How to live $50 a month

The way of the life approaching the law of Nature (dhamma)

contents

Introduction

Communication costs Mobile & Internet $5

electric bill $7

Fuel fee $5

Gasoline fee $10

Food expenses $16

Hot springs $13

sum $50

Why the way of Nature?

Because of improving the quality of life

column

Housing

Vegetables, cultivation

Fermented food

Liquor / tobacco

Water

Washing

Tax

Introduction

What makes me so exciting with the life of $50 a month?

I tried a method of living for $50 including food, communication (mobile and internet), electricity, heating & cooling, gas fuel, gasoline and others.

Now I am confirmed that it could be implemented.

I've been living like this for about 7 years so far, but I'm not doing it for $50 every month, just about half a year, but the other half is living less or more.

For example, it doesn't cost anything when I am at a temple, meditation center, or volunteering, and it costs more than $50 an hour when I am living a luxury life.

For those who really want to do something they wish, these skills, technics, and arts are helping of your focusing into what you have interests.

For example if you can save $10000, you will be able to devote yourself for 10 years to what you really want.

You can also try new things with this savings.

Also, once you experience a life of $50 a month, you will feel comfortable and happy when you return to your normal life which you had.

And main reason I recommend to try the $50 living at least once in your life for a week is to deepen your mind quality.

You may experience your own unconsciousness with awareness through this lifestyle.

The title of $50 comes from the fact that the salary of friends in the Philippines and Peru was $50 a month,

I'm not particular about $50, it's just one index.

And recently I go to hot springs three times a week, so I spend about $90 a month.

Communication fee

There is an all-you-can-use plan if you choose to use it at low speed.

Last year, Rakuten Mobile cost $3 a month, and now DTI / TONE costs $5 a month.

With this plan, you can watch You Tube, although the visual quality is poor at 144p or 360p.

However, this visual quality is not enough for watching sports such as soccer, tennis and baseball, but it can be OK for talk shows and variety shows and news.

Mobile phone

Just like using communication application on your smartphone, you can call anywhere you like by installing the phone app.

for example,

SMARTalk (FUSION IP-Phone SMART) https://ip-phone-smart.jp/smart/smartalk/

SUBLINE PERSONAL

SUBLINE BIZ

My 050 (Brastel)

LaLa Call

If you communicate with friend who use same network as below you can contact with voice and video without paying.

Line

Zoom

Skyphone

Viber message

what’up

Etc.

Initial cost $0

Monthly fixed cost $0.

$0 if not used.

Billing only for what you used.

There is no charge for accepting calls, but calling to others cost about 20 cents per minute.

There are no yearly contracts, and you can cancel at any time.

The free phone number starts 050 instead of 090 and 080.

The disadvantage of 050 is that you cannot call toll-free numbers or 110 or 119 so far as I know.

I think it will be improved one day soon.

Electric bill

About 10 years ago, I used to spend more than $50 a month, but nowadays it has been around $4~8.

The first thing to do is to apply to the electric company to change the amperage capacity.

Basic charge without using any electricity is

5A 0 yen

10A $2

15A $4

20A $5

30A $8

40A $10

50A $12

60A $15

and more without using any.

The basic charge varies depending on the amperage, so it's best to use the amperage you need.

I used to have 40 amps, but now I have 10 amps.

The reason why I don’t use 5 amps even it is free, because I like to use a washing machine and a microwave oven.

At 10 amps, you can't use the washing machine and microwave at the same time, so you'll have to start using the other after one is done.

Alternatively, if you store your own battery, then you can use a washing machine, there is no problem even if the electricity is 5 amperes.

The guideline is shown in the figure below. For example, the microwave oven has 15 amperes, but if you set it to 700W, it will be 8 amps, and if you set the vacuum cleaner to eco mode, it will be 7 amps. By doing so, various electric appliances can be used.

Electricity

It may be interesting to stop using the refrigerator once in your life.

