How to Live the Almost-No-Money Lifestyle

One of the major benefits of managing a property for wild game in the way I talk about is that you can create a sustainable food source that over time will be practically free. This fact is a huge contributing factor for why I endorse this land management strategy. However, there are many other things you can do to live a lifestyle that approaches $0. While this post will be a little off topic compared to my other posts I think it can tie in nicely to the lifestyle I talk about.

One of my major goals in life is to reduce my expenses as much as possible, especially recurring expenses. Things like a mortgage, student debt, rent, power bills, gas, food etc. are all recurring expenses that most people have to pay. But each one can be reduced, and most can be done away with completely.

Let's look at housing.  The vast majority of people either rent or have a mortgage. This is usually a huge chunk of a person's annual costs. The solution to this is to use cash to purchase a house or bare land and park a trailer or build your own home. Now most people can't afford to do this which is why you need to plan very carefully on how to save up money first. This takes a lot of discipline and hard work, but I believe practically everyone can do it no matter how bad their current financial situation is. It just takes a lot of sacrifice and a minimalist lifestyle.

Once you have your own home most other things become easier because that's the largest chunk of money in most people's annual expenses. Now obviously I’d recommend you buy a property with at least 5 acres to hunt and grow food on so your annual cost of food could be brought down to near zero. Some other things I'd recommend are avoiding any other kind of debt like student loans and a car payment. This is essential in getting rid of recurring expenses. If, for example, you have to go to college, which I would discourage the vast majority of people from doing, then I would definitely find a way to do it without taking on any debt. Like buying a house with cash though, it is hard to do and takes hard work and sacrifice.  

Here are some ways to get rid of monthly utility bills. For electricity I highly recommend getting solar panels. This is a one time expense and once you have them they will give you free energy for a long time. You just need to maintain them well. I also recommend doing things to conserve energy in general that way you don't need as much and there are a million different things you can do for that.

For water the best solutions are digging a well, developing a spring and collecting rainfall from your roof. Again these are all 1 time expenses that once they're paid for will last you a long time.

While getting rid of your phone and internet bill is impossible unless you just want to completely cut them out, you can get bare minimum plans that will help save you a lot of money. And it's not impossible to live without phone and internet, but it would be a pretty big sacrifice.

For gas for your car the best solution is to get a very efficient vehicle. Maybe consider getting a scooter or small motorcycle that has really good gas mileage. Another thing you can do is try to not drive a lot. If you have to commute to work then live really close by so your gas bills will be reduced. Another exciting new alternative would be to get an electric vehicle and charge it with solar power. Most electric cars are still very expensive but this new technology is improving fast and it's likely there will be more affordable options fairly soon.

Lastly there is food. This one is what my blog focuses on the most. I think hunting and foraging for food instead of buying it at the store has huge benefits. And if you set up your property like I talk about in my blog then I think this way of acquiring food could be completely sustainable in the long run. The only costs would be hunting license/tags which are very cheap compared to buying food at the grocery store. Then there is all the hunting equipment you need such as weapons and ammo etc. But most of it is a small one time buy except maybe ammo. But nonetheless this way of getting food would be much less expensive than the grocery store. Also some other ways of getting free food are scavenging roadkill which sounds gross but as long as it's fresh there's really nothing to worry about. Also foraging for wild plants and mushrooms on public lands can be done for free. In some areas where there are nuisance animals like feral pigs and beavers people will actually pay you to remove them, so there's a way to get food and get paid at the same time.

So what would an almost no-money lifestyle look like? Well let's say you graduate high school and instead of going to college you decide to get 2 dead end jobs and work your ass off for a few years while still living with your parents (I did this for 1 year and saved over $20,000). Alternatively, if your parents aren't as generous you can live out of a van to save money on rent only paying for gas and food (I also did this for a year). But anyways you save up a good chunk of cash and buy a cheap bare land property. Next you can buy a cheap used camper trailer and park it on your property while you save money to build a cabin. You build a cabin, collect the rainwater off the roof, install solar panels and manage your property to attract game animals to hunt. Many of the trees you plant to attract game will also produce food for you such as fruits and nuts. You shoot some game animals fill your freezer, pick some fruit and nuts, maybe grow a small garden for some veggies and you are pretty set.

You can do all this while at the same time working and saving most of it in order to finance the establishment of the lifestyle. But once all of this is established your only annual expenses might be property taxes, a phone/internet bill, hunting liscences/tags, health and car insurance, maybe a little bit of gas if you don't have an electric vehicle, and that's pretty much it. And if done right all of these expenses can be greatly minimized too so that you will have extremely low annual expenses. So much so that you can work much less than the vast majority of people and retire very early. Or you could keep working and save a ton of money for international vacations , “toys” like a boat or 4 wheelers, starting a business or give it to charity. If you minimize your cost of living to this super low point then the biggest gain is freedom.

So here are some of the main takeaways. Don't get into debt. If you already have debt get rid of it as quickly as possible. Work hard for a few years and save up money for your biggest expense which will be your property. Try to reduce all your other expenses as much as possible. If something seems too extreme do it anyways as you can always adjust later on.

So while a lot of this does seem extreme I have personally done a lot of these things in order to save money and the ones I haven't done I've researched enough to know they could be easily done. So if your dream is to live free knowing that your lifestyle costs practically nothing while at the same time owning property that you can hunt on and feed yourself from then I recommend trying a few of the things I've talked about so you can live free too.