[HN Gopher] Don't pay for 95% (2016)
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Don't pay for 95% (2016)
Author : PascLeRasc
Score : 118 points
Date : 2020-10-12 15:45 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (5kids1condo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (5kids1condo.com)
| nunez wrote:
| Elastically scaling your transport and housing needs works great
| when you live in a city but fails hard when you live in rural or
| suburban neighborhoods. Since the author is a strong advocate for
| public transit, I'll preempt the "this would be more viable if
| public transit were widely available" with "yes, but that's a
| massive inconvenience and additional time you have to account
| for".
|
| Of course, if the author is subtly implying that everyone should
| live in a city, then, well, not everyone wants to live in a city
| nor should they have to.
| bgribble wrote:
| Not noted in the article that usage of car share, hotel rooms,
| and parks are all already highly correlated with local
| conventions for work holidays.
|
| Sure, you can get an easy car share 95% of the time, but the 5%
| of the time that you actually need one is also the same 5% of the
| time that everyone else in the city needs one -- the long weekend
| when everybody wants to head out to the countryside. Likewise
| hotel rooms and the facilities in parks. So you may need to plan
| waaaaaaaaay ahead if you depend on access to these shared
| resources.
| einpoklum wrote:
| It must first be said - western economies are based, to a great
| extent, on excessive consumption, through planned obsolescence,
| cultural enforcement of fashion, socialization and hiding of the
| mounting costs of resource disposal, de-legitimization of reuse
| and recycling through fixing, etc. GDP must grow grow grow! ...
| or there are crashes. And there are crashes.
|
| In this context, I commend the author.
|
| At the same time, it seems that in addition to frugality or "non-
| spluring" he is advocating a life of precarity, and strong
| dependence on each of a bunch of commercial corporations, and
| this I don't like as much.
| theonlybutlet wrote:
| This guy it seems skimped on his server too, website won't load
| for me. Should've outsourced it to Google or someone lol.
| jancsika wrote:
| > So what motivates people to plan for occasional peaks and
| idealized usage, rather than actual daily utilization?
|
| The question presupposes the answer.
|
| I fondly remember being a kid and riding around in the van-with-
| a-tv owned by the family who for whatever reason enjoyed being
| the family who drove the van-with-a-tv filled with their kids
| with all their kids' screaming friends.
|
| You don't want to be that family, and that's fine. But you should
| be explicit in stating you don't want to be and are _not_ that
| family. Don 't convince yourself you _could_ rent that minivan in
| the case that it becomes socially necessary at some unspecified
| time in the future. Everyone in your life has almost certainly
| already heard you quote your statistics from the article, and
| they have adjusted accordingly so as to route around you-- for
| example, when they decide how to vectorize transport of their
| offspring.
| tqi wrote:
| Articles about how most people are doing it wrong or optimizing
| for the wrong thing always leave me wondering who they are trying
| to convince, me or themselves.
| wonnage wrote:
| This is kind of related to the lean supply concept that's been
| waylaid by COVID-19. You think you can just pay for capacity when
| you need it, until it turns out everyone needs it at the same
| time. I can't imagine anyone who lives near wildfires in
| California not owning a car. Lots of people don't live near
| parks, or the parks are poorly maintained. A friend might lose
| their job and need a place to stay for a few months.
|
| There are lots of what-if scenarios which are individually
| unlikely but cumulatively probable. If you have the resources,
| why not prepare for them?
| tomrod wrote:
| The exact opposite opinion dominates utility planning. I consider
| that an interesting contrast to the point the article raises.
| shocks wrote:
| I wonder how this guy feels about his no-car-small-apartment in
| 2020? :)
|
| My second bedroom has become an office. I bought my first car a
| few months ago (after 8 years of living on the outskirts of
| London) and it has dramatically improved my pandemic life.
| surprisetalk wrote:
| cached:
| https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:81YCed...
| egypturnash wrote:
| The big question this doesn't get into is: what do you want to
| have available instantly, with no acquisition cost beyond
| "remembering where you keep it"? What do you want to be able to
| customize perfectly to _your_ needs?
