Affluent Homeless

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EdithKeeler
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Affluent Homeless

Post by EdithKeeler »

This piece on NPR seems to fit in with what we often talk about here:
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/23/71510713 ... of-clothes
Johnson says he owns so little that he has even been able to get rid of his backpack. "I gave that up two months ago," he says.

He says that for him, this lifestyle isn't cumbersome or confusing. "That's what's great," he says. "When you don't own things, you don't have to keep track of them. You just show up."

7Wannabe5
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Re: Affluent Homeless

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Yeah, that's pretty much my lifestyle, except for the fact that I own a large garden and a once again growing inventory of rare books and a car that allows me to haul garden/book business associated stuff around. I have a mailing address, and keys to 3 domiciles, but basically I am currently living/working out of my car. One of the reasons I like it is because it makes me feel young-ish.

I would note that this trend is not limited to individuals. Many or most businesses and corporations are similarly traveling light or modular.

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unemployable
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Re: Affluent Homeless

Post by unemployable »

I was "homeless" for eight days recently moving from the Gulf Coast back to Colorado for the summer. My total lodging cost was $0, although that included one night in a hotel paid for with points.

Homelessness is basically what I live for. A combination of sleeping in the car, the backcountry, with friends, relatives and forking over for the occasional hotel room. I'm very careful not to overuse the "friends" aspect -- rarely is it more than one night at a time. I've discussed buying a house here, but it would basically serve as a glorified storage locker.

Not really into shared space with strangers though. Hell is other people.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Affluent Homeless

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I think a good part of mastering the trick of Lentil-Baby skillz leading to zero-housing costs in reasonably comfortable or scenic environments, is to comprehend the difference between all that constitutes the verb "home-making" from the noun "housing." Then, when you "make yourself at home" in any domicile, you will tend towards improving the lifestyle of those around you also.

I think my early heavy reading of late 19th early 20th century virtue-through-good-housekeeping novels gave me a head start on this.

SustainableHappiness
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Re: Affluent Homeless

Post by SustainableHappiness »

unemployable wrote:
Mon Apr 29, 2019 11:57 am
Hell is other people.
So is Heaven.

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Re: Affluent Homeless

Post by jacob »

It's podshare.co.

Here's an older article I bookmarked from the same place: https://www.npr.org/2018/10/21/65442657 ... g-in-a-pod
"We kind of have four different customer types," he said. "We have a 'starter,' who's just coming to a new city and wants to grab life by its horns. We have a 'restarter,' somebody who's 30 to 40 who maybe had a divorce or had a really tough roommate situation and is tired of running a home."

Then there are the "life shapers," who Dishotsky describes as champions of co-living as a long-term lifestyle. And finally there's the out-of-towners who need a local place to crash for a month or two because of, say, a job assignment.
One of the more interesting (to me) concepts is their plan to build a network of places where you would have access to any of them when you pay the rent. Of course any hotel chain could do exactly the same(*). A lower rate in exchange for dependable payments.

(*) Why don't they? Or are some already doing it?

One of the things that bothers me is the steep price of $1400/month/person which is hailed as being much cheaper than a $2000/month studio but still on the order of 5x what I'm happy to pay. Obviously it's technically possible to offer something cheaper (see e.g. student housing). I'm wondering whether this is set so as to---and there's not politically correct way of saying this---not turn the place into a ghetto.

PS: Compared to every other arrangement, I've found one-bag travel or "carry-on minimalism" to be tremendously liberating both in terms of not having to "run a home" but also in moving around. All that outsourcing does have a price tag though in that one continuously have to arrange for the services that one would normally provide for oneself. I suppose the outsourcing could be outsourced as well (concierge service).

Stahlmann
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Re: Affluent Homeless

Post by Stahlmann »

jacob wrote:
Tue Apr 30, 2019 8:37 am
(1) A lower rate in exchange for dependable payments.

(*) Why don't they? Or are some already doing it?

