No money. Now what?

After watching the movie 'Into The Wild' (movie preview at the bottom, 2007) - that's all I can think about lately - how can I become completely independent, and ultimately; free?

Basically anyone can stand on the corner of a street and hold their hand out, just to make it through the night. Whether it be food or drugs.


What I really want to know is, how can you live without money? I'm young and dumb, but I truly believe I could live on my own, with no help. no money. Maybe I ought a put my money where my mouth is.




I'm tempted to go to the book store and get a survival book and a "what not to eat" book, and head north till there ain't nobody for hundreds of miles.

how can I become completely independent, and ultimately; free?

Currently, I make about 30k a year with full insurance coverage (wtf am I complaining about right?)

learn how to grow your own food .. learn to hunt / fish .. learn construction to build yourself a house... learn first aid ( nature doesnt play nice be prepared ) .. good luck finding a suitable spot not many places one can go now to get away from the cesspool of "civilisation"...

Save 3000$ and start in south east Asia and backpack around the world living day by day, yes you will work for food/housing while you travel but it will e a blast. I'm doing it for a year with my gf. But I have a 15k budget..and I plan to hve a lot of that when I return. I'm 1/2 Jewish..

Accept that therer are sacrifices that need to be made by living in this society,there are alternatives however..

Originally posted by all2human
Accept that therer are sacrifices that need to be made by living in this society,there are alternatives however..

Right! I have thought about this for many months now. Sure sacrifice. As in work, labor. I'm down.

I guess what I'm thinkin now is the "system" is setup so no matter what, you HAVE to have money. To live.

"There are alternatives" - that's what i'm interested in. Expand if you would

Originally posted by Expat888
learn how to grow your own food .. learn to hunt / fish .. learn construction to build yourself a house... learn first aid ( nature doesnt play nice be prepared ) .. good luck finding a suitable spot not many places one can go now to get away from the cesspool of "civilisation"...

I'm most certain I can hold my own with all of those things. If not, i'm sure one little book can guide me through it all. (i think)

reply to post by Thisbseth


There's forums out there for 'you types' that'll help your journey. Good luck, I plan on doing that in my older years.

As for the OP, if you are true to your ventures, you will get support if you truly want to turn your back on monies. Many people/churches help those in need if you are actually willing to work. You can get by on actions alone, and by the assistance from others.

Even in between, there are many soup kitchens and 'homes' that will aide you in your time of need.

America isn't full of money hungry people with capitalistic ambitions, it's full of humans that want to help others. Helping others is what draws Americans and the like together.

reply to post by ChuckNasty


Agreed. I learnt from the movie, you need people to share your happiness. Which coincides with the salvation army helping you or which ever kind-hearted person is out there. (there are many, believe it or not)

But i'm hoping for a different answer. A more "independent" answer. I do not wish to rely on others to live.

Originally posted by Mugen

I'm most certain I can hold my own with all of those things. If not, i'm sure one little book can guide me through it all. (i think)

edit on 6-8-13 by Mugen because: (no reason given)

That would be the first deadly mistake you made - thinking everything you would need to survive could fit in a single book. The second mistake would be to not practice those skills beforehand. Perhaps you would be the rare exception but odds are you would only last a few months without human help.
I've been practicing survival skills for 30 years and I still would only live that way as a last resort. Too many ways to become sick and injured with no one around to help.
Chris McCandless though he knew how to survive too. In the end it was his arrogance that killed him.

reply to post by Asktheanimals


Exactly. I was thinking of another guy who did that also, thought he had it all down pat, read a book I hear, and went bush. But he didn't last 3 weeks. I can't remember his name, but it was only a few years ago so not the same guy you mention.

The cold and the inability to eat trees got him I think.

Actually, you can eat pine trees. But it's not good to practice how and where, with real trees.

It's striking how we're so unadapted to the wilderness. it's like we were made backwards. We start with a mansion and have to learn how to survive.

Unlike every single other animal that climbs a tree and decides your house is a little better as it's got food and warmth. We came from the wild, how is it we die in it so easily...

reply to post by winofiend


We've lost that daily interaction with nature. Most of us know precious little about all the plants and animals just outside our doors. Only a few generations ago most people were farmers and they knew the weather and the seasonal cycles.
We've crippled ourselves with convenience. Our technology has replaced direct experience with nature and most of us don't have to get our hands dirty for any reason. Your great-grandmother probably knew a hundred different herbal remedies for various illnesses. Your great granddad knew every tree and shrub on his farm as well as every animal that threatened his livestock.
I remember my great grandparents - Midwesterners and all had wrinkled brown skin like shoe leather from woking outside. We've become soft and increasing nature is something to fear than enjoy.

