My Relationship with Money

In my early 20’s, my goal was to be a millionaire by the time I was 30. At the age of 25, I was on track, running a marketing company with 20 independent contractors at it’s peak. I was sitting comfortably in life and everything was going according to plan.

I’m 38 now and have $266 cash stored in a book that I carry with the rest of my hundred or so basic possessions. My entire net worth is approximately $3,000 and it has remained below $15,000 since 2016. I adhere to a set of lifetime vows including to earn below the federal poverty threshold, to maintain a minimal net worth, to practice deep financial transparency, to not pay federal income taxes and to donate 100% of my media earnings to grassroots nonprofits.

With this little stash of money and few possessions, I am filled with purpose and meaning beyond what I ever had when there were six figures in my bank account.

In a few days’ time, I will be giving away my last dollar (and all of my possessions), entering into an experiment of complete non-ownership.

They say “money makes the world go round.” Well, with over a decade of practice in demonetizing my life, the world is still going. Let’s see if it keeps going around when I give away the last dollar.

In the writing ahead, I am sharing my relationship with money in detail.

This article is for you if you are open to radically rethinking your own relationship with money and it is especially for you if are looking to decentralize money in your life and opt out of the monetary system.

This article is also for anyone who is curious about my relationship with money and is curious enough to invest a little time into satiating their curiosity.

I’ll start at the beginning.

My Childhood Relationship with Money

I grew up in Ashland, a small town of 8,620 people in Northern Wisconsin. I lived in one side of a duplex with my mom and three siblings. It was a two-bedroom house plus a closet-like room that was creatively used as a bedroom when we got older. The four of us children had three different dads and only my sister’s dad paid child support. My mom worked as a teacher’s aide and made around $18,000 when we were young. My aunt and grandpa in Chicago helped out a lot financially. We received about $550/month in food stamps, plus government support for rent and utilities possibly, among other things. We were definitely in “poverty” according to the government definition and were very blessed to receive so much support.

The reason I mention this aspect of my childhood is because it had a huge impact on me. I felt poor and was extremely self-conscious and embarrassed about it. It caused me to lie a lot. Very few people ever came over to my house and I hid a lot of my life. I yearned to “be normal” and to have a “nice” house, a “normal family” and money, like many of my friends. I happened to make friends with the children of wealthier adults and this made me want a normal life even more. All I wanted was to be normal and, in my mind, the path to normalcy largely came through having money.

So I grew up extremely money focused. I had a paper route starting at the earliest age it was legal. I collected cans almost every weekend to sell by the pound at the scrap metal center. I had Kool-Aid stands and tried to sell worms and leeches to the bait shop. I collected piggy banks and cash registers. I counted my friends’ piggy banks. I persuaded my mom to take me to McDonald’s to play Monopoly in hopes of winning the million dollar jackpot. This meant eating a lot of hash browns because they were the cheapest items with Monopoly pieces.

In high school, I always had a job, from working at a fast food place to a gas station, being a lifeguard, to teaching swimming lessons. I kept track of every dollar that went in and out of my pockets. I also became quite addicted to poker, which I played with friends as well as online. I had poker figured out to always come out ahead in the long run.

My Relationship with Money as a Young Adult

I went to University of Wisconsin-La Crosse for biology, with a concentration in Aquatic Science. My school was completely paid for by grants. Freshman year, I was convinced to take work as an independent contractor for Southwestern Company, selling books door to door. I turned down the opportunity at first because it meant leaving for the entire summer. The prospect of making $9,000 in a summer lured me in though. The first two weeks, I was nearly last company-wide in sales, but I caught on week three and ended up being one of the top salesmen in the company. I worked 84-90 hours every week, more than almost any other first-year salesperson and ended up making $18,000 that summer. It was so incredible that a lot of people didn’t believe me.

The next two summers, I worked in Michigan and then Baltimore and made about $20,000 each summer. I managed other people and learned how to run my own business. My last summer, I decided to start selling advertising to businesses. I lived at my grandpa’s for the summer in Chicago, where I was the only rep for a new company called Attention Shoppers. I sold 30-second commercials over the loud speakers at grocery stores and did well. My goal was to be a millionaire before I turned 30. I moved on from that company and worked as an independent contractor for a few other ad companies, selling ads on grocery store shopping carts and the back of receipts. On my best days, I made $2,000 and I was always working on my own. It allowed me freedom to do pretty much whatever I wanted and I made enough to extensively travel the world on a budget. At that time, I saw money as freedom and was chasing it quite a bit. I was maxing out my Roth IRAs and investing in life insurance and reading books like Becoming Your Own Banker and Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I was very successful with money and always had enough. I was frugal though and didn’t blow it.

