Over the last few weeks I’ve been quiet. This started just before muy one year anniversary when I really started to question myself and this project. Since then, I’ve done a lot of introspection, some personal growth work, listened to some good advice and received some pretty tough criticism. It wasn’t all fun but I’ve come out the other side with a renewed sense of purpose, a new direction, and a fire under my bum!

I haven’t got it all figured out yet, but this what I can tell you…

Warning: This is a long-ish post but I needed to write this as much as I hope you will read it.

On the 5th of May 2009 I began a 5 year experiment to live without spending money. This was the first step in the creation of an 8 year dream which I call Nu-buntu.

Nu-buntu is my vision for a 21st Century Tribe, a community of human beings exploring the possibilities of living beyond the current money system. I believe it is a necessity to escape a system that does not work if we are to find sustainable solutions to the challenges we face.

When I refer to the current money system I am speaking about Debt Based Money. I am not talking about home loans, credit cards or any other kind of ‘buy now pay later’ system. I mean money as we know it…all of it…including cash. All money is based on debt, not value. It is lent into existence.

If you don’t believe me, watch this video called MONEY AS DEBT (full version – 47 minutes). If you have bandwidth issues watch this on YouTube (part 1 – 10 minutes).

I am no economist or financial expert, but information like this confirmed my suspicion that something was not quite right with money. That is an understatement. There is something very wrong with Debt Based Money and we need to free ourselves from this oppressive system.

What lead me to do this? I had a different motive when I began my experiment than I do now. My intention has always been to make a difference in the world and I have been working on an idea of some kind for about 8 years. Over time the idea has evolved through various incarnations, but had always been to make a lot of money to give away.

I thought, until very recently, that this was the best way to effect the change that I hoped to see. I wanted to be the guy who was going to give away more money than anyone else. I thought that if I created a cool story around myself, powered by a wicked marketing plan leveraging the power of the internet and social media, I could get people to support social enterprises that would make lots and lots of money. When a business mentor told me that I needed a measurable goal, I decided that I was going to give away R555 555 555.55 in the 5 years.

When I thought about actually starting I was concerned about people not trusting me. I was worried that they wouldn’t trust my motives. I mean, if I gave a certain percentage of my earnings away, would they just think I was doing it to keep a smaller piece of a much bigger pie? So, in my head, I went from 20% to 50% and then even 80% but I was still concerned. One day I thought the only way people would trust me is if I gave away all the money I earned!

This opened up the question “HOW WOULD I LIVE WITHOUT MONEY?”  I was so inspired by this question that I couldn’t get it out of my mind. It was the time of the credit crunch and the global recession and I decided that figuring out how to live without spending money was as valuable, if not more so, than giving a lot of it away.

So, I decided that from the 5th of May 2009 I would stop spending money so that I could give lots of money away. If that sounds confusing, I don’t blame you. I admit that I was confused too. It took me a year of living without spending money to see that committing to a money goal was in total contradiction to my commitment to live without money.

A couple of months ago I made friends with a guy called Brendan John who is the creator of an online trading system called Free2Xchange. He began to educate me on the true nature of money. I now know that I cannot be measured by a system that I no longer support and that my purpose is to create alternatives to Debt Based Money. If you watch MONEY AS DEBT you will agree with me that we need to find new ways of creating value for ourselves, by being valuable to others and meeting the needs of our communites.

I believe Nu-buntu is a space where that can occur and I invite you to participate in its creation.

Thank you for reading.

Much love

Adin, The No Money Guy

Please join our Facebook group here.

Be my friend on Facebook and follow me on Twitter.

Up till now we have hosted a couple of events and we have been really pleased with the turnout and interest you have shown.

There are many reasons why Nu-buntu events are important for us:

1. To share our CONCEPT and VISION with you
2. To invite your FEEDBACK and PARTICIPATION
3. To facilitate the EXCHANGING OF IDEAS
4. To facilitate NETWORKING and RELATIONSHIP BUILDING amongst members
5. To inspire the SHIFTING OF BELIEFS and OPENING TO NEW POSSIBILITIES through CONVERSATIONS

We have decided to have 2 kinds of events from now on, namely:

Nu-buntu Conversations

and

Nu-buntu Gatherings

We are having our first Nu-buntu Conversations event on Monday 3 May in Cape Town entitled:

CAN WE LIVE WITHOUT MONEY AND GOVERNMENT?

We would love to see you there if you can make it, here is a link to the Facebook event:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=122211674457161

Nu-buntu Gatherings will be for people who have ‘bought in’ to Nu-buntu and would like to get more involved. There we will get into the how’s and why’s of co-creating without spending money.

Please help us spread the word by inviting your friends and sharing this event on your profile.

Thanks and much love

Adin & Team

Wow, it feels like just the other day that I embarked on this rather exciting, and somewhat crazy little experiment. (“somewhat?” my cheeky side-kick sniggers in the background… thanks for the support Anita!)
You’ve heard people talk about “life changing experiences”… well this has definitely been one. This journey has been filled with highs and lows, but way more highs than lows.

I would like to thank EVERYBODY who has supported me. I won’t be doing so individually because it would take too much time…but you know who you are. The truth is it is only possible to live without spending money if you’re supported by other people. If nothing else, living this way has taught me about the power of relationships… and I am blessed with truly awesome relationships. If wealth was measured in friendships… the no money guy would be the richest guy in the world!

