This has been growing on my mind of late...
It all started when I considered what Frodo did with his life prior to year 3018. How did he eat, buy beer, pay for Sam's employ? Am I just clueless regarding how such a culture or economy would function, or is this just glossed over, being mostly irrelevant to the story?
Consider: Frodo inherits Bad End, and so he has no 'mortgage.' He's a bachelor with no dependents, which makes things a bit simpler. He has to, however, heat and light the place, and so either purchases or gathers wood and makes candles. Somehow I doubt that Frodo was out chopping wood. He, being a hobbit, eats like a shrew, and even if he fixes his own suppers Frodo has to get the provisions from somewhere. Of course he has a garden, but I guess that he somehow pays Sam to work there, and also Sam maintains Bag End, keeping the place standing against the tides of time.
So how does he pay for the things that he does not have nor cannot make? Bilbo may have left a fortune, but what good would it be? For example, let's say that Bilbo left Frodo a bunch of little Arkenstones (not the big one, but smaller essays). Could Frodo use these to buy labor or materials? To me it would be like going to the local grocery (not that we have those in "Merica, as they've all been consumed by UberMegaBigBoxMarts) and attempting to trade a gold brick for some bread and cheese. Even if the grocer accepted the trade, eventually I would run out of gold bricks. The value in Gondor of the little arkenstones might be a princely sum, but in the Shire their value may be less - even if I bought the entire stock of the baker, I would still run out of stones, or their value would decrease as everyone (the innkeeper, Sam, etc) would have one. And what would the baker or innkeeper or Sam do with a bucket of arkenstones? If no one else accepted them - they're pretty little baubles, but you can't eat them nor burn them - the people that Frodo paid would not accept more of the same.
Anyway, my concern is that Frodo's 'wealth' might not allow him to sit idle for so many years.
Could he invest his money so that even if he were buying bread with arkenstones that he could live off the 'interest' on his wealth? In what could he invest that would provide a return? I just have no grasp on how that would all work in such a primitive (I don't mean that derogatively) and agrarian culture.
Plus, obviously, I want to find out Frodo's secret so that I, too, can spend my days walking the countryside, looking at maps and chatting with elves.
