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The cost of hand-to-mouth living

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Re: The cost of hand-to-mouth living

#61

Post by TY »

dools wrote: post #55
ilaksh wrote: post #52

I consider myself to have some pretty useful development skills. I keep up to date with things like HTML5, CoffeeScript, AngularJS, AWS, Node.JS etc. However, I don't know what my problem is, if its lack of social or business skills or no degree or what, but I have been living hand-to-mouth doing freelance software development for years. A lot of my projects have been from outsourcing sites. But some of them have bee…

You probably aren't charging enough. I have been through this so feel free to email me iain@workingsoftware.com.au if you'd like to discuss it.

Agree with dools - try charging more. I increased my revenues by 25% simply by asking. Once this contract is over, I'll increase my rates again. One important note - I have a proven record of someone who delivers. I suggest you invest in making sure your next customer understands it.

It doesn't take much - do a nice write up about yourself on LinkedIn and ask previous customers to write endorsements.

Re: The cost of hand-to-mouth living

#62

Post by dgbsco »

protomyth wrote: post #35
gruseom wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is why I like Costco better: the people who work there don't seem as downtrodden. Either I've been fooled by corporate propaganda or they really have figured out a way to make money, lower prices, and treat people relatively well. Walmarts feel like places of despair to me and Costcos like places of hope. I know how ludicrous that sounds, but the feeling is real. I often chat with workers at checkout counters to…

The membership is the too steep part for Costco.

Split a membership with a friend. Around $40 bucks split two ways.

Re: The cost of hand-to-mouth living

#63

Post by puivert »

raverbashing wrote: post #36
JDGM wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Erm...what? I don't understand. Calorie-per-dollar ratio = p/q for p calories and q dollars. What model are you using where p or q but not both is negative for the apples example but not the BigMac one?

To digest an apple it takes calories. Yes, an apple has around 100 calories (depends on size) but the net value can be negative. Celery is the classical example of this.

Disregarding biology, an apple has .15 kg * (c^2) -> cal = 3.2 × 10^15 calories

Re: The cost of hand-to-mouth living

#64

Post by ufo »

raverbashing wrote: post #36
JDGM wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Erm...what? I don't understand. Calorie-per-dollar ratio = p/q for p calories and q dollars. What model are you using where p or q but not both is negative for the apples example but not the BigMac one?

To digest an apple it takes calories. Yes, an apple has around 100 calories (depends on size) but the net value can be negative. Celery is the classical example of this.

Apples and other fruits are full of fructose (sugar). How the hell are people suggesting that they take more calories to digest than they contain?

Re: The cost of hand-to-mouth living

#65

Post by gruseom »

w1ntermute wrote: post #42
gruseom wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is why I like Costco better: the people who work there don't seem as downtrodden. Either I've been fooled by corporate propaganda or they really have figured out a way to make money, lower prices, and treat people relatively well. Walmarts feel like places of despair to me and Costcos like places of hope. I know how ludicrous that sounds, but the feeling is real. I often chat with workers at checkout counters to…

> there's one big difference, though. To shop at Costco you have to buy twice as much (plus typically pay membership fees). That step could be too steep for the people most living hand-to-mouth, even though it would save them money within weeks. So there could be sample bias here too. See the article Why Can’t Walmart Be More Like Costco? [0] for more on this. 0: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/26/why-c…

Thanks for that link. I read it and tried for an embarrassingly long time to write a coherent reply, but apparently can't do it. Megan Mcardle's blend of ideology and snark is like reverse catnip to me. If I were a cat, or something. Fortunately it's still gorgeously sunny here; I'm gonna go outside and atone for my foolishness by being happy.

I had no idea that the question Why can't Walmart treat its workers better, since Costco has proved it possible was not only a thing, but mature enough in the lifecycle of thingness for Mcardle to write an entire piece about how much it annoys her. I just arrived at it from observation in the stores. Well, that plus an article or two about Costco.

Re: The cost of hand-to-mouth living

#66

Post by patio11 »

ilaksh wrote: post #52

I consider myself to have some pretty useful development skills. I keep up to date with things like HTML5, CoffeeScript, AngularJS, AWS, Node.JS etc. However, I don't know what my problem is, if its lack of social or business skills or no degree or what, but I have been living hand-to-mouth doing freelance software development for years. A lot of my projects have been from outsourcing sites. But some of them have bee…

Stop using outsourcing sites to source clients. Your new rate is $100 per hour, until I can convince you to switch to weekly rates in any case. Go out there and beat the bushes to find businesses which have problems which you can address in AWS/NodeJS/etc which are worth paying your new rate.