It can also be an epoch-making opportunity to learn various ingenuities in life.

Like to make traditional preserved and soul food, to understand the way of nature with bodily sensations.

By the way, the world's first household refrigerator was handmade by Alfred Mellowes in 1915, and the number of production is only 40 a year, which means human being live without it for million years already.

It became popular in Japan in the latter half of the 1950s, and was called the three sacred treasures along with black-and-white TV and washing machines.

Gasoline fee

$10

If the fuel consumption of the car is about 20 kilometers per liter, if gasoline is $1.2 / ℓ, it will run about 140 kilometers.

In my case, the round trip to the hot spring is about 10km, so I can go to the hot spring 14 round trips, which means every 2 days.

Heating & cooling

Heating is a wood-burning stove that uses the branches it picks up around houses as fuel.

To cool in the summer air conditioning is easy way, and put up a shading net around house to prevent direct sunlight.

When it's too hot, I spend time in nearby waterfalls and streams, as well as hot spring facility, shopping malls and library.

Cooking fuel

Gas cylinder $1 x 6 =$6 a month

Alternative ways are kerosene stove, gasoline stove and wood stoves.

Rocket stove is very efficient. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEu08a4KfvI

Food expenses

Wheat flour 100g 15 cent per dish

Noodles 100g 25 cent per dish

Rice 100g 30 cent per dish

If anyone likes to know the recipe, let’s open Youtube channel

Flour dishes

pizza

Bread

Crepe

Takoyaki

Okonomiyaki

Suiton (dango-soup)

Handmade udon

noodles

spaghetti

Soba

Udon

Somen

Rice dishes

cooked rice with others

brown rice

pilaf

vegetable

how to grow vegetables in the kitchen

how to use planter at the veranda to grow chives, onions and herbs

check the Colum in details

preserved food

Miso and soy sauce

check the Colum and link in details

Vinegar, liquor

Barley tea beer

Fruit wine

pine cider

Ginger ale

Plum wine

Persimmon liquor

Morus alba wine

check the Colum in details

Why $50 a month?

To enjoy the quality of life with body sensations

The quality of life is, in the end, the quality of one's mind.

Because you feel qualities by not only physical calculation but mind valuing.

For example, no matter how good the quality of things is, if one's consciousness doesn’t feel pleasure, you cannot enjoy the qualities.

In other words, you can get good quality if your mind feels pleasure even the quality of matter is low.

The pleasure is not only on the surface changing which you can see.

To me the quality of life means not only the change of the surface layer of mind, but also the growth of one’s depth, flexible and extends of the heart.

So what is mental depth and growth?

One of them is that you are not manipulated by the automatic reaction circuit that you made from your past experience, but that you are in a state of peace in your mind, responding appropriately to the ever-changing TPO (Time & Place & Occasion).

Since this automatic reaction circuit was made from each person's past experience, each one tend to believe that there are right choices at any TPOs.

It is called over-generalization.

This is the function of the cerebrum which guides to efficiencies and at the same time misunderstanding and suffers.

Even one think there is no mistake, but in reality it is only a blind belief in the pattern due to overgeneralization.

Just like 7 blind men touching the same elephant with different fixed concept each other.

Anger and hatred are also the result of being manipulated by such a pattern circuit like an application of the smartphone, so no matter how much the person tries to reject, he cannot escape from feelings such as anger and hatred unless these circuits are getting week or overwritten, or removed.

Not everyone can release these circuits immediately, so it's a good idea to start by valuing your own lifestyle habits already you have. And try and error feedback to make adjustment.

And sometimes you can aware that you don’t trust your pattern circuit because it doesn’t fit ever-changing realities just in front of you.

What is Dhamma? The way of the life approaching the law of Nature

Dhamma has several meanings including the law of Nature and Cosmos including anything you can see and you can imagine, so it is not easy to define.

The word dhamma itself comes from Indo-European language of Pali.

Pali is also known as language of Buddha teaching.

Law of Nature, Dhamma has many aspects.

