151–160 of 222 posts
Takeaway: If you can score dirt-cheap rent, you've won half the battle. He pays $250 for rent in S.F. You'd be pretty hard-pressed to NOT have an impressive budget in that kind of scenario.
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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 h…
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Because you will go bankrupt if something serious happens while on this plan. Go see the details of his coverage, I bet it only covers basic things, and 50% of hospitalization drugs, and some crazy deductible. So if he gets cancer or heart disease (most common serious illnesses), he is fucked, and will be fucked every year, if he can still afford that insurance after the first year.
"So if he gets cancer or heart disease (most common serious illnesses), he is fucked, and will be fucked every year, if he can still afford that insurance after the first year." I already looked. $3000 deductible, no lifetime limits, and it covers major surgery, doctor visits are $40. If you want prescription coverage, there are plans less than $200 (in the $190 range) that cover 80% of prescriptions. Cable costs thi…
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…
I think where I disagree with you (and the blog author) is your attitude toward work: Money is just a medium of exchange, right, but have you ever wondered what it is you're exchanging? It's life. Work isn't a waste of life. My goal in life is not to get to the end having worked as little as possible. Travel is fun, and educational, and good for you, but it's not the only thing. By all means live cheaply enough to al…
Some people define "work" as "unpleasant tasks I do to get money," and by this definition I support the OP. Minimise that crap, get it off your plate entirely if possible. These people would never consider a book that they wrote or an app that they made as being real income, even if it eclipsed their other income, because it was fundamentally done out of a sense of fun rather than work.
If you don't think of work in those terms, your argument is true. For instance, I would much rather do an extra hour's work than to save twenty bucks by shopping at an out-of-town supermarket. An hour's work is fun, wading around a big soulless store for an hour is not fun (this is a personal comparison, you may disagree).
This is where I think frugality is overplayed as a tool for personal liberation; instead of finding yourself liberated from money by abandoning the rat race, you tie yourself to it in the piles of bookkeeping and pleasures denied that are the province of the penny pincher. But this wasn't the point that the article was making anyway, rather it seems to be advising to think clearly about what you want, and choose things that will last more than six months.
So yeah, what was the point I was making? Oh yes, moderation is good. I'm not qualified to make any of these statements, I'm hardly an example of good financial management myself. But I've been typing for too long not to hit the reply button now.
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…
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…
As a startup founder, as much as I am concerned about cutting costs, I am also concerned about the opportunity cost of spending time doing maintenance. E.g., even if you fully own a house, a house can be a lot of maintenance work. Depending on how you value your time, that can reduce how much you "save" on rent.
Any comments?
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I suppose my biggest objection is I hate his lifestyle. I like going out, I enjoy activities which are more often than not paid, I don't have a girlfriend who sits at home and cooks for me all the time. Just because one person is happy with a certain way of living doesn't mean everyone will be. I could do it like he does and simply be miserable.
You could just do something else then. I'm not saying "everybody copy me". There are paid versions of my activities, but I eventually found the versions there were free or almost free. This holds for almost everything unless you insist on a particular paid version. For instance, when it comes to going out. Lots of people like that, but why are they really going out? Probably not to sit in a particular restaurant and…
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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…
His plan must be subsidized by the state - I have a very similar plan (with an even higher deductible) for myself and my family and it costs $950 a month.
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…
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…