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Comment by jonknee | Hacker News Reader

I have a hard time seeing the appeal of intentionally living long term with a near poverty level income. I could never be content watching my son bike to school in 20 degrees because I don't want to work. Let alone spend years bragging about it.

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Poverty-level income is in the eye of the beholder. He and his family sound quite happy at that amount; if they're happy, is it really poverty? If they're happy with that amount, why can't we be too? The "starving children in Africa" perspective is trite, but to an extent true--this guy's quality of life would be envied by 70% of the world, and yet we call it "poverty-level".

I bike to school and work in 20 degrees because my dad wants me to learn the value of a dollar before I'm in the "real world" (he also started me investing pretty early). I have 0 resentment and complete respect for him because of it.

That's a false dichotomy. I was never forced to bike to school in freezing temperatures, and yet I've managed to learn the value of a dollar quite well, if I do say so myself.

I think it's questionable what knowing what a dollar is worth if you orient your life in a way to make as little of them as possible. I think you should value a dollar, but also work hard and apply yourself.

It's a strange combination... He got the investment income is the secret part, but then seemingly stopped at the earliest opportunity. It just seems lazy. I agree with him that spending more than you make is irresponsible, but I also think there's a happy medium where you can both have a coffee and a retirement account. You're not taking any of it with you anyways, might as well enjoy a few moments of it.

I completely agree with this. My grandfather is a millionaire...apparantly. I never would have guessed it. He drives a near-broken-down 1980-something honda. He takes frugality to the extreme. I love talking to him and hearing his investing advice, but it gets irritating hearing about how he saved $0.50 on a book or hitch-hiked to Colorado for a family event. I don't see him much, but I've hardly ever seen him smile.

I think we have to be very careful in a society that promotes living in such excess. It's a hard balance to find between casting off all expenses to the point that it becomes frugality for the sake of being frugal, and frivolous-spending yourself into debt.

My grandfather was a millionaire, on a high school teacher's salary When he died at the ripe old age of 95, he had a 35 year old car with 70k miles on it. His idea of diversification was CDs in a bunch of different banks, in case one failed. He did not spend money on himself. There was a big fight over spending money on a cordless phone for him at one point, because he had a corded one that was good enough. It was better for everyone if he could have a phone in the walker or next to him, rather than tethered to the wall on the other side of the room.

I think the great depression and the shortages of WW2 were hard on him in ways that I just can't know.

I think being extremely frugal is about as bad as frivolous spending (the frugal folks will hate me for this...). They're just two sides of the same coin, and the really frugal people tend to be VERY obsessive about it and stressed out from trying to not spend money. Case in point, this blog post:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/07/27/youll-never-be-nor...

Does being stressed out and anxious over driving a few miles and spending some money on ice cream really sound like a happy life? If you take spending to the extreme and don't live within your means, you'll be stressed about how to make ends meet and pay your bills. But at the same time, if you take frugality to the extreme, you're just trading that for being stressed over spending too much money.

Life is short. Be smart, keep a good balance and enjoy yourself.

Do you mean "do as little with them as possible"? It sounded to me as if you're saying he's trying to make the least amount of dollars he can.

I biked to work in Seattle every day including freezing 35 degree rain in winter and enjoyed it. Half an hour biking in such a weather made me feel like I achieved something before work day starts. And biking was totally optional - I had a car.

But people are different and I get what you want to say.

Yea, and some people are just crazy (not you, I mean the crazies in the midwest who bike to work when it's 0F outside).

And I think all you folks in a car are totally crazy :-) Riding is fun!

I'm in Tulsa, OK. I choose to bike to work everyday also. Wind, rain, snow, temperature, I bike to work and back.

My car was stolen once and I went about 2 months without using it. I had insurance and they gave me a rental, but I ended up never going to pick it up. The police found my car eventually, undamaged.

The city has recently built an abundance of biking and walking trails for this reason and is very friendly to bikers, even on the main roads.

He isn't living in poverty, not even close. His family's 2012 spending was just under 26k but that doesn't include income taxes, his mortgage is paid off, and he isn't saving in a retirement account any more. For any normal working person those thee things would likely account for nearly 60% of costs. His life style is probably equivalent to a still working person who is making 75k.

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/01/21/exposed-the-mmm-fa...

He lives in a $400k home and saved $800k before he retired after working for 10 years. He isn't living near poverty level.

While I agree with you, it sounds like he doesn't pay a mortgage any longer which makes that poverty level income go much further. For most of us that would be the biggest single expense. I'm not sure how that figures into the income calculation but it probably counts for something.

Although, note that not having a mortgage to pay is not the same as housing being free. Once my mortgage is paid off, I'll still be paying something like $5K per year in taxes and insurance. (I'm guessing taxes are higher in Massachusetts than Colorado though.) And probably add at least another $1K or two to cover upkeep/maintenance/tools to do maintenance even if he does most or all of the work himself. So a paid for house is probably still going to cost something like $500/month.

He said don't _have_ to work, I think there is a big difference there.

He's not actually working though, so not really a big difference. Technically I could move to a third world country tomorrow and be "retired", but that doesn't fit my goals.

He is working. He works hard on bizdev for his blog ,doing his own PR to get submarine press in WaPo. I "retired" from blogging, now I code for fun and some money to pay my entertainment bills.

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