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How To Live A Moneyless Life Like

"Mark Boyle"

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Connect To Your Consumption

Mark Boyle has been living in the UK near Bath, without money since 2008 in a camper with solar panels he installed beforehand. His plan was to go one year, but he never stopped the experiment.

Here he shows a reporter from the newspaper Guardian UK how he manages a whole life with no money being exchanged.

He grows his own food, chops his own wood, built a rocket stove, uses old newspaper for toilet paper, has puncture less tires on his bicycle, makes his own soap and washes his clothes in the stream. He barters work occasionally for oats and other grains, and goes dumpster diving in town for additional food.

He admits it was daunting in the beginning, but that he is so much more satisfied living according to his ideals.

In a TED talk in 2011 he outlined why he chose to create a life without money. After studying economy, he saw clearly the connection between money and well, the disconnection.

"Ecological destruction, factory farms, destroying the oceans, sweat shops, deforestation - this all stems from our delusion that we are separate from nature. We are very disconnected from what we consume. We no longer have an appreciation for the embodied energy, embodied destruction and suffering that goes into every stage of the supply chain of the things we buy. The tool that enabled this disconnection is money. If we all had to grow our own food, we wouldn't waste 1/3 of it as we do today in the UK. If we had to make our own tables and chairs, we wouldn't chuck them out the moment we decided to change the decor. Until we reconnect with what we consume, all these problems will continue because we're not getting to the root of the problem, which is our separation from nature, and our separation from what we consume."

You can follow Mark Boyle's blog, Freeconomy here www.justfortheloveofit.org/blog where he has created a real forum for the new economy, based on barter, sharing and co-creating -- a whole new way of looking at exchange and community among people ready for a new society.

--Bibi Farber

This video was produced by the Guardian UK.

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