

Extreme Saving: A Man, His Van and Five-Figure Debt - simonreed
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-30/extreme-saving-a-man-his-van-and-five-figure-debt.html

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rayiner
> "I have little patience for critics who don’t see the value in a liberal
> arts education. We don’t mock people who have children -- and there’s no
> practical value to having children."

Uh, once Social Security goes bankrupt the practical value of having children
will be the same as it always has been: someone to help take care of you when
you're old and feeble. And on a macro scale, there is tremendous practical
value in ensuring there are 18-25 year old consumers in a couple of decades.
Facebook stock would tank if it ever became the case that it's primary
demographic was a monotonically shrinking set.

Also, why are college kids today so bad at job hunting? "I applied to 25 paid
newspaper internships and got rejected from every single one... So, I got a
job at a work camp in Arctic Alaska..."

The only way to job search as a fresh graduate is to treat it like it's a job
itself. When I was job hunting during law school, I'd bang out that many
applications in a day. I know a lot of people who didn't operate that way:
they'd apply to a job a week or so as they found something they thought was
perfect (and take forever crafting the perfect application). Those people
struggled. Hint: if you're a fresh graduate, and your job search strategy
doesn't involve a spreadsheet to keep track of the huge volume of applications
you're submitting, you're doing it wrong.

Yes, there aren't enough jobs for fresh graduates out there (outside software
engineering anyway). So obviously if everybody treated job searching seriously
it wouldn't help anyone. But as long as most grads are like this guy, you have
a leg up by not being like this guy.

~~~
figbucket
If you work out savings of not having children and put the money in a decent
savings plan you'll probably have enough to pay for better qualified care
multiple times over what any children may provide (or not they're not obliged
to help).

~~~
rayiner
Well in this hypothetical, the post-apocalyptic scenario that bankrupts Social
Security also renders savings worthless. Having a kid is very robust against
something like hyperinflation, lol.

In any case, that solution doesn't scale. Every form of retirement savings is
just a way to earmark the production of someone else's kids (so long as human
labor is needed for things, that is). If you invest in Google stock in lieu of
having kids, you better hope that everybody doesn't get the same idea because
then Google would have nobody to work there, and its advertising affiliates
would have no working-age people to advertise to.

~~~
figbucket
Good point.

>Having a kid is very robust against something like hyperinflation, lol.

While I don't know what the statistics are I don't like the idea of having
children in part because of the assumption that they would want to help care
for you later in life.

As much as I like and dislike my parents I'd sooner move to the otherside of
the world than help them though old age.

~~~
rayiner
> As much as I like and dislike my parents I'd sooner move to the otherside of
> the world than help them though old age.

This is a common mode of thinking, but I personally find it bizarre. The
modern American generational structure is senselessly inefficient. We impose
large taxes on workers so their parents don't have to live with them, and then
those workers turn around and pay huge amounts for child care because their
parents don't live with them.

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pud
He wanted to pay off his school loans so he could "feel like a free person."

Now his entire life revolves around being a slave to his debt (living in a van
in remote Alaksa, etc).

To each their own. But to me, this doesn't seem more free.

~~~
dreamdu5t
Consider the fact that his degrees are in fields that can be learned for free
on the Internet and at the library. $100k in debt for History and English?
Ridiculous!

~~~
leoh
You are missing the point. Face to face relationships are invaluable and are
the most important part of a good education. In liberal arts, there aren't
dozens of high-quality, responsible IRC chatrooms, say, devoted to the
intricacies of Nietzsche like there are rooms devoted to a single programming
framework.

~~~
dreamdu5t
No, I'm not. Face to face relationships don't cost $30k+ a year. You don't
have to go to school to meet people. If you're going into debt just to meet
people then something is deeply flawed.

~~~
wonderzombie
You're still missing the point. :) Repeated face-to-face conversations with
experts and other students (i.e. a classroom learning environment) is not the
same as sitting alone, in the middle of nowhere, in front of a computer.

~~~
kees
I think you all miss the point. It is not about how he spend the money (in
this case an education perceived to be not worth its money by a majority of
you) but what he did to save this money. You could spend it on your next
start-up or get inspiration to pay off your own debt by changing your living
standards.

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grecy
I spent two years driving from Alaska to Argentina. My entire expenses were
$1200/mo, which is pretty much what I was spending before the trip just going
to work every day.

Not paying rent and cooking all your own meals is a great way to save money.

[1] <http://theroadchoseme.com/the-price-of-adventure>

Coldfoot is not the northernmost truck stop in the world. I drove another 250
miles North from there. [http://theroadchoseme.com/the-dalton-highway-to-the-
arctic-o...](http://theroadchoseme.com/the-dalton-highway-to-the-arctic-ocean)

~~~
orangethirty
I would love to do that. Bookmarked the site for later reading.

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grannyg00se
"Plus, I was graduating with a degree in English and history, which, though
valuable to me, is more or less monetarily worthless."

I can't imagine spending tens of thousands of dollars on something that is
monetarily worthless just because it is of personal value to me. That seems
incredibly self indulgent.

~~~
szx
This: "I have little patience for critics who don’t see the value in a liberal
arts education. We don’t mock people who have children -- and there’s no
practical value to having children."

~~~
300bps
In many cultures children take care of the parents in their old age. Is that
not practical value?

In farming cultures, the more children you have the more workers you have.
That seems practical as well.

I think his analogy is flawed.

~~~
mpyne
I agree the analogy is flawed, but that doesn't invalidate his argument.
People have all kinds of hobbies that add no real practical value to their
lives, other than that they enjoy doing it, and we don't _typically_ make fun
of people for those.

