are there currently millions of permaculture millionaires? (the story of Gert)

I just noticed that this thread has more than a quarter of a million views.

paul wheaton wrote:I just noticed that this thread has more than a quarter of a million views.

It's most definitely worth it.  I think out of all threads on permies.com, I share it most often.

Where is this place where Gert doesn't have to pay for property taxes?

Holly Magnani wrote:Where is this place where Gert doesn't have to pay for property taxes?

I think that both ferd and gert will be paying all their taxes.  

What makes you think that gert is not paying taxes?

It's exactly the same with holistic health. Or the natural diet for the species. Falls on deaf ears or is ridiculed. The MDs or vets are the specialists aren't they? But many don't stop to think who trains them (big p-harmer) and the pet food industry. It seems we're slow learners. Or perhaps worried by being different from the rest.

Dougan Nash wrote:I agree with the sentiment of Gert, but she just conveniently started with a few acres. I know there are a lot of people like me who want to dive right in but land is expensive. I am also (like many in my generation) burdened with student loan debt. Half of what my wife and I make goes towards minimum payments. We were young and dumb and 8 years later, no sign of it ending.

If I took all the money I am paying retroactively for school and could put it into land, I would be a Gert. However, I cannot find a permaculture solution to this debt. I have tried government aid, and working with my private loans. Neither work. Bankruptcy won't even erase it. I probably won't even be approved for a mortgage until I'm in my 40s.

There's a system called Cestui Que Vie you might like to explore.  I know little about it but this video goes into some of it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=7h70TDZ4PkE

I've heard about Gert a number of times.  The concept takes my brain in many different directions...so there's a significant risk this post could be quite scattered.

With respect to millionaires, a saying has stuck with me for a number of years - money makes good people better and bad people worse.  I think that makes a lot of sense and I've seen it go both directions.  The key is to find and surround yourself with good people, regardless of how much money they have.  That would be community, or in the language of the 8 forms of capital, social capital.

Language is powerful.  Sometimes a tweak in how we say things can have a profound impact on our psychology.  My present career path is in financial services.  I cringe when I hear someone say "live below your means".  I much prefer "live within your means".  To me, living below comes across as less somehow.  Living within is more about understanding where you are and what you have, assessing your needs (versus wants), and making a decision about where to exchange your financial capital.  As I was preparing to go to university, my father gave me a piece of advice that has stuck with me.  "Never go into debt for something like a TV."  Not much has changed in the ensuing decades since he told a teenager / young man that except for the price of TVs.  Now, perhaps a TV is passe and we can substitute bigger monitor / additional monitor / new smartphone / tablet / whatever the latest gadget is.  Part of why Gert is happy is her sense of "enough".

As others have noted, it takes time to get things set up to achieve full Gertitude (if you even seek to get there).  That said, when it is set up, you can rely less on external inputs.  If you have an energy efficient home, generate some of the required energy yourself, grow and preserve much of the food you eat, and perhaps grow your own fibre for textiles, or make / repair your own clothes, or perhaps find deals (new or used).  Keep in mind that our basic physical needs are food, clothing (at least here in the great white north), and shelter.  With assessing needs, how much square footage do you "need"?  I'm sure most of us in North America could do with a lot less than we have, especially if we have less "stuff".

The ubiquitous "we" like to complain about things like taxes, inflation, energy costs, and so on.  If we used less stuff and energy, we would require less income, which could allow us to pay less in tax.  If we modified our lifestyle to be more resilient with respect to growing / preserving / preparing more of our own food, we could spend a lot less at grocery stores.  If we worked on energy efficiency in our lives, we'd pay less to the utility companies.  That way, less income could be "enough".  

In Canada, the (largely ignored) legal requirement is that barter is still an exchange to be accounted for on our income taxes.  Since few, if any, actually report it, I'm not sure how much that rule matters.  I don't advocate breaking the law, but if we think from a perspective of abundance, if I have something in excess that you need or want, and vice versa, an exchange can be mutually beneficial.  That doesn't need to be "stuff", although it can be - it could be life energy (labour), or knowledge (master/apprentice), or other areas.  I think how strong communities look - at least in times past, in rural areas, when someone needed help, the community pitched in (think barn raisings or getting the fields seeded or harvested).  I'm sure that still happens, but with the decline of small family farms, there are fewer people in those rural areas to pitch in and pull together for work like that.  Still, I hope to be able to foster at least some of that sense of community, as much as a cantankerous curmudgeon like me can.

Being here at Permies implies we are all seeking something along the scale of Gertitude (unlikely full Ferditude).  In a different (but I think related) scale, I think of the Wheaton Eco Scale - in going through the description, elements of my life are at least at level 5, but other elements of my life are certainly lower.  I'm not sure how far I'll climb the scale, but it's cool to think I may be one in a million (and many people are thankful I am one in a million...at least in some aspects that there aren't more like me).  

One example that I've recently taken is drying some of our laundry on a rack rather than the dryer.  We haven't gone all the way, and She Who Must Be Obeyed's work clothes need to be a bit spiffier (funny how her nicest stuff isn't allowed to go in the dryer...hmmm), but using the sensor on the dryer, thinking that if I remove some of the heavy things like jeans and my pants and some of the towels and flannel, the dryer will run less to do a "load".  Even if we reduce our dryer energy by 10%, considering that is a big energy use in the house, we should see an impact in our overall energy use.

