The world looks very different to graduated students with student loans. Whether $10,000, $40,000, or $200,000, the post-grad with student debt lives in a different financial system than the student without. In the job market, the student with debt is treated the same as the student without. Regardless of the difference, there is a fundamental lesson for the college graduate that changes the way the post-graduate approaches employment.
Students go to college because it is needed to get a "good job" in today's economy. Or they want to "make a difference." The good job is supposed to come with higher pay, particularly for the long-haul. Making a difference often is an inherent side-effect of the degree, but can also be a core feature of one's employment.
When looking for jobs after graduation, there are a couple of trends I have noticed. The first is that those in the applied sciences (e.g., engineering) are immediately valuable and in demand. The second is that those in the humanities are not in demand for anything but their ability to handle a project and adapt to a variety of duties.
For those in the applied sciences, wages appear to be higher than average, and potentially pay-off quickly. For those outside the applied sciences, the balance between degree and income is far more complex.
Post-graduates with student loan debt need to be especially mindful of their future incomes. Starting incomes are often low and are offered at generalized jobs that do not require much specialization. Which is great -- otherwise, where in the world would someone with a degree in English Literature ever work, other than a bookstore?
Debt creates an economic problem between the degree-seeker, their debt, and the job market. While a college degree prepares a student for a variety of encounters after school, if the jobs they are "qualified" for or are hireable only pay so much, their degree could be for naught.
The degree is for naught when the monthly payment amount on the loan drives the net income of the worker to near, at, or below the amount they would have made without a degree.
When talking about the poverty line, this consideration needs to be taken into account. For instance, if someone took out a $40,000 loan, which will enjoy a payment of roughly $350 per month for ten years, their net income would need to exceed the amount they would have made without the degree.
And the calculation isn't just that simple. Foregone wages have to be taken into account in this calculation. A student doesn't just have $40,000 in student debt, they have that amount in student debt PLUS the foregone wages at the best job they could have gotten for the entire duration of the degree.
Sure, someone without a degree isn't all that valuable on the job market anymore, but would they not become valuable given the same amount of effort of college applied to a workplace or apprenticeship?
The amounts in student debt that my generation is leaving their college career with is crippling. The jobs available are not paying enough in relation to this big debt that some college graduates face. The amount of debt needs to start paying for itself quickly, or else it wasn't worthwhile to begin with.
Poverty line shifts when student loans are involved. Of course some students have their loans or schooling paid for by parents, but that doesn't change the economic reality that college costs money. And college has hidden costs that are rarely or never accounted for.
For those with student loans, the poverty line is shifted because wages are directly curtailed by student debt for a full third of one's career. If student loans cost someone $400 per month for ten years, that is $4,800 in lost wages off the net annual income of the post-graduate.
If money is a motivator, or at least a controller of one's destiny, the presence and amounts of student debt are fundamental determinants of one's success after school. And a post-graduate should calculate their real income with student loans deducted.
I think I just coined a new concept: "Real Income." I consider this word to mean one's net income, including taxes, medical insurance, and student debt payments. The reason being: The amount you actually make is the amount that is left over after the absolutely mandatory deductions are removed from the amount you think you make.
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Thursday, August 27, 2015
The Landlord Paradox
So rent
prices are soaring. That's both good and bad for me. Well, I guess it's
good for me and bad for everyone else. Rents in my hometown have
increased about 11% in the last year alone, which for a $1000/mo
property, is a shiny new lease of $1,110. Great for landlords and
horrible for renters.
The rental prices are getting so bad, a new report in my hometown shows that homelessness is increasing with rent prices -- people are basically getting priced out of their hometown and are having to hit the street.
One thing I don't understand about the rent markets right now is how they are working. How are housing prices going up so much that local jobs are not paying enough to live in a house in the town, yet there are people flooding the area with enough money to push others out?
I suppose, after all of my education, a hole has been revealed in my idiotic education. At a fundamental level, I don't understand how there is more money coming into a place to pay rents than is being produced in a place from wages? That is what we are facing, after all.
