SHEESH! Nothing But BIG MPPT Panels?

I uz tryin to x-plane, I can't have solar panels and eatum too.

Sides I love it having to raise the toilet seat to see what's hiding under it.

But I am working feverishly to convert every lamp to LED. The place is going 100% panels. I found some neat 60 SMD 50 plaques so the old ones in the rig get ripped out by their roots.

Where I live GO GREEN takes a whole different dimension. Means Clorox and a brush.

STILL LOOKING FOR PANELS. This is a tiughie.

Hey guys...You want a thread on where to live
Start one in around the campfire

The topic is solar panels, Not where to live or move too

I can live cheaper in a city of 2 million close to all the amenities, including a nice beach, in southeastern VA than anywhere in CA. I can go out and have fun, eat out, shop, etc. All pretty cheap. Taxes, cost of gas, cost of entertainment, etc kill living cheap in CA. I've tried it, the only way to live cheap here is not do much or go anywhere. Makes for a very boring life. When I lived in VA, I made just under $1000 a month. It was PLENTY of money. Would it have been nice to have more? Yep! But the little money I made was still enough to have a good time with.

mena661 wrote:
... although CA is the next to the LAST place I'd live if I were to live modestly (New Jersey would be the last).

Have you tried certain areas of Santa Cruz County, yet? :B

Northern CA has plenty of cheapee places where one can get by, too.

Stay out of Southern CA, the Bay Area, and certain foothill areas ... and CA can be a whole nuther place.

smkettner wrote:
Convert the system to 24v and use PWM....

Didn't need to read further. Boy gets it

I don't know MEX. Some places in the US are just cheap and you don't have to drive a 100 miles for medical stuff either. In Norfolk, VA, I lived in a 1 bedroom apartment for $400 a month and it wasn't in a crime infested neighborhood either. And it was a good sized place too. Walk-in closet, decent kitchen, living room was actually too big for me. Insulation sucked so my electric bill was high but everything else was cheap (including gas...98 cents a gal back then...$2 a gal now) so I didn't worry about it. This was in the mid to late 90's. Hell, you can still get a one bed there in the $600 range that's not in the ghetto.

Just to clear the air...

Yep. Got family 5-days hard driving from Nogales. I am stuck with Social Insecurity. About 1/2 the income of what a furnished apt costs in the states. I'm a pretty fartsmeller when it comes to finances and it would take moving to the badlands of Texas or worselands of Mississippi to make things "fit". It would still mean driving many hundreds of miles for medical care. Small US towns offer cheaper rent and pricier everything else.

All sarcasm aside, yeah it ain't easy. My medical bills before I attained Medicare sent me backward over one million dollars. A person can whimper, sell drugs, or carry a chip on their shoulder. Stupid alternatives. On Treasure Island as a young boy with his dad I heard speeches by Admiral Nimitz, and Ernest J. (Blowtorch) King.

A loud bellow by King caught my attention "Losers are full of excuses -winners do the best they can with what they've got".

I just spent the third day stripping out, washing and coiling 17 pounds of electrical wire out of newer wrecked cars. Lengths averaging 9 meters. A fantastic assortment of different gauges, colors and color codes. I swapped some labor for the wire. When it comes time to use the wire, it's all solder, and dual wall heat shrink.

Thete are few things in life more depressing than encountering a "Can't Do" person. Got a bad disc? Can't sit? Whining doesn't do a damned bit of good. On the other hand getting Martin to strip out a bucket seat from a Nissan Maxima allows me to sit for hours.

Brenda teases me when I go "gulp" and make a budget killing purchase. My response is (Spanish) "Mexican poverty this month - tortillas, salt, and music"

MrWizard wrote:
He retired down there many years ago, ( although he never quit working)
He has family..kids..maybe grandkids...I don't think he's moving back

This, although CA is the next to the LAST place I'd live if I were to live modestly (New Jersey would be the last).

He retired down there many years ago, ( although he never quit working)
He has family..kids..maybe grandkids...I don't think he's moving back

David,

I'm curious .... are you absolutely certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is NO PLACE in the U.S. that you could move to and enjoy the Mexican lifestyle but without the Mexico?

(For instance, we have a friend with very, very modest resources who is living real nice only a few miles from us in Aptos, CA.)