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How to live on $432 a month in America

(shagbark.substack.com)
526 points cactusplant7374 | 2 comments | 23 May 25 16:40 UTC | HN request time: 0.632s | source
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stickfigure ◴[24 May 25 14:13 UTC] No.44081260[source]▶
On one hand I agree with the general premise of the article, which is that you can live a lot cheaper than you choose to. Homes in the passably-cute downtown of Massena are under $100k; you could live on $40k/yr comfortably and if you're here on HN you can probably earn at least than that with a remote job. Cutting it to $5k/yr is just trying to prove something.

The missing thing is health care. If you're young and immortal and willing to take risks, sure. This attitude won't last into middle age. My wife had cancer, and without health insurance I'd be a single parent right now. Maybe you can lean on public assistance like Medicaid (if it continues to exist), but this isn't really a scalable solution for "we can all live cheaper". It only works if enough people stay in the rat race to pay for it.

"Cheap" health insurance for a youngish small family is >$1000/mo. That really isn't optional in the US.

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1. insane_dreamer ◴[24 May 25 20:17 UTC] No.44083541[source]▶
This works if you’re young and healthy. Which is possible. I didn’t have health insurance for the first 45+ years of my life and saw a doctor maybe 4-5 times before my mid-50s. Must not have spent more than $5k total on medical in 30 years including dental. If you live a healthy lifestyle (much easier out there than in the city) and are relatively lucky genetically then lack of health insurance isn’t the bugaboo that most Americans seem to make it.
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2. stickfigure ◴[26 May 25 03:06 UTC] No.44093590[source]▶
Right, you might get lucky. Or you might not. Young healthy people used to die in childbirth all the time. It still happens. And how was your last colonoscopy?