Living on $5,000 a year, on purpose: Meet America's 'intentional poor'

http://inplainsight.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/13/20923154-living-on-5000-a-year-on-purpose-meet-americas-intentional-poor?lite

by bsullivan01 • 13 years ago

40 49 13 years ago

inplainsight.nbcnews.com

dlsx4• 13 years ago

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.

bsullivan012• 13 years ago

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.

dlsx4• 13 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.

weeksie• 13 years ago

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.

Shivetya• 13 years ago

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.

aliakbarkhan• 13 years ago

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

And how exactly do you know this is the case?

alphakappa2• 13 years ago

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.

dlsx4• 13 years ago

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?

ctdonath2• 13 years ago

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.

frozenport• 13 years ago

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

nthj• 13 years ago

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.

thescurvy• 13 years ago

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.

csomar• 13 years ago

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

RougeFemme• 13 years ago

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.

cowsandmilk• 13 years ago

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.

KevinEldon• 13 years ago

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.

bmj• 13 years ago

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

-- Eric Beck

spurgu• 13 years ago

I would definitely do something like this if I didn't happen to live in latitudes where it's cold and snowy in the winter.

jzwinck• 13 years ago

You can move. But the most important part is to not be stopped by trivialities such as being "stuck" at the wrong latitude. Most people could move toward the equator for $500 or less if they put their mind to it.

ahomescu1• 13 years ago

Easy to do in the US, harder in Europe because of language and legal barriers (not impossible though).

sz4kerto2• 13 years ago

I live in the EU and the median wage in my country is around $5000 a year after taxes.

alphakappa2• 13 years ago

What country is that?

Edit: Looking at some EC website [1], these are the countries with median gross annual income < EUR 10,000:

Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania

1. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index....

MikusR• 13 years ago

Basically any ex USSR country.

kalmi10• 13 years ago

sz4kerto -(fixup)-> szakértő -(Hungarian to English)-> professional/expert

so I can safely guess Hungary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_in_Europe_by_...

sz4kerto2• 13 years ago

Hungary. The monthly median is around $500 net.

kiddz• 13 years ago

Money only gives you options, even if it's other peoples' money manifested in the resources of the State via taxation and public spending.

First world problems/opportunities . . . the underlying story here is that nearly none of this is possible without a well funded and run state. Riding 4500 miles across country, collecting sponsorships, going to a strangers house from CL for a fan. . . all speaks to road, police and the like allowing people to survive/thrive because there is general stability around them. These people experience none of the poverty problems that come from a lack of choices.

sanoli• 13 years ago

Agree. I have friends who have lived this lifestyle for a long time in the U.S. and Europe, and you just can't live the same way here in Brazil, for example. This freegan stuff just doesn't work here. My friends squatted in the U.S. and ate fresh food from dumpsters. Here, the squatters are really poor people or crack addicts. Here, there's hardly any good food thrown out, and it is all quickly scavenged by really hungry homeless people. And my U.S. friends say they are anarchists. Sorry, you can only live like this in the U.S. because of the stability and prosperity that is around you.

gexla• 13 years ago

Dude spends $5000 a year living in a cave? I could live all year in the Philippines with a normal house and not really having to cut back on much.

This article is silly to be talking about poverty on purpose. These guys are living really frugal, not in poverty.

GigabyteCoin• 13 years ago

Good point. He could still publish his wilderness zine in a country with a currency that had a higher purchasing power parity than that of the U.S.A. and do odd jobs in that county for extra spending money if he wanted.

According to this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PP...

64 out of 180 counted countries in this world have an average income of $5,000 USD (equivalence) or lower.

tsm2• 13 years ago

I'm sure I could subsist on a very minimal salary. But what would I be left doing? I enjoy traveling, I enjoy playing several musical instruments, I enjoy owning a reasonable computer (granted, my main laptop is a $300 eBay find), I enjoy eating interesting food, I enjoy buying books, I enjoy doing fun things with friends. And I wish I worked less so I could do all of the above a lot more.

Sure, I could compromise on all of that. Couchsurf. Use the library (both for its books and its computers). Become a better cook to make more with less. Do other things with friends. Etcetera etcetera etcetera.

But the mere term "compromise" implies "loss of originally-expected value", and there comes a point where I could have all the time in the world and not enjoy spending time on anything. Back to the OP, I question what Price does all day when he's not working odd jobs. I almost expected him to be an artist or novelist or somesuch.

nnoitra• 13 years ago

The more pleasures you have the more masters you serve.

tsm2• 13 years ago

The connotation of that is flipped by its corollary: the less masters you serve, the less pleasures you have.

Bhel• 13 years ago

Reminds me of that meme of the hippie who uploads her anti-capitalist propaganda from her new iPhone, using McDonald's Wi-Fi.

I don't get how this is worth of an NBC article. Perhaps since I'm used to a whole different socio-economic context; I live in Mexico, where the minimum wage is below $2,000 USD a year, so I don't find $5,000 a year to qualify as "poor" or to be anything impressive.

I know many cases of people who live with way less than that, including myself; I've never had a formal job, and have always lived from one or two days of freelance work each month, or from schoolarships. Sometimes I go for a full month with around $300 USD.

I agree with Gexla in that this is silly at best.

tokenadult• 13 years ago

The article kindly submitted here reports: "More than two decades ago, then-33-year-old Dan Price had a wife, two small children, a high-interest mortgage, and a stressful job as a photojournalist in Kentucky. He worried daily about money and the workaday grind."

Then the article follows up on what Price thinks about his life after he read the book Payne Hollow and his marriage broke up. "'I like being able to do what I want to do,' said Price, who pays $100 a year for his land. 'I don’t believe in houses or mortgages. Who in their right mind would spend their lifetime paying for a building they never get to spend time in because they are always working?'"

So my question about that is, does he believe in a father supporting his young children growing up? I sure do. I can think of a lot of lifestyle adjustments I might make to simplify my life if I had no minor children, but while my children are young, I'm very well going to live with them and participate in supporting them financially. After all, I had the choice at the beginning about whether or not to have children, but my children had no choice about whether they were born to a dad who steps up or a dad who checks out and forgets about them.

patrickg_zill• 13 years ago

We don't know the situation, but, if the entire family moved to Oregon, and, he sold his 6 bedroom house in KY, there may have been a decent amount of equity transferred into either a new house, or, turned into cash; so for all we know, he let her have the mostly-paid-off house and walked away.

Remember, he doesn't tell you what he makes a year, just what he needs to make to survive.

bostonscott• 13 years ago

Many bright, independently minded people go through rebellious phases as they ascend into adulthood.

"Why must I adhere to society's unwritten rules? I'm better than that. I'll never join the bourgeoisie!"

Those were my sentiments in my early 20's. But I was being rebellious for the sake of being rebellious. It was a knee-jerk coping mechanism, not the articulation of well-reasoned philosophy.

I was very immature. As if I would commit my life to forgoing and perhaps even scorning the richness borne of productivity in favor of squaller! Why would I want to punish myself in such a way?

I believe the same holds true for many people like the subjects of this article. They are bright people, but the messages they articulate about society and its inequities and injustices are riddled with serious contradictions.

You can be an empathetic, generous, and extraordinarily charitable human being without imposing poverty on yourself.

Living on $5,000 a year, on purpose: Meet America's 'intentional poor'

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