[troupo]

Even hosting friends at your house incurs a cost, however small: for extra food and drinks.

Literally every human activity incurs a cost. Well, you can become a Hikikomori, so your only expenses will be electircity and internet.

[pastage]

If you equate a good time with spending money it is always going to cost money. I do almost nothing with my time that cost money, I have a lot of perks paid by work that I do not use because I just see no use for them.

[troupo]

> If you equate a good time with spending money it is always going to cost money

I'm not equaling anything with anything. I'm pointing out the reality to people claiming that "oh it's so easy to maintain any kind of hobbies and/or social life without spending a penny"

> I do almost nothing with my time that cost money

Oh, I'm sure you do plenty, you just don't assume there are expenses in what you do. I'm not claiming they are huge expenses. I'm just saying things not free

[47282847]

> I'm pointing out the reality to people claiming that "oh it's so easy to maintain any kind of hobbies and/or social life without spending a penny".

Not any, but a sufficiently large amount of options. You may not enjoy those, which translates into “you will need time to adapt to it“, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

I meet with most of my friends der outdoors, for walks and hiking. We bring our own bottled tap water (I could never imagine to live in a place without good tap water) and snacks or cooked food, blankets, games. We usually take our bikes, or trains for longer distance trips. We throw parties in public parks. We go camping with tents on semi-illegal public areas. (The Park4night app for example is great for that.) All of this and more can be done for daily social activities and vacations at very little expense.

I’m writing this from a bakery with self-service, and there’s a family teaching chess to a girl at another table. Beautiful.

Compared with most of my social environment that decided to work full time, I think I have a lot more flexibility and voluntary social interactions. They are usually tired after a day of forced interactions; I manage to almost exclusively have voluntary interactions. I do not work with people who I don’t like. My time on this earth is too precious to waste on that.

It’s totally fine if the adjustments and adapting (not tradeoffs, because on a needs-based analysis it doesn’t require any) are not worth it for you (which raises the question of currency), but you and others in this thread make it sound like a horrible lifestyle for anyone, which is simply not the case. I would go as far as to claim it’s easier to maintain an unhealthy lifestyle with lots of money than with little. It’s just that most of us are so used to the stress that we had to stop listening to our own bodies (and often silence it with pills once it starts screaming). Spending money helps to obscure the real underlying need, and too often serves as a short-term patch. A limited budget forces you into thinking and feeling into what it is really about.

It can be inspiring to some to hear stories of people who found creative low-cost solutions to get their needs met. No need to question their ability to take care of themselves, and imply that they need to do without some crucial element of life and suffer.

[troupo]

> > I'm pointing out the reality to people claiming that "oh it's so easy to maintain any kind of hobbies and/or social life without spending a penny".

> Not any, but a sufficiently large amount of options.

...

> tents, blankets, bikes, train rides, bakery...

(also, depending on amount of hiking also shoes, backpacks and some other gear)

To quote myself, "Oh, I'm sure you do plenty [of things], you just don't assume there are expenses in what you do. I'm not claiming they are huge expenses. I'm just saying things are not free"

> No need to question their ability to take care of themselves

There's only one need: to read what your opponent actually writes.

[47282847]

Ok, so you feel not heard with what you wrote, and thus assumed I didn’t read what you wrote. Sounds like you feel attacked by my perspective, and misunderstood. And then turned it completely unnecessarily into an insinuation. I understand this is standard procedure for many but I am not interested in insinuations and consider them to be violent speech. There are other ways to express discontent.

I’ve been gifted 3 used tents in my life, and offered a lot more. You do not even need your own and can join friends in theirs. In most places there are free bikes that need less than $20 in parts to repair. Friends of mine collect free bikes by the dozen and repair them in their community bike shop, as volunteers for a non-profit. And so on. Nowhere did I mean to imply that you might not benefit from money. The topic is not about free living, but living on the cheap.

That being said, I know people who lived completely moneyless on purpose, as a challenge, a life experience, and without suffering/unfulfilled needs.

[pastage]

> "oh it's so easy to ...

That I agree with it is only easy for me because I do not have to care if I spend too much. It is easy to make the choice though, doing it effectively is of course hard. I do believe this article is pretty bad, but you can build a life along those lines if you want to.

I think the hardest is living cheap is when you do not have any money