|
| As an example of the latter: I've tried bikeshares but they just
| made me long for my own bike: they're all too low for me, they
| usually have three gears at best, they have hard-to-move solid
| tires, the cargo area is usually in the front instead of my
| preference of the back. The cheap, beat-up seven-speed I own is a
| lot more _fun_ to ride on.
| tuna-piano wrote:
| The author is missing one big thing: The main point of life is
| not optimizing for optimal spending, its optimizing for
| enjoyment.
|
| Of course the rational break-even level math for some of these
| purchases can be analyzed, including taking into account tail
| risks and hassle costs.
|
| But I think the point the author is missing is that some things
| are affordable luxuries that people enjoy. For a long time I
| didn't have a car in the downtown part of a city I live in.
| Public transit+rideshare+zipcar was a totally fine substitute
| (like the author).
|
| But owning a car is better/easier/more enjoyable/more freeing! We
| didn't do a fine-grained analysis on how much using zipcar+hertz
| would cost vs buying a car. The car isn't costing a significant
| percent of our income, we were annoyed with alternative and
| wanted it, so we bought it.
|
| If you used a blender 2x a year and it cost $1 to rent vs $30 to
| buy, would you really consider going through the hassle of saving
| money to deal with renting a blender? I'm not suggesting a car is
| the same significance for all, but certainly it can be rational
| to own one even for people in the same position as the author.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > The main point of life is not optimizing for optimal
| spending, its optimizing for enjoyment
|
| I'm pretty much there. And having got there, I'm not convinced
| (yet) that it's the right goal at all. Hard to divest from it,
| however, since enjoyment is hard to walk away from.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >The main point of life is not optimizing for optimal spending,
| its optimizing for enjoyment.
|
| The trouble comes when optimizing for enjoyment today causes
| pain tomorrow.
| Jarwain wrote:
| Well then your just not optimizing for enjoyment across a
| long enough time scale
| johnnyb9 wrote:
| I live in NYC and renting a car, either with a car rental agency
| or via ZipCar is an utter shitshow.
|
| With ZipCar, the cars are usually either (1) changed last minute
| to a different garage, (2) have mechanical issues (I showed up
| once and the battery was dead), or (3) strong smell of smoking. A
| few times I have had multiple of them occur in the same
| reservation (the third garage we were sent to had a functioning
| car with check engine alerts).
|
| I have tried rental cars, but then what if you want to go away
| for a week at a time? What if the car doesn't have an EZ-Pass?
| How do you get to your final destination from the car rental
| place? A few months ago I waited one hour for a Lyft driver to
| pick me up (in a jalopy van on a toll-less route with no AC) to
| take me to the car rental place.
|
| There is something to be said of having a functioning car waiting
| for you near your place of residence, even if it is only for 5%
| of the time. I imagine the same applies to other things in life.
| beervirus wrote:
| We didn't use our guest room much last year (although we did
| still use it for storage), but it sure is nice to have it now
| that we need two home offices.
| [deleted]
| comeonseriously wrote:
| I WFH so I only use my car once per two weeks (to get groceries).
| My SO doesn't WFH, and hers is more comfortable so we use that
| when we go most places. My car is 17 years old, but only has 100K
| on it. Runs great. Low maintenance, so I keep it knowing that if
| I need it it is there. But, I can afford that luxury partly
| because there's no care payment and the insurance isn't
| tremendous.
| federiconafria wrote:
| I guess what most comments here are missing is the analysis
| behind certain purchases that come almost as a default in certain
| people's life like a bigger home, better car, etc.
|
| Not everything has to be cost-optimized some things can be just
| for pleasure or for the peace of having something available when
| needed.
|
| What I do think is that for a lot of people many of these
| purchases are just a default path to follow.
| lhorie wrote:
| This feels a bit like a strawman. Does he have experience living
| the lifestyle of suburb house + car or is he just trying to
| justify his own choice of living downtown?
|
| Having done both, I can tell you they are very different
| lifestyles. There are certainly perks to the downtown lifestyle,
| but it isn't all peaches and roses.
