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This Moneyless Life with Jo Nemeth
518 Plays1 day ago
Could you live without money? No support payments, no savings account, no secret benefactors?
Jo Nemeth has been doing so for the past decade, and reckons she is less stressed and more secure in her moneyless life (in which she shares a home with eight other humans and plays the role of house keeper/manager/grower/frugavore).
This is a truly radical tale of a woman who went the whole hog and gave up the bacon 💰 to invest in relationships and reciprocity. We cover:
What is poverty/wealth?
Why live without money?
Jo has no hope!
Less money = more freedom
Why to be a home economist
Issues in a nine person household
The deliciousness of aligning your actions with your values
Moneyless gift giving, cravings, medical and more
Waste food seagull mode
Receiving is harrrrd
Kids + collapse
On taking care of things
Collapse priorities
Growing locally adapted food
🧙♀️ LINKY POOS 🧙♀️
Jo on Instagram ~ @jolowimpact
Mark Boyle ~ The Moneyless Man + The Way Home
The Art of Frugal Hedonism ~ Annie Raser-Rowland & Adam Grubb
Sound credits: first raven, flock of ravens.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to RISKILLIONS
00:00:03
Speaker
RISKILLIONS!
00:00:07
Speaker
Hey, this is Katie, and you're listening to RISKILLIONS, where we're tuning in to the beauty without turning away from the train wreck.
Weather in Jara Country
00:00:14
Speaker
Today on Jara Country, there's a cold wind blowing from the south, clouds are blotting the sun, and ravens are on the power lines going...
00:00:25
Speaker
I just realised I've never seen a baby raven before. i can't actually imagine such a thing. Are ravens ever tiny and fluffy and vulnerable? Or do they emerge fully grown, black and glossy from a portal to the underworld?
00:00:39
Speaker
I don't know.
Anecdote: Battered Leather Boots
00:00:40
Speaker
Do you please let me know if you see the baby Raven? So I've mentioned before on the podcast that I basically have one pair of shoes, a battered pair of leather work boots, and I wear them everywhere.
00:00:53
Speaker
Gardening, milking goats, social gatherings. I've even worn them jogging. And you'd think that because these shoes are the foundation of my very existence, that I'd take extra good care of them.
00:01:05
Speaker
But I don't. I've been so slack with polishing my boots, even though it takes less than five minutes to rub beeswax and oil into the leather uppers to keep them soft and supple and waterproof.
00:01:17
Speaker
About six months ago, Meg saw them and she said, Katie Payne, you need to polish your boots. About three months ago, Jord and I said to each other, holy shit, we really need to polish our boots.
00:01:28
Speaker
And about a month ago, i felt water seeping into my socks as I walked through wet grass because my leather boots had cracked. Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn. So I went to the source of all wisdom Reddit to find an answer to ask, is there any way to repair cracked leather boots?
00:01:45
Speaker
And some people said, yeah, you can take them to a cobbler who might be able to patch them up, but they'll never really be the same. cracked boots are terminal. One comment really stood out and caused me quite a bit of shame.
00:01:58
Speaker
This person said, yes, there is a way to fix your cracked boots. Build yourself a time machine and travel back to before your boots cracked and polish them, you lazy bastard. And it's true. I still harbor flippancy towards things, an attitude of, oh, well, I'll just replace them. I'll just buy them again.
00:02:16
Speaker
But what if I couldn't replace things so easily? What if I had no money? I would treat a pair of leather boots made from the hide of an animal with threads of sinew and fibre, rubber soles from rubber trees grown and felled and processed far, far away with fuels I can't even begin to fathom.
Consumerism Detachment Reflections
00:02:35
Speaker
Assembled in a factory by humans I'll never meet, packed into a box made from trees, imprinted with inky logos, painstakingly designed by a team of co-opted creatives, and carried over the sea to meet me under fluorescent lights in a shoe shop where a kind retail assistant pretends not to see the calluses and compost covering my toes as they help me find my right shoe size.
00:02:54
Speaker
Without the ease of money, money that hides this long chain of relationships... The reverence I would have for a pair of boots and everything they represent, well, I would definitely take five minutes every couple of months to polish them, if I ever took them off their pedestal at all.
Meet Jo Nemeth: Thriving Moneyless
00:03:13
Speaker
Today we're exploring how to live a completely moneyless life with a woman who's been doing just that for a decade. Her name is Jo Nemeth, Jo Low Impact Online, moneyless Jo to some, and I did hear Pip Magazine call her No Doe Jo, which I thought was excellent.
00:03:32
Speaker
I met Jo in Lismore when we were on the road a few months ago, and she invited Jord and I over for a cup of tea to the multi-generational household she shares with eight others, where she exists in deep reciprocity and local entanglement and increasing public notoriety. Because don't we all want to know how it's possible to survive without a dollar to your name?
00:03:54
Speaker
What about rent? What about chocolate? What about the doctor? In this epic conversation, Jo and I discuss why she made the choice to demonetise her life, how she not only survives but thrives without money, and we also cover some collapsed terrain too.
00:04:10
Speaker
I've been wanting to interview Jo for so long, and I hope you discover just as many glittering gems in this conversation as I did. I also hope it reminds you to polish your boots.
00:04:21
Speaker
Big thanks to all of those legends who've left Riskilliance a written review on Apple. I read every single one and feel a little less alone here on the microphone. Also those who give the pod five stars on Spotify or leave comments. Thank you, that's really awesome.
00:04:36
Speaker
And finally, to the patrons of the show, those people who are helping me transition from freelance writing work, which I do enjoy but isn't really my soul calling to doing more of this creative, conversational stuff supported by a community with just enough money to keep me going, even though Jo has truly made living without kachingos seem feasible, we are all hanging out on Patreon at patreon.com forward slash riskilliance if you want to fling the podcast a few bucks.
00:05:03
Speaker
Alrighty, here's Jo Nemeth. Enjoy!
00:05:11
Speaker
When we came to visit you in your homes, and um this is like a big old kind of awkward confessional moment here, but you offered to make us a cup of tea.
Cognitive Dissonance on Moneylessness
00:05:21
Speaker
And my my first response was, ah I don't want to take something from you because I know that you live without money. And it's just this really funny, you know, so many assumptions and hangups within that response. But I wanted to open the convo with with just this this question to you around how do people respond to your life without money and how do you navigate, I'm sure, inevitable feelings of discomfort and, and you know, big feelings that come up for people around that choice that you've made?
00:05:52
Speaker
That's interesting that you had that response, that reaction to the cup of tea, yeah. um i generally, a lot of people don't know that I live without money. Like when I come across people on a day-to-day basis, that doesn't usually come up.
00:06:05
Speaker
When it does come up, I'm kind of used to it now, but the responses from people is generally pretty flat and pretty, well, non-existent really. They just move on in the conversation.
00:06:18
Speaker
So don't really understand that because if i if it had been me and it was around the other way, I think I would have been curious. But um I think it's almost like they don't – a lot of people don't kind of – it's a cognitive dissonance or something. They don't really get it or don't understand or maybe they think that – and You know, before when before I started living without money, I remember saying to somebody, a friend of mine in a supermarket, that I was going to do this thing. And she said, oh, I did that. I did that for 30 years. i was off grid, living in a little cabin. i just, you know, just um on the dole.
00:06:51
Speaker
and So I was like, oh, okay. So but bit different people hear it differently. And I find that quite fascinating. So your response to the cup of tea, you know, not wanting to take from me, I haven't heard anyone verbalise that before. Maybe there has been people's responses, but they haven't said that to me.
00:07:09
Speaker
So that's interesting, yeah. Yeah, there's something in there around like how deep my... like the affiliation with money and basic needs and like almost chopping someone's flesh away, you know, like, and that's what I'm really excited to speak with you about today. Not, not dismembering people, but like, you know, the the deep kind of assumptions we have around what money offers us.