One of the things that bothers me is the steep price of $1400/month/person which is hailed as being much cheaper than a $2000/month studio but still on the order of 5x what I'm happy to pay. (2) Obviously it's technically possible to offer something cheaper (see e.g. student housing). (3) I'm wondering whether this is set so as to---and there's not politically correct way of saying this---not turn the place into a ghetto.
1) prolly they do that now. simply higher ends hotels used by local bourgeois prolly have long term contracts for catering high earning folks during their business trips (yes, multiple people for short time, but in the end rooms are booked whole given time).

there're also special hotels (rather motels) for long term stay, especially for blue collar workers (at least in my part of the world). it's very often connected with immigrants, so I don't know how it would in USA. try checking this.

2) it's rather subsidized (to some extent).
anyway, I'm also fell in love with dormitories after some trip.
I'm also on my search for "capsuled living" without pretentious, consumer "experience".
I also observed another term... prices of RE go up, but offered space goes down with balant, stupid marketing :lol:

3) not abusing 30% of population who wouldn't understand this sentence? who would think about it in any economical system?

EdithKeeler
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Re: Affluent Homeless

Post by EdithKeeler »

One of the things that bothers me is the steep price of $1400/month/person which is hailed as being much cheaper than a $2000/month studio but still on the order of 5x what I'm happy to pay.
Yeah, to me $1400 a month is a crazy price for a pod. But I don’t get the whole “gotta live in New York/LA/San Francisco thing, either.

$1800 a month in Memphis would buy or rent you a 4 BR/3 BA home on almost half an acre. In a GOOD neighborhood.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2548 ... 6438_zpid/

Yeah, I get it—not everyone wants to live in a smaller city, but there are definite advantages.

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unemployable
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Re: Affluent Homeless

Post by unemployable »

That isn't like dorm life, it is dorm life. Wait, not even that, more like a couple steps up from prison. Meanwhile you can rent furnished 1BRs in rural areas for half that or less, right now on Craigslist. The ones I follow are in mountainous/ski resort areas, so there's plenty of stuff to do and a good job base.

Most hotels throughout the price spectrum will negotiate a monthly rate if you just call the property and ask for the manager. You shouldn't have to pay sales/occupancy tax if it's longer than ~28 days. In exchange you may have to agree to less frequent maid service or no points. It's all on your credit card too, so all the benefits of that and no background search or related crap.

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Re: Affluent Homeless

Post by Jin+Guice »

I have a long journal post about this, but I was homeless by choice for ~14 (non-consecutive) months in NYC between 2009-2011. From 2011-2013 I lived on two different friends couches in New Orleans, initially cooking food for a woman from couchsurfing's family and then paying $100/ month to live on a friend's couch. I also traveled the U.S. by bus for 5 months during this period staying with friends and couchsurfing hosts exclusively. From 2013-2016 I slept in my grad student office in Baton Rouge 3.5 days a week while school was in session.

All this is to say that affluent homelessness is very close to my heart. Doing this is what sent me down the path of ERE before I knew about ERE. While I appreciate the popularization of the lifestyle, paying $1,400 a month to live with no stuff in a shared room breaks my heart. I never paid more than $500 for a room in NYC. If you show up with a bottle of whiskey and a pocket full of adderall people will let you sleep on their couch. I imagine doing dishes instead of having drugs would work too.

After you've experienced homelessness living in a house sucks. Even someone like Jacob who is really maxxxing the fuck out of living in a house is still going to have to spend a lot of time taking care of the extra space. The useful parts of having a house are 1) having a place to cook and store food, 2) having a place where you can be alone* if you want to and 3) being able to do homesteading shit like have a garden.

I really hope I return to affluent homelessness at some point. One of my goals is to live outside for a year (tent aloud) before I'm 50.



*side note: Soooo many people who told me they couldn't live like I did because they value alone time now share a house with a spouse and have kids == no privacy.

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Re: Affluent Homeless

Post by unemployable »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Tue Apr 30, 2019 8:28 pm
After you've experienced homelessness living in a house sucks. Even someone like Jacob who is really maxxxing the fuck out of living in a house is still going to have to spend a lot of time taking care of the extra space. The useful parts of having a house are 1) having a place to cook and store food, 2) having a place where you can be alone* if you want to and 3) being able to do homesteading shit like have a garden.
There's the whole sleeping in your own bed and shitting on your own can thing too.