Trust Fund Kid?

I had financial independence from both my parents before I went to college. Well, I had financial independence from my dad my whole life and even loaned him money as early as high school. When I went away to college, I don’t think I received any financial assistance from my mom. I bought my first car for $500 when I was in high school and had my own insurance, cell phone, etc. I was on my mom’s health insurance until I turned 26 though. In University, my aunt paid for half of my first new car as a gift to me. It was a Mazda 3 that I paid $21,000 for in cash, half hers and half mine. It’s amazing how many times I’ve been assumed to be a “trust fund kid” by people on the internet who don’t know me. It really couldn’t be much further from the truth.

My Time as Businessman

In 2011, I moved out to San Diego, California to work with my manager at StarKart at the time. He and I partnered with a friend of his to do multiple advertising products at grocery stores. I was 24 and they were both in their 40s. I ran the register tape division of the company and it went pretty well. I was doing great in sales and hiring other independent contractors and training them. After six months, I left them because of their lack of integrity with customer service and their lack of following through on their promises to customers and independent contractors. It was a great learning experience and a profitable one, but I couldn’t work with these guys who didn’t care about much besides themselves and their families. Robert actually took a loan from me of $10,000, which he never returned. So that was a substantial hit in the profitability of that endeavor.

In September of 2011, I started my own marketing company, The Greenfield Group and started off selling exactly what I knew, advertising at grocery stores. Not too long later, at the advice of one of my independent contractors, I switched to advertising on the back of hotel key cards. The deal was, I’d supply the key cards for free to the hotels in exchange for allowing me to place advertising on them. We’d sell ads to places like restaurants, spas, shops, and taxis. Fairly rapidly, I decided I wanted to use my company to do be of service to Earth and joined 1% for the Planet. This is a network of businesses that donate at least 1% of total revenue to nonprofits. I went above and beyond and donated 5-10% of total revenue in my first few years. With profits, I also started a community bike program, a CFL light bulb exchange and hosted trash cleanups.

At the peak of my company, I had 20-25 independent contractors working around the US. From 2012-2014, I profited around $200,000 or so from my company as well as some investments in other companies and purchasing stocks (see Truth Series: My Financial Past). It was during all of that though, that I was becoming more and more aware of the environmental and social destruction that my business and, in turn, my life was causing. It’s not that I was doing anything that would be considered “bad” in the eyes of mainstream US America or a capitalistic society, but my view on the world was changing and I was transforming into living a much more Earth-friendly life. My life was reflecting what I believed. But all of my ads were selling garbage that people don’t need and my business was consuming unnecessary resources to do so. I was pushing consumerism and junky products. Sure, I was doing some real good with my business, but it didn’t outweigh the destruction.

I made a lot of transitions in my company to decrease the impact. A big one was giving up hotel key cards and switching to online marketing and marketing only for businesses that I truly believed in. My basic guidelines for taking on a client were that I would only take them on if I would have personally promoted them for free, solely because I thought the world needed more of them, their product or their service. In this way, my business could truly be used in service to Earth and humanity. But that wasn’t enough. 2014 was my last year of making money and I officially closed The Greenfield Group in 2015.

Awakening to the Truth of the Monetary System

In 2011, I started to educate myself on the state of the world largely through watching documentaries and reading books. I learned that the financial system in the United States is one based on a deep level of corruption and delusion. Nearly every way that I was involved in money was causing destruction to Earth and was part of incredible inequity and injustice. The money in my bank accounts, each transaction with my credit cards, my life savings, my investments, the money I was spending at the store, and even just the cash in my hands. Some say money is the root of all evil. That’s more or less what I was discovering. I learned that through my monetary transactions and financial involvements, I was living in incredible hypocrisy. The suffering of many humans and many plants and animals was happening on my behalf.
It was time for a BIG change.

Demonetizing My Life — Practicing in Adventure

In November 2012, I embarked on my first moneyless adventure. I flew one way to Cabo with just the clothes on my back, my cell phone and my passport on a mission to make it home. I did earn about $15 on the trip, so it wasn’t actually a moneyless adventure, but it taught me so much. I hitchhiked 1,300 miles through the desert to make it home.

