13 ms·

Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

341 points by dohertyjf 11y ago

eatonphil 11y ago
I lived in a small bus in New Mexico for a while and got addicted to this site, http://tinyhousetalk.com http://tinyhousetalk.com. You don't have to be a gypsy to admire the space efficiency and DIY furniture. Most of what I've put together (sofa, bookshelf, etc.) feels incredibly stronger than anything I could get for 4-6x the price. But that's just how things are, some trade off of price for quality for time. Anyway, I admire his/his wife's attitude and ability to look at the situation optimistically and make it work.
- bpicolo 11y ago
  Even without DIY, I think e.g. Ikea showrooms are actually pretty good at showing how a little space can go a long way. That said, I am looking forward to moving away from the Bay someday to more space. : )
  - jschwartzi 11y ago
    Yeah, Ikea furniture seems to be designed for apartment living. Because their designs use glue-less fastening I can tear down all the furniture in my apartment and fill a truck without a lot of work. The only thing I wouldn't be able to move by myself now is my mattress. The compromise is that the stuff they sell that has significant decorative elements is extremely flimsy. The malm series is probably the most durable furniture they sell, because it's just 3/4 inch or 1 inch osb sheeting that's cut and joined in different configurations with bolts.
    - girvo 11y ago
      Indeed. The bulk of my furniture is Malm series stuff. It also looks quite nice in my apartment!
sz4kerto 11y ago
:) 400 sqf with two kids might be a drama for people in the US but it is completely normal in other places of the world, even including the EU. It's not comfortable, but 600-700 sqf is completely usual for families in where I live (an apartment like that costs around 15-20 times the average yearly salary). EDIT: typo, I meant sqf and not sqm.
- x43b 11y ago
  "400 sqm with two kids might be a drama for people in the US" 400 square feet (~37 m^2) No need to turn this into another stereotyping Europe vs US issue. I agree 37 m^2 is plenty of room for some people, not for others, regardless of where you are from.
  - goodJobWalrus 11y ago
    > No need to turn this into another stereotyping Europe vs US issue But it is kind of true that Americans are extremely melodramatic about this stuff. 800 sqft house is often referred as a "tiny house" in American media. In the UK (for example) this is an average house size.
    - serge2k 11y ago
      The US is over 10 times larger than the UK. Guess what, tons of land leads to different expectations. I don't understand why Europeans seem to like acting condescending about this stuff?
      - goodJobWalrus 11y ago
        > The US is over 10 times larger than the UK. Guess what, tons of land leads to different expectations. I'm not sure it's just that, it's also I think, that Americans find it acceptable to live in suburbs. If everyone tried to live in the city centers (like they do in nyc or SF), small places would also be the norm.
        11y ago
raverbashing 11y ago
The question is why do we have the most talented people in a certain industry having to live in confined spaces while paying through the roof for it. Not even Hollywood is like that. People may stay in trailers for some time but that's it As personally having to live in a tiny place (not in SF though) it is not something I want to do for an extended period of time, even though the advantages like 'city living' are good
- prostoalex 11y ago
  > People may stay in trailers for some time but that's it Isn't tech approach the same? You wait for your big break and then move out.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- balls187 11y ago
  > The question is why do we have the most talented people in a certain industry having to live in confined spaces while paying through the roof for it. Because it's their choice. Right now the housing market in San Fran is redic. However, there are other major tech areas that don't nearly have the same problems.
  - kzhahou 11y ago
    It's obviously their choice. OP didn't mean anyone is forced against their will. The question is: why does the vast majority of new tech continue to A) establish themselves in such an uncomfortable location B) not embrace distributed teams It's a terrible cycle at this point.
    - BrainInAJar 11y ago
      > why does the vast majority of new tech continue to > A) establish themselves in such an uncomfortable location > B) not embrace distributed teams Hiring networks. You want to hire people based on referrals and not experience or qualifications, you need to hire through your extended friend network, which if you're raised in the SF startup scene, is all in SF. It's also a state of affairs that ends up being unintentionally racist, since probably most of your friends look like you, and probably most of their friends that they'll refer to you when you're hiring look like them
stevoski 11y ago
The more I read such articles, the more I think you'd have to be nuts to choose to live in San Francisco. And yet, clearly, plenty of people do choose to live in San Francisco.
- atom-morgan 11y ago
  It's a weird situation. There are so many tech companies out there and I'd like to work for some of them but I don't think the sacrifice I'll take with my standard of living will be worth it.
  - alkonaut 11y ago
    Why aren't SF tech companies hiring more remote workers? They could pay people who work remotely a lot less, save a lot on office space etc. Tech companies are the ones that should be able to pull that off. Even if I lived in SF I'd be reluctant to commute an hour to work if I could just as well work from home.
    - sawthat 11y ago
      Everyone keeps asking this question. The answer: they are hiring remote workers. But my question: where is the evidence that tech companies are not able to be profitable with their high payroll costs?
      - 7Figures2Commas 11y ago
        > But my question: where is the evidence that tech companies are not able to be profitable with their high payroll costs? You could look at the growing number of layoffs at post-seed stage companies[1]. Or you could look at startups that voluntarily publish financial information. Take, for example, this one[2], which, as of June, was spending $525,000/month on payroll (equating to an all-in cost of $146,000/year per employee) when it had less than $300,000 of monthly bookings revenue. A lot (perhaps the majority) of venture-backed Bay Area startups are entirely dependent on investor money to sustain their workforces at their current sizes. Even some of the tech companies in the area that have gone public aren't profitable. FireEye and Marketo are two that come to mind. Everybody has been trading profitability for growth, and that's a game most will eventually lose. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10517445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10517445 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10049808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10049808
