Alright lemmy commenters you want the real secret sauce on How to live comfortably with the least amount of money? I can tell you my strategy. This won’t work for everyone, and many of you won’t like what I have to say.
loans and rent are a scam. Never go into debt, never open a credit card. Pay with the money you actually have saved up or learn to live without. don’t subscribe to anything recurring but phone and internet payments.
Live well below your means, not right at them or slightly above. If you live paycheck to paycheck and arent able to save up a dime for an emergency fund you will get screwed eventually.
invest in ways of generating passive income. diversify, have a portfolio, learn the difference between money, value, and assets. Leverage the concepts and apply them. Take a chance and put 100$ somewhere in the financial market, fail and loose some money, learn something from it, try again until you start growing money.
live out of your vehicle. Rent is a scam that preys upon your willingness to whore yourself out socioeconomically for quick illusionary scraps of safety and convinence that month. Any car, van, or truck can be converted into a liveable space. Its hard to adjust to such a different way of living at first but if you can do so the benefits of adapting to that kind of lifestyle is massive. You become your own landlord and pay yourself rent. Your only expenses becomes insurance and maintance.
Donate your plasma. It’s a relatively safe procedure, You can do it twice a week, and it provides a part time jobs worth of income.
Change your psychology. Society has ingrained upon us from birth a sense that our worth as human beings is determined by productivity and value we can provide.
You see a lot of people in the comments here rail on NEETs Who aren’t currently in the job market while still somehow living a life. Fuck that, I’m here to tell you that your life has intrinsic value. You and I werent put on this planet to slave away at jobs we hate to maybe one day achieve the dream of paying a 30 year mortage on some shitty suburbanite house. Thats not the life I dreamed of for for myself and I won’t be shamed for carving a way out of that speeding train to misery.
as long as you aren’t parasitizing your family living off their resources and found your own unique living situation thsat isnt burdening anyone, then go for it. Carve out a life of freedom where you can choose to sit on your ass and laise about without shame my friend.
You dont need to be employed all the time.You don’t need to work all the time to live a comfortable life. If you live the way I just described you can work 6 months or a year saving up the money and coast on the funds for a year or two before working again. You can be free to travel the country living dirt cheap for many many months. Is that NEET life? Maybe. But wouldnt you like a sabbatical like that? A break from the years of work grinding?
Develop skills and invest in infrastructure that improve your self reliance or reduce payments. Taking automotive classes and learning to fix your own car problems saves a lot of money. Learning basic electrical and plumbing if you want to go offgrid. Keeping yourself better warm in winter without central heating or cool in summer without central cooling. If you don’t want to live in a car then owning a piece of land and putting an offgrid home on it is next best thing for living without expenses.
Worked washing dishes from 16 part time for comoc book money when it was laughed at, realsied work wasn’t for me, got a labouring job that paid ok and was away from home 5 days a week with food and accommodation paid for by my employer, just stayed at my parents for 2 days a week, chipped in with a small amount they asked for, had a an old cheap motobike to het aroibd, nevertheless owned a car, too expensive. Saved heaps but not paid much, 12 months in I upgrade to a fly in fly out job on triple the wage, much the same work, employer also happy to pay for all tertiary education expenses for remote study, 2 weeks on, 1 week off, stay at hone with parents, seme deal, go to work for a fortnight, take $10 come home with $5 becase everything is paid for. Nothing but study and work, seems hard. Don’t drink or smoke so no expenses really aside from the occasional snickers bar. Other workers come back and stay for the week at Sheraton and get hookers, go to the Casino, , looks like loads of fun to a 20 something but they come back to work broke. All the while i am nerding out on financial newspapers and putting all my savings in the stock market… Retire at 35, debt free, modest house, no mortgage, fast foward, same frugal habits, am 57 and investments have balloned ridiculously. Am a NEET, or retired, or a drag on society, depends how u look at it I guess
Those two steps are the core tenants of our global economy. You need money to live, its just the questions of how much you need, how you can get it, and how well you can save it.
