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>Wait if you’re doing $900-1000/month and you’re sustaining yourself on that, that must mean you’re sustaining yourself on less than $12,000 a year. What is you

>Wait if you’re doing $900-1000/month and you’re sustaining yourself on that, that must mean you’re sustaining yourself on less than $12,000 a year. What is your lifestyle like at $12K?" >I live in the middle of nowhere. I don't travel much, or eat out, or have health insurance, or anything like that. I cook my own food. I use a free gym. There was this time when the floor of my bedroom began collapsing. It was so old that the humidity had decayed the wood. We just got a bunch of scrap wood and a joist and propped it up. If it lets in some bugs, oh well! I live like a grad student, but with better ramen. I don't mind it much since I spend all my time reading anyway. Not sure what to think of that. On one hand, it's so impressive that gwern cares only about the intellectual pursuit. On the other hand, it's sad that society does not reward it as much as excel sheet work.

camillomiller 2y ago
Or maybe, you know, that is not true and it’s part of a character?
- resiros 2y ago
  Could be, but he does not strike as someone who is looking for fame. Plus the whole discussion about why he would like to move to SF but can't seems pretty authentic.
  - blairbeckwith 2y ago
    If you want to maintain anonymity, building a character with false traits could be a part of that with no desire for fame.
wslh 2y ago
I don’t know Gwern (except for a small donation I made!), but I truly believe people can be that frugal if their inner self is satisfied. By the way, my father is an artist who feels completely fulfilled living a bohemian lifestyle, selling his work in two art markets and enjoying a vibrant social life there, even without fame.
freefaler 2y ago
From a resource point of view, time is one of the most precious we have and optimizing for "the most control over my time" by living frugally makes sense. If you put this time into your skills growth you may outperform in the long term for some fields (where skills matter more than social capital) the people who had to sell their time to pay higher bills. It's a reasonable tradeoff for some circumstances.
bondarchuk 2y ago
Many many people in the US live on that kind of money, it's not uncommon at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States "Among individuals living alone: 19.1% lived in poverty." Poverty line (max yearly income) for single households: $14,580
- walthamstow 2y ago
  There's a bit in The West Wing where one of the characters finds out the US poverty thresholds are calculated based on work done in the 1950s by a woman named Mollie Orshansky, and that they can't be updated because then US would then have millions more poor people, and that's bad politics. According to your link that's still mostly true 25 years later.
- janetmissed 2y ago
  It does show how out of touch tech workers are that they are shocked someone is able to live off 1k a month. It sometimes feels like hn posters were born on college campuses and shielded from normal society until their twenties, after which they move to the Bay Area with the upmost confidence that they know everything there is to know about the world. Especially if you are doing it voluntarily, 1k a month can provide you more then enough for a comfortable life in many part of the country. More so if you can avoid car ownership/insurance and health insurance (Which gwern seems to do).
- mitthrowaway2 2y ago
  It's not uncommon, but hopefully it offers some perspective to those commenters who say things like "this-or-that subscription fee should be trivial pocket change to the sorts of people who comment on HN".
gizmo 2y ago
Gwern lives this way because he wants to. He has chosen this ascetic lifestyle. He could easily raise money if he ever needs it (he doesn't need it right now). He could easily do tech work in SF and set himself up for life. He also has many friends who got rich off crypto. A room is only a prison cell when you're not allowed to leave.
jnsaff2 2y ago
> Dwarkesh Patel > How do you sustain yourself while writing full time? > Gwern > Patreon and savings. I have a Patreon which does around $900-$1000/month, and then I cover the rest with my savings. I got lucky with having some early Bitcoins and made enough to write for a long time, but not forever. So I try to spend as little as possible to make it last. Then Dwarkesh just gets stuck on this $1k/month thing when Gwern right out of gate said that savings are being used. Who knows how much of the savings are being used or how big of a profit he got from BTC.
- nl 2y ago
  Meh. He's living in a place where the floor collapsed and eats (good) ramen. If it's 12k or 20k I'm not sure it makes a meaningful difference to the narrative.
  - sourcepluck 2y ago
    Eating (good) ramen is being used here as evidence that he's doing poorly, or something? I don't get it. Ramen is delicious, and can be very healthy. I hereby politely demand that you explain what exactly you are insinuating about the wonder that is ramen. A floor collapsing and not bothering to replace it sounds more serious, sure, but that can mean a lot of different things in different circumstances. Imagine, for example, someone who's an expert in DIY but also a devoted procrastinator. That person could leave a roof in the state described for months or years, planning to eventually do it up, and I wouldn't consider anything terribly revelatory about the person's financial or mental status to have occurred.
    - tgaj 2y ago
      I think the misunderstanding is caused by existing of two types of ramen - traditional, good quality is one, and another is instant - bad quality fast food.
    - michaelt 2y ago
      Living on ramen by choice? Sure, you do you. But living on ramen + $12k/year + no healthcare + collapsing floor? That's sounding a lot like poverty to me.
raverbashing 2y ago
Honestly I've become skeptical of people who end up in high-intellectualized "pursuits" neglecting their own personal and social interactions and the larger societal reactions Maybe it works for maths, physics and such, and of course it's ok to philosophize, but I think those "ivory tower" thinkers sometimes lack a certain connection to reality
- sph 2y ago
  Which reality? Does a middle class Californian FAANG worker spending its day on Twitter know more about, I don't know, the Congo or Thai mangrove forests than a philosopher in a hut? Unless by reality you mean YOUR slice of the world, a sheltered place of its own.