The rent prices in my hometown are being increased by demand, which means there is a glut of people who are willing to pay, but a shortage of places to house them. With vacancy rates so low, the housing industry should be exploding, yet the price of rent is just increasing. Where is this glut of people coming from and how are they paying these rents?
Clearly, I don't get it. I would love to have it explained. Are there people out there with enough money in the bank to throw it away on rent? Are these newcomers somehow better suited to higher paying jobs, elsewhere than the town itself (commuters)? Are they better at managing money and living slim with high rents and mediocre wages?
My current theory is that there are numerous people moving in with external help. These groups come from families with money, or from other places where wages were very high (e.g., California, Texas, or New York-like places), and living costs were low, relative to income.
Now, another theory is the trust fund. Which is an ugly and dicey subject. Nobody in their right mind would refuse the bounty of a room full of money, like Harry Potter's parents left him. These people can become the layperson's hero, because they have the time, risk-capacity, and privilege to do anything they like without risking food, housing, and health security.
Must be nice, but if the theory is correct, even in a more general form that does not include a trust fund and instead includes bottomless, limitless parental assistance, we still have a problem.
And when I say, "we" have a problem, I mean, those of use without this kind of help. For those without this kind of help, risks can't be taken, shifts in the rental market can become weaponized against our sources of security, and we can get pushed out of our lifetime home spaces.
So few people must have this kind of assistance, but I wonder what it does to rental markets; Are there enough people out there with financial assistance that rent markets could be artificially ballooned in relation to local income potentials?
Whether trust-funders, parental-supporters, or just a different kind of earner, the rental markets in my home area are so screwed up, even as a landlord, I cannot reconcile the disparities. How am I supposed to offer fair and reasonable rents when my personal income is no longer big enough to even rent my own house?
There's an interesting thought: A landlord who leases a property that the landlord can no longer afford to rent. I am that landlord. And it boggles my mind. The housing system appears to be in a state of volatility that isn't sustainable.
"Sustainable" is an interesting word to use in this context. I'm talking about a market where the median income can afford the median house. I'm talking about the median job paying a median income to buy the median house. When we're at the point where rent is higher than jobs are paying, we're talking about a market that is no longer in harmony.
The rental prices are getting so bad, a new report in my hometown shows that homelessness is increasing with rent prices -- people are basically getting priced out of their hometown and are having to hit the street.
One thing I don't understand about the rent markets right now is how they are working. How are housing prices going up so much that local jobs are not paying enough to live in a house in the town, yet there are people flooding the area with enough money to push others out?
I suppose, after all of my education, a hole has been revealed in my idiotic education. At a fundamental level, I don't understand how there is more money coming into a place to pay rents than is being produced in a place from wages? That is what we are facing, after all.
The rent prices in my hometown are being increased by demand, which means there is a glut of people who are willing to pay, but a shortage of places to house them. With vacancy rates so low, the housing industry should be exploding, yet the price of rent is just increasing. Where is this glut of people coming from and how are they paying these rents?
Clearly, I don't get it. I would love to have it explained. Are there people out there with enough money in the bank to throw it away on rent? Are these newcomers somehow better suited to higher paying jobs, elsewhere than the town itself (commuters)? Are they better at managing money and living slim with high rents and mediocre wages?
My current theory is that there are numerous people moving in with external help. These groups come from families with money, or from other places where wages were very high (e.g., California, Texas, or New York-like places), and living costs were low, relative to income.
Now, another theory is the trust fund. Which is an ugly and dicey subject. Nobody in their right mind would refuse the bounty of a room full of money, like Harry Potter's parents left him. These people can become the layperson's hero, because they have the time, risk-capacity, and privilege to do anything they like without risking food, housing, and health security.
Must be nice, but if the theory is correct, even in a more general form that does not include a trust fund and instead includes bottomless, limitless parental assistance, we still have a problem.
And when I say, "we" have a problem, I mean, those of use without this kind of help. For those without this kind of help, risks can't be taken, shifts in the rental market can become weaponized against our sources of security, and we can get pushed out of our lifetime home spaces.
So few people must have this kind of assistance, but I wonder what it does to rental markets; Are there enough people out there with financial assistance that rent markets could be artificially ballooned in relation to local income potentials?