00:07:34
Speaker
And I don't know if you have this, this curiosity too, Jo, but like when i'm I'm listening to a lot of, lot of podcasts about collapse and, you know, especially economic collapse and critiquing our economic system and how it's it so underscores so many of the issues that we're facing. But I never actually hear people talk about their own finances. It's like acceptable to, you know, critique the system as a whole. But what about what we're doing individually?
00:07:59
Speaker
i have this big overarching question in this conversation, like what is poverty and why why are we so afraid to talk about money? And also, why Why can't we kind of um start again with this whole idea of what wealth is? Like, I don't know if you can perceive a question in that.
00:08:16
Speaker
yeah what's What's coming up for you when I talk about that?
Environmental Motivations for Moneyless Living
00:08:19
Speaker
Wow. What's coming up for me is that this is great stuff that you're talking about. And often um I don't get to go very deep with this stuff. And so I really appreciate that you think deeply about this. And you're on the same wavelength. Like I do i do follow a lot of collapse stuff. I'm a a collapse aware person.
00:08:35
Speaker
And I'm 100% sure that that's what's happening in the world and that we're sitting at the in the boot of the car and the front of the car has already hit the wall.
00:08:46
Speaker
oh God. So, you know, it's just a time lag for us here in in um middle class, you know, Australia. ah but But, yeah, your your question, I think there was a question in there about what is poverty, you know, and what is wealth. Yeah.
00:09:01
Speaker
I have thought quite a lot about what's wealth or what is um what what we actually need to be whole. i haven't thought about what poverty is in that and using that language exactly.
00:09:14
Speaker
So when I decided to live without money, it was very important to me that i not make myself destitute, that I still had a level of comfort, and I and i do. I do always try to remind remember to tell people that,
00:09:29
Speaker
You know, I'm not asking other people to do this and I'm a especially not talking to people who are already struggling to make ends meet. They're not the people like you if if I wanted somebody to change and to reduce their impacts on the biosphere, i would not be talking to people who are struggling to make ends meet. I would be talking to people with disposable income in ah in the global north.
00:09:51
Speaker
you know And that wasn't even me before I started living without money. I didn't really have any disposable income. But a lot of people around me, a lot of people I know do. And that's where the damage is done, I think. Like when we when we just go out there with our money and buy for our desires and not for our needs, that's when we start having those impacts in this globalised, destructive environment.
00:10:15
Speaker
network that we're part of that I wanted to step away from. I wanted to not be doing that and I don't like it when other people do that because I can see the destruction and then the damage that's inherent in that system.
00:10:27
Speaker
So it's important that we recognize that people, you know, this is a choice that I'm making. um I'm a privileged, I am a privileged person and I've been able to make a choice about removing myself from the monetary system um And, you know, most people can't make that choice. And, yeah, it's important to recognise that, the difference.
00:10:49
Speaker
Yeah, beautiful and such such riches already in that response. And I wish I had a reference for this this quote, but I remember David Holmgren, I'm just going to throw him into this ah potentially dodgy quote, but he would say, you know, it's actually when when you look at people's environmental choices,
00:11:08
Speaker
they're progressive and they vote vote a certain way, I guess, left-leaning individuals who who talk the talk, but actually it's people's wealth, their net worth that actually determines their footprint.
00:11:21
Speaker
yeah And, yeah, I just... was kind of picking up what you were saying there about there's a real difference between destitution and then having that disposable income. And I'm wondering if you can help me and everyone listening, like make that connection between like what happens when we have too much, like too much money.
00:11:40
Speaker
and it does seem to me to actually very automatically and unconsciously lead us to make more kind of consumptive, problem you know, exploitative choices. Not that we're aware of those a lot of the time, but like, can you flesh out that connection?
00:11:52
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i definitely think that there's a that there's an obvious link there. And i see that in my day-to-day life with people around me, you know, that, um you know, when we start consuming for desires, which, you know, a lot of people do, then we're unwittingly causing harm and I think the thing that people don't that that's that's the disconnect there is the that people generally in our society at least don't understand that that little thing that they want to buy that they want to have has this long supply chain behind it with all sorts of impacts that they're not aware of that they don't stop to think about that's the disconnect isn't it and
00:12:34
Speaker
That's what when I started to make those connections, that's when I realised that's when I started to feel more and more sad. you know Before I started living without money, I was feeling very sad and overwhelmed and like wanting to make the best choice and not be doing harm, but it was incredibly hard. And so when I realised that this was an option to live without money and remove myself as you know as much as I could, it was such a a wonderful thing for me to be able to do. What's your beef with money? Like why go for money of all of the things that you could be tackling?
00:13:06
Speaker
Yeah, I don't have a beef with money. I have a beef with our economic system, with our globalised industrialised economic system. That's where the issue is. I mean, so you can you can use money to buy, don't know, I have been given a few coins to buy a train ticket here and there.
00:13:27
Speaker
Or, um you know, shouted ah something from the local markets. So, there's I think ah think that living in a really simple, low-impact, localised way and supporting your local economy and your local ah networks is vital. And that's what we're all going to be doing, whether we like it or not, in the not-too-distant future.
00:13:50
Speaker
With or without money. So, like money is kind of irrelevant. It's about um the system, the system that we live under and what system are we accessing, what system are we preferencing.
00:14:02
Speaker
And instead of preferencing just autopilot, preferencing this big, huge industrial monster, um would like us to be preferencing the the micro, the small, the local, the walkable
Adapting to Moneyless Lifestyle
00:14:16
Speaker
community. Yeah.
00:14:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the the word kind of currency really springs to mind where in a community, there are these currents, you know, of exchange and and value and but ah people being able to give and take with this currency rather than stockpiling coins. Like that feels really different.
00:14:37
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Was this critique on your mind when you started living without money or was it, you know, can you take us back to that once upon a time 2015 when you decided to do this? Like what were your drivers then and then maybe like how have you deepened this practice? Yeah,
00:14:54
Speaker
Well, yeah, so I made the decision in 2014 and I had a year to prepare, so I started living without money in 2015. i but you know, at that point in 2014, the main driver was that grief and sadness about my complicity in this, um the raping and pillaging of the planet and other people on the planet that I would never meet, my my global brothers and sisters.
00:15:21
Speaker
and I was doing untold harm, and I felt like I had no choice, like my hands were tied to a great extent. I'd stand in the supermarket aisle looking at the rows of, like, tomatoes, for example, wanting to buy a can of tomatoes, which seems pretty simple, but, you know, the the amount of the the the resources that go into that and the produce and who's done what where and who has that harmed and who has that benefited, like weighing up all of the things was kind of Yeah, driving me a little bit in insane.
00:15:50
Speaker
You know, felt pretty, don't know, I felt really down about it all. And that was the main driver. So when I read this book where somebody had chosen to live without money, i couldn't put that idea down. It was ah such a revelation to me and such a shock. Like I'd never considered that.
00:16:06
Speaker
And I thought, oh, my goodness. So I just, I couldn't put the idea down and I just read more and I developed my ideas, mostly based on Mark Boyle from the an Irishman who was living without money near Bristol in the UK at the time and he's written books about it and so you know i kind modelled my moneyless life on on his experiences but that was the main driver that and also the fact that you know I didn't really want to be ah wage slave for the rest of my life you know I would have been and that would have been okay but was not ideal
00:16:38
Speaker
But the yeah, the main driver was this not wanting to be complicit anymore in the system. And then over the 10 years, I've had time then to read, research, to find out more about about the system, about the things that are happening and about the climate.