When I started, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I applied the “jump off the cliff and grow wings” philosophy. I knew that if I waited until I had the perfect plan, I may never have begun. In hindsight, that may not have been the ideal way to go about it. In my first year A LOT has not gone according to plan. There are things that I definitely would have done differently, some that I would not have done at all and many that I wish I had done. In light of that, I am committed to making year 2 even better!

The first regret is that this journey has hardly been documented at all. I have not done the best job with my blog and my use of video (especially in the beginning) was limited. I always saw this as an online, open source, creative commons type collaboration – this has not materialised.

Having not documented the journey as much as I would have liked, I feel that I have not been able to make what’s possible without spending money more inclusive. What I mean by that is, I don’t how many people have actually seen the ‘how and the why of it’ and experimented with it themselves. If I just go for 5 years without spending money and nothing changes, what would be the point?

And lastly, and this is the one that stings the most, I have given very little money away in the last 10 months. One of my main motivators for beginning this project was to make a lot of money to give away. My target for the 5 years is in fact an ambitious R555 555 555.55! I still get a little fright every time I write it or say it out loud!

SO… what have I Iearned? Well, I can now see very clearly that I could never have done those things on my own. There are just some things that I am not good at. If there was a team of people, all sharing their skills, talents, ideas, resources and networks, the last 10 months would have had a much greater impact. The focus was on one guy living without spending money, when it should have been on the people who make that possible.

So WE is the new me!

In the next 2 months I am committed to building a team that is inspired to take this project to the next level. I have a vision that is too big for me to manifest alone. I can see now that my biggest strength is in connecting with people…let’s see how good I am at it. My commitment to this vision is to attract the right people to create it with me. If you are reading this you may be one of them… are you?

So if you have skills, ideas, resources and experience that would help us make a lot of money to give away, and to tell an amazing story – I would love to hear from you.
Yes, I said “WE”…I already have a few people who have said YES to this… but now we need a lot more. What do YOU say?

Please join in this discussion in my Facebook group if you are keen:

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=12834&uid=136255177672

Thanks again and much love
Adin & Team

GO TEAM!!!!!

My friend Mustapha sent a message on Facebook today asking his friends to support him on the Platteklip Charity Challenge.

Seeing as though I can’t sponsor him, I thought I would do the next best thing…ask you guys to

Mustapha Baboo has entered the Platteklip Charity Challenge

This is the message he sent out…please support him:

Hi all,

I have entered an endurance event called the Platteklip Charity Challenge to raise money to upgrade creche facilities for Aids affected children in Samora Machel, Cape Town. It is a 100% charity event which last year managed to raise more than R500 000.00 for the creche. I am going to see how many times I can summit Table Mountain via Platteklip Gorge from sunrise to sunset. You can sponsor me as little as R100, and know, that apart from making a huge difference to someone less fortunate than you, you are also making me suffer terribly.

Those of you living abroad are expected to pony up a little extra!

You can sponsor me here :

http://www.charitychallenge.co.za/sponsor_me.php?id=89

You can read more about the charity here :

http://www.charitychallenge.co.za/masikhulisane-creche.php

You can watch the ETV News coverage from last year here :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KahQmele1Vo

Thanks in advance for your support!

Much love

Adin

If you want connect with me in anyway, here’s how:
adin@nu-buntu.co.za
@AdinvanRyneveld
071 220 9605
http://www.adin.co.za/

I can’t believe I almost said no to this party cos I had work to do…C’mon Adin what were you thinking? I’m just gonna work my ass off today so I can rock out guilt free tomorrow!

My friend Colin (aka Max Sleaze) asked me to be a part of the Forbidden Fruit Music Festival in Hermanus. I will be making my big stage debut by introducing a couple of the bands and at the same time giving me an opportunity to tell a crowd of SA rock fans about my NO MONEY experiment…wonder what they will think? Mmm

Colin told Ferdie, the promoter and MC for this event, about my story and he wants to meet me. Say what you like about Ferdie, he is a media machine and I can only benefit from being involved. Plus, I get to network  with some awesome bands and industry people. Being famous has always been a part of my long term strategy so thank you Colin and Ferdie for this opportunity.Who’s a rock star? lol

Back to the party. Seriously, with 10 of SA’s top rock bands, how could I even think of missing this?

So, here’s the lowdown:

Dirty Skirts
Sugardrive
Die Heuwels Fantasties
Van Coke Kartel
7TH Son
Hot water
Heroes wear red
Napalma
Akkedis
Reburn

22 December 2009
Hermanus High School

For more info, you can check out the following links:

Facebook event:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/event.php?eid=251158730728&ref=ts

Facebook fan page

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/Hermanus-South-Africa/Forbidden-Fruit-Music-Festival/164970871698?ref=ts

Official website

http://www.4biddenfruit.co.za/

Oh, here’s the other good news…

Whoever gives me a lift up can come as my guest!

Who’s in?

cell: 071 220 9605
twitter: www.twitter.com/AdinvanRyneveld

If you don’t know about the Earthchild Project – TRUST ME – they are amazing and so is the work they do. I have been volunteering with them for some time and I strongly commend and support what they are up. If you would like to see some of the team and the kids of the project check out my photo album on Facebook

Thanks for considering this!

Much love

Adin

Here are Janna’s contact details again:

janna@earthchildproject.org

+27 83 409 9185