If someone had told me seven years ago, in my final year of a business and economics degree, that I'd now be living without money, I'd have probably choked on my TV dinner. The plan back then was to get a 'good' job, make as much money as possible, and buy the stuff that would convince society (and me) that I was successful.
And for a while I did -- I had a fantastic job managing a big organic food company, a yacht on the harbor, and if it hadn't been for a massive change in perspective, I'd still be doing it today. Instead, for the last 20 months, I haven't spent or received a single penny. Zilch. My experience of this life-changing journey into the moneyless unknown, and the philosophy behind it, compose my book, "The Moneyless Man," to which my proceeds are going to a Charitable Trust, details of which are in the book.
The change in life path came one evening on the yacht whilst philosophizing with a friend over a glass of Merlot. I had always been intrigued by Mahatma Gandhi's quote 'Be the change you want to see in the world'. But until then, I had no idea what that change was. My friend and I began talking about major issues in the world -- environmental destruction, resource wars, factory farms, sweatshop labor -- and wondering which of these we would be best devoting our lives to. But that evening I had a realization.
These issues weren't as unrelated as I had previously thought -- they had a common root cause. Because of money, we no longer see the direct repercussions our purchases have on other people and the environment. The degrees of separation between the consumer and the consumed have become so wide that we're now completely unaware of the destruction and suffering that is embodied in the 'stuff' we buy.
Take this for an example. If we grew our own food, we wouldn't waste a third of it as we do today. If we made our own tables and chairs, we wouldn't throw them out the moment we changed the interior décor. If we had to clean our own drinking water, we probably wouldn't use it down our toilets.
To be the change I wanted to see in the world, I decided I was going to have to give up money. I committed to a year of cashless living. I knew it wasn't going to be easy, so I made a list of the basics I'd need to survive. I adore food, so it was at the top. There are four legs to the food for free table -- foraging wild food, growing your own, bartering and using waste grub (of which there is far too much). To launch my moneyless year, I fed a three course meal to 150 people, solely with waste and foraged food. However, most of the year, my food was mainly supplied by my own crops. I cooked outside -- rain or shine -- on a rocket stove I made.
Next up was shelter. I got myself a caravan from the website Freecycle, parked it up on an organic farm I was volunteering with, and kitted it out to be off-grid. I'd heat my abode with scavenged wood burned in a woodburner made from an old gas bottle and I had a compost toilet to make "humanure" for my veggies.
I bathed in a river and for toothpaste I used washed-up cuttlefish bone with wild fennel seeds, an oddity for a vegan. For toilet roll, I'd relieve the local newsstand of its papers. To get around I had a bike and trailer, and the forty mile commute to the city doubled as my gym subscription. For lighting I'd use beeswax candles.
Ironically, I have found the past two years to be the most fulfilling of my life. I've more friends in my community than ever, I haven't been ill since I began, and I've never felt fitter. I've found that friendship, not money, is real security. Most western poverty is psychological. Real independence is interdependence.
Could we all live like this tomorrow? No. It would be a catastrophe. We are too addicted to money and cheap energy. We have built an entire global infrastructure around the abundance of both. However, if we devolved decision-making and focused on local communities, then why not? For over 90% of our time on this planet, we have lived without money. We are the only species on Earth to use it.
I'm often asked what I miss about my old world of lucre and business? Stress? Traffic-jams? Bank statements? Utility bills? No chance. But then again, there is the odd beer at the bar with my friends ...
Rep. Jay Inslee: Bush's Plan Didn't Work
Barbara Hannah Grufferman: Unemployed After 50: Are You Doomed?
Joel John Roberts: Survival Guide to American Poverty
Living A Simpler, Deeper Life With 'The Moneyless Man'
The Moneyless Man: How Did Mark Boyle Spend A Year Without Spending A Dollar ...
Caravans are a great solution to getting away from it all for a weekend without paying hotel prices. The advances in caravans have meant they are much more luxurious than they were many years ago and many have features that have made them much more of a home.
