How to live on $432 a month in America

I looked through those numbers, and immediately thought to myself - hope you don't need to see a doctor for anything serious, or go to a dentist for that mater.

FWIW, I grew up in rural nowhere (population 150, nearest town 45 miles away) - and I honestly don't know how anyone can live out in the boonies without a car. Taking the bus that goes 3 times a day is one thing, needing to move stuff is another thing. I mean, obviously there are plenty of people that do manage - but sooner or later you'll become completely dependent on others for certain types of transportation.

Also, there's clothes, house maintenance, and lots of other things.

What small town even has a bus? The closest bus line to me is in the closest large town (40k) about an hour away.

Are there bus lines in the middle of nowhere?

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.

If you’re around or on the way to a popular hike I’ve seen buses run out to some more remote spots. But probably really depends on the county.

Apparently it's "free Amish wood" or "a little extra in electricity"... which, as someone who lives in a temperate area, is a stunningly low price to imagine for electric heat in somewhere cold.

Rural transit exists in some places but certainly is not common in the US like it is in e.g. eastern Europe

It’s a 600 ft home with electricity at 0.04kWh. As someone who owns a 400 sq ft uninsulated cabin in MN, with rates closer to 4x that, I can tell you it’s about $100/month to heat it with electricity.

I guess, if the math holds, you would be paying around $50/month to heat it in the winter months.

E: changed kW/h to kWh per the nice commenter who suggested as much below.

I will say, at this income level you're on Medicaid. It would be more than nothing but very basic, and if you're using government assistance than you aren't really "escaping" modernity, you're actually living off of the economic surplus of all the people working hard in the rat race. (Don't misinterpret me as saying that social safety nets are bad, I am all for them, but I'm just saying - if the author of this article gets cancer I bet they'll want to visit a hospital where doctors are working 12 hour shifts grinding out the era of "overabundance.")

But it is extremely important to point out that the American "rat race" cities subsidize areas like this. There would be no road in front of this house without those subsidies. These areas are net negative economic contributors that depend on federal and state funding to exist, including that bus transit that this person is relying on (not to mention the American factory workers who grind out their shifts in urban centers to make those buses).

The author claims to be living the life of great-grandparents, but it’s not like he’s a subsistence farmer or something. As a metaphor it’s kind of like claiming you’re a wild animal living out in the wilderness living a simple life of virtue when in reality this existence is more similar to a raccoon living out of the dumpster of modern society’s surplus.

Why bother building a self-sufficient community like the Amish where they build their own homes and grow their own food and build their own buggies, clothes, furniture, and breed their own horses when you can survive in a cheap depreciated house someone else built, use the library and transportation that other working people pay for, and the roads that were built by the workers who actually work some significant hours?

I am sure it works on some level but it doesn’t seem to me to be a very positive alternative to a lot of other lifestyles.

Apart from all that, there are so many flaws with this article.

The budget didn't include mortgage/housing cost, I guess it's just assuming you're paying cash? How does a person with this kind of lack of gainful employment come up with $29k?

Water is $0? Even well water requires some level of upkeep and potentially replacement and re-drilling.

Most rural towns in the US absolutely do not have this transit available. You'll need a working maintained car plus insurance almost everywhere that looks like this.

Internet, use library - again, with what car? Aren’t a lot of the methods available to make income dependent on internet access?

The heat budget is just blank which makes no sense, heat in upstate new york is not cheap as you need a lot of it.

Education for your kids? How is that going to look out there? Are they going to be trapped here? Will they even have the option to opt out of this lifestyle? How easy will it be to do homework at home with no internet? You’ll rely on a rural bus schedule and use the library during open hours only?

I might also point out that a lot of modern society lifestyles that aren’t so far on this side of extreme of frugality are really easy and comfortable lives. Not all of them, a lot of people live difficult modern lives, but at the same time the “most people” who left the farm to get a job in the city did so for a reason.

I guess you could say that the extremes of society can make for some interesting reading.

> hope you don't need to see a doctor for anything serious, or go to a dentist for that mater.

That's the first thing I thought about.

His budget of $432/mo doesn't include health insurance. But $5K/y probably gets him Medicaid eligibility. Let's assume he's on Medicaid, then. In NY state, that covers quite a lot of dental care, if you believe this: https://www.health.ny.gov/health_care/medicaid/program/denta... Not saying it's a good option, but it's there.

> Taking the bus that goes 3 times a day is one thing, needing to move stuff is another thing.

