Inspired by a DVD on Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Boyle decided that he would be the "change he wanted to see in the world". In 2007, right before the global financial crisis, Boyle realized that his ethical business of organic food wasn't enough for his mission. So he took a radical approach and left home to live without spending a single penny. Through genius tricks and eco-friendly strategies, Boyle lived without money for a year.
Here's how he lived without money
Stepping out of his home in Bristol England, the first thing that Boyle did was look for a sustainable shelter, he wrote in a piece for The Guardian. He came across the project 'Freecycle' through which he found a caravan that the owner no longer needed.
He then volunteered for three days a week at an organic farm near Bristol in exchange for a place to park the caravan.
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The next challenge was to set up his home without spending any money. He installed a wood burner for heat that he made from an old glass bottle and a fluid pipe. He collected wood from the farm to burn.
He also founded an alternative economy called the Freeconomy Community for his purpose. One of its members taught him to build a "rocket stove" to cook food. Using a couple of old olive oil catering tins, he made the outdoor stove.
He grew his own food on the organic farm. His staples were potatoes, beans, kale, carrots, salads, root vegetables, and more. He also foraged for berries, nettles, mushrooms, and nuts. While it was challenging to cook in the snow, rain, and northerly winds, it soon became one of the joys of his life.
Boyle confessed that he did spend money on a solar panel for electricity before starting his journey. It only supplied enough to power a light and charge his laptop and phone.
The last thing he needed for his home was a toilet. Thus, he built a compost toilet and used newspapers as toilet rolls. He called this the symbol of his sustainably living movement.
$0 Personal care routine
BoyIe shared that he bathed in the river or under a solar shower with home-grown soapwort. For toothpaste, he used a mix of cuttlefish bone, collected from the shores and wild fennel seeds. He used a detergent made from boiling nuts to wash his clothes.
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Challenges of living 100% sustainably
Boyle says that the only downside of living in a moneyless world is that everything takes more time. He wrote that handwashing my clothes in a sink of cold water could take two hours, instead of 10 minutes using a washing machine.
Collecting scraps for his stove and steamer also took longer than buying them. Sorting out the compost toilet also took more than just flushing it away.
Cycling through his trip to Bristol also took a lot more time and energy, but Boyle felt it was better than a gym membership.
In the end, he felt it was much better to do the time-consuming stuff and he would choose this life over the other, any day. He also shared that when he started his parents felt they did something wrong in his formative years. However, after he found happiness in this new lifestyle, Boyle said his parents supported him.
Where is Mark Boyle now?
As per LadBible, Boyle followed the lifestyle until 2011, when he bought a pair of shoes from a charity shop. He wrote a book about his time without money and used the proceeds to buy some land near Galway in his native Ireland.
He also became a part of the documentary, "Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild" which premiered in 2021. By then, he had built a cabin and a hostel where he let people stay for free.