00:16:54
Speaker
now So that's led me to the point now where I'm collapse aware. I was definitely not there 10 years ago. i thought that we still had hope and maybe we did have a chance back then, but... Nothing's changed in that time. um Well, maybe things have tweaked been tweaked around the edges, but the actual machine keeps going and actually increasing and building even more. The consumption of resources is pushing us over planetary boundaries all the time. So we're closer and closer all the time.
00:17:24
Speaker
And we've just recently crossed crossed the planetary boundary around the ocean temperature and coral reefs. you know So once we cross a planetary boundary, there's no going back. And there there are all these tipping points that people who listen to you, I'm sure, will have heard about.
00:17:39
Speaker
um And we're so close to or at the point of a few tipping points. And, you know, it's just it's just all... Yeah, I mean, I just wasn't aware. I remember reading Earth, E-A-A-R-T-H by um Bill McKibben.
00:17:59
Speaker
Is that his name? 350.org? In 2016, I think it was. And that was what, that rocked me. that book in particular because that was the first time I'd sat down and read something that actually told me without pulling any punches what was really going on and I thought oh my goodness I didn't realise it was this bad this is this is so scary I felt and I started to go through that climate grief then and so I've been through that I'm out the other side and no longer feel hopeful it doesn't mean that I don't want to act so I'm still acting in ways that
Ecological Collapse Awareness
00:18:34
Speaker
I think are useful for my community but
00:18:38
Speaker
I know that we're on the edge of collapse like we're in the back seat or the boot of the car and so it's just a matter of time and that's yeah so that's where I'm at after 10 years it hasn't really still have of course I'm still very driven by that not wanting to hurt people and not wanting to hurt the biosphere but now I'm now I'm mostly driven by wanting to prepare for what's coming and help to support my community and basically in food resilience that kind of horribly hilarious quote like collapse now and beat the rush spring yeah I wonder Joe like you've mentioned I really want to get into the details of how you do this life because I think that's always on people's mind when they hear your story and I don't want to deprive people of kind of the nuts and bolts of how you do this but I also just while we're here want to ask you so if if hope is kind of has has taken a back seat and now you're more inclined to be
00:19:37
Speaker
adapting and supporting do you still feel like it's worthwhile for people to if they're in the position look to you as a role model or inspiration like do you think that people um could take up this moneyless mantle as a really worthwhile you know thing to do or are there other things that you would advise people to do Yeah, look, I don't ah't think that people necessarily living moneyless is is the answer to anything much. I think that, okay, so Megan Patrick, artist as family, I always use them as a fantastic example of how you can have money. I mean, they live below the poverty line as a choice that they're making.
00:20:18
Speaker
But, you know, people like them who who still use money but are using it in a way that's very positive and proactive and helping rather than hindering the planet, the biosphere.
00:20:31
Speaker
I think they're a great example. They're probably a better example than me. i you know, I just know that I wouldn't have been able to do that, especially as a single person, you know, ah having even just a little bit of money would make my life more difficult.
00:20:46
Speaker
I would have to navigate, you know, housing and rentals and bills and all sorts of things that would just make life difficult. I think as a couple who already own a block of land, that would be a very different thing.
00:20:59
Speaker
So eyes were What I really would like people to take away from this is to is to make that connection between our consumption and the impacts of our consumption and to minimize that because even if we're on – even being on a path to collapse – I mean, some people will throw up their hands and say, what's the point? But there is still a point because every time we make a decision with what we're going to use our money for, every time we consume resources, we are still harming somebody or something or some, you know, some ecosphere somewhere. It's really, it's it's kind of, I think it's just the right thing to do, whether or not you have any impacts, whether or not there is ah much of ah an outcome. I think it's just morally the right decision to make is to reduce your harm.
00:21:48
Speaker
reduce your harm to others and the thing that I've always thought and has been brought home to me very strongly living without money is the goodness inherent in people people are inherently good which is very challenging for me when I'm confronted by the fact that on the one hand people are good but on the other hand people are making these decisions to buy these things that I know harmful and are hurting others so So, you know, know it's um ah I really, really just would, I long for that. I long for people to make that connection that I've made and to take the red pill or the blue pill or whatever it is, it's a matrix reference. You know, once you see it, you can't unsee it, you know, and then choose to just, you know, continue maybe to live with money, but to do it in a gently, gently, softly, low impact kind of way as much as possible.
00:22:36
Speaker
One secret that you stumble upon once making a decision like you know, living without money or living with much less money.
Joy in Simple Living
00:22:45
Speaker
The secret is that there's actually a lot more pleasure and, you know, being in integrity gives you a certain quality of life. Being, you know, alive to the abundance of your garden or the creative the creative problem solving that you need to employ, which is such a natural human skill to figure something out without the transactional ease. Like all of these things actually come to the surface when you take away that convenience. Do you see that there are actually all these real joyful, pleasurable, hedonistic, like frugally hedonistic benefits that are in the package of a less money plus?
00:23:27
Speaker
I was just thinking of that book, Frugal Hedonism. Yeah, what a classic. Yeah, fantastic. um um Oh, yeah, for sure. i'm Katie, the you know, the living this way has been so enriching for me in my life. I i wouldn't ah really don't want to ever go back to living with money. It's just an...
00:23:46
Speaker
absolute absolutely amazing way to live for me for me for some other people it might not be i mean i'm i'm from a privileged background i've had a reasonably happy and easy life i am well supported by networks i have really good solid um family and friendship networks and i live i'm not i'm not in fear of my house being bombed you know There are so many things that are working in my favour that allow me to do this.
00:24:13
Speaker
So taking that into account, um for me, this is an amazing way to live. It's very freeing. it's don't know, how do I describe it? it's it's It's exciting. you know um And and i have the choice to do, I kind of have the choice to go where I want and do what I want.
00:24:31
Speaker
And I'm choosing to live here where I am now in this multi-generational, large suburban household. because I feel I can do good here and I can use my skills and my knowledge here.
00:24:42
Speaker
um But if that were to change, I would change and that would be okay. And I suppose this is a great segue into the details of your life. And yeah, if you can explain to folks how you've done this, like what is your living arrangement?
00:24:57
Speaker
how do you How do you keep a roof over your head? Yeah, well, so to start with, when I first decided to make this change, I was living in just outside of Lismore.
00:25:08
Speaker
I was renting a farmhouse, which was costing three quarters of my income. And that was 10 years ago. So I feel so I feel I really feel it feel people the pain that people are going through with renting.
00:25:20
Speaker
So, yeah, so what I did was i read Mark Boyle's stuff and he had he had this he had asked somebody if he could put a caravan on their land and help them out on their farm. So I thought, oh, who do I know who's got a farm who needs help?
00:25:33
Speaker
And sure enough, I had some friends up the road who had three small children, careers, a market garden they were trying to keep on top of. And I asked them, which was very scary, mind you, when you first start, when you first make this decision and start talking to people about it, I was pretty terrified of what people's responses would be.
00:25:52
Speaker
But they were incredibly positive and said, sure, that would be that would be fine and let's sit down and work out the details. So that's what we did and I built a little shack out of recycled and scrap materials and things with help from, you know, my networks and lived there for the first year and a half approximately and just helped them out and did a lot of work in the market garden.
00:26:18
Speaker
And then, so that covered food and housing and I used water from their water system. Oh no, I did catch water off the roof. My parents found a little IBC, a secondhand IBC tank and fixed it up and brought it down from Queensland on a trailer.
00:26:34
Speaker
We hooked that up next to my shack and I had my own rainwater which was such a nice thing. But then after that, we we kind of had an arranged period of time and then I had to move on. And so then I was looking at what to do and I wanted to move into town because, you know, being out there, was it was such a beautiful place, physically stunning area, but I felt quite isolated and I wanted to start being more connected to my to my town and my community in town.