|
| Taking the bus is a huge mixed bag and depends a lot on the
| transit system layout. Taking a newborn on the subway and
| transferring to a bus to see a pediatrician sucks. Hyperactive
| kids fighting all day when you're trying to work from home from a
| shoebox apartment sucks. You don't get as much leeway in your
| choice of schools (and btw, the highest ranking ones often aren't
| downtown). Etc.
|
| By contrast, the north american suburb lifestyle generally
| involves driving kids around pretty much all the time: they might
| go to a nicer school that is a bit farther out (did I mention
| good school areas have expensive real estate?) One might drive
| out virtually every weekend because getting ice cream at ikea
| takes as long as it does to walk/bus to the nearby supermarket.
| When one drives, they can also pack more activities in one day:
| Going for groceries then checking out a dozen books from the
| library in a single outing isn't a recipe for back pain. And you
| can actually get home before lunch time. Etc.
|
| With a bigger house, your parents can come stay for a few months
| (this is very common in many cultures).
|
| Yes, you can save money by living the downtown lifestyle, but
| there's certainly a hit in various aspects of quality of life.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| It's not just the 5% of the time you need it, it's also the
| immediate and guaranteed availability.
|
| I rarely use my car, I'm the exact kind of person this is aimed
| at. I haven't used it in *monthts. But when I need it, it's
| there. There's car rental place about 500 meters walking distance
| from my home, but they aren't open 24/7. There is also a ride
| share car parked at about 1km from my home, but it's only one car
| and if someone else took it I can't use it.
|
| These things only work when you know well in advance you're going
| to use it and even then, they might not be available at peak
| times. There's only so many ride share cars available, and if
| everyone wants to visit their parents on Christmas, there's not
| enough of them. Car rental companies aren't going to buy enough
| cars to cover their 5% peak use either.
| nickjj wrote:
| Do you buy car insurance by the hour?
| ryandrake wrote:
| As I read the article, I compare the author's world view to
| that of the "survivalists" and "preppers". The guys who
| stockpile food, water, ammo, etc. that they'll likely never use
| but might. They deliberately optimize for the 5% or 0.5%,
| rather than the 95%. They assume independence will eventually
| be needed (running water may one day be unavailable), where the
| author is willing to risk relying on inter-dependence (car
| rentals and hotels will always be available). The survivalists
| firmly espouse the "when I need it, it's there" point of view.
| I don't know if one view is right or wrong, but they are
| clearly opposite approaches to dealing with tail risk.
| em500 wrote:
| > I rarely use my car, I'm the exact kind of person this is
| aimed at. I haven't used it in _monthts_. But when I need it,
| it 's there.
|
| If those _months_ are not hyperbole, you might find that when
| you need it, it doesn 't start. (That just happened last week
| to a friend of mine who had to bring his kid to swimming class,
| after leaving the car unused for a few weeks.)
| romwell wrote:
| A jump-start kit/powerbank that charges from USB costs $20.
|
| It addresses this problem 99% of the time.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| > they might not be available at peak times...
|
| That's what surge pricing is for.
| dexen wrote:
| It saddens me to see your correct answer being voted down. I
| get there's a moral condemnation of surge prices in certain
| circles.
|
| Nonetheless this condemnation, once legislated, have removed
| the very practical ability to purchase important services or
| goods when they matter the most _to you_. Instead we end up
| _all_ over-buying just to ensure we have it at the key
| junction.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| On first glance I didn't like the sound of it either. But
| then I thought, it really does give you a choice you
| wouldn't otherwise have.
|
| If surge pricing doesn't exist and all cars are taken,
| you're simply SOL, period.
| nradov wrote:
| The price is irrelevant if there is literally zero supply.
| Market mechanisms only work on longer time scales.
| waterhouse wrote:
| Even on a short time scale, as prices get higher, many
| people will _discover_ that they have some alternatives or
| can wait a while, leaving the product available to those
| who really, really need it.
| smilekzs wrote:
| At which point it starts to make sense for them to choose
| own their own copy, securing their freedom from the
| tyranny of such false-sharing.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Sounds like you think its worth it but I would never spend
| hundreds of dollars a month in payments and insurance on
| something I don't use for _months_.
| nwienert wrote:
| So you don't have health insurance?
