Level A2

The Man Who Lived a Year Without Money

How He Ate, Washed and Stayed Warm

Mark Boyle, an Irishman in England, lived for almost three years without money. Olivia tells Sean how he ate, washed and stayed warm.

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Key words

These words appear in the episode. In the transcript, hover over or tap a highlighted word to see what it means.

binnoun

A box or container for things you throw away.

Please put your empty bottle in the green bin by the door.

rubbishnoun

Things you don't want anymore and throw away.

After the party, there was rubbish all over the kitchen floor.

skillnoun

Something you can do well because you learned it or practised it.

Cooking is a useful skill when you live alone.

shareverb

To give part of something to other people, or to use it together.

My sister and I share a car, so we plan our weekends together.

begverb

To ask people for money or food because you have nothing.

An old man was begging for coins outside the station.

emergencynoun

A sudden bad situation when you need help quickly.

Keep some money in your wallet for an emergency.

caravannoun

A small house on wheels. A car pulls it, and people sleep in it.

Every summer we stay in a caravan near the beach.

wildadjective

Living or growing in nature, without help from people.

We saw wild horses on our walk in the hills.

swapverb

To give something to someone and get something from them.

At lunch, Tom swapped his apple for my chocolate bar.

charity shopnoun

A shop that sells old clothes and things cheaply to get money for people who need help.

I found a great winter coat in a charity shop for only five pounds.

fixverb

To make something that is broken work again.

My dad can fix almost any bike in ten minutes.

strangeadjective

Different from normal, so it surprises you.

The soup had a strange colour, but it tasted good.

Did you understand?

Choose the correct answer.

1. What did Mark study at university?

2. In 2008 Mark started to walk to India. How far did he get?

3. Where did Mark live in his year without money?

4. What was in Mark's toothpaste?

5. What was the first thing Mark bought in 2011?

Exercise 1

Odd one out

In each group, one word doesn't belong. Find it and think about why.

Exercise 2

What would you do?

You are living without money, like Mark. Answer in one or two sentences. Use the words given.

1. Your old bike breaks, and you can't pay for a new one.

Use: fix · skill

I would ask my neighbour to help me fix it. Fixing bikes is her best skill.

2. You find a big bag of good bread in the bin behind a bakery.

Use: bin · share

I would take the bread out of the bin and share it with my friends.

3. You are walking to India with no money. In France, you have no food and nowhere to sleep.

Use: emergency · swap

This is an emergency, so I would swap my old watch for dinner and a bed.

Exercise 3

Your turn

Could you live one month without money? What would be the hardest part for you? Write three or four sentences. Use at least two words from the list.

Your text is saved on this device.

I could maybe live one week without money. The hardest part for me is coffee! I can fix computers, so I would swap my skills for food. For clothes, I would find old things that people put in the rubbish.

Full transcript

Show the transcript

Olivia

So there's no toilet paper. What does he use?

Sean

Leaves?

Olivia

Old newspapers. He takes them from the behind the shops.

Sean

Well, that's one use for the news.

Olivia

And one day, the newspaper had a story about him.

Sean

No! As an old news man, I find that very painful.

Olivia

He says so himself.

Sean

This is Aprendos English, level A2. I'm Sean.

Olivia

And I'm Olivia.

Sean

So who is this man with the newspapers?

Olivia

First, quick question. How much money did you spend today?

Sean

Today? A coffee and a train ticket. About twelve pounds.

Olivia

Our man spent nothing. Not one penny, for almost three years.

Sean

Three years? How?

Olivia

That's our story today. His name is Mark Boyle.

Sean

I bet he's an old hippie with a long beard.

Olivia

Wrong. He studied business and economics at university.

Sean

Business? Really?

Olivia

Really. Mark comes from Ballyshannon, a small town in County Donegal.

Sean

So he's Irish.

Olivia

Irish, yes. But in 2002 he moved to Bristol, in England. There he managed organic food companies.

Sean

So a businessman with a good salary. What happened?

Olivia

At university, he watched the film about Gandhi, and it changed his life. He loved one famous line. "Be the change you want to see in the world."

