When 34-year-old Abe Connally left his cushy job at a Texas web designer company, it wasn't because he got a better job or to spend more time with his family. He left to try his hand at living a rural live in the middle of a desert.
Connally is not alone, though. He's part of a community in Terlingua, Texas that live their lives "off-the-grid" - living off of the Earth's natural resources to provide them with daily conveniences like electricity and heat, Yahoo! Finance reported Wednesday.
Connally, who has been living off-the-grid since 2002, was fascinated by being able to live off the land.
"I've always enjoyed rural life, and the thought of sustainability and home-scale energy production intrigued me," Connally told Yahoo! Finance. "On top of that, I wanted to see how integrating systems to reduce waste improve efficiency would affect the architecture and other components of this lifestyle."
Terlingua, located in the Chihuahuan desert of the Big Bend National Park, used to be a prosperous mining town. Now it's practically deserted, a perfect place for an isolated life. Within a year of moving to Terlingua Connally met his wife, Josie. Instead of looking for a home to buy, they built one together.
Josie and Abe now have two houses. But the construction did not come naturally. They used books and the Internet to learn about solar panels and bricklaying, Yahoo! Finance reported.
"When we started building our first home, we figured that if we could build a sustainable homestead from scratch in the desert, then we could do it anywhere," Josie told Yahoo! Finance. "We realized that if we could reduce our needs and resources, our lifestyle would be cheaper to maintain, giving us money to save or invest."
The Connallys were able to construct one of their houses next to a hill, which helps keep the temperature at nearly 70 degrees year round. They also collect rain water on the roof, which is later stored in tanks and then filtered, Yahoo! News reported. Even their compost toilet is nature friendly, which doesn't need water and fertilizes the land.
Twelve years later Abe and Josie now also have a farm and two sons, living off a budget of $9,600 a year.
"We are still amazed by how far we've come since then," Abe told Yahoo! Finance.
Read more about Abe and Josie's off-the-grid lifestyle here.