World markets continue to take dramatic hits and the Dow has fallen below 10,000 for the first time in four years. Seems a lot of banks and other players are unhappy with the trillion dollar bailout package passed last Friday because it limits their personal golden parachutes and stock option scams. Awwww. Should we call the waaaaambulance for these whiners? Nope. If they didn’t need our money they shouldn’t have begged for a handout in the first place. In the meantime, regular people are having a much harder time putting food on the table as prices rise dramatically and more and more find themselves out of work. This post is a beginner’s primer on how to get food if you can’t afford it.

Before I get to the list of good links readers may find helpful depending on their particular situations, readers should know that many states, such as the one where I live (NC) have budgetary caps on how much relief in the form of food stamps they are able to provide. This can mean that even as increasing numbers of people find themselves going hungry, fewer people will have access to the standard governmental relief. Thus more people must turn to other providers. A good overview of those providers supported by the USDA commodity program is provided at Amber Waves. If your family is in danger of ‘food insecurity’ be sure to familiarize yourself with emergency providers in your area. Cities generally have soup kitchens, places where you can go for a hot meal. Most smaller cities and many towns or counties also have food banks, check into what you will need to provide to qualify.

For those with few to no reasonable alternatives, or who may find themselves in a chronic situation (or are just stubbornly self-sufficient), here are some fine hints about foraging. Foraging the nearly lost art of getting your food from places other than the neighborhood supermarket or soup kitchen. Food prices are projected to continue rising and stay high for at least the next three years. Part of this is our newfound dependence on imported foods with huge ‘carbon footprints’ due to transportation and energy-intensive mechanistic agriculture. If you’re trying to keep your family alive and healthy, you honestly don’t need mangos in January or expensive processed foodstuffs at any time.

Of course, as with all matters of saving real money on food, you’ll have to learn (or remember) how to cook for yourself. Eating out and buying pre-prepared meals is the most expensive way to eat, not to mention the most unhealthy. Since health care is a growing desperate concern for everyone, staying healthy should be paramount in all our planning.

From the great DailyKos “Frugal Fridays” series, Foraging: Living Off the Fat of the Land we get several good ideas. Of course living close to water allows foragers with a little skill the luxury of catching crabs, crayfish, regular fish, baby clams, etc., and seaweed can be a fine addition to the pot to lend nutrients and salt (plus ample amounts of iodine). Living inland can offer lots of fine opportunities to forage for edible fungi, berries, tubers and pot herbs as well. it’s puff ball season in my neck of the woods, which are spendid stuffed with chopped acorns, cabbage, herbs and onions, baked in clarified butter in a covered dish. Hickory nuts are falling, and the wild sunflowers are blazing – these are otherwise known as Jerusalem artichokes, and eat like small potatoes.

Of course there’s Cossack Asparagus in marshlands almost everywhere. These are your basic cattails, and all parts of the plants are edible all times of year. The new green shoots are better than bamboo shoots (which also may be found here and there), but I best like the set-cob’s fuzz which can be ground into a very light, fine flour for baking and thickening broths. As things nutritional become rarer, families will likely have to learn how to like basic stew meals that can be made in large pots and eaten over a period of two or three days (refrigerated in between, of course).

If you don’t mind killing and cleaning, there’s a reason they call possom the “other other white meat.” People have traditionally made fine meals of squirrel, turkey, various ground birds, snakes and the standard larger game. Just be sure you’ve got whatever permit is required, both for hunting and fishing, in your area for the game you’re seeking. I’ve known families who could eat meat twice a week (all anybody needs) for an entire winter from a single deer. Best advice is to stay away from carnivores and scavengers (like ravens and buzzards, bears and racoons).

People in the country or with ample back yards could consider a fresh goat for milk and some few chickens (easily kept but noisy if you’ve a rooster) for eggs and occasional Sunday dinner. Check your local paper’s “livestock” want ads, chickens are very cheap and goats aren’t anywhere near as expensive to buy or feed as a cow. Or make friends with a farmer who has livestock. Around here I can get cheap (or for straight barter) milk, honey, free range eggs, grass-fed meat if I ate it, and all the composted fertilizer my garden can handle.

Of course learning how to garden will help a lot. Tomatoes and peppers and salad stuff can easily be grown in pots and flats on the patio or deck, herbs in the kitchen window, and many other things if you’ve the room, a shovel to turn ground and a metal rake to break it up. Know what grows in what seasons in your area – some crops like cabbage, collards, kale, lettuce, spinach, radishes, broccoli, brussles sprouts and cauliflower need cold weather to develop. Kale will keep on growing right through the snow! Others need lots of heat and sun. If you plant extras you can preserve for the future, or barter for trades with those who have foods you didn’t grow. Specializing can be better than trying to grow it all. Barter will become increasingly important as the food shortages and high prices continue.

