How much money do I really need to live?

is going on? Chuck? I just can't believe I said that episode growth. Yeah, we can't repeat what Chuck just said. He's a dirty, dirty boy. They're all gonna wonder. His name is Charles W. Bryant. My name is Joshua M. Clark. I go by Josh. He goes by Chuck or compass head and chuckers Um, and this is stuff you should know. Thanks for tuning into our podcast. Are you on uppers? Yeah? Okay, I did a bunch of amial nitrate. Man, everything is weird. Good for you, Thanks so, Chuck Um. Times are tough

right now. Indeed, as you know, they're particularly tough for me. I am broke all the time, right, I know that. Actually, we have this cool monthly Yeah you know that because I like to bump money off a chunk cords in a while. Um, we have this monthly expenses calculator on the side. Have you been on it? It's it's unnerving.

It's got all this great stuff and you know, like how much you estimate how much you spend on gas a month, cable, your phone, insurance, all this, and then you put in at the top your your monthly gross income. Somehow I'm living on negative two and fifty four dollars a month. That's awesome. I have no idea how I'm still alive. But Uncle Sam has well, Uncle Sam's in

trouble too, but they take quite a bite. Well imagine if I had put my net income in here, and I'd be in the hole like a grand every morning when I wake up. Um. But yeah, so, I mean, like I said, times of tough. We're all very very happy to be here at how stuff Works dot com. How stuff Works dot Com. We love this place. I love it. Seriously. Please don't fire un exactly as we know. Remember we met that guy Chris in our in our our podcast. Yeah, so no, I'm sorry. Our spoken word album.

I just got the Crop the Kakai from our producer Jerry. She's like, I don't even say audiobook kid, um, but yeah, so so it's a little rough right now. One of the things I've learned is that as long as I have gas in the car, beer and cigarettes, I'm set. Because really, honestly, um, I have virtually discontinued eating. Like, I don't eat breakfast. I rarely ate breakfast anyway. I don't eat lunch um, and dinner is usually kind of small, that kind of thing. Uh. And it's amazing how quick

your stomach shrinks, right. Um, you just I'm not hungry. I'm rarely hungry, usually by about seven, which is when I'll eat dinner. If I do, um, i'll be kind of hungry. But if I just say no, I'm not really hungry, it goes away. Sure, um and some coffee

and that helps. But the problem is is there's like there's an arc where it's like, you know, appetitius suppressed, appetiti supress, and then all of a sudden, the caffeine just screams into your stomach and it really points out how empty your stomach is, so you have to know

where the cut off point is, right. Um, but no, I've been writing a lot of health articles lately, and it turns out that there is a well known fact and the medical establishment this isn't crack pop fringe stuff that you're really unhealthy because you don't know that that I will probably live longer than I normally would have because of a calorie restricted diet, which we've talked about.

We have, and I have found out quite happily that I accidentally fell uh backwards, thank you backwards, I'm like hung up on profanity, uh into a calorie restricted diet and I will live longer even smoking cigarettes. Well, good luck with that, my thanks. But the point is is I've found that you can't get by the very little money, and um, that just so happens to be what we're talking about right now. That was the longest setup in the history of stuff. You should know, which is good

a new records. I wasn't knocking it. Did I get a medal of it? Because I would totally pawn it right now, Yeah, to my cigarette. So yeah, Josh, you can get by then I think, what's the name of the article? How much money do I Really Need to Live Written by Jane, our colleague Jane McGrath, who is our fine, fine financial and money writer, and she also has her own podcast, Stuff you Missed in History Class with Candice Gibson at the Tricks Extraordinary. Actually, no, it's

not Candice Gibson any longer. Our dear Candice got married Candice Keener. Candice Keener now c K So, Chuck, what what do we How much money do we need to live? I know how much I need to live, But I mean, as far as the government's concerned, don't they have some sort of estimate that I may have heard of. I think you're talking about out the poverty threshold. Yes, which, again reading this article, that's a very little money that the government considers the poverty line, right. I looked it

up in two thousand nine. For for a single person, the government thinks you can get by in ten thousand, eight hundred and thirty dollars a year. Yeah, you actually lived below the poverty line one year? You didn't. I did not too long ago. Wow, Chuck. This is when I was in the film business and I was working as a p A and I made very very little money. But like with this article. I had very cheap apartment. I had l a Yeah, there's such a thing there was at the time. I've had a really good deal

going and uh, you know how it works, dude. I didn't buy much food. I thought really cheap food. Uh, and I was able to do it. I was shocked when I got my UM statement at the end of the year. I was like, you gotta be kidding me. I lived on that and I didn't feel like I really missed out on that. That's crazy. Well, it's because you're hanging out with Matthew McConaughey the whole time. True, Yeah, Maddie. So that that's that's for one person, ten grand and