My brother and myself took a little jaunt across the U.S. in the summer of 2011 on our bicycles, the trip took two months because we were really in no hurry.

We had money along on the trip and spent it copiously, but frequently we would be getting ready to turn in after a long day on the road and talk about what we would do if we didn't have any money in similar situation.

Both me and my brother are nicotine addicts, and alcohol drinkers, and we like our caffeine in the morning, and we discussed how we would support our filthy habits without any money to purchase these not so necessary things if we were broke on the road.

We learned some very interesting things through actual practice that summer, and we have both been applying this knowledge to our everyday lives ever since.

We never had to eat road-kill, but realized on the trip that there really is plenty to be picked up along the way if you think outside the box, we saw almost anything one could imagine to eat as far as meat goes, lying in and along the road, from great big bugs, frogs, turkeys, birds, turtles, deer, even dogs and cats.

Vegetables and fruits grow wild in the woods everywhere, wild onions, berries, wild apples more exotic sub-tropical types of plants in the south, nuts, one can even eat nettles if it is boiled like spinach, and water cress is good too, and an indicator of good water.

Water literally falls from the sky, it really should not be lawful to charge someone anything for it beyond what it costs to bottle or transport it but.....we had a water purification unit with us we never had to use, most parks have faucets and bathrooms to use in season, we collected rainwater in Florida with a tarp and a jug, it was tastier than the dead water one finds in a bottle or from a spigot.

Tobacco is just lying around too, you can even pick and choose your brand if you want, people flick butts out the window while they drive their cages down the highway all the time, just pick them up, put them into a baggie and roll the tobacco out of them and roll them up in a cigarette paper at the end of the day. It's something to do at the end of the day.

People tend to be generous when they see what would be considered homeless people in the city out in the absolute middle of nowhere riding bicycles with trailers and dogs and gear, they couldn't help but wonder what the hell we were doing out there like that. We were invited into peoples homes for dinner, offered space in the yard to set up camp, even allowed to get a shower and spend a night in the house several times, a couple times we even stayed for a week and sat around watching TV and drank....

Believe it or not, people leave a lot more than cigarette butts along the road when they drive, we found money, lots of drugs which we didn't bother with by the way, alcohol of about any type you can name, mostly beer though, jewelry which we sold for scrap, and a whole bunch of stuff we didn't have room to carry along with us.

We got separated in the foothills in Tennessee and my brother ran out of food and money, we got back together after a few days, my brother was dumpster diving for food during that time, we saved a lot of money on the rest of the trip.

If one can get past being a narcissistic, self conscious capitalistic little weasel person, it isn't hard to get by with almost nothing.

One just has to be discreet, resourceful, and keep moving on down the road so the livestock doesn't get spooked.........

It isn't hard to get by on nothing, you just gotta wanna, or you can keep living the easy life and pay way more than it's worth for what you get, stay trapped in your self made prison of debt and misery, amused by proxy via the TV set, spending money trying to fill that hole left in your life because the gate is closed and locked.

Live Life Like Someone Left The Gate Open.

Run.

Add wild-potato seeds to your list of what NOT to eat. Jon Krakauer was finally able to prove that Chris McCandless probably died of lathyrism due to his diet of wild-potato seeds.

www.outsideonline.com...

Krakauer concludes: Hamilton’s discovery that McCandless perished because he ate toxic seeds is unlikely to persuade many Alaskans to regard McCandless in a more sympathetic light, but it may prevent other backcountry foragers from accidentally poisoning themselves. Had McCandless’s guidebook to edible plants warned that Hedysarum alpinum seeds contain a neurotoxin that can cause paralysis, he probably would have walked out of the wild in late August with no more difficulty than when he walked into the wild in April, and would still be alive today. If that were the case, Chris McCandless would now be forty-five years old.

also:

io9.com...

