[cowsandmilk]

I don't know about the OWS and NYC kids, but I highly doubt Dan Price (the guy at the top living in a hobbit hole) is on welfare.

When I formerly lived in a tent in West Virginia, I knew lots of people who lived in similar "intentional poverty". Many of these people had seasonal jobs. Where I worked as a whitewater rafting guide. None of us had to pay for housing beyond just having a tent because we set up on the land owned by the outfitter. At the end of the season, half the guys went off to become ski instructors, often at places that similarly put them up for the winter. Many of the guys who had been doing this for a decade or more had enough cash saved up each year to go to Belize where they had similar arrangements for free housing and would raft for fun with raft guide friends in Belize.

During the summers I lived there, I actually could eat and drink purely off tips from customers and didn't touch my meager salary which all went into the bank. I banked enough during the summer that I could easily have purchased skis and hit the slopes as a job for the winter if I chose or live in a tent in Belize. The simple life ain't that hard if you live in the outdoors.

[KevinEldon]

My wife's cousin lives this way, has for over a decade, and seems to have the kind of social network that enables this kind of living. I'm doing more than fine as a developer, and although I come from meager backgrounds came quite comfortably into having money as soon as I found employment, but do not have the kind of focus and spending discipline that living on a little requires. Perhaps everyone could cultivate an appreciation for income and really learn where they wanted to spend it. You can live on a little and have a lot, but it's very possible to have a lot and still have very little that actually matters.

[bmj]

"At either end of the social spectrum there lies a leisure class."

-- Eric Beck