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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

#221

Post by fullStackOasis »

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,…

> a low-frequency route means it's something you need to plan your entire day around.

Okay but the dude is making $5K/y which means he basically has no job and he sits around in his house all week or goes hiking etc. His most exciting day of adventure will literally consist of taking the bus to the library to check out a book, and bringing it back home (while reading it on the bus, perhaps). He can totally afford to plan his entire day around the event.

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

#222

Post by woodruffw »

trollbridge wrote: post #193
bobthepanda wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is a huge market distortion in that dense, walkable living is illegal to build in most of the country. i've seen polling that suggests walkability is in demand for about 40% of the population but there isn't 40% of available homes in such a configuration, so there are also a lot of people who get priced out of that and into suburbia.

Most of the country by land area has no zoning and people can build whatever they want. Despite that, where I live the only thing anyone does is the SFH and the occasional duplex.

That isn't especially surprising, given that there's no point in raising (or using) the capital to build urban infrastructure where none exists. It's a flywheel-shaped problem; the fact that the average American lives in a local optima of suburban sprawl doesn't itself indicate the absence of a better optima.

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

#223

Post by tomcar288 »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #70
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…

> 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 only available in the city, but country people can make a day trip to do that too. This hasn't been my experience at all. I live in an urban area and I haven't eaten at a chain restaurant outside of road…

actually, i'm now noticing it may be cheaper for me to buy used skis than to rent them. buying used i can get it cheaper than even renting just once or twice

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

#224

Post by fullStackOasis »

orzig wrote: post #188

The author mentions they’re just about to have a baby, and it’s notable that they don’t talk about the quality of the schools. Even if they homeschooled, I imagine they want their kids to have some friends, and they didn’t talk about how that would work without a car. Once they get a car, they might get a little bit unlucky and live an hour away from their kid’s closest peer. I hope they get along!

> Even if they homeschooled, I imagine they want their kids to have some friends, and they didn’t talk about how that would work without a car.

Why do you assume that they are no kids in the neighborhood?

I suppose another option is that they don't actually care if their kids have friends. Perhaps parents are enough, in their view.

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

#225

Post by hyperpape »

trollbridge wrote: post #200
hyperpape wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, this is the weirdest way the author could've written that sentence. He should've said either "one 10 hour shift per month will make 30% of what you need to live here" or even "one 10 hour shift per week will make more than what you need to live here."

432/17 is 25 hours, or otherwise stated one 8 hour shift every week or two.

Right, which is why it's extremely confusing that the author wrote:

> In this case, you could work just one ten-hour shift per week, and in so doing, earn more than 30% of what you need to live well at this particular house with just four days of work per month.

What he probably did was write that one shift is more than 30% of what you need, then switched gears to write about four days of work per month, but forgot to remove the 30% number.

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

#226

Post by fullStackOasis »

eugenekolo wrote: post #133

Confused by his portrayal of Massena, NY. I don't live there and have never driven through, but looking on Google Maps it doesn't seem that bad or depressing as the author (and I guess commentators) make it out to be. It has a Walmart, Home Depot, BJs (similar to Costco), a main street with several businesses. A walkable grid with sidewalks in that main town area.... Feels like reaching that this place is so desolate…

Also what I was thinking! I saw the Home Depot on the map, and an International Airport (with daily flights to Boston no less), and thought, "Wait a sec, is this guy pulling our collective legs?". https://flymassena.com/

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

#227

Post by digianarchist »

sweeter wrote: post #220
aeturnum wrote: post #116

Some of the claims here are pretty intense, but I do think his closing statement is true enough: > there’s never been a better time to try to “make it” in America and live the older version of the American Dream. If we can’t see that now, it doesn’t necessarily mean that things have gotten bad — it might mean that our perception has become grossly skewed by an era of hyperabundance, marketing, reality TV, and social…

I think it's absurd. I work full time in the richest country on Earth and I can't afford an apartment and healthcare. The problem is clearly not advertising. Real "billionaire goes homeless for one night to prove the stupid poors are lazy and stupid and need to hedge their expectations" type of energy

We're all being asked to sacrifice the living standards our parents grew up with because the utter failure of local, state and federal government to provide housing, public transit, education and healthcare, something most of the Western world manages to pull off without issue.

We have never been more productive in this country's history and yet we cannot even meet a bar set in the 1950s.

It's frankly ridiculous as is this piece.

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

#228

Post by fullStackOasis »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #66
celestialcheese wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because when you live rural like this, wood stoves are common, and wood is free. I live in the northwest, so I can't speak to upstate NY, but downed trees on state and federal land near roads is free to take. Every day there's people posting rounds of wood for free to take. It's hard work, but it's good exercise and rewarding. There's some upfront investment: $200 chainsaw, an old maul, and an old pickup truck,…

To add to the sibling comment, collecting this wood takes time. I've collected wood the forest service takes down for use in a stove I use but processing all that wood takes time. You bring it home, cut it into small bits, keep it in a dry area to make sure the green wood dries out, and then you meticulously rotate older and newer stock to make sure you use the driest stuff for heating. If you're living on $432 / mon…

Well, minimum wage in NY state is $15.50/hour. ($432/mo)/($15.50/h) is about 28 hours per month, i.e. 7 hours per week. https://dol.ny.gov/minimum-wage-0

He also mentions other forms of employment, like raising rare herbs, so maybe he's got a little homegrown operation going that doesn't take much time.

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

#229

Post by qingcharles »

junar wrote: post #192
qingcharles wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'd expect 5G home internet to be cheaper than satellite, though probably still more expensive than an ultra-low-cost cellular plan.

True. Verizon and T-Mobile both had really awesome 5G home Internet plans for $25/mo. I had the T-Mobile one for a while in 2022 and was getting 800Mbps which was wild.

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

#230

Post by titanomachy »

probably_wrong wrote: post #168

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 vermi…

I don’t know why they chose that picture, but it’s also not really related to the argument of the essay.
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