Well, that's one way to do it

Here's a story from UK's The Guardian about Mark Boyle, a guy who decided to live for a year without spending any money.

That's a huge undertaking. He did it, but I don't think it's possible for everyone to pull it off. For one, he started with some resources, like his laptop and the solar panels he bought to power it. And had he not donated 3 days of his time per week, he wouldn't have had a physical place to set up shop. In today's society, it's really not possible to live completely free. You cannot sustain yourself by yourself. But he got his point across: all his materials came from places like Freecycle, and he bartered or traded or scrounged for the rest.

I admire the effort, and I think it goes to show how little we actually need. But to modern society, his way of living is unsustainable. If companies stopped manufacturing goods, people would have to scrounge for the materials already out there. Eventually resources would be so scarce that people would fight over any scrap. There must exist somewhere a balance of recycling and reusing and reducing... and consuming.