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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

#631

Post by andrei_says_ »

osigurdson wrote: post #630
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…

The other issue with "living somewhere cheap" early in life is it limits your options incredibly if you ever want to go anywhere else. Maybe fine as a retirement move however.

Fine if defining living as being able to breathe, eat and have shelter and nothing more.

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

#632

Post by ryandrake »

gyomu wrote: post #367
RajT88 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You read articles like this every so often, sure. Maybe ~13 years back I read about an indie game dev who lived in a carbon neutral home in the middle of nowhere Arizona or something. Beautiful house, hand built. Talked about how you really don't need all that much money to live - they were living on less than 20k a year from his game sales. Him and his wife were also in their 20's, and their kids I think were alread…

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…

Reminds me of that past HN story [1] about that guy who moved to the least expensive rural town he could find to start a cheap business, and had nothing but trouble. Between burglary after burglary, locals that hate his guts, local government stopping him from doing anything, and just the general shittiness and malaise of living in a depressed town. The guy kept doubling down, too, buying property after property and ended up owning 75 or so properties, while his problems kept multiplying.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39802157

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

#633

Post by sarchertech »

throwaway31131 wrote: post #627
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…

My problem is I mostly agree with the piece, it's very possible to live cheaply when everything goes smoothly and most things are routine. The problem is things very often don't go smoothly, especially once you have a family. For example, my daughter took a small fall on a jungle gym, so small that I didn't even think she really got hurt but she landed really unlucky and broke her arm. We went to urgent care but she…

In New York you could make 5x the amount of money the article is talking about and still qualify for free healthcare.

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

#634

Post by ryandrake »

AstroBen wrote: post #619
andrewrn wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're wired to yield to social pressures, it is what allowed us to create civilization. You're right, the energy spent to overcome it is well spent, but its not as trivial as you make it sound to be low-status and feel fulfilled.

Status is relative to who's doing the judging.. and everyone views things differently. I'd argue you don't have much of a choice whether you're low or high status in some people's eyes. Whether you feel it regularly heavily depends on who you surround yourself with Your career = your social status is a very American point of view Eat meat and vegans will look down on you Ride a bike for transport in America and you'r…

Letting go of social pressures, “status” and not worrying about what other people think of me was the single biggest quality-of-life improvement I ever made.

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

#635

Post by SpaceNoodled »

_heimdall wrote: post #576
throw27263w wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also noticed the author's budget did not include health insurance. I also wonder how close it is to the nearest hospital or urgent care.

I live in a pretty rural area. We have a hospital and urgent care 12 minutes away, though for anything that isn't immediately life threatening I'd be driving an hour for much better hospital care in a larger city.

That honestly doesn't sound very rural at all.

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

#636

Post by MinimalAction »

kemotep wrote: post #90
dmonitor wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that means you don’t get the latest iPhone Why do people always have to call out "the latest iPhone". Most people can't afford the latest iPhone, nor do they try. You might as well say a Lamborghini. Why can't you be honest and just say "a smartphone".

Even a brand new iPhone 16 is “only” $800. Plans for unlimited internet can be had for less than $40 a month. Using that phone for 5 years would only add like $60 to their total monthly expenses. Is that truly unattainable? Is that really what is keeping people from buying a house?

I do believe that's a privilege to throw an extra $60 per month at something for five years straight. It's not truly stopping us from buying a house, but this mentality that everything could be bought on credit, this consumerism is where we are hurt.

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

#637

Post by eloisant »

osigurdson wrote: post #630
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…

The other issue with "living somewhere cheap" early in life is it limits your options incredibly if you ever want to go anywhere else. Maybe fine as a retirement move however.

Exactly, I've had this exact discussion with a friend who bought a house in a cheaper town.

Fake numbers but for the sake of arguments: he bought a $100k house, I bought a $300k house in a more expensive city. Real estate did a 2x, his house is worth $200k and now he can't afford to move to a $600k place like mine - while I can move to an area with a similar cost of living as where I live now.

The gap is even bigger because prices go up faster in big cities.

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

#638

Post by Dudical »

I suspect there is also something in between the big city and rural Massena. Just a couple hours east of Seattle you’ve got a a full fledged city (Yakima) with lots of infrastructure and plenty of 3-4 bdrm houses going for ~33% the cost (~350k).

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

#639

Post by lolinder »

cozzyd wrote: post #338
Aeolun wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need only $400 a month, you have a looot of time to spend walking to Walmart.

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

We're talking about towns of 10k. Traffic in these towns is pretty sparse and easily navigable as a pedestrian.

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

#640

Post by ryandrake »

ryoshu wrote: post #112
7thaccount wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently visited New York City for the first time and honestly wasn't impressed. Outside of a few neat things like visiting the cronut place, I could do nearly everything the same back home. The bagel places were indeed good, but not noticeably different than the hipster bagel places in my city. Wood fired pizza was good at several places, but again...none were noticeably different than the wood fired oven fancy pl…

Food is next level in the NYC area compare to most other places. It's not just pizza, it's Ethiopian, Afghani, Iranian, real Chinese food (Szechuan, Hunan, etc.). The music scene and clubs can't be beat outside of other major cities, if you're into that sort of thing. The museums and galleries too. It all exists if you want to find it. You'll also find some of the most ambitious people in the world. Does the cost of…

I guess my palette is just not sophisticated but I have eaten many times in NYC, in other big cities famous for food, in suburban places with one or two restaurants, and in rural places with only Applebee’s, and I honestly don’t see that much of a difference. To me, food is food. You eat it, you’re not hungry anymore. The only difference I notice is the cost. I’ve had pizza in New York, and I’ve had “New York style” pizza from a no name pizzeria in upstate California and it tastes exactly the same to me.

My wife, on the other hand goes bananas when we visit the city and just can’t get enough of the food. She’ll eat when she’s not even hungry because she just wants to experience this or that meal. I play along because I think it’s cute and we support each other’s goofiness, but I legit don’t get it.

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