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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

#101

Post by ydlr »

yupitsme123 wrote: post #81
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…

Actually, the town basically existed because of the TVA. It was a major employer and profits went to fund the schools and library.

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

#102

Post by xp84 »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #77
aaronbaugher wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about places with more jobs is that they also tend to have more job-seekers. The two tend to vary proportional to the population. It's really the ratio of jobs to job-seekers that matters. Of course, it depends a lot on the job. Some jobs only exist in cities, while others are almost exclusively rural.

The type of place being talked about in this article is a place with more houses than people. It's the sort of place that children move away from as they mature because there are few opportunities to build a life there

> few opportunities to build a life

for certain values of "a life" of course. The article alludes to our 'great-grandparents' and indeed, we wouldn't be here if the majority of people 100 years ago didn't build "a life" in rural areas without any of the things most of GenZ (and if i'm honest, millennials too) think "a life" requires.

But the word "build" you used is telling. I think you mean "buy a life" -- that's what pursuing only the City Life is doing. In the country you would indeed have to build a life. To figure out what would make you happy and build it, whether that's a club of fellow board game enthusiasts, or a restaurant that you open, or a small chicken farm, etc.

I don't blame the young people, they've only ever been shown a fashionable, extreme-consumption-based narrative of what "a life" should be. Expensive vacations, designer handbags, luxury cars, kitchens bigger than that whole $29,000 house (and that cost $100k for the kitchen alone). That's what we've been told happy people need.

I'm just deeply unconvinced that any of that automatically brings happiness, and I am very convinced that the amount of work it takes to pay for all that is 100% bad for those of us who weren't just born into wealth.

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

#103

Post by silisili »

Higher income employees would pay way more than that in taxes alone. This is why properties in low and no income tax states skyrocketed.

Assuming it's not high income but a real scrounger, this is leaving out way too much. Out of pocket health insurance will easily quadruple that number. Utilities could too, depending.

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

#104

Post by nurettin »

xeromal wrote: post #2

I've often felt this way about some of today's complaints. I grew up in area like what was mentioned in this article and I long for the day I can go back there. I would in a heartbeat if my partner shared the same mentality as me. I don't really see a point in living a big city with the remote job I have and that many others have if I can live in a smaller area that still has humans but much cheaper way of living. Ev…

Also small towns attract less serial killers.

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

#105

Post by bryanlarsen »

xp84 wrote: post #96
bluefirebrand wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when those gas station jobs fill up but there's still empty houses around?

Have you not read the article? The whole point of it is once you get your costs down to this manageable a number, you have a lot more options for "how you're going to support yourself." You could clear $5,000-10,000 a year, which I should remind you would be tax free money simply due to the standard deduction, doing any number of things either local or remote. Ideas I'm just making up: 1. Buy, repair, and flip MacBoo…

> 3. Mow lawns 4. Clean gutters 5. Set up a little stand and sell baked goods or tamales

Those might pay well in the city, but nobody making $17/hr is going to pay more than $10/hr for lawn mowing.

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

#106

Post by skyyler »

xp84 wrote: post #96
bluefirebrand wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when those gas station jobs fill up but there's still empty houses around?

Have you not read the article? The whole point of it is once you get your costs down to this manageable a number, you have a lot more options for "how you're going to support yourself." You could clear $5,000-10,000 a year, which I should remind you would be tax free money simply due to the standard deduction, doing any number of things either local or remote. Ideas I'm just making up: 1. Buy, repair, and flip MacBoo…

>1. Buy, repair, and flip MacBooks on eBay

No internet at the house in this scenario, so that's a lot of trips to the library.

>2. Do stuff on Fiverr

See above.

>3. Mow lawns 4. Clean gutters

These are both viable in the summer, provided there is some "landed elite" in the area that makes more than the $17/hr the gas stations pay. I guess you could shovel snow in the winter.