00:27:02
Speaker
So I wanted to move into town. So what I did was I went house-sitting in Byron first because some friends had a house that they wanted someone to house-sit in. So did that for three months. And then my daughter was getting married. So i kind of just crashed on her floor for a couple of months while I worked out where I was going to live. And I helped her with the wedding and everything.
00:27:20
Speaker
And then a friend of, well, no, actually not a friend. who He is now a friend. But this guy, I met this guy one night at a local group, a local networking group. And I was talking to everybody there about what I was doing and how I wanted to move into town and did they have any ideas of where I could maybe park a little tiny house or something or camp in someone's backyard and help them out.
00:27:43
Speaker
And Martin, who just walked in, he was like, oh, I've got a backyard. You can park in my backyard. No worries. Yeah. So first time I'd met him, he's very he's a very generous, caring soul. And so we organized for me to move a little tiny house that my parents had built for a friend of mine.
00:28:00
Speaker
And she had not been using it. She decided she didn't kind of really need it. So I moved that into town. Had to get a permit for the day. So someone shouted me the cost of the permit, which is about 25 bucks.
00:28:12
Speaker
Someone shouted me the fuel, like in the vehicle. They they they came out to this little town outside of Lismore and with their vehicle and we moved it into town, into Martin's backyard.
00:28:24
Speaker
And so there I stayed for a little while and then um my best friend's husband was tragically killed so I moved into her house for a while, a few months to help her out and then I moved back to his place and then the floods happened in 2017.
00:28:40
Speaker
And so I got the wagon out just in time before it got flooded. It still got a bit flooded. I moved it to a friend's place around the corner then. and I built gardens, veggie gardens in her backyard and started planting fruit trees in her backyard. But I could never really settle there because it was in the flood zone.
00:28:58
Speaker
So it's at that point, which is 2018, I think, that I was thinking, and what am I going to do? i can't really stay here. What's my next option? um And that is when my friend Sharon, whose husband had been killed, we've been friends since our babies were in nappies, so 27 years or something at that point, she wanted to fix up the house or she had wanted
Living in Multi-Generational Household
00:29:20
Speaker
to. and They were preparing the house for sale even before Monty passed away and I had been helping with that. So I got in there and Sharon and I fixed finished fixing up her house and she sold that house and she bought this house that we're currently in.
00:29:35
Speaker
When Sharon bought this house that that we're living in at the moment, my daughter Amy, who again has known Sharon since she was a year old, came with to have a look at the house and she said, oh, Sharon, if you buy this house, can Sam and I move in?
00:29:49
Speaker
And Sharon said, sure. So my daughter and her husband moved in straight away and Sharon's two teenage sons moved in. And then um I think I was still in my other friend's backyard in the flood zone, but then Amy fell pregnant and then she and Sam went overseas and they had dogs. And so I moved in to make sure that Sharon didn't have to look after their dogs.
00:30:11
Speaker
And I kind of stayed. It kind of evolved from there. And when Amy and Sam came back, I moved into a little, I built a little loft in the shed out the back to sleep in and because the house was full. And um we just, Sharon and I just started talking about how I could benefit the house here and i could I could take the load off monetarily and resource-wise off the house if I was here and I was preparing food and growing food.
00:30:36
Speaker
And so that's what has happened since then. I've just been here. reducing the impacts of the household as a whole. um Because, you know, when I was living on my own, I had reduced my own impacts and, you know, my footprint by like 80%, 90%. And that's all well and good. But the power of having somebody Whether they have money or not, living in a multi-generational household or any kind of suburban household, any kind of household where there's people who are out earning money, that that's such a ah such a great thing to have, to have that person there who can do
00:31:15
Speaker
especially if they're solar, they can use the solar during the day to reduce the energy costs and reduce the use of grid electricity. And they can make food from scratch and feed everybody healthy food, local food from scratch to reduce the costs and the damage in the food system.
00:31:31
Speaker
And, you know, that grow food and put energy and time into that. And so that's what I'm able to do. and that's so that's how I give my contribution in this household is all of those things.
00:31:44
Speaker
I do a lot of things here. And in return, I have a roof over my head and I get to hang out with my loved ones. It really is huge, the contribution.
00:31:56
Speaker
Like I'm thinking of the the origins or the root of the word economy, I believe, is about the household. It's about managing household and the art of that. And it's like you're actually in that position. and I'm just thinking also like my mum is staying with us at the moment in a caravan and she is just gardening every single day, cooking us meals, pottering around doing all the things that if we had to pay someone or had to do ourselves would take us so much time or money. yeah And it's like, when you if you want to do the, you know, the gross maths on it, the value that you would offer is just so much. It's just so, so much. But I guess it's like you said that for you asking, making that request for the first time, could be nerve wracking. And there's obviously, you know, so many fears we might have about people's response to asking that question, can I come and live with you and have this arrangement?
00:32:48
Speaker
I think that's really important to acknowledge that it's just breaking breaking the ice on that, but how how beneficial and how mutually enriching that kind can be Yeah, that's right. My household members here are pretty happy that I'm here, I think. There's only the one issue and that is my ah my feelings about wanting them to do more, you know, or to or to consume less. And so that's always ah battle a battle. There's a cultural divide.
00:33:19
Speaker
That's what it is. So I'm living in this household, but I'm living in a different culture. So that's very weird. It can be a little, it causes a little tiny bit of friction. But apart from that, I think my household members are pretty grateful that I'm here and I'm grateful to be here. When I wasn't living with my daughter and my best friend, um I would want to visit them all the time anyway.
00:33:38
Speaker
So this is a good way of, you know i don't have to visit them. I live with them. So it's two birds, one stone. Yeah, it sounds like you really consciously being in ah somewhat different culture and actually how powerful that can be not to be in some kind of like-minded similarly habited bubble, but actually working in this space where potentially your impact and just your way of being that as you are activism, as I like to call it, just being as you are, how influential that is and how positive that can be.
00:34:10
Speaker
you're also saying that that can be challenging for you too. And so how do you how do you not get super pissed off and just want to be with people who kind of reflect back your own values all the time? I do. i do get I do sometimes feel super and pissed off and I'm like, oh, I just want to go and be with other people. But I know that I've Wherever I go, whoever I'm with, there will be issues, right?
00:34:33
Speaker
And I know that I would miss my family. So it would take a lot for me to move from here. And also, you know, I am doing good here. And I, you know, even if my family aren't on board and they're not doing everything the way I would like them to do.
00:34:46
Speaker
I am still doing good here. I wouldn't stay here if I wasn't doing good. like it would It's really important to me to be, you know i need to be true to my ethics, my values.
00:34:58
Speaker
Living without money, one of the most one um the most amazing things that happened for me living without money was my values my actions aligning with my values. And the sense of relief that I felt when that happened, I didn't even realize that that was a thing, that a lot of the sadness and the disconnect I had been feeling before I started living this way was because my actions were not aligned with my values.
00:35:23
Speaker
And so aligning my actions and my values is a very beautiful thing. And being here in this household, I do still feel that like I personally am still in that place. I'm not out of whack personally. You know, i I bring a lot of waste food into the house and I use waste resources as much as possible. I'm incredibly frugal.
00:35:45
Speaker
And even if my housemates aren't doing all those things or even paying attention, at least I am still doing them and I am still doing some good here. Oh, that's it's such a delicious...
00:35:57
Speaker
suggestion of how much wellbeing comes from living in alignment with your values and kind of dropping into that integrity. And ah had this thought this week when I was speaking to a friend about burnout.
00:36:10
Speaker
And obviously there are so many reasons we can become burnt out from, you know, our nervous system to trauma to, you know, responsibilities that are crowding out our own needs. But I just had this feeling around burnout and it could be not doing enough of what you love, like putting logs on the wrong fire.
00:36:30
Speaker
And yeah, it kind of sounds to me, Jo, like I know how busy you are and how much work you do in that house, but it's different when you work in service of life and in service of your own values and ethics. Like, does that does that ring true for you?
