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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

#661

Post by testing22321 »

oneshotpez wrote: post #607
testing22321 wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in a place purely heated by a wood stove in the Yukon. It was glorious, easily best heat and nicest feel ever. When it was past -40 I’d get up at 1am to put in more wood, otherwise I’d have to spend 30 minutes in the morning lighting it again. Places heated with wood stoves are NOT damp or miserable. I loved it. Working on doing it again.

Wow tending a fire 24/7 so I don’t die. Living the life, yo.

I Put wood in it twice a day in winter three when it was proper cold. Never in summer. New ones that have a catalytic combustor go 24 hours without touching them easy.

Also you miss the point. For tending the wood stove a few times a day in winter I got to not go to work 30 hours a week.

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

#662

Post by testing22321 »

999900000999 wrote: post #285
xp84 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that his deliberate deletion of a car and Internet access from the example budget undermines his point, but adding $200 to support the cost of owning a cheap car and $45 for a prepaid cellphone plan with ample tethering doesn't change the overall equation significantly.

It's less click bait-ish. The max SSI payment is 967$. https://www.ssa.gov/ssi/amount So you have a ton of people trying to make it off that. The cold weather is really the red flag for me. >Considering that the property has a well on-site, water is free, and as far as heat goes, well, one could either pay a little extra in electric for that — or they could have the Amish deliver their scrap wood from their sawmills…

I biked year round in the Yukon. -40 and beyond is a fun challenge.

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

#663

Post by testing22321 »

999900000999 wrote: post #203
bombcar wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s obviously not true, if you change what you “have” to go to. There are thousands of American towns that are about 10k population - large enough to have a Walmart and other stores, small enough to walk across in an hour or so.

Once it gets cold you won't be walking much anywhere. I guess grocery delivery from Walmart can mitigate this, but that fundamentally changes the situation.

Gimme a break. I walked and biked year round in the Yukon. Past -40 I had to keep moving, but it was fun

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

#664

Post by rufus_foreman »

danbolt wrote: post #296
bombcar wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s not pretend that the cold regions of the world were uninhabitable before the invention of the car.

They weren’t, but they were zoned and organized a lot differently compared to our post-war world of today.

This is true. I recently read that the real reason that the Vikings left North America was that the Native American authorities informed them that their site on L'Anse aux Meadows was not zoned for boat repair and construction.

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

#665

Post by 999900000999 »

MarceColl wrote: post #586
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.

This is America.

We don't have any money to treat sick people, we need to make sure the networth of billionaires continues to grow.

We need to fund military bases all over the world and conflicts in places most of us can't find on maps.

You find how truly alone you are when you can't afford your medicine. No longer an "American" you're a freeloader, a parasite. Perhaps God himself hates you.

And Blessed are the Billionaires for God gave them so much.

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

#667

Post by K0balt »

returningfory2 wrote: post #129
K0balt wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of pocket health insurance 1400 a month? Really? It that’s true, that is criminally ridiculous. Why do people accept that, when even in developing nations basic health care is free, and there are plenty of private choices. Decent health insurance costs about 150-300 a month the world over, except in the USA where it is ten times that for no reason whatsoever besides greed and the fact that healthcare is a basic n…

The main reason is that the government isn't funding it, like in other countries. I do agree the healthcare system in the US should be reformed. But the cost isn't going to go all away - it's just going to be shifted to higher taxes. Which is fine.

Sure, but I’m having a hard time understanding how developing nations the world over can afford to do this, but the USA cannot lol. I’ve used the healthcare systems in many developing nations, and while it’s not really fun, it is adequate and free for 80 percent of the issues that a person encounters.

For the other 20 percent, it’s best to go to a private clinic, where the care is as good if not better than many US clinics but at 10-20 percent of the cost.

And the private clinics are not subsidized.

My wife just got an MRI at a private, fully for profit imaging clinic. The total cost was $217 USD for a study with and without contrast on a 2023 Siemens scanner. Labs for the contrast approval were $6.

What people pay in the USA is in no way justified by equipment or facility costs. Runaway liability and profiteering, perhaps. But not because of the “quality” of the healthcare or the equipment.

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

#668

Post by eloisant »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #384
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 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…

People working in Silicon Valley can afford to take a plane to visit friends or family as often as they want.

The article describe a life of low spending/low revenue, so suddenly buying a plane ticket becomes a huge expense.

There is no antipathy against the $432 a month life, just comments that people have valid reasons not to choose this life.

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

#669

Post by rwyinuse »

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."

Things like farming, forestry and so on aren't possible without basic local infrastructure. It's also reasonable that farmers can buy groceries, their kids can go to school, and they have access to healthcare services.

Without farming city folks would starve to death, so I wouldn't complain about things being subsidized. Feds fund lots of less important things.

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

#670

Post by laurencerowe »

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.

MAGI based Medicare doesn’t have asset limits.
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