>5. Set up a little stand and sell baked goods or tamales

Doing that legally requires licenses and registration, but good idea. Do the people of upstate New York enjoy tamales?

>6. Make YouTube videos or shorts about (insert your nerdy interest)

The first point again.

>7. 3D print something and sell it on Etsy

The first point again.

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

#107

Post by DrillShopper »

xp84 wrote: post #100
DrillShopper wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real trade off here is cheap rural land but no ability to ever retire. Sure, I could live in the middle of goddamn nowhere, grow my own food, make my own clothes, build my own house, etc, etc, etc, but at the end of the day it's never over. I'll be out in my 70s and 80s doing that until I die. Sure, that might be an ideal life for someone, but that someone is not me.

What? First of all, unless you're 18 you should, if you're playing the game correctly, be saving for retirement already, right? That money, which you get to bring with you, will go a lot further in the country. Plus, Social Security exists, and again, that check will be the same amount regardless of where you live in retirement, so that'll go a lot further there too. The longer you've worked for "city money" already,…

> unless you're 18 you should, if you're playing the game correctly, be saving for retirement already, right?

I think you underestimate the financial resources of those who most need to take a route like this. They're not likely to have anything saved and likely have lot of debt, too. Which leads into...

> Social Security exists, and again, that check will be the same amount regardless of where you live in retirement

That is no longer a guarantee, and my retirement planning assumes that it will no longer exist in the near future. I have spent the last 25 years paying for it money I could have saved for retirement instead, and likely won't see a dime in return because the Republicans want it gone. We're realistically looking as a full elimination, means testing to receiveh benefits, massive cuts to benefits, or a work requirement (or some combination of these) all in the name of giving massive tax cuts to the group of people who will never have to work ever again in their lives, and neither will their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.

> moving out of the expensive market is one of the best ways to ensure a retirement secure from the worry of having to keep being economically productive till death

Let's constrain ourselves to just the location that the author of the original post suggested. How far away is the nearest hospital if I need treatment for cancer, a heart attack, or a stroke? What are the healthcare opportunities out there? Will friends and family be able to get out there to visit?

The author is so disconnected from reality that its wild that none of this crossed their minds. It just seems like a "those damn millennial and their avocado toast and Macbooks" instead of actually looking into what it means to move out there

The author also commits what to my parents, would be a cardinal sin - suggesting that the next generation have a worse quality of life than their parents, which used to be something that got you disqualified from running for dog catcher in most of this country.

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

#108

Post by xp84 »

viccis wrote: post #41

This almost seemed like it was going to be a Modest Proposal style tongue-in-cheek skewering of this "old man yells at cloud" style of curmudgeonly generational finger wagging. The breakdown of that $432 itself was almost enough to be a farce. But no, the author really does believe this. (Please correct if I'm wrong, as it still seems hard to believe such a fatuous piece could be written and submitted here) >At the e…

You seem really certain that the older 'way of life' is categorically bad, but you seem very unhappy and angry in the life that you reject it in favor of.

Also, you can make any number of easy tweaks to his formula to allow you to have conveniences that would make your life orders of magnitude richer than the true 1910s were. For instance, a $3,000 car, Internet access, etc. Also, anyone coming into this experiment with savings from a few years of "big city work" has a huge amount of capital to play with to set themselves up. $200,000 in savings would give you $10k a year in interest income to live on at current rates, for instance.

The whole point is mainly one about being honest about WHY we have to work 40-60 hours a week so we can stretch to afford a million-dollar starter home, two luxury cars, designer clothes, and IG-worthy vacations. Some people would arguably be happier working little to not-at-all, or working for themselves to make $10k a year and devoting the rest of their time to whatever makes them happy. Why is that so offensive an idea?

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

#110

Post by cricketsandmops »

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…

Perhaps the author heats with a wood stove. You have to get wood through your labor or buying it though, so it's not truly 0$. Plus the time and effort to keep it going.
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