Why? Money!

Money is not a big motivator if you have few desires. You need much less of it. You can have some, and not spend it, yielding a safety net for hard times. Like now.

Even a life of few desires requires a basic amount of effort to sustain it, which is why simple living is not necessarily easy living. It takes less money, but not less effort.

The only way of life that is easy is The Convenient Life™. 

Convenience is easy (luxury is grotesquely easy). It costs a lot of money to make life artificially smooth like that. 

Either way, you have to expend some effort because for most of us making money is anything but easy. The average person has to work very hard for all that easy they are buying.

I would rather work at growing my own food than work for someone so I can make money so I can go to the store and buy food. 

Growing food, and all the other hard work I do to support Linda and I in our simple life is enjoyable and real. I can not say the same for most of the paid labour I have done in the past.

Money? Why? 

What good is a big pile of money if you don't want anything? We can decide to have a little pile and enjoy more time doing the things we enjoy.

While working hard. There is no way out of that. Everyone must fish for their supper, or work to make money to buy that fish.

I would rather do the fishing myself.