In the summer of 2013, on my first bike ride across the US, I cycled across the state of Pennsylvania with no money. In January of 2014, I flew to Panama with no money and had to pass through seven countries, 7,000 miles starting with no money. Then in the Fall of 2015, I traveled from Brazil to Colombia starting without a penny in my pocket. This adventure was a 6 episode documentary for Discovery Channel called Free Ride. All of these adventures taught me more and more how to live more simply and without money.

Demonetizing My Life

From 2012 on, I was simplifying my life more and more to remove money from my life. In 2012, I sold my car to go pedal powered, saving myself about $7,000/year. I lived rent free in my apartment by renting out all the rooms and slept in a 6’ x 6’ closet and then a camper that I let a friend park in my driveway.

I learned that my investments and retirement funds (Roth IRA and life insurance) were aiding and abetting corrupt corporations including fossil fuel and cigarette companies. I divested 100% of my money from all of these investments in 2012. I built up my business with these funds.

I curbed my consumerism to a great extent. I’ve documented a lot of those changes in this Timeline of Transition from Drunk Dude to Dude Making a Difference and chronicled how I traveled for free in How to Travel America for Free Without Mooching. On my first bike ride across the country, I learned that I could get 100% of my food from grocery store dumpsters. I’m talking about dumpster diving, and this became my primary source of food. I even managed to give out thousands of dollars worth of food to others. By summer of 2014, I was down to just one bill (my cell phone) and had paid off all my debts. I also cancelled my last credit card so that I couldn’t get into debt again. It was years of transitioning to get to that point.

Read: Why I Canceled my Credit Cards

In 2014, I started a nonprofit called Happy, Healthy and Free to use as a tool to facilitate the projects that I wanted to do to be of service to Earth. My main initiative at the time was The Freestyle Gardening Movement. The nonprofit had a local credit union account and I donated the seed money to get the nonprofit started. The nonprofit covered the minimal costs that I had, including my website. So although, I didn’t personally have a bill to my name, I was still attached to some monetary transactions. The nonprofit was a very simple way to use money as a tool for positive change.

For my entire adult life, I had given my business to the big banks. In college, I had an account with Bank of America; in San Diego, I banked with Chase and I had multiple credit cards with Citi. I felt great about this when I started all of these accounts. In 2012, I learned that the big banks invest in projects that cause serious environmental and social destruction and have a deep level of corruption built into their foundation. Even knowing it wasn’t right, I stayed with them for a few years after that though. Leaving the big banks was an action that I did not take the leap on. I thought I needed them to accomplish my goals. In the summer of 2014, I finally cut all ties with the big banks and switched to a local credit union.

Read: Why I Switched to a Local Credit Union

Then in January of 2015, I purchased a 50 square foot tiny house and lived off the grid in the city for $950. Here I harvested rainwater, used a compost toilet, got the majority of my food from dumpster diving (and spent some of my limited money on nourishing food at the co-op), charged my few electrical devices with solar panels when I was at home and mostly rode my bicycle (or used a car-share program). I cancelled my cellphone and was now living without a single bill or debt to my name. I had set up where I could live a completely moneyless life at home if I wanted to. I didn’t do that though. Throughout all this time, I still had some savings from my business between 2012-2014. In March 2015, I calculated my net worth and it was $7,000 cash. Having saved this money allowed me to relatively comfortably transition my life.

I continued working towards a life that involves minimal money and continued making progress.

In 2015, I had demonetized my life to the point where I could live 100% money free at home.

2015 was my first year of making absolutely zero money.

Expenses I no longer have:

This was written in 2015 and is not necessarily a reflection of today.
$0 Rent
$0 Utilities (electricity, water, internet)
$0 Cell phone bill
$0 Debt bills (credit cards, student loans)
$0 Car (insurance, registration, maintenance, tickets, payments)
$0 Taxes
$0 Retirement savings (I plan to die with very little as you can see in My Public Will)
$0 Renters insurance: I have very few possessions to insure.
$0 Eye care: I got Lasik eye surgery in 2011, one of the best investments I’ve ever made.
$0 Gym membership: I exercise naturally outside
$__ Alcohol and drugs: I buy the occasional bottle of wine or six-pack of beer, so this is near zero, but not quite. (Note: in 2025, this is $0. See Why I Quit Drinking Alcohol and My Relationship with Plant Medicines, “Drugs” and Drugs)

Expenses I have never had and intend never to have:
$0 Children (I had a vasectomy in 2012)
$0 Pets
$0 Mortgage

Expenses that I do still have:
$3,600 Food (~$300/ month)
$200 Dentist yearly checkup
Personal travel
Small expenses: bike maintenance, car share program, clothing, personal hygiene items for body and residence, laundry, medical expenses, growing food for others, giving water, efficient faucets and energy efficient bulbs to friends to lower their resource consumption (and offset mine).