Many wild flowers and weeds are edible, and some of those are more nutritious than anything you can buy in the store. Violets, dandelions (greens and flowers), day lilies, wood sorrel, purslane, etc. Don’t forget kudzu – its greens are very high in protein and its flowers make lovely jelly or colorful additions to salads.

Out in the woods there are acorns, elderberries, fox grapes, sloe plums, wild cherries, blueberries, hickory nuts, walnuts, ground nuts and other goodies in addition to the edible ferns and fungi. Be sure you know what you’re doing with those fungi – many local extension agencies offer print material and courses to let you know what’s edible and what’s not.

And don’t be shy – if you live in a farming/gardening region, keep track of who’s been harvesting, go ahead and ask permission to glean from those fields. Modern mechanical machinery leaves quite a lot of edible food behind, and farmers usually just plow it under. Many or most farmers in your area may be entirely willing to have you gather what you can of their already harvested crops.

Foraging is a lot like work, but more fun. Since millions will be out of work (and many of those one out of a two-income household), there should be time if you’ve got the energy and desire. Do check out some of the links in this article and below, get yourself psyched about the possibilities right now. In really hard times all we really have to do is survive, and learning to do for ourselves instead of waiting for a handout that may never come is very empowering. Kids love this stuff, so be sure to include them on your weekend foraging trips!

Links:

Emergency Providers Help Put Food On the Table
Foraging: Living Off the Fat of the Land
BHM: You can become a hardcore forager
Wild Food Foragers of America
Edible Wild Things: “Cossack Asparagus”
Wild Herbs/Foods Archive
Staples Archive
Harvesting Wild: The Mast Crop
Modern Forager

Posts to This Series:

Part 1: Roadblocks and Interference
Part 2: Food: Eating What You Can Get

As Congress meets today and tomorrow to grill the principals before Friday’s vote on the $700 billion “emergency” Wall Street bailout plan (which has been in the works for months but strategically dumped on us all as an “emergency”), oil companies have instituted “rolling shortages” all over the Southeast. Some areas have been out of gas for more than a week and a half, and the situation is not expected to ease until Monday at the latest. Some gas – a single tanker at a time – is being delivered to stations along the Interstates and is being strictly rationed unless it’s diesel, one station per county.

State police are managing the gas lines to prevent violence, which did break out last week in the Nashville, Tennessee area when people started cutting in line. Food prices are rising so fast the stock boys at the grocery stores can’t mark up the goods fast enough, and the specter of looming fuel shortages for winter heat – or price increases that will force people to do without – is beginning to look very scary.

Bailout or no bailout – and despite the launch of FBI investigations of Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, Lehman Brothers and AIG – the United States may well be fully in the clutches of major economic depression before winter even hits. Whether or not that translates to global recession isn’t much of an issue to regular people, as we here in our own homes wonder how we will survive. This post and several following posts in a new series will take a look at the steps citizens should take as soon as possible to ensure their families will make it through the next 6 months. If depression goes on longer than that, additional strategies will be necessary, some already compiled as series in this blog and available under the “Our Most Popular” header on the left side of the page.

Here in Part 1 there are two broad categories of concern citizens will have to work around in order to do for themselves, particular to not freezing, not starving, and not getting indefinitely detained or killed. Considerations must start NOW.

Things to Plan Around:

1. Availability of home heating fuel/gasoline.

It is quite likely that there will be rolling gas shortages throughout the next year. We can also fairly assume there will be drastic fuel oil shortages in the northern tier of the country, and that many will unfortunately freeze to death in their homes or die of carbon monoxide poisoning from kerosene heaters, or fires from badly planned fireplace/wood stove installations.

If you live in an area with ample woods with standing or down dead or a brisk firewood market for purchase, or availability of wood stove pellets, get yourself a wood stove. These come in all sizes and thicknesses, some need more protection to floors and walls than others. You will also need stove piping and must plan a way to get the smoke outside your house (can be through a removed windowpane if necessary). Stoves are often available reasonably cheap and in good condition through Craig’s List or other re-sale sources. Do your homework, install it correctly. If the electricity goes out or fuel oil is unavailable, your family will still be warm. AND you can cook on it!