Whether trust-funders, parental-supporters, or just a different kind of earner, the rental markets in my home area are so screwed up, even as a landlord, I cannot reconcile the disparities. How am I supposed to offer fair and reasonable rents when my personal income is no longer big enough to even rent my own house?
There's an interesting thought: A landlord who leases a property that the landlord can no longer afford to rent. I am that landlord. And it boggles my mind. The housing system appears to be in a state of volatility that isn't sustainable.
"Sustainable" is an interesting word to use in this context. I'm talking about a market where the median income can afford the median house. I'm talking about the median job paying a median income to buy the median house. When we're at the point where rent is higher than jobs are paying, we're talking about a market that is no longer in harmony.
Friday, August 21, 2015
Cats and the End of my Family Lineage
I recently decided that I will not be having kids. That decision might change, but right now, I am solidly convinced that I definitely do not want kids. This decision comes with an interesting consequence: It is the end of my family line.
When biologists talk about extinction, they're not talking about an individual organism or families. The individual and the family of that organism aren't all that important in the grand scheme of the species. When something goes extinct, it has to be an entire branch of the tree of life.
I think the biologists are wrong. With every branch of their phylogenetic tree (aka. the tree of life), there are tiny capillaries that further refine and blur what that species is. My living family members are one of these imaginary capillaries coming off the human branch of this tree.
My decision to not have kids comes with an interesting consequence. The decision ends my family line, entirely.
None of the kids in my generation are procreating. We have just stopped. I am the one, only, and last male on both my mom and dad's side of the family who might procreate. There are no males on my dad's side in my generation and my one male cousin on the other side isn't interested, either.
I have one cousin who had a kid, but befell harsh judgment for having a kid at the age of 14. Hindsight, was this such a bad decision? She's the only person in the family in my generation to have a kid. Biologically speaking, she's the only successful one in the entire family. The rest of us are terminal points on the tree.
And what a bummer this is. We are all educated, upstanding citizens. And we are going extinct.
The choice of extinction for the family line is an interesting one. My master's degree taught me to plan more tightly, to not take on more than I can handle, and to foresee the future in a more accurate and complete way. And that power of foresight is what has led me directly to the choice to not procreate.
When I adopted my first cat about eight years ago, I was driven to do so by the norms of society and the need to have a pet. I even got a second one to keep him company, which doubled my feelings of hatred for the idea of reproduction. What this little cat, who has turned into a wonderful, but unwelcome friend, has taught me is that I will make a terrible father.
Yeah, a terrible father. Not only do I have two of the best cats I've ever met -- they're smart, energetic, personable, and aren't total assholes. Yet I can't stand them. The chain of having to take care of them, the damage they do to my living space, and the inability to bring anything into my house without it getting fucked up is exactly what has shown me that I shouldn't have kids.
I can't handle the constant maintenance cats bring to my life. Cat hair on everything, nothing remains untouched, and bodily messes are unending. It's not that I don't love puke, shit, and piss. And it's not that I don't love cat hair on everything, having everything knocked on the floor, and being totally excluded from having anything nice. It's really just that I'm not cut out for the commitment. The thought of having to take care of these things for another 10 years makes my skin crawl.
My cats didn't cause my decision, per se. Women were the primary cause. But the cats showed me that I'm not interested in the constant maintenance involved in keeping dependent beings alive. They're more like canaries in the coal mine -- indicators of trouble to come. I can't stand the thought of another ten years of piss, shit, puke, and fur-impregnated-everything, so the thought of the lifetime commitment of children becomes deeply repugnant.
Something went wrong in my family. An entire generation has chosen to not reproduce, which has led to the extinction of our capillary of the family tree. My decision to not have kids comes with an especially odd consequence. The Y-chromosome remains unchanged across generations and is passed from father to father -- I am the last Y-chromosome-carrying individual on both sides of the family -- and I have chosen to not even try to pass it along. Basically an organism in itself, this Y-lineage is now gone.
And it's because of cats. Well, and women. But cats. Cats have taught me that I'm so disinterested in keeping things that require so much maintenance and care that I am willing to just live out my days and not bother with the bullshit of reproduction. How strange. And liberating. I guess I just don't find this consciousness experiment compelling enough to bother helping it to continue. It just isn't worth it.
