This is this story of Kath Kelly, who one night in a pub with her friends vows to live on a just a pound a day for an entire year. Kelly starts on this journey in order to buy her brother an amazing wedding gift, but what she learns along the way ends up being far more valuable than the money that she saves.
The first half of the this book was a lot like a homage to hitch hiking as Kelly used that method to travel everywhere, even across the channel in this way. This is also how Mark Boyle, the Moneyless Man went about travelling long distances for free and is something that seems very much still alive. I was a little frustrated at how much space this topic took up as it felt disproportionate to all of the other methods that she used in order to be frugal. Then again I suppose she did hitch hike an awful lot.
Out of all of the frugality/green memoir style books that I have read, this is the most true to a retelling of events that I have come across. In some of the others there are hints and tips in order to replicate that kind of lifestyle, but Kelly is very honest in recounting what happened to her in that year.
As I have become quite familiar with the ways in which people live for free, or very close to it, not a lot in this book was new to me. I did, however, enjoy seeing someone else taking part in it. Bristol seems to be quite a centre for this simpler lifestyle as Mark Boyle also set up home not too far away from there.
Her challenge may have started out as just a way to buy her brother and future sister-in-law a wedding gift which when I first realised this disappointed me, but I really am in no position to judge considering Kelly actually did it and I haven't. I think regardless of her reasons going into this, what she did was very admirable and very inspirational and I find myself even more convinced of the unimportance of money for living a good life.
Rating: ★★★
Rating: ★★★
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