Resource: NASD: Proper Installation, Operation and Maintenance

2. Deployed Troops, Curfews, Travel Restrictions, Rationing.

Beginning on October 1st – next week – the US Army’s Third Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team – all 6500 to 8000 troops – will be re-deployed within the borders of the United States for various police functions. Regular police forces are being deployed for crowd control and peacekeeping functions as well, in managing protests, gas lines and runs on banks, grocery stores, etc. Expect to be challenged every time you go out, be thankful when it doesn’t happen.

Important: In case of travel restrictions, try to gather your immediate family in one place, preferably the place among your extended network best situated according to all considerations. Schools may be shut down due to lack of fuel for transportation and/or heating, if you have college-bound offspring, consider taking a couple of semesters off unless things at the college look stable. Don’t be afraid to call the admin and ask pointed questions, either. You won’t want anyone near and dear to you to be stuck someplace where they have no resources.

What this means is you need to do what stocking up you can immediately, and plan for obtaining the rest of your needs in possibly creative ways. If you have money socked away, withdraw enough to get you through if the bank goes under, all of it if they’ll let you have it. Store ready cash in freezer bags in the freezer. Purchase as much staple supplies as you can possibly afford, NOW before there are serious shortages and before the prices double or triple.

What food supplies you will need to obtain, along with other tools and supplies, will be supplied in Part 2 of this series. Please stay tuned!

Links:
Southeast Gas Update
FBI investigating companies at heart of meltdown
Long Term Capitol
Craig’s List: Great Resource or Scary Place?
20 Ways to Live on Almost Nothing
It’s Better Than Cheap… It’s Free!

Posts to This Series:

Part 1: Roadblocks and Interference
Part 2: Food: Eating What You Can Get

As the economy continues to slide ever deeper into recession – dragging the entire civilized world along with it in one spectacular leap into the great oil scam abyss – we get the mainstream media’s too-cute economic pundits telling us things designed to make us laugh out loud. Which could actually be semi-useful, considering how many neurosciencey-type researchers keep telling us how much humor can help us conquer stress and depression and other unavoidable side-effects of living in interesting times. But only if you actually read their sage advice *as* comedy, meant to lighten your mood.

For instance, the jokers over at CNN Money have some real thigh-slappers on what we regular people should do ‘just in case’ the worst happens (the whole house of cards comes tumbling down). We need to beef up our “emergency funds,” we’re told, as if we had more cash to stash in zip lock bags in the freezer than the two to three weeks’ worth (which we’d still have to scrimp to save up) advised in the post Hold On: The Ride’s Just Starting.

We are told that in the face of bank failures, job losses and investment wipeouts that the “standard advice” is to keep at least three months’ worth of living expenses ‘socked away’ if there are two wage earners in the family, six months’ worth if there’s just one breadwinner. Surely it can’t be that difficult to just take ten or twenty thousand dollars out of your bank or investment portfolio in small bills and find a safe place in the house to hide it from the teenagers, right? Hahahaha. That’s a good one.

Of course, in a recession such as the one the deputy campaign manager and financial advisor for Republican candidate John McCain told us was “all in our heads,” a year’s income is a better idea, particularly if you’re fairly close to retirement. I mean, that money’s not exactly going to grow any time soon, and will more likely melt away into nothing instead. They say buy a money market account or put it into your savings account, but what good is that going to do when the fund goes bankrupt and the bank shuts its doors? Hmmm… I guess at that point we’ll be really glad we’ve got that week or two’s worth of expenses in the zip lock bag in the freezer. True clowns.

But fear not! Those of us who don’t have big investment portfolios or maxed-out savings accounts and CDs are, according to CNN Money, still demonstrating a strong reluctance to give up everyday pleasures. But the truth is that Americans are eating out less, not spending a lot at movie theaters, cutting back on buying clothes and taking exotic vacations, and not driving nearly as much as they used to.

Americans are, not surprisingly in view of inflation and cutting back elsewhere, shelling out for HD and flat-panel televisions and are not dropping their expensive cable or satellite subscriptions. There are also inexpensive ways to travel or take nice family vacations close to home. More and more people are learning about the thrill of thrifting and seeking things they need secondhand or even free. Even better – for everyone’s health given recent salmonella outbreaks across the country due to fresh produce imported from Mexico – people are flooding local farmer’s markets and buying food produced closer to home.

While not exactly a joke, it’s nice to find ourselves ahead of the curve on advice now being given to the wealthy on how they can possibly survive the coming depression. When it gets bad, they may look around and see that not everyone is lining up to jump out of 7th story windows, but are instead living life just fine without a lot of money.

