12 ms·

But you don’t have to listen to me, part-time mountain dweller and full-time maverick. Here’s Carlos Slim, the world’s second richest man: “We should be working

by gregd 11y ago

But you don’t have to listen to me, part-time mountain dweller and full-time maverick. Here’s Carlos Slim, the world’s second richest man: “We should be working only 3 days a week.” It is time, he says, for a radical overhaul of our working lives. We need more time to relax, for quality of life. Quoting the world's second richest man as a backup to your argument (about working less), comes off as pretentious. Those of us that work as hard as we do, want the same things, working less, enjoying life more, slowing down. Unfortunately, life is expensive. Our incomes have stagnated and our dollar buys less. I'd love to only work 3 days a week, but at my current salary, I'd have to live in a tent with my family of 4 and eat ramen and the occasional squirrel.

andegre 11y ago
Yep, if he'd pay my salary for the other 2 working days per week, I'd do the same thing...
basseq 11y ago
> I'd have to live in a tent with my family of 4 and eat ramen and the occasional squirrel. Or a "stone cottage in the Kumaon". We've been trained to maximize the curve: could you live an albeit different life on 60% of your pay and work three days a week? Most of us work five days a week: why don't you work all seven days a week and make 40% more?
- gregd 11y ago
  could you live an albeit different life on 60% of your pay and work three days a week? Yes. It consists of a tent, eating ramen and the occasional squirrel.
  - balabaster 11y ago
    You haven't really considered the alternatives available to you. A non-exhaustive list of possible solutions include: Do you have a yard or patio space? Start growing your own produce. Seeds are cheap and with a bit of time and love will pay you back forever more. Tomatoes, peppers and herbs will all grow well on a window sill. Potatoes, onions and garlic will all grow in a bag in the back of the pantry if you let them. You can multiply potatoes, onions and garlic quite easily. A big bag of flour can be found cheap (Costco for instance), make your own bread/pasta. That way you can supplement your Ramen with nutritious meals without breaking the bank. If you're in California (or somewhere else with a high amount of sunlight, which many HN readers appear to be) perhaps think about the option of solar panels on your roof to reduce your power bill (flyers and auctions are great places to find these cheap, Google will help you with installation and then you just need to find an inspector). Actually look at everything you spend money on in a month and ask yourself if there's a cheaper way to get those things without costing you so much money... and really look for solutions, you'd be surprised what you can find with a bit of ingenuity/creativity.
    - gregd 11y ago
      How would you know I haven't really considered the alternatives to living cheaper? I don't have a yard to grow vegetables. We live in an apartment. When we lived in Portland, we had a yard to grow vegetables but our monthly water bill was prohibitively expensive (we're talking hundreds of dollars every 3 months). Costco has a yearly membership fee, which I think at a minimum, is up to $75/year. I work full time and my wife is in school full time in another city. We have 2 children (I have 4 altogether) who are school age. How the fuck am I supposed to make bread and pasta? Our rent is just shy of $1400/month. Buying solar panels? What do solar panels cost nowadays and how much is installation? I can't install solar panels in my apartment. I don't have a car payment because our only car is paid off. Except for student loans, we are debt free. Edited to add: The other huge expense for us now is healthcare. The cost of healthcare for a family of 4 is astronomical.
      - organsnyder 11y ago
        It sounds like you're unable/unwilling to consider relocating as a way to minimize cost. That's fine—everyone is entitled to live where they feel is best for them—but there are plenty of locations where you could get much more space, in a good location, for less than $1400/month.
        gregd 11y ago
        What I don't understand, is the comment about relocating like it's like taking a walk in the park. Have you taken a look at how expensive simply moving is? There's the rental truck or pod, there's first, last and security deposit for the new place. Sometimes there's a doubling up of rent. If you're moving to different cities, there's the price of gas or diesel for your moving truck. Not to mention the time and energy it takes to pack up and move. Relocating isn't as easy as some people make it out to be....
        balabaster 11y ago
