This is a general summary of expenses over the four years. It includes the first half of 2012 in Thailand during the permaculture internship, through Pennsylvania at the end of 2015.
According to this summary, the total hard (cash) expenditures for this education over four years was $25,600. This includes all personal basic needs, as well as tuition, and the contextual costs for gaining +experiential capital.
+Interestingly, when a rough presentation of this information was given to the /r/financialindependence community on Reddit, their reaction was to proclaim this the system of a “bum.” If we truly desire a society that consumes consciously, we need to start looking at the edge between what you need to survive, and what you need to root, prosper, and return a surplus.
For me, the financial aspect is the baseline for being able to operate effectively. Diane Leafe Christian calls it good governance.
Most of the chart is self-explanitory – rent, books, etc. I did make a distinction between “food” – which means prepared food, or going out to eat, and “grocery,” which is food I bought from markets or grocery stores to prepare myself.
