6 ms·

I'm amazed by the author's $10-15k/year spending [1]. I subscribe to the FI portion of FIRE and am very frugal 99% of the time but wow, some of these bloggers a

by vecinu 6y ago

I'm amazed by the author's $10-15k/year spending [1]. I subscribe to the FI portion of FIRE and am very frugal 99% of the time but wow, some of these bloggers are spending an impossibly small amount of money per year by geographical arbitrage. I wonder how many people that subscribe to FIRE are in the US, especially VHCOL or HCOL places where incomes are likely to be high. My conservative 2bd rent exceeds the author's YEARLY budget in 3 months here in SoCal. I would love to cut back even more but I touched the limit on where I started giving up on happiness and satisfaction if I optimized my expenses too much. I guess I'm realizing that these folks are truly outliers, how many people that subscribe to FIRE are actually practicing geographical arbitrage, especially if you're considering having a family with kids, pets and a home? [1] https://thedeepdish.org/2017-spending/ https://thedeepdish.org/2017-spending/

thebean11 6y ago
Yeah $15k is impressive. I wonder what the author is doing for healthcare? That alone can easily cost $15k.
- UncleOxidant 6y ago
  It doesn't look like he's paying for health insurance based on this itemized list: https://thedeepdish.org/2017-spending/ https://thedeepdish.org/2017-spending/
  - derekp7 6y ago
    If you're young enough you don't need health care (until you do, as I found out the hard way).
parsimo2010 6y ago
Living frugally implies living in a low cost of living area. Practically none of these people are preaching that you can maintain your same lifestyle and just magically cut 80% of your expenses (the trick is finding the cuts that save lots of money but don’t sacrifice as much quality of life). You’re not going to do it in Southern California. I would go so far as to claim that anyone preaching FIRE concepts in California is probably not eating their own dog food or has some other consideration that doesn’t apply to most people (has a big inheritance/trust fund, sold a company, had their parents give them their house, etc.) If you want to do FIRE and aren’t just rich already, you definitely have to live elsewhere. You’re going to do it in a remote area with crappy internet and cold winters. You can do it with a family, but your kids will complain and you had better hope your spouse is on board. It’s clearly not for everyone. If it were easy lots of people would do it.
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  It doesn't need to be a remote area with crappy internet and cold winters. Within the US there are non-remote parts of NC, TN, GA, TX that are near big cities (airport access, access to certain categories of entertainment that mostly happens in big cities) but still in big enough towns to offer a great lifestyle unless you really need the club scene. Good houses are in the $100-250k range with decent, but not always stellar, amounts of land. These are towns/counties in the 50-150k population range.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
UncleOxidant 6y ago
"Accommodation: $2004 six months in condo, the rest in AirBnb's and guesthouses" That does seem really low. I wonder if the "guesthouses" part is friends letting him stay for cheap, below market rents? Also only $726 for healthcare - apparently now monthly health insurance cost?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
orwin 6y ago
My genetic grandfather (long story) in West Virginia is living with 800$ a year. 200 goes to property taxes, 24 for the gas well, the rest is for oil, repairs/tools and his weekly meat (and grain for his beer) (living beside a small creek, between two small rivers help a lot with growing your own food). His horses died twenty years ago but from what i understand, since two young ladies are now living with his community, they want to remake the barn and get some sheeps and maybe a new horse. I'm pretty sure that i can get to FU money in 5 years if i go live there, i'm just not really interested (and i will have to get a US citizenship so :/).
- vecinu 6y ago
  That's an interesting anecdote. I think it highlights why doing that kind of stuff now is more difficult. I know people here in California paying a few thousand $ in property tax on their million dollars houses because they bought decades ago (Thanks Prop-13) but how will someone like me, a fairly recent newcomer afford their tens of thousands $ of property taxes for a new home I buy here? Will inflation eat away at our money such that in 30-40 years from now my tens of thousands $ of property taxes will be similar to the $800/yr your grandfather is paying now? I doubt it. I think that others are saying is true, you just have to pick up and move from expensive places if you want to reduce your costs significantly, no two ways about it.
- derekp7 6y ago
  You mentioned "growing your own food". How much work is invested in that activity? If you put a price on it, would it be just as cheap to work at a job and use that income to buy the food? For example frozen vegetables are about $1 to $2 per package. Eggs are about $1 / dozen. Bread is $2 a loaf. So purchasing what you could reasonably grow yourself would be at most $10 per day. So working 6 weeks at $15 per hour would buy you whatever you grow on the farm. (Yes, I realize that most people spend a bit more than $10 a day on groceries, my budget is $800 a month for 2 adults and a kid, I'm just referring to the items that you would normally grow yourself such as vegges and eggs).
hctaw 6y ago
Where are you in SoCal? $3-5k/month for a 2bd is luxury pricing right now.
- vecinu 6y ago
  I'm in the suburbs of SD, paying $3k for an older but updated 2bd townhouse. It's definitely not luxury, I saw what saving $200-400/mo would get me and it definitely wasn't comfortable.

by vecinu 6y ago

thebean11 6y ago

Yeah $15k is impressive. I wonder what the author is doing for healthcare? That alone can easily cost $15k.

