Ten Ways to Live Outside the Box

Ten Ways to Live Outside the Box

You’ve heard all of the old sayings: think outside the box, color outside the lines, etc.

But these things are really important now – important to your lifestyle and your way of life! Seriously – read this the whole way to the end. You can break out of your biggest traps, avoid your biggest financial problems and really empower yourself to have a voice in today’s world.

1.    Cut Down on Our Biggest Expense: Housing

One way that people get stuck in the traditional financial trap is by paying huge mortgages on homes they can’t afford when they could have been living smaller and saving up cash.

The tiny house movement van life and trailer living are not just for low-income people. Higher-income people who embrace these ideas can put themselves on a new financial plan to battle the oligarchs and corporate forces from a position of strength. What if you had extra money on hand to call more of the shots? Think about it.

2.    Build a Slush Fund

Many of the services and advice provided by the professional elites is based on you not having two cents to rub together. They want you to consume as much as possible, even if you buy it on credit! Live below your means and stockpile your money. Rather than putting it into dubious investment vehicles, keep it for a rainy day. You’ll find yourself better poised to advocate for yourself in a cut-throat late-stage capitalist economy.

3.    Invest in Things, not Funds

Here’s a related part of the average financial trap that people typically fall into. They put all of their liquid cash into investment funds for retirement, and then something happens! They need an advance … so they take out the high-interest home equity loan or some other kind of terrible debt, or they use their credit card.

This is absolutely backward. Don’t put your liquid capital into places where you can’t use it. Instead, invest in a garden, become your farmer, a set of useful household assets, or livestock, and save on your consumption budget. Your money will grow faster, and you’ll have something to show for your labor instead of a 401(k) that can tank at the next market crash.

4.    Build Movements and Networks

So much of the traditional way that Americans live is based on keeping you isolated from your neighbors, your friends, and other people who could potentially help you out in a jam.

Don’t fall for that. Embrace communal ways of living, to save yourself and others a lot of resources and empower you, (and others), to hold your own in a dog-eat-dog world.

5.    Learn a Trade

Some of those individuals and families most battered by the changing winds of today’s economy are those who don’t know how to do in-demand trade work like electrical, plumbing, or auto mechanic work. You don’t have to be an expert – even a passing interest and knowledge in these kinds of work can provide you with critical revenue streams, to live with more power in your back pocket.

6.    Learn All the Trades!

Let’s take this a step further.

Labor specialization is the dominant model today. You’re supposed to learn one thing and learn it really well and make tons of money doing it. Then you’re supposed to buy a house and get all of these other professionals to help you fix it. When your car breaks down, you’re supposed to hire a mechanic. When you need food, you’re supposed to go to the supermarket…

You see where this is going. Specialization of labor traps people because you’re no longer able to make the money on that one specialized skill, whether it’s law, medicine, dog grooming, selling fruit, or anything else.

The current system asks us to become a jack of all trades, and take more ownership of our assets and our skills, to compete with the corporatized goods and services juggernaut.

7.    Live Off the Land

Why pay big money for packaged commodities when so much of what you use, your food and everything else, is abundantly available in the natural world?

When you see people using wood for heat or foraging for food, or stockpiling venison in freezers, the idea is that you lean on the abundance of the natural world, and save your resources for the economic competition that’s required of you.

8.    Tune it Out

Here’s another tip – restrict your big media diet. Many of the above traps happen when people listen to corporate media too deeply and don’t have any other sources of input.

“Turn off the TV, Get Off the couch, Get in the streets, and DO SOMETHING

*Ethan The Farmer, Founder GTKYF Foundation Inc

9.    Turn Yourself Up!

Along with the last tip, use your free time to build your own voice. Don’t settle for being a passive consumer of news, food, services, etc. Make yourself a producer, instead, and you’ll see all kinds of doors opening up.

10. As they used to say – Let Your Freak Flag Fly!

Dare to be Different, Become your own Farmer, and you’ll see that being different helps you to improve your quality of life and manage yourself, rather than letting other people manage you for the rest of your life. Live outside the box!

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