        I'd second this notion, having moved just about every year for the past 16 years, sometimes to different provinces and countries it's exhausting and can be extremely expensive. Sometimes you don't realize any savings from a move for many months or in some cases, years... and if you're unlucky, you don't realize any savings at all and in fact, hidden costs that you hadn't accounted for can end up costing you money or sinking you into a hole. So moving can also be a risk, sometimes, it's better the devil you know than the devil you don't. Moving cheaply requires good timing, a handy amount of free labour (i.e. friends that own trucks and owe you favours or like you enough to help just out of the goodness of their own hearts), a little good luck, a keen eye on available real estate and good negotiation skills. Without all of these lining up, it's likely to cost a bit.
balabaster 11y ago
Not bad for a guy I never heard of before... I'm working towards this myself. Homesteading is an easy way to move in this direction without needing such riches. It's not as much work as everyone says - though the work there is, is mostly physical. Your math/programming skills will help immensely if you want to build and automate everything yourself, which will make your life even easier in the long run. Your dollar buys much more when you grow all your own produce, dairy and meat. Seeds are cheap, a couple of cows, a couple of pigs and a handful of chickens will cost you far less than your annual meat/dairy bill and give you all the meat/dairy you could want indefinitely. The only thing that's prohibitive is growing enough wheat for flour - and only prohibitive from a space standpoint; but flour is cheap and making your own bread is easy. You don't need to live off Ramen and Squirrel. Rabbits breed like... well, rabbits and they're pretty tasty, cheap to keep, pretty hassle free and their manure is great for compost. Of course, slaughter isn't a pleasant experience, it's not all sunshine and light. I'm just an average guy, with an average income working an average 40 hours a week with a family. If I can afford it, then I'd wager that a decent portion of HN readers can afford it too. Life can be expensive if you let it, but there are many ways to live cheap and have a fulfilling life. If city life is too expensive for you to have a good work/life balance, you're living in the wrong place and working in the wrong job or working for the wrong company... unless you live to work, if you do, then more power to you.
- gregd 11y ago
  I'm not arguing against homesteading and it's actually been a dream of mine. However, marriage and children has altered my reality in ways that affect my ability to create a homestead. Here in the states, you still, at a minimum, have property taxes, utilities, car/gas, etc to pay for even if you want to live a homesteading life. I lived this way for a decent portion of my childhood. We had no running water and a 12 volt electrical system in the middle of nowhere in Northern California.
  - balabaster 11y ago
    I've got a family too... I was your typical city dweller/consumer until very recently. I'm not saying that you have to give up everything that comes with city life, I'm merely suggesting get creative. For sure taxes still need to be paid... do you have a spare room? Could you AirBnB to supplement your income? Could you reduce your utilities by switching up some stuff in your house? Perhaps it would be cheaper for a gas stove than electric? Could you put solar panels on your roof to sell electricity back to the grid? Could you get a bike and ride more places to use less gas? Would having septic save money on waste? Could you hang dry your laundry instead of using a dryer? Not saying that all or any of those are feasible for anyone/everyone, just offering some solutions that many people overlook when they think they're stuck and unable to reduce their costs any further and these things can be switched up without changing your lifestyle much/any. Some of them have a (in some cases large) up front cost, but then your monthly expenses can be reduced significantly which reduces your longer term income needs. ...and I don't know how you lived without running water, that's something I just can't give up, along with my washer and dishwasher.
chrisBob 11y ago
In the US reducing your hours is often ever worse than just taking the fractional pay cut: part time jobs don't typically include benefits, so you end up with much less than 60% pay for 60% of the work. If it weren't for health insurance this would seem like a much more reasonable option.
- humanrebar 11y ago
  > If it weren't for health insurance this would seem like a much more reasonable option. If health insurance (or childcare or disability insurance, etc.) weren't tied to employment, this would be a much more reasonable option. The first step towards more flexible work arrangements is to eliminate gap in taxes between self-purchased benefits and employer-provided benefits. This goes for everything from snacks to health insurance. It's silly and really an fairness issue (should the little guy needs a big employer to take care of him?).

