[gregd]

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.

[balabaster]

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.

[random28345]

> Homesteading is an easy way to move in this direction without needing such riches.

Homesteading is a great way to work significantly harder for a lower standard of living.

> Your math/programming skills will help immensely if you want to build and automate everything yourself

Your math/programming skills will help a lot more by helping you exchange your labor for money, which you can then exchange for food, clothing, and shelter. Your average developer salary can buy you more and better food and goods than you can make yourself in a cabin in the woods.

If you prefer to spend 30 minutes a day collecting $6.00 worth of eggs and milk, that's a lifestyle choice, not a financial one.

[balabaster]

> Homesteading is a great way to work significantly harder for a lower standard of living.

I disagree with the lower standard of living. My standard of living hasn't changed any. In fact my sense of well-being and satisfaction has increased dramatically. My peace of mind that I know where my food comes from, from beginning to end is immeasurable. I will agree that it was a bit of work to set up, sure, but most of it takes care of itself. It takes 60 seconds to collect the eggs each morning.

I also disagree with your labour for money purchasing better quality food. Most of the food you buy in the store and at restaurants is packed full of stuff that's bad for you (look at the world's obesity and allergy problems that are escalating every year).

Homesteading is not analogous to living in a cabin in the woods (contrary to common belief). You can live a modern life with modern amenities while growing/making your own food which is more satisfying and better for you. We still have running water, a flushing toilet, a dishwasher, washer, stove, TV, cable and broadband internet - and I still live within an hour's commute of work and still buy clothes and other goods. Without having to buy all our produce/eggs, we free up a few grand a year for other projects/vacations/trips/excursions/events. So counter to your argument that it's a lower standard of living, our standard of living has increased.

Of course, you can sit in a restaurant eating high fat food joining the rest of the sedentary obese population and call that "a higher standard of living" if you choose; or you can use your time at the gym or out running or doing other exercise to keep your calorie balance in check, to keep our bodies healthy which takes what? Half an hour, an hour a day? I used to be like this, living the high life, enjoying the luxuries, increasing the size of my pants and my hours of exercise as each year passed. I'm done with it. I spend less time doing physical activity homesteading, I'm eating more nutritious food and I'm losing weight.

The other plus is that knowing how to provide all that stuff for ourselves eases our burden on the rest of society having to provide it for us and when stuff goes wrong and there's a run on the grocery stores and shelves are emptied, us and our neighbours barely notice the difference.

[gregd]

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]

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.

[gregd]

Living without running water sucked. We had to drive to town (another expense) to shower at the campgrounds for a dollar, three times per week. We also had to drive to a rest stop south of our town to fill our 50 gallon barrel full of water for the week.

Obtaining running water was the first thing we did but it consisted of hiring a well witcher, drilling for water, putting a well in, putting in a pressure tank and piping to the house. It was a major expense. We had gray water for a few years, but eventually had to put in a septic system when we ditched the outhouse and installed a toilet.

[balabaster]

This is something I will need to consider shortly (off-grid build in the next year or two), I have much research to do on this first. I didn't realize Well Witchers were still used, I thought there was some scientific method and Well Witchers/Dowsers had been relegated to history - fascinating.

[craigwblake]

> I thought there was some scientific method and Well Witchers/Dowsers had been relegated to history

Nowadays a professional hydrologist is who you'd contract for the task. They will do a geologic survey and fracture trace analysis using data from satellite imagery, the USGS and related state agencies in order to identify fissures within the underground rock formations that are most likely to hold a suitably sized pocket of water with good recovery. Then they might conduct electrical resistivity tomography to directly measure and image the density of subsurface material to identify water pockets and narrow down good drilling spots. It's a far cry from the sort of thing that might be characterized as dowsing.

[gregd]

I'm not sure what they would use today for finding water. We're talking a good 30 years ago. On an interesting side note, I discovered that I had the ability to witch for water, which I've never really put to good use.

I've also had experience installing a catch box (there's another term for it that escapes me right now) in a creek and running miles of pipe always with a slow decent to gravity feed several holding tanks. A word of warning, bears are curious about the sound of running water through pvc pipe, so bury that pipe...

[chrisBob]

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]

> 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?).

[basseq]

> 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]

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]

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]

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.

[balabaster]

I wasn't suggesting those are all the solutions to your woes. There are many creative ways to live and the solutions that are right for you aren't going to be the solutions that are right for everyone. Perhaps you're living the cheapest way you can in the environment you have to be in for the moment, perhaps the only creative thing you can do to live the life you want is to re-prioritize. Perhaps that is not feasible for the moment either. Only you know the answer to that.

Costco does have a membership fee which (I think you're right) is $75 a year, but you get an annual dividend out of that membership depending on how much you spend there. Over the course of your annual membership, it's easy to save way more than the $75 you spend between the dividend and because the cost per unit of goods are much cheaper for many things.

Solar panels can be expensive, it's a good idea to keep your eye on sales, flyers and auction sites to get great deals and only buy when you find a good deal. I have no idea how much installation would be where you live. Me and my father-in-law are both pretty handy and Google pretty much tells us everything we need to do to install them. All you need is an inspector. With Google you can pretty much do anything you can imagine with a bit of ingenuity.

Having an apartment is limiting, for sure. But even growing some produce in the window will save some money.

Making bread and pasta is easy: Flour, salt, eggs, water, yeast will see you through both. Having some basic ingredients in the house will take you a long way to being able to make whatever you want without having to pay retail for it, and it's thoroughly satisfying. Again, Google is your friend.

Congrats being debt free. That is a tough thing for many/most people to be able to say in today's economy.

[organsnyder]

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]

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....

[andegre]

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