My ultimate goal is to go completely off-grid, and I've been slowly chipping away at this for the last 4 years or so. I made a huge leap today by finally ordering a plug-in solar setup and a propane-powered water heater. (our electric water heater actually crapped out a long time ago and we couldn't afford to replace it until now)
I decided to finally bite the bullet on this because the price of electricity and solar panels is about to rocket thanks to the data center bullshit, so there's probably never going to be a better opportunity than now. I was able to put half the money down, I'll pay off the other half over the next few months.
The solar won't be able to power everything by itself, but it'll make a sizeable dent. That, plus eliminating the electric water heater, will also save us money on electricity in the long run (roughly $70-$100/month if my calculations are correct)
Most importantly, long power outages are becoming more common in my area, so this will help insulate us against shit like that too. We can still run the air conditioner for a few hours a day when the power goes out in summer, and we'll soon be investing in a Chinese diesel heater so we can have cheaper heat in winter too.
After that, I'd like to replace the RV fridge ASAP with a normal apartment fridge that I can just plug into the solar station. Our current solar setup can actually run that 24/7 by itself. That's going to be a life saver next time the power goes out for a week.
I'll update when the items arrive and everything's set up. I'm cautiously optimistic. Hopefully I can make it all work the way it's supposed to.