Sean

Ah. Small problem there, Olivia.

Olivia

What problem?

Sean

Gandhi probably never said it. Nobody can find those words in his writing.

Olivia

Really? It's on every coffee mug in Bellingham!

Sean

I know. Gandhi said something similar, but much longer.

Olivia

Okay, fine. Anyway, in 2007 he talked with a friend about the world's problems. And he decided one thing. Money puts a wall between us and our actions.

Sean

A wall. Quite deep for a business student.

Olivia

And he acted on it. That year he started a website, the Freeconomy Community. People their there for free.

Sean

Oh, wait. I know this man now! He's the one with the walk to India…

Olivia

…you know about the walk?

Sean

I read about it years ago. Can I tell it?

Olivia

Go on then.

Sean

In January 2008, he started to walk from Bristol to India. To Gandhi's birthplace.

Olivia

With no money?

Sean

No money at all. He helps people, and they give him food and a bed.

Olivia

How far did he get? Turkey?

Sean

Calais.

Olivia

Calais? In France? That's just across the sea!

Sean

Just across the Channel, yes. The problem was his French. People in France thought…

Olivia

…that he was ?

Sean

Yes, begging, or looking for work. And he had very little food.

Olivia

So how did he get home with no money?

Sean

A girl of seventeen walked with him. Her mother gave her travellers' cheques for an .

Olivia

So a teenager's mum paid for his trip home! Nice telling, Sean. But in November 2008, he tried something much bigger.

Sean

One year with no money.

Olivia

One full year. No cash and no bank cards. He started on Buy Nothing Day, at the end of November.

Sean

So where did he live? In a tent?

Olivia

Good guess, but no. A .

Sean

A caravan costs money!

Olivia

He found it on Freecycle. It's a website…

Sean

…for free things, yes. I know Freecycle.

Olivia

Somebody didn't want it anymore. He parked it on an organic farm near Bristol. He worked there three days a week…

Sean

…and the farm gave him the space.

Olivia

Exactly, and a space for his vegetables.

Sean

And electricity? A caravan in a British winter is very cold.

Olivia

Okay, confession time for Mark. Before the year, he bought one thing.

Sean

I knew it. What?

Olivia

A solar panel. It cost about three hundred and sixty pounds.

Sean

Lovely. A year without money, after a little shopping trip.

Olivia

He says so himself, in the Guardian newspaper. The panel gave him a light, and power for his laptop and his phone.

Sean

He had a phone?

Olivia

A phone for incoming calls only. He couldn't call anybody.

Sean

That's my dream phone, actually.

Olivia

For heat, he made a wood burner from an old gas bottle. The pipe came from a skip…

Sean

…the big metal box for .

Olivia

A dumpster, for us Americans.

Sean

So he cooked on the wood burner too.

Olivia

No, he cooked outside. Every day, in the rain and in the snow.

Sean

On what?

Olivia

A rocket stove. He made it from two old olive oil tins.

Sean

Rubbish again.

Olivia

Rubbish again. And he loved it. In winter he watched the moon while he cooked. So, food. Guess where his food came from.

Sean

He grew it on the farm.

Olivia

Yes, that's one. He had four ways, and he called them the four legs of a table.

Sean

Okay. Leg two, he picked food?

Olivia

Yes! Berries and mushrooms, nettles and nuts.

Sean

And what did he grow?

Olivia

Potatoes and beans. And a lot of kale.

Sean

Kale. Of course there's kale.

Olivia

What's wrong with kale?

Sean

It's a vegetable for people with a lot of hope.

Olivia

I grow kale on my balcony in Bellingham. It's great.

Sean

And the other two legs?

Olivia

Leg three is waste food. Food from shops and restaurants that goes in the bin.

Sean

Wait, wait. That food comes from the money world…

Olivia

…and somebody paid for it, yes.

Sean

So he still used money. Just other people's money.

Olivia

He agrees with you, actually. But the food was there, so he ate it before the bin.

Sean

Hmm. I'm still not sure about that.

