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How to live on $432 a month in America

(shagbark.substack.com)
526 points cactusplant7374 | 3 comments | 23 May 25 16:40 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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999900000999 ◴[23 May 25 20:15 UTC] No.44076233[source]▶
>Though I and my wife do not presently live in Massena, we live nearby, and we’re doing exactly this — we do not have an automobile, nor do we want one. We use the rural county transit bus, which we have found to be extremely cheap and quite reliable; and it has certainly saved us thousands and thousands of dollars by liberating us from the onerous expense of keeping a car.

This part has me screaming shenanigans. Unless you basically don't leave the house, you need a car outside of like 8 American cities. More believable would be a pair of used bikes.

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fzeroracer ◴[23 May 25 21:11 UTC] No.44076636[source]▶
Agreed, looking at the map of Massena this seems like bullshit. I've lived without a car for my entire life across multiple states and it is incredibly onerous in even mildly dense areas.
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monroeclinton ◴[23 May 25 21:26 UTC] No.44076773[source]▶
https://www.slcnypublictransit.com/transit-schedules

It seems like they have a good number of routes and do route deviation within 3/4 of a mile of the bus stop.

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1. fzeroracer ◴[23 May 25 21:42 UTC] No.44076889{3}[source]▶
Frequency is often as important as the route from experience; because a route that's reasonably distant from your location can be walked to/biked to etc but a low-frequency route means it's something you need to plan your entire day around. And if you miss any bus then you're stranded (which, given that they don't have internet I'm curious how they manage...)

Most of the bus routes here seem to run maybe twice a day, once early in the morning and then once late in the afternoon. There's a few more frequent ones that run on the hour but it looks to be closer to the denser cores.

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2. bombcar ◴[23 May 25 21:47 UTC] No.44076924[source]▶
Rural bus routes used to be very common - they commute in in the morning and out in the afternoon.

You change your schedule to handle that, and they usually will drive the van (barely a bus) up to your door.

3. fullStackOasis ◴[23 May 25 22:41 UTC] No.44077245[source]▶
> a low-frequency route means it's something you need to plan your entire day around.

Okay but the dude is making $5K/y which means he basically has no job and he sits around in his house all week or goes hiking etc. His most exciting day of adventure will literally consist of taking the bus to the library to check out a book, and bringing it back home (while reading it on the bus, perhaps). He can totally afford to plan his entire day around the event.