When biologists talk about extinction, they're not talking about an individual organism or families. The individual and the family of that organism aren't all that important in the grand scheme of the species. When something goes extinct, it has to be an entire branch of the tree of life.
I think the biologists are wrong. With every branch of their phylogenetic tree (aka. the tree of life), there are tiny capillaries that further refine and blur what that species is. My living family members are one of these imaginary capillaries coming off the human branch of this tree.
My decision to not have kids comes with an interesting consequence. The decision ends my family line, entirely.
None of the kids in my generation are procreating. We have just stopped. I am the one, only, and last male on both my mom and dad's side of the family who might procreate. There are no males on my dad's side in my generation and my one male cousin on the other side isn't interested, either.
I have one cousin who had a kid, but befell harsh judgment for having a kid at the age of 14. Hindsight, was this such a bad decision? She's the only person in the family in my generation to have a kid. Biologically speaking, she's the only successful one in the entire family. The rest of us are terminal points on the tree.
And what a bummer this is. We are all educated, upstanding citizens. And we are going extinct.
The choice of extinction for the family line is an interesting one. My master's degree taught me to plan more tightly, to not take on more than I can handle, and to foresee the future in a more accurate and complete way. And that power of foresight is what has led me directly to the choice to not procreate.
When I adopted my first cat about eight years ago, I was driven to do so by the norms of society and the need to have a pet. I even got a second one to keep him company, which doubled my feelings of hatred for the idea of reproduction. What this little cat, who has turned into a wonderful, but unwelcome friend, has taught me is that I will make a terrible father.
Yeah, a terrible father. Not only do I have two of the best cats I've ever met -- they're smart, energetic, personable, and aren't total assholes. Yet I can't stand them. The chain of having to take care of them, the damage they do to my living space, and the inability to bring anything into my house without it getting fucked up is exactly what has shown me that I shouldn't have kids.
I can't handle the constant maintenance cats bring to my life. Cat hair on everything, nothing remains untouched, and bodily messes are unending. It's not that I don't love puke, shit, and piss. And it's not that I don't love cat hair on everything, having everything knocked on the floor, and being totally excluded from having anything nice. It's really just that I'm not cut out for the commitment. The thought of having to take care of these things for another 10 years makes my skin crawl.
My cats didn't cause my decision, per se. Women were the primary cause. But the cats showed me that I'm not interested in the constant maintenance involved in keeping dependent beings alive. They're more like canaries in the coal mine -- indicators of trouble to come. I can't stand the thought of another ten years of piss, shit, puke, and fur-impregnated-everything, so the thought of the lifetime commitment of children becomes deeply repugnant.
Something went wrong in my family. An entire generation has chosen to not reproduce, which has led to the extinction of our capillary of the family tree. My decision to not have kids comes with an especially odd consequence. The Y-chromosome remains unchanged across generations and is passed from father to father -- I am the last Y-chromosome-carrying individual on both sides of the family -- and I have chosen to not even try to pass it along. Basically an organism in itself, this Y-lineage is now gone.
And it's because of cats. Well, and women. But cats. Cats have taught me that I'm so disinterested in keeping things that require so much maintenance and care that I am willing to just live out my days and not bother with the bullshit of reproduction. How strange. And liberating. I guess I just don't find this consciousness experiment compelling enough to bother helping it to continue. It just isn't worth it.
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Debt is a Prison
From the day I was born, I was destined to go into debt. Part of America's middle class, I was born into a mortgaged home, a bank-loaned car, and a household with student debt. The debt system made my American existence possible. As I come of age and graduate from my student years into what is supposed to be adulthood, I look back and realize that my current state in life was made possible by debt, and that I never had a chance or a choice to escape debt.
Debt has allowed me to buy things I didn't have the money for yet. It has acted as a guarantee that I would remain productive to repay the resources that I received ahead of actually earning them. Debt allowed me to buy an education, a house, and my vehicles. The vehicles were small peanuts and quickly repayable. The house and education, on the other hand, have sealed the fate of my existence.
