Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am substantially happier that I moved into the big city because I built social connections and I don't want to live with my parents anymore. Driving down there is insane and I wish there was decent transportation option. I can use electric scooter to move around most days. It's a lot more fun than driving my car. Really, what these places really need is major policy reform to make them more livable. There's a reaso…
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How to live on $432 a month in America
491–500 of 764 posts
Re: How to live on $432 a month in America
#492Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not? You can walk plenty in the cold with the right equipment. I walked 2+ km a day at the south pole ...
It's really dangerous if you don't know what your doing. I'm about .5 km from the closest supermarket. If it's snowing or just cold out I'm still ordering food. If I'm mildly sick, ordering food. I'm going to guess that you're a really good shape that a 2 km walk isn't a big deal, but I don't think most Americans can do that.
Re: How to live on $432 a month in America
#493Earlier 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…
Our ancestors also had more children, less rates of depression and mental illness and the modern rates of socialization, marriage, etc are all in steep decline.
Therefore maybe the cardboard box apartment, transient friends, and access to all that nightlife isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. While we’re a lot richer and more well off it doesn’t seem like people are happier.
Re: How to live on $432 a month in America
#494Earlier quoted context omitted.
0.5km is like, 6 minutes of walking? How? It just doesn’t compute to me that someone would ever see that as onerous.
Surely you walk that much inside any reasonably sized grocery store.
Re: How to live on $432 a month in America
#495Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's really dangerous if you don't know what your doing. I'm about .5 km from the closest supermarket. If it's snowing or just cold out I'm still ordering food. If I'm mildly sick, ordering food. I'm going to guess that you're a really good shape that a 2 km walk isn't a big deal, but I don't think most Americans can do that.
> I'm going to guess that you're a really good shape that a 2 km walk isn't a big deal, but I don't think most Americans can do that. Most Americans would be able to do it if it became a regular occurrence for them. 2km of walking is not much even if you sit around 24 hours a day.
I think in US it just cultural. "You are walking?! With your feet?! How?!". Unless you more likely to get shot walking via some neighbourhood I can't understand that.
Re: How to live on $432 a month in America
#496Earlier quoted context omitted.
For anyone curious, the game dev is Jason Rohrer: https://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason-rohrer/simpleLife.h... Things have changed since: "In October of 2011, we moved from Las Cruces, NM to Davis, CA. Along with all the good things listed below about Las Cruces came bad things. Vicious dogs loose on the streets (one bit my wife while biking) and in parks (I came close to getting myself shot during a confrontation…
Zillow says the average house in Davis costs $890k. Looks like they've pretty much given up on the "life cheaply" thing.
Re: How to live on $432 a month in America
#497Confused by his portrayal of Massena, NY. I don't live there and have never driven through, but looking on Google Maps it doesn't seem that bad or depressing as the author (and I guess commentators) make it out to be. It has a Walmart, Home Depot, BJs (similar to Costco), a main street with several businesses. A walkable grid with sidewalks in that main town area.... Feels like reaching that this place is so desolate…
Re: How to live on $432 a month in America
#498So, it's a stationary alternative to the "van life" trend that floats around sometimes. Massena's about the size of the town we moved my parents from after my father had a stroke, though it's a lot poorer (in 2013 nearly a third of the population was below the poverty line, and that's before Alcoa closed a chunk of operations there). It does have a hospital (25 beds, not-for-profit) and given the demographics I'm 100…
Re: How to live on $432 a month in America
#499But having read through most of the objections I still find myself enticed by this. If I mentally place myself in this position I think I could quite happily live a few decades without talking to anyone for weeks or even months at a time. I'd still have my pets to give me companionship. Load my kindle up with a thousand books I want to read and just work my way through it. Pick up writing as a hobby and spend the rest of the time working at a gas station and fixing up the house and/or grow some food to offset the reduced income.
Healthcare is an issue. Doesn't seem like a viable place to grow old. Once you become too frail for physical work it's probably just time to die, which isn't great.
Re: How to live on $432 a month in America
#500This is one of those articles where the comments are really interesting to read through. I see a bunch of comments who don't agree with the exact math, which might be warranted, but it seems at least directionally correct to me. However there's also a bunch of people commenting that this lifestyle isn't viable for some reason or another, that mainly just boils down to a personal preference those commenters don't want…
Proenneke built his own log cabin entirely by hand, using only simple tools (many of which he made himself), and filmed his daily life, including hunting, fishing, foraging, and crafting everything from scratch