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How to live on $432 a month in America

(shagbark.substack.com)
526 points cactusplant7374 | 5 comments | 23 May 25 16:40 UTC | HN request time: 0.746s | 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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1. xp84 ◴[23 May 25 23:12 UTC] No.44077424[source]▶
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 $45 for a prepaid cellphone plan with ample tethering doesn't change the overall equation significantly.
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2. 999900000999 ◴[23 May 25 23:43 UTC] No.44077621[source]▶
It's less click bait-ish. The max SSI payment is 967$.

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 to burn in a wood stove, very cheaply.

He glosses over heating, but for a full house that can easily be 200 or 300$ dollars.

Snow tends to cause problems. Now if he wrote this living in Florida or something it would be more practical. No risk of freezing. Walking or biking is possible year round.

I'd actually love to see a bike first city, but outside of a few college towns I don't think it exists in the states

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3. firesteelrain ◴[24 May 25 00:12 UTC] No.44077760[source]▶
You can bike year round in Florida and bike or walk to work if you are in vicinity. Even go to grocery store or in some cases use a golf cart. At least one car is still preferable.
4. testing22321 ◴[24 May 25 18:28 UTC] No.44082917[source]▶
I biked year round in the Yukon. -40 and beyond is a fun challenge.
5. sarchertech ◴[25 May 25 04:04 UTC] No.44085428[source]▶
> He glosses over heating, but for a full house that can easily be 200 or 300$ dollars.

Not at $0.04/kwh for a 600 square foot house it won’t.