| kaesar14 wrote:
| I'm American so any questions about health insurance
| automatically are predisposed towards absurdity. But yeah,
| I do. I don't want to be stuck in a hospital with a multi
| thousand dollar medical bill for an emergency. The worst
| that would happen without me owning a car is needing to
| rent one on a moment's notice. Maybe there's the odd moment
| when I would need a car for a city-wide evacuation? Seems
| like that's such an exceptional case that I would not spend
| my money maintaining a car just to be prepared for it.
| nwienert wrote:
| Like another poster said it's about 65/mo all in for a
| cheaper car, and personal preference is all that really
| matters.
| bluGill wrote:
| That is the trade off you made. It might not be right for the
| next person. There are things you cannot do with a rental car
| (off road). There are times when you cannot get a rental car
| when you want it. If you have hundreds of dollars per months
| that you are not spending anyway it might be worth it.
| (though my yearly costs for my truck that I drive a few times
| a year are much less than $100/month - it is paid for years
| ago though)
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| > I would never spend hundreds of dollars a month in payments
| and insurance on something I don't use for months
|
| Neither would I.
|
| I paid EUR2600 for my car (2007 Mitsubishi Colt), about 20
| euros a month for insurance, and 26 a month in road tax.
| rocqua wrote:
| I'd do the same if parking here wasn't 100$ a month.
| H8crilA wrote:
| It's shocking to me how cheap used cars are (equivalently -
| how few people buy them).
|
| I am doing exactly the same thing as you. Bought a ~$3k old
| used car that is always there for me. I do use it more
| often, ever week or two, though.
|
| It is even more shocking to me that people would buy a car
| on credit (except when it has a business purpose, i.e. you
| can comfortably cover interest payments with the increase
| in revenue). You're not supposed to use credit for
| consumption!
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| $4,500 2005 Toyota Corolla here...
|
| I put 80,000 miles on it in 2 years... I think I got my
| money's worth.
| ed_balls wrote:
| It's not shocking. New cars are more convenient and
| reliable. If you are going on a road trip and the car
| breaks down it's a major pain and expense.
|
| Secondly there is a huge difference in safety.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| I actually looked up statistics from my country's
| equivalent of the AAA of the road-side breakdowns they
| service before I bought it. The Mitsubishi Colt I own is
| one of the most reliable cars you can get. Japanese cars
| in general are very reliable.
| anm89 wrote:
| >Secondly there is a huge difference in safety
|
| On a three year old car? I really doubt it.
| elindbe2 wrote:
| Credit is fine if the interest rate is low and you aren't
| stretching yourself financially. I could've bought my car
| in cash if I wanted to but at a 2.5% interest rate I
| figured why bother, that's almost nothing after
| inflation. I might as well just keep the money invested
| in the market.
| ghaff wrote:
| Low mileage/late model used cars can be relatively
| expensive. "Clunkers" can be quite cheap but it's a bit
| of a crap shoot. Donated my old high mileage 2nd car
| (fortunately) before the pandemic hit. For some new tires
| and a brake job it would probably have kept going for a
| few more years but, especially if you want to take longer
| drives, old vehicles inspire less and less faith and take
| more and more time.
| brailsafe wrote:
| In the city that the author is writing from, car insurance
| can cost between $100 and $300 for minimum coverage on most
| cars unless you've been driving for a substantial amount of
| time crash-free. Likewise, gas is about $1.3 to $1.6/L
| bori wrote:
| I think it is useful to not over-optimize your life. You want to
| be prepared for the 5%. That's why I bought a car recently, even
| though I advocated for the OP's philosophy before and rented
| where I could.
|
| "Don't cross a river because it is 4 feet deep on average."
| flattone wrote:
| Living in the city is awesome because of the awesome things about
| living in the city.
|
| Living in the country is awesome because of the awesome things
| about living in the country.
|
| Some people prefer one or the other, even to the point of
| thinking their way is superior.
|
| Welcome to humans.
