Laura Oldanie

Last December our book Growing FREE (Financially Resilient & Economically Empowered) Building the Life of Your Dreams Without Losing Your Soul or Destroying the Planet was reviewed and promoted here in the Permies forums. Rachel reviewed our book and gave it 8 out of ten acorns saying it was the missing tome in her permaculture library.

Now I'm back to let you know about a 4 week online course I'll be offering in May based on one of the central teachings of our book – how to create your personal permaculture economy.

My co-authors and I spent the last 15 to 20 years piecing together all that permaculture has to teach us about achieving financial resilience on our climate challenged planet. In the process of applying all that knowledge we each ended up giving our personal economies a complete makeover – by that I mean we found ourselves shifting how we earn, spend, invest, and manage the money, resources, and other non-monetary forms of wealth in our lives.

Over the years our conventional personal economies transformed from fragile, soul-crushing systems that relied on and upheld the destructive corporate economy we each abhor into a resilient, life-affirming engine that grows wealth naturally for us and our communities over time. This metamorphosis has become the cornerstone of each of our FREE lives.

And I want to teach you how to do this too so you can reclaim your life from capitalism and create your own climate resilient and joy-filled personal economy based on the nature inspired wisdom of permaculture.

Soooo... I'll be hosting the 4 week Personal Economy Makeover course  on Wednesday, May 1, 8, 15, 22 from 7 to 8:30 pm ET/UTC - 4 online via Zoom. (My lead co-author Mike Hoag will be joining us for the May 15th session.)

NOTE: While the general strategies and principles discussed in this course will be applicable no matter where you live, most  of the specific examples shared will likely be specific to the United States.

During this 4 week course you'll learn how to:

*build wealth in ways that contribute to regeneration, instead of further extraction, destruction, and harm

*unleash your resourcefulness and unlimited human potential to solve your problems instead of relying solely on money

*save money thru creative, resourceful, and alternative ways to meet your needs and lead your life

*adopt a more expansive view of wealth, assets, investing, and living

*grow your financial resilience through holistic, regenerative, and strategic investments that keep the value of your expenditures on your own personal holistic balance sheet

Your live participation is encouraged, but sessions will be recorded and available for viewing through the end of June. Early bird registration price is $80 through March 31. After that the price increases to $100.

Grab your spot here so you too can transform your personal economy into a resilient, life-enhancing system that benefits people & planet – and you!

Congratulations to all the winners! We're super excited for you to get your copies and start designing your FREE (financially resilient & economically/ecologically/ethically) empowed) lives.

As Chris mentioned, FOR ANYONE WHO DIDN"T WIN there are other more affordable ways to access this book than what's available on Amazon.

1) the eBook version is on sale through 12/10 for $20. Get that here -webpage

2) to mark the occasion of the one year anniversary of the publication of Growing FREE last week we released a black & white edition which sells for $24.99. Grab that one here -webpage

3) There's also this free digital book excerptwebpage you can download to start with.

4) and if you would like to purchase the color version for yourself or as a gift (which is definitely worth it, because like so many other good permacutlure books it includes really helpful and aestehically pleasing graphics) in a way that more directly supports us, especially since we independently published this book, you can buy that one herewebpage

We really appreciate all of the thoughtful discussions we've had with you here this past week. My co-auhtors & I sensed what Rachel mentioned in her review of our book that this book fills a big gap in the permaculture world. We'd greatly appreciate if you can spread the word about our book's existence in your permaculture circles when the opportunities arise for you. Wouldn't it be great to see this book added to the suggested reading list of PDC courses?

This book evolved from an online course that Mike and I have taught together a couple times before. We'll likely offer that again in the future and will be sure to head back over here to the Permies forums to let you know if we do. I can't speak for Mike, but I'd also be open to exploring opportunities to bring this content to other people's permaculture courses. I've already been a paid guest speaker at one other local permaculture course on the topic of permaculture & personal finance and would love to open many other people's minds to this powerful aspect of permaculture. You can always reach out to me through the contact page on my websitewebpage.

Those are great, Nancy, and exactly what I'm talking about. You can see how that visual progress could be quite motivating for people.

Thank you, Angel, for that honest share about your experience so far pursuing financial resilience. I empathize strongly with your story. In my own case I was able to design myself out of my job and into a part-time consulting gig with that same employer while I built up other streams of income & skills and worked to reduce my cost of living.  If you're on Facebook you may want to consider joining the Women's Personal Finance (Women on FIRE) groupwebpage. (although, the group is currently paused through 12/4) It's definitely not a permaculture minded group, but there are plenty of people concerned about climate change and interested in sustainable living and the two foudners of the group are familar with permaculture. I mention it because the women there are super supportive of each other and share all kinds of helpful career transition advice and so much more.

I'd also encourage you to check out my co-author Mike Hoag's recent post here in the forums - What Ways are YOU Investing in a Better World? webpage This shift to thinking in terms of investing (and not in the stock market) is fundamental to pursuing a FREE (financially resilient & economically empowered) life. We go into it in great detail in the book, but his post also gives you the gist of this much larger concept.

Derek, I'm so happy to see this post and learn that you are a financial advisor. My own journey into the nexus of permaculture & personal finance evolved from my desire to do even more to align my money with my values after I discovered permaculture about 12 years ago.

I had money in this SRI/ESG funds you mentioned, but that still kept my money supporting sugary beverages in single use plastics, big pharma, financial institutions with predatory lending practices, and so much more bad stuff. Over the past 8 years I've moved most of my money off Wall Street and into investments in my local economy as well as the solidarity and regenerative economies.

A big part of my new wealth building plan also consists of those 8 forms of capital you referenced, which we wrote about in our book Growing FREE as well. I find that this more holistic wealth portfolio really resonates with people when I talk about building true wealth on our climate challenged planet.

