From Jo’s About page:

I have been living a low-impact, money-less life since March 2015. I will continue living without money for as long as I can and I will continue to live low-impact for the rest of my life.

While living as low-impact as this is not for everyone, I strongly encourage people to reduce their personal footprint as much as possible.

It would help if we asked this simple question before making any purchase: “Is this something I want or something I need?” Go for the things we really need and leave the rest – great advice from my mother and a great way to minimise impacts. It’s amasing how little we need to be happy.

For readers in Australia a good place to start, if you have internet access, is Shop Ethical.

An inspiration for me, and a source of information, is Irishman Mark Boyle. Mark lived money-less in the UK for three years. You can read more about him and get some tips here.

There are many others choosing to reduce their footprints to this extent around the world. There are also, sadly, millions who have no money when they need it and struggle for survival on a daily basis through no choice of their own. It is partly for these people, as well as for our own, that I do this. I don’t want to add to the structural injustices existing in our world that make it possible for so much poverty to exist.

These are some thoughts about why I am living a low-impact (and currently money-less) life:

• Develop a greater awareness of the connectedness/relatedness between things
• Waste reduction and reuse – live off the rubbish of others so I don’t need to consume new resources as much
• To help develop and participate in a gift economy that I believe is the way of the future and vital for our ongoing human development
• Supply chain issues – don’t want to lose contact with the impacts of my consumption. All consumption has effects, many of which are distant and hidden, especially when money is used in this globalised system with its long and complex supply chains. We can be naively irresponsible in our destruction and violence against others in far off places when we buy things. I don’t want to make the lives of other people and creatures worse so that mine can be better.
• Reduce stress – live relatively stress free without having to make/chase money
• Help others – give to others and make their lives a little easier
• To find what is real and what is unnecessary and superfluous – just how much of a hold on me does this money thing have
• Don’t want to work for a wage anymore – we live in a kind of system of wage slavery and don’t get to live connected, meaningful lives the way most of us would like to
• Searching for alternatives – this is just one of many ideas that could be part of the solution or, at the very least, it is part of the conversation