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How to live on $432 a month in America
431–440 of 764 posts
Re: How to live on $432 a month in America
#432Like other people here, I have my quibbles with the exact math. But the general premise is true: yes, you can live in rural poverty for cheap. The problem is the vibes. A hundred years ago, you would have a community, a place in society, and all of your family and friends nearby. In 2025, the only actual local job the author of the piece can come up with is at a gas station. Top ten occupations, 1920: Farmers, farm l…
Not saying I agree with the premise of the article at all but making life decisions based on how much others will respect it is a terrible way to live
Humans are a social species. Your happiness absolutely depends on what other people think about you.
Re: How to live on $432 a month in America
#433Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point could be taken in the other way, as in "hey at least you don't have to live in a house made of dirt, right?" Comparably you are much better off, so there is no point in complaining. They made it work. Sure it wasn't great, but we're all passed that now, standards are much better.
Adobe (dried mud) homes in Santa Fe go for well north of a million dollars US. I’ll take a couple of those myself.
adobe and sod are very different materials, and the climates they are built in are very different, too. Technically, a brick manor is made of dirt, too.
Re: How to live on $432 a month in America
#434Earlier 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.
To be fair, my impression is most people have highly contradictory desires along these lines. They say they want to be able to walk to places more. But they also want a big suburban-style house with bedrooms for everyone and storage and garage and lawn etc, easy parking for them, nice wide roads to drive everywhere on and tons of free parking when they get there. This makes it impossible for the area to be walkable u…
My understanding of the issue is that while walkable communities are in demand they are a minority and generally speaking, also a minority that is less politically active than single-family homeowners.
Pretty much everywhere has a political majority of single-family homeowners, and if each locality decides on its own it doesn't want to have multifamily housing, then you wind up in a situation where almost nowhere actually allows it.
Re: How to live on $432 a month in America
#435Jobs and crime: What value can you add, and what value can be taken from you?
Stressed communities like Massena are defensive: outsiders (particularly relatively wealthy ones) are typically a target, and are unlikely to get a plum job that goes by word of mouth. That effect is amplified when people don't have the assets or kind of life they want to protect for themselves, so they have little to lose and a big chip on the shoulder.
To me the sweet spot for young people would be the in-law unit in a great neighborhood where you could do professional work. Learn from the best, and deal with people more interested in a clean, secure transaction than extracting every advantage they need (e.g., buy good engineering used from someone who loved their car). Even wealthy people aspire to pare down to what they really need, because the simplicity restores irreplaceable time.
If there are thousands of ways to do wrong and few to do right, give yourself your best opportunities. Make yourself not only useful but reliable and graceful. Anyone under 30 (or anyone at all?) should be budgeting 30% on making the future selves they really want to be.
Re: How to live on $432 a month in America
#436I'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 missing piece here is social connections. Family and friends Silicon Valley is not populated by people who are there for family and friends. Silicon Valley is populated by people who left their family and friends to go participate in a gold rush. Silicon Valley is populated by people from other continents who came to participate in the gold rush, family and friends be damned. I really don't understand the anti…
So I think some of us have done it out of having no other choice and found it lacking.
From the time I had to live a year going to paycheck advance every month because of an unexpected auto repair bill (leaving that cheap typically requires a used beat up car).
Or the time I woke up with an excruciating pain in my side and went to ER which resulted in bills that lead to years of payments.
People do this experiment every day in the USA and the experience is pretty bad.
EDIT I’ll grant this is all a fine trade off for some people. But having lived it, I can definitely say no thank you.
Re: How to live on $432 a month in America
#437I'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 problem is that its across an international border from the Montreal airport. So you'd need to cross a border twice to fly to a domestic US destination and twice more on your return. Crossing a border is always an unknown in terms of delays, so I question the practicality. I'd personally feel like I needed to leave way more than 90 minutes to ge to the airport. FWIW, I've crossed the border at both Cornwall and O…
Massena, the place in the article, has an airport. An international airport.
Just checked flights from sfo to there, 500 bucks. I don't get how this is different than moving to another state for work.
Re: How to live on $432 a month in America
#438Earlier quoted context omitted.
At 4 cents per 1kWh heating will not be an issue, even with regular resistive heater. It’s almost free electricity. You could run a 1.5 kW heater 24/7 for roughly 40 USD a month. Just make sure the space is well insulated and not too large - but we’re talking about basic living, so that should be easy.
It seems like you'd need more than 1.5kW of heat in upstate new york, even for a small place (which is more than half the size of my suburban home). Also, while I agree that $40 is cheap to me, it's also an additional 10% on their budget.
> Also, while I agree that $40 is cheap to me, it's also an additional 10% on their budget.
They already have 30 USD per month for electricity in their budget. All year long.
> which is more than half the size of my suburban home)
How much space you need for a single person? 30-40 sqm (300-400 sqft)? That’s more than you need.
Sure, middle of winter night you might need a bit more heat, but then in June you’ll be using close to none.
Re: How to live on $432 a month in America
#439Earlier quoted context omitted.
At 4 cents per 1kWh heating will not be an issue, even with regular resistive heater. It’s almost free electricity. You could run a 1.5 kW heater 24/7 for roughly 40 USD a month. Just make sure the space is well insulated and not too large - but we’re talking about basic living, so that should be easy.
So > 10% of your budget goes to heat in cold months.
Yes, that’s seems rather low even? Plus that is basically almost included in their budget - 30 USD for electricity is already there.
Re: How to live on $432 a month in America
#440Could not get past the multiple paragraphs of strawman nonsense. Here, let me summarize: The counts of the indictment are luxury, bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect to elders, and a love for chatter in place of exercise. … Children began to be the tyrants, not the slaves, of their households. They no longer rose from their seats when an elder entered the room; they contradicted their parents, chattered b…
This guy lives in Amish country, yet is not Amish, but drives a hard bargain.
I'm nearly sold, but I haven't sat on the furniture yet to see if it will be hard enough.