This expenses list written in 2015 and is not necessarily a reflection of today.

Taking Financial Vows
In order to keep myself accountable, honest and committed to my morals, I took vows in March 2015. I vowed to making no more than $15,000/year, to owning no more than $15,000 in possessions and to donating 90% of everything I made to nonprofits. My vow was for four years, with the intention to renew the vows every four years. Read my first vows: My Vows are Both Big and Tiny.

I took these vows then because I had put myself in a position where I had the potential to make a lot of money from my TV and media work (having just landed my own TV show on Discovery Channel and published my first book). Yet I had no intentions of personal financial gain from this attention. I did, however, want to filter that money into outlets that could effectively benefit Earth. From the beginning, I donated 100% of what I would have earned to nonprofits. I say I would have been paid because I didn’t accept any payment for these myself. In my contract with Discovery Channel, it was stated that I was not being paid, and that the $30,000 would be donated directly to environmental nonprofits. In this way, I could use the attention I received to help grassroots organizations without myself having to be involved with money. At that time, I wrote “The truth is that money does excite me in some ways. A lot of good can be done with money and I’ve managed to do good with it. But there’s a lot of negative impacts of money, such as it’s ability to disconnect people from what truly gives them life, as well as allow for an increase and ease in causing serious environmental degradation as well as destruction of ancient cultures, skills and traditions.”

Going Home Free
In January of 2016, I decided that I wanted to live without a home and with very few possessions. I auctioned off my tiny house to help start a tiny house community for the homeless in San Diego. I sold or gave away most of my possessions. Upon leaving San Diego, my net worth was $6,000 and I had just 111 possessions, all of which fit into my backpack. In 2016, I wrote “Everything I own is in the luggage rack above me as I write this on an old bus in Belize. I have been intending to completely run out of money for a little while, but it hasn’t happened yet. I’ll be traveling Central America for the next three months and returning to the US in June. I assume I’ll run out of money sometime this summer and I’m excited because I’ve always had money since I started working in middle school. This would be my first time not possessing any money.”

I did run out of money soon after. Read: Not a Penny to My Name … A Milestone Few Strive for

I have spent much time analyzing how money influences my life in ways that are restrictive and expansive, in ways that are destructive or healing. I have been releasing and releasing.

In 2016, I closed my credit union account. “Goodbye bank account. For about four years now, I have been working to free myself of the monetary system and this is a huge step forward. I am not completely free, but on most days, I don’t even think about money anymore. Most money I do deal with is not for my own needs, but to help grassroots environmental work. Each day I am striving towards real happiness, health and freedom and a life of deep truth.”

A meaningful step in release for me was letting go of all debts that were owed to me.

Around this time, I also decided that I did not want to be written into anyone’s Will. So I spoke to the few family members who I thought might have written me into their Wills and asked them to remove me. This was just one more step in truly removing myself from the monetary system.

One of my greatest influences in these early days was Mark Boyle, who at the time was living without money and continued his moneyless experiment for a few years. His books The Moneyless Man and The Moneyless Manifesto, had a profound impact on my life, educating me deeply on the monetary system and sharing everything I needed to know to step out of it completely. I had a dream of living completely without money, but I was also drawn to using my position as a way to use money as a tool for change. This was challenging to navigate at times. However, I went about directing funds to the people doing the work for Earth — whether through a nonprofit of my own, or through having funds donated directly to other nonprofits, I knew that I would have very little money in my personal life.

My Lifetime Vow to Not Pay Federal Taxes

The last time I filed a federal income tax return was in 2014. That was likely the last federal income tax return that I will have ever filed. In 2015, I made a lifetime commitment to resist federal income taxes. Quite simply, I have vowed to not pay federal income taxes for the rest of my life.