In this last entry on our 20 ways to live on little-to-nothing, some further ways to take honest stock of your situation and prospects, plan accordingly, and make use of systems already in place to stretch the dollars you’ve got left.

16. Who Are You Supporting?

If your habit is to always buy new, who is that supporting? In a serious recession, it’s probably not supporting some skilled worker in a factory in your area, since the US has already stripped its manufacturing capability to almost zip. Are you supporting the call center bill collectors? Do you really WANT to support them?

The capital class does not need your pity, they’ll be fine. You and your family are your primary concerns, no one else. Stop worrying what “they” want from you, pay strict attention to what YOU need from you. This is a situation where pride can definitely precede a serious fall, so swallow it.

17. Budget and Stick To It

If your income is a bit bigger than your ‘necessary’ expenses, the place to change habits is in discretionary spending. Hang onto your home if your debt isn’t upside down. Some will want to get out from under the big bills anyway during a serious recession that looks to last a decade or more for most citizens, but a positive net balance allows time to do that without filing bankruptcy.

In order to buy that time it will be necessary to limit discretionary spending rather drastically. It is possible to come out the other side not bankrupt. If bankruptcy is unavoidable, make the best of it to start a whole new life!

18. Don’t Buy New If You Can Buy Used

When you’re figuring out how much money you’ve got to have in order to live, don’t include things you can get for little or nothing. And don’t buy anything if you haven’t got the cash on hand. Even very nice clothes – business suits and formal wear and such – can be purchased secondhand for a fraction of cost new, and if you’ve a good sense of style you’ll look great even if you don’t spend much.

Used vehicles cost thousands less than new ones. Used appliances cost less than new ones cost. Used furniture can be every bit as comfortable and stylish (or eclectic) as your decorating sensibilities can imagine. Reupholstering isn’t that hard either if you can work a sewing machine. And if you can work a sewing machine, your decorating options expand accordingly!

19. What’s Your Time Really Worth?

Hardly anyone believes they’re being paid enough by someone else for what they do. And too often, that’s absolutely true. As the price of everything rises, you’ve got a choice – get a second job or step out of the rat-race by putting yourself to work for yourself. If you’ve contemplated a second job, then you’ve time to spend elsewhere, on something else.

This may involve getting involved in an alternative economy of some sort. Barter is the strongest of them, and there are barter networks all over the place if you go looking for them. Trading what you can do for what someone else can provide you skips the whole cash thing entirely. The plus of belonging to a barter network is that often you’ll get paid in cash for what you offer, as the buyer may have nothing you need. Think of it as your second job, and soon you’ll find you’re worth more than the “Little Hitler School of Middle Management” boss thinks you are.

20. Freecycle and Thrifting

You can get free clothes, household goods, major appliances, building supplies, baby stuff, furniture, even vehicles, farm and garden equipment and whole buildings on occasion! So long as what you want isn’t too much, and you’re willing to delay immediate gratification you don’t have to spend a cent other than the cost to pick it (whatever “it” is) up! If it’s not available free, seek great bargains used.

With a minor change of mental focus it’s easy to get excited about “Brand New Used”, and spending little or nothing can be even more rewarding than spending a lot on things you don’t really need and won’t last long anyway.

Posts to This Series:
Part 1: Items 1-5
Part 2: Items 6-10
Part 3: Items 11-15
Part 4: Items 16-20

NYC Bread Line

Installment three of this series of 20 ways to live on little-to-nothing. In these we’ll look at some basics about food, using all of your abilities, and taking honest stock of exactly what you need to do in your life to get through the hard times. If you get hit hard by what’s happening – and cutting back on luxuries just won’t fix the problems – you’ll need to learn to rely on yourself.

11. Taking Honest Stock

If you don’t want to go all Gypsy (and have a family to support), you can still take control of your situation. Keep a careful record of where the money goes over a month. Examine your ‘necessary’ expenses (home, utilities, car, insurance, food, gas, any other fixed expenses). If the ‘necessary’ expenses are larger than net income, it’s time to get out from under the big ones and take a good look at less expensive ways to live. You can live through hard times, but first you have to acknowledge you’re in hard times.

Housing markets are bust right now, so it’s difficult to sell your house even if you were willing to take an equity loss. Same is true for cars and light trucks. It can be the best option to make a clean break and declare bankruptcy, which can allow you to start fresh with a whole different way of approaching life.

12. Put Your Skills to Good Use

Incorporating your skills into your life so you don’t have to pay someone else to do things for you is a way NOT to spend on such things. If your vehicle needs an oil change, new plugs or new brake pads, do it yourself if you know how. Use the opportunity to teach skills to the kids. Quality time with the young’uns as well as not spending $100 or more for something you did for yourself!