What kind of things do you think he might be moving? He probably has just about no possessions with that budget (and a 600 sq ft house). In a pinch, perhaps he can rent a truck from Home Depot. Apparently, there is a Home Depot in Massena, NY, so maybe it's not quite so far out in the boonies as it seems.

Personally, I wouldn't do it - the lack of choice would get very unpleasant very fast. But it could work for some.

> But it is extremely important to point out that the American "rat race" cities 100% subsidize areas like this.

It's even more important to point out that places like this grow the food and do the manufacturing that those "cities" you like would collapse without.

Granted, this was 20 years ago, but I remember taking the Greyhound and people were getting on or off the bus in the middle of nowhere. By nowhere, I mean the nowhere in the literal sense: at the intersection of two highways in the northern Ontario with no other development in sight. Of course, they also serviced the other types of nowhere: the lone gas station or the tiny village.

The author is being somewhat misleading in the sense that this is not the type of bus service that one would use for your weekly commute to that 10 hour shift at the gas station, never mind the three or four times per week that you would need to cover the bills. It may be fine doing errands in town, where the arrival time and departure time don't much matter. It may also be fine for spending a day or two in the city, assuming you have the budget to stay over night.

I'm not saying that the type of lifestyle alluded to is impossible, but it is not going to be the type of lifestyle accessible to young people. Then there is the question about whether they are equipped to live that type of lifestyle.

Fyi it's kWh not kW/h

you could get a wood burning stove heater. as long as you have enough trees to be sustainable, burning firewood is a great way to go. and with the clean burning filters they have now a days, you'll much much better off than from the days when they used to burn fires inside a house with no container/stove/filters or even a chiminey at all! (just a hole in the roof if you were lucky.)

I think most of your points are fair ones. I also feel that it's rather cynical to drop out of the "rat race" by relying on the participation of lots of other people to pay for your Medicaid expense and so on. However, on average, there are just so few people doing this type of thing that I don't think we have to worry about free riders damaging the system. Most people who complain about the rat race aren't willing to take the extreme steps that this guy is suggesting in order to get out of it.

> The budget didn't include mortgage/housing cost

True, but I don't think you can get a mortgage for a $29K house. I'm guessing the guy is saving up for his house by sticking in the rat race until he's got his $29K saved up (presumably made easier with his wife?). Then, he shops around for a house on a bus route. I suspect it is possible, especially in a state like NY.

> if the author of this article gets cancer I bet they'll want to visit a hospital where doctors are working 12 hour shifts grinding out the era of "overabundance."

This is one point where I disagree. I'd really rather that doctors were working shorter hours. I don't want someone taking care of me if they're at the end of a 12 hour shift. Forget about the fact that it's so bad for her, it's also bad for me and the level of care that I get.

> Water is $0? Even well water requires some level of upkeep

Oh yeah, we just paid $800 to replace our pressure tank. His roof will need to be replaced one day, the gutters will leak, etc.

I actually think I detect a bit of tongue-in-cheek in the article. I think this guy will do this for a while, enjoy his adventure, and then go do something else.

Some times, Boulder Creek is in the mountains between Santa Cruz and San Jose (it’s more remote than it sounds I think)and it gets regular bus service on winding two lane roads and there’s a stop at Big Basin State Park where there’s no cell service in wide swaths of valleys and mountain sides.

Yeah, but the farmers and factory workers are working more than one ten-hour shift per week.

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

I agree that the bus in the scenario is implausible for most. But in real life, most rural people would simply own a car. The author describes car ownership's costs hyperbolically, but unless you're doing long-distance commuting, driving a $5000 car wouldn't add more than $200 to his monthly budget, which wouldn't change the math dramatically, while I'd argue it would improve quality of life tremendously, especially because rural America of 2025 most definitely assumes car ownership in a way that it didn't 100 years ago.

Should be budgeted though right.

You can get by with a woodburner without buying wood in a fairly large city if you collected the odd car load during the year.

That said, it might be a better use of time to work, then get the wood delivered.

Yep, it could work for some. And I think that's his point. Depending on how much meatspace socializing / culture one wants/needs. Library internet, meh ... but working 3 more hours at Stewart's would take care of that ... and access to a hyuge amount of entertainment, news, online spaces. Readers, writers, painters, DIYers. At $0.04 per kWh, keeping a small room warm in the winter is trivial ... could be worse!

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.

It's mentioned as the article as free from using waste wood.

In the comments on the article, the author says “we treat what we can at home, otherwise we go to Mexico and pay cash”

Oy vey

> I think most of your points are fair ones. I also feel that it's rather cynical to drop out of the "rat race" by relying on the participation of lots of other people to pay for your Medicaid expense and so on. However, on average, there are just so few people doing this type of thing that I don't think we have to worry about free riders damaging the system.

