←back to thread

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
Show context
xp84 ◴[23 May 25 23:23 UTC] No.44077508[source]▶
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. Family and friends. If I could take my in-laws and my 2 best friends and their families with me, I'd sign up to move to a rural place like this tomorrow. But it's impractical for nearly everyone in the whole country to make such a thing happen. This limits its appeal. This place is 90 minutes or so from the Montreal airport, which is actually not bad for rural places, but flights are not cheap, certainly not accessible on the budget described here, so for you to have contact with anyone outside this town, they're likely going to have to drop about $500 per person, per visit, and will be staying at the Super 8 since you probably don't have a guest room). So, implied but not acknowledged in this piece is the assumption that you are almost definitely going to only see your family and friends a few more times (maybe once a year each, if you're super lucky) for the rest of your life.

And unlike questions of money; food, entertainment, family and friends aren't fungible. You can start over and hope to make new friends out there, but you can't replace people. This is what would make this life untenable to me, and I'm not even all that extraverted.

replies(18): >>44077661 #>>44077836 #>>44077861 #>>44077989 #>>44078076 #>>44078326 #>>44078481 #>>44078497 #>>44078865 #>>44079089 #>>44079776 #>>44081693 #>>44081796 #>>44082021 #>>44082114 #>>44086836 #>>44093839 #>>44110159 #
rubitxxx15 ◴[24 May 25 03:15 UTC] No.44078481[source]▶
As an introvert, I believe I could live in a remote location without problem. I often wish I could switch off my hearing to just enjoy silence, and dream of getting a chance to spend time in an isolation chamber.

That said, I don’t know if I’d want to live in a depressing small town, unless it had a good diner.

replies(4): >>44078898 #>>44079959 #>>44081031 #>>44081310 #
projektfu ◴[24 May 25 13:37 UTC] No.44081031[source]▶
Rural NY isn't just for introverts. Most people are social and are somewhat active. Like most areas, an outsider will probably feel like an outsider, but if one allows themselves to be curious about the things people are into doing, I think it would be fine for typically social people.

One who sneers at rural people and habits will probably not get along. And if you take too much offense at rural people sneering about urban things, likewise.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of racism in upstate NY. I do know rural NY black people, and they do fine, but I'm not sure they appreciate the way insults are thrown about "present company excluded". It's those attitudes that kept me from wanting to stay.

replies(1): >>44081430 #
1. fullstop ◴[24 May 25 14:38 UTC] No.44081430[source]▶
> Unfortunately, there is a lot of racism in upstate NY. I do know rural NY black people, and they do fine, but I'm not sure they appreciate the way insults are thrown about "present company excluded". It's those attitudes that kept me from wanting to stay.

This is so heartbreaking.

I live in a suburban area, and have friends and neighbors from around the world -- Trinidad, Sri Lanka, Korea, Canada, and I _love_ that aspect of where I live. As I get older, I don't like the din of lawnmowers and leaf blowers. Many of my neighbors have lawn services, and the ZTRs and backpack leaf blowers are even louder than what your average joe would have to do the same job.

On top of that, since there is land by me, the local government's zoning board has approved of more and more warehouses. As such, semi truck traffic has increased significantly, and somehow they all seem to have unmuffled straight pipe exhausts. I've contacted my representatives, but none of them seem to care. The state rep passes it off to the district rep, who passes it off to the township, who passes it back off to the state. The only winning move is to leave.

The point of my tangent here, is that a place like rural NY seems idyllic to escape the noise. Anecdotes like yours, though, steer me away. I understand that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy in that regard.

replies(1): >>44081558 #
2. projektfu ◴[24 May 25 14:59 UTC] No.44081558[source]▶
Yeah, it will hopefully improve with more exposure. Even suburban NY was highly racist in the 80s, maybe by the 2040s with more diversity it will be better in rural NY. But one thing I noticed as a young man road tripping through the South in the 90s was that the racism was a different species from Northern racism. In Birmingham, AL, I found people relating to each other like normal people. Birmingham, where they used water cannon and dogs against marchers and blew up a church in the 60s. In rural Ohio, a black friend of mine walked into a breakfast restaurant with me and had dozens of pairs of eyes staring at him like he had just announced he's robbing the place. It wasn't until I learned the history of sundown towns that I understood the racism of the North and its place in Segregated America.
replies(1): >>44081644 #
3. fullstop ◴[24 May 25 15:14 UTC] No.44081644[source]▶
With the direction things seem to be going, I'm not as confident about your 2040 hopes.

On a return trip from Florida we booked a room in Florence, SC for the night. Everybody was staring at me, but I was exhausted and figured that it was just in my head. We ate breakfast there the next morning and that's when I realized that we were the only white people there. About 50% of the population of Florence is black.

It was an interesting experience, and it gave me the opportunity to understand a fraction of how it would feel if the roles were reversed. And this was with friendly people with no malicious intent or fear!