00:36:43
Speaker
Totally. Yeah, yeah, it totally does. I mean, Yeah, I often do 10-hour days here, so i'm I'm very busy. And most of that is stuff that I'm choosing. Like, all of it is is is my choice. I'm choosing to live here, and I remind myself of that.
00:36:58
Speaker
um This is my choice. um No one's forcing me. Most of what I do here I find enjoyable. It's stuff that i really like doing. I do get a bit overwhelmed with things that need to happen here that I don't enjoy doing, like cleaning up other people's shit.
00:37:15
Speaker
But that happens everywhere, right? Everybody has that battle.
Gift-Giving Without Money
00:37:19
Speaker
So apart from that, I, yeah, I'm busy doing things that bring me a lot of joy and fulfilment.
00:37:27
Speaker
Okay, I have some kind of hot seat logistical questions. Okay. You mentioned your daughter's wedding and my immediate thought is, what did you get her?
00:37:38
Speaker
like Like what about gifts when you don't have money? Yeah, I don't give a lot of gifts anymore. I mean, I do go to the Really Free Market, our local Really, Really Free Market, and that's where I shop because it's you obviously it's free.
00:37:52
Speaker
That's an international movement. if yeah yeah If people haven't heard of it, they should look it up. And um so that's where I'll go and I'll find presents for the kids or Christmas presents if I'm lucky, if there's something there. Often I'll find waste food and bring it to the house and cook it up.
00:38:06
Speaker
Like someone's giving away cans of baked beans and baked beans are like gold in our household because we don't buy them anymore. So gifts for me are usually in the form of services, service. So I, for Amy, for example, for her birthday this year, I cleaned her, no, it was Christmas last year, I cleaned her bedroom, like top to top to bottom, really, really thoroughly deep clean.
00:38:29
Speaker
which hadn't been done since we moved in, I think. So, yeah so that's the kind of thing that I do. put myself out. I don't want to clean someone's room from top to bottom, but I know that that's something that they would value and they would really appreciate. and So I do that and that's my gift to them.
00:38:45
Speaker
But usually for birthdays and things around here, I will, another thing that I'll do is I'll cook a special meal. I do do a lot of the cooking here anyway, so I'll ask the person what they want for their birthday meal and I'll cook that and make sure that that happens, ah preferably using local ingredients or waste ingredients, a combination of the both.
00:39:05
Speaker
and I'll make a special cake or you know for Sharon's birthday i don't know if it was last year or the year before we had some waste chocolate which you know it's a thing and I mixed up some blueberries some local blueberries and I heated up the chocolate and awesome local pecans I think I heated up the chocolate I made these little yummy bites of vegan chocolate covered blueberries and pecans Yeah, I just try and do little things like that, kind of think outside the box a bit and get creative. And that's so one of the beauty beautiful things about living without money is that it forces me to be creative, forces me to use what I have and look outside the box. And I really enjoy that.
00:39:47
Speaker
We do have this skill that's there probably latent in a lot of us around problem solving and creative problem solving. And to exercise that must feel good in your bones.
00:40:00
Speaker
Yes, it certainly does, yeah. Sometimes it's been a bit nerve-wracking, but mostly it's exciting. And do you have to just eat what you can grow or glean? Like what if you a really, really craving a particular and you just can't? What do you do?
00:40:17
Speaker
So when I was living, before I moved into this house, I was living more independently, if you like. I basically, i got so healthy and fit because I was basically living on vegetables that we were growing. But what I would do is when when it was time for my birthday, when my birthday rolled around or Christmas and people asked if I wanted something, what could they get me?
00:40:36
Speaker
i would ask for a five kilo bag of local rice packet of powdered, well, no, I'd usually get powdered milk because I wanted my cups of tea. That's the that's my weak point is my tea. I want to drink hot, sweet, milky black tea.
00:40:51
Speaker
Yeah. And so, you know, waste tea is easy to come by. I just have to ask enough people and somebody's got some tea that they bought years ago that's sitting in the back of their cupboard. But milk was tricky for me at that point.
00:41:04
Speaker
um So I used to just ask for powdered milk if anyone had any leftover powdered milk because, again, that's another popular waste product in people's homes. And local honey, like so I'd ask for a gift of local honey, for example.
00:41:16
Speaker
But then now that I'm in this house where I'm living in a moneyed household and these the people that I live with go to the markets, they go to the local grocer and they buy local ingredients for our meals.
00:41:28
Speaker
So my contribution is to cook a lot of the meals and to use all of that stuff and to continue to encourage them to not buy things that are out of season or have come from the other side of the world.
00:41:40
Speaker
And I also contribute by supplying, you know, waste food. So I've kind of got this reputation among friends now that if they have waste food in the back of their cupboard, they should ask me first if I want it before they throw it out.
00:41:54
Speaker
I've got one friend in particular who every once a year usually she calls me over to her house and I take away a couple of bagfuls of stuff that she doesn't want. so that's so i ah So I'm able to supply the house with some food that way. I grow some food. I volunteer at the community garden a couple of times a week and I grow food there. It's like an extension of our garden in a way.
00:42:16
Speaker
I get some food from the really free market. I'm also part of it a waste rescue, food waste rescue team who rescue waste food from a local supermarket for an animal sanctuary.
00:42:30
Speaker
And so we glean some stuff off the top of that that I know that they don't really want at the animal sanctuary, like lemons, onions. they don't The pigs won't eat them, so we get them. Yeah, so there's a number of kind of waste streams that I'm that i'm tapped into and that's how I supply that and homegrown stuff is how I help to supply food.
00:42:50
Speaker
And so there's nothing that I, other than black tea, there isn't anything that I consume that isn't something that the household consumes. So they don't have to spend any extra money on anything just for me.
00:43:02
Speaker
And that's one of my rules is that nobody is to spend any money on something that's just for me unless it's a birthday or a Christmas present or a gift for some reason. so what So black tea is always the issue and I've got some at the moment that was from a waste, it's waste tea from somebody and I'm running low.
00:43:20
Speaker
So I'm thinking, okay, what do I do now? So I'll probably put a call out on Facebook and I'll say, hey, does anyone have any tea that they don't need? And I'll probably get inundated with different sorts of very fancy black teas.
00:43:33
Speaker
ah love that idea of cultivating a reputation for yourself, kind of like the village seagull where you're just like, yeah, yeah. yep Yeah, somebody called me a womble years ago and I don't know if if some people might know what a womble is, but um that was something from my childhood, the Wombles of Wimbledon.
00:43:51
Speaker
um How do you get around, Jo? What's the the transport situation? Because a lot of this rate resource reclamation, you know, people get around in a ute and kind of intercept it, but how do you do it?
00:44:01
Speaker
I get around on my bike and and on foot and hitching. And if I want to go longer distances, like to visit my family in Queensland, they will often shout me a ah bus ticket or a train ticket. Trains at the moment in that part of South East Queensland are 50 cents a journey, which is amazing. Like I can get that.
00:44:21
Speaker
I can get a train fare out of the laundered money in this household. i my i feels pan Yeah, because I do the laundry, I often find coins in the laundry. I'm like, oh, I don't even know whose coin that is. I'll just put that aside here and one day I might need a train fare.
00:44:39
Speaker
Anyway, so... um But yeah, so I get around in using those methods. The bike has been an issue. Living without money, you can't really do that and have a bike because bikes cost money.
Challenges of Community Reliance
00:44:52
Speaker
So that's something that I'm challenged by and I possibly won't have my own bike for a lot longer. I'm perhaps going to donate my bike to somebody else, but I'm not sure.
00:45:03
Speaker
It was bought by my parents a few years ago. It's a fantastic bike. I really love it It's so easy to get around on. But the gear cables needed replacing not long ago. The brake cables needed replacing.