Even though you live in Canada, you may be interested in checking out the Rad Planners, a loosely formed and growing group of financial advisors and money coaches (including me), who “aim to shift the financial services industry towards a mentality of abundance and cooperative economics, cultivate wealth redistribution in the spirit of repair/return, and inspire
divestment/reinvestment by wielding and remolding the tools of financial planning, peer-to-peer support, and collaborative action.” You can read their complete overview document herewebpage.

A number of these rad planners are familiar with permaculture. In fact, I'll likely be making a presentation to this group about permaculture wealth building (and you can be sure I'll be highlighting those 8 forms of capital) at some point next year. While most of us are based in the US, I believe there are a few who live and work in Canada as well. Feel free to complete this contact formwebpage if you want to learn more. And please feel free to list my name as the person who referred you.

I hope lots of you read Mike's post above. As he emphasized, making long term investments is essential to designing a (financially) stable permaculture lifestyle. If you only read one of the posts or comments we've shared here in the Permies forums this week while discussing our book Growing FREE, let it be this one. Understanding and applying this regenerative wealth concept is your key to breaking FREE....

I thought it could be fun to crowd source this thought experiment. A few years ago I took the time to try applying all 12 of Holmgren's permaculture principles to personal finance. I'm sharing them here and would love to get your reactions, suggestions for improvement, or additional ideas.

1) Design from patterns to details – start by figuring out your short and long-term life and financial goals

2) Observe and interact – track your spending to gauge how well your spending supports your goals and permaculture values

3) Obtain a yield – earn more than you spend by increasing your earnings and/or reducing your spending

4) Apply self-regulation and accept feedback  – create and stick to a budget (or anti-budget) that supports those life goals, especially when it comes to paying down debt

5) Catch and store energy – build up some savings (at least in an emergency fund)

6) Integrate rather than segregate– incorporate your permaculture ethos into the ways you make and steward money

7) Use and value renewable resources and services - prioritize productive and (re)generative assets such as solar panels, residual income from a song or book, tools you use to do paid work, or fruit and nut trees

Produce no waste – certainly waste not, want not; but also tap all the wealth in the waste stream to save and earn money

9) Use small and slow solutions – approach personal finance with a long-term perspective

10) Use and value diversity – diversify your assets and investments

11)  Use edges and value the marginal – recognize the non-monetary wealth that surrounds you and think about how you can responsibly tap it to reduce your consumption and save money

12)  Creatively use and respond to change – re-evaluate your life goals and finances from time to time and recalibrate accordingly

Hans, what a wonderful and financially viable closed loop system your family created that not only benefited you all, but your community as well! You emphasized how

each project fed one or more other projects

. This model draws on much of what we cover in our book Growing FREE, particularly the concept of stacking incomes, talents, and markets and the role of community organizing in a financially viable permaculture plan.

I wanted to share my boyfriend Albert's (sub)urban example of this approach. He is a yoga instructor, beekeeper, and runs a back yard plant nursery. He's been leading what's became a very popular donation based yoga practice on the beach just a one mile bike ride from his house for ten years now. Sometimes his class attracts over 100 people and the regulars have formed what they've come to refer to as a sangha, a Sanskrit word for community. Those yoga students also happily purchase Albert's honey and plants (and they also support each others' businesses). And when plant buyers find Albert through Facebook Marketplace it's not uncommon for some of them to start attending his yoga classes.

There's so much potential with the regenerative mindset we Permies apply to the world to recognize and harness the true wealth that surrounds us in non-extractive ways and build beautiful lives and communities while doing just that.

Sunny, this is a very good strategy. I love to see people doing anything that makes them more cognizant of how they are spending their money. Whether it's the system you outlined, tracking income & expenses in spreadsheets, or just writing down everything you spend money on over a week or month. It can be very eye opening.

The gamifying aspect can be very helpful and motivating for some people too so I love that you mentioned it. There are lots of colorful and engaging  money and budget trackers for sale on sites like Etsy. And creative, resourceful Permies can create their own. These types of visual tools can be especially useful (and again motivating) to track debt as you pay it down.

I encourage people as they spend money to think about if the expenditure is in line with their values and if it's moving them towards or away from their desired life(style). And not all expenditures will meet those criteria, but even just running them through those mental filters can make us more cognizant of how and how much money we are spending and what we're getting in return for that $$.

PS - As someone who's tried to apply all 12 of Holmgren's permaculture principles to personal finance, this is what I think of when it comes to "observe & interact" as well as "apply self-regulation and accept feedback."

Mary, I hope you win one of the copies of our book this week because I love everything you wrote...

Okay I want this book--but the price is a bit high for me, especially as I don't want the e-book for this one. Why? because I've already pretty much achieved the financially free, off-grid life (in part because my partner and I get Social Security, which could change). I still think I could get something out of reading the book, but the bigger reason I want to win a paperback edition is that after I read it I want to donate it to my local library. Some books I like a lot I'd hesitate to donate because I'd be afraid nobody would check them out. This one I think would call to readers where I live (rural West Virginia, which is a fine place for off-grid living but not many people here even have gardens these days). I do a garden column in the local paper, but would like to help form a circle to talk about ways we can create resilience both as individual households/homesteads, and as a community. I have in mind something like a Transition Town or Mutual Assistance Disaster Relief group--but I don't have the people skills to get something like that off the ground. I think this book could help.

If you end up not winning though, just late last week we released a black and white paperback edition of our book, which makes it even more financially accessible at $24.99. You can find the link to that herewebpage

I love the thought of your community Growing FREE together. (And would love to see an update or two here as you progess.)