Live Comfortably On $1,100 Per Month
3 June 2009 in Finance, SocietySince I decided to leave my job and travel indefinitely, I’ve gotten a lot of confused looks and interesting responses when talking about my plans. One of the most asked questions is if I’ve won the lottery or if I’m a millionaire. No and no.
Somewhere along the way, society has put in our minds that we require an ever-increasing income and ever-growing list of assets to be happy. That’s why it seems inconceivable to most of middle America that someone could live comfortably off $1100 a month.
We all have different incomes, comfort levels, and expenses. Most people in most occupations have the ability to influence these. How we spend our money depends on our values. Some folks buy nice homes, while others buy nice cars. Some donate everything to charity and others yet enjoy the local nightlife every night. I’m not going to assert that any of these is better than any other. To each his own. We spend on what we want, hopefully for smart reasons and hopefully within a budget.
What I practice and advocate is living below your means (LBYM). You can search the internet and find hundreds of tips and techniques about LBYM. They range from the practical (coupon cutting) to the extreme (living in an RV) to the absurd (cleaning, drying, and re-use of paper towels). Living below your means is as easy as keeping your expenditures less than your income. Obviosuly, LBYM is a very broad topic with wide strategies depending on income, location, and a host of other variables. To keep this article short, I’m going to avoid delving into specific tips and focus on what I consider to be a reasonable and low-expense single person’s budget.
My only objective in this article is to demonstrate that it is possible to live comfortably on a very modest income. Whether or not you ultimately agree with my $1100/month contention depends on your definition of “comfort” and your idea of what these things actually cost where you live.
These rounded dollar figures are for a single person and based closely on real expenses. For bigger cities which generally are more expensive, rent might be higher, but you can offset that increased expense by relying on public transportation, thus lowering your automobile expenses substantially.
NOTE: This budget is for a person on maintenance status, meaning he already owns a working vehicle and household goods.
MONTHLY EXPENSES
Rent: $500 This will pay for an older, yet well-maintained apartment, or cover a decent home shared with a friend
Food: $200 This is an average of $6-7/day which is enough to cover healthy grocery store food as well as eating out once a week
Renter’s insurance: $10
Auto insurance: $50
Medical/dental coverage: $150 This number is highly variable, ranging from $0 to nearly $1000
Gasoline: $60 Based on 500 miles per month (ride a bike and carpool half the time), 20 miles/gallon and $2.40/gallon
Auto maintenance: $20 Average based on a carwash every month and an oil and lube every three months
Personal Supplies: $15 Includes hygienic items like soap, toothpaste, and shaving cream
Household Supplies: $15 Includes cleaning products, and light maintenance
Clothes: $40 This is enough to buy a decent pair of shoes, a pair of pants or two, or some shirts each month
Entertainment: $40 A little something to treat yourself to some movies, a concert, or a professional sports game every month
What do you think? Are these estimates way off the mark? Is this level of spending too low to be considered “comfortable”? Do you believe the title of the article—that someone can live comfortably off $1100/month—or do you think it’s sensationalistic and a stretch? Did I miss any typical expenses? Leave a comment!
By the way, $1100 per month means $13200 per year. Working 40 hours per week for all 52 weeks of the year, this breaks down to $6.35 per hour. In other words, a fulltime worker can live this budget if he makes $6.35/hour. As of this writing, the federal minimum wage is $6.55/hour.
Ok, here’s a couple of items to consider. You didn’t list costs for any utilities – phone, heat, trash, etc. and these costs would fluctuate based on where you’re living and whether or not you have a cell phone etc. Also that $6.35/hour labor estimate doesn’t take into account taxes that would probably reduce their take-home rate down 25% or more. I will note that in college my entire monthly budget (not including rent) was $200 – I still don’t know how I managed that – now I can’t get by without $200/month in household supplies.
My my you keep writing on things my mind thrives on. When I log on to facebook now and see a new post I immediatly have to read it. YES you can live comfortably on that income. One of the first times I lived at Park Villa (of the 3) that was my income. I was a single parent no child support. Yet had decent (as you know) place to live, and drove new car. Life was good or at least I thought it was, I was happy. I agree the American way of life is to consume and accumulate a bunch of junk. Yet every other person you talk to is on some sort of antidepressant. Coincedence? The real richness in life is experiences. Good and bad, in your own backyard or if the world is your playground.
