Lessons from Moneyless Living
Do you frequently find that the fewer things you spend, the more valuable an experience or connection is? Yes, I do. I made limeade with limes I salvaged from a grocery store dumpster and added mint from my garden for a recent potluck dinner at a friend's house. The limeade went over well! In return, I was treated to delicious entrees, homemade chocolate and papaya ice cream, and lively conversation on my friend's back patio with a view of her beautiful gardens. How much of what truly makes us happy comes from money? All of this got me thinking about the fascinating tales of people who live without money.
There are affiliate links in this post. For specifics, see the Disclaimers.
BOOK A REGENERATIVE MONEY & LIFESTYLE COACHING CALL BY CLICKING HERE!
This post is not intended to encourage individuals to completely avoid money. In point of fact, a predetermined amount helps us thrive and makes life easier to navigate for the majority of us. However, there are some people in today's society who, for ethical reasons, have decided to avoid it all. They are doing so online to inspire others and change our perspective on what is possible by sharing their inspiring stories.
Table of Contents What Can Moneyless Living Teach Us?
The Wealth in the Waste Stream Tapping the Riches of the Gift Economy Timebanking: The Richness in Life Comes from the Moments When There Is No Money A bank without money Living without money makes you more resilient What can we learn from living without money?
I would like to make a few caveats before highlighting some of these people. First of all, the fact that they have consciously chosen not to use money means that each of them comes from a position of privilege. Unfortunately, many other people do not choose to live without money. Second, I believe it would be impossible to completely eradicate all interactions with money in our current society. You could, for instance, decide not to use it; however, if you live with someone, their property taxes support your living arrangements. So now that those caveats are out of the way, let's move on to their stories and find out how they make ends meet. Thirdly, the majority of the travel + write for us moneyless living I'm about to cite occur outside of the United States, in nations with universal healthcare. I think approaching general medical care makes this way of life somewhat more open and convincing.
Daniel Suelo's "Moneyless in Moab" was my first encounter with a deliberate scrounger. He mostly slept in caves outside of Moab, Utah, for about 15 years of his adult life. In a book titled The Man Who Quit Money published in 2012, author Mark Sundeen told the intriguing story of Suelo. After returning home to care for his aging parents, Suelo has since resumed his financial activities.
According to a statement on Suelo's personal blog:
I still don't take or use money for myself, with a few exceptions. I manage my mom's finances, pay her bills, and shop for her, so I had to get a state ID. I also had to deal with general bureaucracy. Even though I've been offered the gift of a car multiple times, I don't have a driver's license.
I hope to return to a world without money and feel as passionate as ever about it.
The Moneyless Man: The story of Mark Boyle in the United Kingdom caught my attention around the same time as Suelo's. Boyle studied economics at university before becoming discouraged by the economic realities of the business world. He eventually had to live without money for a few years as a result of this. He set up a solar shower, cooked over a improvised rocket stove, and grew the majority of his food at a location where he could exchange labor for lodging. In The Moneyless Manifesto, he discusses his philosophy as well as his experiences during those years. Boyle still restricts his use of technology and money, even though he now owns a basic off-grid cabin.
Heidemarie Schwermer's childhood in Europe was one of riches to rags to riches. She now lives happily without money. After that, she went on to become a teacher and, in her fifties, a psychotherapist. Schwermer discovered that she was not content with the money. She actually longed for the strife, difficulties, and struggle of her childhood. When she started Germany's first exchange circle and made it easy for members to swap things, it was one of her first steps toward thinking beyond money. When her friends asked her to house sit for them, she began living without money.
Heidemarie initially planned to experiment with the lifestyle for a year. She lived to be 73 years old and ended her experiment after 20 years. The documentary Living Without Money tells her story.
In an effort to lessen her impact on the environment, Jo Nemeth started living without money in 2015. She initially exchanged her abilities to care for children and maintain a home for the opportunity to live on someone else's property in a DIY shed she constructed from salvaged materials. After Sharon's husband passed away, she moved in with her good friend Sharon. Jo is working with Sharon to retrofit her house so that it no longer uses fossil fuels, which is one of her main goals. She blogs at Jolowimpact on and off, sharing her thoughts.
