Could I live without money? Seeking inspiration from the moneyless men...
View this post on Hive: Could I live without money? Seeking inspiration from the moneyless men...
I've moved to Hive, along with most other people, following Justin Sun's takeover of Steem in the Spring of 2020. I believe hive is a lot more decentralised than Steem!
Wow I love it. Although going money free is a bit extreme. It may be viable If you are single but with a family I don’t think it could work.
Fair point, pretty much everyone I know that does it is single!
thanks for this @revisesociology! i thought about these questions a lot in college and share this sentiment
from my youth. After graduating college I did live on very little money each year, perhaps under $1000, traveling and doing work exchanges on farms. I had participated in a buy nothing year ( i think i broke it one time that year to buy a pair of 5 finger shoes!) and since then my ideas around needless consumption, especially buying new things were never the same!
now that i'm in my 30s and stabilizing a bit on a homestead in the US, i do need money to build things, buy plant genetics, etc, but i also find myself increasingly being involved in trade and barter economy with local friends who are likeminded. i admire the people who go "all-in", but at this point I don't feel called to be one of them. I do feel they're very important for us to learn from however, and this post was like a breath of fresh air for me.
It is true as they always say, life is simpler without the care of money :)
Hi - thanks for the comment: sounds like you had a really good go at it. I guess the thing about money is that it is efficient... i.e. it saves you a lot of time making your own, which at times can be crucial: e.g. building your shelter before December!
As you say it's all about balance... one of the things I admire about Dan Suelo (which is why I liken him to a Zen master - NOT an analogy I use lightly) is that he 'gave up' money free living to care for his parents temporarily - now THAT's non attachment!
Were the five-finger shoes worth it?
We seem to have some similar views on a lot of things. One of the reasons Aimee and I are moving towards a homesteading life style is to drastically reduce our need for money.
I always laugh at these financial planners that encourage people to cut out a few luxury items like coffee and eating out so they can save a couple hundred dollars a month. That isn't going to do jack when your mortgage is $2000 a month plus utilities and 2 car payments. Don't even get me started on food which seems to go up like 5% a year with shrinking package sizes to boot!
The only problem I find is that if you want to be really comfortable and use very little money you need to invest in a lot of infrastructure up front so that your needs will be met. I sort of look at this like any other investment, in that it returns an ROI, not in money but in money savings.
It's a great strategy... oddly I think I'm so used to paying such a huge amount on my mortgage that I don't even regard food/ heating as that expensive. My initial strategy is just killing my mortgage...
Yeah that is a huge load to get off your back. Mortgage literally means "death pledge" so getting rid of it should be a priority.
YES! I wish more people knew this and gave it some thought.
This is so true. We try to spend every penny so that we can avoid spending it in the future. It's difficult when you rent and such, but we do what we can with what we have.
If the financial planners really helped people deal with the big things I wonder how long they would stay in business in general.
Thank you for spreading this information, @revisesociology!
Do you know Colin R. Turner (from Dublin, Ireland), Author, speaker, free world advocate and Founder at The Free World Charter?
Hi - no I don't actuallly - I'll loom him up, thanks for the tip!
You are welcome, @revisesociology!
I think the eco homesteaders, farmers and survivalist can and the older generation. Our forefathers did in the western days.
The secret to it is rarely done nowadays its called family, friends and community. Where i grew up everyone in town new each other and all helped one another. Farmers donated excess food to the schools to keep costs down. If a neighbor knew a family was struggling they would invite them over for dinner and eat and trade hand me down cloths for the kids if needed and let them take the leftovers home with them along with their pride. People gather at church on sundays and visited after and pretty much could tell when someone needed help just by the way they dove into the pot luck dinner after church ended.
These ways are mainly gone now for the younger generations. So much is happening that puts family on the back burner, instead of neighbors you do not need them anymore , now the GOV will take care of you from funds your neighbors make in taxes minus their cut of course.
Well said - yes networks are so important - as in close networks!
Interesting post. We as a society have probably become too dependent on money. I feel like many of our ancestors, especially in rural areas, lived life without much money at all. People grew a lot of their own food and often traded goods they produced for other good or even services. We have become too much of a consumer based society focused too much on material possessions.
I have heard of Dan's story, but not of Mark. I find the lifestyle very intriguing, but it is not something I would do personally.
Reducing my use of money, sure, but money is merely something used to ease transactions.
I'm currently reading Surviving off off-grid by Micheal Bunker. It's a Christan book, and although I don't agree with him on everything, it's very thought-provoking. He talks about history a lot and the lessons we have not yet learned and how we went from an agricultural society with little need for money to an industrial one with a giant need for it.
Even before I started reading this book, we started an independence fund. Every time we do something ourselves, which we would otherwise have to pay others to do, say haircuts. We put the estimated money we would have to spend in our independence fund, which is currently our downpayment fund.
I've always been fascinated with the idea of how little money we could possibly live well on. I know I could live on a rock, but I wouldn't thrive nor would my family. So we are in a constant search to learn more and to find out our 'number', what is enough to thrive? The balance between our dreams, the time we spend working for others and the time we spend doing things for ourselves.
Great post,lovely picture can i join you?
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