So growing up, I had this idea that the American dream was about that if you put in an honest amount of work, you would be rewarded with a good life. This would mean you would be able to take care of yourself and your family, afford a car and a house. In my view, working one job would probably be enough.
Nowadays, I get the idea that the American dream has become about working your ass off in order to have a chance to become a millionaire. Somehow glorifying “the grind” appears to be a part of it too now.
The american dream was for the boomers who were promised pensions and social securitybin an era where the dollar had some semblance of value. We will never ever have those things. Even the boomers who get 800$ in SS are eaten alive with rent and forced into starving or living out of their cars in today’s economy.
The american dream is called that because, you have to be asleep to believe it. We are much more awake as a society to the systems reality. Most of us are wagies that only exist in the eyes of the govt and corpos to pay taxes and generate profit until we get too old then put to pasture. The average life expectancy is 75, most of the boomers who retired at 65 maybe had 10-15 ‘golden years’ they couldn’t enjoy cause they were too old
You don’t need the american dream. You don’t need to work your whole life to pay off a 500,000$ mortgage on some shitty suburbanite hellhole with a terrible hoa. You don’t need to go the common path most people do. I feel pity for anyone who got tricked into being an indentured slave to the banks/economy because they were a thoughtless monkey in their 20s who signed the dotted line on 50k in debt for a worthless degree and another 300k debt on a house because “family/kids”. The only way to really be happy is to gibe the finger to the normal path and do something alternative.
Work hard, learn to save/invest in actual assets, don’t squirrel away your money in a bank account forever since inflation will eat away its value if you just have it sit there. Have an e-fund of 3k to 6k, buy a van and convert it into a semi-living/camping space. Develop hobbies with actual skills, start your own small concession business. Don’t buy a house buy land and develop the skills to build one yourself while living in a canvas tent. Plainly put, most people are too stupid, lazy, and unwilling to go without modern convinence. It takes a surprisingly little amount of money to live a comfortable lifestyle if you are intelligent, creative, driven, adaptive, and open to new experiences even if the outcome may be uncertain.
So just rent your whole life and do what for food?
No you live out of your car for a few months while you work and pay yourself the 800-2500$ in "rent’ you become your own landlord and save that money towards a used van or boxtruck you want (stay away from RVs campers trailers and skoolies they are all money sinks maintenance wise) it wont ve comfy living out of a suv or prius but plenty people have done it, helps if your short. for cooking and heat you get a Coleman propane stove make sure to do research and install detectors. Showers either boil some water and do farmers bath or get a new pump sprayer spay paint it black and solar warm the water. You pee in a bottle and go water a tree. You have a sealable poop bucket. Get a shower tent if you need. You buy nonperishable foods or use a cooler with ice. Summers will be rough without air conditioning, no lie. Either tolerate the season with plenty of water and shade or invest in enough solar+power station or fuel gens to run air conditioning in a small canvas tent. Or go to a colder higher elevation, nice benefit of nomadic living is being able to go anywhere anytime. Live well below your means, become your own landlord, become a resident of a state like Nevada where they don’t do property or income tax and get some nomadic living in. Explore the country and all its beauty before its all gone. If you work hard for part of the year and save really well and live cheap you can get by on a year or even a year and a half no work. Or you can put the nose to the grinder/get a skilled high pay position to save up 10-15k and buy a plot of land somewhere with natural resources like wood and water then plop a little cabin on it.
Or i could get a job and skip straight to the end.
I have a good job though, $15 an hour in a low CoL area, and I only have like 3 hours of work a day.
Before this i made about $21 an hour plus like 8 hours of overtime amd that job was gravy until we got a bad manager that made all of the experienced employees quit.
How can you live on only $45 / day, $225/week, $900/month?
I get $120 a day. 8 hours at $15. I only actually need 3 hours to get my job done if that and I have 8 hours to do it in.
Ah ok that makes more sense. Don’t feel obligated though to stay at a job that only pays $15/hr. There are jobs out there that can pay far more so it doesn’t hurt to aggressively negotiate terms.
Yes you most certainly could. Everyone’s priorities and desires and life circumstances are so very different, to each their own.
My point was that it is entirely possible to live an enjoyable and more or less comfortable way of life that doesn’t require being a wagie slave to landlords/banks or kill yourself with work the whole year.
Many people live just below their means month to month unable to save up for a basic emergency fund and then wonder what to do when the economy takes a dive and they’re left homeless.
