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I've done the off-grid thing and now have a semi off-grid house with a productive little permaculture garden in the middle of nowhere. By semi off grid I have no dependence on gas or water, only electricity and that's free because my solar feeds back into the grid and credits my account.

Things to like are the clean air, clean water (from the roof so no fluoride), no crime, nature is everywhere (love fishing and swimming in the rivers), good food because we buy meat locally then cook at home and we get tons of exercise and I haven't stopped learning new things in years. I don't think there is anyone that lives in town who isn't white. Not even Asians or Indians.

Anyway now to the bad part, for the first few years pretty much every spare minute outside of my work, sleep and garage gym was spent doing some sort of labour.

It is constant. If you are doing it by yourself and have a full time job that's not from home you will really struggle to get anything done. You will fix one thing then another thing will need fixing. You'll weed one part of the garden and before you get to the next the weeds are back in the weeded part. You will need tons of tools and equipment, it's not cheap at first. If you're in a cold area you will probably need lots of wood too. And unless your friends and family are into this stuff you will spend a lot of time by yourself.

I'm not saying don't do it, but just start off small if you do. It's not as easy as those people on YouTube make it appear to be. Try to find help where possible (especially from farmers) and choose the right property to begin with. If it's already established you will save yourself so much time and money.

Tell yourself "what can I do first that will reduce the amount of labour required in the future" and do that first.

And don't get stuck analysing things on YouTube just decide what you need to do and start doing it. One example, everyone on YouTube says that woodchips are a great mulch. Sure if they get delivered to your house but if you have to pick them up then suddenly they are a pain in the arse and a ton of back breaking labour to move them around because they are heavy. Instead you could get a cheap hay bale and use that as a mulch instead.

Anyway I'm really happy with what we've done here (it's not super special but I it's a beautiful mix of comfort and nature) and it has been a fulfilling experience. Just be realistic about it if you decide to go down this path. If you have to work a lot there's nothing wrong with having an established house on the grid, you can still install a water tank and a greenhouse and things like that in the suburbs and not make it a life-long mission.