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How Can You Homestead With No Money?

© Gloria Morris

Many people believe that they cannot afford to homestead because they have been brainwashed by "Madison Avenue" advertising to believe that they must have various modern conveniences of the consumer culture. For example, following an article I wrote some years ago about deep mulch gardening, I received a number of emails from people who were excited to hear about a low tech form of gardening. These people had previously believed that because they could not afford a power tiller, they could not afford to garden. Advertising had convinced some readers that they must have a tiller in order to raise food. This consumer culture stands between many people and their homesteading dreams.

The roots of our present consumer culture lie in the Great Depression. A 1929 report by the Herbert Hoover Committee on Recent Economic Changes stated:

"The survey has proved conclusively what has long been held theoretically to be true, that wants are almost insatiable; that one want satisfied makes way for another. The conclusion is that economically we have a boundless field before us; that there are new wants which will make way endlessly for newer wants, as fast as they are satisfied. . . . Our situation is fortunate, our momentum is remarkable."

As quoted in Your Money or Your Life, Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, Penguin Books, 1993, p. 16. (A book I would highly recommend as an idea generator for anyone trying to save money for their dreams.)

We now have an economy based on consumer debt, which is dependent upon people believing that they must have more things in order to have a decent standard of living, and in order to be happy and fulfilled in life. But are people really happy and fulfilled?

What many people today view as necessities, people of my parent's generation viewed as luxuries (or our "necessities" didn't even exist yet). Further, we have come to view our own spending not only as necessary but as our patriotic duty. When I posted a commentary in an online homesteading folder concerning the uniquely capitalistic irony of marketing frugal living "accessories" on the Internet, another homesteader patriotically leaped to the defense of capitalism. If consumers fail to engage in a spending frenzy at Christmas, the newspapers and magazines all begin to forecast dire consequences for the economy and our standard of living. If it is our need and our duty to spend ourselves deep into debt, it is no wonder that many would-be homesteaders wonder how they can ever have a homesteading lifestyle. Of course, judging what is patriotic by following headlines can be difficult, since we also see dire headlines about rising consumer debt, the bad economic consequences of a lack of savings, and the dramatic increase in bankruptcy filings in recent years.