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How to live on $432 a month in America

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Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#81

Post by yupitsme123 »

ydlr wrote: post #4

There is a little bit of a sleight of hand going on in this article by claiming the lifestyle of boomers is within reach, but then actually using boomers' parents and grand-parents as the standard. It would be more honest to say "Most of us can't have the relative wealth of our grand parents, but with some sacrifices and creativity, the lifestyle of our great-grand parents is attainable." Even that is only true in a…

The communities that they lived in were more self-sufficient and probably lived outside of the influence of large government or corporations or lobbying groups.

The flourishing town probably grew that way organically, not because of government support or because some company opened a big facility there.

It's true that land is more expensive now, but even if you could buy your own town and settle people on it, organic growth is basically illegal or impossible nowadays.

Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#82

Post by bluefirebrand »

dmonitor wrote: post #56
codeplea wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is addressed directly in the article: >And for those who might be quick to point out that there could be a dearth of jobs there, note that when people say “there are no jobs” in a given area, they generally mean that there are no jobs that could produce a normal, upper-middle-class lifestyle there. Which, even in Massena and Ogdensburg isn’t entirely true. But even if it were, the Stewart’s gas stations in both…

I love the stupid math in this paragraph. One 10hr shift is ~30% of what you need. So multiply that by 3.3 and... oh hey you're working nearly 40hrs a week to afford your impoverished lifestyle in the middle of nowhere. Just like everyone else in this country, only now you get to own a shed. Also you have to take the bus, which runs from 5am-6pm, so you need to beg your boss to not be an opener or closer. Your cowork…

One 10 hour shift is ~30% of what you need per month

40 hours per month is much less than 40 hours per week

Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#83

Post by aaronbaugher »

jeffbee wrote: post #74
jocaal wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the article he mentions there is a well at the house. Also blankets and wood fires are free heat.

In what way is wood free? To heat even a tiny home purpose-built for high efficiency you'd need several acres of woods to sustainably harvest. For a falling-apart $30k hovel in upstate NY you'd probably need more like 15 acres, and you don't get a 15-acre stand of woods in the deal for that price.

I heat my two-story, not-very-efficient house with wood. I'm not in upstate NY, but not much further south in the Midwest, where we get some sub-zero weather. For firewood, I cut dead or fallen trees that need to be removed on a neighboring farm, so they're "free" (not counting the cost of saw, chains, gas, oil...).

So yeah, you do have to have some timber available. But if you live in the kind of place he's talking about, there's more than enough to go around. Most of the land where I live is in crops, but there are enough trees along the creeks and in rough areas that all the people burning wood don't make a dent in them.

Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#84

Post by keiferski »

jedimastert wrote: post #47
keiferski wrote: post #22

Existing on the living standards of say, 1945, or even 1960, is very possible and allows you to make less money and presumably work on what you truly care about. But that means you don’t get the latest iPhone, cook basic foods at home and rarely eat out, repair your own appliances, and so on. The hardest part, I think, would be dealing with the social expectations of society at large. 1960 living standards were unive…

> 1960 living standards were universal in 1960 Universal for whom? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

I wrote that to imply that the living standards of 1960 were normal in 1960, but wouldn’t be normal today. Don’t over-focus on the word universal and miss the point I was making.

Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#85

Post by occamsrazorwit »

seabird wrote: post #60
jeffbee wrote: post #3

It makes a certain amount of sense and I myself bought a little place way out in the hinterlands of Michigan for similar economic reasons ... but I live in Berkeley because subjecting your children to life without opportunities for art, culture, education, sports, friends, etc is cruel. So if you're white, or just don't care that your ethnicity is absent, and if you have no children, and also don't mind living in a c…

Is there no culture, or no "culture"? When you talk to people from a major metropolitan area about culture outside of a major metropolitan area, they're very often not talking about culture. They're talking about entertainment, and a specific kind of it. I live in semi-rural Michigan and the idea that there's no culture here is just kind of absurd. The culture just doesn't consist of having a constant stream of touri…

How would you describe the local cultural opportunities in your area?

Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#86

Post by qingcharles »

DrillShopper wrote: post #63

> Taxes: $41 > Electric: ~$30 > Water: $0 > Heat: (no, it's really blank) > Transit: $53 for a 30-ride pass for each person living there, assuming you go to town 3x per week at $2/trip. Multiple options to take the bus to town each day from this location. > Food: ~$300/mo. > Telephone: $8/mo > Entertainment: Fishing and library, free > Internet: Use library This author cannot be coming at this from a serious point of…

He overpriced the phone. Good2Go have a 1GB data plan for $5/mo that I use. I only need data when I'm outside the house. You can buy a half-decent Android phone off eBay for $30-50. But, you still need some sort of Internet. If you can't get wired, then that means having to fork out for Starlink or Hughes.

I'm in literally the middle of nowhere in a one-horse town and it has 1Gbps wired to my house and they just put in a second company with 5Gbps the other day, which is wild.

Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#87

Post by 999900000999 »

>Though I and my wife do not presently live in Massena, we live nearby, and we’re doing exactly this — we do not have an automobile, nor do we want one. We use the rural county transit bus, which we have found to be extremely cheap and quite reliable; and it has certainly saved us thousands and thousands of dollars by liberating us from the onerous expense of keeping a car.

This part has me screaming shenanigans. Unless you basically don't leave the house, you need a car outside of like 8 American cities. More believable would be a pair of used bikes.

Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#88

Post by xp84 »

alexjplant wrote: post #39
HankStallone wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived most of my life in (or outside of) small towns, and some of it in a city. I've noticed that my small-town friends who moved to the city would often talk about all the culture and food choices, but when it comes right down to it, they mostly eat at chain restaurants and go to the movies, same as they could in a smallish town. They might occasionally go to a pro baseball game or the zoo or something that's o…

I've had the opposite experience. Having moved from the boonies to a downtown in a Tier 2 US city has caused a lot of my old friends and neighbors to point out that I could buy a 27-bedroom house on a 100 acre lot in the country for what I pay in rent in the city. They fail to realize that not having to drive two hours each way to have fun is worth the 35% premium in housing for me. Before I moved I owned a house and…

> give each paradigm a shot and decide what they like.

Hard agree. I think the article is right that most people haven't even come close to trying the lifestyle he's suggesting.

Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#89

Post by FeloniousHam »

alexjplant wrote: post #39
HankStallone wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived most of my life in (or outside of) small towns, and some of it in a city. I've noticed that my small-town friends who moved to the city would often talk about all the culture and food choices, but when it comes right down to it, they mostly eat at chain restaurants and go to the movies, same as they could in a smallish town. They might occasionally go to a pro baseball game or the zoo or something that's o…

I've had the opposite experience. Having moved from the boonies to a downtown in a Tier 2 US city has caused a lot of my old friends and neighbors to point out that I could buy a 27-bedroom house on a 100 acre lot in the country for what I pay in rent in the city. They fail to realize that not having to drive two hours each way to have fun is worth the 35% premium in housing for me. Before I moved I owned a house and…

> ...but I was lying to myself. Rounding friends up to drive 90 minutes then hop on light rail for a half hour before even getting in the vicinity of where you're going has a very real chilling effect on planning fun time.

1000%. I would complain about driving the 12 minutes just to get out of my subdivision (before moving into town). Just what you say, there's a "chilling effect" when everything you want to do is 30 mins away.

Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#90

Post by kemotep »

dmonitor wrote: post #76
keiferski wrote: post #22

Existing on the living standards of say, 1945, or even 1960, is very possible and allows you to make less money and presumably work on what you truly care about. But that means you don’t get the latest iPhone, cook basic foods at home and rarely eat out, repair your own appliances, and so on. The hardest part, I think, would be dealing with the social expectations of society at large. 1960 living standards were unive…

> that means you don’t get the latest iPhone Why do people always have to call out "the latest iPhone". Most people can't afford the latest iPhone, nor do they try. You might as well say a Lamborghini. Why can't you be honest and just say "a smartphone".

Even a brand new iPhone 16 is “only” $800. Plans for unlimited internet can be had for less than $40 a month.

Using that phone for 5 years would only add like $60 to their total monthly expenses. Is that truly unattainable? Is that really what is keeping people from buying a house?

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