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How to live on $432 a month in America

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Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#581

Post by _heimdall »

hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #342
nobodywillobsrv wrote: post #341

Earlier 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 died extremely early relative to modern humans

As others pointed out these claims are often skewed by high childhood mortality rates.

Beyond that, though, I'm curious why you consider the number of years lived to be a primary concern?

I'd rather live 50 good years than 80 miserable ones. I'd also rather live to 65 than make it to 80 with the last 30-40 years spent increasingly propped up with medications, doctors appointments, and invasive treatments.

Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#582

Post by tallanvor »

timcobb wrote: post #575

> In fact, were it to be that any of those who seek a simpler, more straightforward, more affordable way of life matched themselves up with the various regions in which that kind of a life is on offer in spades — it just might make our country better. I think this all the time too. Would be interesting to try to start a colony like this.

People have tried it plenty of times. There might be a few still sort of running, but most of them fail.

Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#583

Post by AngryData »

pqs wrote: post #468

I like this proposition, but the article didn't mention health services in the area. I'm European and I don't fully understand the US health sector but I want to know what would happen in case of severe illness, living this way.

There are some little emergency clinics around in rural places, but its generally like the bare minimum where if you make it there they can give you a bag of blood and an oxygen tank, but I would expect atleast a 45 minute travel time to an actual hospital that can treat you for anything, and it would cost $2,000 for the ambulance trip alone, not to mention the actual hospital bills..

The hospital will have to take you in if you need emergency treatment, provided you make it that far, however they only guarantee the minimum treatment to "stabilize" you, and at that point they are going to expect either an insurance policy be given to them, or your agreement to take on additional medical debt beyond what you already incurred to receive additional treatment. Like if you have a heart attack, they will take you in, give you some nitroglycerin, and try to get it so that they aren't worried about you keeling over within the next 2 hours, but if your heart is still in a lower level of afib and you can't afford treatment? They will give you the boot and tell you to go see a doctor but it ain't an absolute emergency any more.

Or say you crash your car and your leg is crushed. They will stabilize you, but then you or someone else will have to make a financial decision for you or give your insurance. Will you be able to afford the costs of multiple surgeries to pin your shattered leg bones back together and all the rehabilitation? Sure they can do that. Can you already not afford the costs you incurred and certainly can't afford all the additional surgeries and rehabilitation later? Well they will "save" you from all those costs you can't afford by chopping off your leg, knowing that without those other surgeries they will end up cutting it off 6 months later anyway.

Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#584

Post by gosub100 »

rubitxxx15 wrote: post #381
xp84 wrote: post #270

I'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…

As an introvert, I believe I could live in a remote location without problem. I often wish I could switch off my hearing to just enjoy silence, and dream of getting a chance to spend time in an isolation chamber. That said, I don’t know if I’d want to live in a depressing small town, unless it had a good diner.

the winters up there would be brutal if you're not used to them. It's not just the cold, its the prolonged absence of the sun due to short days and cloud cover.

Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#585

Post by [deleted] »

stickfigure wrote: post #580

On one hand I agree with the general premise of the article, which is that you can live a lot cheaper than you choose to. Homes in the passably-cute downtown of Massena are under $100k; you could live on $40k/yr comfortably and if you're here on HN you can probably earn at least than that with a remote job. Cutting it to $5k/yr is just trying to prove something. The missing thing is health care. If you're young and i…

[deleted]

Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#586

Post by MarceColl »

stickfigure wrote: post #580

On one hand I agree with the general premise of the article, which is that you can live a lot cheaper than you choose to. Homes in the passably-cute downtown of Massena are under $100k; you could live on $40k/yr comfortably and if you're here on HN you can probably earn at least than that with a remote job. Cutting it to $5k/yr is just trying to prove something. The missing thing is health care. If you're young and i…

That's insane, my dad had cancer 3 years ago, and here in Spain we didn't even think about it (beyond of course the terrible situation). If you also want private insurance it will cost a youngish small family (like mine) 150EUR/month.

Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#587

Post by StefanBatory »

FireSquid2006 wrote: post #274
energywut wrote: post #122

> any American could live an earlier iteration of the American Dream If (and only if) you aren't socially different from the communities you'd be moving to. Being gay or trans, for instance, might mark you out as a target in a lot of the places where you could live this cheaply. Plenty of race, religions, or political beliefs that would make it untenable. It's hard to claim that any American can achieve this.

I would argue is that what we need for healing and understanding is more brave trans and gay people in these spaces. It's a lot harder to hate a group when your kind neighbor is one of them. Debate and rational arguments dont actually convince most humans. Kindness without the expectation of anything in return and possibly even hate does.

> I would argue is that what we need for healing and understanding is more brave trans and gay people in these spaces.

It is right, but - if you were one of them, would you risk your life to maybe bring in some change?

Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#588

Post by amluto »

m0llusk wrote: post #564
flicken wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Free State Project[1] had 20k libertarians pledge to move to New Hampshire, talking 15 years to reach the total number. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project

This has turned out to be a really interesting failure. To point out just one aspect, back in the 1970s there were hints that New Hampshire was leaning toward legalization of cannabis. Libertarian party meetups often focused on legalization of cannabis. This trend seemed to be solid and strongly linked to Libertarian influence in the state. Then the Free State Project happened and the intense liberty seeking of the L…

Forget cannabis. I always found it hilarious that NH is supposedly libertarian but bans privately run businesses from selling bottles of alcohol.

Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#589

Post by nativeit »

fragmede wrote: post #578
watwut wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried to do those sports with cheapest equipment? Because I did and it ended up the same as everyone else who tried it in a cheapest possible way - you stop because it is not fun nor pleasure and equipment limits you. That being said, for tenista you need to pay entry. For climbing, you will be kicked out of gym on top of it being uncomfortable. Climbing gym don't want you injured due to badly made seat…

> Hobbies are only expensive if you let them or want them to be. Climbing gyms aren't cheap. Climbing rocks outdoors is fairly cheap.

Now we’re back to the point where you’ve saved so much money by not carrying health insurance.

Re: How to live on $432 a month in America

#590

Post by macNchz »

bombcar wrote: post #478
cozzyd wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the distance, but hostile roads with no safe crossings.

My admittedly unscientific survey of small Midwestern towns with Walmarts (that are NOT suburbs!) is that you can walk to the Walmart on sidewalks. At most, you have half a block to the nearest sidewalk, or have to cross the street. Some of the middling-old sections only have one sidewalk. The oldest have them on both sides of the street, and the newest developments have them also, usually.

The Walmart in the area from this article is separated from the main town by a four lane road with no sidewalks, across which the nearest crosswalks are more than half a mile away in either direction—so you’re either playing high stakes Frogger, or, depending on your starting location, you might conceivably have to walk nearly two hours out of your way round trip along the shoulder of this road to use a crosswalk. They also get five feet of snow per year, so a good part of the year that walk is extra dangerous and miserable.

I can’t say for sure, but I think this is much more typical of American Walmarts than it is to be able to easily walk to them.

Streetview of your opponent as a pedestrian trying to access the Massena Walmart: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ufTWTHxHCReFP8VA9

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