| allenu wrote:
| I like the overall concept and have used similar sorts of
| thinking in my life. I think it's useful to have a raw numbers
| audit of the costs in your life and to figure out if they're
| worth it or they're things you could eliminate. However, I think
| at some point you're going to have to be okay with some
| "inefficiency" in your life, assuming you are doing okay
| financially, of course. Stressing about efficiency can take its
| toll on you mentally if you're the kind of person who likes to
| maximize every little thing.
| vikramkr wrote:
| Buy a cheaper used minivan
|
| The guest bedroom makes for a decent storage space
|
| A yard has aesthetic value and you might be living in an area
| like greater NY metro area where land is worth more than the
| house built on it, so it's going to make financial sense down the
| line.
|
| The perspective of the author doesn't seem to come from the same
| background and experiences as many of the people reading the
| article, especially since the comparisons of the decisions they
| made to the "normal" are based on a very strange normal. That's
| fine, but it might be nice to get a sense of where they come from
| and what type of lifestyle their social group is living. Looks
| like "modo" is a canadian service - maybe canada is wildly
| different from the US but at least from my brief visits to metro
| areas in that country a significant portion of the lifestyle for
| the people I met in the toronto area seemed to be a lot like your
| typical american urban/suburban lifestyle in the US. I guess I
| just don't recognize the people "paying for the other 95" since I
| can't imagine anyone buying housing in an urban area with condos
| and public transit and parks that also sees property land area as
| purely recreational space instead of a financial investment, or
| people with young children that can't afford a 50k car that would
| think it makes more sense to rent out a minivan everytime they
| need to take the kids anywhere rather than get a 10 year old
| odyssey that'll keep running for 10 more. And I certainly can't
| imagine anyone that would decide to get a smaller house without a
| guest bedroom for financial reasons and then be so magnanimous
| that they're willing to pay for their friends hotel's when they
| visit! If they're not visiting to hang out with me at my place,
| why am I paying for their vacation? I wouldn't expect them to pay
| for mine!
| ghaff wrote:
| >I wouldn't expect them to pay for mine!
|
| That was a sort of odd touch for me. Mind you, I obviously
| don't know the details--maybe an old friend that he knew didn't
| have much money. But, yeah, I'd consider an offered guest room
| a nice offer but I'd never expect someone to offer to pay for a
| hotel if they didn't have the room.
| vikramkr wrote:
| The other people's reactions were also odd - the first
| reaction to hearing someone say they'll pay for a hotel
| instead of buy a house with a guest room is discuss the cost
| of the hotel? Is that just a Canadian thing I don't know
| about? It sounds like the friend group also all share the
| same idea that you are expected to provide for lodging when a
| friend visits. The only context where that sort of obligation
| even slightly makes sense to me is if your parents are
| visiting.
| ghaff wrote:
| The funny thing to that reply is that it's my dad who feels
| _really_ strongly about paying for accommodations if I or
| my brother visit him. But, yeah, absent some serious wealth
| disparity it seems weird and, even then, it would probably
| be something I 'd throw off with a line like "I have more
| credits at that hotel than I know what to do with" or
| something like that to avoid anyone being embarassed.
| kayson wrote:
| Does the cost/benefit really work out, though? Suppose I buy a
| $50,000 minivan which I expect to keep/last 10 years. At $8/hr
| for a rental, the breakeven is 50000/8/10/365=1.7hrs/day. When I
| was growing up in a family of 4, my parents easily spent more
| time than that in our van, shuffling us between school and other
| activities. And of course this doesn't count the depreciated
| value of the car after 10 years.
|
| I can imagine the hotel argument working out better
| mathematically, but it's definitely very much dependent on where
| you live. In a rural area you'd probably be crazy not to get a
| bigger home. In an urban area, a hotel could make sense.
| koyote wrote:
| Your calculation doesn't count for insurance, tax, maintenance
| and fuel. That being said, I consider nearly 2 hours a day
| spent in a car to be a massive amount of time and would
| definitely want to have my own car if that was the case.
|
| Then again I used to walk to school and today I walk or cycle
| to most places. I wouldn't be able to do that if I was living
| in one of those US suburbs.
| Notorious_BLT wrote:
| The author has other articles about how he's taught his
| children how to use the bus on their own to get around, and how
| they ride it to school daily. The "take the kids to school" use
| case isn't true for everyone, and I feel like people are also
| missing the point of the article.