Sometimes law is dividing 2 out of One, and sometimes all fragments is connecting together as One.

Laws are contradicted each other because of dhamma depending on the status of your consciousness.

Like you can feel differently between you mind in peace and your mind in angry.

I enjoy dhamma of dividing when I drive a car.

I also enjoy feeling dhamma of connecting with all when my mind is in peace through everyday’s living.

It is easier to live in peace with it in simple life to me because less opportunity of dividing.

By the way, dhamma is not the purpose of life because Buddha himself show the way out of dhamma.

Dhamma is just one index on the way of living.

How to get depth of mind?

You can get deep experience where the law of Nature works strongly.

For example, living in the forest, living in the country life, living in a temple, living in other countries, living far away from civilizations where nature still has power of influence.

When you lower the quality of physical life level, then your mental quality have a chance to go into and deeply sometimes.

Because the physical level of quality is made and set up by the surface consciousness, on the other hand the mental quality includes sub and deep consciousness also.

The function of surface consciousness is to find difference and recognize an object; on the other hand deep consciousness is to find common and assimilation with an object.

The consciousness has several layers and different functions.

I hope $50 living will be turning points to expose a spotlight from outside to inside of your deep mind.

When you do excises, picking up grass at the garden, watching floating clouds from a hammock, you have a chance to hear the voice of body, others, and Nature by less using the normal surface consciousness.

.In my case, the quality of my mind extend and deepen and becomes clearer, so I continue to do gymnastics in the morning, go to hot springs in the daytime, and meditation before sleep.

Also, living for others, not for myself, is the key to extend mind to improve the quality of life.

It may be easier to understand "us" than others.

I think that increasing the time-space of living "now and here" and continuing to be aware of the deep world is the quality of life for me.

Embrace the negative A chance to step into the depth.

We like Love rather than Hate.

Why so?

We tend to find the reason.

Because our cerebrum likes to find excuses, which is called reasons in general.

The surface consciousness always looks for reasons to be mental reliable in spite of what real facts are.

Because the mind is not trained yet to be in the status of without asking reasons.

The cerebral cortex has function to divide two out of One and value, judge, and act.

This mechanism includes rationality and comparison under the surface and sub consciousness.

The cerebral cortex prefer positive, and eliminate negative.

In other words, get closer to positive and move away from negative

So brain judge that love is positive and hate is negative.

On the other hand we have middle and deep consciousness base on the other organs.

It is not fantasy or fiction to check other living around us.

Many living value, judge, and act without cerebra like insects, microbes, virus and plants.

They live and survive without the nerve system or cerebra.

Because organs have not only one function but more, which is not enough to concern in details by science yet.

For example, blood circulation organs relate the assimilation of others, and the digestive organs relate the unity of others as brain’s function is to divide One to recognize with patterns.

Why do brain organs to divide One?

Because the function of brain organs is to find differences and guides the way of efficiency as its nature instinct.

In other words, brain organs to find the excuse at least one to get relax itself, which we call knowledge.

According deep consciousness, love is profound and hate is surface.

Whereas the general standard is to classify positive and negative based on the world view created in the surface consciousness of dividing 2 out of One.

When our mind is in peace, our standards are not only the surface but also middle and depth of consciousness, so added new criteria is to follow the laws of Nature and to be apart from them.

Like Love is connection of All, hate is denied to connect of All.

Therefore, in the quality level of normal life, we often think that negatives are unpleasant and to be away from our life.

But on the contrary, living with negatives is the key-gate to get into ourselves deeply.

Even the cerebral cortex judges to be inferior, such as inconvenience, irrationality and inefficiency, these are access to the rhythm of the body and the deep mind.

Isn't there something that you will notice by hugging negative, rather than just eliminating fear, disgust, and death?

If you have interest for Total value, the lifestyle of $50 a month might be worth to try once in the life.

Column

Rent

Isn't housing the most expensive thing in your life?

