gregf83 

I don't understand why you think what the 'ancient people' did was simple or desirable. It was a poor standard of living requiring one to often go without food.

Having no food or shelter is 'simple' I suppose but doesn't seem like much of a goal.

wolfchild

Poor standard of living is like a badge of honour amongst certain LCF folks, and certain LCF folks think it should be a main goal of ALL car-free people.

That's the problem with some people on LCF forum, their goals are just pipedreams and fantasies.

Artkansas 

A little smaller than the apartment complex that I live in. Of course my complex has 45 buildings instead of one. The buildings are not as big though.

wolfchild

Really ???....If you really think that the lifestyle of ancient people was so "simple", then why don't you try living like they did ??. Nobody is stopping you from living in a thatched hut and using fire to cook your gruel. Go for it. Prove to everybody how" simple" it is...Oh and one more thing, please make a You Tube video of your "simple life" so that everybody can see how much of a failure it is.

I-Like-To-Bike

The life of a wandering beggar may sound like freedom and simplicity to someone with a great deal of imagination and/or unburdened with any sense of responsibility to grow up.

Beats me how a jobless shiftless "simple" person acquires a plot of useable land for ANY kind of shelter, let alone build or buy the shelter, maintains it or pays taxes or utilities.

bragi

You can live the lifestyle you so romantically describe right now: in the developed world, it's called homelessness. A hunter-gatherer lifestyle, on the other hand, doesn't sound bad at all, if you don't object to dying of infectious disease by age 35, but on a planet of 7.5 billion people and maybe a few hundred thousand remaining ruminants, it's not very realistic. The last remaining option, living off the grid on the margins of civilization, is doable for some, but in case you didn't notice, this last option requires you to first participate in the economy to the extent that you have enough wealth to buy your way out. Dude, you need to grow up a little.

Machka 

I'll just add to this ...

Having lived completely off the grid for a year ... if you don't have a decent bank account to be able to set yourself up with solar power, water collection systems, a well-built, well-insulated house, etc. ... it is a lot of work. Not exactly simple.


IMO, living in that apartment in Alaska, where you've got everything in the one building, is a whole lot simpler.

Walter S

I identify with what MMM has to say about simplicity. For example the idea of Living Local and other thoughts in this recent post.

MMM is a good supporter of the LCF lifestyle. I like this article on Curing the Clown-Like Car Habit. A good read if you've never seen it.

tandempower

What you call a 'poor' standard of living is relative. To some people, living by bicycle is 'poor' regardless of how good the bike is. The point is to deconstruct assumptions about what you need to be able to clearly overweigh what you really need to be happy and what you can go without, and by doing so, simplify your life and liberate your budget.

here we go with the insults.

I have had my share of failures, but I keep learning from them and revising. Luckily I'm not as cynical as you yet, who seems to have given up all but the will to conform.

Funny, I would say that growing up is a process of developing increasing independence. First you learn to use the potty by yourself, later to feed and clothe yourself and do your own chores. Later you learn to pay your own bills . . . and then this funny thing happens where people think they're done progressing toward greater independence. Why is that, do you think?

This is part of the problem. We no longer have a free society where a person can choose to venture off for themselves and develop their own means of living independently. If you make no income, you can avoid income taxes but states and localities aren't as forgiving and want you to make money to keep your property. Likewise, surveyers have charted all land out into parcels and people trade them as commodities. If you want to secure a piece of land to homestead, you have to make money to pay to these investors. It's not slave trading but it's also not freedom from social-economic obligation. Many, if not most, people want to own you in some way or another. Very few will accept the principle of freedom that once inspired people to move to the new world, write the US constitution, etc. which is that people should be free to venture off into uncharted land and live independently.

In fact, many people would like to punish you by even suggesting that living more independently is a possibility by banishing you from the economy altogether. Their mentality is: submit to full time employment or go away. They cannot understand wanting to forego some purchasing power for more freedom.

It's very condescending to tell me to 'grow up a little.' I could be just as condescending and say you need to develop enough mental independence to realize that it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing choice of total independence or total submission. People should be able to participate in economic life to the degree they want without having to submit fully to the demands of an employer. There should be give and take, not employers deciding the terms of a job and then you have to take it or leave it, with total homelessness and poverty as the consequence of leaving it.


Hard work doesn't necessarily contradict simplicity. It depends on the nature of the work. Solar power has, unfortunately, not yet become economically mainstreamed enough to provide a simple, cheap alternative to on-grid power. It's not like PVC pipes where you could build a simple outdoor shower for not much money, if you have a water supply, or a solar shower bag if you need to carry water from a nearby water-source on a bike to take a shower.