An incredible percentage of all of our tax dollars are used to fund wars and the Military Industrial Complex. Our tax dollars are used to prop up the big banks when these corporations blatantly steal from the US American public. Our taxes are being used to fund the building of prisons and to fight a “War on Drugs” that has led to an era of mass incarceration that exceeds any other nation on Earth. Our taxes fund police brutality against Black and Brown communities. Our taxes are disproportionately distributed to the communities who already have enough resources and withheld from the communities that are most underserved. It became incredibly clear to me that the taxes I was paying were not serving my fellow citizens of the US or my global neighbors. In fact, my taxes were doing the opposite, they were contributing to systems of oppression and exploitation. Through paying taxes, I was funding so much that I stood against.

Read: My Lifetime Commitment to Not Pay Federal Income Taxes

Note: Because I am not paying into social security, I have made a commitment to not withdraw from social security. I do not financially subsidize my life with taxpayer dollars from the government. No food stamps, disability, rent assistance or health insurance.

My Lifetime Vow to Donate 100% of My Media Income

Yet, at the same time, some of our taxes are distributed in a manner that serves the people: education, housing, food assistance, health care, public transportation, social security for the elderly and welfare for those in need. I have certainly benefited from our taxes, especially from government support I received growing up with a single mom and by receiving federal grants to attend university.

Some choose to believe that we must pay taxes in order to be a contributing member of society. Some choose to believe that we must pay taxes, or else we are a drain on our fellow citizens. However, I have devised my own tax system that allows me to resist these systems of oppression and exploitation while contributing just as much as taxpayers.

The purpose of our taxes is to take care of the people, right? The purpose of our taxes is to create a system that requires all of us to contribute to society, right? So, that’s exactly what I’ve chosen to do, but not through the federal income tax system.

I have made a lifetime commitment to donate 100% of my media income directly to grassroots nonprofits and organizations that truly serve the people. This includes TV shows and appearances, documentaries, books, product endorsements, etc. I do not take on these projects for personal financial gain. Funds are never paid to me. Rather, they are donated directly to nonprofits and grassroots initiatives.

Since 2015, I have alternatively redistributed my funds at approximately a 70% tax rate in this manner, a rate much higher than I am required to by federal income taxes. The organizations I support provide resources to people who are not receiving equitable benefits from the tax system. I prioritize distributing my finances to Black and indigenous women-led organizations. They represent the people that are most underfunded, underrepresented and underserved by our political systems. They represent the communities that are most harmfully affected by the corruption in our government and corporations.

Read: My Commitment to Donate 100% of my Media Earnings to People and Planet

I document all of my donations on this page here and share more in-depth information.

Read: Nonprofits I Recommend and Support

My Lifetime Vow to Earn Below the Federal Poverty Threshold

I am a tax resistor through the legal means of voluntary simplicity. By earning less than the federal poverty threshold, I do not owe any taxes. Thus, I am within legal rights to not pay federal taxes.

I have made a lifetime commitment to earning below the federal poverty guideline each year. For an individual person this was approximately $11,000 when I first made this vow and as of 2024, it is up to $15,000. My annual earnings have remained under $10,000 since my initial vows in 2015.

I share details on my annual earnings here and details on how I practice financial transparency.

By limiting the amount of money that I can earn to the federal poverty threshold, I drastically limit the ability for others to purchase my decision making, my audience, my influence, or sway my personal integrity. I have freed myself to make decisions that allow me to be of best service to Earth, humanity and our plant and animal relatives rather than to gain personal financial wealth. Keeping my financial assets at a minimum also helps me to live simply and sustainably.

My Lifetime Vow to Financial and Corporate Transparency

I have made a lifetime vow to practicing transparency in regard to how I earn money, where the money comes from and all companies with which I am financially involved. I do not hide any of my financial involvements. I am always open to questions about my involvement with money and will answer those questions.

Read My Commitment to Financial and Corporate Transparency for more information, for a record of my financial income and a record of my involvement with companies.

My Lifetime Vow to Maintain a Minimal Net Worth

I have committed to owning a minimal value of financial assets and possessions.
The sum of all of my financial assets will remain below an equivalent of the federal poverty threshold.

The net worth of my physical possessions will not exceed the federal poverty guidelines. Since 2015, my net worth has been under $15,000, and has generally ranged from $2,000 to $10,000. The value of my material possessions has ranged from $500 to $7,000, since 2016.

I adhere to the philosophy to “live simply so that others may simply live.” I believe that society and humanity would benefit greatly by sharing our resources rather than needing one of everything for everyone. I have been downsizing and simplifying my life since 2011.