Oh and one more thing, I hope to do the live in RV thing when my son is grown. My dream to go back to California work in Fresno and drive to Yosemite to camp on days off! Been thinking of this since I drove out of the park in 2007.
Hey do you have a place to live yet? I may have something if you aren’t commited already.
What about travel, vacation, savings for retirement? I’m all for “LBYM” and highly encourage a healthy budget but $1100 seams a little extreme Mr. Walden.
Doc, I know you’re probably serious in your comment so thank you…but you made me laugh with your offer…this article wasn’t a veiled attempt at finding an inexpensive housing solution for me! Besides, your gun room isn’t somewhere I’d like to live. haha
Scott, everything is relative. I threw in $40 for entertainment. That won’t buy you a Caribbean cruise, but two months of the entertainment budget will get you the current Greyhound special round trip from Boston to Philadelphia for $15. You can find a low-end motel for about $35/night. There you have a weekend 2-night vacation. SCORE! I know this isn’t fantasy land I’m portraying here. I just wanted to show that it is definitely possible to live fairly well on low expenses. LBYM simply means spending less than your income, so with higher income you can stretch out the vacation destinations, and start saving for retirement.
Wendy, thanks for your example. I made it through college on under $1000/month in a high cost location, but I had to go without a vehicle, and lived off macaroni and cheese. After I got an excellent job with regular salary increases, I never really felt the need to upgrade my expenses at the same rate. I felt I had everything I needed already. Buying a vehicle and traveling occasionally have been my only real additions to my budget since college.
Becky…Doh! I can’t believe I forgot utilities. Thank you! You can often find apartments where utilities like water and trash are free. The biggest utilities would probably be electricity, gas, and a phone. Having a roommate to share utilities would be helpful here. I purposely left taxes off the budget because of the complexities, but here is a breakdown from the 2008 1040 instructions. An annual income of $13,200 minus the standard deduction of $5,450 and the single exemption of $3,500 leaves only $4,250 of taxable income. The tax tables show a tax of $423, which, while seemingly low, is considerable for anyone with a $13K/yr income. That basically would eliminate the “entertainment” portion of the budget for the year. Becky, you mention something that is a topic for a later post, about how your household supplies are so much more now…the bigger the stuff we own, the more expensive the maintenance, sort of a snowball effect.
Thanks for your comments! They give me some more things to think about. Again, I’m not trying to assert that extreme LBYM is an ideal lifestyle, only demonstrating how someone can save for and afford extended travels. Hopefully it answers the question about how I can do this without winning the lottery or being a millionaire. One day when I’m married with children, I will have much higher costs and willingly accept the rewards of that life for the extra expenses. There are many trade offs to be made, situation dependent, but for now I can live this way and do what I’m doing.
I have to agree with the comments about travel, taxes, savings, and utilities…they add up – especially if you have kids. But, here are some other great ways to keep costs down.
o Food: join a community garden or ask your landlord if you can convert a portion of the grass to a veggie patch. Check out ethnic grocery stores for great prices on spices, veggies, legumes, rice, and other things that cost a lot more elsewhere.
o Entertainment: look for free summer concerts, festivals, movie screenings, and museum nights, host a potluck and game of cards with friends, check out books or media from the library.
o Exercise: walking, running, hiking…no fancy gear needed, just your legs.
o Gasoline and car maintenance: Ride a bike, take the bus, carpool… when you can, obviously…it’s cheaper, better for the environment, and maybe you get some exercise.
o Clothing: thrift stores often have great finds…I’m a clothes horse with an eye for the expensive, but can throw a designer outfit together for $20.
o Travel: join the Peace Corps – they pay you to travel.
Sorry for the long post…I’ve just spent the last 15 years trying to find ways to stretch what I earn while still enjoying life and not sacrificing too much.
You forgot highspeed internet. And I’m not talking about that free municipal crap. Honestly, who can live happily without sufficient bandwidth? The taliban live in freakin caves in nowhere backwoods Pakistan and still manage to post to websites. Jeez.
Stormy, great tips. I think we have a lot in common!
Poison, you might be onto something. Internet is the only luxury subscription I value enough to pay for. I can go without magazines, NETFLIX, Starbucks, cable, XM radio, newspapers, and all the other little monthly things out there…but internet is a must nowadays. Hopefully more and more cities make it free.
>Medical/dental coverage: $150 This number is highly variable, ranging from $0 to nearly $1000<
With who?
Physical required?
Age limits?
No physical?
No worries about pre-existing conditions?
No deductible?
Please let us know!