Artistry121 11y ago
In another city a place this cheap would be less than $400 / month. Meaning someone could choose this lifestyle simply in a different city working for minimum wage and meet the requirements for housing costs of less than 1/3 income.
- JabavuAdams 11y ago
  The problem is who you're living next to, at that price point, in another city. Basically, if you live where all of the minimum-wage people live, you're going to get spill-over from all the typical problems in such a neighbourhood.
  - douche 11y ago
    In other parts of the country, the kind of money the author is paying in rent on a studio will pay the mortgage on a 2500 sqft house, in an upper-middle class neighborhood. In an age of high-speed internet, it's ridiculous that we insist software engineers be jammed into dense, expensive globs. Working remotely with Skype calls/IM/screensharing is a better experience, all around, than trying to collaborate in the same office, at least in my experience. You do have to have employees that will actually work, though.
    - JabavuAdams 11y ago
      For sure, but I was commenting on the parent's $400/mo.
  - eghad 11y ago
    Yeah, the assumption that all low-income neighborhoods have problems that you should be afraid of "spilling over" is a poor one.
    - JabavuAdams 11y ago
      It would be obvious to say that I haven't lived in every low-income neighbourhood, but I've lived in one. So, I'll list the least severe of my complaints and see whether you think they're not representative of low-income neighbourhoods. I live in Canada, but feel free to comment on US / Commonwealth / Europe. * Majority of students in elementary school's parents did not attend college. * Less than a majority of high-school students continue to University * Engineer, Doctor, or Lawyer is a very uncommon profession among my neighbours. * Any non-domestic, non store-robbery, assault with a weapon (stabbing or shooting) within the neighbourhood within the last two years.
tinbad 11y ago
Growing up in communist Russia, 400sq. feet apartment would be the luxury option for 2 or 3 families with multiple children each. No joke, my parents lived with their siblings and parents (and sometimes grandparents) in the same apartment even after everyone had children of their own. Somehow we still managed to occasionally have 20 more people over for birthday celebrations and cook all the accompanying excessive amounts of food :)
- sologoub 11y ago
  33sq.m. was the norm for two adults. When you had a kid, you submitted paperwork for extra 10-15 sq.m., but usually got moved to a new development, not in a desirable area. My parents went through it in 80s. By then this mostly worked for military/otherwise connected families, but has broken down for the rest of the country with wait list numbering in years. In theory you gave up smaller apartment for a slightly larger as need arose. In practice, most families did not want to move far and construction pace did not keep up for economic reasons.
- deleted 11y ago
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- deleted 11y ago
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- eps 11y ago
  Striking, but hardly common. You should clarify that in Russia they operate in "living space" sq.meters, meaning that 400 sqft will not include kitchen, corridors, bathroom, etc. Just the bedrooms and the living room. Secondly, you are over-generalizing. While a part of population did in fact live in cramped conditions (or even in shared condos, whereby 2+ families shared a single apartment), more than enough people lived in a very decently spaced apartments, with living space ranging between 28 sqm to 40-50 sqm. So "400 sqft" apartments were nowhere close to being "luxury". OTOH, a bathroom with a window - now that was indeed a true luxury (because how the vast majority of buildings where designed).
  - sologoub 11y ago
hellofunk 11y ago
This isn't so bad. The Netherlands is the most dense population of any country outside Taiwan and families dwelling in small spaces continues to this day. There is a 12-member family spanning 3 generations all living in the same small house next door to me. Our tiny 60 square meter home is considered normal for our area. By American standards, SF seems like tight living, perhaps. But by world standards, space is not the priority that you find elsewhere in the States.
- serge2k 11y ago
  > Our tiny 60 square meter home is over 50% larger than the one in the article? It's the difference between a studio and a nice one bedroom, or maybe even cramped 2 bedroom.
  - stan_rogers 11y ago
    That really depends on how the space is arranged. I'm in just about that size, but my place is wheelchair-accessible with room for attendant care, so the bathroom is huge compared to normal, the entrance corridor is nearly wide enough for, say, a Smart ForTwo (or a chair with a drip and someone alongside), so the basic living area works out to "small bachelor/studio". That's a bit extreme, but a bad layout can really eat into the usefulness of your floor space without a corresponding drop in cost.
- philh 11y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and... Netherlands is number 30. Admittedly most of the others are a lot smaller, but Bangladesh and South Korea are a lot bigger. San Fran is also denser than the Netherlands, and AFAICS denser than any Dutch city (comparable with The Hague).
  - sologoub 11y ago
    There are no other major countries from Europe on that list denser than Netherlands. Monaco is super dense, but consider that it's really really small.
goodJobWalrus 11y ago
I had a colleague in nyc, who moved with his homemaker wife and 2 children, from Utah where they owned their own home, to nyc to live in a studio. I thought it was a very brave choice.
serge2k 11y ago
Interesting this about San Francisco, you don't have to live there.
RMacy 11y ago
Great and insightful article. Loved the line about getting larger pants to fix a weight problem.
ChuckMcM 11y ago
I really like the insight about density. I temporarily changed my living situation from a 4 bedroom house where my kids had moved out, to a 2 br apartment and I recognized the density issue but had not conceptualized it so clearly as the author did.
- greg-kroleski 11y ago
  One of my favorite parts about living in constraints is it forces me to build new mental models.
  - joepvd 11y ago
    Thanks for writing your experiences down so precise and readable. While reading, I had to think multiple times abouts the movie The Five Constraints[0], where a profound link is made between restrictions and a boost in creativity and new thoughts. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Obstructions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Obstructions
