The Escape of Jo Nemeth

Jo Nemeth lives without money in Australia. Like Friend Henry, she was inspired by Mark Boyle, a New Escapologist favourite.

For the first three years, Nemeth lived on a friend’s farm, where she built a small shack from discarded building materials before doing some housesitting and living off-grid for a year in a “little blue wagon” in another friend’s back yard. Then, in 2018, she moved into [a friend’s] house full-time; it’s now a multigenerational [multi-family] home.

Instead of paying rent, Nemeth cooks, cleans, manages the veggie garden and makes items such as soap, washing powder and fermented foods to save the household money and reduce its environmental footprint. And she couldn’t be happier.

“I love being at home and I love the challenge of meeting our needs without money – it’s like a game.”

In an early blog post, Jo describes her big life change as “an exit strategy” and places it in the context of social action:

Every day I am thinking about my exit strategy. My fossil fuel exit plan.

Sure, fighting for system change on the streets and in parliaments must be part of our strategy, but it can’t be (won’t be) everything. After all, the system that needs changing is a destructive, violent machine of which we are all cogs. Maybe system change will come just as quickly from, or at least be aided by, many of us putting into place our household exit strategies. It will definitely play a part. It has to. We can’t go getting arrested on the streets to get emissions down then fly home, jump in our cars and go cook the evening meal on the gas stove. Who’s going to take us seriously?

Jo is now moving out of the house to get back to basics again:

she’s currently using recycled building materials to fix up a cubby in the back yard where she plans to sleep and spend her evenings reading by candlelight. “It’s very small, just big enough for a single bed and some standing room. There’s no electricity or running water.

“But I want to feel more connected to reality, to the birds and the stars and the sun and the rain. I feel really disconnected living in a big house. We just had a full moon and I almost missed it!”

I like how she describes a tiny home in the natural world as “reality.” Because of course it is! It’s the same point made by this brilliant woman, who describes “the real world” of suburbs and cities and the internet as “the madness.”

Many people who read Jo’s story probably see things the other way around: that they’re the ones living in reality (a consructed and networked world upheld by a majority) while Jo lives in a bubble of fantasy (an impractical romance). Yet she proves, again, that escape to an outlier reality where personal values prevail is entirely possible.

*

The reprint of New Escapologist Issue 17 is about to go to the printers. Get your copy here.