This is not solely a thread looking for advice, so while it will be easiest to explain what I’m talking about if I use myself for an example, what I’m asking is aimed much more towards generally speaking than for me personally. It will take a bit of explaining and even then I expect a little of this will be slightly vague, so I appreciate patience.
I am sure that very few people will ever live as good as they truly want to on minimum wage, but my question is that if you’re the ‘right’ sort of person, if what you genuinely desire to have in your life for the foreseeable future is nothing very grand or elaborate, but you yourself would be totally content with it, is living off a full-time job for minimum wage as bad as you might be tempted to assume it is before you’ve experienced it? For the discussion here, minimum wage where I live is $10.25/hour (Ontario, Canada).
I’m 20 years old, I’ve always been privately happy to think that so many of the costly things that hamper people and cripple them financially when they move out on their own in their early or mid-20s are things that I don’t want anyway: I have no need for a cell phone, for instance, or TV at all, and if it came down to it I could definitely live without the internet for long periods of time. I genuinely prefer small, cramped apartments to large ones and would be totally thrilled to essentially live in an apartment with the dimensions of a cardboard box. I find that sort of thing cozy, not claustrophobic. I don’t like going out a lot and could easily not go out at all, I’ve always been perfectly happy to eat cheap food, take the bus, etc.
The point is, no matter who I’ve asked in real life, I’ve always come out of the conversation with scarcely more than one horror story after another, of how terrible it is to live on minimum wage. I’m not disputing this for a second: I’m sure it is very trying and not at all easy to live on minimum wage for the vast majority of people, but consider someone like this:
[ul]
[li]25 years old, working for $10.25/hour, 40 hours per week.[/li][li]Has not a dime in debt, no loans to repay, etc. [/li][li]Will never have kids.[/li][li]No cell phone, internet or TV bills.[/li][li]Living in a cheap apartment.[/li][li]Purchased all major appliances while living at home earlier in life, rent-free.[/li][li]No engagements or social contracts eating up income.[/li][li]Rides a bike or takes the bus everywhere.[/li][li]Purchased plenty of necessities before moving out alone.[/li][li]Happy to live without ‘luxuries’ (heating, AC, etc.)[/li][li]Saved $5,000-10,000 before moving out.[/li][/ul]
etc.
My question is, if you’re living what we might call a lo-fi lifestyle, you’re generally cautious and smart with your money, is living off of minimum wage all that bad if you’re only responsible for yourself? The above is not my ‘plan’ to the letter, but a general idea of the sort of thing I’m working towards and expect to have five or six years down the road. I know there are plenty of ways you can burn through your money very fast. I know that there are plenty of taxes on what you earn and that you are unlikely to ever feel particularly rich living in such a way, but the notion I cannot shake no matter who I talk to about my own thoughts of what I have posted above is this: everyone I meet seems to need much more than me to be satisfied, and I don’t know if I’m totally wrong in thinking the above, or something close to it, is something I can be happy with, or if everyone I’ve discussed this with is just applying their own standards of satisfaction to what I’ve said and it’s them that are the ones that couldn’t make something like this work. I have no intentions of living in such a way for the rest of my life, but as what I outlined above is a vast improvement on the way I’m living at the moment, I can’t quite make out if it’s the sort of death sentence so many seem to treat it as. None of this is to say I don’t aspire to more than this, but it would be a starting point I’d be overjoyed to begin my ‘real’ life (life away from home) at.
Any input is thoroughly appreciated. There are of course plenty of other variables to consider but I don’t want to make a first post so long no one will read it. Happy to elaborate on any points. As I said, this is not some sly attempt for personal advice, but more a general question I’ve wondered for a while and as it very closely relates to my own thoughts on the subject, it’s easier for everyone involved to use myself as the example. If I’m talking out of my ass and I’m completely ignorant about something here, or indeed everything, there’s no need to sugarcoat anything, so don’t be shy. A want of real world experience and the knowledge that the people on here are generally on the ball with this kind of thing means it can’t hurt to discuss it. Any comments? Stories to relate? Experiences you want to share?
Cheers,
Andrew
(I hope this is in the right section, I seem to fuck up and post in the wrong board every time I make a thread. If this is in the wrong place, my apologies).