The concept of debt is pretty novel. Buy something you haven't yet earned the resources to trade for, then continue working to pay it off, bit by bit. Live now, pay later. Pretty trusting, really -- how in the world do we know that the resources will be continually available for the duration of our debts and in the amount of our debts?
Borrowed money makes my skin crawl. And I know exactly why. Growing up, I never had money like many of my peers did. Where I would mow the house lawn for $3, my friends would often mow much smaller lawns for $10 or $20. My sense of money was shaped by this disparity. I had to pinch more pennies to try to keep up with my peers. As a 10 year old, I was an unwitting participant and victim of capitalism (ok, and beneficiary; I also happened to have a roof over my head and food in my belly by the very same system).
When I think of things that bother me and make my entire existence hurt, debt is pretty much number one. Debt is a deal with the devil where you sign away your soul for the following weeks, months, years, or even decades, in exchange for something. This deal, which allows you to live now, chains you to that desk, that cash register, and that office life.
Upon signing the papers or sliding the plastic card, you are now saying that you're pretty darn sure that you will earn x-dollars over x-time period and will be able to pay x-amount back. And to do so, the lender will only charge you a small percentage in the form of interest. How simple? How novel?
Well, that decision is a dangerous one. You can lose a job, you can accidentally procreate, or you can need to buy a car. Or hell, an economic recession could hit, gasoline could go up to $4 per gallon, and you could decide to go to grad school and be simultaneously poor as shit -and- go into debt, simultaneously.
When I was born, I was born into a system where education would cost more than I would be able to save by the time I started taking on student debt, I would need objects to survive in our socioeconomic system that were unreachable without money, and I would be part of a class that cannot afford the roofs over our heads until a lifetime of work was complete to pay back the debt of a home.
The debts we take on have many names: credit card, student loan, mortgage, car loan, and so on. But all of these are the same thing; borrowed money to buy something that we do not yet have the money for. As a person born into the class that has no money, no right to money, and an acculturated need to participate in the American economic machine, I was born into the debt class.
When I turned 18, I had no option to take on student debt or not. Not with living expenses, vehicles, and the ever-present-and-ominous demand to be interesting and fun to entertain the opposite sex. These things are expensive, so debt was essential. College is essential in my caste. And because college is essential, it is both expensive, and a source of debt.
The debt machine that grabs us before we are old enough to make rational economic decisions is troubling. When I took on my student loans, starting at 18 years old, I was taking on a debt that would take ten years to pay off upon graduation. For someone to make such a decision to take on such a burden is interesting; at the age of 18, a ten-year loan duration is over 50% of one's entire lifespan. A ten year debt to an 18 year old is basically an eternity.
Student debt is particularly troubling to me today. It wears like a ball and chain that weighs down time and potential. It is a burden that feels as though it has damaged my entire future, even though I have less than the average student with my level of education. Ten years from now, I will be 42 years old.
The reason for my obsession with debt is that it bothers me, and it was destined to bother me. As a kid who never had money or the money of my peers, I quickly learned the pain of debts -- the damage it can cause, and the pain of working to pay something back that you already have. I also do not do well with imaginary commitments that extend into a future that doesn't exist.
Debt is a novel system, but it is a shackle that dictates what the next x-years of your life will look like. You will work. You will earn a certain amount of money. You will pay this money back. And you will be punished if you do not. Fair enough. But this sounds an awful lot like a sentenced term in prison.
The process of imprisonment and debt are one in the same. In both cases, one makes a decision that involves risk, desire, passion, necessity, or impulse, which results in a consequence that requires a term served to someone else to pay off. The choice to steal that stereo out of that car might provide you with the utility of that new stereo, but you will serve a term in jail, where your punishment is equivalent to repaying society for a debt that you created. When you decide to go to college, because you have to, you basically decide to steal it and serve a term to pay it back.
Of course I can make this argument better. I can beef it up, and not take a single stab at it without edits, but the central point here is that debt is a prison for some of us. And, like any prisoner, some of us will go to extreme lengths to escape our terms and find our freedom again.