UncleOxidant 6y ago
It doesn't look like he's paying for health insurance based on this itemized list: https://thedeepdish.org/2017-spending/ https://thedeepdish.org/2017-spending/
- derekp7 6y ago
  If you're young enough you don't need health care (until you do, as I found out the hard way).

parsimo2010 6y ago

Living frugally implies living in a low cost of living area. Practically none of these people are preaching that you can maintain your same lifestyle and just magically cut 80% of your expenses (the trick is finding the cuts that save lots of money but don’t sacrifice as much quality of life). You’re not going to do it in Southern California. I would go so far as to claim that anyone preaching FIRE concepts in California is probably not eating their own dog food or has some other consideration that doesn’t apply to most people (has a big inheritance/trust fund, sold a company, had their parents give them their house, etc.) If you want to do FIRE and aren’t just rich already, you definitely have to live elsewhere. You’re going to do it in a remote area with crappy internet and cold winters. You can do it with a family, but your kids will complain and you had better hope your spouse is on board. It’s clearly not for everyone. If it were easy lots of people would do it.

Jtsummers 6y ago
It doesn't need to be a remote area with crappy internet and cold winters. Within the US there are non-remote parts of NC, TN, GA, TX that are near big cities (airport access, access to certain categories of entertainment that mostly happens in big cities) but still in big enough towns to offer a great lifestyle unless you really need the club scene. Good houses are in the $100-250k range with decent, but not always stellar, amounts of land. These are towns/counties in the 50-150k population range.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

UncleOxidant 6y ago

"Accommodation: $2004 six months in condo, the rest in AirBnb's and guesthouses" That does seem really low. I wonder if the "guesthouses" part is friends letting him stay for cheap, below market rents? Also only $726 for healthcare - apparently now monthly health insurance cost?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

orwin 6y ago

My genetic grandfather (long story) in West Virginia is living with 800$ a year. 200 goes to property taxes, 24 for the gas well, the rest is for oil, repairs/tools and his weekly meat (and grain for his beer) (living beside a small creek, between two small rivers help a lot with growing your own food). His horses died twenty years ago but from what i understand, since two young ladies are now living with his community, they want to remake the barn and get some sheeps and maybe a new horse. I'm pretty sure that i can get to FU money in 5 years if i go live there, i'm just not really interested (and i will have to get a US citizenship so :/).

vecinu 6y ago
That's an interesting anecdote. I think it highlights why doing that kind of stuff now is more difficult. I know people here in California paying a few thousand $ in property tax on their million dollars houses because they bought decades ago (Thanks Prop-13) but how will someone like me, a fairly recent newcomer afford their tens of thousands $ of property taxes for a new home I buy here? Will inflation eat away at our money such that in 30-40 years from now my tens of thousands $ of property taxes will be similar to the $800/yr your grandfather is paying now? I doubt it. I think that others are saying is true, you just have to pick up and move from expensive places if you want to reduce your costs significantly, no two ways about it.
derekp7 6y ago
You mentioned "growing your own food". How much work is invested in that activity? If you put a price on it, would it be just as cheap to work at a job and use that income to buy the food? For example frozen vegetables are about $1 to $2 per package. Eggs are about $1 / dozen. Bread is $2 a loaf. So purchasing what you could reasonably grow yourself would be at most $10 per day. So working 6 weeks at $15 per hour would buy you whatever you grow on the farm. (Yes, I realize that most people spend a bit more than $10 a day on groceries, my budget is $800 a month for 2 adults and a kid, I'm just referring to the items that you would normally grow yourself such as vegges and eggs).

hctaw 6y ago

Where are you in SoCal? $3-5k/month for a 2bd is luxury pricing right now.

vecinu 6y ago
I'm in the suburbs of SD, paying $3k for an older but updated 2bd townhouse. It's definitely not luxury, I saw what saving $200-400/mo would get me and it definitely wasn't comfortable.