On Reducing Your Tax Footprint
by Ki Vick
Many people straddle the liberty and real food movements. Truthfully, they are the same movement; being responsible for your own life, and having the freedom and responsibility to choose how to feed and manage our homes. Many people dream of living totally off grid. This is a fantastic dream, and one worth working towards. But when you are beginning your movements towards liberty, it is easy to get overwhelmed. You feel like if you can’t do everything, then there is no point in doing anything. It can feel sometimes like your efforts are achieving nothing.
But the truth is, the smallest things you can do are every bit as important as the biggest. I currently live in a small apartment with no outside space. While I plan and dream for someday having a homestead with goats and chickens and a big garden, this season of my life takes place with loud neighbors and a tiny kitchen. And an even tinier budget.
Even still, there are things I can do to reduce my dependency on the State, and at the same time begin to withdraw my support from it. Doing everything at once is an overwhelming, daunting task, but by using baby steps you can eventually get to where you want to be. Here are some of my favorite, practical, hands on ways to remove your support from the bloated monster of the State (and its many puppets) and instead put that support into the hands of morally acceptable businesses.
The first thing my husband and I began focusing on was removing our debt. We are doing this methodically and purposefully. We are choosing to make it a priority in our household, and that does mean sacrifices. We don’t go out to the movies often. We don’t order food from restaurants often. We have even chosen to forgo buying things like furniture and a second car until we can afford to buy them outright (it’s not easy having all your clothes and books and things in boxes, but it won’t kill you either.) debt is so common in America, that even financial “gurus” advise you to be in debt full time to help your credit score. But while your credit score may improve if you have a line of credit active, or a mortgage, or a car payment, your financial health will suffer. Those extra payments every month are tapping your other budgets. And those huge credit corporations are State-feeders.
The second thing we chose to do was to invest a portion of our money is precious metal. We have chosen to do this for a number of reasons, but the first and foremost is that we have little to no faith in federal Reserve Notes. Precious metals have been in use as currency for as far back as human civilization does. They have upheld their value through the collapse of mighty empires, and have proven their worth time and time again. Every time you convert Federal Reserve Notes into Cold Hard Cash you are pulling a Jenga piece from the shaky foundation of the state.
I also choose to make many of the products and household goods that we need. This one is harder to understand from the stand point of reducing our tax footprint. Sure, we all know that making your own soap, bath products, and household cleaners is cheaper for you and better for the environment. But why is it better for the liberty minded individual? For starters we need to think about what takes place between the time that the product didn’t exist, and the time you put it in your cupboards.
Let’s use the example of Laundry Detergent. Here is the list of ingredients for commercial laundry detergent:
water, alcoholethoxy sulfate, linear alkylbenzene sulfonate, propylene glycol, citric acid, sodium hydroxide, borax, ethanolamine, ethanol, alcohol sulfate, polyethyleneimine ethoxylate, sodium fatty acids, diquaternium ethoxysulfate, protease, diethylene glycol, laureth-9, alkyldimethylamine oxide, fragrance, amylase, disodium diaminostilbene disulfonate, DTPA, sodium formate, calcium formate, polyethylene glycol 4000, mannanase, Liquitint™ Blue colorant, dimethicon
That’s a lot. I don’t know what most of those things are. I’m not sure I want to know what most of those things are. For the health and well being of my family, I hesitate you put some of those things on the clothes we wear next to the largest organ in the human body. But for the sake of liberty, should I avoid using those things? Oh, yes. Without a doubt, yes. Every one of those things had to be manufactured in a factory and corporations (state feeders) were used every step of the way. At every step of every one of those horrible sounding ingredients taxes were paid. They were paid for the ingredients to be manufactured. They were paid when the ingredients were shipped to the Tide factory. They were paid when Tide mixed the ingredients. They were paid when the oil was pumped out of the ground for the bottle. They were paid when the oil was shipped to the plastic refinery. They were paid when the plastic was shipped to the Tide plant. They were paid when the Tide plant extruded and filled the bottles. They were paid when the bottles of detergent were shipped to the distribution warehouse. They were paid when they were at the distribution warehouse. They were paid when they were shipped to the store. They were paid when the store stocked them. They were paid when you drove to the store. They were paid when you bought them. They were paid when you drove home. They were paid when you toss the empty bottle into the trash and the fascist trash company comes to haul it away.
That’s a LOT of taxes! But we must wash our clothes. So what can we do? We can make our own detergent. Laundry detergent needs three things, borax, washing soda, and castile soap (the most basic ones including fewer than 5 ingredients, though you can make your own using just three.) If you get the ingredients to make your own soap, you have reduced even more links in the tax-chain by not buying hand soap, shampoo, body wash, face wash and many other things.
It’s cheaper on your budget to make your own soaps and detergents too. This frees up money to spend on reducing your debt, or buying food from local farmers. Remember, every time something has to be shipped to get to you, the State steals money from you. Since you are buying the ingredients in bulk, and storing in reusable containers, you are also reducing garbage, which also reduces your tax footprint.
Speaking of food, the cheapest way you can reduce your tax footprint is to grow your own food. If you are capable you can also raise chickens, or goats, or other livestock too. Like I said, we live in a small apartment with no outside space. While I do take advantage of family to grow crops, I also plan on using what space I do have for growing sprouts, lettuces and herbs. Strawberries also work very well in small containers, and tomatoes and peppers can be grown using limited space resources.
Do these small steps really make that big of a difference? Yes. Most importantly, they begin to get you thinking in terms of reducing your tax footprint. By being mindful of the things that we buy (and the money we hand over to the State) we can choose to make investments in our own personal freedom. Choosing steps like building income streams from non-taxable sources is also a great way to remove support from the State.
Ultimately we all must do what we can to turn our backs on the State and its many puppets. By choosing to invest our time and money in our freedom we also ensure the freedom of our future generations. We also become happier and healthier in the process. So no matter where you are in your journey, take heart! Every step is a step towards a greater good.
Ki Vick
2011