  - michmeagher 11y ago
    This is exactly the approach we had to adopt when we travelled around Europe in a camper (a sweet 1970s converted Ford Transit). I loved having to be creative about finding space and making sure every thing we took with us had multiple functions if possible. I wish I could say we have kept this up now we are back living in the "real world" but some of the spirit has rubbed off and we're definitely much better at becoming less attached to particular belongings. I strongly believe that most belongings end up becoming burdens if you don't establish a process of questioning their utility on a somewhat regular basis. Thanks for the article! Really thought-provoking.
lazyant 11y ago
I'll be that guy: affect != effect
- greg-kroleski 11y ago
  Thanks, I fixed it. If only there was a way I could let people open up PRs to my blog posts to fix typos and grammatical errors :)
JabavuAdams 11y ago
Fascinating article, and great observation on optimizing density. How do you think in a space like that? I need personal space just to think.
- gnarbarian 11y ago
  I've known people to at work later if they want time to themselves.
  - JabavuAdams 11y ago
    Been there, done that, but it can turn into a bad habit. Oh, look Daddy got home just as the kids are all prepared and in bed.
elcct 11y ago
That is stupid. If your salary won't cover decent living then why bother? It is people like yourself who drive rates low and then post how difficult is to live on them...
- IkmoIkmo 11y ago
  > That is stupid. If your salary won't cover decent living then why bother? I think you fail to see that he'd definitely describe his living over the past few years as 'decent', and likely even much more than just decent.
  - greg-kroleski 11y ago
    Can confirm. My life is awesome.
- Eric_WVGG 11y ago
  Can you explain how the author is not living decently?
Harkins 11y ago
For anyone wondering how this is possible: by violating fire code. He says he, then he and his wife, then one or both of their children were sleeping in the closet. I'm not familiar with the language of the California Building Code, but in the 2014 verison, volume 1, chapter 10 gets into the limits. The closet is not a "sleeping unit": it doesn't meet the 120 sqft minimum, doesn't have a wide enough door, and doesn't have two methods of egress. There's probably more I didn't find. I know this seems like tedious legal nitpicking and the main apartment room is right there and "everybody does it", but nearly every line of fire and building code exists because of a preventable tragedy. Even if it's not against the lease it's unsafe. (And he built a barely-braced lofted bed in an earthquake zone!?) The author happily compounded the rent they saved every month but failed to compound the increased risks they took every night.
- kqr2 11y ago
  Unfortunate reality of housing shortage in SF. Most of these things people turn a blind eye towards such as an 89 year old lady paying $700 to sleep in a closet. http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/03/prop-f/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/03/prop-f/
- panic 11y ago
  Are fire codes really enforced in this way? Obviously the closet wasn't built to sleep in. It's one thing to force building owners and landlords to build and maintain rooms a certain way, but using a law to force people not to sleep in a closet seems counterproductive.
  - ars 11y ago
    Oh definitely. Especially for rentals. To be a bedroom it has to have a window, a certain size (which varies), and some places even require a closet in the room. If they find a bed in a room like that they normally start with a warning, then a visit from child protection services, or even condemning the entire house. Obviously if they don't inspect they'll never know, but rentals, and people with contact with authority (CPS, Police, etc) could expect an inspection. If you own, I'm not sure if the fire department can legally enter a home for an inspection without a warrant, but for a rental I believe they can, and do!
SmallBets 11y ago
It's interesting that most reactions here are either a)"this is nothing compared to country x" or b)this is an example of extremely negative hardship. I thought the direct lessons he laid out were excellent, about being ruthlessly honest on what you truly need to be happy, and the freedom that you get from the resulting wealth when combining that with a SF tech salary. It is a reasoning from first principles on living conditions that not enough people do imo. I think we tend to subconsciously accept the default of more space/stuff=better without making a direct choice on what is the specific right amount for ourselves. Coming to a definition of what "enough" is for ourselves keeps the goalposts from moving as income rises. Also the point about gaining empathy for the poor based on experiencing a lower margin for error and high cost when things went wrong in this lifestyle was another good observation.
DHJSH 11y ago
If neither of them worked, they could get a three bedroom apartment at Taxpayer expense! http://www.section8facts.com/2014/10/23/section-8-guidelines-for-unit-size-how-many-bedrooms-updated/ http://www.section8facts.com/2014/10/23/section-8-guidelines...
Mz 11y ago
This was much, much more thoughtful than I expected. Some of the thought processes resonated with me. I spent a long time getting rid of everything I owned and, yet, after doing this for three years, I didn't have the change in mindset I really needed until I kind of marathon watched "Mission: Organization" on HGTV. I was still stuck in the American mindset of accumulation. I had long wanted to live more spartanly and I was deadest on buying my way there -- cuz, yeah, that makes so much sense. Anyway, it's a really good read and not at all what I was expecting. I am sort of disappointed that so many of the comments here are about "Boo -- small space living!" or "Ugh! San Francisco!" or "It's even worse in many other countries!" because the piece really was not written that way. It wasn't written as "Ugh! Pity me! Boo hoo!" It is very thoughtful and a really good read. I just wish the article had a native tweet button. I couldn't find one.
- greg-kroleski 11y ago
  I've found slow change tends to be lasting change. Really glad you enjoyed the article, I put a lot of thought into it.
prbuckley 11y ago
I really want to know where the author moved next. It doesn't mention it specifically in the article.
- greg-kroleski 11y ago
  It is north of San Francisco and rains a lot
hluska 11y ago