OTOH most people taking vacations pay twice for housing -- their house they're not living in, plus the cost of a hotel. But travel while homeless and sleep in the backcountry or in your car and you're not paying for housing at all! You can live in your car, but you can't drive your house.

A lot of the people profiled in these articles are in their mid-30s. Living a lifestyle I got sick of at like 20. You mean to tell me after 10-15 years you haven't advanced in your career and/or saved up enough by now to afford something better? Well, that's your mistake.

I get uber and airbnb. This isn't the "sharing economy", though; this is the "desperation economy".

Pay $40K for a house in rural Arkansas, or $30k for a condo and have a MUCH better quality of life. I'm deciding this is my drum I'm going to keep beating around here.

sky
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Re: Affluent Homeless

Post by sky »

After a few months of living in a van, I am always happy to get back to a hot shower and endless water out of the tap.

EdithKeeler
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Re: Affluent Homeless

Post by EdithKeeler »

After you've experienced homelessness living in a house sucks.
Not for everyone. I did the elective “homeless” thing for a while after college in 87-88 or so. (Actually I lived in a townhouse, off the lease, with friends. I don’t think anyone at that time considered that “homeless.”) What I remember about it was sleeping on a sofa with stuffing coming out of it in a smelly basement. There were 5 of us in a townhouse, and what I recall was the kitchen always being a mess, people partying and drinking when I was studying for a work exam, always having to wait for or hurry in the bathroom, and no privacy for dates, etc... or dates getting evaluated by my roomies. I remember my feet being black from the dirty floor, and giant coils of hair in the bathroom. I remember drinking a lot and smoking a lot of weed, and having a lot of fun.

But I also remember how nice it was when I moved into a tiny apartment and I had a place for more stuff than a small suitcase, other people didn’t eat my food, etc. When I finally bought a house, it felt great knowing it was MINE.

I just closed on my new house today. I really like having a home base that’s mine.

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Re: Affluent Homeless

Post by theanimal »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Tue Apr 30, 2019 8:28 pm

*side note: Soooo many people who told me they couldn't live like I did because they value alone time now share a house with a spouse and have kids == no privacy.
I had the same feeling when I was homeless last summer. At least for me, it's not so much a place to go to be alone as it is a place to do whatever that is not a public space. I did not find hanging out in public spaces all the time to be that enjoyable. Spending time at a friends house, whether they were there or not was enough to fulfill that need.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Affluent Homeless

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Jin+Guice wrote:If you show up with a bottle of whiskey and a pocket full of adderall people will let you sleep on their couch. I imagine doing dishes instead of having drugs would work too.
:lol:

It's different being "homeless" when you are somebody who vibes more like Doris Day than Juvenile. Like if you saw me hitch-hiking, you would more likely think it was a sign of the apocalypse or nearby dangerous chemical leak. It was not my intention to adopt the lifestyle, but after I divorced, unloaded my large nest and sent both my kids off to college, I ended up mostly living out of the warehouse/office space I was renting. Since then I have been bouncing from one alternative option to another, and I haven't signed a lease or been on a mortgage for around 12 years now.

I am interested in the option of paying cash for something very inexpensive, like the $40,000 rural Arkansas house unemployablee mentioned. One of the reasons I hesitate to do this yet is I haven't decided whether I want to share house space with some grouchy old man in the future, and I think buying a house when you are single makes it harder to become successfully coupled unless you go through the hassle of selling the house and buying a new one together. I was willing to live with my "ex" in his camper, but I couldn't tolerate living with him in the home he had established prior to our relationship. I think this is why the dating thread on Paul Wheaton's permaculture forum is just about as unsuccessful as the one on this forum. It's hard to blend large "estates" unless they happen to be adjoining.

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Re: Affluent Homeless

Post by OTCW »

EdithKeeler wrote:
Tue Apr 30, 2019 12:05 pm
Yeah, to me $1400 a month is a crazy price for a pod. But I don’t get the whole “gotta live in New York/LA/San Francisco thing, either.

$1800 a month in Memphis would buy or rent you a 4 BR/3 BA home on almost half an acre. In a GOOD neighborhood.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2548 ... 6438_zpid/

Yeah, I get it—not everyone wants to live in a smaller city, but there are definite advantages.
Is Ridgeway still a GOOD area? I have no idea, but from my time living in Memphis, whole neighborhoods changed from good to bad faster than any place I know of. The whole city seemed to be in a constant state of flux.

