Thirty-year-old Scottish businessman Mark Boyle’s living cash-free-for-a year experiment came to an end on Saturday.Boyle has lived for the past 12 months as a true ‘freeconomist’, leading a self-sufficient lifestyle in a caravan in Timsbury, near Bath, growing his own food and reusing junk that people have thrown away.
He says he has not spent a penny and has become a happier person, and pledged to continue living without cash.
Boyle cycles everywhere, his phone only takes incoming calls, he has solar-powered showers and cleans his teeth with toothpaste made from washed-up cuttlefish bones.
Boyle gives Mahatma Gandhi the credit for his successful experiment. “The film Gandhi blew my mind,” he explains. “My life went in a whole new direction. I realised that the only truly sustainable way is to give up cash and reconnect with nature, so I gave away all my possessions like Gandhi, to start a new life.”
That meant ditching his job of running a successful organic food firm and spending his last £350 (Rs26,785) on kitting out a caravan for his new cashless existence.
The Irish-born economics graduate blogs online about his life using a solar-powered laptop on wi-fi time he earns in return for carrying out odd jobs on a local farm. “It’s been the happiest year of my life, and I will continue indefinitely, so I do not see any reason to return to a money-orientated world,” he said.
He had tried to walk from Bristol to Porbander in Gujarat to pay homage to Bapu, relying entirely on people’s goodwill and generosity, but had to give up in a month after facing difficulties in France. Boyle, a vegan, now plans on promoting the Freeconomy movement through his blog and Freeskilling events to teach people how to live frugally.
—DNA, 11/30/2009, Bengaluru Edition
