Comment by ProllyInfamous
6 days ago
>Live below your means
This was among the best advice the man who raised me ever offered.
Decades later, I still live (alone, thankfully!) in a shithole rental without health insurance in a mid-sized USA metro, for less than $2000/month (all expenses). No contracts, cash only; I own my car; no cell phone/email/subscriptions.
My savings grow silently and (immensely &) although my current living arrangement isn't ideal, it is easy. Money unfortunately is among few door-openers for strangers in new cities, you just have to know how to live lesserly.
Previously, my IBEW data center experience allowed me to save/invest enough that I don't have to work any more than extremely part-time, which is how I continue choosing to live. Needing benefits will eventually bring me back into full-time employment, which I dread, existentially...
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This isn't a lifestyle that anybody with dependants nor romantic interests could easily manage – I've dated two women in the past decade, and they were both eccentrics (as well). But I live well (to my own enjoyments): haven't set an alarm clock in many many many many years...
> Decades later, I still live (alone, thankfully!) in a shithole rental without health insurance in a mid-sized USA metro, for less than $2000/month (all expenses). No contracts, cash only; I own my car; no cell phone/email/subscriptions.
I unwillingly ended up doing the same: M34, fully paid flat in a fairly large city, no car, no ex wifes, no kids, no debt of any kind. My monthly fixed expenses are just bills (electric power, natural gas, internet), public transportation and groceries. Everything else (very little) is a monthly subscription i can stop paying if something goes wrong.
I save most of my paycheque (around 60-70%).
Can confirm that after splitting up with my last girlfriend my monthly expenses went down dramatically.
>I save most of my paycheque (around 60-70%)
I am not F.I.R.E. myself ("financially independent, retire early"), but their general rule is that if you save 2/3rds of your paycheck (and don't change your expenditures), you can retire after about a decade of working.
Congrats on your achievement!
>I unwillingly ended up doing the same
I consider myself among the luckiest people I've ever met, however strange life has been (and simple mine seems, to outsiders). Are you happy or sad about your current simplicity (I cannot tell from your wordchoice "unwillingly")?
> their general rule is that if you save 2/3rds of your paycheque (…), you can retire after about a decade of working.
Yeah I’m around that saving rate but it’s a fairly new thing for me, to which i’m still getting used to. I guess if all goes well i might be able to retire in ten years.
I’ll be honest, i don’t really count on that. I don’t have hard evidence but i have a strong feeling/intuition that advice was valid in the old world but might not be valid in the future world.
> Are you happy or sad about your current simplicity (I cannot tell from your wordchoice "unwillingly")?
I wrote “unwillingly” because my initial plans on how to use the flat i live in and how to employ my current earn rate was radically different than what I’m doing right now. Life took a different turn. Such is life, I guess.
I am not unhappy. I am acutely aware I am moderately successful (i don’t call myself “privileged” or “lucky” - i built my current situation) and that there are a lot of people in much worse situations than i currently am (heck, that was me ten years ago).
I am old enough to understand things come and go. This is a somewhat flat (but stable) part of my life. Happier times will come, sadder time will come, more tumultuous time will come, more exciting times will come: such is life.
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Yeah, I am off-grid in rural Colorado. Although I have a couple of side hustles, it would be really thin pickings without some "passive" income and without having set myself up so the big expenses are mostly taken care of.
The last several folks I've dated have been very odd people, mostly living in vehicles.
I don't have health insurance, either. Or indoor plumbing.
But I do play a lot of music, have time to volunteer, and only take work that requires an alarm clock when I feel like it.
>The last several folks I've dated have been very odd people, mostly living in vehicles
It was the simplest of women whom I enjoyed partnering with, most (a mail carrier, a SF bartender that lived in her van and my grow shed). My last two attempts were with an attorney and then a stripper (both women lied professionally for a living... so not much difference IMHO; I met them both as neighbors).
As I enter my seventh year of celibacy, I am strengthened by finally having gotten my earlylife sexuality under control – maybe it's just aging, but I suspect that Tinder-like dating is what ruined courtship (for me, and many others). After a single 2014 "netflix & chill" hookup, I have never utilized such a meat-market app again (happy for the majority that now do; I just think it's devalued both genders, the "fairer sex" more).
/ramble
I have no plans, and hope I can keep this charade ongoing (for at least another decade). After leaving medical school (almost) two decades ago, I have no plans to die within the mercy of our $American $Healthcare $System™. Wishing you continued simplicity in your mountainous adventures (OR and CO are my top US destinations).
I learned the lesson the hard way through loss of a job for over a year and a foreclosure during the 2008 global financial crisis. For others to learn from my costly experience via my advice is free, I hope the advice lands.
Best wishes. I never thought I'd be worth more than $0.00, again (dropped out of medical school even poorer than when started), but somehow it happened (it's not much, but I live much simplerly: tied to nothing with [almost] zero responsibilities).
Dude I'm you but in Central Europe, even including the health insurance part.
I'll bet when you read On the Road [0] you were also left wondering "that's it?! that's the entire journey?! how is this boring text so popular?!"
Us crazies ("I'm on the fun side of crazy," I like to profess) rarely stumble across one-another. Write me a postcard: I'll let you squat in the flat next door for a week; if you get chased out, I also have a shed (air conditioned, but 100sqft).
I've been dying to visit Slovenia (or other poorer EU countries). I'll write back – used to couchsurf before endless eternal septembers.
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Check out https://couchers.org/, they are a non profit for couchsurfing. No affiliation besides as a donor for their annual costs (i aggressively defend and support public goods).
Would love to read a blog post about your EU travels after you make it there. Come back with stories and experience to share.
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Actually I rescheduled my last winter's sabbatical, cancelling US plans in favor of Antipodes because of the TSA, ICE, and general political climate. Will save the comment, who knows. Thanks!
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