It's one of those cases where the "freeloading" is more miserable than just working, which is why abuse isn't rampant.

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 work. If you're doing seasonal work, that's fine. You just wait until everything is plowed for winter forays. If you're working all seasons, you cannot maintain a job when you cannot reliably reach the job site.

>> But $5K/y probably gets him Medicaid eligibility. Let's assume he's on Medicaid, then.

If he is on medicaid then he isn't "living" on 432/month. That would be living on 432/month PLUS whatever medicaid is worth, likely well north of another 500/month.

Then the kids need schooling, either in-person or remote. that is another 10k/year/kid. And you need some sort of local police/justice system to ensure nobody boots you off your homestead. But even once you account for all those local costs, there are things like national security. Living a peaceful life on a remote farm is only possible because the country is ringed by police and armed forces. Those things may be a thousand miles away, but someone still has to pay for them.

> but working 3 more hours at Stewart's

And working 5 more hours would get him a some better garden tools, and 20 more he could support a family of 3 And if he just got a higher paying job, he could even get a car!

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 already a few years old when they moved to the boonies. All healthy.

It's an extreme example, but this is a good read:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lykov_family

> That would be living on 432/month PLUS whatever medicaid is worth, likely well north of another 500/month.

Well, not for long at this rate.

The author mentions putting 20% down and getting a mortgage. Even with insurance, for a 10 year mortgage 29k is 430 per month. Or you live with your parents and save on $1500 rent for 2 years, bam you can buy it with cash.

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 with a dog owner). Crime (the little old lady next door got burgled twice in one year, once at 3 in the afternoon through her front door). After living in extremely cheap places for 8 years, I came to realize that these places are extremely cheap for a reason (because people don't want to live there if they can avoid it)."

These are "young people" things. The older you get, the more dependent you are on the society and it's benefits.

I’m not sure if the “rat race” actually produces real wealth to subsidize this.

If anything you could say we’re able to subsidize this despite the “rat race”.

A $200 cost is a nearly 50% increase to the budget.

I lived like this when I was younger and single. Most here, even the self-identified cyclists would scoff at it. It isn't for everyone. There are definite advantages in terms of health and overall robustness. If you are acclimatized to pedaling around in freezing weather and hauling in all of your supplies, you probably won't have a problem with wood heating.

That said, I don't think it would be fair to expect my wife to enjoy that lifestyle. I cannot imagine taking a child to a dental appointment under those circumstances.

The "rat race" refers to the economic engine that is American society.

(This was obviously a image of the slippery-slope most of us fall into)

Zillow says the average house in Davis costs $890k. Looks like they've pretty much given up on the "life cheaply" thing.

The main page of his website now says New Hampshire

https://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason-rohrer/

I live just over an hour north of this place. Until recently I heated my log cabin exclusively with wood.

It takes somewhere between 7 and 9 cubic metres of wood a year to heat about 800 square feet of house. It costs about CAD 1500 for a tandem load of sawlogs plus the cost of fuel and maintenance of the chainsaw and hydraulic splitter plus about 100 hours of labour bucking, splitting, hauling, and stacking. And still there are mornings when I had to break the ice on the dog's water bowl in the kitchen when it's been below -30 C for several days in a row.

You're not going to survive a winter in that part of North America with just "a few scraps of wood" for heat. "A few carloads" is maybe going to take you to Christmas and they'll simply find your thawed corpse during a warm spell in March.

I was on Medicaid for three or four years and had much better healthcare than when I was on an employer plan. Employer Plan w/ a shoulder injury: no MRI until three months of PT (physical therapy without knowing what the issue is????). Medicaid w/ a foot injury: MRI, physical therapy, option for surgery.

Slight digression but shorter clinical shifts mean more handovers, and those carry their own risk of error.

so people are just delivering free wood to anyone who chooses to move out to the boonies? Seems like a bad assumption to be making

Which implies the public roads have a positive economic value - the earlier post did refer to the area not to the people like the author of the blog post

A lot of smaller counties have a publicly operated demand response service that includes small buses, or at least some vehicle that is able to transport someone in a wheelchair.

So not a regular service schedule, but you can call and schedule a ride and it won't cost a lot.

I see a couple of specialist that explicitly state they aren’t taking any more Medicaid patients. I’m not on Medicaid. But I assume if you have any type of need for more than just a GP, you’re going to find your choices more limited.

Heat is mentioned in passing with literally no attempt at quantifying the cost:

> 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.