If you want to reductively boil down my five paragraph essay into a slightly smaller tldr the core message is more accurately like
Have any amount of money from work, passive income, social security, pension, plasma donation, or other legit means. Be smart with your finances and start budgeting what little money starts coming in. Try to learn how to grow money through passive income have it work for you so you don’t have to work for every scrap of money.
Find ways to reduce the amount of money you spend each month in every way you can. Pinch EVERY penny, cut out every luxury and convinence, reduce resources consumed. The biggest expense most people have is rent which easily eats over 1k per month or 12k a year. If you have a car consider moving into it for a few months while still working and save up a couple thousand for a nicer car or cheap plot of land or to take a long sabbatical.
Some people make buckets of money with six digit salaries and are still broke by the time the end of the month comes because they live in high COL area or have poor financial sense like buying a new car every year as status symbol or collecting figurines or having a shoppaholic spouse. They spend just as much as they make thus living right at or slightly above their means.
Some people make barely anything at all from meager social security and still find ways to save up a few hundred a month just by budgeting and reducing expenses, and of course living without a landlord. Thus living well below their already meager means.
Sure, if you’re homeless you save on rent. But then do you eat out every day? Spend time in bars instead of on your couch?
Living in your car might be feasible in North America but good luck trying that in Europe. Also good luck keeping a bank account let alone a job without an address.
If I want to live close to my job without paying rent or taking a loan I gotta save about 1M Euros and be lucky with finding a place. That’s a lot of skipped Frappuccino lattes.
I do speak as a person from north america and made tried to cover my ass with the beginning statement of this isn’t going to apply for everyone figuring europe or other countries will have different challenges in government and feasability. You do raise some good questions. I get the impression you don’t really have any use for my answers though. Someone who measures saved money in frappachino lattes and is so cemented in their particular job they are unwilling to commute long distance, switch jobs, or move to a cheaper area, probably isn’t willing to sacrifice any amount of convinence for the kind of lifestyle im advocating. Regardless ill answer your questions earnestly and hope it informs.
For food, you cook your own meals obviously. 12v fridge and house batteries or perserved shelf stable foods. Most people who live in cars have propane or disel fuel for cooking and heat, or enough battery capacity to run a portable induction cooktop and electric water boiler. You can even power appliances needed for your precious frappachinos to make yourself. You spend free time at public parks and nature reserves, go hiking, camping, find things to do besides sitting around in one place. On bad days you still can hang inside the car. In north america theres a lot of free public land for recreational use and free dispersed camping especially out west.
Having a mailing address to put down on govt and banking paperwork is a challenge if your home is your vehicle. There are ways to get a mailing address and there are mail forwarding buisnesses that you can use. I think the endgame scenario is you would eventually get a plot of land and register a mailing address.
The price of rent ($3,000/mo) and homes ($1,000,000) are crazy where we left.
My wife and I currently living in a small car for about a month now. We are comfortable and have all we need.
Small battery (jacket/bluetti/ecoflow) with solar panels and an inverter to charge while driving, small 12v fridge, some clothes, food, 14 gallons water. I leaned a ton from YouTube “CheapRVliving”.
Right now we are sacrificing, but soon we will own cheap land and will build our own small house on it.
I think it’s the only way we can survive this harsh world. Everything is just so expensive.
Thanks for sharing you and your wifes story. Ive been watching Bob for many years he’s a huge inspiration and source of hope for many of us in these harsh times. Good luck on your journey I wish you guys the best with finding cheap land or whatever other choice you may take.
I setup the car as a stealth camper, but because we are 2 people and a cat, we have to put things in the front seat when camping and it’s not as stealth.
Passenger floor is the cat litter box, passenger seat is the food bins and on top is the cat food and water, and his carrier (we remove the door so he can go in as he wants). The drivers floor is the extra cat food and cat litter, and drivers seat is a 7 gallon water jug.
At least where we are there’s tons of free camping. I have been using freecampsites.net for most of the camping spots.