And keep in mind that your various skills and talents are themselves valuable. Someone always needs what you can do, and if you play your cards right, you can get a lot (besides cash) in return.

13. Grow Your Own

It’s nearly impossible for any one person to grow all the food they eat. Though there are good ways to barter for things you don’t grow, if you grow a lot of what you do grow (or can trade services). Some good information about community food cooperatives and exchanges is available on the web, through organizations like Local Harvest and Eat Wild.

You’ll inevitably have to spend money on food, but you can spend a lot less by a number of means. And even if you don’t have much land, you can still have a little plot of tomatoes, peppers, salad greens and such. Those can also grow in pots and flats on a sunny patio. Grow heirloom varieties and you can save seeds, too.

14. Make What You Eat

People these days are way too accustomed to eating out. Cooking up a cup of rice and adding some chopped veggies (or canned) to fry makes about 4 servings of fine fried rice for a buck or less, that you’d have to pay $10 or more for at the Chinese Take-Out. Really. Every time you DON’T eat out you’ve saved a chunk of change, done your body a nutritional service, and not contributed to the overabundance of styrofoam garbage that never rots.

One-pot meals (soups, stews, pasta and rice dishes) are not difficult and can go quite far. If you’re cooking for one, try cooking for two and that’s a whole other meal you don’t have to cook another day!

15. Eat What You Make

Eat leftovers for lunch the next day. People tend to roll their eyes at this, but think about it – if it was good enough for dinner, it’s good enough for lunch. That’s money you won’t be spending, food you won’t be throwing away. If you take a morning’s worth of coffee in a thermos, fill it with cold water from the fountain or cooler as soon as it’s empty, you’ve an afternoon’s worth of refreshment available. Buying bottled or fountain drinks adds up quickly.

Every scrap of edible food is valuable nutrition you won’t want to waste. Adding something fresh to the rice or something meaty to the mac and cheese makes a whole new meal. If it goes into your body instead of into the trash or compost pile, you’ve done yourself and your food budget a big favor.

Posts to This Series:
Part 1: Items 1-5
Part 2: Items 6-10
Part 3: Items 11-15
Part 4: Items 16-20

This is the second installment of the 20 ways to live on little-to-nothing. Obviously, not all of these alternatives will appeal to everyone. But perhaps some will appeal to some.

6. Personal Housing for the Gypsy Tread-Lightly

If your lifestyle doesn’t require thousands of square footage consider the advantages of an RV or travel trailer. No, not one of those $200,000 new fancy jobs, but one just “big enough” and in desperate need of some handy TLC.

Getting “free” will take more ingenuity that most people have to spend, but getting “cheap” is entirely possible. Unless you’re a serious mechanic, travel trailers are a much better option than RVs or old city buses that probably need totally rebuilt engines. A trailer can be moved as regularly as necessary (many state and national forest sites have 2-week limits) so long as you’ve something to haul them with.

7. Take Advantage of Gypsy Food Sources

If you move around quite a bit, you’ll have more opportunities than most people to take advantage of wild foods along the back roads and byways of your travels. Did you know that your basic cattails are a regular supermarket of goodness? Or that acorn flour makes great bread or breakfast mush that’s extremely healthy? Did you know that violets, tiger lilies and nasturtium flowers make a very tasty salad?

There are apple and pear trees that have escaped old homesteads, often right beside the road. In some producing regions you can glean fruit from orchards after main harvest. Grapefruit, oranges, peaches, apples, sometimes cherries and grapes as well. Truck and grain crops can sometimes be gleaned as well, allowing you to pick vegetables that weren’t ripe for the main harvest and will otherwise be left to rot.

8. A Place Of Your Own

Free land? In the 21st century? Believe it or not, there are towns in the Midwest offering land for free to people willing to build new homes within 2 years. Of course, this means you’ve got to invest in building a new house, and that’s certainly not zero cost! Do not be fooled – the US Government [BLM] stopped offering free land in 1976. You can’t just go claim some.

Yet an industrious and/or well-connected professional caretaker could end up with space enough to put a home in exchange for simply living there to take care of things! That way you don’t have to “stuff-less” or rootless, your home is your own. This takes some diplomatic skills and might take years to work yourself into, but there are people who got their property (including yard and garden!) for free on a corner of someone else’s property.

