I use wood. It's a lot of work, just like everything else off grid, but it works. I just got done cutting about a half a cord! Most of the time we have to buy from other locals and it does get very expensive. Looking into better options in the future...
I have friends out here that use only propane and get by fine, and that's less expensive long term (you need to buy a relatively Hi end propane heater that won't off gas deadly fumes).
Our winters get nasty enough. Last night we hit -17°F.
For solar I (honestly) don't have enough. We're doing this cheap style after all. I did get lucky with a few things though. We run 480 watts of monocrystalline panels (4 120 watt panels from amazon, can dig up the page if curious) into a prostar-30 (morningstar 30 amp charge controller). Found the charge controller broken and repaired it. If you're buying new GET MPPT. That's my next upgrade. Batteries are 400 amp 6 volt AGM, 4 of them. Can't remember the brand off the top of my head but way better than our old batteries (more on that in a sec). We use a xantrex pro-watt 1000 as an inverter, but run as much as we can off 12 volt.
If you have higher electrical needs (I run 2 laptops and a handful of tablets, as well as a 12 volt car audio system, point to point wireless internet and some power tools...) You'll need a few things. First off, pure sin wave inverters are more spendy but extremely necessary for anything with a battery. Laptops, power tools (yes, even charging a dewalt battery, whatever). That's not to say you can't do it with modified sin, but it lowers overall battery life. Also take extra precautions with high end audio equipment if that's a concern (mostly grounding issues).
Batteries are, currently, the limiting factor. Each type of available battery has its own ups and downs... I started here with 6 12 volt flooded (lead acid) batteries. They went very well for a while (again, lucky, they were from the army corps of engineers). A hard piece of time (financially) came through and I spent a winter in a bus (not recommended, cold as all hell). 2 of them ended with cracked casing and battery acid everywhere. Still have the rest, haven't looked at them in a while. Second set was 12 volt 'golf cart' batteries. Again, lucky, they were free from an employer of mine. They had also been heavily used for 5 years before that. I know the technical lifespan on these things is much longer, but no one out here really uses this stuff properly, so it's usually trashed in a few years. Those lasted about 8 months.... Amazingly found more luck, someone else our here bought 3 pallets (woo!) Of 6 volt 400 amp AGM batteries, and had a few left over! Picked 4 up brand new for 150$ a piece and they are beauties. They don't freeze, they hold charge well, no corrosion... Love it. I recommend AGM, if you can find it.
All that being said, I still use a lot more power than I make. You can pick up a 900 watt two stroke generator for 100$ and that'll help offset the power curve in the winter (depending on your inverter you will most likely also need a charger for batteries... Ghetto to run a Genny to fill 12 volt batteries, in a way, but sometimes necessary and far better than having no power... Also helps a LOT with power tools. I use it for a skil saw and an air compressor for nail gun/stapler/tire filler)
To close out this rant I'd point out; you use far more electricity than you would guess and it's far better to have more than less, and a genny just in case. Don't forget to account for losses in transformation as well (expect all consumption numbers to be about twice as high as they should be, worst case. No inverter is 100% efficient, etc...)