I will say, at this income level you're on Medicaid. It would be more than nothing but very basic, and if you're using government assistance than you aren't really "escaping" modernity, you're actually living off of the economic surplus of all the people working hard in the rat race. (Don't misinterpret me as saying that social safety nets are bad, I am all for them, but I'm just saying - if the author of this article gets cancer I bet they'll want to visit a hospital where doctors are working 12 hour shifts grinding out the era of "overabundance.")
But it is extremely important to point out that the American "rat race" cities subsidize areas like this. There would be no road in front of this house without those subsidies. These areas are net negative economic contributors that depend on federal and state funding to exist, including that bus transit that this person is relying on (not to mention the American factory workers who grind out their shifts in urban centers to make those buses).
The author claims to be living the life of great-grandparents, but it’s not like he’s a subsistence farmer or something. As a metaphor it’s kind of like claiming you’re a wild animal living out in the wilderness living a simple life of virtue when in reality this existence is more similar to a raccoon living out of the dumpster of modern society’s surplus.
Why bother building a self-sufficient community like the Amish where they build their own homes and grow their own food and build their own buggies, clothes, furniture, and breed their own horses when you can survive in a cheap depreciated house someone else built, use the library and transportation that other working people pay for, and the roads that were built by the workers who actually work some significant hours?
I am sure it works on some level but it doesn’t seem to me to be a very positive alternative to a lot of other lifestyles.
Apart from all that, there are so many flaws with this article.
The budget didn't include mortgage/housing cost, I guess it's just assuming you're paying cash? How does a person with this kind of lack of gainful employment come up with $29k?
Water is $0? Even well water requires some level of upkeep and potentially replacement and re-drilling.
Most rural towns in the US absolutely do not have this transit available. You'll need a working maintained car plus insurance almost everywhere that looks like this.
Internet, use library - again, with what car? Aren’t a lot of the methods available to make income dependent on internet access?
The heat budget is just blank which makes no sense, heat in upstate new york is not cheap as you need a lot of it.
Education for your kids? How is that going to look out there? Are they going to be trapped here? Will they even have the option to opt out of this lifestyle? How easy will it be to do homework at home with no internet? You’ll rely on a rural bus schedule and use the library during open hours only?
I might also point out that a lot of modern society lifestyles that aren’t so far on this side of extreme of frugality are really easy and comfortable lives. Not all of them, a lot of people live difficult modern lives, but at the same time the “most people” who left the farm to get a job in the city did so for a reason.
I guess you could say that the extremes of society can make for some interesting reading.