Brit economics graduate to spend 12 months without cash!

London, November 30 : A 29-year-old British man will try to become a 'freeconomist' by living without money for 12 months.

Economics graduate Mark Boyle intends to live completely off the land, and waste products he scrounges around his borrowed caravan at Timsbury, near Bath.

Besides, he will be using his very own composting toilet.

"I've been preparing a lot over the last couple of months, but the challenge will be the things I can't plan for - a broken arm, exhaustion or the worst case scenario, a family bereavement," Sky News quoted him as saying.

"I suspect the most difficult thing will be socialising in a world that revolves around money. I'll be living on a day-to-day basis, hand to mouth, which means I'll never really know where my next meal comes from," he added.

Mark will also utilise a scheme called Freecycle, a network of recycling enthusiasts, and Freeconomy that allows people to swap skills.

"I've been preparing a lot over the last couple of months, but the challenge will be the things I can't plan for - a broken arm, exhaustion or the worst case scenario, a family bereavement," he said.

One of his friends will pay his National Insurance for the 12 months.

"Any skills you need you can get through Freeconomy and with other 'pay-it-forward' based organisations such as Liftshare and Couch-surfing now flourishing, the simple life doesn't have to be so difficult anymore," he said.

In times of credit crunch, Mark, from Bristol, believes there's never been a better time to seek out the good life.

"It is the disconnection we have with what we consume that is the primary cause of the wasteful culture we live in today," he said.

"If we all had to grow our own food again we wouldn't waste one third of it. We've absolutely no respect or real appreciation for the energy that goes into the things we consume and buy today, so we think nothing of throwing them away," he added. He hopes to make this 'freebie' experiment a bit better than his last cashless odyssey, when in February he set off to visit Gandhi's birthplace on India's west coast, aiming to get there without spending a penny.

That time, he could only get to Calais - about 300 miles - before cold and the language barrier forced him to hang up his boots. He use money to pay for his trip back to Britain.

He said at the time: "Not only did no one speak the language, they also see us as just a bunch of freeloading backpackers, which is the complete opposite of what the pilgrimage is really about. The advice was to make a bee line for Belgium as folk said they would be more likely to want to speak some English."

He added: "The only trouble was the first decent-sized town in Belgium was 170km away, and all we had was three tins of soup, a bag of trail mix and a chocolate bar to sustain us."

ANI