00:45:16
Speaker
Fortunately, I have friends and family who were able to fix that and didn't mind paying the small amount of money and using their skills to fix that, right? But I find that really challenging and I guess that's part of living in the gift economy that I'm still challenged by. And, well, it's not it's not about living in the gift economy. It's about our culture of the individual, the individualistic culture, that we all have to stand on our own two feet and we can't be bludgers and we need to be able to to be independent and do everything ourselves.
00:45:45
Speaker
And so, you know, we're taught from a very early age that we can't just receive something without feeling the urge, the need to give something in return. So I still have that going on, especially around my bike.
00:45:59
Speaker
Most of the time it's not too bad, but around my bike I really feel bad when these people have done this work on my bike for me and I haven't paid for it, not with money. i haven't paid with money.
00:46:12
Speaker
So, yeah so that's tricky and it's an interesting part of our culture, isn't mean, everybody knows that. It's hard to receive. What is your counterintuitive?
00:46:23
Speaker
point to that or the counter argument like what do you actually know is true about people giving and yeah economy great question yeah I had a conversation with a friend about this the other day I mean it's easy for me to give advice to other people about this we gave him some eggs I think or something from here and he was like oh i want to give you something in return I said no don't worry about it I said to him think of it like a pay it forward system you will I know you and I know how how generous you are with your time and your um possessions so I know that you'll pay it forward you'll be giving stuff to other people so that's that's how I think of it and it's it's hard for me to remind myself of that but it is ah it's a pay it forward system it's a gift economy where it's not transactional
00:47:08
Speaker
It's about receiving something from somebody that you need and you will give something to somebody else that they need and it all equals out but it's not transactional in that moment. That transactional system is part of our, I think, our damaging, destructive system that we're living in and and and our culture, our culture of the individual rather than that culture of the collective good that we need to be cultivating.
00:47:36
Speaker
Yeah, and the the bonding that happens when we're able to give to give someone something to someone and and and show, you know, lavish hospitality. I know in so many other cultures, not Aussie culture, or whatever that is, but, like, I have this kind of this deep mortification that we we had some Ethiopian friends when I lived in Tassie and Edelon was just the consummate host and would always kind of sit us down and give us this,
00:48:02
Speaker
five course meal when we just came over to do some gardening with her like every time and we we declined an offer to go to this this party that she was throwing and we thought we didn't want to impose and we didn't want to invite ourselves along but actually I feel like there was such a deep wounding because we we said no and I think about that um and I'm reading about it now also in Luke Kemp's Goliath the Curse of Goliath book was just fantastic about how humans have evolved and how social we are how pro-social we are yeah and hospitality being such a cornerstone of,
00:48:34
Speaker
of older cultures, of traditional culture, because it allowed us to form these webs of resilience. and And it feels good to give as well, you know. So when we don't want to receive, it's taking away potentially something from that person who wants to give.
00:48:49
Speaker
It's such a nice feeling that we get when we're able to give to somebody who's appreciative of this thing. There's definitely a lot of scope for strengthening and networks and building community through not using money.
00:49:03
Speaker
yeah And what about medical stuff, Jo? ah Yeah, medical stuff's interesting. i I've got I'm at the tail end of a flu at the moment, so it's a bit tricky.
00:49:14
Speaker
I'm generally quite healthy. um I was trained as a herbalist a long time ago in my early t twenty s So i grow some herbs here and i I have some understanding of how to take care of my body.
00:49:29
Speaker
um i eat a mostly plant-based, whole food plant-based diet, which is proven to be the most healthy diet to reduce chronic chronic illness and improve longevity.
Health Management Without Money
00:49:41
Speaker
And i so I'm kind of doing all the right things, I guess. I have a good enough understanding and that education that's helped me to get to this point. I have had, I did have skin cancer years ago. So every now and again, i will go and have a skin check and have some things burnt off.
00:49:59
Speaker
And I'm very grateful to live in Australia where we have some free health care. So I do sometimes go and use the health system. The other thing, the thing that I've had most problems with though is dentistry. I don't have good teeth. I've never had good teeth.
00:50:14
Speaker
And so um when I first started living without money, I had been putting aside, I had an an account. i did i i was working, my last job was working in a a neighbourhood centre. So as an NGO, there was salary sacrificing. So instead of paying tax, you can put aside money into an account or pay a mortgage off or something like that.
00:50:34
Speaker
So I chose to put money into a dental account, ah dent a dentist's account into their account. So I had this credit. And so for the first year or two of living without money, I gradually were wore that um those funds down and I had a heap of work done on my teeth.
00:50:51
Speaker
But that was a long time ago and now I need more work done on my teeth and I was getting really worried about it. But I have again, ah been able to tap into our wonderful health system even though we don't have much free dentistry and it would be great to have across the board free dentistry or means tested free dentistry.
00:51:10
Speaker
I was able to go to the community dentist and I am able to, I'm just about to start, I'm just about to begin a ah course of dental work thanks to the government.
00:51:22
Speaker
So I'm very appreciative of that. You're making it sound doable in a way that even though, yeah, I've read Mark Boyle's books and I've listened to you, it's it's it's almost like talking through these these barriers um and how how to surmount them or how to get around them. It really does, like I'm feeling that flicker of possibility inside. Yeah. hope that people are feeling that as well.
00:51:45
Speaker
Is there anything that's been harder than you expected? Yeah. um ah Just one more point on the dentistry and the medical system before I move on. a lot of people will think, maybe not your listeners, but other people will go, oh, there you go. she's just using the She's just using the government's money and she's just bludging and she's not really living without money, right?
00:52:04
Speaker
Because she's using free medical care and free dentistry. It's important to note that had I not been living without money, was i if I was still out there earning a job and being a wage slave, I would still be using those services because I would be struggling to make ends meet like a lot of Australians are.
00:52:23
Speaker
And it's really important that we have those services available for low-income Australians who are struggling. And, you know, and that includes me even though this is by choice. I'm living without money by choice but I would be a low-income struggling Australian if I wasn't living without money.
00:52:39
Speaker
Yeah, so things that I found hard about this, haven't really found anything particularly hard, actually. I think, so when I first started living without money, i had to give up my relationship at the time.
00:52:52
Speaker
He didn't want to do this, obviously. So that was, I was very sad for the first couple of years of living without money and I was grieving the loss of that relationship. The other thing though is, and I was hand washing my clothes. I did not like hand washing my clothes in cold damn water, but you know, you suck it up when you make these choices.
00:53:11
Speaker
And I would do it again if I had to. At the moment I just do the whole household's washing and chuck mine in with it. But thinking about it now, the hardest thing is that cultural divide.
00:53:24
Speaker
I just live in this different world. I walk around in this, like in this daze with these different colored glasses on and I see the world in a different way to most of the people around me. And that brings up a lot of difficulties, not not huge difficulties, but it is challenging.
00:53:41
Speaker
In terms of like you're collapse aware and you can see the connections between things. is that Is that what you mean? Yeah, I mean, yes. Yeah, actually a good example is the fact that, you know, my daughter has three, i have three grandbabies now. i have ah I only have one child, my my daughter Amy.
00:53:57
Speaker
She has three grandbabies now and she's just told me yesterday that she's pregnant again.
Cultural and Personal Challenges
00:54:03
Speaker
and it was it was really hard for me to be happy about that I feel really guilty and bad about the fact that I wasn't overjoyed about that like I was with the others and there's a number of things that are going on for me around that but One of the things is, yeah, that to collapse awareness and knowing that, you know, this child is coming into this world and this world won't look as rosy as it does now for very long.
00:54:28
Speaker
And what kind of life are they going to have? So there's a lot of that kind of feeling in there, sadness about that. which I feel with all my grandbabies. But also the cultural difference, yeah, they're just, you know, the way, like Amy and Sam are fantastic parents, really, really good parents.
