If a person were to stay in touch with local solar power stores/suppliers or watch their web pages, you could pick up good deals on solar panels that are models that have been discontinued from manufacture or slightly used panels bought back from the phone company. Sometimes they are half price and carry a 25 year warranty just like a new panel. Some stores will put your name on a waiting list. This is a good way to purchase panels 10 at a time, you just have to be dedicated with your special solar panel savings account and have the cash when the bargains arrive. Also, some stores give a price reduction break when you purchase 10 panels at a time.
The inverter that I used for 23 years was a Trace model 2012, 2000 watts at 12 volts. This was the very first true modified sine wave inverter designed to operate a home that was off the grid in a remote location using solar panels with a battery bank. On this inverter if you were to disconnect either the positive or the negative cables from the battery bank, the inverter would turn itself off as a precautionary measure. I don't think you could operate any type of electrical equipment other than 12 volt stuff directly from the panels. The newer Trace inverters come in different models and configurations and some are designed to operate without batteries, selling power back to the supplier. This grid tie system will not function without grid power so when the power goes down you will be without lights. Another model is called the Trace grid tie with battery back up inverter and is designed to give you a battery backup power supply when the power grid goes off. These inverters run from $1700 up to $2800 depending on the bells and whistles you want. They also have a built in battery charger, programable from 2 to 120 amps that will automatically switch on when you start the generator. This would be intended for winter time when there is not that much sun available. I used 8 L-16 batteries and programmed the battery charger to 50 amps. Two hours generator time per evening would charge those batteries up like right now. I had a remote start switch mounted above the inverter, wired to start the generator so I didn't even have to venture out into the cold to start the generator. How sweet it is! Sometimes that 4500 watt house generator would not start so I had to hoof it down to my concrete diesel generator bunker and fire up the big 35,000 watt Leroy Sommers 4 cylinder diesel which was also hardwired into the inverter. That big brute would charge those batteries in one hour because of the "Peak Volts In". Another participant on this site, SS5R, will attest to this as he helped me build my house and set up some of this equipment.

You're right, I can see how the panels can carry some load by themselves, just have to have an appropriate load. The electric water heater sounds like an excellent electrical sink, of course, when it satisfies your personal grid will shut down anyway with that reduced load.
Refrigerators use more electrical current when they startup from a stop and draw a lot less when they're just running. Starting current loads are usually about 5 times what they are when the unit is just running, reefer mechanic ya know.
Anyway, I'm sure with a little thought and some engineering type figgerin', a format could be worked up to power a house from its peak load to its least load by maybe selective panel dropouts but, batteries would still be needed for nighttime and sub sunny days. I imagine that adding panels will run into some serious additional funding to install them along with enough battery capacity to carry sufficient load when needed.

That is a real good question and I would guess that you would be able to power some things that way without a battery bank when the grid goes down. It would depend on how many large solar panels you had connected to the inverter. I am talking 120 watts and 5.5 amps per panel, that is some powerful current if you had 30 panels. I used just 8 and thats all it took to keep the house going this time of year when there are long days with lots of sunshine. However, I used a propane powered refrigerator and keeping things cold draws the most current in most homes. With 8 solar panels, my charge controller shut down the panel array around noonish every day; the batteries were fully charged. In a situation like this it would be nice to have an electric water heater, in addition to a propane water heater, so that when the batteries are full the heater would act as a diversion load so when the charge controller shuts down the array, your unused solar power gets diverted to the electric water heater so it doesn't go to waste. The newer Trace/Zanex inverters are programmable to do this and will switch the power over automatically if programmed to do so.

I like that first idea you mentioned Toepopper, getting sort of off the grid and having them pay you is great.
Will the inverter system be able to switch back to your house and power it without batteries if you should lose grid power but the sun is still shining? That might be a consideration along with doing without batteries at first for someone who is just starting out with this system.
If it can carry a fair part, or all, of your household load by itself, you've got it made even without batteries as long as the sun is shining. You could conceivably pay so little enough to the power company that your savings would help with the acquisition of those batteries. When you get enough of those you can go completely off grid and reap the whirlwind so to speak.

I went shopping via the net for batteries and found L-16s for $220 each with a rating of 380 amp hours. Today's prices.

fern, if your upcoming new place has power running to it then you may want to drop the battery purchase for the time being due to financial stress and the unnecessary expenditure . You are right, 2000 dollars is a serious chunk of change. Once you move and get everything squared away, then you can concentrate on developeing solar power without breaking the bank. The components have gotten very expensive and that is the main reason why more people are not going solar. There is a way to utilize solar power without a battery bank. The Xantrex-Trace Inverter Co. makes a grid tie modified sine wave inverter that takes the power generated from your solar panels and sells it back to the power company so you basically don't have a power bill. Your panels electricity will make your electrical meter SPIN BACKWARDS and they will deduct the amount of watts from your monthly power bill. This approach will allow you to purchase and add solar panels at your financial leisure and after you get 8 or 10 panels together, then you can save up some money and buy batteries. This system is called a "grid tie- in with battery backup". Then when the power goes off your inverter will detect this situation and automatically switch over to the battery bank in one fortieth of a second so you won't even see the lights blink. If the power should go off during the time before you have established a battery bank, you will be in the dark since there is no electrical storage bank to draw stored energy from. This may be a more logical approach to attaining solar power at this time with all the other things going on right now.