This is off topic, but in March 2016, I'll become a dad for the first time and I was wondering if some more experienced parents could answer a question for me. That article has a black board with a tally of diapers changed today. The count was up to thirty. Is that somewhat accurate/possible??? If so, holy shit, I'm investing in cloth....
- raycmorgan 11y ago
  My 3 month old goes through about 5-8 and my 2 year old 1-4 a day depending if he uses the potty or not.
  - hluska 11y ago
    Thanks for your answer and congratulations on your family!! :)
- kerbar 11y ago
  Parent here. That is a common thought amongst new parents - the cost of disposable nappies. However, when you factor in the cost and time of keeping the cloth nappies clean then there may not be much difference at all. I recall reading somewhere (don't have a reference sorry) that cloth nappies are more environmentally damaging than disposables, perhaps due to the additional energy used for washing, or the impact due to detergents.
  - hluska 11y ago
    That's very interesting - thanks so much for sharing your experience with me!! I'll rethink the idea of cloth!! :)
    - dror 11y ago
      Read an article about this a while ago, can't remember exactly where. This is location dependent. In places where there's tons of water cloth is better. Where there's little water, disposables are environmentally better.
davidf18 11y ago
There are Orthodox Jewish families in Israel which have very few rooms for very large families. (Among the ultra-Orthodox in Israel the fertility rate is 10 children per family). Often these families have very little income which includes state support for their large families, and esp in large cities such as Jerusalem can little afford larger accommodations. In SF, NYC (where I live) and other US localities, the issue is not family income but rather is the use of politics to limit zoning density and thus artificially creating housing scarcity. Thus, renters pay more than they otherwise would with an efficient market and billionaire land-owners have much greater wealth than they would in an efficient market. In NYC, we had a somewhat similar situation with Taxis. Medallions were artificially limited to 13,000 in this city of 8 million where many people do not own cars and use mass transit and taxis. As a result of this 13,000 limit, taxi medallions had a market value of $1.2 million. Then thankfully, Uber came along, thus creating a larger supply of hail-able taxis and the taxis medallions now have a market value of $700,000 or so and some taxis are no longer in use. In NYC, our current mayor has two properties that he rents out for a total of $120,000 per year. He is able to get this high rent because of city laws that limit zoning density. Thus, he has every incentive to want to artificially limit zoning densities. Thus, while many liberals fret over income-inequality, they still support zoning regulations in cities such as SF and NYC that amount to a transfer of wealth from lower income individuals to wealthy individuals.
- ars 11y ago
  > Among the ultra-Orthodox in Israel the fertility rate is 10 children per family There are not typically 10 children at once in the home BTW. The older children will be away at school, around 14 for boys, 17 for girls. What you do is have 3 bedrooms: parents, boys, and girls. Depending on the boy/girl ratio you can have up to 2 triple-bunk-beds in a room. Doing that you can easily sleep 12 children in the house (if you had to). There is no living room, instead there is a dining room with a huge table (large enough to seat everyone at once) that doubles as a multi-purpose room for homework, and other activities. Children are encouraged to play outside (there's hardly room inside). For possessions there is not usually a need to store much since you'll pass things on to other people, your children, relatives, friends, neighbors, etc. and they with you, so most items are in active use. (For example, once the kids are older and you don't need a triple-bunk-bed you pass it on to someone else.) This also means you don't need to spend as much as you might expect on stuff. If you don't have a lot of money you can go your entire life without once buying new clothes, or other gear for the kids.
Camillo 11y ago
What's a good way of storing clothes if you don't have a closet?
- veidr 11y ago
  I live in Japan, where a lot of people live in spaces that small (and smaller). My wife and I did too (before having kids though) and what is common in Japan is these expandable bars that you can put up between any two strong walls. In our case, we put one up over the middle of our bed, and hung all our clothes on it (even hanging-optional stuff like T-shirts). You had to kind of tunnel through it when getting into bed, but this let us make use of the otherwise useless airspace over our bed. It also formed a kind of soft wall or curtain that made the area where your head was darker than the rest of the main room. That was handy when one person wanted to sleep and the other was still working.
ilaksh 11y ago
This is one reason I think we should do a type of zoning in-between urban and suburban. Even if you divide a normal residential suburban lot into 9 pieces, if you do two stories, then every little lot could contain 578 square feet, which is 178 square feet more than their 400 square feet apartment. http://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage/ http://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage/
tracker1 11y ago
I'm about to move going from 1100sft to about 800, and bemoaning that change... it's hard for me to imagine 400... I lived for almost two years in under 500sqft, and don't think I could ever do it again... as soon as I was able, I moved into the biggest apartment I could find close to where I wanted to live. I'm only making the change I am now because it's actually closer to the job I started a couple months ago, and I'm hoping in the next 18 months to have my credit clear (still paying off medical bills from 5-6 years ago), my car is paid off in 14 months, and want to have enough for a down payment for a house. It's hard for me to imagine living in SF, where rent is significantly more than I pay now, and the pay doesn't quite correlate.
fixxer 11y ago
Man, I love Chicago.
noir_lord 11y ago
As someone who got into cycling a few years ago Rule V (Harden the Fuck Up) has permeated the rest of my life. If you can do 50 miles when the hail is coming in sideways and it's dark and your on a hill in the middle of nowhere then everything else seems easier.
daveloyall 11y ago
The author describes a strategy: maximize the density of storage space and minimize the density of living space. I had discovered that excellent wisdom independently when setting up my various college dorm rooms. He later says that he is "forever changed" by the experience. I hope so. Myself, I had forgotten, and I thank him for the reminder.

