A couple friends of mine have done it - they're both physics grad students in Boston. I don't know the full breakdown of their finances (nor would I share it on the Internet if I did), but I know rent and transportation and can fill in the rest from my experience:
Person 1:
Rent = $600/month (1 roommate in a small condo on a bus line)
Transportation = $0 (walks to work/store/bank)
Health care = ~$0 (grad school presumably covers it, modulo co-pays)
Food = ~$200/month (guessing at this, lives on lots of rice & beans)
Electricity = ~$50/month (also guessing)
Internet = $0 (uses it from work if necessary)
Total = $850/month = $10k/year
Person 2:
Rent = $400/month (basement apartment with 3 roommates)
Transportation = ~$130/month (T-pass, off Green Line)
Food = ~$200/month (guessing)
Health care = ~$0 (presuming he's under the university policy)
Electricity = ~$50/month (guessing, may be less with 3 roommates)
Internet = ~$10/month (you could split $40 cable or FIOS among 4 roommates)
Total = $790/month = about $9500/year.
It's amazing how many necessities really aren't if you're willing to compromise on things like appearances, location, status, etc. Even in Silicon Valley, you can get rents of $600/month if you're willing to share a place in Sunnyvale or one of the poorer sections of Mountain View, and you can get really cheap food if you're willing to eat various rice/beans/pasta dishes. And many people seem to forget that they have two legs and can walk places: I'm in sprawled-out Silicon Valley, not densely-packed Boston, and yet I walk to the bank/library/supermarket and bike to work.
Ok, but they have free healthcare (at least 400$/month worth), live in miserable living conditions (3 roommates in a basement), and have 0 savings. And, apparently they walk naked.
Do not forget to add taxes. And waterbill. And trashbill.
And phonebill.
My observations are in total correspondence with Daniel Kanemann's research: For good life in USA you need $60K/year - more will not make you happier, less will make you unhappy.
3 roommates in a basement is only miserable living conditions when compared to the McMansions that people are moving into now. My dad grew up in a 3rd world country. His family would be considered upper-class within their city, and yet they had 10 children crammed into a couple rooms, geckos in their living spaces, and mosquito nets to keep away the malaria. And they got bombed out of their home by the Americans, and had to move up into the mountains, shit in the river, and use stones to wipe their ass.
I included waterbill and trashbill in my utilities estimates; I was basing it off what I paid for utilities when I lived with roommates in California.
Person 1, at least, didn't have a landline - he used his cell (still on his parents plan) or IM from work. Person 1 also did not have zero savings: he managed to save up $20K over 2 years. Remember, a typical grad student salary is about $20k/year, and he was living off $10K/year.
People who make $10-20k/year don't pay much in taxes. Many don't pay anything. That's reverse-income-tax land.
You have a point with clothes, but over the short term, it can be ignored. I'm still wearing some of my clothes from high school, 10 years later. And you certainly have a point about health care, which is the elephant in the room, though that will hopefully get better as Obama's plan phases in.
I suspect that Daniel Kanemann's research could be rephrased as "For a good life, you have to be making more than average." It's not coincidence that $60K/year is just slightly more than median household income in the U.S. I suspect that if he were to run the same experiment in Vanuatu - supposedly the happiest place on earth - he'd find that you need roughly $5K/year for the good life. That's just slightly over their per-capita GDP.
> 3 roommates in a basement is only miserable living conditions when compared to the McMansions that people are moving into now.
Unless you are applying the term 'McMansions' to include a single person living in a studio apartment or a 1-bedroom apartment (or even a couple living in a 2-bedroom apartment), then I suggest you revisit that statement. It's obviously not abject poverty, but to say that the only people that would consider your living conditions to be something that couldn't deal with must therefore be living in 'McMansions' is a bit of an overstatement.
> I suspect that if he were to run the same experiment in Vanuatu - supposedly the happiest place on earth - he'd find that you need roughly $5K/year for the good life. That's just slightly over their per-capita GDP.
You seem to be ignoring though, that the cost of living is different between the two places (I'm assuming that both of those dollar amounts are in US dollars).
People who make 10-20k a year still pay FICA. I did some rough calculations and someone making $400 a week in California will pay 20% in federal and state taxes, medicare and social security.
Kanneman said two things:
- 60K is a point where bigger income won't make you happier.
- GDP higher than 12(?)K Per capita/year will not
make big difference on the wellbeing of citizen of the country.
