Daniel Suelo: Blogger Has Gone 9 Years Without Spending Money

treehugger.com:

Daniel Suelo wasn't poor, a victim of bad luck, mentally ill, or even uneducated. He just decided that he wanted to have nothing to do with money. So he gave up consumer culture altogether, and for the last 9 years, he's survived by living in a cave in Utah, and dumpster diving, foraging, fishing, and occasionally hunting for food. He spends his time in the great outdoors--and in the public library, where he blogs about it all.

Read the whole story: treehugger.com

Comments

[atexasdem]

03:04 AM on 11/15/2009

I will agree that he seems to take things to an extreme but your missing the point. He is living without spending money. That's UnAmerican. As a person who lives cheaply yet travels a lot I wish more Americans could see how little people in other countries live on. I regularly travel to Central America where you really can live on $100 a month.
How do I do it? I'm single, I live in a motor home, I park my motor home where they pay me to provide security at night or in non public places. I pick up casual one or two day jobs when I need to. I use open WiFi internet connections, I never buy prepackaged prepared food. I survive by my wits but I never beg or panhandle. My living expenses average $500 a month with fuel being my greatest single expense. I'm classified as 100% disabled by the VA (Vietnam) which provides me medical care and disability pay. I haven't had a "real" 40 hour a week job in over 30 years. It's really pretty simple. All you have to do is get back to the basics.

[Philclock]

06:12 PM on 10/07/2009

So the secret to low overhead is....living in a cave!

Dang! So simple...

[FrankenPC]

10:45 AM on 10/06/2009

In all seriousness...someone should create a reality TV show with this guy. I would love to see how he juggles all of the necessities of life.

At the very least I could learn from him how to minimize my footprint as much as possible given my context.

[ChristopherAtom]

10:51 AM on 10/07/2009

You have a brilliant Idea. I agree whole heartedly. The information he could provide on this type of lifestyle would help point it's viewers in the true direction of planetary stability.
Ironic though that it takes the very medium that helped infect us with Affluenza in the first place, in order to get this info out.

[FrankenPC]

05:07 PM on 10/07/2009

True. You notice he's blogging ;-D

Technology has it's uses. Without mass communications, I would never know about Beethoven. Or Descartes or great muffin recipes.

There is no going back. But going forward with grace is an absolute must.

[sabelmouse]

05:55 AM on 10/06/2009

the cave living is a little extreme and dumpsterdiving hopefully wont go on forever as we as a society become less wastefull, but his excample might inspire people though.

[jsarets]

01:50 AM on 10/06/2009

I try to make a point about not judging people on how they choose to live their lives, but to the extent that Mr. Suelo has recently been made into a symbol of anti-monetarism and anti-consumerism, I wish he were a subsistence farmer and not a scavenger living off the mismanaged waste of modern society.

I suppose he sets a decent example for the typical homeless person who could probably improve their lives marginally by spending more time scavenging and less time begging for money.

I'm sure there are people in places such as Humboldt County that live in sustainable subsistence farming communities with minimal use of money for external trading. I know that one of my chemist friends from back in college is some sort of spiritual leader up there.

But I guess that when one individual goes off the monetary grid, the story is suitable for public consumption, but when a group of people do it, they're... communists.

[skyslimit]

12:48 AM on 10/06/2009

I am one of the most minimalist people I know, but this is a little too extreme for me...

[ChristopherAtom]

10:53 AM on 10/07/2009

Do you own the computer you just sent your comment from?

[CDMelty]

06:23 PM on 10/05/2009

It says few of us would be willing to live like him but I wonder if they take into consideration the number of available caves. Even if we all wanted to live like him, there wouldn't be shelter for us. And the government would find some way to tax us, so we'd need money. And who would fill the dumpsters he dives from? I do admire his dedication to his philosophy, though.