“I’d been feeling this growing despair about the economic system we live in and the harm I was doing to other people and to the planet, even when I tried to buy ethically, while I lived in this world of privilege.”

Nemeth, now 56 and single, doesn’t own her own home or any property. Nor does she receive welfare payments or have any savings, a generous benefactor or a secret stash of emergency cash.

“I didn’t actually do much dumpster diving, I didn’t need to,” she says, because she was growing food herself and friends would give her waste food. “People often have things they’re never going to use in the back of their cupboards.”

For the first three years, Nemeth lived on a friend’s farm, where she built a small shack from discarded building materials before doing some housesitting and living off-grid for a year in a “little blue wagon” in another friend’s back yard. Then, in 2018, she moved into [friends house].

Instead of paying rent, Nemeth cooks, cleans, manages the veggie garden and makes items such as soap, washing powder and fermented foods to save the household money and reduce its environmental footprint. And she couldn’t be happier.

Nemeth is quick to say she’s not “anti-money”, so when she realised she was going to need dental work this year, she found a way to pay for it that aligns with her values. “I’d been planning to teach people how to make tofu or apple scrap vinegar, share my skills, then a friend suggested I set up a GoFundMe campaign to create a dental fund and offer how-to lessons as rewards, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

She’s not anti-technology, either. Nemeth has a phone (a gift from a friend) but no phone plan or sim card; she makes calls and sends messages and emails through the household’s wifi network. She also uses Facebook – mostly to browse Buy Nothing groups [where she sources most her items].