Christine, you’re absolutely right. Ideas are worthless if nothing comes of them. I’m trying to do something with mine through this website and travels. Thanks for commenting!
Alan, it depends. One of the best lines I learned from the defense world is the answer “it depends.” There are too many variables. All I can give are estimates, which I why I said it can range from $0 to $1000. Keep in mind that this budget is for a single person, presumably healthy and fairly young (I was thinking of myself when I wrote it). Here is what I can tell you about my coverage. It has been $0 for a long time. Many government employees pay very little for coverage. Now that I have to find coverage that isn’t free, I’m looking for the best value. I am going to go with travel insurance that covers accidents. The cost will be less than $50 per month or about $90 if I get the extreme sports coverage. The plan has a million dollars maximum coverage and a $250 deductible. It covers everything from hospital stays to evacuations to dental treatment and medications. What the plan doesn’t cover is preventative health, like the annual physical and dental checkups we are used to. I believe I’m in good enough health and young enough that I can go a year without a physical and be fine. If something should happen to me while traveling, then that is an accident and will be covered. By the way, I’m in my 30s with no pre-existing conditions.
I have just Googled “medical coverage costs” and one of the first links is of a company (government agency?) plan that costs about $75/month.
I also called the Blue Cross/Blue Shield provider in Utah (my current location) and found their rates online. For a male 30-34 with a $500 deductible (their lowest), the monthly price is $190. This covers office visits, surgery, X-rays, medications, and basically everything medical. The lady on the phone told me that dental coverage costs an extra $25/month. That’s a total of $215/month. I bet I could find a better deal with some effort. If you work for a company that helps out with medical coverage, I think it’s fair to say your monthly expenditures would be less.
I’d be interested to know what number you would use for an LBYM budget or what you’re paying. I wasn’t trying to lowball a price estimate here, so if my $150 is truly way off the mark that’s good to know, especially since I will have to shop around for real eventually! Thanks for visiting and please continue to ask questions!
Eating out once a week!?!?!?!!?!
You’ve changed man……You’ve changed……….
Big Mac, I don’t know what to do for lunch anymore! My lunch budget went up at least $40/month these last couple months because of you, and now I’m eating nutritious spring rolls at my sister’s house. It’s like I’m getting healthy AND saving money all of a sudden. Weird. haha
Brook,
Your medical insurance cost is interesting, but is the $500 yearly or per incident? What is the cap on the coverage and how is it set (per year or per incident)? The reason I ask is that a quote on insurance cost contains many inherent assumptions. I suspect if you call an insurance company and say, “I want to pay $X monthly for medical insurance,” they’ll find a way to concoct a formula to make that happen. Bottom line: your number may be achievable but not realistic in terms of what one would normally expect in terms of coverage. (BTW, let’s not omit from the budget a line item saving for meds and insurance deductibles).
We pay $443/mo for the two of us under an employer subsidized plan where age and pre-existing conditions are not factors.
I’m not a renter, but thirty years ago (when I was) renter’s insurance ran about $120/mo. I’m surprised to see it hasn’t gone up – but I assume you checked.
Alan
Alan,
Just in the last week I changed my renter’s insurance from Louisiana to Utah, and the cost was cut from $190 to $120/YEAR. My insurer keeps costs the same whether my belongings are in a house or in a storage garage. I was told the reason for the big change in premium is weather (Louisiana is susceptible to hurricane damage, even though I lived a 5-6 hour drive from the coast).
I think the $500 medical coverage deductible is per incident. I’m not an expert in medical coverage, and through the comments here and through private emails, the medical coverage cost I used ($150, with a range from $0 to $1000) seemed to cause the most consternation with people. There are co-pays, deductibles, caps, coverages for some things but not others. No wonder health care is always such a big deal come election time. The system is broken. Medical coverage costs obviously vary considerably depending on pre-existing problems, age, location, gender, deductibles, and a bunch of other factors. If your insurance is more than $150, then your monthly budget will exceed $1100 unless you are able to lessen or eliminate other parts of the budget by an equal amount of the medical overage.
I read a couple articles tonight about medical tourism, where travelers to countries such as India, Thailand, and Costa Rica get surgeries and medical care at small fractions of the price people would pay in the US. In fact, some US insurers now outsource some medical treatments to foreign countries. This is part of the reason why I am going with accidental insurance (and not a comprehensive preventative plan) for my travels. I’m sure I can find inexpensive health care abroad if I need it.
