Moneytopia: Ecotopia Money Sharing

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Sleeping outdoors, traveling by bike, and eating from the trash is not the most expensive kind of holiday. However, it’s not free either. This page goes into the politics of money on the Biketour and introduces Moneytopia, the Ecotopia Money Sharing.

Financial justice vision

As society is deeply classist, racist, sexist, transphobic, ableist, xenophobic, imperialist, etc, the hierarchies that are created through these oppression flow into the bike tour. People who benefit from society’s power structures come with more confidence, are more likely to speak English, have more perceived authority in meetings, are less dependent on the group for food and comfort, are less stressed because of the microaggressions or oppression that happen in groups, have the ability to take long holidays, can obtain gear, travel long distances to get to the tour, travel easily within Europe, and so on.

As a bike tour committed to undoing all these forms of oppression, we have to take active steps to counter these dynamics to rebalance the hierarchy. We do this by educating ourselves and unlearning the oppressions we have internalized (like through our antiracism reading group), and by learning and developing tools for navigating problems in the group (like through the social dynamics team).

Privilege, oppression, and marginalization also have a material aspect to it. Through our learning and emo tools, in addition to creating a more safe social environment, we also aim to find the material ways in which we can equalize the power structures.

One of these ways is through money sharing. Usually, we can’t directly share our privileges. A cis person can be the best ally there is, but the difference in privilege between them and a trans peer will remain. Financial privilege is an exception to this: the difference in privilege between a financially stable and financially insecure person can partly be taken away by the richer person sharing their money.

We understand financial privilege as broader than just the amount of money a person has. Many aspects of financial privilege are related to having the safety net that can catch us when we’re in trouble or be able to live cheaply or for free. A person who lives in squats, doesn’t have a paid job, and doesn’t have savings, can still be financially privileged if they have a financially stable family who they can live with if they get evicted, or if they have family or a government to pay their medical bills if needed. If a person had an education or has social connections that can lead to a well paying job (or just to get an affordable shelter), these are also privileges that make a person more financially secure, even if they don’t have this job at the moment. One of many other aspects is relatively low exposure to violence and repression from the law enforcement system, or to minimize its effects thanks to for example support of more people, including doctors, lawyers and media people. These more safety net related aspects of financial privilege can’t easily be shared, but the results that come from these privileges, money, can be shared through a simple transfer. A person with the more abstract financial privilege where they don’t have much money but feel financially safe, may even take a part time job to earn some money to share with their comrades, to truly be in solidarity and share the burden of wage labor. Unlike with other marginalizations, the difference in financial privilege between two people can be reduced in a direct way.

Moneytopia: sharing travel costs

We want the Biketour to be for everyone, regardless of budget. In previous years we also had a money sharing wallet on tour, where participants could put in and take out money. This was a great initiative but amounts were often small. We want to expand on this this year through setting up Moneytopia: Ecotopia Money Sharing for travel costs. We ask financially privileged ecotopians to contribute money, and financially marginalized ecotopians to request money. We would like in this small but direct way reduce hierarchies within the group. It’s not fair that some of us go on vacation every year without worry and others need to save up vacation days, budget for it, and need to see if it’s even an option. We see money sharing as creating a more just and equal community where we take care of each other.

We would like to ask ecotopians who can miss some money to contribute it to Moneytopia. The aim for this project is to distribute the financial burdens of vacation so that the fun is also distributed, make Ecotopia not just for the privileged, and take a small and direct step toward reducing the hierarchies between us where we can. We would like to encourage people to consider their financial position in the Ecotopia community, and decide whether to contribute or request money based on this.

The points below serve as inspiration. Participating is completely voluntary. We won’t ask you to justify if and how you participate in Moneytopia. Not participating is completely fine.

Consider contributing money if:

  • If you make/have more than the average ecotopian, or if you own your house/apartment
  • If you have (access to) higher quality gear than the average ecotopian
  • If you want to :)

Ideas for inspiration of how much to contribute:

  • What do you usually spend on holidays? The bike tour is still a relatively cheap way to do vacations, you could consider contributing the difference
  • Perhaps you could sacrifice some comfort by traveling cheaper, through taking a bus or even hitchbiking
  • If you get yourself new gear, like a new tent, camping mat, or bike this year, you could resell the old one and contribute this money
  • Contribute a meaningful part of, or multiple, travel reimbursements, knowing the average reimbursement over the past years is around 150 euro.
  • If you budgeted money for new gear and it turns out to be less than you budgeted, you could contribute the rest
  • If at the end of the tour you have money left in your Biketour budget

Consider requesting money if:

  • If you’re under financial stress for any reason
  • If you make/have less than the average ecotopian
  • If it’s more difficult for you to be part of ecotopia than the average participant (through physical or emotional stress)
  • If finances are a thing you consider when deciding whether to join the tour or not
  • If you have more financial burdens, such as being a caretaker, having health problems of your own, or anything else
  • If you’re concerned you’ll be without money on the tour

How does it work?

  • The money of Moneytopia will only be used for lowering the financial barrier for people to join the Biketour and equalizing financial hierarchies. The money won’t be used for buying communal equipment, reimbursing travel costs related to the preparation week, groceries on tour, donations to projects, or anything else.
  • People who want to can add a (anonymous if wanted) note to the shared pad: https://pad.rankenste.in/p/moneytopia2026 about in what way they participate in Moneytopia. This can help others decide whether they want to contribute or request.
  • The total amount of money contributed and requested is made public
  • Note that unrelated to the travel cost money sharing, we also ask that participants contribute 0-10 euro per day to the communal money on the Biketour. This money is used to pay for groceries and contributions to projects. Any contribution is voluntary and participants don’t need to bring any money. For people for whom €10 per day is not a lot, they are invited to contribute more

Requesting money:

  • When requesting, it’s helpful if you can give an estimate of how much you’ll request. If possible, differentiate between what amount you need in order to join the Biketour, and what amount you’d ideally like to receive.
  • We will never ask you to justify money requests.
  • Generally, we reimburse travel money, meaning bus/train/ferry tickets or visa costs. Let us know if you need other costs reimbursed.
  • It’s helpful for us if you could send us (anonymized) receipts of the costs you’d like reimbursed.
  • We don’t reimburse plane travel.
  • While we will do our utmost best to organize the money that ecotopians requested, we don’t know how many requests we will get and can’t guarantee that we will be able to reimburse everything. For this reason, we ask people to differentiate between their money needs and money wishes so we can prioritize in case we don’t have enough.

Process for getting money reimbursed:

  • We will reach out to you to coordinate how to reimburse the funds.
  • We will verify whether you were on the Biketour. This means that we generally only reimburse during or after your time at the tour. Let us know if this is a problem for you and we can see if we can figure something out.
  • Because we don’t know how much money there will be in the fund, we will reimburse the money needs as soon as we can, and the money wishes only after the tour or when we feel confident that we will have enough funds to cover all the needs.
  • If we don’t have enough money to reimburse everyone who requested, we will request in the Ecotopia 2026 chat on signal that people contribute more if they can.
  • If we have money left at the end of this process, we announce in the Ecotopia 2026 chat that people can request more if they want. If we still have money left, we will use it for reimbursing travel costs of participants for Ecotopia 2027.

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