Most of my possessions are tools that help me to meet my basic needs in life.

Read: My Net Worth. On this page, I update my net worth and keep records back to 2015.

My Vow to adhere to ethical financial practices

I committed to adhering to ethical financial practices and to not invest in or support unjust, inequitable or unsustainable businesses or systems.

In 2012, I took my money out of all investments that involved businesses with exploitative, oppressive and extractive practices. I no longer have any destructive investments.

In 2015, I removed my money from the big banks, which have substantial exploitative, oppressive and extractive practices.

I have no retirement funds, savings account, stocks, bonds, IRAs, life insurance or any other financial investments.

Read: How I’ve Worked to Defund Injustice from My Life

My Vows

In summary, the vows I have shared above include:

• Earn below the federal poverty threshold
• Maintain a minimal net worth
• Donate 100% of my media earnings
• Practice deep financial transparency
• Not pay federal income taxes
• Adhere to ethical financial practices

Read: My Vows to Humanity 2024-2028

My Credit Score is not Zero — It’s Non Existent

In 2018, after a couple years on the road, I settled in Orlando, Florida, where I would begin my next immersive experiment, to grow and forage 100% of my food for a year.

I built a tiny house out of 99% secondhand materials for under $1,500. I built this in the backyard of a local named Lisa, and instead of a monetary transaction, we agreed to a mutually beneficial relationship of me helping transform her lawn into a garden, helping her to grow food and live more sustainably at home.

I spent approximately two years in Orlando and completed my year of growing and foraging 100% of my food successfully. I already had known that I could eat without money by dumpster diving, now I took my level of independence from money to a whole new level.

I accumulated quite a few possessions for this project. At the peak of ownership, my possessions were valued at around $7,000 and I had $6,000 cash, for a total net worth of $13,000, the highest it had been since 2015.

Multiple years had passed since I withdrew all of my investments, canceled my credit cards, closed my bank account and then credit union account, and by this point, I had not a single financial account (I think Paypal may have been my last holdout, which I probably closed when I closed my credit union account). I decided to check my credit score, which in my earlier days I had been building up successfully. I thought my credit score would be zero by now, but I was joyously surprised to see it wasn’t zero, it was non-existent. There simply was no number for me. This was a joyous milestone in removing myself from the monetary sytem.

A credit score is not relevant to me because I have designed my life to need no credit. No credit means no ability to get into debt. I don’t need credit to rent a home, because my lodging comes through personal relationships. For long-term lodging, I often do a work exchange; for short-term lodging, I have many supporters with extra space for me, and occasionally I will pay “rent” with cash.

In early 2020, I left Orlando after two years, as planned and simplified my life down to what I fit into a small backpack, about 50 items. My net worth was ~$2,100 ($1,625 cash, $500 value of possessions).

How I Earn Money

I don’t have a job, yet I work as much as the average person and generally much more. Sixty-hour weeks are not uncommon for me.

Although I have had a TV show, that was not a job. 100% of the money was donated. Although I have written four books, I do not consider myself an author and writing is not my job. Although I manage the nonprofit Regeneration, Equity and Justice and have managed many people, I do not get paid to do that and even at times when it feels like work, I do not consider it a job. Although millions of people have watched my videos and read my writing, this has never been a job for me and I’ve never done it for money. Instead of working a job, I am a servant, doing most of my work for free. My pay is not money, but rather the meaning and purpose I gain from contributing to the well being of others; Earth, my fellow humans and the plants and animals we share this home with.

To make a living, first and foremost, I have demonetized my life so that I have much less money to make.

Since leaving behind my times as a business person/salesperson, the money that I have made has primarily been through public speaking at universities, schools, businesses, cities, events, etc. Speaking honorariums ranged from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars.
Because I do not need much money, I have not needed to do many speaking events to earn my basic living. (With no bank account, I could either be paid in cash or they could write a money order, which I could cash at a place like Western Union.)

In 2022, I got rid of my last forms of ID: my passport and birth certificate (I had already gotten rid of my driver’s license and social security card), so this meant I could no longer be paid by check or money order. This made it difficult to do public speaking. In 2023, I experimented with a more decentralized means of earning funds by hosting Barefoot School and Foraging School, which were offered on a donation basis. As of 2024, I have also accepted personal contributions from supporters who have the resources and want to help me meet my basic needs so I can focus my time on being in service.