In the capital of a civilized nation, a house will cost $500 thousands, and if you rent it, it will cost about $1000 a month and $12000 a year

From the perspective of living $50 a month, you can live for 20 years with one year rent cost.

With this much money, I can devote myself to what I really want to do.

In my experience, there are three main methods.

There are temporary residence thinking , a vacant house that is taken care of and taken care of, and to get one without paying.

In my case

Temporary housing includes tents, greenhouses, camps, boats, yachts, van wagons, under bridges, hammocks, riversides, coasts, lakesides, forests, and mountains.

Essay link Knowing enough to live in the library and snow fort in winter

During day I spend time as working, studying, playing, eating, and taking a bath, so I just need to survive the rain and dew only for about 7 hours a night when I'm sleeping.

I enjoyed living in the winter of -40 degrees Celsius of Siberia and in the steaming 50 degrees Celsius of India.

Next, I recommend a residential life that has a relationship of "your taking care of others and their taking care of you."

By living together, you don't have to pay for housing.

In my case, when I was in high school, I was taken care of by the master's boarding house in a coffee shop, in the United States I helped a house that earns a living from seedlings and plants, in London I cook and clean twice a week, and in Shibuya I stay my friend’s room when he is working a day and my working at midnight, a volunteer at temples and meditation centers, take care of family or relatives or friend's homes, living in dormitories for newspaper delivery, living in a farm together, living in a cheap hostel for $1 per night , Living in an acquaintance's house, living in an unused villa with permission, working including accommodation, managing a share house, making housing without expenses or extremely cheap.

Also, Couch Surfing Project and

There's also a work version of Airbnb, and there's a site that helps owners work instead of paying for accommodation and meals for free.

Recently, there have been many projects to reuse vacant houses.

For example, Okutama Town in Tokyo started a free house rental service in 2014.

"Vacant house gateway" https://akiya-gateway.com/ has houses from $1 to $10000.

"Unoccupied house bank" https://www.akiya-athome.jp/ has properties that range from free to over $100000.

There are also various web pages dedicated to free homes.

https://inakanoseikatsu.com/tag/%E7%84%A1%E6%96%99%E3%81%AE%E5%AE%B6/

In addition, even in large cities, there are properties that can be rented for about $100 per month at public housing institutions such as metropolitan housing, and there are many properties that can be rented for $100 if you go to rural areas.

Vegetables, wildflowers, cultivation

At the garden, many plants come up seasonally without planting like perilla, green onions, tomatoes, garlic chives, mustard greens, honeybees, yomogi, ashitaba, myoga, strawberries, herbs, itadori, tsuyukusa, yabugarashi, nobiru, etc.

Just put them in pasta or soba noodle and to appreciate delicious, accented and dietary fiber.

Planter cultivation is recommended for those who live in an apartment.

Chives can be harvested every month, so it is also useful for condiments.

Link How to grow plants

Fermented food

Fermented food is very convenient because it is a preserved food.

Refrigerators were not widespread 70 years ago, so all cultures have valued traditional preserved foods.

In Japan, miso, natto, dried bonito, etc. are the same, but overseas, prosciutto, anchovies, and cheese are also a kind of preserved food, because of amino acids are decomposed (fermented) to a certain stage.

All of them are simple cooking methods, so mastering them will make your meal even more enjoyable.

At home, I have miso, pickled bran, natto, seasoning sake, persimmon vinegar, pickled plums, pickled ginger in sweet and sour sauce, garlic soy sauce, anchovies, and bacon.

Link How to make malted rice with one pot

Liquor

Since the liquor tax is a big government income, the policy of raising the liquor tax every time there is a war is being implemented not only in Japan but also in other countries.

Current law states that you should not make your own alcohol that exceeds 1%.

Therefore, vinegar, which requires about 5% to 8% alcohol, should not be made at home.

However, some people actually make homemade vinegar, and some people also make homemade doburoku, unrefined sake from rice.

