The life of one person or the everyday life of a modern hobbit (16 photos + 1 video)

Meet Dan Price, a modern-day hobbit who has lived in an underground hole in Oregon for twenty years.

And, oddly enough, $5,000 a year is enough for him to live on, of which $100 goes towards rent for the land under which he lives. And without any houses or multi-year mortgages.

Crouching down, Dan Price climbs into his home—the “Hobbit Hole,” as he calls it. Nora - because the house was made by Dan himself inside the hill, using wood waste. "The Hobbit" lives in the town of Joseph, in northeastern Oregon. The entire build cost just $75, most of which was spent on brackets and filler.

Inside there is a room 1.3 meters high with a sloping ceiling. “All I need is food, clothing and a roof over my head,” says Price, who lives on just $5,000 a year. This way of life, according to Dan himself, freed him from constant worry about money and work.

Price cooks the simplest food: oats, nuts and grains. Due to the lack of a refrigerator, there is no milk in the house, so everything is prepared with water. Cutlery: one spoon, one fork and one knife.

One of the few ways he makes money is through a picture magazine, The Moonlight Chronicles, which chronicles his adventures over the past 20 years. More than modest income comes from advertising. Dan spends his money mainly on traveler's equipment: tents and clothes.

As you may have guessed, in Price's Hobbit Hole there is neither a washing machine nor any other household appliances that are familiar to us. Dan washes his clothes in the river nearby and dries them on a line. “All you dream of when you are rich is to create a paradise for yourself. The house I live in now is my paradise, the paradise that wealthy people dream of.”

The rent for the land is literally $100 a year.

Every year Dan Price cuts down one cotton tree and plants one evergreen instead. “Evergreen trees are not as easily damaged by storms as cotton trees,” says Dan. Dan is reluctant to spend money on a new necessary tool. Therefore, only when the old one is worn out to the limit, he buys a “new” one at flea markets or websites with advertisements.

Price also has a place in his life for sports. For daily training, Dan made himself a barbell from leftover concrete. He has had no health insurance for the past several years.

Three years ago, he received a check for $3,000 after surgery to remove kidney stones. “And I said, man, I don’t have that kind of money! How can I pay off my debt? Government agencies like it when customers are willing to pay their bills.”

Price doesn't have a car. He rides a recumbent tricycle or simply walks. As Dan himself says, it saves him money and allows him to stay in shape. In 2001, he received a bicycle from another sponsor and rode it 7,240 kilometers. The journey from Oregon to Key West, Florida, is described in the Chronicle.

For $6, our hero buys a file for the chain of his three-wheeled friend. “People like shopping, there is a feeling of euphoria from the purchased item. I'm the opposite. I always get depressed when I have to buy something.”

Before Dan built his Hobbit Hole, he lived in a wigwam. The photo is presented at an exhibition of photographs dedicated to the Nez Perce Indian people.

It shows Price helping to dismantle the wigwam. “Before the colonists came here, there was not a piece of concrete, no telephone poles, no fences, no wire, no roads.

And without all this they lived here happily in accordance with nature. This thought completely changed my view of life. Understand that I do not follow the path that everyone else follows. I'm going in the opposite direction.

Once upon a time, during difficult times, Dan saw an advertisement in the newspaper for a vacancy for a cemetery caretaker. “For me, this work became a kind of revelation. Taking care of a cemetery is like being a monk. I like doing this. I wanted this job so much that I started doing it before I was officially hired.

I've been working here for 2 years now, earning $475 a month. And over these two years I have developed some kind of special connection with this place. * An 8-foot hole in the ground can only hold Dan, a stove, books, some clothes, a CD player - and that's all he needs to live.

This is what life looks like without stress, when everything you need is at hand. Despite the outward primitiveness of his home, there is electricity, telephone and Internet, since he still wants to have a connection with the outside world. Dan is happy to be freed from the burdensome routine of everyday work from 9 to 5, and considers his former life to be slavery.

After all, the average person spends a lot of time at work, earning little, and this money is only enough to survive. Dan works for his own pleasure, without straining himself, and what he earns is quite enough for him.