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Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

gregkroleski.com

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Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#141

Post by eghad »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #47
Artistry121 wrote: post #12

In another city a place this cheap would be less than $400 / month. Meaning someone could choose this lifestyle simply in a different city working for minimum wage and meet the requirements for housing costs of less than 1/3 income.

The problem is who you're living next to, at that price point, in another city. Basically, if you live where all of the minimum-wage people live, you're going to get spill-over from all the typical problems in such a neighbourhood.

Yeah, the assumption that all low-income neighborhoods have problems that you should be afraid of "spilling over" is a poor one.

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#142

Post by greg-kroleski »

hluska wrote: post #89

This is off topic, but in March 2016, I'll become a dad for the first time and I was wondering if some more experienced parents could answer a question for me. That article has a black board with a tally of diapers changed today. The count was up to thirty. Is that somewhat accurate/possible??? If so, holy shit, I'm investing in cloth....

Author here. Two important things. 1)We had two babies in diapers when that was taken so it might actually be realistic. 2) It wasn't a real tally, we started it one day after a particularly bad morning and then as a joke I added a bunch. Hadn't even thought about it when taking the picture, but wanted to show the shoe rack.

One less important thing, we used cloth some too, for pee it is great. If/when your baby poops reliably, you can save a lot by using cloth during pee times of day and disposable when poops occur.

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#144

Post by greg-kroleski »

Mz wrote: post #77

This was much, much more thoughtful than I expected. Some of the thought processes resonated with me. I spent a long time getting rid of everything I owned and, yet, after doing this for three years, I didn't have the change in mindset I really needed until I kind of marathon watched "Mission: Organization" on HGTV. I was still stuck in the American mindset of accumulation. I had long wanted to live more spartanly an…

I've found slow change tends to be lasting change. Really glad you enjoyed the article, I put a lot of thought into it.

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#145

Post by greg-kroleski »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #65
elcct wrote: post #49

That is stupid. If your salary won't cover decent living then why bother? It is people like yourself who drive rates low and then post how difficult is to live on them...

> That is stupid. If your salary won't cover decent living then why bother? I think you fail to see that he'd definitely describe his living over the past few years as 'decent', and likely even much more than just decent.

Can confirm. My life is awesome.

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#146

Post by pmiller2 »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #123
pmiller2 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has its own set of trade-offs. Prepare for at least an hour commute each way by BART if you work in SOMA, for instance.

Huh? I literally live at the end of the line and my commute is 30 minutes...

You're not at the end of the line in the East Bay, then. The BART ride alone would be at least 40 minutes, and that's if there wasn't some kind of delay.

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#147

Post by rwallace »

Harkins wrote: post #101

For anyone wondering how this is possible: by violating fire code. He says he, then he and his wife, then one or both of their children were sleeping in the closet. I'm not familiar with the language of the California Building Code, but in the 2014 verison, volume 1, chapter 10 gets into the limits. The closet is not a "sleeping unit": it doesn't meet the 120 sqft minimum, doesn't have a wide enough door, and doesn't…

How much - in actual numbers - is the increased risk?

How does it compare to the risks of alternative courses of action such as moving to a neighborhood with a higher crime rate, tolerating an increased commute (hours of life directly lost, increased risk of road accidents, increased chronic stress with accompanying health risks) or moving to a different city before having a replacement job lined up?

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#148

Post by stevewilhelm »

xenadu02 wrote: post #139
stevoski wrote: post #7

The more I read such articles, the more I think you'd have to be nuts to choose to live in San Francisco. And yet, clearly, plenty of people do choose to live in San Francisco.

Eh I moved my family (stay at home wife and two kids). If you are willing to live outside of the trendy areas you can find OK places. Unfortunately single family homes (like we inhabit now) are not rent-controlled. We're currently trying to decide between moving to a multi-unit building with a 3-bedroom place or staying and putting up with the ridiculous rent. The multi-unit building would still be high rent but at l…

> The money goes into my landlord's retirement account basically doing nothing.

Is your landlord's retirement account a sack under his bed? If not, that money is being invested in publicly traded companies or in bonds to fund public works. It is creating jobs, just not in your neighborhood.

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#149

Post by guard-of-terra »

ars wrote: post #128
panic wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are fire codes really enforced in this way? Obviously the closet wasn't built to sleep in. It's one thing to force building owners and landlords to build and maintain rooms a certain way, but using a law to force people not to sleep in a closet seems counterproductive.

Oh definitely. Especially for rentals. To be a bedroom it has to have a window, a certain size (which varies), and some places even require a closet in the room. If they find a bed in a room like that they normally start with a warning, then a visit from child protection services, or even condemning the entire house. Obviously if they don't inspect they'll never know, but rentals, and people with contact with authori…

I always wonder why child "protection" services feel the need to harrass middle class families running a little low, when they could go to ghetto and have an unlimited supply of totally ruined families to have fun with. Multi-generation alchohol and drug abuse and all that stuff available in numbers.

Stop harrassing us until you solved them. Bye.

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#150

Post by mahyarm »

codingdave wrote: post #71
sotojuan wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who does not want to live there either, I can see why people move there. It's simply where the most opportunities are. The idea is to move there and live uncomfortably until you network your way to an awesome, high paying job. Alternatively, the tech companies there usually do more interesting stuff than in other area. Here in NYC most are related to advertising or media—stuff not easy to get exited about.…

It is absolutely not where the most opportunities are. It is the place where the most startups are, which means the top of the opportunity pile eclipses other locations in terms of earning potential and networking. But quantitatively, the most programming jobs per capita are in Washington, Colorado, and Utah.

The more interesting companies are in the bay area I find personally. In Seattle you have amazon, which has a horrible reputation, and Microsoft, which has another kind of bad reputation, but is better than amazon. In the SFBA, you have facebook, apple, google, and many many others.

Also I don't find jobs / people in the state the most accurate indicator. To someone living in LA, moving to SF might as well be moving to Utah. The open positions / qualified people is the far more useful metric, and SF will still beat all of them on that.

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