EdithKeeler
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Re: Affluent Homeless

Post by EdithKeeler »

Is Ridgeway still a GOOD area? I have no idea, but from my time living in Memphis, whole neighborhoods changed from good to bad faster than any place I know of. The whole city seemed to be in a constant state of flux.
Where this particular house is, it's pretty good.

When did you live here? I moved here in 1997 (the first time) and that was a really weird time because of the issue with the city annexing the various unincorporated parts of the county. Annexation ruined Hickory HIll, and it didn't do a lot for Cordova. Though things have calmed down now, but when area were annexed, that changed parts of the city pretty rapidly.

Memphis is a very affordable city, and while it's definitely got its negatives (oh, yes it does...) but it's got a lot of positives, too. Memphis' biggest problem is that most of the residents don't take a lot of pride in their city. When I moved back from Dallas, I got a lot of "ew, you moved back here...why??" Crime is a problem--some places. I wrote about my own brushes with crime (my house was robbed--twice). YET--it's also a pretty friendly, surprisingly tolerant town despite all the bible thumpers, there are good restaurants here, and surprisingly a pretty good arts scene. And housing is very affordable.

I recently got back from Atlanta. I can't help but compare the 2 cities--both southern cities, with all the pluses and minuses of what that means. Obviously Atlanta is much more affluent, but the traffic situation is freaking CRAZY. Housing is WAY more expensive. Sure, there are jobs, and they probably pay a bit more than Memphis, but in many ways I'd argue the quality of life is not as good as Memphis', unless you live close to your office or really, really enjoy watching the taillights of the car in front of you for hours.

I'm not doing the chamber of commerce thing for Memphis, for sure, but it's where I am now, and I mostly like it OK, but I'm pretty sure I won't live here forever. But I do get a little frustrated with people that think the only places to live are NYC, LA, San Fran, or Boston....and then complain about the cost of living, etc.

I think in a town like Memphis especially, a hard working college graduate with good math and writing skills would be in high demand for lots and lots of companies. We actually have three Fortune 500 companies here: Autozone, Fed Ex, and International Paper, and there are other big companies based here as well. Sadly, the vast majority of the population isn't well educated, so some who has their shit together could do well, I think, and enjoy a lower cost of living.

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Re: Affluent Homeless

Post by prognastat »

Working 50+ hours a week with a spouse that was also working more than full time while trying to maintain a 3 bedroom 2.5 bathrooms wasn't fun. It would probably have been a decent bit easier if it weren't for the pets, but still maintaining a whole house while both parties are working long days sucks up whatever little time is left.

I might feel different if the situation had been where one of the two living in the house didn't work and was taking on most of the house work or if both were only working 40 hours a week or less.

Until I FIRE I don't know if I want to be in the same position again.

OTCW
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Re: Affluent Homeless

Post by OTCW »

EdithKeeler wrote:
Wed May 01, 2019 10:11 pm
I grew up there from 1974 (age 2) to 1990 (age 18), and later worked there for a while in the mid 90s. I like the City, but it has it's struggles. I grew up in Whitehaven and lived out in Bartlett later.

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Re: Affluent Homeless

Post by Ego »

I was shocked when I saw the $50b valuation for WeWork. While I like the concept, I never really understood why someone would pay serious money for something that could be had for free or cheap from a dozen alternatives.

Are they really selling a solution to loneliness?

https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/ ... ibe-wework

Loneliness is pervasive, particularly among younger people. We’re moving across the country, ripping ourselves away from social networks that can take years to construct. We’re delaying marriage and kids, or skipping them entirely. We’re working all the time, often alone, outside the confines of a traditional office and without the camaraderie of coworkers.

Capitalism abhors a vacuum, and into this collective social void has stepped a fleet of companies and entrepreneurs selling an end to social isolation. Over the past decade, on-demand connection has become both a big business and a powerful marketing opportunity. From co-living apartments to coworking spaces to apps that help facilitate human connection, there is a lot of investment and infrastructure being built around services that help humans bond with other humans.

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