|
| You're supposed to analyze for yourself if you need to own a
| car full-time, and if the answer is yes, perhaps a smaller one
| might do? If you're constantly shuttling large groups around,
| then the answer to both might be yes, and that's fine too.
| brentjanderson wrote:
| His point is definitely worth considering. I'd argue, though,
| that part of the 95% is about putting slack in the system. I
| don't want to have to wait for an Uber to show up when an
| emergency arises.
|
| The tail case is often the only case that matters.
| coolsunglasses wrote:
| We use our car almost every day (groceries, errands), it would
| cost dramatically more and take more time to rent vehicles. These
| sorts of posts always seem over-fitted to highly walkable areas.
| And maybe that's the intended audience but they rarely qualify
| the advice.
| rzwitserloot wrote:
| You're over-fitting to a specific example in this post. It's
| not about that; it's about the principle.
|
| If you either determine that you use that car a ton, or you do
| the math, work out exactly how often you'd need that car, and
| what the costs are for the nearest viable alternative solution,
| and the car's TCO is cheaper - great. You did what this post is
| trying to tell you to do: Stop thinking about an unattainable
| hypothetical 'I shall be using this at maximum usage all the
| time', and start thinking about what you actually need, and how
| often you'd need it.
| smilekzs wrote:
| On a higher order, not everyone can predict their future
| usage patterns to a confidence interval unambigious for a
| clear-cut rent-or-buy decision.
| whoisburbansky wrote:
| Perhaps the 95% in your situation would be more like getting a
| smaller car instead of, e.g. a minivan? I'm not saying you own
| a minivan, just that his general advice is not "don't get a
| car," it's don't get a car that based on some vision of what
| you want to do with it that only ends up actually happening 5%
| of the time. The insight is that it's usually cheaper to rent
| for the long tail use cases than to buy outright and leave idle
| for the vast majority of the time.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Many minivans are less expensive than many small cars. I do
| think there's a good life hack here of "don't spend a lot of
| money on a car" but I'm not sure it says much about the type
| of car.
| whoisburbansky wrote:
| Right, you have to pick the dimension of comparison to
| matter to you. Maybe the extreme case is getting a sports
| car that you only get to drive on the track once every
| couple months instead of a cheaper workhorse vehicle you'd
| use every day.
| madsbuch wrote:
| I am quite sure he is not talking about your situation. If you
| saturate the capacity of that car, then it seems warranted to
| buy it.
|
| It could also be buying that DSLR camera for going
| photographing twice a year instead of renting for these
| occasions, or buying that 3000$ workstation to play games that
| require that power once a month instead of going to a net cafe
| (or using Stadia or whatever).
| [deleted]
| acolumb wrote:
| I also think that leasing or buying used negates the car-rental
| argument. The costs of owning a used sedan are very low, and
| the on-demand convenience imho beats renting a car for $8/hr.
| Leasing enables one to have a new car without taking the
| depreciation hit.
|
| Own what appreciates, rent what depreciates.
| phoe-krk wrote:
| Your car doesn't stay idle 95% of the time, then. While the
| general principle might still apply in your case, the original
| examples don't, because your situation is different.
| closeparen wrote:
| There are 168 hours in a week, 5% is 8.4 hours/week.
|
| You could drive somewhere 15 minutes away and back, twice per
| day, and still be under 5%.
| whoisburbansky wrote:
| Agreed, but maybe it's best to think of the 95% as a
| convenient placeholder to remind you to account for extreme
| cases rather than a hard and fast rule.
| drdec wrote:
| I think it might be even more useful to think about the
| time you saved - i.e. without a car, will you be spending
| more than 5% of your time on transportation?
| phoe-krk wrote:
| Data point: as someone who grew up in villages and small
| cities in eastern Europe, I've seen cars being used for
| whole hours a day in total. Driving somewhere for thirty
| minutes a day is still a short total commute time relative
| to what I have experienced in rural and little-urbanized
| regions.