00:54:47
Speaker
Emotionally, mentally, spiritually, those kids are so well taken care of. I've actually never seen anything like it. They've nailed it. And I'm really proud of her for that. Physically, their needs aren't taken care of as well. Like I'm really strong on the physical needs of those around me. I guess that's maybe my love language is giving in that way and making sure that people taken care of physically, hence the cooking and the cleaning and all that kind of stuff.
00:55:11
Speaker
So physically, i struggle with there's still the buying of resources that are unnecessary. They're not caring for resources that you do have already. you know, there might be some kind of relatively decent plastic thing that's just left out in the yard that I know is going to break down in the sun because it's not meant to be in the yard.
00:55:31
Speaker
And I keep wanting to just put it away and I want them to put it away where it can be protected and it can last for longer. You know, if you're going to buy a new resource, let's look after it, guys. And then I'm always, when ah when that happens, I'm always, I have my mum in the back of my head saying,
00:55:45
Speaker
chastising myself and my brother and sister when we were younger for not doing not taking care of our things I never really understood it i was like oh okay mom but now I really get it I get that you know she's she's incredibly frugal and she was raised in I guess poverty you might might use that word and she really values the things you know around her and takes good care of them really good care of them And I don't do that, but, you know, I do have this voice in my head now going, you know, take care of those things. And it's part of my culture now now that I see the world through this lens. It's like, well, that's a resource. That's a resource that somebody has probably paid for, has suffered for in some way in our industrialized system. So if we're going to have it, let's at least take good care of it and not just go out and buy a new one as soon as that breaks because we haven't taken care of it
00:56:42
Speaker
Yeah, I know that the preciousness of things can take a long time to land and just the sheer elegant logic of taking care of it so that you don't need to spend money to replace it and how that saves her a lifetime.
00:56:55
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, and it's funny, like I never used to think this way, and this is part of this new paradigm shift in me. Even the simplest things, the most, the littlest, most innocuous, is innocuous the right word? The littlest meaning seemingly meaningless things like toothpicks or plastic pegs or...
00:57:16
Speaker
I don't know, rubber bands, you know, things like that. You know, I want to take care of those now and I want to use them really frugally and only use them when needed and take, you know, and I think it drives my family a bit insane.
00:57:30
Speaker
But um actually, they don't see a lot of the things that I do because I do them on the sly. Like, for example, you know, garbage bags, garbage bags. I hate, I know that garbage bags are really valuable.
00:57:43
Speaker
I hate just using them willy-nilly like they are. ah Yeah, so it's like I see this inherent, this is value in a thing like that that I didn't see before because now I know what goes into, i know some of what goes into that product and the resource use and the damage.
00:57:59
Speaker
So I'm going to, Now that we happen to have those because someone may have given us some, i'm but what I do is I stash them away somewhere where only I know where they are so that my family can't just go and just randomly just use them all up really quickly without thinking.
00:58:17
Speaker
So, you know, it's that's part of what happens here because of that a cultural difference between us. And you've you've got skin in the game. I mean, what greater motivation than just subtracting the ability to replace something so zeni and
Honesty in a Perilous World
00:58:33
Speaker
readily.
00:58:33
Speaker
That is a really good way of looking at it Yeah. so as we as we wrap this amazing conversation that I wish could just go forever because it feel it feels so supportive. And I think part of the supportive vibe of this convo and you you in general, Jo, is your honesty and almost that paradoxical phenomenon where you've acknowledged the the time that we're in, the peril that we're in And that honesty opens up know my heart and I think it opens up conversations rather than the hopium just kind of keep continuously talking as if this thing is going to be all fine.
00:59:11
Speaker
um So I really appreciate that you are in that that space of honesty and, I don't know, just willingness to have hard conversations. And so with that in mind, Kayla, thank you.
00:59:23
Speaker
Yeah, it really emanates from you and it's it's such a it's so refreshing. So with with that in mind, I'd love to know what you're prioritising in terms of adapting to to the times that we're already in but just maybe haven't made impact yet.
00:59:38
Speaker
Like what are priorities right now? Yeah, that's thank you for asking that. um Yeah, so my priorities, really am very driven by food.
00:59:49
Speaker
Food, the need for us to be producing food here without the use of external imports because we're not going to have external imports before, you know, in my lifetime, definitely.
01:00:02
Speaker
so um So that includes fossil fuels and fertilisers and all of those sorts of things, transport, trucking. So I'm experimenting. I'm fortunate again to live in Sharon's house here and she's given me free reign of her yard because she's not a gardener but she wants a garden and she's not very particular about what I grow so that's great. So I have free reign to do whatever and I'm using this garden here as an experimental space and I'm learning about how to grow things that are more climate appropriate for the subtropics here where we live.
01:00:34
Speaker
I'm learning about things like cassava, yam, um all these different subtropical perennial greens, Brazilian spinach, Malabar spinach, Chaya, all these amazing, there's so many amazing plants that I haven't known about until recently.
01:00:52
Speaker
And so I'm very excited about all of that. I love the learning of it and experimenting and then also also having the community garden as a place to be able to take that information and expand on it. And then my idea, I haven't done much yet, but my idea is is to help to bring that to my broader community so that more people will have these things in their backyards rather than the not climate appropriate Northern Hemisphere annual your veggies that need babying and nursing along and...
01:01:27
Speaker
yeah are often hard to grow without external inputs. So that's that's kind of my passion at the moment. It's a real drive for me. I still have these still you know i still live without money because of the reasons that we've already explored.
01:01:39
Speaker
But now I'm very driven by this kind of building local food resilience through climate appropriate foods. And I'm living in an area, ah my goodness, sorry, I'm just watching a crow outside my window who's got a beak full of what I think is hair from my grandbaby's toys.
01:01:57
Speaker
think it's stealing Barbie hair to make its nest. That's crazy. um Anyway, um so where was I? Yeah, so that's that's what I'm doing. I think that, you know, knowing what's Having a very good idea of what's coming, watching it happen in other places in the world. There are states that are collapsing. There are ecosystems collapsing. There is um there's a lot of collapse going on already.
01:02:23
Speaker
And so...
Learning from Diverse Cultures
01:02:25
Speaker
Yeah, collapse now and avoid the rush is a really good quote. So we have the luxury of having a little bit of time to be more prepared, I think.
01:02:35
Speaker
um It is a shame that most people aren't don't understand the situation that we're facing and there is too much hopium and too much like it's all going to be taken care of by other people or the government or renewables or whatever.
01:02:49
Speaker
that's That's a false narrative. and And so I follow a group called Just Collapse. Have you heard of Just Collapse? No, I haven't. um There are actually a couple of academics, Australian academics, um Kate Booth and Tristan Sykes. I don't know if I've pronounced those words correctly.
01:03:07
Speaker
um Kate works in Tasmania, a University of Tasmania maybe, And they are collapse aware or collapsologists. And I once, couple of years ago, was on a ah Zoom lecture with them.
01:03:22
Speaker
And what really struck me was when someone said, what can we do? They said, grow food. And they're right. You know, the more I think about it, that's what we can do. That's pretty much the only thing that we can do as far as I could tell. It's the only thing I can do is grow food and grow climate appropriate food. So that's what I'm doing.
01:03:42
Speaker
There's probably that resistance of changing, resistance to changing how we cook and what we eat because it's going to be different if we're growing local foods. Like you say, you have to learn how to use yams and taro and things that may not be um so familiar. So that's a learning curve.
01:03:58
Speaker
Yeah, just yeah yeah how to prepare them, how to cook them and make them taste ah what it make them taste like something that we'll eat. One of the beauties of the community garden is that it does tend to attract people from different backgrounds. And so even the other day, there was a ah woman there who I hadn't met before and she came to volunteer.