Debt has allowed me to buy things I didn't have the money for yet. It has acted as a guarantee that I would remain productive to repay the resources that I received ahead of actually earning them. Debt allowed me to buy an education, a house, and my vehicles. The vehicles were small peanuts and quickly repayable. The house and education, on the other hand, have sealed the fate of my existence.
The concept of debt is pretty novel. Buy something you haven't yet earned the resources to trade for, then continue working to pay it off, bit by bit. Live now, pay later. Pretty trusting, really -- how in the world do we know that the resources will be continually available for the duration of our debts and in the amount of our debts?
Borrowed money makes my skin crawl. And I know exactly why. Growing up, I never had money like many of my peers did. Where I would mow the house lawn for $3, my friends would often mow much smaller lawns for $10 or $20. My sense of money was shaped by this disparity. I had to pinch more pennies to try to keep up with my peers. As a 10 year old, I was an unwitting participant and victim of capitalism (ok, and beneficiary; I also happened to have a roof over my head and food in my belly by the very same system).
When I think of things that bother me and make my entire existence hurt, debt is pretty much number one. Debt is a deal with the devil where you sign away your soul for the following weeks, months, years, or even decades, in exchange for something. This deal, which allows you to live now, chains you to that desk, that cash register, and that office life.
Upon signing the papers or sliding the plastic card, you are now saying that you're pretty darn sure that you will earn x-dollars over x-time period and will be able to pay x-amount back. And to do so, the lender will only charge you a small percentage in the form of interest. How simple? How novel?
Well, that decision is a dangerous one. You can lose a job, you can accidentally procreate, or you can need to buy a car. Or hell, an economic recession could hit, gasoline could go up to $4 per gallon, and you could decide to go to grad school and be simultaneously poor as shit -and- go into debt, simultaneously.
When I was born, I was born into a system where education would cost more than I would be able to save by the time I started taking on student debt, I would need objects to survive in our socioeconomic system that were unreachable without money, and I would be part of a class that cannot afford the roofs over our heads until a lifetime of work was complete to pay back the debt of a home.
The debts we take on have many names: credit card, student loan, mortgage, car loan, and so on. But all of these are the same thing; borrowed money to buy something that we do not yet have the money for. As a person born into the class that has no money, no right to money, and an acculturated need to participate in the American economic machine, I was born into the debt class.
When I turned 18, I had no option to take on student debt or not. Not with living expenses, vehicles, and the ever-present-and-ominous demand to be interesting and fun to entertain the opposite sex. These things are expensive, so debt was essential. College is essential in my caste. And because college is essential, it is both expensive, and a source of debt.
The debt machine that grabs us before we are old enough to make rational economic decisions is troubling. When I took on my student loans, starting at 18 years old, I was taking on a debt that would take ten years to pay off upon graduation. For someone to make such a decision to take on such a burden is interesting; at the age of 18, a ten-year loan duration is over 50% of one's entire lifespan. A ten year debt to an 18 year old is basically an eternity.
Student debt is particularly troubling to me today. It wears like a ball and chain that weighs down time and potential. It is a burden that feels as though it has damaged my entire future, even though I have less than the average student with my level of education. Ten years from now, I will be 42 years old.
The reason for my obsession with debt is that it bothers me, and it was destined to bother me. As a kid who never had money or the money of my peers, I quickly learned the pain of debts -- the damage it can cause, and the pain of working to pay something back that you already have. I also do not do well with imaginary commitments that extend into a future that doesn't exist.
Debt is a novel system, but it is a shackle that dictates what the next x-years of your life will look like. You will work. You will earn a certain amount of money. You will pay this money back. And you will be punished if you do not. Fair enough. But this sounds an awful lot like a sentenced term in prison.
The process of imprisonment and debt are one in the same. In both cases, one makes a decision that involves risk, desire, passion, necessity, or impulse, which results in a consequence that requires a term served to someone else to pay off. The choice to steal that stereo out of that car might provide you with the utility of that new stereo, but you will serve a term in jail, where your punishment is equivalent to repaying society for a debt that you created. When you decide to go to college, because you have to, you basically decide to steal it and serve a term to pay it back.
Of course I can make this argument better. I can beef it up, and not take a single stab at it without edits, but the central point here is that debt is a prison for some of us. And, like any prisoner, some of us will go to extreme lengths to escape our terms and find our freedom again.