by gregd 11y ago

andegre 11y ago

Yep, if he'd pay my salary for the other 2 working days per week, I'd do the same thing...

basseq 11y ago

> I'd have to live in a tent with my family of 4 and eat ramen and the occasional squirrel. Or a "stone cottage in the Kumaon". We've been trained to maximize the curve: could you live an albeit different life on 60% of your pay and work three days a week? Most of us work five days a week: why don't you work all seven days a week and make 40% more?

gregd 11y ago
could you live an albeit different life on 60% of your pay and work three days a week? Yes. It consists of a tent, eating ramen and the occasional squirrel.
- balabaster 11y ago
  You haven't really considered the alternatives available to you. A non-exhaustive list of possible solutions include: Do you have a yard or patio space? Start growing your own produce. Seeds are cheap and with a bit of time and love will pay you back forever more. Tomatoes, peppers and herbs will all grow well on a window sill. Potatoes, onions and garlic will all grow in a bag in the back of the pantry if you let them. You can multiply potatoes, onions and garlic quite easily. A big bag of flour can be found cheap (Costco for instance), make your own bread/pasta. That way you can supplement your Ramen with nutritious meals without breaking the bank. If you're in California (or somewhere else with a high amount of sunlight, which many HN readers appear to be) perhaps think about the option of solar panels on your roof to reduce your power bill (flyers and auctions are great places to find these cheap, Google will help you with installation and then you just need to find an inspector). Actually look at everything you spend money on in a month and ask yourself if there's a cheaper way to get those things without costing you so much money... and really look for solutions, you'd be surprised what you can find with a bit of ingenuity/creativity.
  - gregd 11y ago
    How would you know I haven't really considered the alternatives to living cheaper? I don't have a yard to grow vegetables. We live in an apartment. When we lived in Portland, we had a yard to grow vegetables but our monthly water bill was prohibitively expensive (we're talking hundreds of dollars every 3 months). Costco has a yearly membership fee, which I think at a minimum, is up to $75/year. I work full time and my wife is in school full time in another city. We have 2 children (I have 4 altogether) who are school age. How the fuck am I supposed to make bread and pasta? Our rent is just shy of $1400/month. Buying solar panels? What do solar panels cost nowadays and how much is installation? I can't install solar panels in my apartment. I don't have a car payment because our only car is paid off. Except for student loans, we are debt free. Edited to add: The other huge expense for us now is healthcare. The cost of healthcare for a family of 4 is astronomical.
    - organsnyder 11y ago
      It sounds like you're unable/unwilling to consider relocating as a way to minimize cost. That's fine—everyone is entitled to live where they feel is best for them—but there are plenty of locations where you could get much more space, in a good location, for less than $1400/month.
      - gregd 11y ago
        What I don't understand, is the comment about relocating like it's like taking a walk in the park. Have you taken a look at how expensive simply moving is? There's the rental truck or pod, there's first, last and security deposit for the new place. Sometimes there's a doubling up of rent. If you're moving to different cities, there's the price of gas or diesel for your moving truck. Not to mention the time and energy it takes to pack up and move. Relocating isn't as easy as some people make it out to be....
        balabaster 11y ago
        I'd second this notion, having moved just about every year for the past 16 years, sometimes to different provinces and countries it's exhausting and can be extremely expensive. Sometimes you don't realize any savings from a move for many months or in some cases, years... and if you're unlucky, you don't realize any savings at all and in fact, hidden costs that you hadn't accounted for can end up costing you money or sinking you into a hole. So moving can also be a risk, sometimes, it's better the devil you know than the devil you don't. Moving cheaply requires good timing, a handy amount of free labour (i.e. friends that own trucks and owe you favours or like you enough to help just out of the goodness of their own hearts), a little good luck, a keen eye on available real estate and good negotiation skills. Without all of these lining up, it's likely to cost a bit.

balabaster 11y ago

Not bad for a guy I never heard of before... I'm working towards this myself. Homesteading is an easy way to move in this direction without needing such riches. It's not as much work as everyone says - though the work there is, is mostly physical. Your math/programming skills will help immensely if you want to build and automate everything yourself, which will make your life even easier in the long run. Your dollar buys much more when you grow all your own produce, dairy and meat. Seeds are cheap, a couple of cows, a couple of pigs and a handful of chickens will cost you far less than your annual meat/dairy bill and give you all the meat/dairy you could want indefinitely. The only thing that's prohibitive is growing enough wheat for flour - and only prohibitive from a space standpoint; but flour is cheap and making your own bread is easy. You don't need to live off Ramen and Squirrel. Rabbits breed like... well, rabbits and they're pretty tasty, cheap to keep, pretty hassle free and their manure is great for compost. Of course, slaughter isn't a pleasant experience, it's not all sunshine and light. I'm just an average guy, with an average income working an average 40 hours a week with a family. If I can afford it, then I'd wager that a decent portion of HN readers can afford it too. Life can be expensive if you let it, but there are many ways to live cheap and have a fulfilling life. If city life is too expensive for you to have a good work/life balance, you're living in the wrong place and working in the wrong job or working for the wrong company... unless you live to work, if you do, then more power to you.

gregd 11y ago
I'm not arguing against homesteading and it's actually been a dream of mine. However, marriage and children has altered my reality in ways that affect my ability to create a homestead. Here in the states, you still, at a minimum, have property taxes, utilities, car/gas, etc to pay for even if you want to live a homesteading life. I lived this way for a decent portion of my childhood. We had no running water and a 12 volt electrical system in the middle of nowhere in Northern California.
- balabaster 11y ago
  I've got a family too... I was your typical city dweller/consumer until very recently. I'm not saying that you have to give up everything that comes with city life, I'm merely suggesting get creative. For sure taxes still need to be paid... do you have a spare room? Could you AirBnB to supplement your income? Could you reduce your utilities by switching up some stuff in your house? Perhaps it would be cheaper for a gas stove than electric? Could you put solar panels on your roof to sell electricity back to the grid? Could you get a bike and ride more places to use less gas? Would having septic save money on waste? Could you hang dry your laundry instead of using a dryer? Not saying that all or any of those are feasible for anyone/everyone, just offering some solutions that many people overlook when they think they're stuck and unable to reduce their costs any further and these things can be switched up without changing your lifestyle much/any. Some of them have a (in some cases large) up front cost, but then your monthly expenses can be reduced significantly which reduces your longer term income needs. ...and I don't know how you lived without running water, that's something I just can't give up, along with my washer and dishwasher.

chrisBob 11y ago

In the US reducing your hours is often ever worse than just taking the fractional pay cut: part time jobs don't typically include benefits, so you end up with much less than 60% pay for 60% of the work. If it weren't for health insurance this would seem like a much more reasonable option.

humanrebar 11y ago
> If it weren't for health insurance this would seem like a much more reasonable option. If health insurance (or childcare or disability insurance, etc.) weren't tied to employment, this would be a much more reasonable option. The first step towards more flexible work arrangements is to eliminate gap in taxes between self-purchased benefits and employer-provided benefits. This goes for everything from snacks to health insurance. It's silly and really an fairness issue (should the little guy needs a big employer to take care of him?).