paraphrased): Treasuries are going to lose steam, other countries will stop using the dollar as a reserve currency, we will experience hyper-inflation, and going to Wal-Mart will seem like a trip to Neiman-Marcus.

Not a rosy picture. Of course, I worked for an electricity company for most of my adult life, so the first thing to my mind while reading this was my electricity bill. You may not realize it, but after your mortgage, and maybe your car payment, your electricity bill is your biggest obligation. There are tons of things you can do to lower it, but unless you have your own power source, there's not much you can do to protect yourself from rate increases for more than a couple years.

As population increases, and as we demand more and more from our electricity grid, the price of electricity will skyrocket. Combine those factors with a devalued dollar, and you're looking at an energy bill that may pass up that mortgage.

Enter solar. My understanding of it was that it was expensive, difficult to install, and hard to find, but with impending doom lurking and my imagination running wild, I thought I would look into it again. I talked to Tiffany about it and we set some goals, which I will detail later. This was how we got started. We simply realized that if the numbers were right, an investment in solar while the dollar is strong, while the demand is still relatively low, and while credit still exists, might be the best thing we could do with our money. Especially if it was money we were already spending...

Sound thought provoking? Stay tuned. Step two looks at how we set our goals before we set out for quotes.

Welcome!

This blog has a simple purpose: To chronicle my family's attempt to go solar.

We'll share the key questions we ask ourselves, the resources we use to inform those decisions, the people we come into contact with that help us along the way, and the mistakes or roadblocks we run into that gunk up the works.

Of course, we ultimately hope to share a success story, but that remains to be seen.

I'm not a professional writer, but I hope this blog will be informative and inspiring as you consider the possibility of solar energy for your home and family.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you come back!