When you have never been in the habit of saving, or building up capital, living co-operatively is a major mental gear-change.  You're actually taking over the capitalist system, but running it ethically.  This meams we have to get rid of the government - which useless and dishonest - and ban usury, to get land and property taken out of the speculative arena and owned on behalf of the community.  It means, ultimately, creating our own banking system, which works on permanently fixed low interest rates so you know your finance costs and those who lend to you know what they're going to get: and there's no more of this letting politicians and banker jerk rates up and down like a yoyo.

What you are doing is building up capital to purchase the house you're living in so that you become your own landlords; and you only spend on what is necessary, abolishing profiteering.  Once your borrowed funds have been repaid, you should be able to fix rents at the level that just takes care of maintenance plus Council tax and utilities.

At the 2011 Britain Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends (Quakers), the theme was "sustainability.  During the discussions, it became clear that the only way of saving our world is to learn to live like human beings are supposed to live: sharing and co-operating.  By using facilities and housing in common, we learn how to make do with less.  We are reversing the economic trend that has governed us for 200 years: dividing people into smaller and smaller competing and consuming nuclear unit to increase consumption. Continual growth is demanding more than this world's resources, and we need to find ways of living with less.  And that means trusting and relying on each other more.