Now that it seems I'm rambling, I'd better stop.

We may not be there yet, but I think we are on our way to becoming permaculture millionaires.

Todd Parr wrote:

There is a standing joke among my family and friends that they look at my land and see chaos.  I see biodiversity

Yep: where are the straight plow lines and bare soil 😂

Here they call "gertitude" "neo peasants"

I’m a Gert.  I don’t know how many of us exist in the permaculture world, but I find many of us at tangentially-related things like weekday daytime antique tool auctions, library meetups, and heritage and native plant swaps so I know we’re around.  

I suspect many of us either don’t want to be bothered poking our heads up to be noticed or we just are too busy getting on with things to waste time explaining ourselves to others.  I’d rather break every jar I’ve ever canned and bulldoze my garden than waste time explaining myself and my lifestyle to strangers.  No thanks, I’ve got seeds to start.

I think Spike Driver Blues could be a Gert anthem.



Judson even sang it!

this is part of what i am advocating for with gertitude

(the image is kinda broken, but you get the idea)

Grocery store delivery adds another step with the food delivery service in that it goes to the store, then someone there packs it and it gets delivered.

Two weeks ago I picked up a 1/4 grass fed Angus beef.  A farmer neighbour of our acreage (about 6 km away) raised the animal, and it was custom cut and wrapped at a country butcher (about 60 km from the farmer).  We also get a pig and several chickens from her, so most of our meat for the year is quite local.  We also get most of our eggs through her, although the farmer with the layers is closer to our property than hers.

Here's a Dane aiming for a Gert-like life - tiny self built house in the woods:

there is a wealth in social relations and in kindness that sometimes outweighs the wealth of money.

paul wheaton wrote:this is part of what i am advocating.... (the image is kinda broken, but you get the idea)

'FIFY'.. (still a tad-bit 'glitchy' - but you get the idea.



Fixed with Pixlr (because Screw 'Adobe', and their greedy 'Subscription Model' (sorry for the rant - but when you spend over $10K on Software - and then, years down the road, that same 'Software Co' decides 'Well, that wasn't "profitable enough" so, therefore, Subscriptions - with No concessions for Past, Multi-Thousand $$-Investments by Existing Customers'. so.. Yah.. Screw you Adobe. 🤬

Anyhoo, I digress..  Fwiw..

The video talks about underconsumptioncore which is something like a stepping stone from consumerism to gerthood.  It's as simple as giving up fast fashion, not buying that cappuccino on the way to work, or posting "i used up my..." reviews (instead of unboxing or "i just bougt this..." reviews.

Under consumption core is gaining too much popularity, so there is now a backlash.  And the main criticism made me laugh.

"Not buying stuff makes you poor"  
"Not buying stuff shows off your poverty "

Over the years, I've known many a person with fast cars, all the clothes and toys, looking very rich indeed.   Buy one of them a dink, and they admit to crippling debt.  They feel rich for the toys, but live in poverty.

Over the years, I've known about 12 people with over 2 million dollars in their bank account, debt free.  I consider these people millionaires.   All self made.  Several escaped bad things from WWII and the aftermath, with literally the shirt on their back.  One didn't even have that as he swam the north see to escape bad things.  

The one path they all share to becoming millionaires is to Not Spend Money.  Earn more than they spend.  Live a simple,frugal life with a few luxuries and toys within their budget.  And the one quality they all share is generosity to their friends.

It makes absolute sense that you can't become wealthy financially by spending more than you bring in.  Arguably the overconsumption of recent decades may be part of the driver behind the gig economy (spend too much so need to find additional sources of income) and the seeming increase in "get more money now" ideas / schemes.

I have to admit I'd never heard of the "underconsumption core" trend.  

I think it is absolutely true that Gertitude involves frugality.  Frugal doesn't necessarily imply "cheap", but a level of value - if I'm exchanging money for a thing, I definitely want something of value that will last.  The funny thing is that if you looked in our closets and day to day life, aside from having nice (but not ostentatious) vehicles, people would generally have difficulty guessing our net worth or amount of savings.

r ransom wrote: ... Under consumption core is gaining too much popularity, so there is now a backlash.  And the main criticism made me laugh.

"Not buying stuff makes you poor"  
"Not buying stuff shows off your poverty "

There have been books/articles written in the past about, "the millionaire next door," which more or less suggests that the people busy "not looking poor", are regularly poorer than the people who live within their means, take joy in what they have, and don't participate in what I call, conspicuous consumption.

Advertising plays on peoples' insecurities. If you can manage to be "boldly different" - wear what you like, not what's "in fashion", eat healthy food, not expensive latte's (I swear the fact that I don't like coffee has saved me a few thousand at least?) and by a "big enough house", rather than what gets shown in fancy magazines, - you have a chance to get ahead.

The only people I see who are really benefitting from the over consumption in North America, are the very rich. Of course they're going to discretely get their patsies to push back - we're their cash cows!