A Hippie's Income?

Hey everyone! My first post

Okay, I'm sorta new to the path. I have always admired hippies (clothes, hair, music, philosophy, and especially respect of the planet.) being free spirited and not worried what others think. But growing up I was an extreme introvert and too up tight to let loose and be my "true" self. Now I am 36 and the past year I got my thyroid straightened out (hahaha I'm a lot more sassier now), no longer shy, and have decided to stop fighting it. And I no longer care what others think, that's just awesome to me. ANYWAY...

One of the areas I have trouble with is money. I'm pretty cheap, buy second hand stuff when I can, use baking soda for almost everything (as in, shampoo, toothpaste, etc.) Rarely buy name brand groceries (except peanut butter, it MUST be Peter Pan.) basically I'm not into material stuff or in great need for extra money. But I do have bills and two kids to worry about. I read about hippies growing their own food. You need at least a little money for supplies. I read about hippies living in communes. Do they have bills? What if a kid gets sick?

What I am trying to say, I guess, is how do hippies make enough money for emergencies or for items they need buy? What type of job would a hippie want and what jobs would they avoid at all costs? If you are trying to detach from society, would it be a conflict of interests to seek employment?

I hope I'm making sense (I feel like I'm not, sorry, I'm sleepy.) I also hear plenty of derogatory statements about "lazy hippies" which I dismiss, of course. I also think this "need for job" thing is my reluctance to break from society 100%.

Well, I'm going to sleep now thanks for your time. I love this page btw!

One Love!
Kamama

 

Income?

....yeah.

I'm not an old hippie, but I'm pretty sure if someone got sick, they tried to care for them, or just skipped town (and in doing so, the bill) when they got better. Not because that's the ideal option, but because it was the only option. Other than that, produce enough to sell to make money, sell a trade that you can do on your own terms (say, wood or leather work, shade-tree mechanic skills, etc). I would assume a doctor with basic supplies would also be a very valued member of a commune, if one could be tempted to stick around.

It's the classic catch-22, you need something to make something. And the more you get, the easier it is to get even more, but it starts being easy enough just as you don't actually need more.

That's the way the american monetary system is rigged.

If you CAN, a neo-hippie-ish thing, or general free people thing, is organic farming. You have your own land, you can have animals, you can be self sufficient, you generally live a rustic life but can produce enough surplus to buy or trade what you need and have a buffer against emergency.

Life sucks. Especially in texas, with a lot of hippie hate. Of course, there's also a lot of free spirits and whatnot, but there's a lot of assholes that push back hard. There's a resturant here with a "hippies must use back door" sign.... it's sort of like saying "we would make niggers use the back door, but now we can't, and hippies are just as fun to hate and are not a protected group ~management".

So yeah, get some money, and some land, and slowly shift over into self-sufficiency/self-employment. Or preserve your assets as a back-door, and join an existing commune.

 

You Have To Be Joking.....Right....???



Cheers Glen.

 

Nope.

I mean, there's probably never been a hippie in the place, I only know about it because my old boss ate there and told me, knowing of my hippie tendencies. But it lets them express their hate and their pride that their forefathers slaughtered the indians for that land, and their daddy buried however many hippies out in the cow pasture, and they'll be damned if a hippie uses the front door

It's just not a tolerating place.

I think washington, or oregon, or maine, or canada, are more the types of places OP would thrive socially. They're also all cold as balls if OP's from sugarland tx. And at least in new england, some people SEEM much meaner, but it's just a different social code... here everybody waves, even though they hate you, while other places they walk by and look strait ahead.

Ehh people and places are strange. But so am I.

 

hippies pay their bills with bead necklaces and drugs

 

Generally speaking, the so-called hippies that can live self subserviently have had a decent career and can afford to live by their own means - after working. I do not know many that have been dirt poor and lived with out money or have been able to sustain the life you speak of with out first working hard. Hippies who can't afford to support themselves are also known as 'poor'. You don't have to be a hippy to be poor. They will obviously avoid' McJobs' (however valid they may be).

 

unfortunately the hippies of today missed out on the real deal. but, i guess if they make their own way in this life and want to call it "hippie" good for them, and more power to them. but, IMHO true hippedom only came around once. it was brief but blazing.

 

lol :sunny:

 

I worked in collective restaurants and bakery's plus sold art and crafts on the side. That is how I made money.

 

Herb sales

 

I is hippie (baba-cool)
i pay bill, invoice sans problèms. work not for a other personne. work for you

 

How do hippies manage when times get tough? The Beatles, and Joe Cocker, sang it best: I get by with a little help from my friends.

 

Everyone has to make a living, regardless of whether they're a hippie or not. So find the living that suits you the best.

a bar in my town has this sign up, but this bar also puts out a hippie vibe so I think they're just being tongue in cheek with it

 

I would say it does not matter how much you make but how you make it and what you do with it. The more you make the more you generally can influence how you are making your money. But when the only job available to you at the moment is working at a mac donalds it seems only pragmatic to take that job. Be nonconformistic from society when you can afford it.

 

A man makes the money, money doesn't make the man. And if the money does make the man, he wasn't much of a man to begin with.

 

Asmodean-well said-"Be nonconformistic from society when you can afford it."

I've always wondered why being dirt poor and hungry ties in with being a hippy. Back in the day we did what we had to do to be warm, fed and safe, including my first real job, moving weight.

 

The main problem I think we run into again and again is that our paradigm/world view is so radically different from the mainstream. We don't define ourselves exclusively by our material possessions. We have to do things our own way, mainstream society's methods don't work for us. Successful hippies are those that have figured their own way of getting things done. Even dressing up in a suit and tie trying to mimic the mainstream has almost always failed for me. We are different and I think the key to the whole thing is to find out exactly what those differences are. Ken Kesey's Gorilla enlightenment tactics worked to some extent, but think about just how drastic that measure that was.

I think maybe the mainstream's paradigm on health insurance may have influenced you. Health is a culmination of many factors focus on one and you will always neglect others.

 

Haha, not hardly. I spent this past weekend with several hundred hippies - most of us psychedelic all or part of the weekend. I was also around for the 60s - those were some days, more powerful in terms of changes in culture than the present times, but these are some amazing days. There is a vibrant and very high underground culture out there, with some people identifying as hippies - and I don't think anyone would disagree with them.

Re the OP: I got into work that involved helping other people. I believe that work with meaning or a heart connection, like baking or nursing or work with abused children or something in art or music. The possibilities are endless.