thirty dollars um. That's absolute poverty, which they've been Uh, they've been looking at this kind of stuff since the nineteen sixties. Right. Well, let me say, also, a family of four as far as in two thousand nine supposedly can get by on two thousand, fifty dollars. A family of four. That's insane to me. But yeah, so this is this is uh, this all comes from the sixties. There's an analyst named Mali Orshansky, and he came up

with the poverty line. Right. Basically, what he did was he estimated the total annual cost of a healthy diet in America, and then he multiplied it by three because he'd read in nineteen fifty five U. S. D. A Report that said that Americans spend about one third of their income on food, So that would make sense. You figure out how much food you need and then multiplied by three, and then you have the poverty line. That's the least amount of money you need to make. And

the bureau adopted that. They like, this is a great job. True, and unfortunately they've been using it ever since with very little adjustment. Right, they ad just for inflation, the inflation of uh increases in in the price for food, that kind of thing. But really it's still based on that original formula, right, with the one third number. I think that's what's causing a lot of issues. Some people think say that one seventh of your income is what you

actually spend on food now. And also you have to take into account like back in the in the fifties and early sixties, you didn't have to get a loaned by a car, right they become exponentially more expensive. You also didn't have cable TV. You also didn't have wireless internet. You also didn't have cell phones any internet for that matter. That is true, Thanks for that one. We have so many more bills today that the formula should have been

changed years and years ago, right, but the bills. I think this is the crux of the matter is want versus need, And that's kind of the crux of the article is do you need wireless internet? People think they can't live without their cell phone, but not too long ago, all of us lived without a shell phone and it wasn't that big of a deal. Well, there's this thing called the relative needs. Do you remember when we talked

about the five day weekend? We talked about relative needs and it was, uh, like, say your neighbor gets a really big TV, and all of a sudden, you need a TV. But you need a really big TV. Right, that's a relative needs. But not all relative needs are kind of want to grabby needs, like I need to beat my neighbor. They also reflect the competitiveness that we

have in the marketplace and in the labor force. Right, Like if you have a cell phone and the guy who's up for a job next to you has only a landline, and has to go home or use a pay phone to stay connected. Who's going to really come out on top or you might just miss the one call that you need, you know. Sure, Yeah, So I mean there there are certain things that you can say, yeah, that's kind of frivolous. We did without them, but the fact is everybody else has them. You kind of have

to have him to stay competitive. Like, um, I've been trying to find any way I can to cut down on a monthly expenses. In one clear way is to just get rid of my cable. But I'm not going to get rid of my cable entirely because I still need wireless internet because I work at home a lot, you know, and we we have a research based job,

so we need the internet exactly, and and the cell phone. Like, yeah, you can pare it down, like I could have a pretty bare bones um uh cell phone plan and it would save a few bucks, But if you really look at it's like, oh, I'm saving like thirty forty bucks a month, which technically adds up over the course of a year, but really you're like, ah, that I just went through that in gas, you know. So it's kind of a frustrating balancing act, trying to pare down monthly expenses. Right, yes,

absolutely so. So what are some of the things you can do their chuck if you want to really look at how to live on the least amount of money. Well, Josh, I was raised by my mother and father, but namely, my mother raised our family of five on a elementary school principal salary. In the it was just your dad working, just my dad. My mom quit teaching to raise the kids and then went back to teaching later once I was older, and she did a sterling job. By the way,

thank you, thanks mom. But my mom is and what wasn't is a master um economist micro economist. She was able to She clipped coupons, which is one of the things that we highly recommend. I mean, she had a box filed with coupons, alphae tized, it was already organized. We shopped at the discount to clothe the ears, like Marshall, Like, my mom was pretty good like that too. And she could never understand why I would I just refuse to

wear nights of the round table clothing. She's like, it looks exactly the same, Like, no, see that that's a little flag was supposed to be the polo. It looked just like the polo thing, except instead of a polo mallet, the top of the mallet it was a flag. And I gotta tell you, when you're eleven, every kid around you sees that flag. Hero win on that flag. Well try me, buddy. I Not only that, but in my family, we shopped at the store that had the the flaws

in the clothing. Oh an outlet store. Yeah, well now it was an outlet store. It was called I can't remember what it's called, but factory store. No liquidator, No I don't, I'm out of It's basically like you'll it'll be the name brand and be like, hey look at those Converse shoes, but they're missing two eye holes, or your your your genes are missing a zipper, that kind of thing. Well, what's funny is as I've grown older, I've come to see the value and stuff like that.