Olivia

Noted. Leg four is . He used his skills to get other things.

Sean

Now, washing. That's my big question.

Olivia

He washed in a river.

Sean

In winter?

Olivia

In winter too, I think. In summer he also had a solar shower. For soap, he sometimes used a plant, soapwort.

Sean

And his teeth? Please say he had toothpaste.

Olivia

He made it himself. Guess what's in it.

Sean

Salt and water?

Olivia

No. Cuttlefish bone.

Sean

Cuttlefish? The sea animal?

Olivia

Their bones wash up on British beaches. He mixed the bone with…

Sean

…please say mint.

Olivia

Wild fennel seeds.

Sean

That's the toothpaste in England.

Olivia

And then there's the toilet.

Sean

Oh, here we go. The newspapers.

Olivia

First, the toilet itself. He built a compost toilet from old wooden pallets.

Sean

So no water and no flush.

Olivia

No flush. And then the newspapers from the bins in Bristol.

Sean

With a story about himself.

Olivia

Only once. Probably.

Sean

So was it hard?

Olivia

He says the hardest part was time. He washed his clothes by hand, and one wash took two hours. Everything took so long.

Sean

But was he happy?

Olivia

He says yes. His security moved from his bank account to his friends.

Sean

His friends, yes. His friends with a farm.

Olivia

You're very hard on this man today, Sean.

Sean

I was a researcher for years. I always read the small print.

Olivia

So, the year ends in November 2009. What does he do? Guess.

Sean

He runs to a shop and buys a big burger.

Olivia

He's vegan, Sean.

Sean

A big vegan burger.

Olivia

No. He kept going. He lived without money for almost three years.

Sean

So when did he finally spend money?

Olivia

In 2011. The first thing was a pair of shoes from a . He said it felt very strange.

Sean

And after that?

Olivia

In 2010 he wrote a book, The Moneyless Man. It sold more than seventy-five thousand copies…

Sean

…wait. A book about no money made money?

Olivia

It made money. In 2013 he moved back to Ireland. Some of the book money helped to buy land in County Galway.

Sean

So he bought a farm with money from not using money.

Olivia

He sees the joke too. He and his partner grew their food there.

Sean

So, a lot of kale again.

Olivia

Yes! He told the Guardian they ate a lot of kale. Maybe too much.

Sean

I rest my case.

Olivia

And they made an old pig house into a free pub. Its name is the Happy Pig.

Sean

A free pub? Now that's an idea I like.

Olivia

You pay with help. You work behind the bar, or you play some music.

Sean

So an Irishman found a way to get free drinks. Very impressive.

Olivia

Then, in December 2016, he went one step further. No phone and no internet…

Sean

…wait, no phone at all? Not even for incoming calls?

Olivia

Nothing. No electricity and no clock. He moved into a straw house, and he built it himself.

Sean

So how did he talk to people?

Olivia

Letters. He wrote his Guardian articles with a pencil and posted them.

Sean

And does he like this life?

Olivia

In his 2019 book, The Way Home, he says he sleeps better than ever.

Sean

And the washing? Still the river?

Olivia

A metal tub and a jug of water. Later, a hot tub outside.

Sean

A hot tub! Now I'm interested.

Olivia

Does he live like this today? The last articles we found say yes, but they're a few years old. And we can't email him!

Sean

We could write him a letter.

Olivia

With a pencil, of course. Listeners, your turn. Could you live one month without money? What's the hardest part? Write it in a comment.

Sean

You can read our whole story again, too. Get the PDF for free from the info box. Now the truth, Olivia. How long could you do it?

Olivia

Until my first morning coffee. So maybe one day.

Sean

One day! The woman with the kale balcony!

Olivia

But I'm going to try one new thing. Next time something breaks, I it. No shopping.

Sean

And the cuttlefish toothpaste?

Olivia

My toothpaste stays, Sean. Goodbye!

Sean

Wait, one more thing, listeners. If you want a new true story every week, subscribe to Aprendos English.

Sean

Bye! And read your newspapers carefully.

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