My total personal earnings each year:
2024 – $6,300 total earned
2023 – $9,900 total earned
2022 – $8,600 total earned
2021 – $9,000 total earned
2020 – $0 total earned
2019 – $9,670 total earned
2018 – $8,000 total earned
2017 – $5,000 total earned
2016 – $0 total earned

See: My Financial Transparency page for more details.

My YouTube channel and my social media pages are not monetized.
I have never monetized my YouTube channel or my social media pages. I do not personally make any money from these outlets.

I have done paid social media collaborations, of which 100% is donated directly to grassroots nonprofits, which is documented here: My Commitment to Financial and Corporate Transparency

On Societal Norms

In my earlier years of becoming myself, I found that the number one thing that held me back from being who I truly wanted to be was societal norms. This goes for most of my peers. Perhaps the most important key to demonetizing ones life is to free oneself of restrictive societal norms and structures. This has been a central focus of my life and as I have shed these norms, many of the attachments to money have fallen away effortlessly.

On Relationships and Skills

To live with little money and to have no relationships or skills would likely mean being dependent upon the goodwill and kindness of others or stealing. Living simply is not a matter of complacency, but a matter of utter dedication, of mastery over one’s own mind, of holding a deep set of skills and of fostering deep relationships with Earth, with our communities and with the plants and animals we share this home with.

Gardening, foraging, cooking, food preservation, composting, bicycle maintenance, repair skills, carpentry, sewing and clothes making, rainwater harvesting, resourcefulness, critical thinking, problem solving, frugality, positive thinking, physical endurance, gratitude, mindfulness and compassionate communication are some of my skills that aid in living a life with less money.
I have created deep community around shared values and together we help to meet one another’s needs with less need for money. Earthskills is one of these communities where we have grown so much together.

Although I earn below the federal poverty threshold, I certainly have access to resources far more than the federal poverty threshold. I am not simulating living in poverty. That said, I stay with people who invite me into their homes, much food is shared with me, rides are given to me in personal cars, and often people offer to pay for my little expenses of material possessions, food and lodging. I accept this support with gratitude and with a balance.

I do practice great restraint in “living simply so that others may simply live” as inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. I turn down offers of support often that go beyond my needs, encouraging the most equitable usage of resources.

Now some would lean towards monetizing every single one of these transactions, yet sleeping in someone’s guest bedroom is not inherently a monetary transaction. It is a human relationship. Accepting a ride that was already going in that direction does not need to be considered a human transaction. Once breaking free from the money-driven mindset, we see that we can interact in a way that is not all monetized, but rather in a manner that is mutually beneficial.

Just as I have received much from others, I have given much to others as well. I no longer operate in a linear manner, where one must give me something to receive something in return. Rather, I give everything that I have freely and what I need comes from one means or another.

I fully believe that if I dedicate my life to being of service to Earth and humanity that my basic needs will always be met by the community should I choose to lean in. There will always be someone who is grateful for me who provides me with a place to sleep, warmth, water and food. I’ve designed my life around this belief in humanity, not a blind belief, but a deep practice of living in reciprocity.

Read: Living in Community

What I Spend Money on Now

Food (generally my main expense)
Transportation (trains, buses and rides with others)
Lodging: camping and occasionally paying for accommodations
Personal hygiene items and herbal medicine
Gear for different adventures and episodes of my life (occasional gear rental)
Tools and Items for foraging and food preservation
Making all of my clothes from scratch in 2024 (~$1,500)
Personal items
Replacing items I lose or break
Giving to others

I have spent $1,000 over the last two years on having my tattoo removed. This is one of a few, or perhaps the only, large spending in the last years that has been beyond basic needs.

So much of my time is dedicated to being of service and to meeting my basic needs through a deep connection to Earth that there are not too many areas in which I spend money anymore. I have shed any hobbies or interests that were inherently expensive.

On Health Insurance, Age and Death

In the discussion of money (or lack thereof) in the United States, the topics of health insurance, old age and dying often come up. I write in depth on this topic here: On Health Insurance, Age and Death. This includes a 45-minute video of me sharing my thoughts and my life practices in these matters.

Regeneration, Equity and Justice

After a few years of managing Happy Health and Free, I closed the nonprofit, instead partnering with other nonprofits to accomplish my service to Earth. This was an experiment in even more substantially decentering money in my life. After about two years, I found that I was not able to effectively and efficiently accomplish my service without a nonprofit. In 2020, I co-founded Regeneration, Equity and Justice and I have been the primary director of our work.

