tropicalfish, we are heading in the direction of off-grid, too (though Grandma doesn't know it yet,
). We won't go completely off-grid until we have no other options, but I want to be ready.
First thing you do is look at what you presently use power for: what absolute necessities are there? What can you eliminate? What could use something more efficient, as in light bulbs? What other ways are there of accomplishing the same thing, more or less?
Heating: see what options you have to retrofit your house for solar. I'm thinking of the window-mounted heat grabbers that Mother Earth News used to sell plans for. You also need to add some serious mass to your house if you are going to use solar, or the house will overheat when the sun shines and chill off when it isn't shining. After you've exhausted the sun, think of wood for heat, hot water, and cooking. Old wood cook stoves in good working condition aren't that hard to come by, though most of them use a lot of small-split wood and don't heat the house all that well. We have several times heated our house and all our hot water with a barrel stove -- Vozelgang still makes the kits. If you add a sheet of plate steel to the top, you have a cooking surface -- make the plate wider than the top of the barrel, and you'll have warm-but-not-hot edges and a hot center for cooking. The stove itself shouldn't cost more than about a hundred dollars. The money comes in building the chimney, but a lot of older houses have a blocked off chimney somewhere that may only need cleaning and some minor repair (do have it looked at by an experience person before you use it, though).
Cooking and hot water -- see above, but also consider using the sun as much as possible. Solar cookers work any time the sun is shining. Batch hot water heaters (bread-box heaters) aren't too costly to build.
Refrigeration: you might have to change some of your usage patterns, but there are several ways to substitute for a refrigerator. One is a cold hole in the ground (or in a spring of water, if you happened to have one). Another is a screened box on the north side of the house, in the shadiest spot you have -- you don't say where you live, so I don't know how hot your summers are, but this will keep things cooler than just sitting them out on the counter. To cool it even more make a water evaporator out of it by placing a container of water on top of the box and draping burlap or similar material out of the water container and down the sides of the box. This will keep the temperature several degrees below ambient, though if you are in a humid area it might not do as well. Propane refrigerators are nice, but very expensive and you still have to buy fuel for them. There are also some solar ice-chests that were discussed here recently but they also cost a bit. If you have cold frames and possibly a small greenhouse, and get your eggs and milk fresh from your own animals, there isn't much that you actually need refrigeration for. Something small to chill the milk would be all that was really necessary, and if you can't manage even that, make the milk into butter, yoghurt, and cheese as soon as possible, as they all keep better than fluid milk. For meat, raise small animals that can be eaten the day they are butchered during warm weather. In winter you can keep meat hanging in a cold outbuilding. It's also possible to can, dry, smoke, or salt meat as our ancestors used to.
Pumping water: if you are on city water you don't have to worry about this, but if you have a well, do an internet search for deep-well hand pump. I found several, most made in India. Some pump water from as deep as 300', and the one I plan to get will cost under $700 with shipping. It goes in the well with your electric submersible pump, so you can have it available in time of need, but can use the regular pump as long as the electricity holds out.
If you are pumping water with a hand pump and carrying it to the house, you don't want to be using that precious water to flush toilets. Check out the Humanure Handbook and make a couple of sawdust toilets. They work fine as long as you follow directions to use lots of sawdust or peat after each use. A composting toilet wouldn't need to be emptied so often, but is more expensive to build.
Lighting: oil lamps are pretty and lend a romantic atmosphere, but if you try to read or sew or do any other fine work by their light you will quickly have a headache. The light flickers and is really hard on the eyes. (Oh, and keep the chimneys clean, and the wicks trimmed. This, courtesy of my grandmother, who grew up with oil lamps.) A better option is the Aladdin lamp. They are more expensive, and get quite hot, so you need to be careful where you put them (you can actually cook on top of one, if you make a stand), but they give off a LOT more light than an oil lamp. Candles have the same problems as the oil lamps, plus they don't give off as much light and they blow out easily. They are really only a good option for romantic candlelight dinners and beekeepers with lots of surplus wax. Tallow candles stink when they burn. Betty lamps have the same problems as tallow candles, but are definitely better than no light at all. A little story here: I went to college at a small college in Sitka, Alaska, which had about half native students. One day a group of us went in three boat-loads to a Forest Service cabin for a retreat. I was on the first boat. The cabin had few and small windows, and was in among the trees, and it was starting to get dark. As we unloaded and put things away, we discovered that the oil lamps were in one of the other boats, which hadn't arrived yet. So one of the Eskimo boys went down to the beach and picked up half of a large clamshell (from a quohog -- sp?). We had most of the food, so he put vegetable oil in the clamshell, unravelled a strip from the bottom of his cotton t-shirt, placed it in the oil for a wick, and voila, we had light! It wasn't much, but after the near-pitch-dark of the cabin, it seemed wonderful!
Other people will have more information about alternative power sources. I guess most of what I have is about doing without power and getting along fine, which I've spent quite a few years doing!
Hope this helps.
Kathleen
Edited to add: I was in a hurry when I posted this earlier, and forgot to mention laundry. A clothesline can easily substitute for a dryer, of course -- and if you have some place under cover to string a few lines, you can even dry clothes this way in bad weather. A greenhouse would be a really nice place to dry clothes in the winter (also firewood). Washing is a little harder. Personally, I need a wringer, because with carpal tunnel, it hurts to wring heavy things like jeans by hand. Lehman's catalog has them, though they run around $200, I think. Maybe a little less. I bought one off e-Bay about three years ago for $35 plus shipping (left it with my ex when we separated so I need to replace it), so you might try that. And scrub boards are still available and aren't too expensive. There are also the little plastic tubs that 'pressure wash' (and churn butter, if you happen to have that much cream!) and they are about $50 or $60. They don't hold much, though. If you have a large family you might try the James washer, but it costs as much as an electric washing machine. Probably hard to find one second-hand, either.
Baths aren't as hard as laundry. Most everyone has taken a bucket bath at some time or other. It's nice to be able to take it in your regular tub or shower, because while you will have to haul the water into the house, you can just let it drain out.
DH makes a trip over to the power company and asks why they cut it off when arrangements had been made as to when they would receive it. The original lady he had talked to wasn't there. They said they were sorry, but there was nothing in the computer that said arrangements had been made, so they cut us off. He argued the point that arrangements had been made, but ended up losing the battle. 
I have two small freezers. I like to try and purchase meat when it is on sale and freeze it. 