Even if you never want to do nomadic living having a reliable semi-livable apartment on wheels stocked with supplies and essential survival equipment ready to go is great. It gives you a sense of freedom and a security backup just in case your life ever burns down. Take it and do some car camping on the weekends at your nearest national park or boondock at BLM land. If you do the slightest bit of custom work when converting and you can sell it for a pretty penny.
Not everyone is able to work a full time job or desire develop high paying skills. There is no ‘right way’ to live. If you want to just buy land and homestead do it! If you want to travel do it! If you aren’t satisfied with the life you are living try a different mode of existence you may find at heart you aren’t truly a money hungry rat racer. Also keep in mind its much easier to save up money for land if you don’t pay rent especially if you are only making 15-21/hr. Hate to tell you this but inflation has gotten so bad 15$ is unofficial minimum wage (unofficial minimum wage is whatever McDonald pays). Those numbers would have been impressive five years ago. Not anymore.
My point was for where I live those pay more than enough to get by.
In New York not so much, but here it is fine, especially since i have only a couple hours work. I am extremely overpaid for my job.
Also 15-21 was never a bragging amount unless you went back like 15 years ago when minimum wage was 5.25, the point was you don’t need to make tons of cash to live well here and that get a job and just buy a house works for a ton of people here.
I am surrounded by houses in the 35-40k range if i want to move 30 minutes away into a small town.
All that is true, but you forgot to add the part where the person living the life you propose is healthy, quite fit even. Not everyone, even fit young people, would do well living in a tent while they try to understand how to build a house. Let alone run a concessions stand from a van or something. That takes a massive physical toll and not even over the long run.
@recursiveparadox Thanks for your thoughts! I somewhat disagree that you need to be a fit and physically active person to do most things I mentioned. Definitely not everyone can build a cabin but if you want to live out of van and pitch tent and boondocks its certainly possible for the old and out of shape.
Here are the two things I point to. When doing my own research I came across these two particular yt channels that truly inspired me! cheaprvliving and Bushradical.
Cheaprvliving’s host Bob wells is a now 70 year old and sort of out of shape man who still manages to live the van lifestyle. Just a few weeks he reviewed putting up a canvas tent and hooking it with solar powered air conditioner. In the Midwestern desert summer.
He also has constant interviews with many people usually on the older side who are again in no way healthy or fit and some partially disabled but still able to make the nomadic lifestyle work.
Its quite sad but a lot of older people are forced into homelessness as their rent eats them alive with meager SS. Young people also sometimes appear but not as much as you would expect.
As for the concession stand thing Maybe I’m not sure how physically able you need to be to tow and detach a small concession trailer. You make a good point there. Can always have an online store and ship depending on the thing selling maybe. Bob however did have a trailer attached to one of his rigs about five years ago and managed to get it around as a 65 yo man.
Cheaprvliving channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAj7O3LCDbkIR54hAn6Zz7A
Bushradical is a couple with years of experience building cabins that have made excellent videos on how to build the cheapest and easiest lodges possible. The way they show this particular build it seems possible. They truly present it in a way that I am convinced I could realistically do it with maybe a few novice beginner mistakes. As a single person.
Bushradical easy cabin blackthereof https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOOXmfkXpkM&t=1
Everyone’s lie circumstances and desires are so different so what may work for one person won’t work for all others, but I think a lot of people have alternative options available to them that they either never think about or convince themselves they can’t for X reasons. At the end of the day people are responsible for the life they choose to live and the resulting satisfaction they get living it or lackthereof
You make some good points, thanks for that. And unfortunately as you allude, this may become the fate of many in the not too distant future, whether they choose the lifestyle of their own volition …or not.
No, the phrase was coined in the early 1900s, and became popular when used in 1931 by a historian named James Truslow Adams, who was writing about the great depression and its aftermath. At the time, it was almost the opposite of what most people mean when they use the phrase today - he was saying Americans were too focused on money, and the American Dream was a better life for all its citizens, regardless of race or wealth - basically about everyone being treated fairly.
It was that kind of thing until world war II when FDR described it as people achieving freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of want, and freedom from fear. But it quickly shifted with soldiers coming home from the war, using the GI bill to get cheap mortgages and who started buying up all the convenience appliances that cropped up in the 50s.
That’s when it became more about buying a house and having lots of stuff, but even that’s before most boomers were born.