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Food: Various sources. On this one, I am a bit of a spiritualist, so I generally wait for acceptable food to appear before me or be given to me and only then eat it. (If someone offers to buy me something, I generally refuse.) I believe in the benefit of fasting, so I fast until acceptable food appears, but I rarely fast unintentionally

Your answer sounds evasive. It's like your answer to the question "So how do you eat?" is "I don't, basically."

I tell as much as I feel comfortable about my life. I already told you what I eat: whatever appears before me that I find acceptable.

Please use soap and toothpaste.

I'd have to agree, at least with the toothpaste - the pain from bad teeth and the cost of dental work can't be worth the $10 you save a year. You can get that stuff at the 99 cent store. I'm sure any dentist would give it away for free.

I think you are making the assumption here that healthy teeth and good tooth care are not possible without toothpaste.

I'm skeptical, but what's your alternative to toothpaste?

Please avoid telling others what to do before understanding their rationale, even if -- or perhaps ESPECIALLY IF -- your idea is already overwhelming majority opinion.

What about rents? Or do you happen to own a place?

Also, do you manage to be sufficiently independent from others, or is it not a goal au all?

I do not pay rent, but use space which is shared with me in return for being always looking for opportunities to help and ready to provide help. Before Covid, there was also a lot of public space available, but that is gone now.

None of us are completely independent, we all rely on other humans, animals, plants, and the eco-system to exist. I don't think, practically speaking, there is much of a difference between doing this with currency or without.

> None of us are completely independent

Indeed, but some are more independent than others. And for some reasons (I suspect some childhood sh*t) I take great pride in depending on no one. As much as I find your life style fascinating and appealing (I met a few people living your way years ago, two of them also unsurprisingly in the free-software world), I'm also very much attracted by the opposite lifestyle in this regard and have been contemplating recently living on my own on a sail ship away from shore.

> I don't think, practically speaking, there is much of a difference between doing this with currency or without.

I don't know. I view currency as something that has been invented to separate exchange of services and goods from richer, more complex and also more troublesome relationships. Indeed we all depends on each others but the economy based on money limits this to the bare minimum. We don't need to be good pals with my baker so that I get some bread in the morning, and indeed that would even be illegal for him to refuses to sell any bread to me if he doesn't like me.

Whereas in your case, if someone does not like you for any reason it can cause real problems, so I guess you have to be nicer, sometime hide your thoughts, etc... So you have more freedom with regard to the tyranny of money and commercial relationships, which is a big plus, but you have less freedom from the tyranny of others judgments. Not being a homo œconomicus is great, but having to play the social ape game is not so much.

Sorry to be verbose, this topic is important to me ATM. Back to more basic questions:

How do you find places where you could stay in exchange for being helpful? I'm assuming you live in the US, where this endeavor is not particularly encouraged. Are there websites to help facilitate this kind of non-commercial exchanges? Or do you rely on your pre-existing network of acquaintances?

Also, have you considered doing an AMA? :)

I am more free from being dependent on what others think about me than I ever was working for money, by such a huge margin...

It's true, I am nice, but I don't see any downsides to that. Everyone has a level of truth they can handle, and we manage that in all our interactions.

I find my accommodations by praying and keeping my eyes and heart open. I do live in North America. I'm working on the websites. My network helped in the beginning, and it is expanding.

All this is good to ear. Hopefully my questions did not come across as tricky questions designed to embarrass you, they really were not.

Thanks for answering, and please consider this AMA :)

(edit: phrasal verbs are hard)

What's the dating life like? Years ago I was interested in this lifestyle and I still read about it in fascination but I fear judgment of my peers.

I imagine it's quite easy to find like minded people though.

My dating life has improved by a huge margin. The most missing things in people's dating lives are time spent together and the ability to show care for another. Neither requires money, and is usually hindered by its pursuit.

Time is not money, it is infinitely more valuable.

Actually, I've yet to have a serious freegan partner, most are pretty normal.

> None of us are completely independent, we all rely on other humans, animals, plants, and the eco-system to exist.

That is a great insight! We are all connected. Very countercultural.

Hmm. You answer the questions but it's too vague to get a good picture. Can you be more specific ?

Curious how you avoid smelling bad without soap and what do you clean your teeth with.

I use soap but on occasions where it's not on hand and I take a shower the results seem exactly the same. I'd miss shampoo more, but if you triple the time your head is under the water you get some percentage of the results. Seems like water gives you 70% of the benefits or more. I do have a dry skin type, though.

I feel like you might survive without toothpaste if you never eat sugar. I have a harder time imagining doing without that.

Once I stopped using soap, it took a couple of weeks for my body's oil production and for the microbiome on my skin to stabilize. Since then, I just shower with water and wash my clothes regularly. I do use bronners soap on my clothes when washing them. So I guess soap touches my hands when I do that (I wash clothes manually)

For teeth, I mostly just use my own saliva and brush them very thoroughly and regularly.