341 points by dohertyjf 11y ago

I lived in a small bus in New Mexico for a while and got addicted to this site, http://tinyhousetalk.com http://tinyhousetalk.com. You don't have to be a gypsy to admire the space efficiency and DIY furniture. Most of what I've put together (sofa, bookshelf, etc.) feels incredibly stronger than anything I could get for 4-6x the price. But that's just how things are, some trade off of price for quality for time. Anyway, I admire his/his wife's attitude and ability to look at the situation optimistically and make it work.

bpicolo 11y ago
Even without DIY, I think e.g. Ikea showrooms are actually pretty good at showing how a little space can go a long way. That said, I am looking forward to moving away from the Bay someday to more space. : )
- jschwartzi 11y ago
  Yeah, Ikea furniture seems to be designed for apartment living. Because their designs use glue-less fastening I can tear down all the furniture in my apartment and fill a truck without a lot of work. The only thing I wouldn't be able to move by myself now is my mattress. The compromise is that the stuff they sell that has significant decorative elements is extremely flimsy. The malm series is probably the most durable furniture they sell, because it's just 3/4 inch or 1 inch osb sheeting that's cut and joined in different configurations with bolts.
  - girvo 11y ago
    Indeed. The bulk of my furniture is Malm series stuff. It also looks quite nice in my apartment!

sz4kerto 11y ago

:) 400 sqf with two kids might be a drama for people in the US but it is completely normal in other places of the world, even including the EU. It's not comfortable, but 600-700 sqf is completely usual for families in where I live (an apartment like that costs around 15-20 times the average yearly salary). EDIT: typo, I meant sqf and not sqm.

x43b 11y ago
"400 sqm with two kids might be a drama for people in the US" 400 square feet (~37 m^2) No need to turn this into another stereotyping Europe vs US issue. I agree 37 m^2 is plenty of room for some people, not for others, regardless of where you are from.
- goodJobWalrus 11y ago
  > No need to turn this into another stereotyping Europe vs US issue But it is kind of true that Americans are extremely melodramatic about this stuff. 800 sqft house is often referred as a "tiny house" in American media. In the UK (for example) this is an average house size.
  - serge2k 11y ago
    The US is over 10 times larger than the UK. Guess what, tons of land leads to different expectations. I don't understand why Europeans seem to like acting condescending about this stuff?
    - goodJobWalrus 11y ago
      > The US is over 10 times larger than the UK. Guess what, tons of land leads to different expectations. I'm not sure it's just that, it's also I think, that Americans find it acceptable to live in suburbs. If everyone tried to live in the city centers (like they do in nyc or SF), small places would also be the norm.
      - 11y ago

raverbashing 11y ago

The question is why do we have the most talented people in a certain industry having to live in confined spaces while paying through the roof for it. Not even Hollywood is like that. People may stay in trailers for some time but that's it As personally having to live in a tiny place (not in SF though) it is not something I want to do for an extended period of time, even though the advantages like 'city living' are good

prostoalex 11y ago
> People may stay in trailers for some time but that's it Isn't tech approach the same? You wait for your big break and then move out.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
balls187 11y ago
> The question is why do we have the most talented people in a certain industry having to live in confined spaces while paying through the roof for it. Because it's their choice. Right now the housing market in San Fran is redic. However, there are other major tech areas that don't nearly have the same problems.
- kzhahou 11y ago
  It's obviously their choice. OP didn't mean anyone is forced against their will. The question is: why does the vast majority of new tech continue to A) establish themselves in such an uncomfortable location B) not embrace distributed teams It's a terrible cycle at this point.
  - BrainInAJar 11y ago
    > why does the vast majority of new tech continue to > A) establish themselves in such an uncomfortable location > B) not embrace distributed teams Hiring networks. You want to hire people based on referrals and not experience or qualifications, you need to hire through your extended friend network, which if you're raised in the SF startup scene, is all in SF. It's also a state of affairs that ends up being unintentionally racist, since probably most of your friends look like you, and probably most of their friends that they'll refer to you when you're hiring look like them

stevoski 11y ago

The more I read such articles, the more I think you'd have to be nuts to choose to live in San Francisco. And yet, clearly, plenty of people do choose to live in San Francisco.

atom-morgan 11y ago
It's a weird situation. There are so many tech companies out there and I'd like to work for some of them but I don't think the sacrifice I'll take with my standard of living will be worth it.
- alkonaut 11y ago
  Why aren't SF tech companies hiring more remote workers? They could pay people who work remotely a lot less, save a lot on office space etc. Tech companies are the ones that should be able to pull that off. Even if I lived in SF I'd be reluctant to commute an hour to work if I could just as well work from home.
  - sawthat 11y ago
    Everyone keeps asking this question. The answer: they are hiring remote workers. But my question: where is the evidence that tech companies are not able to be profitable with their high payroll costs?
    - 7Figures2Commas 11y ago
      > But my question: where is the evidence that tech companies are not able to be profitable with their high payroll costs? You could look at the growing number of layoffs at post-seed stage companies[1]. Or you could look at startups that voluntarily publish financial information. Take, for example, this one[2], which, as of June, was spending $525,000/month on payroll (equating to an all-in cost of $146,000/year per employee) when it had less than $300,000 of monthly bookings revenue. A lot (perhaps the majority) of venture-backed Bay Area startups are entirely dependent on investor money to sustain their workforces at their current sizes. Even some of the tech companies in the area that have gone public aren't profitable. FireEye and Marketo are two that come to mind. Everybody has been trading profitability for growth, and that's a game most will eventually lose. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10517445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10517445 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10049808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10049808

Artistry121 11y ago

In another city a place this cheap would be less than $400 / month. Meaning someone could choose this lifestyle simply in a different city working for minimum wage and meet the requirements for housing costs of less than 1/3 income.

