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I have three children with my wife and we decided to teach our kids the hard way how to lower expectations and survive the last year. We quit our jobs and move

I have three children with my wife and we decided to teach our kids the hard way how to lower expectations and survive the last year. We quit our jobs and moved to Puerto Rico and moved to a mountain top in the center of the island. Our goal was to show them what life is like in most other parts of the world where people struggle. They run around and play in the forest, help tend the garden, and learn from us, books, and exploration. It's been our year of "disconnecting" from the rat race and learning how to thrive as a family of 5 on under $1200 a month. We're packing up and moving to Ithaca, NY at the end of the summer but I hope none of us go straight back to a consumer-based lifestyle even though we'll have the income to do it. When regular employment dries up and all they have is self-sufficiency, maybe they'll now have the tools to be content.

overcast 10y ago
That's pretty awesome, and you're moving back to a dope area in the finger lakes, tons of good hiking and outdoorsy stuff there. I'm currently in Rochester, and cruise down there frequently to get away.
randyrand 10y ago
>where people struggle It annoys me anything below today's incredibly high standard of living is considered struggling. Puerto-rico's per capita GDP is 5x (!!!) higher than the United States in 1900 (US GDP per Cap was $4,096.00 in 1900 inflation adjusted). Is it really correct to say that almost the entire US population was struggling up until the mid 1900s? And now we're in some utopia? 'Struggling' implies an emotional state. Yet the standard of living implies almost nothing about emotional state. I'd imagine Puerto Rico has a very similar emotional state to the US! So why do we constantly use the word struggle as a financial comparison and not an emotional one? It almost seems like a unconscious conspiracy to garner emotional support for what amounts to a more financial difference.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Was life in the early 20th century better with quack medicine, volatile food prices, and no old-age health care or social security? Yes, it is correct to say that a great amount of the US population struggled until the mid 20th century. Most of that wealth was concentrated in the hands of a very small and privileged few. For an argument about relativity, a reliance on GDP is an amusing false equivalence.
  - randyrand 10y ago
    If you compare the US today to the US 300 years from now, even I will likely be considered struggling. Yet, I don't feel like I'm struggling. Is it really fair to say I'm struggling just because I don't meet the standard of living of 300+ years from now? That seems like the same idea as saying that much or the majority of the US was struggling in 1900.
    - randyrand 10y ago
      In trying to make sense of it I would say this: There are 2 requirements to not be struggling. 1. basic needs. Food, shelter, water. 2. not being substantially poorer than the people you see and interact with. Given that most of the world is past number 1, all the rest they'd need to do is have financial equality (hard, IMO), or ensure that only few have wealth and are segregated (easier, IMO). The last thing you'd want is poor, middle, and rich in 1/3, 1/3 , 1/3 quantities all interacting with each other. Just yesterday there was a study that made rounds how having the Economy Class airplane passengers walk past the First Class causes turmoil. That's a perfect example of what not to do.
      - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
        300 years from now you could fall from the roof of your home, break your spine in three places, be instantly teleported to a hospital and be right as rain and home before supper. Whereas my grandmother died quickly and needlessly 20 years ago from a minor biopsy infection. Moving goalposts doesn't change lives. As standards of living improve, people's perceptions of what they ought to have changes as well. Your saying what people should or should not constitute as suffering will have very little effect given that people tend not to listen when they suspect they are being talked down to.
        randyrand 10y ago
        > should or should not constitute as suffering Struggling is not really all that subjective, IMO. It's something we've all felt (emphasis on emotion) and can quickly relate to and reasonably collectively define. My point is we should not try and constitute something other than struggling as struggling. Struggling is already a reasonably well defined emotional state, there's no need to try and equivocate other things with struggling. More directly, We should not conclude that poor and few means implies struggling. All too often we conclude that richer means less struggling, and that by increasing wealth we can make the world a better place.
rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
I hope you enjoy Ithaca. If you want to avoid cookie cutter consumerism, here are a few suggestions: -Join a farm share. We have a zillion around here and it helps plan out meals ahead of time instead of being pulled into the event horizon of Wegmans. -Speaking of, consider getting a meat freezer and hunting for deer. We have way too many and venison will last you for months. Just be mindful of your weapons - IIRC rifles are banned in Tompkins County. -Don't take off the snow tires until at least May. Trust me on this. -If you need contracting done, look to the Mennonites first. They work hard, they're affordable, and it's real quality. -Take vitamin D supplements. The sun doesn't exist here.
- deftnerd 10y ago
  Excellent suggestions, thanks! We're looking at renting a house at the Ithaca Eco Community to help the kids with socialization and to continue the intent to let the kids open the door and just go out and play with friends in nature. One of the other benefits is that there are lots of other residents that grow food and they let you set aside land to grow your own stuff. We're not really hunters, but it's never too late to learn. We'll get a freezer and probably try to find a local hunter willing to let me pay for processing in exchange for half of the meat. Excellent suggestion about the Mennonites. Our goal is to buy some land within 10 minutes of town and build a small cabin during our first year. Then we'll use that as a stepping stone to build a real home over a few more years, depending on disposable income. We don't like financing things.
  - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    Great plan! If you don't plan on hunting you can get a cow/half cow easy. Best place to buy land is to the east in the Dryden/Freeville area. Mostly because it's cheap and it has good bus connections. Anything in the town or city of Ithaca is (seriously) at San Francisco levels of cost relative to average income. The real house might be best placed to the south in the Danby area, since it's also cheap and there's a lot of south hill development (past IC) being planned, so the value is gonna go up in the next few decades. It's also the best way to get to New York (south via Owego). I hope you enjoy the most good enough place in the world :)

overcast 10y ago

That's pretty awesome, and you're moving back to a dope area in the finger lakes, tons of good hiking and outdoorsy stuff there. I'm currently in Rochester, and cruise down there frequently to get away.

