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How I live on $7,000 per year

earlyretirementextreme.com

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Re: How I live on $7,000 per year

#131

Post by potatolicious »

erejacob wrote: post #93
potatolicious wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What rorrr said, but not in quite such an inflammatory tone. I think it's great that you've found a lifestyle you enjoy that also allows you to get by with very little money. What I take issue with is your judgmental tone in the article - as if there's something wrong with everyone else for not wanting to live in an RV. This country faces a dire economic crisis, and there is no doubt that the income of the middle cla…

It wasn't written "for a general audience". I and my regular readers are regularly judged negatively for not choosing to consume and go into debt like everybody else so the blog is more of a support group for those who are willing to go against the stream and actually save money so they can avoid the typical middle class problems above. I admit, there's a bit of "I told you so"-attitude, although one quickly learns t…

You're still working against a straw man.

> "for not choosing to consume and go into debt like everybody else"

What everybody else? There's a certain contingent of people out there who have spent wildly beyond their means thanks to cheap credit, have poor fiscal responsibility, and suffer justly for it. You seem to grasp onto this and extrapolate it across all the "normals" you see.

I know a great number of people who are fiscally responsible, have no debt, are fiscally prudent, and yet do not take their frugality so far as $7000 in an RV. Many of these people have suffered through this recession, and yet you seem so glad to lump them into the "irresponsible debtors" group and just dismiss this nation's problems as entirely self-inflicted.

How utterly presumptuous. Your moralizing is not helpful, and from the blog post and your posts in this thread, you come off as smug and judgmental as those who would judge you negatively for being frugal and living your lifestyle the way you choose.

There's a gigantic swathe of middle ground between the indentured debt servant and the completely liberated, ultra-frugal. You seem to just completely ignore this and try to push as many people as you can, in your mind, towards the former extreme.

Re: How I live on $7,000 per year

#132

Post by erejacob »

todsul wrote: post #129
tryitnow wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. This pretty much aligns with my philosophy. If your budget is readily available, could you post it? I've been seeing a lot of "we live on $XX,XXX" online. That's nice, but what really inspired me was when people just posted their budgets, which since you already have one, would probably take less time than articulating the philosophy. I personally don't set a budget (I've tried it but I spend just as much wit…

We pretty much do the same thing: live country-to-country, for 3-6 months at a time, buy a new MacBook each year, run a startup, etc. Budgets differ between country. Not just in the value of line items, but the line items themselves. For example, in Thailand you may have a budget for massages, because they're so plentiful. When you go to buy pork from a street vendor, you can have your feet massaged while eating. The…

+1 on the difference between choosing to and having to... while I haven't made lots of money or purchased big ticket items, I did make relatively much as a high school student (more than my peers) and blew it all on graphics cards, SLR cameras, airsoft guns, 23" CRTs (yes, I'm that old), and what have you. After I while I noticed that I got no permanent satisfaction out of those purchases. Perhaps it's good I realized this early.

On the other hand having money that was put into savings instead of stuff creates the feeling of power and potential. When I started saving I counted my net worth in cars (because consumerism was still my frame of reference). Imagine walking past a car lot and knowing one has enough money to buy 1-2-3, .... later 8-9-10 ... today dozens of cars (now I count in houses instead ;-) ) on the lot in _cash_ is a very interesting and positive feeling. It's the feeling of being in control and essentially being able to do what you want. Things no longer happen to you. One has financial agency. This is completely different from a reactive mindset.

Re: How I live on $7,000 per year

#133

Post by h6165 »

nirvana wrote: post #10

I've been living on $13,754 per year for the past 4 years. (Average as of last month.) There are two of us, so, double that and you have the average cost over that period. While we've been doing it, we've been traveling full time, spent the last year in europe living in AirBNB pads, and doing our startup. We buy a MacBook Pro each year and an iPad or iPhone each year as needed, with the old one going to the other per…

Is it really possible to do a startup while travelling? Don't people expect you to be sort of more stationary/accessible ? How has your experience been on this?

Re: How I live on $7,000 per year

#134

Post by potatolicious »

gregatragenet wrote: post #109
rorrr wrote: post #25

Sorry, but this story is garbage. Rent/mortgage, retirement completely ignored. Plus he has the shittiest $82 health insurance plan he could find, and he doesn't calculate the costs of what will happen if he gets sick. On average people after 65 spend $2,920 per year on medical out of pocket expenses (Source: http://www.newretirement.com/Planning101/Rising_Medical_Cost... ) Then his food comes from his garden, which…

Hi rorrr, You are clearly on the treadmill. Yeah if you want to buy a new car every X years, and get a mortgage for an overpriced house you are not going to be able to live this lifestyle. You will probably have the lifestyle most enjoy. Maxed out credit cards, no savings, that big oh-shit moment in your mid-fifty's when you realize you've nothing saved for retirement... Not to burst your bubble, but his health plan…

> "Yeah if you want to buy a new car every X years, and get a mortgage for an overpriced house you are not going to be able to live this lifestyle. You will probably have the lifestyle most enjoy. Maxed out credit cards, no savings, that big oh-shit moment in your mid-fifty's when you realize you've nothing saved for retirement..."