Another issue with my article is that I did not include a savings/retirement expense in the budget. That was intentional because I put all excess income into savings/investment/retirement. I know most people don’t do the same, so I should have clarified that in the original post. My philosophy is different from your typical financial planner. They recommend putting something like 10% of your income into savings and say things like “pay yourself first.” My stance is that you should minimize your bills to only those necessary (no magazines and XM radio subscriptions, for example), minimize the costs of those bills (by living in an average apartment, having a roommate, or avoiding expensive entertainment, for example) and then pay those bills first. If you do this smartly, you will have extra money. All your leftover income is “disposable income.” If you have disposable income, it means you are living below your means. Put ALL the rest into savings/investment/retirement accounts. I say “pay yourself A LOT, last.” You might be able to live off $1100/month or it might be $900, or $3000—whatever it takes for you to cover your necessary bills and live comfortably. Keep those expenses as far below your income as possible, and stash the rest away.
I remain convinced I can live comfortably (by my standards, which maybe are too low for others) on $1100/month in nearly any part of the country. Put me in NYC and I will find a $650 shared apartment with all utilities paid on Craigslist, use a bicycle and the subway, use Skype for calls, make friends with a hotel maid who can get me soap and shampoo, wear plain white-Ts, jeans, and vintage Nike Jordan Airs I find at the thrift stores. I won’t go to clubs with covers, will rent DVDs for $1 each at Redbox, will cut my own hair, will crash parties for free beer, and find a girlfriend who likes to cook for me. I am confident I can do all these things, except maybe the part about an American girlfriend who likes to cook. Maybe as a little social experiment, I can try this sometime during my global journey, and print exact figures of every single expense. I’ve lived on less than $1000/month for many, many months of college and work, so it’s a piece of cake to me. You guys can pick the city, and I’ll make a go at keeping my budget under $1100 while still enjoying life. There are tens of thousands of Americans doing the same right now…
I’m guessing the rent is presumed to include utilities.
This will work until one of the following happens:
1) Your car need any sort of maintenance besides oil changes and washes. Over the life of the car, this will happen at least once a year (new tires, new breaks, etc.)
2) Your car needs any sort of repair
3) You need to buy a new car (this seems to be assuming you have an already-paid off car)
4) You have an actual medical expense of some kind (I’m sure your insurance had a deductible of some sort, if not a co-pay).
5) You get old and realize you haven’t saved a thing.
I think you’ll find your personal supplies get a bit more expensive than you’ve planned, but you should be able to make that up by doing better on the food budget. If you really learn to cook for yourself from scratch, you can come in well under $200.
On the one hand, I applaud the goal of demonstrating that it *is* possible to live on less. On the other hand, budgeting over-optimistically without accounting for regular but non-monthly expenses is another way Americans doom themselves financially.
If someone really wants to live on $1100 or less, the first thing I’d recommend is leaving urban areas. There are a lot of small towns where you can bike anywhere you need to be and find efficiency apartments for under $300/month. Now you’ve slashed $270 and given yourself room to save a little.
Inkstain, agree will your entire comment!
Insightful thoughts, thank you!
[...] our possessions are needed. Those few basic things—food, water, shelter, clothing—are easily affordable for a healthy individual willing to work. Additionally, we have other possessions, luxury items [...]
This interests me because my sister *does* live on about $1100 a month as many on disability do. (and many live on less). She has no car so those expenses can be subtracted, but even with the federal assistance with medical issues, her prescriptions and other medical costs are fairly large
and she has managed to live on her income but it is difficult, especially since many of her purchases
(food)are done at the Dollar store in carryable quantities (sometimes with a rolling luggage piece). The buses are less frequent than they used to be and she prefers walking to waiting, but can’t walk to the larger grocers.
If I can get any friends of hers with computers to look at this perhaps they will share it with her.
Joyce, thank you for the comment! You are right that so many people do live on very little and manage to do so fairly comfortably. College students do it all the time, disabled and retired people do it, people working on minimum wage do it. I’m not saying $1100 is some kind of magical number or goal, merely that it is a reasonable (in my opinion) budget that any American could do. I’d love to hear what your friends say!
Build a traveling group of buddies..3 or more works best…buy a van. Record a CD/Create something small to sell/Book/calender/jewelry/keeping duplication cost low is important. Sell it for cash or donations in each city you travel in. Pay costs for your product. Take profits and pay van off.
8.00 Average sale/donation price
-1.50 CD duplication cost after shipping
(1.50 CD/jewelry/book etc.)
