How to live on $432 a month in America

> any American could live an earlier iteration of the American Dream — and could be living so cheaply, they’ve got their expatriate buddies down in Mexico beat.

Their expatriate buddies down in Mexico probably aren't shivering through an upstate New York winter with nothing but a wood-burning stove for warmth, the way this guy proposes.

Yeah, leaving the "heat" part of the list just blank is pretty telling as far as how much thought went into this.

I've been following this guy for a while on X. He does live this way. This isn't a hypothetical. He lives on his writing and has plenty of free time to chop all the wood he'd ever need.

That's not what the article says.

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 to burn in a wood stove, very cheaply.

Maybe "a little bit of electricity" or "very cheap scrap wood" appear to be the vague plans for how to handle heat.

Sure, I think a certain rare type of guy can really thrive like this. But most people don't want to live like this, for understandable reasons.

At 4 cents per 1kWh heating will not be an issue, even with regular resistive heater. It’s almost free electricity.

You could run a 1.5 kW heater 24/7 for roughly 40 USD a month. Just make sure the space is well insulated and not too large - but we’re talking about basic living, so that should be easy.

It seems like you'd need more than 1.5kW of heat in upstate new york, even for a small place (which is more than half the size of my suburban home). Also, while I agree that $40 is cheap to me, it's also an additional 10% on their budget.

So > 10% of your budget goes to heat in cold months.

It's not about heating your house, it's about being able to leave it comfortably.

Sincerely, someone who moved from Buffalo NY to Northern California and has never once regretted it.

> Also, while I agree that $40 is cheap to me, it's also an additional 10% on their budget.

They already have 30 USD per month for electricity in their budget. All year long.

> which is more than half the size of my suburban home)

How much space you need for a single person? 30-40 sqm (300-400 sqft)? That’s more than you need.

Sure, middle of winter night you might need a bit more heat, but then in June you’ll be using close to none.

Yes, that’s seems rather low even? Plus that is basically almost included in their budget - 30 USD for electricity is already there.

Apparently electricity is 4c/KWh there, so it really is only a “little bit extra” even if you’re heating with resistance heat (at least for a 600sf house).

Of course it’s more space than I need. My point was that heating 600sqft doesn’t strike me as a trivial task, given my context of heating a house that’s less than double the size in a temperate climate.

Not to argue (?) that their house is too small (??)

And their $30 electric budget explicitly excluded heat.