JabavuAdams 11y ago
The problem is who you're living next to, at that price point, in another city. Basically, if you live where all of the minimum-wage people live, you're going to get spill-over from all the typical problems in such a neighbourhood.
- douche 11y ago
  In other parts of the country, the kind of money the author is paying in rent on a studio will pay the mortgage on a 2500 sqft house, in an upper-middle class neighborhood. In an age of high-speed internet, it's ridiculous that we insist software engineers be jammed into dense, expensive globs. Working remotely with Skype calls/IM/screensharing is a better experience, all around, than trying to collaborate in the same office, at least in my experience. You do have to have employees that will actually work, though.
  - JabavuAdams 11y ago
    For sure, but I was commenting on the parent's $400/mo.
- eghad 11y ago
  Yeah, the assumption that all low-income neighborhoods have problems that you should be afraid of "spilling over" is a poor one.
  - JabavuAdams 11y ago
    It would be obvious to say that I haven't lived in every low-income neighbourhood, but I've lived in one. So, I'll list the least severe of my complaints and see whether you think they're not representative of low-income neighbourhoods. I live in Canada, but feel free to comment on US / Commonwealth / Europe. * Majority of students in elementary school's parents did not attend college. * Less than a majority of high-school students continue to University * Engineer, Doctor, or Lawyer is a very uncommon profession among my neighbours. * Any non-domestic, non store-robbery, assault with a weapon (stabbing or shooting) within the neighbourhood within the last two years.

tinbad 11y ago

Growing up in communist Russia, 400sq. feet apartment would be the luxury option for 2 or 3 families with multiple children each. No joke, my parents lived with their siblings and parents (and sometimes grandparents) in the same apartment even after everyone had children of their own. Somehow we still managed to occasionally have 20 more people over for birthday celebrations and cook all the accompanying excessive amounts of food :)

sologoub 11y ago
33sq.m. was the norm for two adults. When you had a kid, you submitted paperwork for extra 10-15 sq.m., but usually got moved to a new development, not in a desirable area. My parents went through it in 80s. By then this mostly worked for military/otherwise connected families, but has broken down for the rest of the country with wait list numbering in years. In theory you gave up smaller apartment for a slightly larger as need arose. In practice, most families did not want to move far and construction pace did not keep up for economic reasons.
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eps 11y ago
Striking, but hardly common. You should clarify that in Russia they operate in "living space" sq.meters, meaning that 400 sqft will not include kitchen, corridors, bathroom, etc. Just the bedrooms and the living room. Secondly, you are over-generalizing. While a part of population did in fact live in cramped conditions (or even in shared condos, whereby 2+ families shared a single apartment), more than enough people lived in a very decently spaced apartments, with living space ranging between 28 sqm to 40-50 sqm. So "400 sqft" apartments were nowhere close to being "luxury". OTOH, a bathroom with a window - now that was indeed a true luxury (because how the vast majority of buildings where designed).
- sologoub 11y ago

hellofunk 11y ago

This isn't so bad. The Netherlands is the most dense population of any country outside Taiwan and families dwelling in small spaces continues to this day. There is a 12-member family spanning 3 generations all living in the same small house next door to me. Our tiny 60 square meter home is considered normal for our area. By American standards, SF seems like tight living, perhaps. But by world standards, space is not the priority that you find elsewhere in the States.

serge2k 11y ago
> Our tiny 60 square meter home is over 50% larger than the one in the article? It's the difference between a studio and a nice one bedroom, or maybe even cramped 2 bedroom.
- stan_rogers 11y ago
  That really depends on how the space is arranged. I'm in just about that size, but my place is wheelchair-accessible with room for attendant care, so the bathroom is huge compared to normal, the entrance corridor is nearly wide enough for, say, a Smart ForTwo (or a chair with a drip and someone alongside), so the basic living area works out to "small bachelor/studio". That's a bit extreme, but a bad layout can really eat into the usefulness of your floor space without a corresponding drop in cost.
philh 11y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and... Netherlands is number 30. Admittedly most of the others are a lot smaller, but Bangladesh and South Korea are a lot bigger. San Fran is also denser than the Netherlands, and AFAICS denser than any Dutch city (comparable with The Hague).
- sologoub 11y ago
  There are no other major countries from Europe on that list denser than Netherlands. Monaco is super dense, but consider that it's really really small.

goodJobWalrus 11y ago

I had a colleague in nyc, who moved with his homemaker wife and 2 children, from Utah where they owned their own home, to nyc to live in a studio. I thought it was a very brave choice.

serge2k 11y ago

Interesting this about San Francisco, you don't have to live there.

RMacy 11y ago

Great and insightful article. Loved the line about getting larger pants to fix a weight problem.