If you've found your way to this blog post, you probably agree that our current economic system isn't working. The richest moments in life are the ones without money. As a result of our collective participation in this harmful economic model, enormous wealth disparities and environmental degradation have occurred. Additionally, it forces many of us to work unfulfilling jobs so that we can afford to live without much time to enjoy life to its fullest.
All of the people listed here discovered that their lives became significantly richer and more intentional when they gave up money. This does not imply that all of their issues have vanished and that their life is filled with unicorns and rainbows. However, by shifting their attention away from money, they gain more time and space to live mindfully and deal with issues calmly as they arise.
We play the consumer role most of the time as participants in the money economy. We buy what we need to meet our needs with the money we earn. We lose the joy and satisfaction of solving our own problems as a result of playing this very passive role, and our isolation and distance from others grow as a result. On the other hand, our poor friends become much more resourceful and frequently use their creativity by taking on the role of producer to complete tasks.
They also form strong bonds with other people in their community and discover synergistic means of sharing what they have and gaining access to what they require. They form a supportive community and Where to Stay in Bali their social ties. They are surrounded by genuine wealth and abundance.
Living and Thinking Outside the Box Because the money economy is so widespread, conventional thinking is less necessary to assist us in moving beyond it. When I work with my coaching clients, I sometimes ask them to think about how, if they had to, they could meet a specific need without money, like feeding themselves or finding a place to live. This exercise demonstrates how many more resources people have access to than they realize and encourages extremely innovative thinking.
Changing our perspective on what is right in our midst can also be beneficial. In this post about how to get more out of what we already have, I went into greater detail about this idea.
Expanding our perspective on capital, wealth, and assets can be another useful perspective shift. We have access to a variety of forms of capital, not just money. And since we really only need money to access other forms of capital, what would happen if we discovered additional methods to get around paying money and accessing the forms of capital we really want without it? Then we can keep our money for other things and put the extra money where it's needed most, keeping us away from the scary stories about high inflation rates in mainstream media.
The Wealth in the Waste Stream I don't live without money, but I spend much less than the majority of Americans. By reusing so much of what I use, I am able to do that in a number of important ways. My main reason for doing this is eco-activism. It's also fun, like treasure hunting, and has nice financial benefits.
my happy place with sustainably sourced food At least 70% of my food comes from dumpsters in grocery stores. At the end of the day, my boyfriend and I started going to a local food bank to pick up produce that would have been thrown away and put in our compost piles. We have also begun removing perfectly good bread, raisins, dried figs, split peas, rice, and a great deal of other food from this pile that is about to be thrown away. The extent of the food distribution issue we face is truly tragic. Even at food banks, good food is thrown away because there is so much of it.
My activities to divert waste from the waste stream aren't limited to dumpsters at grocery stores. Two brand-new plastic adirondack chairs were recently found by the roadside by me. Because of this score, I decided to incorporate additional artifacts that I had previously rescued into an empty space on my back patio to create a cute little sitting area made from sustainably sourced materials.
Exploring the Gift Economy's Riches Most people who try to avoid spending money end up actively participating in the gift economy. A gift economy is simply a form of non-monetary exchange in which people give things away without expecting anything in return. All of the examples of people who live without money highlighted in this post exhibit aspects of this.
People who completely forego money are not the only ones who can take part in the gift economy. In fact, the majority of those who participate are people like you and me who continue to actively participate in the money world. These economies have served as models for us throughout history. In her essay The Serviceberry, Robin Wall Kimerer eloquently describes the abundance and reciprocity that are inherent in a gift economy: An Economy of Plenty
Certainly, getting things and services for free is a huge advantage. Relationships are emphasized in gift economies, which is yet another advantage. This indicates that gift economies, by their very nature, strengthen our social ties and build stronger communities. This is the antithesis of our current capitalist system, in which we use money and transactional relationships to meet our needs, further reducing our connection to others and isolating ourselves from others.
What's Your Reaction?






