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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

#341

Post by nobodywillobsrv »

xp84 wrote: post #270

I've commented (probably too much) to argue with the harshest critics of this piece, but I am surprised to not have seen much this criticism which is my main one: Supposing I've made peace with the main gist of this: Cut living expenses to a point where you can work ¼ or so of the time most of us spend working by living somewhere cheap and not being so materialistic. The missing piece here is social connections. Fami…

To be fair, leaving everyone behind and not seeing them again was kind of what people did in the great grandfather era mentioned in the article. Even not that long ago. I was talking to someone only perhaps grandma age the other day who said their brother's family moved to BC and they didn't see them for 25 years.

Your comment does focus in on the interesting point in that connected places have perhaps not scaled as well. Or perhaps there is some pareto front of locations on cost vs connectedness we need to imagine in our heads. Very interesting.

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

#342

Post by hshdhdhj4444 »

nobodywillobsrv wrote: post #341
xp84 wrote: post #270

I've commented (probably too much) to argue with the harshest critics of this piece, but I am surprised to not have seen much this criticism which is my main one: Supposing I've made peace with the main gist of this: Cut living expenses to a point where you can work ¼ or so of the time most of us spend working by living somewhere cheap and not being so materialistic. The missing piece here is social connections. Fami…

To be fair, leaving everyone behind and not seeing them again was kind of what people did in the great grandfather era mentioned in the article. Even not that long ago. I was talking to someone only perhaps grandma age the other day who said their brother's family moved to BC and they didn't see them for 25 years. Your comment does focus in on the interesting point in that connected places have perhaps not scaled as…

> what people did in the great grandfather era

Unfortunately the appeal to ancestry fallacy is always a terrible idea.

You see this in the nutrition space where “influencers” go on and on about how our ancestors ate, forgetting that our ancestors died extremely early relative to modern humans.

Similarly, our grandparents lived pretty terrible lives in many ways.

The reason to complain about the high cost of living is that the U.S. has an incredibly high GDP and yet Americans live highly precarious lives, not that in certain very specific ways our ancestors had it slightly better, which as you point out leads to all sorts of issues.

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

#344

Post by [deleted] »

ars wrote: post #206
dangus wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 articl…

> But it is extremely important to point out that the American "rat race" cities 100% subsidize areas like this. It's even more important to point out that places like this grow the food and do the manufacturing that those "cities" you like would collapse without.

[deleted]

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

#345

Post by pyuser583 »

cjbarber wrote: post #311
xp84 wrote: post #270

I've commented (probably too much) to argue with the harshest critics of this piece, but I am surprised to not have seen much this criticism which is my main one: Supposing I've made peace with the main gist of this: Cut living expenses to a point where you can work ¼ or so of the time most of us spend working by living somewhere cheap and not being so materialistic. The missing piece here is social connections. Fami…

The network effects/moats of places! There needs to be a Kickstarter for coordinating groups of people to move to the same place all at the same time.

Then the value of the place would go up fast.

This is one way gentrification happens.

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

#346

Post by digianarchist »

istjohn wrote: post #335
digianarchist wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Median disposable household income is higher in the US than anywhere else in the world [0]. Real median personal income has increased 50% since the 1970s [1]. 0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per... 1. https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/globalization-did-not-hollow-o...

What’s your point? All of the things I listed have far outpaced income and disposable income.

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

#347

Post by Retric »

hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #342
nobodywillobsrv wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, leaving everyone behind and not seeing them again was kind of what people did in the great grandfather era mentioned in the article. Even not that long ago. I was talking to someone only perhaps grandma age the other day who said their brother's family moved to BC and they didn't see them for 25 years. Your comment does focus in on the interesting point in that connected places have perhaps not scaled as…

> what people did in the great grandfather era Unfortunately the appeal to ancestry fallacy is always a terrible idea. You see this in the nutrition space where “influencers” go on and on about how our ancestors ate, forgetting that our ancestors died extremely early relative to modern humans. Similarly, our grandparents lived pretty terrible lives in many ways. The reason to complain about the high cost of living is…

Cost of living is always a somewhat distorted metric because it ignores tradeoffs. If I was living on ~500$/month in that area I’d spend way more on technology and far less on food.