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I am the parent of 4 twenty somethings who are overwhelmed with the decisions involved in how to live their adult lives. Whether to be, to help, to strive for meaning, or -- to out-smart and out-maneuver others and ignore planetary well-being in order to better consume stuff. It's a tough call. Right now, they're looking into hybrid solutions. Thanks for your example that competent people can actually make self-sacrificing choices and be happy about it.
Survival of the fittest. Plain and simple.
Live communally.
Farmers are ballers, they get to live it up in the town. They feed you.
Obviously you will want to make the dentists, doctors, and the liek feel welcome, they will keep you healthy.
Etc and etc... needs to happen.
I read about Ir an and Iz reel about to blow each other off the map, with U S and other economic interests interfering, yadda, yadda, yadda.. this is all made possible because we pay the bankers, the insurance, the this, the that... what is money anyways?
For some reason the scene in "Castaway" where Tom Hanks' character has to remove his own tooth with the ice skate blade comes to mind....
I know he's not on an island, but if his tooth went bad and he had no dentist friends he's going to go into debt in a hurry...
O it's the UK? Nevermind.
I think you have to read his book to find out if some of it would work for you.
PROS - connection to how things are produced, recycling keeps things out of landfill, stimulates ideas of food production/sharing that can benefit others, etc.
CONS - if EVERYONE lived like this, would the environment be better off always or would there be some downsides in lack of centralized consumption management? (E.g., what does he do to replenish the bees he eats since they are on a downswing?) Is it better for everyone to forage and burn wood, or is it better to have some environmental impact from the production of solar cells to give the environment a break between creating impacts of producing solar cells?
I don't care if this guy makes money informing others how this lifestyle works out. (If he's donating it to charity, all the better.) Out of doing are born ideas of how we can make our lives and that of others better. If we look to nature for better ways to create packaging that is stronger and kinder to the environment, good. If we figure out how to share land in a way that doesn't deplete it or in ways we can measure what's needed to reinvigorate it, good.
"Experiments in Living" is what he is doing. To those damning him, I'm sure glad you weren't around for some of the key experimenting that enabled us to deal with polio and malaria.
MLTN, he'sa Histrionic. The See Me, See Me See Me Syndrome.
In his case, money is the cure and he's the disease.
He is not crusading that everyone live as he is doing. He is using an experiment to demonstrate there are other ways to live. The comparison to polio and malaria deals with experimentation. No one in medicine magically comes up with cures and treatments.
And frankly, for a lot of people out there who may be facing losing everything, see that someone can get by, even thrive, in the modern world with money could be reassuring and instructive, providing hope for "getting through it" instead of despairing and killing themselves over financial troubles.
Perhaps you could define for me exactly how his experiment, now 20 months along (which is longer than many paid studies) is hurting you or anyone else?
If all anyone gets out of his video or book is entertainment, how is that damaging?
Disclosure: I know nothing about this guy other than this article and this video. If he has a lurid history, please disclose.
I find the over-reactions here perplexing.
What is sadly the case, is the persecution of those in poverty. To use their poverty to exploit them, to steal what little they do have. "Moneyless" is not necessarily poverty although it certainly appears so from the perspective of the author. What the author is trying to relate to is the pride he felt upon 'succeeding' on his journey into poverty.
Did I just say the words pride and success in poverty? Every Indigenous Peoples survived 'thousands of years' in relative poverty, good centuries and bad. Money not only is the root of all evil, it is the criteria by which poverty becomes a thing to be wiped out, thus placing the people who are in poverty as an unwanted blight on humanity, vulnerable to both do-gooders who can't find success with their money, and bad-doers who see more money in the cheap labor and resources of the poor.
Redefining rich and poor really cannot be framed around the possession or lack of money; but who wants to define or re-define what feels good?
"Money not only is the root of all evil,"
x2 re: redefining success.
If we eliminated money, there would be nothing for the fat cats to steal. I'm almost there myself. LOL