It's amazing how much introspection you have on the life of a total stranger without him even revealing the least bit about his lifestyle or finances!

Seriously, I'm all for being frugal and responsible, but you're just projecting at this point, and it really does come off as an ad hominem.

Re: How I live on $7,000 per year

#135

Post by sevenproxies »

nirvana wrote: post #10

I've been living on $13,754 per year for the past 4 years. (Average as of last month.) There are two of us, so, double that and you have the average cost over that period. While we've been doing it, we've been traveling full time, spent the last year in europe living in AirBNB pads, and doing our startup. We buy a MacBook Pro each year and an iPad or iPhone each year as needed, with the old one going to the other per…

>We buy a MacBook Pro each year and an iPad or iPhone each year as needed

I don't understand this. You could be saving you self at least ~$1,300 a year, all for what? A slightly improved OS or hardware you don't really need. I'm earning ~$20,000 a year, saving ~$900 a month and I still consider those purchases excessive. I almost purchased an iPad last month but once I really though about it, I realise it would have just been an impulse buy (most of my higher earning colleagues own Macbooks and iPads). Plus, the Amazon Fire was announced around that time, so I will wait for that to be released in the UK before looking at tablets again.

I use approximations as I live in England.

Re: How I live on $7,000 per year

#137

Post by awongh »

ahsanhilal wrote: post #35
awongh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that the OP understands that a growth economy is not the end-all be-all of human progress, and in the end may not be ideal. Maybe it's not about imposing a way of life on other people, but realizing that the underlying philosophy of a growth economy is flawed- it's inherently true that limitless growth is impossible, so in some sense we are all just waiting until we either slide over the top of that curve…

It is hard to argue against the underlying principle of the growth economy because it is the ONLY principle that has served has so well over the past century and gotten so many people out of poverty, and increased overall wealth, distribution of wealth is still a problem though. We are unequivocally better off today in standard economic terms than we were a 100 50 or 25 years ago. Growth can be tempered and slowed bu…

It's true that a growth economy is needed in third-world countries, but the curve is also steepening, so it's not as if we need another hundred years of similar progress in order for everyone to come closer to parity (that is, the curve of human progress in general)

It's quite easy to argue against the underlying principle of the growth economy, because it pre-supposes that the previous 100 years of industrialized capitalism are what's going to continue to fix the world's problems.

It also scares me that China's growth, for instance, is tied to me being able to go to walmart and get a cheap skateboard I'm never going to use and a huge LCD TV I'm going to throw away in two years. Our economic system of moving capital and wealth creation is now dependent on being convinced to want things we don't need, and shuffling around the systems of credit we created for that system. It used to be about creating value- mostly having to do with real things that fulfilled basic human needs, and now that the market's power isn't based on that, credit default swaps are what we come up with. It's a logical conclusion of a system that only has the principal of growth behind it.

Obviously our market-based capitalistic system is the only viable way to efficiently move capital around right now, but you can't blame someone for being unhappy with the underlying message that growth is the only way forward, forever. Some people would argue that we've already reached the peak of the curve in the first world.

Re: How I live on $7,000 per year

#138

Post by doc_larry »

It's all about perspective. As physician and entrepreneur I like what I'm doing and enjoy my life. The money is a side effect that grew over time (when I started in the ER I was paid less than $200 for 24 of work). Money isn't the objective, but creating a meaningful lifestyle, being a good husband and leave something positive behind is what really matters. My two cents of happiness :-)

Re: How I live on $7,000 per year

#139

Post by joezydeco »

rick888 wrote: post #59
dgallagher wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus he has the shittiest $82 health insurance plan he could find, and he doesn't calculate the costs of what will happen if he gets sick. A bigger issue with the cheap health plans is they tend to have a very high deductible, usually in the $2000 - $3000 range (his is $3500! http://earlyretirementextreme.com/my-hdhp-hsa-and-some-comme... ). If you end up in the E.R. once for anything, like a fever, you have to pay t…

Yes, but you won't go bankrupt like so many people claim you will without health insurance. Why don't more people get this $80 plan?

Some people get married and start families. There's no way this plan costs $80 for anyone other than an under-40 single healthy nonsmoker. Add kids and a pregnant wife and see where it goes.
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