reply to post by MyHappyDogShiner

that is one of the best and funniest posts i have ever read on a.t.s my friend
you are one of natures survivors

reply to post by elfie


First you get a small diary, and you wander around asking people if they want anything done, lawn mowing window cleaning, gardening, anything in fact that's within normal limits. If you spend x number of hours on the task. You then get the recipient of your labour to enter it in the book and sign it , with the fact that he/she owes you x number of hours labour. Which can be redeemed in the same number of hours labour, or the equivalent in money or an item. If they want they can do similar labour to repay the labour but it gets written up in your book. When the debt is discharged its signed of by you, and them in the book. So wealth is computed on how many hours of labour you are owed. These hours are called M.Y.O.B. dollars which stands for Mind your own business. or My Obligation dollars.
These dollars are Tax free, and nothing to do with the Gov. They cant be stolen or inflated because they exist as an agreement to be redeemed. The only way they can be discharged is being signed off by you and them. A store might like to have the rubbish cleaned up, and the windows cleaned etc but it could be anything.

If you want to be independant and free, first thing you need to do is to get rid of the collar on your avatar.

reply to post by Mugen


I used to work a few miles from the bus, for several seasons.
There are ways to accomplish what you want, but please don't use McCandless (sp?) as a good example. The kid died for no good reason. Dozens of people hike in and out of the location every summer as a day hike. He was unstable and did not have the proper knowledge or experience to live
" free " . It is possible though, do your research, spend some time in the woods with proper gear and more than a single book. You need a small library, and one suited to the particular geographical area you are interested in. Find other inspiration, there are people who have done it for years, and survived. Please just be careful, in the area that he he died, people see him as just one more stupid kid who made poor decisions.

The idea is noble, his methods were quite frankly not very bright.
Good luck.

Go into BC costal area, and or vancouver island, or into Ontario or Quebec. There's tons of forested areas. Just load up your car with gear and go out there and build a small log cabin. You'll need your preferablly a gun, traps, fishing gear, camping supplies, food, and tools, a full line of winter clothes. Like thick parka, winter boots, mits, ski mask, and insulated snow pants. You might want to consider towing a small camper trailer. As you can load that up with all the gear and live out of it. Then you can find a secluded spot and start to build a small cabin for yourself. Place your traps, go hunting, set some fishing line traps, go beachcombing, and foraging for food. A trailer is idea as propane is cheap so you can just go to nearby towns and fill up on fuel, food, and hit the bar, and get a little action while your in town. Then head back to your trailer. As far as being 100% off the grid, I think that would be very difficult, but not impossible. Then what you do is write a book about it, and if you decide to one day go back to the city life you could sell your book.

And if you're looking to completely disappear, just go to alaska. Alaska is where most people end up disappearing once and for all.

Mugen
After watching the movie 'Into The Wild' (movie preview at the bottom, 2007) - that's all I can think about lately - how can I become completely independent, and ultimately; free?

For starters, what makes you think that this is the road to freedom?

What I really want to know is, how can you live without money? I'm young and dumb, but I truly believe I could live on my own, with no help. no money.

Books and movies often make liberal use of poetic license. Despite what was shown in the movie, McCandless had his wallet with multiple IDs and $300 when he stepped "into the wild".

Into the wild

I'm tempted to go to the book store and get a survival book and a "what not to eat" book, and head north till there ain't nobody for hundreds of miles.

McCandless died. Wasn't a good plan then and not a good plan now.

how can I become completely independent, and ultimately; free?

Maybe you should pause and try to figure out what these things mean and if they are even attainable.

Independence and freedom come from within.
It is true that no man is an island.
I would suggest travel, watch people ( the most dangerous of animals) learn as much as you can about human nature you will soon learn to separate the good from the bad, and hopefully recognise bad situations.
Don't read one book read as many as you can but ultimately experience is the best teacher.
There used to be a sign outside the airport at Bagdad that said " if you want to educate your son let him travel".
When you have gained this experience you will be in a better position to decide what it is you are looking for.
But please be safe in what you do. There is nothing more soul destroying than being hurt in a foreign place with no money and no support .
I hope this doesn't come across as patronising , but you said you are young and I speak from experience.
Take care.

You should give it a soft try.
Go into the bush for a week with only what you can carry.
You said you wanted to go North. That would mean you have to gather food and fuel ahead of time to survive winter.
While you are on your soft try, gather as much fire wood as you think you will need for one night.
(it won't be enough)
imagine how much you need for a winter.
Don't go whole hog. Work your way up to it.
Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.