Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to live on $432 a month in America

shagbark.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 764 posts

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

#161

Post by xp84 »

xwiz wrote: post #136
xp84 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

> 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. I have never met a single person of my generation for which this holds true. If this is the perspective that the author is trying to refute, fine, but I cannot say that it is a common one. > $200,000 in sa…

Okay, but we are reading this on HN. Anyone working for the past 10 years in tech should have that much saved up easily. If for the past 10 years you put just $400 a month into SPY and did nothing else, you'd have about $95,000. About 126k for QQQ. [0]

And I don't think most people can't afford to save $400 a month. Lots of people save that much.

[0]: https://dqydj.com/etf-return-calculator/

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

#162

Post by rufus_foreman »

tacheiordache wrote: post #40
bluefirebrand wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone claims it's about living in a city with available services The reality is that it's mostly about living in a city with available jobs What's the job market like near this lovely little $432 per month place described in the article? How am I going to pay for it?

I agree. With no jobs in the area $432 may as well require to work a lot more for lower pay, whatever is available in the area.

>> With no jobs in the area $432 may as well require to work a lot more for lower pay

>> the Stewart’s gas stations in both towns are actively hiring part-time cashiers at $17/hr. These places will let you work just one day a week if you like, and seem to be pretty good about flexible hours

432 / 17 = 25.4 hours a month. A few more hours than that to pay social security, but no income taxes and they would get the Earned Income Tax Credit.

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

#163

Post by bombcar »

999900000999 wrote: post #87

>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. Unl…

That’s obviously not true, if you change what you “have” to go to.

There are thousands of American towns that are about 10k population - large enough to have a Walmart and other stores, small enough to walk across in an hour or so.

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

#164

Post by bombcar »

fzeroracer wrote: post #159
monroeclinton wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.slcnypublictransit.com/transit-schedules It seems like they have a good number of routes and do route deviation within 3/4 of a mile of the bus stop.

Frequency is often as important as the route from experience; because a route that's reasonably distant from your location can be walked to/biked to etc but a low-frequency route means it's something you need to plan your entire day around. And if you miss any bus then you're stranded (which, given that they don't have internet I'm curious how they manage...) Most of the bus routes here seem to run maybe twice a day,…

Rural bus routes used to be very common - they commute in in the morning and out in the afternoon.

You change your schedule to handle that, and they usually will drive the van (barely a bus) up to your door.

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

#166

Post by eraviloi »

So many folks bashing the author. The message is clear, most people are not willing to alter their lives to live more comfortably.

Whether that is giving up living in comfort or making small changes to their habits.

I think the relevant commentary here is to look at what happiness looks like for you. For a lot of folks they are just going to mentally masturbate to alternative ways in life. For the select few that make those changes content like this is critical.

Thanks for spreading the seeds.

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

#167

Post by speuleralert »

egypturnash wrote: post #23

they’d need to leave behind the idea that snow, overcast, wind, rain, and long winters are all that bad to contend with, because in all truth, they’re actually great. I am glad people like this exist because that means there is less competition for the climate zones I can live in without having to perpetually struggle with the urge to kill myself on a daily basis. I am from the Gulf Coast and the years I lived in Sea…

Definitely a different strokes for different folks situation. I am also from the Gulf Coast and I genuinely love the cool rainy Seattle weather. In fact, I was just lamenting having to squint to see in the “hot” (65 F) sunny day this morning in Seattle.

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

#168

Post by probably_wrong »

I think the author is arguing against their own point with the illustration they chose. The very last picture can be found in the Wikipedia page for the Homestead Act and, two jumps later, one can find themselves in the Dutch version of "Sod house" [1] which has this to say:

> The living conditions there were miserable. Due to the construction method, the room was difficult to heat, it was damp and teeming with vermin. (...) The Housing Act of 1901 prohibited living in sod huts.

If the author says "you can live like your grandparents" to mean "in conditions that were already considered miserable for the standards of 1901", that's not a great selling point. And while I sympathize with the underlying message to a point, I would argue against romanticizing the past. Sure, my grandfather lived in a cheap house he built himself, but he also came back home every day with bleeding fingers that my grandmother would treat.

[1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaggenhut

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

#169

Post by nkurz »

energywut wrote: post #122

> any American could live an earlier iteration of the American Dream If (and only if) you aren't socially different from the communities you'd be moving to. Being gay or trans, for instance, might mark you out as a target in a lot of the places where you could live this cheaply. Plenty of race, religions, or political beliefs that would make it untenable. It's hard to claim that any American can achieve this.

Maybe you have more direct experience with this than I do, but I'm not sure I agree. I don't follow the lifestyle the author describes, but I do live in an economically and culturally comparable town in Vermont that's much smaller than Massena. The town is full of gay and lesbian couples, and it really doesn't seem to be an issue. The few racial minorities seem to be well accepted. Religion is a surprisingly small factor.

Political beliefs do divide the town, but national politics are actually less divisive than I've experienced in larger places. Trans folk do have it harder, but we seem to judge the few we have as individuals. I'm sure there are other towns where these things are much less true, but I wouldn't automatically assume it couldn't work in Massena for anyone with the right attitude. I think it would come down to the individual.

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

#170

Post by bombcar »

FeloniousHam wrote: post #89
alexjplant wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A big part of it is how you want to find friends.

If you have a “friend profile” and you want people to match it, a city is wonderful - more people, more matches.

Thing: all friends within 5 years of my age, similar jobs, education, etc. Go city! Or college maybe.

But if you’re old country or old rural and want to be friends with those around you a suburban or rural area can be fine. You end up making friends with the ten year old next door, and his parents, along with the retirees on the other side, etc.

Post reply on HN