Get to work in the non-monetary economy

Part 6: Ten things to take into 2025

Welcome to this 10-part series on 10 things to take into 2025.

Here are the previous parts:
Part 1: Digital tools over digital drugs (Alt: Go at human pace)
Part 2: Go deeper
Part 3: Build your bucket-line community (Alt: Mutual aid for life.)
Part 4: Slow travel
Part 5: Dance on the abundant edge (Alt: Be the weird one)

What are you taking into 2025? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to know.

Here I am having a very pleasant time promoting our local Repair Cafe at the annual Harvest Fest.

Thing #6: Get to work in the non-monetary economy

Working outside the monetary economy means flying under the radar of capitalism and what is tallied up as our annual Gross Domestic Product (so gross).

It can mean parenting, household work, caregiving, volunteering your time, skills or resources, bartering, foraging, bin diving, gifting or just doing a good turn. These are activities that aren’t rewarded with money, but maybe the rewards are greater than that?

I love skulking around in these unquantifiable shady areas - doing what I feel is my work to do in the world. When paid work sometimes doesn’t feel particularly meaningful, volunteering can give you real freedom to choose something important to contribute to.

My spot at the local repair cafe brings me far more credit in joy than I deposit in mended clothing. (Hello mending mate Mel, who is also a newsletter reader👋)

Due to the cosi-livs (Cost of Living Crisis), there’s a huge increased need for more volunteers. And it’s a double-edged sword, because the cosi-livs also inhibits people from volunteering, because putting food on the table is the most important priority. According to Volunteering Tasmania by 2030, there will be a shortfall of 40% in volunteers.

Many of us who are doing ok, are able to tune into what enough looks like for us, and let anything extra overflow back into the local community, to international aid, or something in between.

One very cool thing I found out some years ago when working with Milkwood, is that some rather ethical and excellent workplaces provide paid volunteer days - you can log a certain amount of time each month and get paid to volunteer. I hope you work somewhere that cool!

Doing a spot of ‘Binfluencing’ at our local Jazz Festival for Clarence Climate Action. We were tasked with ensuring folks put the right things in the right bins.

For some big juicy reasons, volunteering locally comes under a similar umbrella to community building, for me. They are similar in that you are:

• giving time, skills, and resources generously

• being proactive and prosocial**

• building networks and connections

• practising for future adversity

• creating resilience and community sufficiency outside your fenceline

When we get to work outside the monetary economy, we are sometimes experimenting with alternative systems like bartering, the gift economy, or community-based networks that help reduce our reliance on complex and fragile international trade systems, and wobbly supermarket food security.

Practicing these non-monetary systems in peaceful times, creates a buffer that strengthens communities and empowers individuals to be more resilient in the face of economic downturns or crises.

**Prosocial behaviour is a social behavior that benefits other people or society as a whole, such as helping, sharing, donating, co-operating, and volunteering. … Evidence suggests that prosociality is central to the well-being of social groups across a range of scales... Empathy is a strong motive in eliciting prosocial behavior, and has deep evolutionary roots.

— Wikipedia

I taught this bunch of legends how to carve spoons at a Skillshare Weekend - which is where we come together to trade skills for free and share yummy food.

Privilege check: I want to acknowledge that many people have to work in the monetary system as much as possible to keep up with the cost of living right now.

For us, it’s been a combination of luck, a frugal mindset, and designing systems and priorities that allow me and my husband (who is a scout leader) to volunteer as much as we do.

Because we were relatively broke and I was on unpaid maternity leave when we bought our first house (for under $220k in 2014), we have always managed our mortgage and household expenses on one full-time income. This has helped us weather change and a lumpy second income (thanks freelancing) relatively easily, and has helped us create space to give back to the community. We’ve been lucky.

Last year I traded work in the catering kitchen with the very awesome Sonya, for a spot on a 2-week Permaculture Design Course. Trading is the BEST!

What about you, do you also find fulfilment skulking around in the shadows of capitalism, helping out, doing trades, and having a jolly nice unquantifiable time?

Thanks so much for reading this installment of Ten things to take into 2025.

Keep an eye out for the rest of this series coming to your inbox weekly.

This series is a homage to Catie Payne’s awesome Reskillience podcast's '10 Things’ series, in which her guests gather a list of 10 things to inspire a more resilient, skillful future.

Over 10 weeks, I’m jotting down 10 things (habits, ideas, mindset shifts, and gentle reminders) I’m taking into 2025, which is allowing me to sprinkle in all the juicy changes happening for me this year too.