Hacker News Reader

Comment by jacalata | Hacker News Reader

Tldr: no, but if we redefine "live in London" as "live in Zone 1, take family of four skiing in France four times a year, send kids to private school from age 3, always eat at Michelin starred restaurants, own multiples of everything Apple ever releases, any other stupid consumerism you can think of" then yes.

View on HN

Exactly. I've got "2.4 family" friends who live in Clapham and Walthamstow, earn about £60K between them and live comfortably. Would they like to have £500K salaries? Of course. Do they need them? Of course not.

Real estate is the biggest struggle.

A 3.5-bed family home in Clapham is around £1m, a 4% payment on which would consume their entire net income!

source - http://www.londonpropertywatch.co.uk/avg_prices.html

Spending quality time with family doing outdoors activities, ensuring good and safe care and education for your children, eating quality food at fine restaurant, buying quality electronics, etcetera are actually the complete opposite of "stupid consumerism".

Sounds like an excellent way to spend your money if you have it.

Why was this comment downvoted? Genuinely curious.

Is merely entertaining a notion of living above £50k subsistence unacceptable in this community?

Because you don't need to spend that much to do any of those things. It would be an interesting article if it actually addressed the minimum income needed to achieve that lifestyle.

None of these activities, as you've phrased them, are particularly expensive. Doing them the way OP phrased them, i.e. the most expensive way possible, is what I think is meant by stupid consumerism.

Minimum salary required to be a part of Boris's and David's circles.

How do you define smart consumerism? Or do you just hate consumerism in general?

I suppose I'd call it smart consumerism if you know which bits are optional and are not arguing that it's impossible to live without things that 99% of people will never have. Do regular ski trips sound awesome? Yes. Would I ever list them in my "minimum possible lifestyle"? Hell no.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com