9. No-Cost Housing for the Handy

People might be surprised at what’s available out there for those willing to do the work or bargain with others for the services. Older houses on acreage that’s being subdivided for development are often given away rather than simply torn down, but you’ll have to move it to where you want it. Those who can build and re-build can often tear them down and keep everything for rebuilding on their own property. Which is often much cheaper than moving a farmhouse…

Careful inspection to decide the best relocation option is required. If that house will fall apart two blocks down the road, you’ll be better off just taking it down and hauling it off in pieces. Building materials, bathroom fixtures, plumbing, wiring and electrical box equipment, kitchen cabinets, cabinets and even sinks are often available for free where a developer is tearing down older dwellings to make way for new too.

10. Powering Your Living Space

Cost of electricity is always going to be with us, it seems. Still, there are alternatives out there that a handy person could make good use of. There are ways to obtain free solar panels that would make a real dent in a traveling home or even a stationary one. If you’ve some land of your own or you end up in a community of like-minded people, think about developing a diversified alternative system.

Posts to This Series:
Part 1: Items 1-5
Part 2: Items 6-10
Part 3: Items 11-15
Part 4: Items 16-20

As Janice Joplin sang to us all those many years ago, freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose. That doesn’t have to be a sentence to despair. It can also be a defiant gesture to the powers that be, and the license we need to live joyfully, peaceably and responsibly on our planetary home. After that kind of commitment, any money that does come in can pad our own safety nets and perhaps even inspire others to tread lightly on the earth.

With millions of Americans losing their jobs and their homes in this recession – and hardly any available cheap rentals or backup jobs to take up the slack – there will be a lot of people out there trying hard to survive.

The adage that it takes money to make money doesn’t mean much to people who have none to spare, but it also takes (some) money to live on little-to-no money if you want to do it well. Mostly it requires nothing more than a different way of approaching life, and a willingness to choose the less-traveled road. Or, in some cases, choosing the road…

1. Decide What You Want From Life

Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief… scientist, artist, writer, woodworker, mechanic. Most choices of career outside the big business and financial sectors can be pursued without great expense once you’re out of school. Sit down and make the list. Then once you’ve got it, arrange it into priorities top to bottom. Any lower items that conflict with the top items can be crossed off. Then decide what your time investments are to be. With that well-honed list you can then begin a Plan – 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 20. Things don’t usually go according to plan, but if you’ve got a plan you’re already several steps ahead of life’s fast balls.

If what you want from life is love and happiness, seconded by rewarding work, take heart! The best things in life really can be free. On this decision, bear in mind that no matter who you are, the greater your range of skills, the more you can do for yourself, and the more satisfaction you can gain. Diversify, diversify, diversify!

2. Put Those Goals To Work in Your Life

A young person just starting out, a thirty-something adventurer, or an older couple whose kids are on their own can trade their skills and talents directly for basic living expenses – shelter and food the primaries among those necessities. While at the same time “seeing the world” and doing some good.

There are many missions, NGO projects and other affiliated concerns who are always in need of warm bodies to do the work they’re dedicated to providing. All over the world, and all over the US of A. You’ll never get rich vaccinating children or passing out food or building schools, digging wells, teaching, installing energy systems, etc. in the Third World. Heck, many such jobs pay nothing at all. But you’ll usually get a place to sleep, food to eat and experiences enough to fill storytelling voids forever!

3. No-Cost Housing for the Tread-Lightly

If you’re single (or double with no children), handy and responsible, pack lightly for your Earth-journey, and don’t feel a need for deep roots, consider becoming a professional caretaker. Breaking into this lifestyle takes some work (earning trust and reputation), but once you’ve got a few favorable references you might be surprised by the possibilities.

Many real estate management firms are well paid to care for rich people’s “extra” homes – places they may spend a week or less a year occupying, some who are overseas and may not get home for years! Having someone who leaves small footprints but who can keep everything in good repair while protecting the place against the damages inevitable in abandonment is a good deal for them. Some will even pay you to live there!

4. Travel For Free

If you aren’t a machinist or have a skill you can trade a merchant shipping company for fare, there are other ways to travel for free. If you’ve an excellent driving record and some references you can deliver cars almost anywhere in the country, while someone else pays for the gas and motels along the way! There are air couriers who will pay your round trip to Europe or Asia just for carrying and delivering a parcel or packet of papers – but in the post-9/11 world you’d better be bondable. If you are fluent in another language, you can often do a little local translation work (make some signs in English or the other way around) for a hotel or menu for a restaurant in exchange for food and lodging once you’re there.