| eikenberry wrote:
| The author doesn't even say not to get a car. He says don't
| optimize your car purchase for something ("schlep a bunch of
| kids far away") you almost never need it for. Optimize for the
| common use case. So buy a small car for day to day and rent the
| mini-van for those occasions.
| echelon wrote:
| This doesn't work for rural and suburban America. What are
| you going to do, drive half an hour to pick up your other
| car? And spend another half hour waiting? That's incredibly
| inconvenient and costly.
|
| The car-agnostic ideal won't work outside of major cities.
| The backbone of America is car travel. People outside cities
| have more space and more stuff. They expect hauling and
| utility function in their vehicles. This isn't changing.
|
| Maybe if you can convince suburbanites to downsize, you might
| have a point. But that's also a city-centric viewpoint
| imposed by limited space and desire to move easily. Neither
| of those things are desired in the suburbs.
|
| City dwellers don't get it because they don't live that life.
| shard wrote:
| Just so I can get an idea of the magnitude of the number, I
| am making an estimation. Please point out any egregiously
| incorrect numbers.
|
| Price difference between smaller car and larger car: $15000
|
| Lifetime of car: 8 years
|
| Frequency the larger car is needed: once per month
|
| Additional time to pick up and drop off rental: 3 hours
|
| Money saved per hour: $52
|
| So it seems that if someone values their time more than
| ~$50/hour, they should buy the larger vehicle.
|
| Edit: Forgot to take into account the rental fee: $150
|
| Money saved per hour: $2
|
| It looks like it doesn't make sense to rent, as buying
| would allow the convenience of using the larger vehicle any
| time, especially if it is more than once a month.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| 3 hours to pick-up a rental ?
|
| You can add "additional time to park in the city because
| you have a big-ass car" to your calculations :)
| mikelward wrote:
| Assuming all else is equal. But what if you need to move
| further from work to get a house with parking space for
| your extra vehicle? Then you should also account for your
| extra commute time.
| ghaff wrote:
| I think he's saying if you really need a larger vehicle
| once a month or so to the point where you'd have to rent
| one, buy the larger vehicle.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| If you used the service linked in the article, it would
| cost you about $60 to get a car for a 5 hour 50 mile trip
| every month. If it takes you one hour instead, you're
| saving $90 an hour. And since you just have to get to the
| closest suitable car, 1 hour is probably more than
| enough.
|
| And I think most people would trade an hour driving for
| $50.
| antiframe wrote:
| > This doesn't work for rural and suburban America. What
| are you going to do, drive half an hour to pick up your
| other car? And spend another half hour waiting? That's
| incredibly inconvenient and costly.
|
| Maybe. Maybe not. The point is to do the exercise for your
| use case. If it costs you 1.5 hours and rental fees to get
| a minivan and you need it once a year, that's one side of
| the scale. On the other side you have purchase, insurance,
| maintenance, depreciation, storage and fuel costs.
|
| The point is to be honest with both sides of the scale and
| to actually do the comparison rather than taking an
| automatic answer "I need to drive extra kids to camp
| sometimes, so I must own a minivan." Maybe. Maybe not. Just
| be conscious about the choice, not automatic.
| nradov wrote:
| The delays and uncertainty associated with renting make that
| a total non-starter for parents with busy schedules. The only
| practical option for most of us is to buy a bigger vehicle.
| Or buy two: a big one and a small one.
| enriquto wrote:
| Considering that most of the human population lives in highly
| walkable areas, I find this "over-fitting" perfectly
| appropriate.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| I don't think this is true at all. Most of the world
| population lives in third world conditions. They may not have
| a car, because they can't afford it, but that doesn't mean
| their neighborhoods are "walkable".
|
| Visit the slums of Mumbai, or the shanty towns of Lagos, or
| the favelas of Lima. These may be high density, but they're
| certainly not "walkable". Either in the sense of being
| pedestrian friendly or having many services easily accessible
| by walking/public transport.
|
| There's a reason that the motorbike is one of the most
| popular consumer products for middle income countries. In the
| vast majority of the third world, the populace is desperate
| for any sort of personal motor transportation.