camillomiller 2y ago

Or maybe, you know, that is not true and it’s part of a character?

resiros 2y ago
Could be, but he does not strike as someone who is looking for fame. Plus the whole discussion about why he would like to move to SF but can't seems pretty authentic.
- blairbeckwith 2y ago
  If you want to maintain anonymity, building a character with false traits could be a part of that with no desire for fame.

wslh 2y ago

I don’t know Gwern (except for a small donation I made!), but I truly believe people can be that frugal if their inner self is satisfied. By the way, my father is an artist who feels completely fulfilled living a bohemian lifestyle, selling his work in two art markets and enjoying a vibrant social life there, even without fame.

freefaler 2y ago

From a resource point of view, time is one of the most precious we have and optimizing for "the most control over my time" by living frugally makes sense. If you put this time into your skills growth you may outperform in the long term for some fields (where skills matter more than social capital) the people who had to sell their time to pay higher bills. It's a reasonable tradeoff for some circumstances.

bondarchuk 2y ago

Many many people in the US live on that kind of money, it's not uncommon at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States "Among individuals living alone: 19.1% lived in poverty." Poverty line (max yearly income) for single households: $14,580

walthamstow 2y ago
There's a bit in The West Wing where one of the characters finds out the US poverty thresholds are calculated based on work done in the 1950s by a woman named Mollie Orshansky, and that they can't be updated because then US would then have millions more poor people, and that's bad politics. According to your link that's still mostly true 25 years later.
janetmissed 2y ago
It does show how out of touch tech workers are that they are shocked someone is able to live off 1k a month. It sometimes feels like hn posters were born on college campuses and shielded from normal society until their twenties, after which they move to the Bay Area with the upmost confidence that they know everything there is to know about the world. Especially if you are doing it voluntarily, 1k a month can provide you more then enough for a comfortable life in many part of the country. More so if you can avoid car ownership/insurance and health insurance (Which gwern seems to do).
mitthrowaway2 2y ago
It's not uncommon, but hopefully it offers some perspective to those commenters who say things like "this-or-that subscription fee should be trivial pocket change to the sorts of people who comment on HN".

gizmo 2y ago

Gwern lives this way because he wants to. He has chosen this ascetic lifestyle. He could easily raise money if he ever needs it (he doesn't need it right now). He could easily do tech work in SF and set himself up for life. He also has many friends who got rich off crypto. A room is only a prison cell when you're not allowed to leave.

jnsaff2 2y ago

> Dwarkesh Patel > How do you sustain yourself while writing full time? > Gwern > Patreon and savings. I have a Patreon which does around $900-$1000/month, and then I cover the rest with my savings. I got lucky with having some early Bitcoins and made enough to write for a long time, but not forever. So I try to spend as little as possible to make it last. Then Dwarkesh just gets stuck on this $1k/month thing when Gwern right out of gate said that savings are being used. Who knows how much of the savings are being used or how big of a profit he got from BTC.

nl 2y ago
Meh. He's living in a place where the floor collapsed and eats (good) ramen. If it's 12k or 20k I'm not sure it makes a meaningful difference to the narrative.
- sourcepluck 2y ago
  Eating (good) ramen is being used here as evidence that he's doing poorly, or something? I don't get it. Ramen is delicious, and can be very healthy. I hereby politely demand that you explain what exactly you are insinuating about the wonder that is ramen. A floor collapsing and not bothering to replace it sounds more serious, sure, but that can mean a lot of different things in different circumstances. Imagine, for example, someone who's an expert in DIY but also a devoted procrastinator. That person could leave a roof in the state described for months or years, planning to eventually do it up, and I wouldn't consider anything terribly revelatory about the person's financial or mental status to have occurred.
  - tgaj 2y ago
    I think the misunderstanding is caused by existing of two types of ramen - traditional, good quality is one, and another is instant - bad quality fast food.
  - michaelt 2y ago
    Living on ramen by choice? Sure, you do you. But living on ramen + $12k/year + no healthcare + collapsing floor? That's sounding a lot like poverty to me.

raverbashing 2y ago

Honestly I've become skeptical of people who end up in high-intellectualized "pursuits" neglecting their own personal and social interactions and the larger societal reactions Maybe it works for maths, physics and such, and of course it's ok to philosophize, but I think those "ivory tower" thinkers sometimes lack a certain connection to reality

sph 2y ago
Which reality? Does a middle class Californian FAANG worker spending its day on Twitter know more about, I don't know, the Congo or Thai mangrove forests than a philosopher in a hut? Unless by reality you mean YOUR slice of the world, a sheltered place of its own.