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A comment on How to live on $432 a month in America. Parent comment

Re:How to live on $432 a month in America by RajT88 on Friday May 23, 2025 @08:39PM (#44077902)
You read articles like this every so often, sure. Maybe ~13 years back I read about an indie game dev who lived in a carbon neutral home in the middle of nowhere Arizona or something. Beautiful house, hand built. Talked about how you really don't need all that much money to live - they were living on less than 20k a year from his game sales.

Him and his wife were also in their 20's, and their kids I think were already a few years old when they moved to the boonies. All healthy.

It's an extreme example, but this is a good read:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lykov_family

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Re:How to live on $432 a month in America by gyomu on Friday May 23, 2025 @10:41PM (#44078364)
For anyone curious, the game dev is Jason Rohrer:

https://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason-rohrer/simpleLife.h...

Things have changed since:

"In October of 2011, we moved from Las Cruces, NM to Davis, CA. Along with all the good things listed below about Las Cruces came bad things. Vicious dogs loose on the streets (one bit my wife while biking) and in parks (I came close to getting myself shot during a confrontation with a dog owner). Crime (the little old lady next door got burgled twice in one year, once at 3 in the afternoon through her front door). After living in extremely cheap places for 8 years, I came to realize that these places are extremely cheap for a reason (because people don't want to live there if they can avoid it)."

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Re:How to live on $432 a month in America by decimalenough on Saturday May 24, 2025 @06:43AM (#44080163)
Zillow says the average house in Davis costs $890k. Looks like they've pretty much given up on the "life cheaply" thing.
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Re:How to live on $432 a month in America by gyomu on Saturday May 24, 2025 @07:28AM (#44080363)
The main page of his website now says New Hampshire

https://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason-rohrer/

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Re:How to live on $432 a month in America by npodbielski on Saturday May 24, 2025 @07:02AM (#44080239)
Haha this is so US. Almost got killed in the park because you said few words to someone you should not...

Greatest country on earth...

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Re:How to live on $432 a month in America by ryandrake on Saturday May 24, 2025 @12:35PM (#44082137)
Reminds me of that past HN story [1] about that guy who moved to the least expensive rural town he could find to start a cheap business, and had nothing but trouble. Between burglary after burglary, locals that hate his guts, local government stopping him from doing anything, and just the general shittiness and malaise of living in a depressed town. The guy kept doubling down, too, buying property after property and ended up owning 75 or so properties, while his problems kept multiplying.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39802157

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