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Dollars Per Square Inch
I recently discovered that there is an absolute minimum price of a square inch of space in this world. Your existence, no matter how slim, has a cost. And your presence in a place comes at a price. That price has a floor, then a secret basement level. The floor is conventional living and the secret basement is where the crazy people live -- the homeless, van dwellers, and extreme co-habitators.
I once rented a storage unit that someone had been living in. A storage unit. As in, a cement-floored, steel box that people rent to put their meaningless shit in. This person was extreme, because they were doing this in one of the coldest places in the country. They lived without plumbing and likely without heat. If they tried to heat the place, they would have been better off just renting because their fuel costs would have been more than an apartment for about nine months a year.
The financial floor I have discovered is the absolute minimum price of an existence in a place, just shy of homelessness. In this system, homelessness actually relies on stealing that space, rather than being part of the system.
When calculating one's living expenses, everything has to be included. Rent, storage units, utilities, car insurance, car, and gasoline. Utilities are a function of the quality of the dwelling and one's consistency of climate. A vehicle becomes a core living expense if the vehicle is necessary for getting to work every day. Renting a storage unit is just another part of rent; whether you live with your stuff or away from it.
But at the heart of this calculation, the price of a dwelling versus the price of an alternative living situation end up revealing the floor in the cost of living --- the absolute minimum one can pay to live in a place without going into the basement. The basement is the space that shall not be acknowledged or spoken of, and some even work feverishly to eliminate these basement spaces.
My RV experiment has been great -- I love living in the RV for the simplicity and cosiness. But in the city I live in, RV spaces aren't exactly cheap. They're half the price of the cheapest single-bedroom and studio apartments. All of my living expenses combined are less than the cheapest one-bedroom apartment I have found. Though, an RV space is roughly a 400 square foot dirt parking space with basic utility hook-ups.
The space I rent, including the footprint of my vehicles on site is about 600 square feet in total -- which, stupidly, includes my parking spaces. Yet I pay just less than $500 per month. That's just over $2 per square foot for my RV alone and $0.79 per square foot including my parking area and lot space.
Numbers, numbers... I just called storage units in town, so I can move my junk from my free space at Grandma's house to a real storage unit. The absolute cheapest unit in town will be $130 per month for 200 square feet. Well, now I have 400 square feet of interior space for the cost of just over $600 per month. For just $400 more per month, I can be a real boy and live in a real house.
These costs reveal that there is a minimum that one can live, just shy of living in a van on the street without rent and utilities. That cost, in the city I work and live, is about $1.30 per square foot for non-cohabitated spaces, about $1.25 per square foot for cohabitated spaces (having roommates), and $2.37 per square foot for living in crazy-town in an RV.
So, what did I just discover? Sure, my total costs per month are low, but so is my available space and sense of normalcy. My RV, not including the cost of the RV itself, is $2.37 per square foot of finished home space.
This colossally stupid realization has me headed for the crazy basement. Because I don't want and will not afford an apartment in this city. No, Sir. Adding insult to injury, let's look at my living expenses, all-inclusive:
Houston, we definitely have a problem. The problem is that my core expenses are out of control. And I am paying less than anyone I know in my living costs where I live. Everybody has a cell phone. Everybody pays about what I do in insurance, except those without cars and renter's insurance. Everybody pays rent.
Should I get a roommate? Should I just stay put and enjoy my below-normal living costs? Should I just enter the realm of utter poverty and rent an apartment near work, sell all of my vehicles, and drop my cell phone plan?
Or should I move into the financial basement and live where no one else will (or can)?
Can I eliminate rent? Can I eliminate utilities? What if I could? And, most terrifyingly, what if I have to?
The numbers tell a story of what has to happen and most won't like the answer. I'm fine with it and looking forward to it. But they spell a change coming. Given this cold reality, I have to sell the RV and eliminate rent. The next phase will be ultimately freeing and will give me the extreme edge I am looking for to achieve my goals. I do not fear what will happen if I do; I fear what will happen if I don't.
The system we live in is completely screwed and I will have no part in maintaining its conventions.