ChuckMcM 11y ago

I really like the insight about density. I temporarily changed my living situation from a 4 bedroom house where my kids had moved out, to a 2 br apartment and I recognized the density issue but had not conceptualized it so clearly as the author did.

greg-kroleski 11y ago
One of my favorite parts about living in constraints is it forces me to build new mental models.
- joepvd 11y ago
  Thanks for writing your experiences down so precise and readable. While reading, I had to think multiple times abouts the movie The Five Constraints[0], where a profound link is made between restrictions and a boost in creativity and new thoughts. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Obstructions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Obstructions
- michmeagher 11y ago
  This is exactly the approach we had to adopt when we travelled around Europe in a camper (a sweet 1970s converted Ford Transit). I loved having to be creative about finding space and making sure every thing we took with us had multiple functions if possible. I wish I could say we have kept this up now we are back living in the "real world" but some of the spirit has rubbed off and we're definitely much better at becoming less attached to particular belongings. I strongly believe that most belongings end up becoming burdens if you don't establish a process of questioning their utility on a somewhat regular basis. Thanks for the article! Really thought-provoking.

lazyant 11y ago

I'll be that guy: affect != effect

greg-kroleski 11y ago
Thanks, I fixed it. If only there was a way I could let people open up PRs to my blog posts to fix typos and grammatical errors :)

JabavuAdams 11y ago

Fascinating article, and great observation on optimizing density. How do you think in a space like that? I need personal space just to think.

gnarbarian 11y ago
I've known people to at work later if they want time to themselves.
- JabavuAdams 11y ago
  Been there, done that, but it can turn into a bad habit. Oh, look Daddy got home just as the kids are all prepared and in bed.

elcct 11y ago

That is stupid. If your salary won't cover decent living then why bother? It is people like yourself who drive rates low and then post how difficult is to live on them...

IkmoIkmo 11y ago
> That is stupid. If your salary won't cover decent living then why bother? I think you fail to see that he'd definitely describe his living over the past few years as 'decent', and likely even much more than just decent.
- greg-kroleski 11y ago
  Can confirm. My life is awesome.
Eric_WVGG 11y ago
Can you explain how the author is not living decently?

Harkins 11y ago

For anyone wondering how this is possible: by violating fire code. He says he, then he and his wife, then one or both of their children were sleeping in the closet. I'm not familiar with the language of the California Building Code, but in the 2014 verison, volume 1, chapter 10 gets into the limits. The closet is not a "sleeping unit": it doesn't meet the 120 sqft minimum, doesn't have a wide enough door, and doesn't have two methods of egress. There's probably more I didn't find. I know this seems like tedious legal nitpicking and the main apartment room is right there and "everybody does it", but nearly every line of fire and building code exists because of a preventable tragedy. Even if it's not against the lease it's unsafe. (And he built a barely-braced lofted bed in an earthquake zone!?) The author happily compounded the rent they saved every month but failed to compound the increased risks they took every night.

kqr2 11y ago
Unfortunate reality of housing shortage in SF. Most of these things people turn a blind eye towards such as an 89 year old lady paying $700 to sleep in a closet. http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/03/prop-f/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/03/prop-f/
panic 11y ago
Are fire codes really enforced in this way? Obviously the closet wasn't built to sleep in. It's one thing to force building owners and landlords to build and maintain rooms a certain way, but using a law to force people not to sleep in a closet seems counterproductive.
- ars 11y ago
  Oh definitely. Especially for rentals. To be a bedroom it has to have a window, a certain size (which varies), and some places even require a closet in the room. If they find a bed in a room like that they normally start with a warning, then a visit from child protection services, or even condemning the entire house. Obviously if they don't inspect they'll never know, but rentals, and people with contact with authority (CPS, Police, etc) could expect an inspection. If you own, I'm not sure if the fire department can legally enter a home for an inspection without a warrant, but for a rental I believe they can, and do!

SmallBets 11y ago

It's interesting that most reactions here are either a)"this is nothing compared to country x" or b)this is an example of extremely negative hardship. I thought the direct lessons he laid out were excellent, about being ruthlessly honest on what you truly need to be happy, and the freedom that you get from the resulting wealth when combining that with a SF tech salary. It is a reasoning from first principles on living conditions that not enough people do imo. I think we tend to subconsciously accept the default of more space/stuff=better without making a direct choice on what is the specific right amount for ourselves. Coming to a definition of what "enough" is for ourselves keeps the goalposts from moving as income rises. Also the point about gaining empathy for the poor based on experiencing a lower margin for error and high cost when things went wrong in this lifestyle was another good observation.

DHJSH 11y ago

If neither of them worked, they could get a three bedroom apartment at Taxpayer expense! http://www.section8facts.com/2014/10/23/section-8-guidelines-for-unit-size-how-many-bedrooms-updated/ http://www.section8facts.com/2014/10/23/section-8-guidelines...

Mz 11y ago

This was much, much more thoughtful than I expected. Some of the thought processes resonated with me. I spent a long time getting rid of everything I owned and, yet, after doing this for three years, I didn't have the change in mindset I really needed until I kind of marathon watched "Mission: Organization" on HGTV. I was still stuck in the American mindset of accumulation. I had long wanted to live more spartanly and I was deadest on buying my way there -- cuz, yeah, that makes so much sense. Anyway, it's a really good read and not at all what I was expecting. I am sort of disappointed that so many of the comments here are about "Boo -- small space living!" or "Ugh! San Francisco!" or "It's even worse in many other countries!" because the piece really was not written that way. It wasn't written as "Ugh! Pity me! Boo hoo!" It is very thoughtful and a really good read. I just wish the article had a native tweet button. I couldn't find one.

greg-kroleski 11y ago
I've found slow change tends to be lasting change. Really glad you enjoyed the article, I put a lot of thought into it.

prbuckley 11y ago

I really want to know where the author moved next. It doesn't mention it specifically in the article.

