I'm researching on how to become less dependent on Federal Reserve bank notes, while at the same time working to become better at managing money.
From my understanding now, bank notes and money are different. Bank notes are either debt or a symbol of debt while money can be any number of things including dollars (if used correctly and not for debt), crypto-currencies, silver, gold and more. True fungible assets instead of promises based on debt.
It's difficult to figure out a path through all of this.
You're on the right track. While bank notes can, as you pointed out, be money if they're not issued as debt instruments, the fiat issued by governments now does not function as money precisely because it is a debt instrument. It is totally useless as a store of value.