Starlink and a local grocery store means the vast majority of the US is able to support a lifestyle most of humanity could only dream of until fairly recently without actually being that expensive. Year round bananas for dollars per pound is a fucking miracle of logistics.

Not that long ago one of my coworkers was effectively living in minimum wage in a major US city and tossing everything else into savings. Excessive number of roommates, no car, cooking simple vegetarian meals at home etc. At the other end if he had a major medical condition, drug addiction, etc he’d have been “fucked,” except for the fact modern medicine simply wasn’t available at any price again until recently so should we assume it’s normal.

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

#348

Post by no_wizard »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #334
xp84 wrote: post #270

I've commented (probably too much) to argue with the harshest critics of this piece, but I am surprised to not have seen much this criticism which is my main one: Supposing I've made peace with the main gist of this: Cut living expenses to a point where you can work ¼ or so of the time most of us spend working by living somewhere cheap and not being so materialistic. The missing piece here is social connections. Fami…

Rural living also looks cheaper because most people do not even remotely consider the costs of transportation. The IRS estimates per-mile deduction at well over 60 cents per mile. If you have to drive 15 miles to the grocery store and back, your grocery bill goes up $18/trip. If you need to drive 15 miles to work and back, take $90/week out of your paycheck. Then there's the fact that whoever is The Employer in that…

About the bit regarding funding:

It’s because rural voters are both active and reliable regardless of their party affiliation, they get out the vote. This in turn for the fact that many rural counties account for a great many house seats and can swing senate elections, they have more power than numbers suggest.

If urban voters were as persistent and consistent as rural ones they could easily flip the narrative, but in my experience (and by looking at a lot of election statistics) a huge chunk of apathetic eligible to vote voters live in urban areas, so you don’t have the same en masse consistency and persistence

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

#349

Post by kimfc »

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.

I mean as a trans woman who lived pretty close to how the article author described their life (rural town, no car, shitty housing, very low income), it's definitely possible to live without too much trouble. In the northeast there is definitely bigotry, but it is very uncommon for anyone to say anything. People keep to themselves, and your biggest issue is social isolation. Though when I lived like that in the south I got called slurs and threatened physically by complete strangers pretty often, so your point stands. I'd imagine its pretty similar for most other minority groups.

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

#350

Post by shipscode »

It's actually possible to live pretty cheaply in America if you can save up enough to buy a house or condo in cash. This article harps on ultra rural America, but there are plenty of closer knit communities that are quite affordable as well.

Lots of HOA communities exist with condos or townhouses. Example prices would be $175k for 3 bed, 2 bath condos. These can be found all over the country. Add a little more on top of it, say $250k-$300k and you've bumped up to a 3 bed 2 bath townhouse with a garage. For the price of a downpayment for a dump in a major metropolitan area, you can own a 20-30 year old construction fully paid off. And that's a mid-case scenario.

In a low tax area a place that's paid off like that might cost you $400-500/mo between taxes, homeowners insurance, and HOA fees. The big "GOTCHA" everybody comes up with is health insurance. Well between medicaid and Obamacare you can get sizeable tax credits up to fairly high incomes. If you're making around $50k/yr in my state PA, you can get around $1500/mo in credits with a family of 3, and end up paying ~$1200 in premiums per year.

There's literally nothing blackpill about this lifestyle. It's as walkable as any suburb, with the same CHATGPT-style standard of care healthcare that exists across the country, and it's actually more convenient to get from point A to point B in a car than in most major cities or in high density suburban areas. Fiber internet is likely more accessible and reliable too, unlike how it would be in decrepit city buildings.

A lot of pros, and not many cons - sure it isn't $432/month, but you can make situations like this work for $2-3k, which opens up an endless number of careers, projects, and opportunities to live off of.

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