greg-kroleski 11y ago
It is north of San Francisco and rains a lot

hluska 11y ago

This is off topic, but in March 2016, I'll become a dad for the first time and I was wondering if some more experienced parents could answer a question for me. That article has a black board with a tally of diapers changed today. The count was up to thirty. Is that somewhat accurate/possible??? If so, holy shit, I'm investing in cloth....

raycmorgan 11y ago
My 3 month old goes through about 5-8 and my 2 year old 1-4 a day depending if he uses the potty or not.
- hluska 11y ago
  Thanks for your answer and congratulations on your family!! :)
kerbar 11y ago
Parent here. That is a common thought amongst new parents - the cost of disposable nappies. However, when you factor in the cost and time of keeping the cloth nappies clean then there may not be much difference at all. I recall reading somewhere (don't have a reference sorry) that cloth nappies are more environmentally damaging than disposables, perhaps due to the additional energy used for washing, or the impact due to detergents.
- hluska 11y ago
  That's very interesting - thanks so much for sharing your experience with me!! I'll rethink the idea of cloth!! :)
  - dror 11y ago
    Read an article about this a while ago, can't remember exactly where. This is location dependent. In places where there's tons of water cloth is better. Where there's little water, disposables are environmentally better.

davidf18 11y ago

There are Orthodox Jewish families in Israel which have very few rooms for very large families. (Among the ultra-Orthodox in Israel the fertility rate is 10 children per family). Often these families have very little income which includes state support for their large families, and esp in large cities such as Jerusalem can little afford larger accommodations. In SF, NYC (where I live) and other US localities, the issue is not family income but rather is the use of politics to limit zoning density and thus artificially creating housing scarcity. Thus, renters pay more than they otherwise would with an efficient market and billionaire land-owners have much greater wealth than they would in an efficient market. In NYC, we had a somewhat similar situation with Taxis. Medallions were artificially limited to 13,000 in this city of 8 million where many people do not own cars and use mass transit and taxis. As a result of this 13,000 limit, taxi medallions had a market value of $1.2 million. Then thankfully, Uber came along, thus creating a larger supply of hail-able taxis and the taxis medallions now have a market value of $700,000 or so and some taxis are no longer in use. In NYC, our current mayor has two properties that he rents out for a total of $120,000 per year. He is able to get this high rent because of city laws that limit zoning density. Thus, he has every incentive to want to artificially limit zoning densities. Thus, while many liberals fret over income-inequality, they still support zoning regulations in cities such as SF and NYC that amount to a transfer of wealth from lower income individuals to wealthy individuals.

ars 11y ago
> Among the ultra-Orthodox in Israel the fertility rate is 10 children per family There are not typically 10 children at once in the home BTW. The older children will be away at school, around 14 for boys, 17 for girls. What you do is have 3 bedrooms: parents, boys, and girls. Depending on the boy/girl ratio you can have up to 2 triple-bunk-beds in a room. Doing that you can easily sleep 12 children in the house (if you had to). There is no living room, instead there is a dining room with a huge table (large enough to seat everyone at once) that doubles as a multi-purpose room for homework, and other activities. Children are encouraged to play outside (there's hardly room inside). For possessions there is not usually a need to store much since you'll pass things on to other people, your children, relatives, friends, neighbors, etc. and they with you, so most items are in active use. (For example, once the kids are older and you don't need a triple-bunk-bed you pass it on to someone else.) This also means you don't need to spend as much as you might expect on stuff. If you don't have a lot of money you can go your entire life without once buying new clothes, or other gear for the kids.

Camillo 11y ago

What's a good way of storing clothes if you don't have a closet?

veidr 11y ago
I live in Japan, where a lot of people live in spaces that small (and smaller). My wife and I did too (before having kids though) and what is common in Japan is these expandable bars that you can put up between any two strong walls. In our case, we put one up over the middle of our bed, and hung all our clothes on it (even hanging-optional stuff like T-shirts). You had to kind of tunnel through it when getting into bed, but this let us make use of the otherwise useless airspace over our bed. It also formed a kind of soft wall or curtain that made the area where your head was darker than the rest of the main room. That was handy when one person wanted to sleep and the other was still working.

ilaksh 11y ago

This is one reason I think we should do a type of zoning in-between urban and suburban. Even if you divide a normal residential suburban lot into 9 pieces, if you do two stories, then every little lot could contain 578 square feet, which is 178 square feet more than their 400 square feet apartment. http://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage/ http://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage/

tracker1 11y ago

I'm about to move going from 1100sft to about 800, and bemoaning that change... it's hard for me to imagine 400... I lived for almost two years in under 500sqft, and don't think I could ever do it again... as soon as I was able, I moved into the biggest apartment I could find close to where I wanted to live. I'm only making the change I am now because it's actually closer to the job I started a couple months ago, and I'm hoping in the next 18 months to have my credit clear (still paying off medical bills from 5-6 years ago), my car is paid off in 14 months, and want to have enough for a down payment for a house. It's hard for me to imagine living in SF, where rent is significantly more than I pay now, and the pay doesn't quite correlate.

fixxer 11y ago

Man, I love Chicago.

noir_lord 11y ago

As someone who got into cycling a few years ago Rule V (Harden the Fuck Up) has permeated the rest of my life. If you can do 50 miles when the hail is coming in sideways and it's dark and your on a hill in the middle of nowhere then everything else seems easier.

daveloyall 11y ago

The author describes a strategy: maximize the density of storage space and minimize the density of living space. I had discovered that excellent wisdom independently when setting up my various college dorm rooms. He later says that he is "forever changed" by the experience. I hope so. Myself, I had forgotten, and I thank him for the reminder.