That's it. The line in the budget for heat is there and was left intentionally blank:

> Heat:

You can't just hand-wave away the cost of electric heating at the temperatures they get in upstate NY, even if the 0.04 number is accurate year-round (which it almost certainly isn't), and wood-burning stoves use way more wood than the author appears to be imagining with their "scrap wood" comment.

[0] https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/massena/new-york/unite...

> I honestly don't know how anyone can live out in the boonies without a car.

Why would you want to live out in the boonies without owning a car?

Just get a car.

They’re not that expensive, you can get a used beater for not much more than an iPhone. If you don’t want a beater, you can probably afford to spend a little more with the money you save from living out in the boonies.

Most people who live in the boonies owns a car.

Not close from my parents home is a small farm collective of mostly ex hippies who have been living there communally for decades with people well into their 80s now. It was so successful that the city, taking that as inspiration, ran trials of creating more autonomous senior communities that are largely self supervised, including even people with dementia.

From what I heard it works extremely well, not the least because it's more dignified and keeps people engaged, active, and self reliant. The modern notion of the drooling, dependent nursing home patient is a product of our (artificially!) atomized system.

St. Lawrence County does offer several shuttles that run only 1-4 times per day in each direction. It is probably better to add a bike or e-bike to the list.

I think when people write these articles, they should have lived the life instead of just totaling a few expenses. It is very hard to live without at least a few unforeseen expenses above the base budget. The life proposed here is like a 19th century life, waiting for the stagecoach to take you to where you can pay your property taxes, and then spending the day in town because the next stagecoach out doesn't come for hours.

Good points. I also heat with wood in a northern clime, and this seems accurate. I'm a little confused by the units and the costs, though. I cut my own, so I'm not sure how much a tandem truck holds, but am I right that your $1500 CDN load of sawlogs ($1100 USD) is enough for several years of heating? My quick search suggests that a tandem load might be around 12 full cords (44 m^3), and thus be enough for 5 years for you. Is this about right?

That’s a fun topic. The US government pays just over 19k per person. This means you need to make 100-150k (I came up with 126 with a standard deduction and normal credits) to “break even.”

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

Oh definitely there are fewer provider options with Medicaid and Medicare, again, in my experience, I received better healthcare than I did with an employer insurance plan.

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.

That says a lot more about the dysfunctional US healthcare system than it does about the author.

> you're actually living off of the economic surplus of all the people working hard in the rat race.

That's one way to look at it.

Another way is that you're living off of the economic surplus you were producing while working a highly paid 9-5 job that paid a shitload of taxes. Now it's your time to live off the surplus you produced and take it easier.

> I am sure it works on some level but it doesn’t seem to me to be a very positive alternative to a lot of other lifestyles.

It's not a very positive lifestyle from the standpoint of increasing the GDP to some maximum amount, yeah.

well, specific people are delivering free _waste_ wood to people specifically near them.

Kinda like those people that got free _waste_ oil from restaurants to run their vans. It's not something you can replicate literally anywhere but it does exist. Industrial waste has to be disposed of somehow and often people are happy for you to accept it for free.

Then the author proceeded to not include that cost in the example budget. They even had the gall to mention having a 700 credit score to buy such a house.

Not a lot of people with this kind of low budget have a 700 credit score.

Don’t mistake my comment as being pro-city at the expense of rural areas.

The author isn’t growing any food, they’re just living adjacent to those people.

Most manufacturing happens in close proximity to major cities.

The author is ostensibly part of the community that supports the people growing food. Not many people want to live around absolutely no one. Farmers want someone to staff the local convenience store, the local school, the local pharmacy, fire department, etc…

Farms need rural infrastructure which is what the anti rural subsidy people don’t seem to understand.

It is a literal subsidy that is on paper and real where you can go look up the public budgets and confirm it exists.

Rural subsidy for agriculture and other purposes makes a ton of sense. And not all rural areas are subsidy areas, many involved in energy and mineral extraction are economic surplus contributors. I have no problem with rural subsidy.

I think part of my objection to this lifestyle is that the author is essentially a burden on their community by their own choice. The community would be healthier economically if this person wasn’t in it.

Now, all of us may eventually become a burden as we age or if we become disabled. But doing it by choice is a different thing philosophically.

It’s bad for the person doing it in that they are going to depend on external factors keeping that lifestyle staying stable. If the library closes [1] or rural public transportation gets cut [2] this author now has to change up their life a whole lot to compensate.

If you’re already a person who generates an economic surplus you can roll with those punches more easily.

It’s bad for the community because this person is consuming more resources than they produce. Everyone in the community is slightly poorer because their tax dollars are supporting an able-bodied person who essentially refuses to work.