You are right that materials cost money. There are just different levels of cost and complexity. E.g. you could build a complex roof line on a 600+ sf house, which would involve a lot of cutting, peaks and valleys. Or you could build a single-plane roof line on a 12X16 tiny house that is as simple as attaching 12' rafters to the tops of your walls and bolting on 12' metal roofing panels. Yes, the materials cost money and there is labor and time required, but much less that larger houses with more complex layouts.

With that level of cold, it would be more efficient to heat an apartment building than numerous isolated dwellings. I haven't lived in such cold but I've wondered how well insulated an ice-cave would be as a winter dwelling. Igloos can hold a surprising temperature, I've read, due to the ability of cold air to sink into a hole on one side of the igloo. One day I plan to try winter camping but I haven't had the opportunity yet. It's hard enough to go on extended bike-camping trips while holding a job, even when the job offers more time off than most other jobs.

wolfchild

You are free to venture off , start your own business and be your own boss. Nobody is holding you back.

Once again, nobody is forcing you to submit to any employer or full time employment. If you don't want to work or if you think that working is vanity, then you are free to become a welfare bum, or a hobo.

tandempower

Being your own boss with your own business isn't the same thing as independent living. All you're basically saying is that if you don't the terms offered you for paid employment, start your own business. In other words, 'take it or leave it.' Owning and operating your own business makes you more interdependent and puts more social pressure on you to cater to the demands and expectations of clients, employees, inspectors, etc.

Living a hobo life isn't as easy at you'd think. There are few, if any, places you can camp for free. If you don't want a handout, it can be difficult to find paid employment that offers you the flexibility to work a convenient schedule.

It would be great if the spirit of independent living was still strong enough that people were eager to devise ways of incorporating people into the paid economy on terms that support their aspirations for freedom but that just isn't typically what happens. Far more often people say things like, "well if you expect to work at your convenience instead of what's required for the job, then this probably isn't the job for you."

What I'm trying to say is that 'the free market' is overrun by people who don't care about supporting real freedom because all they really care about is using others to make as much money as they can. If you don't submit to them using you in this way, they'll leave you unemployed until you're desperate enough to do so.

Walter S

Nobody said it was easy. Most things in the world boil down to economics. Nobody profits from you being a hobo. So it's not surprising that people aren't working on making that easy. It is what it is. We can't all live on a planet with seven billion others with competing interests and land ownership and expect a hunter gatherer lifestyle to work too good.

tandempower

It's one thing not to help someone who's not paying you. It's something else to create roadblocks to others' freedom until they pay. You could put a toll booth on a paved road to pay for the road but putting one on a dirt road to generate revenue beyond the cost of maintaining the road would be deliberate obstruction of freedom for the sake of squeezing money out of people.

The same is true of public lands where hiking is allowed without a fee but not sleeping. It's one thing to fine people for trashing a park, another to fine them for sleeping there responsibly. If someone isn't causing any harm or depleting any resource, why should they be made to pay?

Likewise, if private land owners wanted to create a liability-exemption to allow free camping on private land, and insurance and other interests blocked such a law because it would reduce their ability to control and tax private land owners, that would be deliberate obstruction of freedom in an effort to exclude non-commercial land-usage by allowing lawsuits that intimidate private owners into policing their land against potential litigants.

If you don't want to give a hitchhiker a ride, that's your prerogative. But it's wrong to create laws that actively thwart the ability to travel freely without money.

wolfchild

There are no laws against wandering around...But living like a "mooch" is a shame and a terrible waste of a persons life. I just hate being around "spongers" who refuse to take any responsibility for themselves.

Machka 

Rowan and I have lived off the grid in a 9x6 metre house ... water collected from the rain, heat from the fireplace, cooking over a Coleman stove or the fireplace, and power from a generator at first and then solar. We did that for 1 year. We might have been able to do that longer if we had the bank account to set it up properly. I had just finished my most recent degree (so no savings) and couldn't work for my first 6 months in Australia. As it was, it was a learning experience and a lot of hard work.


Rowan and i have also spent 8 months travelling around the world, independently of any concerns of about money or how to sustain ourselves. We were able to do that because we did have the bank account to support ourselves. I got work and we put my salary into savings for a few years ... and lived frugally.


If you want to do these things, I suggest you get a good job, take on extra part time work if necessary, take night classes if that will help you advance in your career, and save, save, save. Make a 5-year plan. At the end of 5 years you might be able buy that bit of land and put a tiny house on it or go travelling. That's how it works.

wolfchild

You sound like a very adventurous person....Do you think you could live in a primitive way, off grid for the rest of your life ??