Alright lemmy commenters you want the real secret sauce on How to live comfortably with the least amount of money? I can tell you my strategy. This won’t work for everyone, and many of you won’t like what I have to say.
loans and rent are a scam. Never go into debt, never open a credit card. Pay with the money you actually have saved up or learn to live without. don’t subscribe to anything recurring but phone and internet payments.
Live well below your means, not right at them or slightly above. If you live paycheck to paycheck and arent able to save up a dime for an emergency fund you will get screwed eventually.
invest in ways of generating passive income. diversify, have a portfolio, learn the difference between money, value, and assets. Leverage the concepts and apply them. Take a chance and put 100$ somewhere in the financial market, fail and loose some money, learn something from it, try again until you start growing money.
live out of your vehicle. Rent is a scam that preys upon your willingness to whore yourself out socioeconomically for quick illusionary scraps of safety and convinence that month. Any car, van, or truck can be converted into a liveable space. Its hard to adjust to such a different way of living at first but if you can do so the benefits of adapting to that kind of lifestyle is massive. You become your own landlord and pay yourself rent. Your only expenses becomes insurance and maintance.
Donate your plasma. It’s a relatively safe procedure, You can do it twice a week, and it provides a part time jobs worth of income.
Change your psychology. Society has ingrained upon us from birth a sense that our worth as human beings is determined by productivity and value we can provide.
You see a lot of people in the comments here rail on NEETs Who aren’t currently in the job market while still somehow living a life. Fuck that, I’m here to tell you that your life has intrinsic value. You and I werent put on this planet to slave away at jobs we hate to maybe one day achieve the dream of paying a 30 year mortage on some shitty suburbanite house. Thats not the life I dreamed of for for myself and I won’t be shamed for carving a way out of that speeding train to misery.
as long as you aren’t parasitizing your family living off their resources and found your own unique living situation thsat isnt burdening anyone, then go for it. Carve out a life of freedom where you can choose to sit on your ass and laise about without shame my friend.
You dont need to be employed all the time.You don’t need to work all the time to live a comfortable life. If you live the way I just described you can work 6 months or a year saving up the money and coast on the funds for a year or two before working again. You can be free to travel the country living dirt cheap for many many months. Is that NEET life? Maybe. But wouldnt you like a sabbatical like that? A break from the years of work grinding?
Develop skills and invest in infrastructure that improve your self reliance or reduce payments. Taking automotive classes and learning to fix your own car problems saves a lot of money. Learning basic electrical and plumbing if you want to go offgrid. Keeping yourself better warm in winter without central heating or cool in summer without central cooling. If you don’t want to live in a car then owning a piece of land and putting an offgrid home on it is next best thing for living without expenses.
Am an Australian guy starting work in the mid 80s
Worked washing dishes from 16 part time for comoc book money when it was laughed at, realsied work wasn’t for me, got a labouring job that paid ok and was away from home 5 days a week with food and accommodation paid for by my employer, just stayed at my parents for 2 days a week, chipped in with a small amount they asked for, had a an old cheap motobike to het aroibd, nevertheless owned a car, too expensive. Saved heaps but not paid much, 12 months in I upgrade to a fly in fly out job on triple the wage, much the same work, employer also happy to pay for all tertiary education expenses for remote study, 2 weeks on, 1 week off, stay at hone with parents, seme deal, go to work for a fortnight, take $10 come home with $5 becase everything is paid for. Nothing but study and work, seems hard. Don’t drink or smoke so no expenses really aside from the occasional snickers bar. Other workers come back and stay for the week at Sheraton and get hookers, go to the Casino, , looks like loads of fun to a 20 something but they come back to work broke. All the while i am nerding out on financial newspapers and putting all my savings in the stock market… Retire at 35, debt free, modest house, no mortgage, fast foward, same frugal habits, am 57 and investments have balloned ridiculously. Am a NEET, or retired, or a drag on society, depends how u look at it I guess
I mean some of your advice is sound but honestly a lot of it reads like “step 1: have money, step 2: don’t have no money”
Those two steps are the core tenants of our global economy. You need money to live, its just the questions of how much you need, how you can get it, and how well you can save it.