6.50 average prof
3300/6.50 = 507.6923..
508 units/3 buddies = 169.3333…
170units/8 working days = 21.25 units per day..
move 22 units @ $6.50 average prof in 8 working days = $1144.00
1144.00 X 3 buddies = $3,432
3432 – 400..month van stuff (bring bikes)
3000/3 dudes= $33.33 per guy a day for one month to live on.. you can be real lazy and spend a month in every city seeing everything and meeting everyone….(22-23 days off per month) this is a terrible draft..haha..if you are creative living cheep and fun is easy. Work harder make more money if the fun gets more expensive….I tried this once…last year in April I sold 101 CD’s alone in SLC and Ogden in one day. 8.00 average = $808-126.25 duplication cost-$20 gas = $661.75 to work with. This took me about 10 hours of standing with a CD in hand and CD player with headphones. Could be done with many small items. I’m traveling with some friends to see the world. This is how we pay for it. Thanks for checking it out.)…takes small amount of talking. 100 items/ 10 hours = 10 items per hour
that’s 5 days work in one day…$661.65
$661.65/5 days = $132.33 a day @ only 2 hours of work per day
I’m just rambling..but we can do a lot when we put our minds to it…everyone has skills that can be used creatively. I want to go on a adventure with ya Brook. And you can help me keep a better budget!
Matt, it looks like you used the $1100 challenge for your calculations, and figured you could earn that monthly income by selling 170 CDs. After showing how easy it is to earn $1100 selling reproducible creative works, would you say that living on $1100/month with your lifestyle is adequate? Is $1100/month about what you guys have been spending per person while on the road?
After paying for fuel and other van expenses, you have only $33.33/day to pay for food, a bed, any expenses you left back home (a storage facility, in my case), phone, insurance. Is $33.33/day enough? What do you do on the road to cut down on these or other expenses? Do you sleep in the van or often find an apartment where you can crash for free? Do you get a lot of free meals or eat ramen noodles for lunch everyday? I’m just wondering if you think $1100/month is really enough.
You said it’s easy to have a fun, inexpensive life. I agree. I’ll tell you what–the less I spend, the more adventures I seem to find. We’ll have to go on an adventure sometime, and set some crazy goal like spending $5/day on food and lodging. I know it’s possible short-term!
That sounds great and is possible. We use to give all the guys in the band $5 a day for food. And we slept in the van for most of the stops at first…but soon we made many friends around the country and they gave us floors and couches for the night. This turns into a trade down the road…I now have a band stay at my house about once a month. All of this stuff is fun to think about, but not always easy. It’s a great way to see things and meet people. But not always very cozy. When we were touring a lot we had no home to go back to. Just more floors and couches thanks to great friends and family that cut down our cost’s a bunch. We would find random work when we could and that would help get us through till the next tour. This lifestyle can only last so long…but with a small group of people going in on a house and cutting cost’s down it helps everyone out.
I could not live on 1100 and continue my current lifestyle. But that’s ok. I’ve made new choices and I’m trying a different road now. But if that is what someone needed to do and they had no children it is totally possible. For a long time I made about 1000 a month and lived just fine. But I was never alone..I’ve had many friends living with me for years.
Def a guy – $15 per month on toiletries- wow- that would cover a lipstick and basically nothing else. Why women get paid less when we have so much more crap to buy See how much you wd like us all if we ceased buying that stuff too! Also where do you live that you can eat healthily for $200.00 and eat out? Seriously? That would buy pink lemonade mix, bread and eggs in MN. That would be about it. I live frugally and like e-one else here shop at thrift stores and g-sales but i couldn’t live off what you are living off.Good for you, but for me to try and live off that…i would be dreaming….
emulrich, thank you so much for the comment! Personal finance is one of my favorite topics, and obviously some of my views are controversial. Without going into my beliefs—that Americans eat too much, buy on credit too much (any credit or debt is bad in my opinion), consider necessary things that are really luxuries, etc.—I’ll address your specific points.
1. Yes, I am a single healthy American man. Everything I write reflects that and can be no different. I can of course see how this particular issue and the numbers I use do not necessarily apply to families, women, the sick, elderly, anyone with special needs.