~~~
lern_too_spel
We make fun of anybody who goes into debt for those hobbies.

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mindstab
More anecdotal evidence that the value of America arts degrees is far less
than their over inflated cost

~~~
benjamincburns
Value is only quantifiable in the context of a purpose. Is a liberal arts
degree valuable as an instrument to garner income? Statistically, no. Is it
valuable as a set of experiences which help to better understand the world we
live in? Absolutely.

But does that make it valuable enough to justify the cost? I dunno. Ask Ken
Ilgunas.

~~~
pyoung
Well, considering he is now a published author, with a second book on the way,
maybe there was some monetary value form that degree after all?

Of course this isn't the case for the vast majority of liberal arts graduates.

~~~
benjamincburns
Sure. And he's a very determined individual. I mean, did you hear about the
time he lived in a van to keep grad school financially within his reach?

The statistics definitely don't play out in a vacuum... His kind of
determinism holds far more bearing on his successes (financial or otherwise)
than any degree (liberal arts or otherwise) ever could alone.

Also, don't ever forget the power of defining your own terms for success. I
mean, it's pretty hard to fail when you're successful by definition. Although
sadly it's nowhere near as easy to do as it sounds...

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WestCoastJustin
Read about this in 2009, [1, 2]. Anyways, looks like he has a new book out
about his journey, called _Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road from Debt to
Freedom_ [3]. If you search google for _Ken Ilgunas_ looks like there is a
full court press about it.

[1] <http://www.salon.com/2009/12/07/living_in_a_van/>

[2] [http://blogs.newsobserver.com/campusnotes/duke-grad-
school-o...](http://blogs.newsobserver.com/campusnotes/duke-grad-school-on-
pennies-just-live-in-a-van)

[3] [http://www.amazon.ca/Walden-Wheels-Open-Road-
Freedom/dp/0544...](http://www.amazon.ca/Walden-Wheels-Open-Road-
Freedom/dp/054402883X)

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jaynos
This reminds me of the time I lived in a van and took odd jobs to pay off
credit card debt. Oh wait, that never happened...but it will if I find a
publisher to give me a large advance for the book I write about.

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wikwocket
I admire the determination to pay off one's debt no matter the personal cost,
but I do not understand the life choices. There has to be more effective ways
to pay debt than to move to the wilderness where you literally cannot spend
95% of your income.

Personally I favor the idea that it is better to focus your energy on
earning/producing more, than it is to try to penny-pinch and cut costs. In
today's world it seems there are innumerable opportunities to find
money/success. But I acknowledge I'm saying that from a position of privilege,
sitting here checking HN in my spare time.

Perhaps there was no other easy way for this English major to make more than
$8 an hour, or perhaps he wanted the experience of going to Alaska (and also
paying off his loan). But I would not suggest this as a first-choice plan to
repay student loans!

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nchuhoai
I have always been a proponent of a more vocationally-oriented system like we
have in Germany, it was outragous for me to see how much money people spend on
"monterily worthless" degrees. Yet, I point out America's college system as
the single best competitive advantage over the rest of the world. I so far
couldn't find the words for it, but he put it soo greatly:

"Plus, I was graduating with a degree in English and history, which, though
valuable to me, is more or less monetarily worthless."

"I have little patience for critics who don’t see the value in a liberal arts
education. We don’t mock people who have children -- and there’s no practical
value to having children."

~~~
fein
Ah yes, but the end of that last quote leaves a bit more:

"Why should we mock people who want to learn about their world and learn about
themselves?"

Because you don't need a damn Liberal Arts degree to do that. It didn't cost
me 5 figures to learn about my ego and my id; It cost me 5 figures to get a CS
degree while doing so.

I also mock those with children, but only because I currently don't know a
single person in my circles that should be having kids now, if ever.

When I hear a friend is pregnant, I just get depressed about all the
opportunities they'll never have.

~~~
nchuhoai
I'm not disagreeing with you that at the margins, a liberal arts degree or the
pursuit of knowledge at a college might not be "worth it". I just think,
liberal arts people get a lot of shit for even wanting to do so.

Ultimately, it's about the second part of your comments. You clearly think
they are doing something wrong with their lives, or they are not choosing the
optimal route for their life.

While you are obviously entitled to your opinion, I do have some reservations
about this kind of judgement. People have different views of what is a happy
fulfilled life for them, so let it be.

(I know how ironic my "stop judging people" judgement on your judgement must
sounds like, it's a fallacy I haven't been able to solve yet)

~~~
fein
> I know how ironic my "stop judging people" judgement on your judgement must
> sounds like, it's a fallacy I haven't been able to solve yet

Sounds fine to me as long as we judge people based on their decisions and the
impact those decisions have on a non consenting 3rd party.

I'm concerned with people choosing their preferred route for their own life,
as long as its the preferred route with the minimal amount of negative
consequences to the rest of society.

I think the concept of "stop judging people" is hugely misrepresented. It
should be "stop judging people based on things that do not and will not affect
others", because really, telling someone to not judge a rapist for being a
rapist is pretty bad.

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ahallock
While his story is interesting, I don't think it should be a model for anyone
else or an example of how to be prudent with your education or debt situation.
It's almost as if he went to such lonely extremes so he could write about this
later.

And blindly paying down debts is irrational; you need to look at the broader
picture, not be intimidated by what you owe. Maybe that money would be better
spent on other things in the short term. I have a low interest rate on my
student loan and just pay the minimum.

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quackerhacker
I ALWAYS find the survival stories of college WAY more interesting than what
you did to get your masters or what you majored in.