randyrand 10y ago

>where people struggle It annoys me anything below today's incredibly high standard of living is considered struggling. Puerto-rico's per capita GDP is 5x (!!!) higher than the United States in 1900 (US GDP per Cap was $4,096.00 in 1900 inflation adjusted). Is it really correct to say that almost the entire US population was struggling up until the mid 1900s? And now we're in some utopia? 'Struggling' implies an emotional state. Yet the standard of living implies almost nothing about emotional state. I'd imagine Puerto Rico has a very similar emotional state to the US! So why do we constantly use the word struggle as a financial comparison and not an emotional one? It almost seems like a unconscious conspiracy to garner emotional support for what amounts to a more financial difference.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Was life in the early 20th century better with quack medicine, volatile food prices, and no old-age health care or social security? Yes, it is correct to say that a great amount of the US population struggled until the mid 20th century. Most of that wealth was concentrated in the hands of a very small and privileged few. For an argument about relativity, a reliance on GDP is an amusing false equivalence.
- randyrand 10y ago
  If you compare the US today to the US 300 years from now, even I will likely be considered struggling. Yet, I don't feel like I'm struggling. Is it really fair to say I'm struggling just because I don't meet the standard of living of 300+ years from now? That seems like the same idea as saying that much or the majority of the US was struggling in 1900.
  - randyrand 10y ago
    In trying to make sense of it I would say this: There are 2 requirements to not be struggling. 1. basic needs. Food, shelter, water. 2. not being substantially poorer than the people you see and interact with. Given that most of the world is past number 1, all the rest they'd need to do is have financial equality (hard, IMO), or ensure that only few have wealth and are segregated (easier, IMO). The last thing you'd want is poor, middle, and rich in 1/3, 1/3 , 1/3 quantities all interacting with each other. Just yesterday there was a study that made rounds how having the Economy Class airplane passengers walk past the First Class causes turmoil. That's a perfect example of what not to do.
    - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
      300 years from now you could fall from the roof of your home, break your spine in three places, be instantly teleported to a hospital and be right as rain and home before supper. Whereas my grandmother died quickly and needlessly 20 years ago from a minor biopsy infection. Moving goalposts doesn't change lives. As standards of living improve, people's perceptions of what they ought to have changes as well. Your saying what people should or should not constitute as suffering will have very little effect given that people tend not to listen when they suspect they are being talked down to.
      - randyrand 10y ago
        > should or should not constitute as suffering Struggling is not really all that subjective, IMO. It's something we've all felt (emphasis on emotion) and can quickly relate to and reasonably collectively define. My point is we should not try and constitute something other than struggling as struggling. Struggling is already a reasonably well defined emotional state, there's no need to try and equivocate other things with struggling. More directly, We should not conclude that poor and few means implies struggling. All too often we conclude that richer means less struggling, and that by increasing wealth we can make the world a better place.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago

I hope you enjoy Ithaca. If you want to avoid cookie cutter consumerism, here are a few suggestions: -Join a farm share. We have a zillion around here and it helps plan out meals ahead of time instead of being pulled into the event horizon of Wegmans. -Speaking of, consider getting a meat freezer and hunting for deer. We have way too many and venison will last you for months. Just be mindful of your weapons - IIRC rifles are banned in Tompkins County. -Don't take off the snow tires until at least May. Trust me on this. -If you need contracting done, look to the Mennonites first. They work hard, they're affordable, and it's real quality. -Take vitamin D supplements. The sun doesn't exist here.

deftnerd 10y ago
Excellent suggestions, thanks! We're looking at renting a house at the Ithaca Eco Community to help the kids with socialization and to continue the intent to let the kids open the door and just go out and play with friends in nature. One of the other benefits is that there are lots of other residents that grow food and they let you set aside land to grow your own stuff. We're not really hunters, but it's never too late to learn. We'll get a freezer and probably try to find a local hunter willing to let me pay for processing in exchange for half of the meat. Excellent suggestion about the Mennonites. Our goal is to buy some land within 10 minutes of town and build a small cabin during our first year. Then we'll use that as a stepping stone to build a real home over a few more years, depending on disposable income. We don't like financing things.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Great plan! If you don't plan on hunting you can get a cow/half cow easy. Best place to buy land is to the east in the Dryden/Freeville area. Mostly because it's cheap and it has good bus connections. Anything in the town or city of Ithaca is (seriously) at San Francisco levels of cost relative to average income. The real house might be best placed to the south in the Danby area, since it's also cheap and there's a lot of south hill development (past IC) being planned, so the value is gonna go up in the next few decades. It's also the best way to get to New York (south via Owego). I hope you enjoy the most good enough place in the world :)