I once rented a storage unit that someone had been living in. A storage unit. As in, a cement-floored, steel box that people rent to put their meaningless shit in. This person was extreme, because they were doing this in one of the coldest places in the country. They lived without plumbing and likely without heat. If they tried to heat the place, they would have been better off just renting because their fuel costs would have been more than an apartment for about nine months a year.
The financial floor I have discovered is the absolute minimum price of an existence in a place, just shy of homelessness. In this system, homelessness actually relies on stealing that space, rather than being part of the system.
When calculating one's living expenses, everything has to be included. Rent, storage units, utilities, car insurance, car, and gasoline. Utilities are a function of the quality of the dwelling and one's consistency of climate. A vehicle becomes a core living expense if the vehicle is necessary for getting to work every day. Renting a storage unit is just another part of rent; whether you live with your stuff or away from it.
But at the heart of this calculation, the price of a dwelling versus the price of an alternative living situation end up revealing the floor in the cost of living --- the absolute minimum one can pay to live in a place without going into the basement. The basement is the space that shall not be acknowledged or spoken of, and some even work feverishly to eliminate these basement spaces.
My RV experiment has been great -- I love living in the RV for the simplicity and cosiness. But in the city I live in, RV spaces aren't exactly cheap. They're half the price of the cheapest single-bedroom and studio apartments. All of my living expenses combined are less than the cheapest one-bedroom apartment I have found. Though, an RV space is roughly a 400 square foot dirt parking space with basic utility hook-ups.
The space I rent, including the footprint of my vehicles on site is about 600 square feet in total -- which, stupidly, includes my parking spaces. Yet I pay just less than $500 per month. That's just over $2 per square foot for my RV alone and $0.79 per square foot including my parking area and lot space.
Numbers, numbers... I just called storage units in town, so I can move my junk from my free space at Grandma's house to a real storage unit. The absolute cheapest unit in town will be $130 per month for 200 square feet. Well, now I have 400 square feet of interior space for the cost of just over $600 per month. For just $400 more per month, I can be a real boy and live in a real house.
These costs reveal that there is a minimum that one can live, just shy of living in a van on the street without rent and utilities. That cost, in the city I work and live, is about $1.30 per square foot for non-cohabitated spaces, about $1.25 per square foot for cohabitated spaces (having roommates), and $2.37 per square foot for living in crazy-town in an RV.
So, what did I just discover? Sure, my total costs per month are low, but so is my available space and sense of normalcy. My RV, not including the cost of the RV itself, is $2.37 per square foot of finished home space.
This colossally stupid realization has me headed for the crazy basement. Because I don't want and will not afford an apartment in this city. No, Sir. Adding insult to injury, let's look at my living expenses, all-inclusive:
The Financial Backside
$475 Rent
$129 Storage Unit Rent
$70 Utils (average, including water, sewer, trash, electricy, and internet)
$90 Phone
$140 Insurance (for my army of garbage)
$25 Propane (average over year)
------------------------------------------
$929 per month for core living expenses
+$350 Student loans
--------------------------------------------------------------------
$1279 per month for core living expenses + student loan payments
Houston, we definitely have a problem. The problem is that my core expenses are out of control. And I am paying less than anyone I know in my living costs where I live. Everybody has a cell phone. Everybody pays about what I do in insurance, except those without cars and renter's insurance. Everybody pays rent.
Should I get a roommate? Should I just stay put and enjoy my below-normal living costs? Should I just enter the realm of utter poverty and rent an apartment near work, sell all of my vehicles, and drop my cell phone plan?
Or should I move into the financial basement and live where no one else will (or can)?
Can I eliminate rent? Can I eliminate utilities? What if I could? And, most terrifyingly, what if I have to?
The numbers tell a story of what has to happen and most won't like the answer. I'm fine with it and looking forward to it. But they spell a change coming. Given this cold reality, I have to sell the RV and eliminate rent. The next phase will be ultimately freeing and will give me the extreme edge I am looking for to achieve my goals. I do not fear what will happen if I do; I fear what will happen if I don't.
The system we live in is completely screwed and I will have no part in maintaining its conventions.
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