After your income spikes, start saving some of it so that you can tolerate lean periods between clients. This will let you stop working for less-desirable clients and try experiments like bumping your rate without having to worry about what this will do to a count-on-one-hand number of clients in the pipeline.

Re: The cost of hand-to-mouth living

#67

Post by ctdonath »

k3n wrote: post #7

There really isn't much to this article. From the title, I thought it was going to discuss the problems that people face when they live paycheck-to-paycheck and/or near the poverty line, which is a story that's been told but bears repeating and further exploration. Instead, it merely remarks that some US corporations have noticed an upward trend in the number of their customers who are a part of this very predictable…

Yeah, I was hoping for practical quantification of the minimum viable cost of living. Fascinated with $1 meals, I get a lot of flack over "cost of living" which usually includes a lot which I consider relative luxuries. Take those waiting for the midnight EBT recharge and see what they really buy, and see whether their choices are more a matter of need, desire, education, awareness, and/or availability. Methinks the real issues are buried under the heated rhetoric.

Re: The cost of hand-to-mouth living

#68

Post by nathanbarry »

gruseom wrote: post #18
dopamean wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at WalMart for 3 years. I worked overnight doing inventory management and I saw exactly what the CEO described. One thing I noticed that he didn't mention is that a large number of the people I worked with were part of that group of people waiting at midnight to buy their baby formula. I always felt like the wages at our store were subsidized by the government. All of the people I talking about worked full t…

That is why I like Costco better: the people who work there don't seem as downtrodden. Either I've been fooled by corporate propaganda or they really have figured out a way to make money, lower prices, and treat people relatively well. Walmarts feel like places of despair to me and Costcos like places of hope. I know how ludicrous that sounds, but the feeling is real. I often chat with workers at checkout counters to…

I had an evening a month ago where I had to return similar items to both WalMart and Costco. Each one should have been really quick, but Costco was very slow (about 30 minutes), With a rather rude cashier. Walmart took just 2 minutes and they were perfectly polite and helpful.

Strange that Walmart customer support was 100x better.

Re: The cost of hand-to-mouth living

#69

Post by jzwinck »

nijk wrote: post #45
danso wrote: post #4

I was hoping to see some data on how limited funds forced people to buy inefficiently...that is, buying cheaper quantities that are per-item more expensive than bulk buying because they can't afford the up front cost of buying bulk. My roommate will do this when buying dish soap for the household, always getting the smallest bottle than just paying for the large one at a 30% discount per ounce. Also, some cheap items…

You get 6 apples per big Mac. It is actually a better meal.

6 apples: 600 kcal. A full day's worth of fiber, vitamin C, and sugar. But not much else. No protein or fat to speak of.

Big Mac: 600 kcal. Half a day's worth of fat, protein, and sodium. 12% RDA of fiber, 30% of calcium, 25% iron.

If you could only eat one or the other, you'd probably be better off with the Big Mac. If you wanted to turn these two poor choices into a full day of three meals, you should probably eat two Big Macs and 6 apples (plus lots of water, and hopefully a vitamin supplement).

Re: The cost of hand-to-mouth living

#70

Post by rogerbinns »

malandrew wrote: post #43
protomyth wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The membership is the too steep part for Costco.

It would be nice if CostCo allowed people of low income to apply for a financial aid in the form of free membership if their income was low enough. It's unfortunate that only the people with greater purchasing power get access to the lowest cost per item unit.

> ... free membership

The membership is the per member profit. Costco doesn't mark up items more than 14%. In some states they aren't allowed to require membership to access the pharmacy. If what you proposed was workable, I'd expect groups of people in an area to band together or have a middleman in order to only have one membership and break up bulk items.

(And technically there is such a middleman doing their best to lower prices - they are called Walmart.)

> ... greater purchasing power get access to the lowest cost ...

Same thing happens with the US health system - the uninsured pay the most for exactly the same procedures at the same place. At least in the case of Costco it is economically sensible because buyers purchase a bigger volume and the store has greater throughput. (Costco typically has 4,000 SKUs per store while a normal supermarket will be around 16,000.)

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