On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be • Hacker News Board

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#11

Post by tehsuk » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 6:37 AM UTC

UncleEntity wrote: post #6

rcarr wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree, the author is describing frugality, not the experience of being dirt poor. > Each month the very generous Swedish government gives us no less than 600 dollars in child allowance. We also have some other incomes from book sales and irregular jobs. And we do have savings, larger than we like to admit, which in good years give capital income and in less good years give a cushion to take from. All in al…

> All in all our seven-person family has around 1400-1500 dollars in monthly expenditure Yeah, I doubt that takes into account external things like school lunches and neighbors giving things to the “poor” children. With “poor” meaning unfortunate and not poverty stricken. Every time I hear of a school closing for whatever reason they always state that the food program will remain open because truly poor people rely o…

School lunches in Sweden are free.

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#12

Post by Moldoteck » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 7:05 AM UTC

shswkna wrote: post #10

The author refers to others being driven by class and status. There are however also people who work because they want to contribute to society and provide purpose to others and themselves. I was instilled by my parents with a principle that I should give back more than I take from society. I am not judging the author, and I believe he and his wife love their kids, which is what matters most. But as others have point…

The thing is, 'providers' are paid much less nowadays compared to the past. Like for how long should one work to afford a house? If society is making people's life worse by requiring to work more for less, why should people care to go extra?

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#13

Post by renewiltord » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 7:14 AM UTC

Moldoteck wrote: post #12

shswkna wrote: post #10

The author refers to others being driven by class and status. There are however also people who work because they want to contribute to society and provide purpose to others and themselves. I was instilled by my parents with a principle that I should give back more than I take from society. I am not judging the author, and I believe he and his wife love their kids, which is what matters most. But as others have point…

The thing is, 'providers' are paid much less nowadays compared to the past. Like for how long should one work to afford a house? If society is making people's life worse by requiring to work more for less, why should people care to go extra?

I don't know, man. I guess, in the end, it's about fulfilling your purpose. For some, it is family. For others, it is to build. For yet others, it is to serve.

Overall, it's quite galling to see half of every dollar go to California and the US and see it spent on ineffectual and greedy people far less capable than me and with far less suffering than who I'd prefer to help.

But what's the alternative? I must fulfill to myself what I want to be. That's why everything.

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#14

Post by renewiltord » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 7:18 AM UTC

It's always good to read this stuff because it helps me set a personal boundary on my spending - which has really changed from a decade ago when I spent $25k a year living in San Francisco and having a ball.

Crazy that they raise 5 children on this. I doubt I could manage that!

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#15

Post by jwr » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 7:31 AM UTC

> We save even more on heating. For heating we use wood that we get from the surrounding forests more or less for free (just insert physical labor).

Someone subsidizes your living, then, by giving you the wood. I mean I hope they are giving you the wood, because otherwise that would be theft. Where I live, most forest is national, and you can't even gather fallen branches. You can buy the wood or a permit to gather a certain amount of fallen wood.

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#16

Post by jay_kyburz » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 7:31 AM UTC

letrowekwel wrote: post #9

simple-thoughts wrote: post #5

[flagged]

Wood is renewable, burning it for heating houses in countryside full of forests is perfectly sustainable. Not caring about social status is only smart, as long as your choices don't hurt others. It should be up to individual to decide what makes them happy within these limits. Instead of hippies I would be worried of consumerist sheep who think buying products/services makes them happy, and who destroy the planet in…

The problem with wood is that if we all burnt it, there would be nowhere near enough, and our cities would be full of smoke and heavily polluted.

Every household would need a lot land just to support tree regrowth. You have to be planting a lot of trees every year and letting them grow for a long time too.

I don't agree with simple-thoughts on hippies, but I understand why we don't all burn wood for energy.

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#17

Post by tetris11 » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 7:42 AM UTC

simple-thoughts wrote: post #5

[flagged]

Caring about social status turns relationships into transactions ("I'll marry her because she can get me this", "I'll make friends with Tom because even though he's a fascist he can introduce me to my future employer").

Believing and working for something that is higher than yourself shouldn't be treated as a foreign mindset, but something everyone should strive towards.

Yes, society may not reward you directly for your efforts, and yes you will be acutely aware of people who are sailing by in life under much less effort by serving solely their own interests, but these people do not breed communities or trust. These people get rich enough to buy into a community of trust that was built by people like you in the first place.

TLDR: Bankers like Art, and spend large sums of money on the work of artists who never did it for the money.

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#18

Post by gizajob » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 7:43 AM UTC

I enjoyed the article but felt the author is over-egging his frugality past the point of actual meanness. I find that money generally arrives at the level one mentally expects it to, and while he makes a point of saying he's not consuming, he still is, albeit at a low level, by picking through everyone's scraps, which can be as time consuming as putting a bit more thought into earning more for things like buying gifts for his children better than recycled cast-offs or obliging grandparents to deal with it. It's admirable, but he's still chosen to have three children more than the two that would have been the replacement level for him and his partner, hence everyone else on the planet and in Sweden is paying for them and subsidising him and his self-centred choices, because it doesn't seem like he's going to be paying any taxes to fund his life choices, so society will be picking up the tab. I don't really disrespect him for it, because a nice simple life is great to have, but he is performing the financial and environmental calculus without really holding much of a mirror up to himself.

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#19

Post by lpghatguy » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 7:47 AM UTC

jwr wrote: post #15

> We save even more on heating. For heating we use wood that we get from the surrounding forests more or less for free (just insert physical labor). Someone subsidizes your living, then, by giving you the wood. I mean I hope they are giving you the wood, because otherwise that would be theft. Where I live, most forest is national, and you can't even gather fallen branches. You can buy the wood or a permit to gather a…

There are lots of places, including many national forests, where you can cut your own firewood for free.

If you live near the Flathead National Forest in Montana in the US, for example, you can cut firewood for a campsite without a permit. You can also get a free permit that allows you to cut 4 to 12 cords of wood per adult per year.

I don't know anything about firewood laws in Sweden or the rest of Europe. From first glance they look quite a bit more restrictive.

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#20

Post by pizza234 » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 7:50 AM UTC

letrowekwel wrote: post #9

simple-thoughts wrote: post #5

[flagged]

Wood is renewable, burning it for heating houses in countryside full of forests is perfectly sustainable. Not caring about social status is only smart, as long as your choices don't hurt others. It should be up to individual to decide what makes them happy within these limits. Instead of hippies I would be worried of consumerist sheep who think buying products/services makes them happy, and who destroy the planet in…

> Not caring about social status is only smart, as long as your choices don't hurt others

This is a very interesting topic, which I find counterintuitive.

In my view, they actually care about status a lot: they seek their own place at the exact opposite place on the spectrum, as a matter of principle. The author indeed stresses multiple times that both he and his partner are rebels.

I get the very strong impression that when one is in that position, they can get a lot of return of investment with little effort, but they're intentionally choosing not to (for example, they talk about refusing stable jobs, but on the other hand, taking a variety of odd jobs).

There are more balanced positions where with more money, parents can give considerably more freedom of choice and experience at least to their children, without falling into a consumeristic lifestyle.