Machka 

Yes ... and No.


Yes ... if we had enough money to select the right property and set it up properly, it would be doable. Also, it would be a whole lot easier if we could work from home or only had to work part time.
(I can go into a bit more detail about that year off the grid, with some comments of things we'd do differently, if anyone is interested)


No ... because I don't see myself living in any one spot for the rest of my life. I figure I've got a little bit of nomad or gypsy in my blood. I like moving from place to place every few years. We're in a nice spot now, and I can see us here for a few years ... but not forever.

One of the things which appeals to both of us, and which we've talked about many times, is following the harvest trail as the grey nomads do. We've both got experience (Rowan more than me), so we could likely find work ... and it appeals to the nomad/gypsy in me. It would take some planning and preparation, and it would be hard work, of course.

I-Like-To-Bike

I have read more than one article from cyclists who set out on bicycle trips without the assets to complete the journey and planned specifically to materially benefit from "depending on the kindness of strangers" they meet along the way. It is a deliberate plan to mooch from the get go. Willy Weir, the self proclaimed Metal Cowboy is one bicycling spokesman who is a proponent for this style of freedom and so-called independence.

bragi

Thanks for sharing this. This guy is practical and kind of amusing, sort of like a financial Bike Snob NYC..

bragi

What's the harvest trail?

Roody

There are other paths to an "extreme" simple lifestyle. Religious orders of the major faiths is one example. Even living in communes or kibbutzes where property is held collectively is an example of xtrem simplification. It may be relatively uncommon in western developed countries, but millions of people around the world willingly renounce private ownership of most possessions in order to lead a simpler, more focused lifestyle. It's not my cup of tea personally, but i do admire people who make such a choice.

Machka 

The Harvest Trail is basically the progression of harvest through the country ... generally from north to south.

Fruit (and other things -- veggies, grain) become ripe in the north, backpackers, grey nomads, and others flock to that part of the country to help with the picking and packing, and several other related jobs. When they finish there, fruit (and other things) becomes ripe a little further south, and the backpackers, grey nomads, and others move. Eventually the find their way down to Victoria (where we used to live) and Tasmania (where we live now). It's not quite as clear-cut as that because things do become ripe at different times and there are areas where you could stay pretty much year round, just moving relatively short distances between orchards. But that's the general idea.

Right now, in Tasmania, the cherry picking is either just finished (they just finished on the orchard Rowan supervises yesterday) or nearing completion. Apples will be next.


The jobs usually last anywhere from a few days to maybe a couple months, but some can go on longer.

This is the government site advertising Harvest Trail jobs.
Harvest Trail - Harvest Jobs - Australian JobSearch

This is the 2014 Harvest Trail Guide ... it'll give you a really good idea what it's all about and what's ready for picking now:
https://jobsearch.gov.au/documents/ha...ust%202014.pdf

To get jobs, you front up and put your name on a list, or ring and put your name on a list. Some offer online registrations as well.


Incidentally, Grey Nomads are usually older people (with grey hair ) who travel from place to place in caravans. There are heaps of Grey Nomad sites with all kinds of advice and conversations about caravans, camping, jobs, etc. etc.


Rowan has been working in the industry for about a decade now, and I've dabbled in it. And just to clarify one other thing, here in Australia agriculture, and in particular orchard work, pays quite well.

Rowan

The 9 x 6 metre shed that we lived in after the bushfires came after several years of very simple living for me.

I lived in this portable unit on my first orchard/farm for several years:



Yep, that's a single room.

For my second stint on the orchard (after six months in Canada), I lived at a nearby property (a 6km commute one way -- and I was car-free). This was the first place I slept and lived in:



Then I moved to what was the old manager's office on the property -- essentially two rooms. It was palatial compared with what came previously.



Then it ended up like this:



Then I lived in this for around four months:



Which had a view like that from the front door.

And after Machka moved from Canada, we lived in this:



Which had these wonderful facilities:



I did move the bath and toilet indoors in the 12 months we were there.

--------------------------------------------------

All this was over 5-1/2 years. Of the posters here, I think I am well qualified to say that living the simple life off the grid is a grand dream, but the reality can be really, really tough, and it's not a way of life I would return to willingly unless I had a bucket full of capital and could set it up so it was comfortable and without a huge workload.

Ekdog

Why so much focus on living out in the sticks? I've found that living in a small flat in a city with good cycling infrastructure and rapid transit allows me to lead a simple life. Moving out to the middle of the country would complicate things for me in many ways.

Machka 

An album of the place we lived ... my first residence in Australia.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/machka...7619719051119/