Hostel Economics 101

Reader Contribution by Anneli Carter-Sundqvist
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Something that interests me greatly with this homesteading life are the economic circumstances for it. To live like we do has a lot of political reasons, and to stand outside of the general, mainstream financial system is a major one. For you who haven’t followed my blogs before, here’s a short update on our homesteading economy;

The overarching philosophy when it comes to money is that if we don’t spend it, we don’t have to make it.  We strive to keep the circle closed; to provide our own needs from the gardens, woods and our own hands, thus minimizing need for cash, thus being able to focus on providing our own needs from here at home. So there are two parts to this; how to live a rich life with little money, and how to make the money we do need in a sustainable, enhancing, and ethically sound way.

We choose to live without a lot of things that would cost money to get, do or maintain. We like to make most of the cash we do need here at home, and do so by running the Hostel in the summer months. Dennis and I have chosen to spend our life together, therefore we’d like to spend our days together. We’ve chosen this place to live, therefore we’d like to spend most of our days here.

We do go to work off the farm every so often. Partly because the Hostel still mostly pay for itself without leaving much for us, partly because it’s nice to see something but you’re own weeds sometime. I do landscaping with my neighbor, once a week on the island. I pruned apple trees for a week this past month and maybe once a year or so me and Dennis fix up a roof, usually in the neighborhood. That amount to about 35-40 days of work, off farm, a year. And that, my friends, is enough.

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