If you do have nautical skills, consider moving yachts around for absentee owners. It’s a nice way to travel, and if you’re reliable and prompt, you’ll get to see quite a bit of the country and world!

5. Consider Becoming an “Expatriate”

There are many countries that welcome however few American dollars you can bring in and/or skills you can offer, where those same dollars will go a whole lot farther than they do here in the States. Many of them also have universal health care, which is something to think about if you’re really trying to live on practically nothing.

Do your homework well before you jump on the bandwagon, there are always trade-offs. If you’ve a grubstake saved (or inherited), you’ll want to make the best choices. And don’t overlook the visa requirements, which may have you coming back to the US every 90 days or so.

Stay tuned for part 2, where we’ll look at more alternative ways of making your life work without much money.

Posts to This Series:
Part 1: Items 1-5
Part 2: Items 6-10
Part 3: Items 11-15
Part 4: Items 16-20

If you enjoy Selena’s video, don’t forget to check out her blog! There’s plenty more knowledge where that came from…

Previous Posts About Thrifting:

Thrifting: It’s An Art Form!
Credit Crunch: How to Survive the Recession
Living on Less: The Alternative Economies
The Payoff: Thrifting and Re-Selling
Free Yourself from Debtor’s Prison
Tips for Avoiding Pressure to Shop
Craig’s List: Great Resource or Scary Place?

A good friend read my post It’s Better than Cheap… It’s Free! and mentioned Craigslist as another very useful resource for the sale and exchange of items, along the lines of the Freecycle Network. I had never made use of Craigslist and wasn’t very familiar with how it works, so in this post let’s look at what it actually has to offer those of us trying to live well on limited budgets.

Craigslist is a lot broader in scope than the Freecycle Network, which maintains local sites devoted exclusively to the exchange of ‘stuff’ for free – you advertise what you have to give away or want someone to give to you, and responses are routed through the administrators (sans personal information) to facilitate the exchange. In contrast, Craigslist advertises community news, businesses and services, housing, personals, for sale items and job openings (or wanteds), just like your local newspaper’s want ads – but much, much moreso!

There are local lists serving most cities and a lot of countries, just like for Freecycle Network. If your needs are fairly general, Craigslist might be more useful for some things than simple freecycling, given that it also has a section that basically IS freecycling. The list also offers a section for bartering, where you can exchange something you have or can do for something you want or need. Bartering is part of the notorious “underground economy” the IRS is constantly frustrated in trying to tax, but let’s face it – the government would be better advised to try and get its money from people who actually have money, rather than from people who have little to none.

Craigslist was founded in 1995 by Craig Newmark in the San Francisco Bay area. He incorporated in 1999, and now operates with a staff of 24 people. It does charge fees to place ads unless the exchange involves no money. In 2004 eBay purchased a 25% stake in the company, but so far that hasn’t changed its nature. The company projects an annual revenue for 2007 in the $150 million range – this is not a non-profit enterprise.

It hasn’t been without its controversies, either. in 2006 Craigs List was sued by the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law for allegedly allowing users to post discriminatory housing ads in Chicago that violate the Fair Housing Act. That suit was dismissed as more stringent rules were applied. The list also got in a bit of trouble in 2006 for publishing email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses, photos, etc. in its ‘personals’ sections, something the Freecycle Network guards studiously against with its admin firewall on direct communications. In September of 2007 a woman pled guilty to running an underage prostitution ring through the list, and in October a young woman was found murdered after replying to a list ad for a babysitting job. These are the very type of things responsible social site managers should take real precautions against, no matter how much money they’re making.

Craigslist has been criticized for being a lot like Wal-Mart in local communities, where it challenges local small businesses like the retail giant does. Yet for those of us who honestly cannot afford to spend money we don’t have on some overpriced item from Mom&Pop – or who just refuse to do it – who’s complaining?

But as long as you’re careful – and that advice is good no matter what resources you’re using to help stretch your budget – Craigslist does look to be a useful resource for exchange, barter, selling used items (when you don’t want to give them away), finding ‘gigs’, part or full time jobs, and the community forums might put you in touch with people who share your interests. It can be a good way to advertise a home business or art/craft items you make and wish to sell, and it does offer free ads for free items/services and local volunteer efforts of all varieties.

If you’re interested in checking out Craigslist generally or locally, the links below will get you started. Any reports from readers about their experiences with the list will be helpful too, so don’t hesitate to comment!

