Jo Nemeth. Photo: Supplied
Almost 10 years ago, Jo Nemeth decided she no longer wanted to participate in the monetary economy.
The New South Wales resident told RNZ's Saturday Morning she made the decision because she was sick of the hefty toll that her purchases had on people and the land.
"There were two main reasons that I decided to do this experiment (experiment is the right word I think). Firstly, because I was barely making ends meet, living paycheque to paycheque, and it was very stressful."
"The main reason, though, is because I was sick of hearing about, reading about, seeing how everything that I was buying was having these ... really terrible impacts on other people around the world and on the biosphere.
"Every time I went to the shops I had to choose between a bad product and a worse product, and it was just doing my head in.
"When I discovered that some people have chosen to live without money in the western world I thought 'oh maybe I can do that too'.
"I wrote a list of what I actually needed to survive and that took about 10 minutes, I thought that was going to be difficult but it was very easy of course."
She said she realised she mostly just needed accommodation and food.
"What I needed to survive was not a lot, and I just started ticking off the list.
"Once I had worked those things out I gave myself a year to prepare."
Once her daughter Amy was finished with school she gave her the last of her money and began to live her new life, she said.
Jo Nemeth. Photo: Supplied
Living off the land
Surviving without accommodation was the first challenge she faced in her new money-less life.
"I was living in the country just outside of Lismore, and I knew some friends of mine lived down the road. And they had a big farm, and they were growing food in a market garden.
"I thought ... they might need a hand."
When she spoke to them about her experiment of living without money they were confused at first, but warmed to the idea, and she stayed there for just over a year, Nemeth said.
"It was a really lovely existence for a time."
During this time she said she discovered what was called the "gift economy", she said.
"It's like paying it forward. You do something for someone else without the expectation of something directly in return.
"The gift economy is about giving as you can, giving freely.
"It's beautiful, it's a lovely way to be if you can do it."
"We actually are, all of us, involved in the gift economy. Because we all give without the expectation of return. We give presents, gifts, we give our time to help people out ... In our monetary economy it's just a very small part."
Jo Nemeth. Photo: Supplied
In 2016 she moved into town, because she wanted to get more involved with her community, and hitch-hiking in and out of town was not always the most efficient, Nemeth said.
"In town I've had to do a bit more bartering, which I find quite strange."
Nemeth moved in with her best friend Sharon after her husband died and "helped her get back on her feet", she said.
Once her friend sold her house, which was always the plan, Nemeth's daughter Amy moved in to Sharon's new place, and was shortly followed by Nemeth herself.
"I came to dog-sit and help to look after the dogs and hang out here in 2018 and then after that I kind of stayed and we worked out an arrangement.
"Sharon just said, 'Look, I don't want to do the gardening, but I want a garden. So can you just take over the gardening for me?'."
"I've also been managing the household and making food, and doing things to reduce the household's consumption and the need for them to buy things."
Initially she had been nervous to tell people about her idea to go money-less.
But when she told her best friend, Sharon, she said it sounded great and that it was "exactly the kind of thing" she would expect from Nemeth.
"Since then it's been great, I've had nothing but support from friends and family," she said.
Health hiatus
Nemeth said she always knew health would eventually pose a challenge to the moneyless life.
"Physically I'm ok but I do have bad teeth, so I had a feeling my teeth would let me down, and I'd need to go and get some dentistry. And I couldn't figure out how to do that without money.
"I'm just about reaching my 10-year mark, and once I've reached that nice round figure, I'm going to start a GoFundMe campaign and get a dental fund going.
"So I am going to have a hiatus in living without money for a while, while I get my teeth fixed and then I'm going to continue with this as long as I can."
'Quite naive when I first started'
Things have definitely changed for Nemeth over the 10 years she's been living this lifestyle.
"I was quite naive when I first started, you know, believing that when people hear about what I'm doing understand and why I'm doing it ... they would reduce their impacts and not buy so much stuff.
"I had these rose-coloured glasses on and now I don't have rose-coloured glasses on anymore."
She said she was forced to face the reality that "things weren't changing and they're not going to change".
Nemeth said she was not optimistic about the future.
"Nervous is an understatement. I am now what is referred to as 'collapse aware'," she said.
"I didn't know that 10 years ago. I thought it was climate change and that was pretty bad. But I didn't realise how bad, and I didn't understand all of the crises that we were facing.
"Now I need to grow my community even more, and grow more food and help cushion the fall," she said.
"Globally I think I've been able to inspire a lot of people ... through the media, but I'm not sure how much people have been able to take on. You know, it's hard."
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