Hailing from the UK, Mark Boyle, also known as the Moneyless Man, has miraculously been living without the green stuff since 2008 after having an enlightening conversation with a friend about the root of evil in our society. Since then, he's sold all of his expensive possessions and has steadily learned to live off the land.
From Oddity Central:
Having graduated college with a degree in business and economics, Mark Boyle quickly found a good-paying job at an organic food company in Bristol, UK. That had been his plan for years – get a good job and buy all the material things that society (himself included) associated with success. But everything changed one night in 2007, during a friendly philosophizing session with a friend over a glass of Merlot on his houseboat. They were discussing world problems and how to best tackle them to actually make a difference. That’s when he realized that money was at the root of most problems, and remembered Gandhi’s famous quote: ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’.
“I was sitting around with a friend one night in 2007 discussing the world’s problems, and we were trying to work out which one to dedicate our lives to helping solve,” Boyle told CNN. “Then it hit me, at the root of it all was money, which creates a kind of disconnection between us and our actions, whether that’s through sweatshops, industrial agriculture, or war, and so I decided to see if it was possible to do without.”
Soon after that, Mark sold his expensive houseboat, moved into an old caravan that someone donated to him because they just wanted to get rid of it, and began his money-free existence. The first few months were tough, because he needed to replace the comforts he had become accustomed to, like the morning cup of coffee, with things he could source for free, from nature.
“The first few months were hard, just finding my way,” Mark admitted. “If you think about how disruptive it is when you just move house or change a job, imagine changing everything at once. But after a couple of months, it became very easy, I had all my routines worked out.”
Boyle’s money-free lifestyle became a viral news topic when he launched his book, The Moneyless Man, in which he goes into detail about the challenges he faced when making the transition and the practical solutions he came up with, as well as about the philosophy that pushed him to make such a drastic change in his life.
You have to give this guy some serious credit; he saw a problem and was bound and determined to solve it in his own way.
That kind of determination is hard to find these days.