Absolutely like who pays full price, who pays retail? Not me? And that goes back to my point is growing up, I always felt like I was maybe missing out here and there, and not that we were I mean poor by any means. Always felt like I had everything I needed, but I didn't get the members only jacket, and I didn't get the parachute pants, and now it's no no. I think, God yeah for my mom not getting you

those things. And the end result is as an adult, I have a natural inclination toward being a little more frugal and watching my money in some ways. But I'm also my father's son who is notorious for blowing money on flights of fancy, so I always I also have that, So it's a nice balance. That is a good balance. Like I won't I'll walk around behind my wife turning out lights, and I'll try and recycle everything under the

sun and reuse it. But I'll go out and like blow five hundred bucks on the guitar without even thinking, and he will people I have been there with him when he did. It was a great guitar. What was it? Uh, well, it's a nice guitar. Okay, he Chuck's afraid you're gonna break into his house and take his guitar, So coupons wait.

Let me also say that I want to give a shout out to my mom, who was a very very great woman at being thrifty but also making her kids feel like we were rich as I've grown older, I've realized, Yeah, not everybody ate turkey loaf and drank green kool aid for dinner, you know what I mean. Yeah, So now I'm kind of like, hats off, it's off the mom's mother stays approaching. Let's just yeah, here's two more So,

clipping coupons is a good way, Josh buying generic. I know, I go that was a great grocery store in Atlanta called Kroger, and I think I don't know if they're nationwide another and yeah, they're pretty big. But man, I buy the Kroger brands. It's always cheaper. It's just as good. Especially they're delicious private stock brand, right, Chuck, do you

remember the generic? Like the generic brand. There's a brand that was like it was a like it was a white box and it would say in black block letters brand Flakes and then there was a UPC code and that was it. Did your see the beer? No, it was great. My first this is when my brother lived in Los Angeles, my first visit ever to l A. Me and some friends from U g A went and

stayed with my brother. We went to the store and to get some beer, and literally the first thing where I went to was the six pack of white cans that said beer and we loaded up. It was awful? Was it bad? Could you stomach it? Did you finish it? Well? Of course I was in college. I have never seen that. I would love. I'm going on eBay find well, it's not around anymore, and somebody's got it in their garage somewhere. Probably yeah, some Yeah, we could probably find some Billy

beer on there. Oh yeah, from Billy Carter some alright, so check, we've got coupons, we've got generic. There's also a Cooking at home is huge. Number one. If you're like out and about and you're not cooking, but you're poor, you're say goodbye to vegetables in your diet because you know, no fast food place sells vegetables, and if they do, they're no longer nutritious. They have been slathered in fat and deep fried so long that you might as well

just eat, you know, blocks of cheese. That's it. Um. So yeah, you if you can cook at home. Number one, it's cheaper. Number two's healthier. Um. And in the article, uh Jane cites a source that that says that if if you bring your own lunch to work every day you can, you can save about nine and sixty bucks a year. Struck me as very low, because don't hear you can't get lunch for less than ten bucks. I let's go with ten because the mass a lot easier.

But that comes to if you go out every day, which there's a lot of people who work with us that do um and that's like bucks a year. That's a lot of cheese. I feel guilty when I eat out lunch, Yeah I do. I feel like it's a complete waste of money. If I don't like bring my sandwich or something and I'm forced to eat out, I'll try and skip lunch. But yeah, it makes me like I don't want to go home and say, you know, it's been twelve dollars on lunch. Yeah, yeah, no, no,

I don't. I don't either. I know what you mean. I value a buck. I'll treat myself sometimes generally I don't eat lunch. I'm a Gordon Gecko adherent. But let me give you a little tip. And I know you already know this. If you ever happen to be hanging around the courtyard downstairs around twelve twelve thirty, you see rocks in read strike up a conversation with her because she has a policy of buying lunch or whoever she runs into while she's out there. She bought me lunch

one day, she bought me lunch twice. Well, we just needed time. This better alternate. Yeah, we can both just be there with big dough eyes like hey Roxanne. So yeah, need versus want, Josh. That's what it comes down to. If you're uh suffering in these tough times, I think what you need to do is take a good hard look at your finances, break it down, line it, out it and buy item and really think about it. Do I need a cable or can I get rid of

it for the next six or eight months? Especially with the new digital transmissions apparently that opened up If it works, it opened up a lot more channels than than it was available with just ravities, and it's a lot clearer too. So that's something. I went without cable a couple of times in my life for extended periods, and I thought I was gonna miss it, man, But after a little while, you you can just kind of forget. It's like not eating. Yeah, I've done it a bunch of choice before, and you

get used to it really quickly. Right, Although we're not saying that you should not eat people that's Josh's bag. Nice, thanks Chuck. It's not healthy. We're not encouraging that. So yeah, I think the irony is in this article we never really say how much it takes. It's more like a relative thing. Yeah, So, as you were saying, I think it's it is time for us to take a good long look at our finances. It seems like we we were coming out of a phase where, you know, just