Since giving permissions of manufacturing doburoku sake in special area by law, which contradicts the equality and fairness of the Constitution, so it is not easy to draw a line anymore.

After the Showa era(40 years ago ), no one caught by the police just because they made doburoku until present.

Alcohol is so easy to make that you'll be surprised when you actually make it.

For example, simply adding pine sprouts to sugar water will produce fermented sake with a gin scent.

In addition, if sugar water containing grape skins is left as it is for several weeks, wine will be produced.

So the government also twists its head, for example, when teaching how to make plum wine, it is recommended to use sugar cubes, and when the plum essence is extracted, it is instructed to inject the clear distilled liquor or brandy.

Sugar cubes do not ferment because they do not contain water, but ordinary sugar and sugar water ferment without permission to produce plum wine spontaneously.

In addition, barley tea-beer, ginger ale, persimmon liquor, mulberry liquor, and other fruit liquors quickly become alcohol when sugar water reacts with the natural yeast attached to the surface of the fruit and plants.

For yeast, sugar water is rice, urine is alcohol, and flatulence is carbonic acid.

Tobacco

Dry the tobacco leaves of a plant, and chop them up.

Then wrap them in paper to make cigarettes, and wrap them to make cigar.

If you put one seed in a planter, it will sprout and grow like any other plant.

A leaf grows to about 50 cm, so if you dry it, it's done.

Water

It is natural that we cannot live without water.

When I have to live on the mountaintops and in the desert, I have found that humans can live with only a small amount like a bout 2 liters of water is needed per person per day.

Also, tap water is always chlorinated, so it is not very delicious.

Therefore, I usually use the fountain in the forest and bring back home with pet bottles.

The fountain in the back of the forest is really good.

I go to the water and live about once every two weeks.

It will not rot even if left for a long time.

The water used in the toilet is the water stored in drums when it rains.

The same applies to flower pots and water used for cleaning.

However, when a visitor comes, open the cock of the water pipe so that water can be used wherever there is a faucet.

$ 50 living is a hobby world, and it's a life that deepens the quality of your mind, so if you feel stressed by the water coming out of the hanging water tank instead of the faucet when washing your hands, turn on the water pipe.

The purpose of $50 living is to deepen into the quality of mind, not stress and patient.

By the way, if you use water as standard, the monthly fee will be about $7.

If you use the sewer, about $7 will be added.

Just by closing the water pipe, you can notice various laws of Nature that you couldn't notice before, so it's an interesting experience to play with even you try few days without living the desert.

Washing

Clothes are divided into outdoor work, outing, indoor clothes, and nightwear.

Wash your hands with your underwear every time you take a shower or bath.

Once every1 or 2 days in summer and once every 3 or 4 days in winter.

If your shirt or trousers get dirty, put them in the washing machine and turn them on once a month when they are full.

At temples, use about one buckets of hot water a day to wash the body and cloths.

Health & pension Insurance

Health insurance and national pensions are huge.

In my case, I started living abroad as a teenager, so I didn't pay either, but until my mid-20s, I later was informed that my mother were worried and paid me monthly without notifying me.

Since I was in my twenties, I had divided my place of residence into three areas, one for winter, one for summer, and one for spring and autumn. In that case, the travel accident insurance that came with credit cards covered it.

At first, the card company didn't issue the card, so I borrowed money from my friends and saved it in a designated bank account, and after issuing the card, I dropped the money and returned to my friends.

The national pension insurance was forced to be paid depending on the job and place, but when I was working all over the world, I did not pay it and tried to pay it in a lump sum on the way, but at that time it was in the past you can pay the premium for up to 5 years, and the qualification period for receiving the national pension was 25 years or more, so when I consulted with the city hall, I was told that I could not receive the pension, so I did not have to pay it.

Since the qualification period has been changed from 25 years to 10 years from August 1, 2017 (Law No. 84 of 2016), it seems that even people who do not meet the qualification period can pay voluntarily.