01:04:19
Speaker
Her name was Lakshmi. And we were talking about, we just happened to be walking past a patch of Queensland arrowroot. And, you know, I've grown queenslands Queensland arrowroot for a few years now. I've tried making starch out of it. I've failed.
01:04:32
Speaker
And I've tried different things with it. And it's okay, but I can't make it taste very good. And she said, oh, that's what we do this with this food. And she's so her culture, her background has known this food for forever. And they know exactly how to cook it and make it taste nice.
01:04:48
Speaker
So then I learned something from her. I really love that. you know the ability to take on information like that from people from different backgrounds who know how to use these things okay one one last like bonus question that i'm just burning to ask you you've just been speaking about your commitment to growing food and that being enough enough to do and so worthy of doing as a number one priority in these times and My question to you is, Jo, how do you content yourself with a life that may not seem big on status and success to the eyes of a, ah you know, someone in modern society?
Low Status Living Driven by Values
01:05:26
Speaker
Because my understanding is that the desire for status or status seeking is a real driver of the inequality that then is the driver of collapse.
01:05:35
Speaker
Have you struggled to kind of do things do less and do more locally, if that makes sense? wow that's a great question. No one's ever asked me anything like that before.
01:05:46
Speaker
And I have thought about it, but not in those terms, not using the word status. But yeah, I mean, i think I have an ego um and I have a desire to educate in inverted commas and So, i guess I love doing interviews. I love talking about this stuff. It's easy because I'm talking about me and it's easy to talk about yourself, right?
01:06:10
Speaker
Well, I find it easy to talk about myself. Apparently, some people don't. I guess that's kind of a form of that that is something to do with ego. Yeah. But it's also, you know, easily justifiable in that I've got something to say that is probably important and a lot of people would agree that it's important. So, you know, in in these in this day and age where social media is king, I do sometimes, I have this kind of,
01:06:37
Speaker
stop-start relationship with social media where I get all inspired and i go, oh, yeah, I'm going to do video clips. I'm going to do this. I'm going do that. And I start and I do one or two and then I stop and nothing happens for months. um So I'd like to be doing more social media and I'd like to be working on this book that I'm supposedly working on just to get the message out there, though. But it is, I mean, so it gets to help get the message out there, that's the number one thing. But the second thing that happens is that it's good for my ego.
01:07:04
Speaker
And so I do feel good about myself when I do get the message out there, you know. So, I mean, at least I'm, you know, I feel like I ah know that about myself and I can acknowledge that. So, know, I don't give myself a hard time about it.
01:07:20
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, my my response would be maybe it's more eco, like eco niche and there's a niche and I think a genuine niche that is storyteller, that is synthesizer of information, that is the person who inspires and educates and that's less to do with maybe our modern version of an influencer and more like a real archetype of of a storyteller.
01:07:41
Speaker
And so wonder, Jo, if that's what you are tapping into and that is a real legitimate and vital role to play, especially in the Great Turning as we find it.
01:07:53
Speaker
That all feels really nice to hear. Yeah, I mean, I really like the words you've chosen there. I haven't heard it put that way before. story Storyteller and what else did you say? Yeah, that's great. yeah yeah i'll listen back to the interview I'll listen back to the interview later and I'll write those words down. So this is what I am.
01:08:12
Speaker
so i really I really mean that and i I mean, it's obviously I think about that too. What does it mean to want to share and have a platform and speak to many people about what you're up to. Is it ego or is it is it something more than that and is it something, yeah, that we can really stand behind us as as people who are talking about having conversations about these topics.
Invitations for Moneyless Living
01:08:35
Speaker
And so I'm also rallying myself here, Jo, because I think it can be blurry, especially when you're online and everything's around trying to get more likes and views and attention and that doesn't feel good. But I think there's some truth in there.
01:08:49
Speaker
So yeah just in in closing, and I'm sure you ask this question all the time on interviews, but what would be your one or two or three or five or seven invitations that you can put people if they want to if they want to experiment with with less money or no money?
01:09:05
Speaker
um Yeah, yeah, I am asked that a lot and I don't really feel like I've got an answer that's satisfactory. What I usually say is what my mum taught me when I was young and that is learn to differentiate between a need and a want.
01:09:22
Speaker
That's really important and then if we consume, let's consume for our needs and not for our wants and that will make a massive difference. I wish that everybody did that. That would be amazing. Follow people like Megan Patrick, artist as family is good advice and read frugal hedonism is good advice because that's a way that's full, packed full from cover to cover of ideas of how to live with less money or no money and have a great time.
01:09:50
Speaker
um That should be required reading for everybody. Everything you shared does point people towards certain things. certain ideas and certain practices. And would you mind offering maybe it's public accountability for you, like a little bit more about the book and when we can expect it and then our expectation might bring it more easily?
01:10:12
Speaker
Oh, thanks, Katie. Yeah, I've been thinking about and working on a book for about 10 years. No, not that long. Probably about eight years. um Now, when I first started Living Without Money, I kept a journal because I thought, oh, this is great and and i want to I want to record it, right? So I kept a journal. So I've got this massive journal.
01:10:30
Speaker
Up until about the time that I moved in here and just life just got busy. I had a lot of time before and now I don't have much time. So ah thought I'd turn that into a book because people seem interested and that might be, if ah if it were me, I would want to read that story. I've lapped up Mark Boyle's stuff and yeah, anything like that. But the problem is
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
01:10:49
Speaker
the time. i don't have a lot of time. I have recently have recently set up a fantastic win-win situation with a friend of mine.
01:10:57
Speaker
who lives in a house not far from here. It's 15, 20 minutes walk. She has a cat who needs lots of love and attention and care. and And she doesn't live there during the week. She's away working during the week. so i So she's worried about her cat. And I've known this cat for a long time. Her name's Mishka. She's beautiful.
01:11:17
Speaker
So my friend Kim said, Jo, Very apologetically, Kim asked me if I could spend some time with Mishka during the week and I said, yes, please. So now I actually treat Kim's house as a writing studio and I go up there once a day on a weekday and I spend about two hours patting Mishka and typing.
01:11:38
Speaker
um So that's how quickly the book's going to happen is two hours every ah like four days a week, two hours ah whilst patting a cat. But I know that I'm not a good writer and I know that I'm not going to be able to do it myself. And so I have been putting out for somebody to help me or to actually just write the book. And I have a wonderful friend who recently wrote a Guardian article about me. Her name's Louise Southerndon.
01:12:04
Speaker
And she's a fantastic writer. She's a published author. And Lou and I are talking about working on a book. together and that might make it happen sooner if she can if she does come on board she seems pretty keen but if she comes on board properly then it might get done in the next i don't know year or so but then after that I think there's a lag of another year for ah don't know at least two years before anything comes out maybe it'll be right when we need it maybe yeah Well, Jo, thank you so much for making time to spend with me and to record this today. You're just honestly one of my heroes in meeting you when we were on tour. It just felt really, really special to be able to do that and make your acquaintance. And I think this is just, yeah, such a goldmine of non-monetary information and inspiration for people who are going to listen to this. So I'm just really grateful and I love your work.
01:13:00
Speaker
Thank you so much, Katie. It's been really lovely talking to you and I'm sorry it was a bit of a hit and miss to get this to happen, but we're here now and and that's been wonderful. That was Jo Nemeth, just so inspiring.
01:13:13
Speaker
I've linked her website and whatnot in the show notes. I'd love to host more conversations about this tantalizingly taboo and understandably touchy subject, so definitely hit me up if you have any thoughts, reflections, guest suggestions, etc.
01:13:27
Speaker
I'm at katie at katie.com.au and I'll be back in a couple of weeks. Take care and max out your joy and meter till then.