conspicuous consumption is a thing in the past. See somebody riding around in a hummer, It's like, did you miss the memo? Like, I realize you can't sell that thing to anybody or give it away for free. But it seems like at least the US is kind of taking this new tech where we're getting a little more frugal, and you know it, there's a big difference between you know, being wealthy and rich and and you know, being able to take care of yourself and your family. And it's

good that it's in I feel it. Feel good about that. And the other thing is is don't forget to save. Saving is huge. It's an important thing where you are not a nation of savers, and apparently it's we're becoming more and more of a nation of savers, which is heartening, is a good thing. Yeah. You know what I hope, dude, is that this whole recession blows over and that we're all better for it in the end. Ultimately we will.

But you know, like the uh, the Great Depression era grandparents that everybody gripes about, it's like kind okay, yes, I understand, you can use this coffee can for eighty different things, and you have been. We're that generation, dude, we're in in the making. We're going to annoy the kids that come behind us badly. Yeah. It always works. Yeah, So look forward, you whipper snappers to hearing from Chuck and I because we're gonna tell you all about how

bad it was. And opp nine. I'd like to also say, if you want to learn more about, um, how much money you need to live, you can go to UH. You can type that into how stuff works dot com in our handy search bar, and there's a monthly income or monthly expenses calculators and there's a bunch of really great personal finance links in that article. It's a good one. By again by Jay McGrath. Um, so let's do the blog thing, Chuck, right, Uh, speedy plug. We have a

blog now. We've been writing on it. We have people uh posting comments and it's a lot of fun and we encourage you to check it out on the right out of the homepage. And also, I'm glad you said that because you just gave me my new hotel pseudonym what is it? Speedy Club. That's pretty good. We actually had a bunch of people right in with suggestions for Yeah, we need to do that for listener mills because there were a lot of them that were French. Didn't you

notice that? No? Ye, so should we? And quickly our audio spoken word record album are spoken word album called The Stuff You Should Know, super Stuff Guide to the Economy. It's up on iTunes worth every penny we're coming to realize, um. And you can type in super Stuffed and the search bar of your iTunes while while you're searching the iTunes store and it should be the first thing that comes up. And if you want to buy it, great for you. Right, help support Josh and Jerry and Chuck. So we begging

for Nichols anytime soon is it time. It's time for listening rail. Okay, Josh, I just have one today. This is from Patrick. Yeah. Uh. Patrick was writing in about dejab wu, the deja episode. He wanted to respond because we talked about biological deja vu, and he has some insight. He has an affliction and this is really odd. He's had it since he was twelve. Now, occasionally I'll experience an intense sensation of deja vu, almost like a dream.

I remember some senior dialogue that feels incredibly familiar. It sounds like normal dejab It's so far right. However, during this episode, I feel dizzy, start to mumble, and I usually need to brace myself against something for about twenty to thirty seconds. I recover. I have a slight headache, and the dizzy spells occur in clusters, so I'll have five or six of these in a given day and then not experience them for a month or so. However, I'll just have one really intense deja vu episode that

will cause me to completely lose consciousness for about thirty seconds. Okay, can I interject here? What is this person named Patrick? Patrick? I would like to strongly urge you to go see a neurologist, like, immediately, I'm not done, okay, pay attention to things. Uh some other weird traits. These happen once a month, almost to the day, which is interesting. After the episode is over, he can't remember anything about it. Uh,

no memories of it. He attempts to write things down or describe them while they're happening, but it's just gibberish. Usually happens in the morning, but in all kinds of situations, standing, sitting, running, stressed, calm whatever. He's gone to the doctor. No one can explain it, he said to E. E. G. S And an M. R. I. And various theories have included seizures in her ear problems, salt deficiencies, and low blood pressure. Luckily, it doesn't interfere too much with my daily life, aside

from interrupted conversation every now and then. Patrick. Long story short, Patrick is the stigmata? Is he? I think? So that's my theory. He's very open. I appreciate Patrick here. Doctor, I hope you don't have anything really wrong with you. I mean, as long as you're not going bonkers or you know, it's not you're not hurting yourself, that's that's cool, right, so yeah, that's my professional medical opinion of course my

formal trainings and pediatrics. So right, he did actually ask us to, uh to posit a opinion on it, but we can't do that. I did no idea, I already did. Yeah, but that's funk. Okay, So that was that. That was Patrick. We appreciate you, Patrick the Stigmata and uh, if you're a stigmata, you suffer from some sort of religious affliction, or you just want to say hi, you can send us an email to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

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