Living without any money?
For many it seems impossible, for others it is a daily queste. If you had have financial problems and you needed to be creative with resources for a while. You will look at things differently. I call it a creative mind. I also wondered myself mif I could live for FREE without any money. And it went a challenge to broaden my horizon.
My experience is that it is possible to live as free as you can be! But it is more difficult in city's than when you live in nature. FREE life is more logic and accessible in a life of providence than in a city life. Nature always turns out to be your greatest companion. Often I hear people making excuses why they would not be able to be self-sufficient. Mostly the word "space" will be used. Now, I am a true space specialist, I have lived with my family for 8 years on a surface of 65 square meters. I lived in a residential caravan this with; 2 teenagers, 2 adults, 1 baby, 2 dogs and 2 cats. An you know what? It is perfectly possible!! Our garden was 200 square meters. Years before when I had a house in the city I owned the smallest garden ever, even then we were self-sufficient.
I am going to help out a misconception about "self-sufficiency"! Being self-sufficient does not mean that you have to be totally independent of resources! Total self-sufficiency would mean that you would also make the fabrics of your own clothing. When I put our mini-farm online for sale, I was often told that I was helping a misconception in the world by indicating that it was "self-sufficient"! Well, if you use the place that is available; providing yourself with the cheapest energy source = LED lighting, keeping chickens and quail for eggs, owning various fruit trees and growing vegetables, you are still on your way to self-sufficiency.
So keeping a flock of chickens or even the smaller version "quail", growing herbs / vegetables ... Can also be used in very limited space. Now, this is not the FREE thing I'm aiming for ... the FREE I want to share with you is about those little tips that maybe not everyone determines or what comes to mind.
A few tips:
Reuse what can be reused, dont see to stuff for what they are made for but for what they could replace or change. Do not allow recycling to become messy in your home or life, save what can be reused by deciding in advance where you want to use it for. Get rid of the parts that you will not use or need.
For example; with electronic devices that are broken, we always cut off the cords and plugs to re-use, from cupboards and / or furniture we take the hinges and metal parts off, from clothing we take buttons and zippers off, we hold all glass jars for canning ...
Make yourself some nice stuff! You realize for the first time how motivating and useful something can be, if you just learn to make things that you need yourself! It is a real pleasure to shape your life and your surroundings to your taste and needs. If you make them yourself its cheaper an you can re-use or recycle! For this you often only need some fabrics, wood and / or surplus material, but the result is a true pleasure for your self-respect. For example: new cushions needed to embellish your living space? Try to make nice pillows with some pieces of children's clothing by putting them over a pillow!
Learn to look differently to life! Dare to look at the nearest object arround you and give it 100 new applications. Teach yourself this method of thinking! Train your brains to solve problems and learn a new way of thinking and looking at the world. Life has never been such an adventure! By learning this technique I and my partner made the craziest things around us. For example, we converted a small greenhouse into a real chicken coop with only recycling materials, we made a work bench where our cats could lounge during the summer and we built lockers and furniture with double functions by looking at it differently than normal.
Dare to experiment! When you learn to tap into your deep creative spirit, you discover a curiosity that can not be compared with anything else. New questions arise in your mind that stimulate your searching Self, to experiment, these experiments go from "would this fit" to "what if I do that, what happens?". By giving in to this inner dialogue you will learn with "trial and error" but it is a wonderful path to walk and gives a lot of joy and experience.
Embrace nature! Getting to know yourself is also embracing the earth and this is possibly the richest experience of FREE life. To learn to accept nature as part of yourself invites you to discover and is the ultimate form of providence. Nature has so much to offer that it becomes our dearest home pharmacy, and it enables us to live a rich life, from her womb. Wherever I lived, I always searched for nature reserves and forests, the closest to our living environment. With a herb guide in hand, I went looking for herbs, berries and plants that could teach me to take care of myself in every conceivable situation.
Search for the cheapest alternative! Search online for better deals if you want to buy something you need. For this you can go to second-hand shops, thrift shops, barter sites ... etc ... Try to always find cheaper solutions for what you need. When you found a place that can provide you, try to make good contacts for future deals. Now I have given you a list of ideas, but I am going to expand these with real examples so that you understand how far you can drive this life to your advantage.
Hold on to all your vegetables seeds and pits! You can sow and / or grow almost all plants, often even just inside your house, if you dont use these plants for yourself, you can always exchange them or give them away for free on groups on facebook so you build a network that you can address when you are looking for something. Examples of seeds and pits; grape, apple, all kinds of tomatoes, peppers, oranges, mango, advocado, pumpkin, melon, sunflower seeds in your chicken food .... etc. But you also can regrow!
I recently experimented with pineapple! I have removed the upper leaves from the pineapple and let them root, so we now have a beautiful pineapple plant ... that can even bear fruit in the future. Have this experiment also finished with our fig tree, the top young shoots removed and rooted in water, soon after the next full moon they can be in the ground and we have 3 new fig trees!
Go in your garden to collect the seed boxes in your garden, some plants are well in the market such as; aloe, lavender, hibiscus, buxus ... These can also be exchanged for new things that are of value to you.
Go into nature and look for some simple herbs / flowers / plants that you can harvest and use in different ways in your kitchen and life. Daisy, nettle, dandelion, elderflower, lavender, marigold, garden herbs such as thyme, sage, jasmine, basillicum. How do you use it? Daisy is an ideal herb for disinfecting and helping to repair small wounds, ideal for children who fell their knees open. You can pull a strong tea out of it and wash out wounds with it. Nettle is a MUST HAVE in your kitchen, dry it and use it as a tea herb or make an detox soup. Dandelion helps you detox in the spring, it cleanses the liver, the only thing it asks is to be picked and make tea of it, you can also dry the herbs.
I also like to share a few groups on Facebook where you can find FREE or via EXCHANGE, a lot of things in life! Search under the term "free" and following groups appear: free items, free, discount coupons and free items, free or for sale in..., free to obtain, free to obtain, free stuff, free and exchange, I want to give away free, free services, free advertising, free advertising, free / sale / purchase, completely free, free to obtain, free pick-up, free / exchange, 100% free, free marketplace, promotes free everything, free garden plants, free advertising, ...
My favorite place to renovate things around me, make curtains or decorate them indoors are thrift stores. For example, we regularly use the fabric of duvets to make pillowcases for ornamental cushions, curtains for caravans or interior decorating.
Did you know tips and triks ... suggestions are always welcome, I extend this article with new information!
