It’s so hard to give up trying to save the world.  I used to arrogantly think if I could just tell enough people…. Only a privileged white middle class person like me would even think it possible. I’m assuming this foolish notion of control comes from a combination of my upbringing, schooling, indoctrination and need […]

Read more "Collapsnik"

Everyday I am thinking about my exit strategy. My fossil fuel exit plan. It consumes most of my waking hours. You might say I’m obsessed. I say ‘why aren’t we all obsessed?’ We are, after all, living in an emergency. I am mobilised. It’s hard to explain to anyone what this feels like. Those who […]

Read more "exit strategy or obsession"

I made the decision – one of the biggest of my life – in the midst of stretched conversations, planning our future over a whiteboard and black marker, with ‘Special K’ (the man in my life at the time). He had been living with me and my girl, Amy, for four years in the beautiful […]

Read more "a decision for our times (reflection on the genesis of 5 years moneyless living)"

Here’s a wrap-up of the beginnings of our retrosuburbia experiment – our low-impact, household-based climate action. We all moved into this house in the middle of last year and aim to move away from fossil fuels and our household’s reliance on external, planet-wrecking resources. The first step for me was to build a little sleeping […]

Read more "Six months on…"

My moneyless life is evolving. While still keeping my own impacts low, I am now living and working with my dear friend, Sharon, to ‘retrofit’ her household, lowering the whole family’s footprint. The time of my relative isolation is over and it’s the dawn of a much closer collaboration than I have tried thus far […]

Read more "retrosuburban dreaming"

I am living in my friend’s backyard in town. I call it ‘Kim’s farm’. People often ask about the arrangement Kim and I have made.  There is no formal ‘arrangement’ between us. We simply agreed it was a good move for us both for different reasons. I needed a place to park my wagon, grow […]

Read more "hugelkultur"

Feelings run from frustration to determination. The sense of reward – world domination – when I push through the last millimetres of steel bracket is thrilling. Maybe akin to that sense of achievement as a little girl when I learned to lift my little legs off the ground and ride unaided on my first little […]

Read more "Ol’ school tools"

No money for a new wardrobe? No problem. Over the Christmas season I have inadvertently undertaken a moneyless wardrobe reinvention.  Moneyless living can be abundant. Again I have proved to myself how easy this is. Or maybe I’ve just proved that I live in a world of ‘peak stuff’. They are calling it ‘slow fashion’, repurposing, upcycling, […]

Read more "‘a reinvention’ – the low-impact way"

I feel like a little kid stomping my foot, pointing and shouting about the unfairness of it all! It’s climate change’s fault! I want to scream, rant, wail, rail against the injustice. Why did I have to be here in this time of climate upheaval? Why am I forced to make choices that cause me […]

Read more "climate change made me do it"