Learning to live without money

That's really impressive. I never knew that about you. All this talk of apple cider.
Now I'm getting hungry. I better go have dinner before it's too late.

Hi Christians,

I'm new to this forum, but I hope to have the advice and perspectives of many councilors. After living in mission in various places and seeing the difference between how we live in North America and Europe and how people live in the developing world, I have some perspectives that I would like to bounce off of you.

In the developed world we used to all have gardens, root cellars and places where we dried food. We would take time throughout the year to prepare ourselves for the offseason. Each family generally had one household member working outside the home and one working at the home. It wasn't just a house, but a small enterprise that kept our family fed and cared for. We used money for many things including buying food, but over the years the ratio of how much of our food was grown and prepared by us and how much food we purchased has been shifting. Now it seems that almost all of our food is a straight up trade for money. Both parents need to work to be able to afford a home and the whole idea of self reliance has gone south.

What happens when/if we don't have access to money or inflation is so high that we can't afford to buy food?

In the developing world many families live they way we used to live long ago. One person works outside of the home and the other is busy about making sure the home is an enterprise that keeps the family fed and cared for. The people I am referring to are not the people in the developing world who have adopted the urban ways of the West, but the ancient ways of the wise poor.

I am at once ready to trust in the Lord and press forward in mission and at the same time considering relocating to a place where I will be able to better sustain my family and live a quiet simple life, working with my hands and feeding my family.

The way of the world seems to be heading toward a centralized digital currency. This news, and the understanding that digital ID and intolerance for Judaeo/Christian values gives me pause as I contemplate these things.


Trust in the LORD with all your heart;
do not depend on your own understanding.
Seek his will in all you do,
and he will show you which path to take.
Proverbs 3.5-6


“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink?
What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but
your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above
all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. “So don’t worry
about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.
Matthew 6:31-34

So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise.
Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don’t act thoughtlessly,
but understand what the Lord wants you to do.
Ephesians 5:15-17

What say you?

True.
You have to factor in the tractor with necessary equipment and that's now the cost of a modest house twenty years ago. The market is such that the big corporate agribusiness can undercut the family farms to the degree that we can't really compete. Finding a niche works for some, but those are full time jobs that need another high paying full time to start with the initial investment. There are exceptions, but not the norm.

I think that hobby farms are a thing of the past.

Eventually I think everyone will realize that their thinking about hunkering down is a day late and a dollar short in that the booger man began to take away their family farms in the 70's. Since then the prices of real estate have risen until someone ever owning a farm is dependent on winning the lottery or some other get rich quick scheme. In short once upon a time if the Devil said you had to take the mark to buy and sell people could have said "go fly a kite we'll grow stuff to eat right here on our farm" but that wont work anymore by design. So much for procrastinating about a war, until the war was already lost, before the people realized it was even going on right?,,,lol

Exactly!

I suggest everyone download an App where they can take a photo of the so called weeds growing around them and see if their edible or not...

I didn't know that there was an AP like that.
If you have a suggestion, I will try that out!
I enjoy eating wild edibles pretty often. Some are considered super foods because of the mineral contents. It all depends on the soil, but uncultivated soil often has a much higher compliment of minerals that that which the stores are supplied by large farms. They will normally add NPK, and not much else.

All this talk of apple cider. Now I'm getting hungry. I better go have dinner before it's too late.

PlantSnap,,Planta,, leafsnap ect. just google "edible plat identification app" and then take a picture of all the plants in your yard. It will tell you what it is,if it not edible,toxic,poison ect.... If it's edible search for recipes...

A simplified down-to-earth life sounds charming, very sustainable, and rewarding.

Just the other day I was thinking about the root cellar we had in my family-of-origin home.
It was a small room with an earthen floor, and shelving all around holding the preserves my
mother made. She had worked as a teacher in a one-room school-house, but after marrying
my dad and the children started coming, she stayed at home, and never even learned to drive.

Back then we had milk and bread delivered to our house. Sixteen loaves of bread was a usual
weekly order, and we often ran out, and were sent to the corner store for more. A loaf of bread
was under twenty cents back then. One of my sisters was very sensitive to whether or not we
were drinking real milk, or skimmed milk made from powder; real orange juice or Tang; butter or
margarine. Us kids used to use the milk box to pass goods through when we played grocery store.

We would help making the preserves. The best (most fun) part was putting the fruit through the
grinder, which was clamped to the edge of the kitchen table. My mother would boil the jars. We
made jam, pickles, and fruit preserves of all sorts. Every weekend was flurry of activity also, with
lots of baking done (including three apple pies every week), all the regular house cleaning, and
a big load of laundry. With thirteen people in the house we did laundry at least three times a week,
but Saturday was the biggest and most loads. All this work fell to the girls, while my dad and brothers
were off selling produce at farmer's markets. I volunteered to work with them when I was eight.

The way I remember it is, my mother was against it, but because there were way more girls than boys
in the family, my dad was happy to accept my help, and he fought for me. I worked with my dad and
brothers for ten years after that, all day Saturdays, Friday after school, and special fall fairs, for which
my dad would make barrels and barrels of apple cider. I do not know what a barrel sold for, but a cup
of cider was five cents (same as the cost of a single apple), and a forty-ounce bottle was thirty five cents.
The cider would ferment after a few days, too! Of course I cannot but help think about how much every-
thing has increased in cost the last few years, but comparing prices now to then? A pound of potatoes
now costs as much as a fifty or seventy-five pound bag used to. They really were dirt cheap! Summer
was the busiest time with all the seasonal fruit we sold (lots and lots of peaches). An eleven quart
basket of peaches was three dollars and fifty cents. We sold apples and potatoes year round, along with
honey and maple syrup, rain or shine, and all through the deep dark days of snowy winter. Both of my
parents had been raised on farms, with my dad's family especially being dirt poor, and living hand to mouth.

Dont say I want to live without money while at the same time buying up other peoples lands.

I'm always skeptical of rich people who want to be poor.

Um no. if you want to know what it is to REALLY live without money, get rid of everything you have and try living with NO land at all.

Dont say I want to live without money while at the same time buying up other peoples lands.

You speak of what you do not know. Have you travelled to developing countries? Have you lived in rural areas with the poor? Have you ever met people who owned thousands of acres but not a car? Have you seen the underdeveloped and neglected farms and farmland? Who is being dispossessed? Do you know?

Your comments are ridiculious.

You speak of what you do not know. Have you travelled to developing countries? Have you lived in rural areas with the poor? Have you ever met people who owned thousands of acres but not a car? Have you seen the underdeveloped and neglected farms and farmland? Who is being dispossessed? Do you know?

Your comments are ridiculious.

rural america is very poor too like the third world you dont have to go far to see it if you live there.

One word about going back to living mostly off-the-grid: Make sure it's in a place with no property taxes.

If you can't buy or sell without the mark of the beast, even if you own the land you won't be able to pay taxes and it will be seized. Then you won't have any place to grow all that food you were talking about canning.