2. My toiletries include soap, shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, toilet paper, Q-tips, razor blades, shaving cream. Sometimes I need other items like sunscreen and lip balm. Women need more than that. I hope women continue to buy and use all the items useful to making themselves look as attractive as possible. Makeup is a luxury, and unnecessary, particularly lipstick. What men or women can use to improve their looks have nothing to do with expensive artificial cover-up, and everything to do with exercise and diet. Here is an article I read a few months ago on how women are being ripped off by personal care companies and what you can do to save (hint: buy the men’s version—they are the same!).
3. There is a gender wage gap and unfortunately there might always be one as long as our society’s typical roles for men and women remain unchanged. I am 100% about equal pay for equal work, equal opportunity, equal treatment, merit-based pay, etc. In the interest of playing devil’s advocate, let me say that there are some real reasons for the wage gap, reasons that our money-making infotainment media don’t mention when trying to peddle inflammatory stories. Like most issues, this one is complex and not as simple as saying “women get paid less.” Again, I’m all in favor of merit-based compensation and equal pay for equal work. As a single person, I see a similar example of wage gap unfairness—why should married people be compensated better for the same work?
4. I’ve lived in small town Texas, and mid-sized towns Louisiana and Utah, and near San Francisco, CA. The $200 figure is tough to meet, but that breaks down to $6.66/day over a 30 day month. My diet is admittedly not that healthy and needs work, particularly in the vegetable department, which can be costly. That said, it is possible to dine out once every week or so (not at any fancy restaurants) and dine in the rest of the time for $200. I often see stories of people who buy groceries for pennies on the dollar—coupons, double coupon days in stores, not marrying themselves to specific brands. There are books and websites devoted to grocery shopping savings. I think Americans eat too much food too often. Traveling continues to shape my view of diet—from seeing that fasting is healthy, free, and not that difficult, to seeing that things like rice and eggs and local produce provide healthy, inexpensive options. At home, I’ve lived off things like toast and eggs, peanut butter and honey sandwhiches, meat and cheese sandwhiches, milk, fruit smoothie drinks. Other ideas (that might be impractical for your situation) include having a garden at home or at a community location; finding grocers that sell at deep discounts.
I would be interested to know what your expenses are. Though the $1100/month budget might be very difficult depending on your circumstances, I really think that a healthy single person can come close to that number, anywhere in the US: take public transportation, live with roommates, live at home, eliminate daily starbucks and bagels (make coffee at home), eliminate multiple phones (ditch the iPhone and landline and have one basic cell phone; use alternatives like Skype), ditch cable TV (read a book), stop magazine subscriptions (use the library), don’t go to the movies (use $1 Redbox or go to the dollar theaters), find internet alternatives (share the cost of one connection with your neighbor), stop “pimping” your car and other belongings with expensive, ridiculous crap, stop playing expensive sports or paying expensive gym fees (run, ride a bicycle, take daily walks), stop buying things spontaneously, stop “shopping” (determine what you need, do your research to find the best price, then go to the store, buy that one thing, and leave!), never buy on credit, get discounts on utilities and other bills (most people don’t know that many banks and utility companies will significantly lower costs and interest rates if they only ask!). We are a consumer society. The US consumes more than it produces. People buy more than what they can afford. Consumers cannot live on $1100/month. Living on $1100/month or $1500 or $2000 or whatever a person’s cirumstances dictate, requires a divorce from that mentality.
I am confident that there are plenty of people living just fine in MN for $1100/month. As I’ve said before, college students live this way…when I left college, I told myself I wanted to continue to live that way, on very low expenses. Most people increase their budgets and lifestyles to match their incomes. The concept of living below one’s means is difficult for most people to even grasp. While my expenses increased somewhat over the years (dining out more with friends, purchasing a vehicle), I’ve always put my pay raises directly into investments.
Comfort is obviously highly subjective, but people are also highly flexible to changing conditions. During the recent economic downturn, I have read many stories of people “downgrading” their living habits…almost all say their personal relationships are better for it, that their quality of life has improved.
I think it all makes sense except for a few things. Where are your utilities (Such as water, gas, electric), you will need a cell phone or house phone (not having one is hard and a safety issue), and the last thing is gas, 60 is great if you live somewhere where you don’t worry about weather and can walk or what ever but if you live in Detroit or another place where you have snow it would be a real problem.
Sasha, you’re right! I don’t know how I forgot utilities, and in some places that are way hot or cold, that can be a significant cost. I traveled without a phone or personal vehicle, but here in the states, it is very difficult to be part of society without both. My first full day home was spent charging and activating my phone, setting my car insurance back to normal coverage, etc. Are you from Detroit?