Property tax and car tax

This $50 does not include property tax of $400 a year and car tax and insurance of about $200 a year in my case.

Taxes Customs duties &consumption tax

The less income you have, the less taxes you pay, but many goods are subject to large tariffs and sales taxes, so we are paying taxes without our knowledge.

For example, do you know how much tariffs are on rice, flour and butter?

By setting the tariff per kilogram, the tax rate is difficult to understand, but by converting it, it can be roughly understood.

For example, when importing rice (milled rice), a tariff of $3 per kilogram is levied, so the tariff was set at 778% for cheap rice (as announced by the Ministry of Finance in 2013), but now it is based on high rice. Since it is, it is corrected to "280%".

Wheat flour is $0.8 per kilo. The tariff is about 100%.

Butter costs 29.8% of the cost plus $9 per kilogram. If the cost is $3, it will be 350%.

Many of them have high tariff rates, for example, endo peas are subject to tariffs of about 1100%, and konjac potatoes are subject to tariffs of about 1700%. A 1700% tariff means that a tariff of $1700 will be levied on goods imported for $100.

We live by paying enough taxes, and we also pay the consumption tax.

Trade tariffs are due to political protectionism, and for some reason I can understand, but adding 10% consumption tax to self-determined tariffs is a double tax.

Isn't it violating some constitution of fairness?

Postscript

The title of $50 comes from the fact that the salary of friends in the Philippines and Peru was 50 dollars a month.

Also a person working for the Red Cross refugee relief told me that budget of one person a day for $ 2 and $ 50 a month.

By the way, it is estimated that there are 729 million people on this planet who live on $ 50 a month, which is one in ten people. (Mainichi Newspaper October 8, 2020, World Bank Web World Development Indicators (WDI) Online Table)

Regional aggregation using 2011 PPP and $ 1.9 / day poverty line

The United Nations and other NPOs continue to do various things that eradicate poverty is a pillar of the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) and cause confusion in the field.

Please ask the person who asserts SDGs that how much do you pay for your house electricity bill?"

What this person wants to keep SDGs is to maintain the life of civilization back home and the desire of control others without consciousness.

This person tries to live without seeing his own sub-consciousness and learning the life of loco community and the profound way of mind status.

However, this person are only aiding financially and imposing a way of thinking based on the level of civilized life that loco community cannot materialize through their lifetime.

You may call it guiding to the difficulty and brain wash rather than understanding loco esthetics and education.

Because this kind of aiding might cultivate only the desire and but no technics.

Even for the economic poor people in the field, the wealth of money is the instinct of the cerebrum, so it is a joy to jump on.

if you don’t live as they do and stand on the community’s view, your kindness might be just your own ideal.

In my experience, what loco community really wants is a daily life where they can live comfortably and peace mind even with a low income.

Luxury items such as a "Like Button" are not necessary, but a refreshing breeze in the summer and a warm place in the winter, with gastrointestinal food, a sleeping place to keep out rain and dew, and a peaceful day.

$50 living is not the evaluation from others, but the living that accesses the inside of you.

By the way, I like the "Like Button" because I like the desire for approval, over-self-consciousness, and extravagant thinking sometimes that are influenced by the outside.

I'm not particular about $50, it's just one index, and recently I go to hot springs three times a week, so I often spend about $90 a month, and I spent $5000 a month last winter to spend e southern island to enjoy vacation at the resort and hotels.

The religions of the world have tried to tell people that there is a deep, expansive, free, soft, warm, peaceful and enjoyable time-space in this world.

Jesus was preaching that not only the poverty of the soul (Matthew 5: 3, Luke 6:20) but also the physical poverty (Matthew 19:23, Luke 18:25) is connecting to the Gate of Heaven.

Mohammed is preaching that bans of taking interest.

Buddha recommends living only with what others can give (Dhutanga).

None of Awakened persons recommend a life of physical poverty.

However, they preached that there is an expanding world as same as this world at same time through such a living experience as a "gate"