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Comment by dlsx | Hacker News Reader

This article is full of fabrication.

The girl claims to live on $1000 a month in NYC, and she only pays $135 a week for an extra room in a crap neighborhood.

Leaving her, with $540 to live on... In NYC, for 30 days. Now, I'm sure this is possible, but she is sitting there on a macbook. Welp, there goes your budget for the entire year! And this article claims less is making these people happier. Not really, and they are just exploiting their so called frugality to make a buck from selling their story. Of course they wouldn't be lying about collecting welfare and hypocritically supporting #OWS.

TL;DR The article fails to mention these people are also exploiting the system collecting welfare.

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I don't know about the OWS and NYC kids, but I highly doubt Dan Price (the guy at the top living in a hobbit hole) is on welfare.

When I formerly lived in a tent in West Virginia, I knew lots of people who lived in similar "intentional poverty". Many of these people had seasonal jobs. Where I worked as a whitewater rafting guide. None of us had to pay for housing beyond just having a tent because we set up on the land owned by the outfitter. At the end of the season, half the guys went off to become ski instructors, often at places that similarly put them up for the winter. Many of the guys who had been doing this for a decade or more had enough cash saved up each year to go to Belize where they had similar arrangements for free housing and would raft for fun with raft guide friends in Belize.

During the summers I lived there, I actually could eat and drink purely off tips from customers and didn't touch my meager salary which all went into the bank. I banked enough during the summer that I could easily have purchased skis and hit the slopes as a job for the winter if I chose or live in a tent in Belize. The simple life ain't that hard if you live in the outdoors.

My wife's cousin lives this way, has for over a decade, and seems to have the kind of social network that enables this kind of living. I'm doing more than fine as a developer, and although I come from meager backgrounds came quite comfortably into having money as soon as I found employment, but do not have the kind of focus and spending discipline that living on a little requires. Perhaps everyone could cultivate an appreciation for income and really learn where they wanted to spend it. You can live on a little and have a lot, but it's very possible to have a lot and still have very little that actually matters.

"At either end of the social spectrum there lies a leisure class."

-- Eric Beck

I did read the article; I don't know you jump to the assumption that they are collecting welfare. If you know otherwise, please provide the citation.

It is possible to live quite frugally. Some of these people are, as the article states, getting help from other people; that doesn't mean they are getting help from the government. BTW, only one person mentioned OWS.

Regarding the Macbook. . .you assumed these people started with absolutely no possessions. I assumed they brought some possessions with them, including the Macbook. Nowhere does she state - or is it impled - that she bought it after beginning her voluntary poverty. Also, even poor people - whether the poverty is voluntary or involuntary - receive gifts. In case of voluntary poverty - where friends and family are most likely not poor - it is quite possible to receive a Macbook as a gift.

I've known people who've done this - and are still doing it. Just as the article stated, most, if not all, of them came from relatively privileged lives and always had the option of returning - or at least moving up from relative poverty.

I'm not sure why you would term this fabrication. She could've had that macbook from her days in Chicago (after all, as the article mentions - she only moved to NYC last year). Nowhere does it say that all her possessions were purchased with that $1000/month budget - just that her current living expenses are within that number.

This is exactly the logical fallacy the article is adopting. The fact she is using a $1000+ laptop, when she could buy a much cheaper non-apple laptop? It doesn't make sense with the frugality "lifestyle."

You have the absolute minimum income in a highly expensive city, so it only makes sense for you to have the best?

A strong accusation with little to base it on.

MacBook Air? Bottom end refurbished model costs $900. That's a dollar a day for 2.5 years; in NY you can recycle soda cans for $0.05/each, so 20 found cans a day keeps her tolerably up to date. There's enough free wifi around to manage connectivity.

Extreme frugality is viable if you put your mind to it. Our advertising-driven culture is guilty of making most think it isn't.

I've picked up used MacBooks (for relatives etc, I hate Windows tech support) for as little as $300. Still running years later. They couldn't be happier.

I concur. I'm 25, and the most money I've ever made in a year is less than $6,000. I've still managed to travel the country and live with not much strife. Once you're comfortable with completely disregarding all the bullshit that people in America think they need to be comfortable you're free to do whatever you want. I have no intention of attempting to change this situation because I'm genuinely happy with it.

EDIT:I'm also not on any form of welfare or food stamps or the like. I live entirely without state assistance, happily.

Yes, but why is it good? I wouldn't call these people success stories.

>> I wouldn't call these people success stories.

https://static.pinboard.in/xoxo_talk_thoreau.htm

> Thoreau said about his two years at Walden:

> I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours

> Thoreau wrote this never having tasted any of traditional forms of success. He was thinking of a different, more fundamental kind of success, one that I wish for myself, and earnestly wish for all of you.

The problem here is that you are mistaking your preferences for universal preferences. I wouldn't want to live like this either, and probably most wouldn't. But bully on these people for doing so, if they want to.

You underestimate the number of people who view such living as a laudable goal. Frugal living is quite satisfying. Read Walden for starters, then something like Five Acres and Independence, or Foxfire. It's a major paradigm shift.

There are probably a good number who had the expensive items before they decided upon this lifestyle.

Plus do not confuse living with living, as in what you would accept is likely far different than what they accept.

> The article fails to mention these people are also exploiting the system collecting welfare.

And how exactly do you know this is the case?

Nah, it's possible if you think the way poor people think. They get a second/third hand macbook from ebay for $200-300.

No, what's fishy is the $135/week rent, even a small room can cost more than that--unless it's a really, really bad area. But you can live on $540, for a while. Food can be very cheap in the bodegas and the rest can largely be controlled by only getting what's really needed. Of course a hospital visit will set you back 1-5 years of living expenses but that's different.

Bullshit. I have friends that lived in Surreal Estate (a Bushwick artists' loft) five years go for 150/_month_.

You don't know what you're talking about.

You don't know what you're talking about.

All I know comes from trying to help via the internet a cousin find a place to live around that area.

Bullshit. I have friends that lived in Surreal Estate (a Bushwick artists' loft) five years go for 150/_month_.

Apparently Surreal Estate is some sort of experimental commune so I don't see how this makes my argument invalid. Oh, and it's in Brooklyn, not Manhattan. And apparently it was five years ago.

I agree you could live on the $540 a month for food. But, how does one go about the room, obviously a cell phone bill with tethering (or leeching wifi?) Because she makes 100% of her income blogging from a macbook that costs more than 3 months of her food budget.

I like the concept, but it's just so obvious there is more behind their income. The other guy vacations to hawaii to surf, but doesn't mention what he does for income.

The other guy vacations to hawaii to surf, but doesn't mention what he does for income.

The sentence immediately following the mention of Hawaii states Price’s version of the simple life costs $5,000 a year, which he earns from publishing a wilderness zine and doing odd jobs around Joseph, his eastern Oregon town.

Assuming he is flying to Hawaii, that would set him back at least $600. That's 12% of his yearly budget. Not to mention the fact that actually living in Hawaii is not cheap, and the article said he does this all winter.

It's not too expensive for Mr. Money Moustache:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/12/15/high-cost-of-livin...

MMM is postmodern art. He goes to huge contortions to pretend that he doesn't work for his living as a blogger and handyman.

Really? Is he lying about his spending or is he lying about his income from savings & investments?

He does? I don't have that impression.

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/11/18/mustache-on-the-mo...

This literally requires that you know someone in Hawaii that will put you up FOR FREE.

Why is the cost of the MacBook relevant at all? She could've had this previously, been given it, or received it second hand.

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