On boat or off the grid house, lights and simple electronics are pretty manageable but refrigeration today, is still the game changer when you're off the grid.

I'd need to; minimum, double my house battery bank, go to a higher output alternator, allocate deck or cabin top space to solar panels and adjust their directions for best output, add a wind generator and skip some snug anchorages, run my diesel engine more often. The $ investment would be a few thousand and then the boats system complexity goes up.

All reasonable if you spend long terms onboard cruising and living aboard but not worth the convenience in my usage. If I lived onboard for more than a year, it would make sense. But then the boat I have wouldn't make sense. I think that's what Cchesley and I are agreeing on.

Amazingly though, for 150 bucks you can buy a brand new 5 cu ft reefer/freeze that's ready to go for 10 years(we just replaced one in a studio apartment). All you need is plug and 30 bucks/ year for the 110 power.