People don’t like to admit that they live in a metaphorical anthill. The ants who aren’t working and haven’t saved for retirement are factually a burden. I’m not saying we should all be wage slaves and we must work or else we have no value, but I think the author is essentially describing an undesirable extreme.

[1] https://members.olc.org/news/Details/ohio-house-budget-reduc...

[2] https://www.masstransitmag.com/management/news/55292030/us-d...

Excluding the possible exception of healthcare I’m not sure what you mean.

The hypothetical person is paying property taxes on the house they own. He’s paying income tax on his income. He’s paying sales tax on the food and necessities he buys.

I live in state with no income tax. If I decide to live in a cheap house, eat cheaply, and save most of my income does that mean I’m a burden on my community because I’m not paying enough property tax and sales tax?

In addition to the taxes he’s paying, he’s taking a previously blighted property, fixing it up, and maintaining it. He’s providing a service to the owner of the gas station by working there a few days a month. He’s presumably purchasing things from local stores instead of driving outside the community to shop. Maybe he’s even volunteering or providing other help to people in the community.

All in exchange for a few library books and some bus trips. I think most communities would love to have him.

> The community would be healthier economically if this person wasn’t in it.

Not everything is about money. A healthy rural society has a variety of people in it, some bring in more money that others, but the mix is necessary. Otherwise people will leave.

This guy for example seems to be able to write, and has lots of spare time. Perhaps he helps his neighbors. There's no money involved, but the entire community is better off.

You’re right, money isn’t everything.

Let’s say you’re in a collectivist community. No money is involved. Everyone contributes to the community by providing both needs (infrastructure, maintenance, etc) and wants (culture, arts, beautification, etc).

Would the person who chooses to contribute to community duties 1/10th the time and effort of the amount the rest of the community puts in face social consequences?

I think in most tightly-knit communities of this sort, they would. Money is just the exchange mechanism we use to enable more complex exchanges.

While they are paying all required taxes, and he’s maybe even doing positive things as you describe, the “community” (federal, state, and local levels) is investing more money into him than he is returning to the system.

That in itself is a simple fact that you can verify with basic publicly available government budget/taxation statistics numbers.

It only really works out okay because not everyone is doing what the author does. If everyone did what the author does we would have to drastically change how we organize our society.

A shorter way to say it is that the people who build the roads, fill potholes, and pick up garbage tend to work a full time job. If they all decided to only work one or two days a month (current unemployment rate: 4%) we’d have an instant crisis.

And maybe that realignment is okay and we could do that, but that’s not how it’s set up now.

> 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.

>That in itself is a simple fact that you can verify with basic publicly available government budget/taxation statistics numbers.

There's a few problems here. Yes if you take total government expenditures per capita, he's not paying that much in taxes directly. But most of those costs are fixed. If a new person pops up in the US, it doesn't actually cost the federal government an extra $20k a year.

Over a century ago we decided that the more money you make the greater proportion of our total fixed costs you have to pay. There are various justifications for this, the more wealth you have the more you benefit from those government services, diminishing marginal unity of money etc...

But the point is if you're just going to look at total per capita expenditures, looking just at the federal level for simplicity, you need to make around $100k a year before your federal taxes exceed that.

By your argument anyone not making $100k a year is consuming more public money than they are returning and are thus a burden on society.

Your premise logically leads to that absurd conclusion. Obviously the rest of society is necessary in order for the people who do make $100k a year to exist. By your logic someone who lives on $5k a year but who writes open source software for free that some company uses to make $100 million dollar a year is a burden on society.

Someone who creates art that inspires millions of people, or someone who makes articles, games, or videos that provide millions of hours of entertainment, is a burden on society if they give away their work instead of sell it.

My mom was a burden on society because she raised children instead of working outside the home--even though she now has 3 adult children paying hundreds of thousands in taxes per year.

>It only really works out okay because not everyone is doing what the author does.

That's true of nearly every lifestyle you could recommend. Or hell even every piece of good financial advice.

Having 6 months of savings is almost universally considered sound financial advice. But if right now every consumer in America cut all of their discretionary spending to build up a 6 month cushion, it would completely destroy the economy.

That doesn't mean that it's not a valid recommendation for a financial advisor to make.

The author isn't recommending that everyone in America live this way, he's saying that if you can learn to live without all the things you think you need, this is an alternative. If you are the type of person who can't stand the idea of working a 9-5 for 40 years, this is something you can do.

Most people will never do this, but just the fact that it's available as a relief valve is I pretty amazing I think.