Links:

Craigslist Sites

Craig’s list Overview

Great tips about using Craigslist

How to stay away from Craigslist Scams and frauds

Wikipedia: Craigslist

Way, way back in 2004 Grist Magazine published an article entitled Give It Away, Give It Away, Give It Away Now about a cool new environmentally friendly idea called “Freecycling.” Begun in 2003 by Deron Beal, a recycling program worker in Tucson, Arizona, freecycling is a network of people with ‘stuff’ they don’t want to throw away to take up landfill space, but don’t want to keep either. It’s a way of getting rid of stuff by giving it to someone who wants it, and you’d be surprised at some of the great stuff there is to be had for free!

Beal’s listserve is The Freecycle Network and it’s really taken off in the last few years. The network’s main page is minimal, offering a simple search field into which you type your locality, and which returns the address of the freecycle group closest to you. Currently the network boasts 4,226 groups with 4,338,000 members all over the world. It’s a totally grassroots non-profit movement of people exchanging stuff for free with their neighbors. Groups have been springing up on their own too, and stuff moves quickly.

Sometimes it’s a gallon or two of paint leftover from someone who didn’t use all 5 gallons when painting the living room. Sometimes it’s furniture that’s either redundant or in need of a little repair. It could be a refrigerator, an ugly but serviceable car, gravel or fill dirt, computers, radios, CD players or old VCRs, bags of cement, unused exercise equipment, even yard sheds and occasional horses. Freecycling is a fun way to exchange pretty much anything that’s not quite junk but you don’t want any more. And while you’re on the list to put up your notice, you might well find something someone else is giving away that is just the thing you desire! There are even some teachers who use the network to collect stuff for projects or used books, even extra classroom supplies.

You can get rid of the last 20 years’ worth of National Geographics taking up space in the basement, but not the last 20 years’ worth of girlie magazines. There are some rules, freecycling networks are user friendly and safe for kids.

My local freecycle group – which I just joined – lists the basic rules clearly…

1. All posts to Freecycle must be for FREE TANGIBLE ITEMS ONLY. No info posts allowed. No offers to BUY or SELL items.

2. Keep it Free, Legal and Appropriate for all ages. If it requires a Prescription or a License then it is not allowed on Freecycle. No alcohol, firearms, pornography, etc.

3. All posts need to be headed properly in the subject line along with the item! There are 4 headings that should be used: Offer, Wanted, Taken or Received. Please do not use Pending or Needed.

4. Do not include any personal info such as: PHONE NUMBERS, ADDRESSES, FINANCIAL INFO, LIVING SITUATION, etc. in your posts. This is for safety reasons.

5. If you post a wanted you must wait 30 days before posting the same wanted again.

6. No politics, spam, money, proselytizing, personal attacks or business advertising. This includes signature lines.

7. Members cannot have Freecycle as any part of their ID or address.

8. No yard sale postings, ever. No “come and get it” type postings either.

Seems pretty simple, eh? Now that I’m official, what’s on my local list? Lots of wanteds, nothing much I can help with. So I look at the offers…

There’s an old teacher’s desk with 3 working drawers on the front, splitting veneer. A Wardrobe in “great” condition with dresser drawers. I could sure use one of those, but alas just several posts down… it’s taken. There’s a coffee table I don’t need and a puppy I sure don’t want. Two remote controls, a vacuum cleaner needing some repairs, some king size bedding and a mattress, 2 refrigerators and a stove. A rural mailbox with post, a baby gate, dog crate, 3 small chests of drawers, a kitchen table with 4 chairs, 2-drawer file cabinet, three mattress and box spring sets, some maternity and baby clothes, curtains, book bags, back packs, used books, several lunchboxes and a motorcycle. A working window air conditioner, some computer equipment, 2 ceiling fan/light units, a pair of vintage radios, bedframes and headboards, crutches and velcro braces, 6 doors plus some windows, a working dishwasher and several boxes of miscellaneous toys. Not to mention the sleeper sofa and the Jacuzzi (no pump or heater). And that was just the first 3 pages, from January 1 not quite through January 2!

I do believe I’ve found Thrifter’s Paradise!

Just last week The New York Times published about freecycling in an article entitled Unconsumption. As Steve Portigal, who founded a San Francisco freecycle group, said, “Getting something you need and getting rid of something you don’t need are both satisfying as problems solved.” Not to mention that in our consumerist society most people have way more stuff than they need, and lots of them pay money every month just to keep excess stuff in storage units where nobody’s using it at all!

If Freecycling looks like a great idea to you, check out your area’s group and start playing the give/get game!

Links:

Unconsumption

Freecycling groups spurn the landfill and spawn goodwill

The Freecycle Network

Don’t Dump That!