If you want to reductively boil down my five paragraph essay into a slightly smaller tldr the core message is more accurately like
Have any amount of money from work, passive income, social security, pension, plasma donation, or other legit means. Be smart with your finances and start budgeting what little money starts coming in. Try to learn how to grow money through passive income have it work for you so you don’t have to work for every scrap of money.
Find ways to reduce the amount of money you spend each month in every way you can. Pinch EVERY penny, cut out every luxury and convinence, reduce resources consumed. The biggest expense most people have is rent which easily eats over 1k per month or 12k a year. If you have a car consider moving into it for a few months while still working and save up a couple thousand for a nicer car or cheap plot of land or to take a long sabbatical.
Some people make buckets of money with six digit salaries and are still broke by the time the end of the month comes because they live in high COL area or have poor financial sense like buying a new car every year as status symbol or collecting figurines or having a shoppaholic spouse. They spend just as much as they make thus living right at or slightly above their means.
Some people make barely anything at all from meager social security and still find ways to save up a few hundred a month just by budgeting and reducing expenses, and of course living without a landlord. Thus living well below their already meager means.
Sure, if you’re homeless you save on rent. But then do you eat out every day? Spend time in bars instead of on your couch?
Living in your car might be feasible in North America but good luck trying that in Europe. Also good luck keeping a bank account let alone a job without an address.
If I want to live close to my job without paying rent or taking a loan I gotta save about 1M Euros and be lucky with finding a place. That’s a lot of skipped Frappuccino lattes.
I do speak as a person from north america and made tried to cover my ass with the beginning statement of this isn’t going to apply for everyone figuring europe or other countries will have different challenges in government and feasability. You do raise some good questions. I get the impression you don’t really have any use for my answers though. Someone who measures saved money in frappachino lattes and is so cemented in their particular job they are unwilling to commute long distance, switch jobs, or move to a cheaper area, probably isn’t willing to sacrifice any amount of convinence for the kind of lifestyle im advocating. Regardless ill answer your questions earnestly and hope it informs.
For food, you cook your own meals obviously. 12v fridge and house batteries or perserved shelf stable foods. Most people who live in cars have propane or disel fuel for cooking and heat, or enough battery capacity to run a portable induction cooktop and electric water boiler. You can even power appliances needed for your precious frappachinos to make yourself. You spend free time at public parks and nature reserves, go hiking, camping, find things to do besides sitting around in one place. On bad days you still can hang inside the car. In north america theres a lot of free public land for recreational use and free dispersed camping especially out west.
Having a mailing address to put down on govt and banking paperwork is a challenge if your home is your vehicle. There are ways to get a mailing address and there are mail forwarding buisnesses that you can use. I think the endgame scenario is you would eventually get a plot of land and register a mailing address.
The price of rent ($3,000/mo) and homes ($1,000,000) are crazy where we left. My wife and I currently living in a small car for about a month now. We are comfortable and have all we need. Small battery (jacket/bluetti/ecoflow) with solar panels and an inverter to charge while driving, small 12v fridge, some clothes, food, 14 gallons water. I leaned a ton from YouTube “CheapRVliving”. Right now we are sacrificing, but soon we will own cheap land and will build our own small house on it. I think it’s the only way we can survive this harsh world. Everything is just so expensive.
Thanks for sharing you and your wifes story. Ive been watching Bob for many years he’s a huge inspiration and source of hope for many of us in these harsh times. Good luck on your journey I wish you guys the best with finding cheap land or whatever other choice you may take.
Thanks for the kind words!
You ever watch Steve Wallis’ stealth camping videos?
I setup the car as a stealth camper, but because we are 2 people and a cat, we have to put things in the front seat when camping and it’s not as stealth.
Passenger floor is the cat litter box, passenger seat is the food bins and on top is the cat food and water, and his carrier (we remove the door so he can go in as he wants). The drivers floor is the extra cat food and cat litter, and drivers seat is a 7 gallon water jug.
At least where we are there’s tons of free camping. I have been using freecampsites.net for most of the camping spots.
Thanks, I’m cured.