Although I do not own any of the assets or the money of the organization, there is a relationship of indirect ownership. I run the nonprofit as a tool to be of service and am always seeking the right balance in my involvement to live out my ethos of simple living. The nonprofit is the owner of my website and covers the finances, yet the relationship is more or less a relationship of ownership as I have full control of the site. I do not have access to the financial accounts, yet I do have the ability to direct the funds. I have made substantial progress in decentralizing myself from running this organization and would like to make further steps.

The operating budget for the organization ranged from $50,000 to around $200,000 from 2020-2024. In 2021-2023, I had a team working with me and the operational costs of this were quite high for me. I struggled to bring in funds for the organization to run our programs and pay the teammates and found my integrity was taking a hit through needing money to be of service. I was back in the rat race to some degree.

I struggled to keep my finances fully separate from the nonprofit, since, for example, I sometimes lived at the community house that I had rented out for our team. I practiced transparency with all of this.

Although my finances are separate from the nonprofit to a large degree there is some intertwining. Some of my activism campaigns are funded through the nonprofit, including Trash Me in NYC in 2016, 30 Days of Wearing my Trash in LA in 2022, 30 Days of Foraging 100% of My Food in 2022, and The Grow Your Own Toilet Paper Initiative in 2023. When traveling for these campaigns, my transportation is sometimes covered. When I did public speaking to raise funds for the nonprofit, this covered my travel as well and I often organized speaking around travels that I wanted to make, covering my basic travel expenses.

In 2023, I ended the community home. In 2024, I decided to put our programming on pause and in January, 2025, I put the organization into hibernation mode.
Financial transparency has been a deep practice of organization. As of 2024, our public ledger is now publicly viewable, which documents all of our incoming and outgoing funds.

At the time of this writing, the nonprofit has about $5,000 in the account (Amalgamated Bank)

Our financial transparency for Regeneration, Equity and Justice can be viewed here: For a deeper analyzation, read this letter written personally by Robin: Have I Effectively Been of Service with Regeneration, Equity and Justice?

View our 2022-2023 financial statement here.

View our 2021 financial statement here.

Interested in partnering with our organization? See our presentation!

The Experiment of Non-Ownership

I had given up on the idea. I thought it wasn’t going to happen. My dream of simplifying my life down to complete non-ownership — not owning a single possession — was just not going to happen. I had built up some meaningful things in my life and they were now solid in my mind.

But somewhere around 2022, after losing my passport, the idea rekindled: I could do it. I could become a human who owns NOTHING.

As I write this, I am just a few days away from arriving in Los Angeles, having walked from Canada, where I will give away everything I own, including the last of my money.

For a minimum of three months, I will not have a penny to my name. I have been preparing for this experiment for the last thirteen years. This is a substantial step in liberating myself from the monetary system.
Read: The Experiment of Non-Ownership

There is more that I would like to share about my relationship with money, but my time is simply limited. I plan to come back to this article in the future to bring more depth to some of these topics.

Truth Series: My Financial Past

In 2024, I came into full truth and transparency, sharing everything in my mind that I had been guarding or hiding. I released a series of nine videos that I published on YouTube. Part of this series included an in-depth sharing of my financial past. The transcript can be read here

My Dependence on Others

From the Experiment of Non-Ownership website:

By having no money will I be dependent upon others?
Absolutely!

I want to be dependent on others. Why? Because independence is an illusion.
The truth is that we are all dependent upon one another. The monetary system facilitates this illusion of independence, but behind every dollar we spend we are dependent on another human and upon plants, animals and the life cycles of Earth.
Mega-corporations and governments want us to buy into this illusion of independence, fragmenting us from our communities and our relationships with Earth, and rendering us dependent upon their products and systems.

I want to experiment with my belief that we can come together as humanity to take care of one another. So I am willing to put myself out there and say, “I need you.” “I will need you to help me meet my most basic needs of food and warmth and water and connection. I absolutely need your help.”

My belief is that the only way out of this mess we’re in is through community. Through a deeply interconnected community, where we embrace that we need one another to survive and to thrive.

Read further: On Independence Versus Interdependence

A note I’d like to include is that by stripping my life back to the absolute basics, I will need very little. Thus, it will be relatively easy to not be a burden upon others and to meet my basic needs.