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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

#651

Post by sethammons »

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.

We had to move back from nowhere Montana to society so our kids could more easily get jobs / careers. So far so good, oldest is killing it in IT at a bank.

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

#652

Post by prmoustache »

II2II wrote: post #313
prmoustache wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about cycling? If amishes are fine leaving there with horse carts as vehicles, there is no reason you can't manage using a bicycle. Even Ottawa is not out of reach at only 80miles.

That would depend upon the roads and, given that winter was mentioned as a feature, maintenance during the winter months. I've done some riding on rural roads with no shoulders, and it can be as scary as heck. At least on winding roads in wooded areas. That's from the perspective of someone who is fine riding on fast and busy urban roads during all seasons. Winter maintenance is also a huge issue if you are riding to…

My experience when I was commuting by bicycle all year in Switzerland, is that drivers had a more complicated time than I had when it was snowing and roads were icy. I had a dedicated bicycle for these kind of situation with studded tires.

More often than not people are put off cycling by weather conditions not because it is that hard, but because they haven't put enough thoughts and preparation. Most people ride bicycle with subpar or no lightning, fenders, and more often than not have the wrong tires and protective gears for the job. This require a wee bit of investment but totally negligible compared to the money that is usually spent on a car.

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

#653

Post by vkou »

pcdoodle wrote: post #574
Ray20 wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The IRS estimates per-mile deduction at well over 60 cents per mile. I think you are manipulating and substituting concepts, and these calculations of the cost of the trip include expensive cars of highly paid city workers. And if you recalculate the cost of the trip taking into account cars that are used outside the city, then the amount will be several times lower. Probably 5 or more times lower if people are inte…

[flagged]

Whereas driving a personal vehicle on public roadways is a daily dance with death that snuffs out 40,000+ lives a year.

Who in their right mind would put their lives at such risk?

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

#654

Post by labrador »

quesera wrote: post #645
labrador wrote: post #282

Nobody wants a Breaking Bad ending like Walter White hiding out in a New Hampshire cabin or Ted Kaczynski scribbling his manifesto on cold winter nights.

... that's not how Breaking Bad ended. :)

I assume that buying a machine gun to single handedly murder a biker gang is outside the scope of most of our experiences so not worth mentioning. The real end for me was him alone in a cabin with a barrel of cash. To me that was a more realistic ending.

If anything, your correction proves my point. Most people don’t want living alone in a cabin as their ending.

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

#655

Post by throwawaymb »

cmptrnerd6 wrote: post #290
riffraff wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I experienced something similar and would posit that small communities accommodate diversity more easily, because you get to know the people, it's no longer "the homosexuals" or "the immigrants" or "the jews", it's "John who works at the coffee shop ". Clearly this breaks down at a certain size, and it may still suck for people on the minority side tho.

This is not true, in my experience, in rural Indiana. I hear the n word a lot for an area that I have yet to meet a black person. One neighbor was complaining about the California family that moved to town and brought all the drug problems with them, despite our county having been the meth capital of Indiana for years before they moved here. Somehow my first conversation with a friend's mom I met while visiting their…

Indiana is known for this though...not every rural area is comparable

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

#656

Post by andrewrn »

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…

"Surround yourself with people of similar values"... so in other words, you mean find a group where you're of similar status. We're not in disagreement.

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

#657

Post by [deleted] »

xp84 wrote: post #241
skyyler wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of a budget for heating in an article that uses the term "American Siberia" is so hilariously out of touch that it makes the rest of the article farcical.

Literally mentioned in the article. Their electricity is literally less than 0.1x what I pay in California.

[deleted]

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

#658

Post by bitcurious »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #334
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…

Rural living also looks cheaper because most people do not even remotely consider the costs of transportation. The IRS estimates per-mile deduction at well over 60 cents per mile. If you have to drive 15 miles to the grocery store and back, your grocery bill goes up $18/trip. If you need to drive 15 miles to work and back, take $90/week out of your paycheck. Then there's the fact that whoever is The Employer in that…

>Oh, and also not factored in: almost every aspect of rural life is heavily subsidized, and I don't just mean direct assistance. I mean literally everything you stare at when you roll through a rural town was subsidized in some way by the federal government, and most of them either don't know or will never admit it.

This is pretty naive. Farmers aren’t subsidized so that farmers have cheap food, they are subsidized so that the city you’re hyping doesn’t riot because they run out of food. Farm subsidies exist for everyone who’s not a farmer.

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

#659

Post by rufus_foreman »

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…

>> It only works if enough people stay in the rat race to pay for it.

Given the reaction to the article by the commenters here, I don't think we need to worry about a mass movement of people wanting to live like dirty hippies in the Massenas of the country.

The article is just saying, "Here's one of the things you are allowed to do". There are trade-offs, the same as there are trade-offs for the people moving from India to Silicon Valley to make money, but who won't see their families more than once every year or two or three.

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

#660

Post by sarchertech »

hnfever wrote: post #643
sarchertech wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You'd qualify based on income but probably be excluded for having too many assets. The limit in New York is $32,396.

Looks like that goes up to $44k for a couple, a vehicle is exempt, and home equity is exempt up to a million and change.

There’s also ACA credits that don’t have an asset test.

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