I have been thinking a lot lately what it means to be actually poor versus frugal or choosing a lifestyle that many people would describe as being poor even if it involves many expenses not apparent on the surface. Some of it’s joining the Frugal Living group on Facebook, but also it’s been my observations lately on SNAP, watching and reading about homesteaders and homesteading families, and even farmers who spend enormous amounts of money on their livestock and feed but often live in rundown homes and drive old beat up vehicles. Probably what brought me to term was reading about the old Positivity Alliance, one of those communes where the members gave away all their wealth to be poor enough that where exempt from paying income taxes and funding the war.
I ride my bike and take the bus home most days from my office in suburbs. It’s not fast, the bus is clunky and slow. But I certainly could drive to work with the acres of parking. Yet, I’m well aware that there are many people who can’t afford to drive or have no choice but to take the bus. I suspect many of the people I see riding the shuttle back and forth and then transferring to city bus even at my office don’t do it because they choose that lifestyle.
Likewise I shop at primarily at Walmart and thrift shops, live in a pretty rundown but cheap apartment, don’t use my heat much, live without a television or high-speed internet, and it’s been months since I’ve had my laptop at home. But those are choices, as people point I out, you’re a director, you could live some place a lot nicer, a lot warmer, with all the color and light of a modern suburban home. Indeed, compared even to my neighbors or even many poorer people in city, I live particularly simplistic. But a lot of it is I don’t like the world of advertising, buying shit, plastic, landfills. Even if I do drive a big jacked up truck out in wilderness. The money I don’t spend now I want to save and eventually put towards my off-grid cabin.
Truth is it’s not always clear how much money people have, and why people choose to live the way they do. While it’s obvious the status symbols of wealthy suburbanite – the fancy chemical lawn, the grid-tied solar panels, the weekly trash pickup and television and high speed internet in each room – many others do choose to live simply. Many homesteaders are poor, in part because opportunities for good paying work in rural areas are few and far between. Or they just don’t want to participate in the often scammy-consumerist business life of hawking questionable products to both government and the private sector. And certainly many farmers give up much to reinvest in their land, and keep them and their familes on it.
Farming and homesteading is really expensive. It really is shocking even how much used equipment costs, to say nothing of feed and fuel bills, fencing. Land is remarkably expensive, much less building a house or off-grid systems especially if you’re seeking maximum comfort and compliance with building codes. It’s easy to be impoverished in a conventional sense with all those costs if you want to dedicate your life to your land. To say nothing about tax bills – they are no joke for farm families or anyone that owns a significant amount of land, especially compared to what the land can return in commercial product sales. It’s different to be struggling to stay on one’s own family land by trying to squeeze enough produce out of it compared to struggling to stay off the street, but often the margins after cost and the risk to life and legacy are pretty similar.
I have nothing but distaste for the fake nature of suburbia, the chemical lawns, color and light of modern homes full of appliances, the constant drone of advertising telling you to buy and discard shit, the seemingly limitless electricity, the packages that appear mysteriously on your door step when you order them, the flushing of toilets that disappear the poop to far away place or the trash that disappears when you put it out at the curb. All the brightly colored packages at the store. I think I’d much rather smell the cattle and horny buck goat or the smoke off burn barrel, see the sun hit my solar panels, or have food that less then perfect. Like the poor people. But I’m saving for that life, and some day I will make the leap.
Truth is that I’m not poor even if I don’t keep much money in my bank account and I’m loathe to spend and waste money unnecessarily, buying more crap that I later have to get rid of. I don’t love paying large electric bills for something that is invisible and gives me little joy. I’d rather sweat a bit in summer, shiver in the winter. Sit in darkness in winter and spend my nights as much as possible in the wilderness, next to fire and out riding trail and exploring. I don’t like the comforts that so much of middle class suburbia is addicted to.