| ghaff wrote:
| A lot of people seem to think that the choice is between
| modern US cities (where indeed it's often hard to get
| around by foot or decent public transit) or the core of
| Amsterdam (or a number of at least parts of European
| cities). And that all of Asia in like Tokyo. I assure them
| that Jakarta and KL are not Tokyo.
| pier25 wrote:
| Most people do live in cities but not all areas of all cities
| are highly walkable.
|
| In many suburbs for example it's common to need the car to do
| basically anything.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| In America.
| bluGill wrote:
| When I went to a business trip to Germany my German
| coworkers told me to rent a car. The city I was going to
| didn't have good public transport. Sure if you go to one
| of the cities in Europe (or Asia) at anyone can name
| there is good transport. However even in Europe (or Asia)
| there are a lot of tiny cities and towns either without
| good transport, or limited transport. (There are of
| course some tiny towns with good transport)
|
| Notice above I qualified it with Europe or Asia. If you
| go to South America, or Africa odds are even the city you
| are going to doesn't have good transit for most people.
| (A handful are building, but there are lot of cities that
| could have good transit that don't have it)
| davidw wrote:
| I'd refine that some to "places where most development
| occurred post WWII, and they didn't maintain a tradition
| of mixed use development", so a lot of the US, especially
| in the west, Australia and Canada too, most likely,
| although I'm less familiar with them.
|
| The US used to have corner stores and fairly walkable
| places, but it's something you find in the older parts of
| towns and cities, and it may have decayed since it wasn't
| prioritized much for many years.
| pier25 wrote:
| In Europe too.
|
| I was born in a small city in Spain where most people
| still need a car to go to work, do groceries, go to a
| restaurant, etc.
| CamelCaseName wrote:
| The domain name, 5kids1condo, basically qualifies the advice on
| its own!
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah. To his condo point, fine. But if you choose to live
| downtown in an expensive city, who expects you to necessarily
| have a guest bedroom? (And if you own a house, you may well
| have a spare room that can be used as a guest bedroom but you
| also use for other things.)
|
| As for vehicles, I have a mid-sized or so SUV and sometimes I
| transport people but I often transport stuff from the home
| improvement store, etc. I have no interest in owning a small
| vehicle and then have to rent on a semi-regular basis.
|
| And, yes, I own tons of stuff that doesn't get used much. But
| most of that stuff can't be easily rented or borrowed for the
| times I need it. Should I rent an electric drill or a weed
| whacker every time I need one? There have been whole business
| models based on this idea but they ignore the transaction
| costs.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| > There have been whole business models based on this idea
| but they ignore the transaction costs.
|
| There's monetary and temporal costs. Instead of having to
| spend minutes to an hour to arrange and get a rental, you
| could have the item waiting in another room, ready to be
| used.
| leetcrew wrote:
| > But if you choose to live downtown in an expensive city,
| who expects you to necessarily have a guest bedroom?
|
| I think this one is not quite like the others. if you only
| need a car for one week each year, you don't lose much by
| renting. but putting your friends in a hotel is not really a
| substitute for having them stay at your place imo. if I only
| get to see a close friend once a year, I want to make the
| most of the time that they're in town, cooking breakfast
| together, staying up talking until we can't keep our eyes
| open, etc. it's really not the same if a day of hanging out
| starts and ends with transit to/from a hotel.
| Retric wrote:
| I did this by renting a hotel room next to my friend for a
| few days. It's actually fun and renting 2 rooms for up to 2
| weeks per year is significantly cheaper than paying for an
| unused bedroom in a city. More importantly you retain
| flexibility to use that for more than just an empty room.
|
| Couch surfing is also a perfectly reasonable alternative.
| ghaff wrote:
| Honestly, if they're a close friend, buy an air mattress or
| let them crash on the couch. I've done it plenty of times
| when visiting someone who didn't have a guest bedroom or
| there were a bunch of us.
|
| I agree on the car if you're really only using it for a
| trip or two a year. (Indeed, I wouldn't even consider
| owning a car in that case. I probably would if I were going
| away a couple weekends a month though.)
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Site is unreachable for me. Anyone have text?
| paulus_magnus2 wrote:
| TL;DR. Ride sharing / taxi vs car ownership breakeven is at EUR10
| per short trip (5km or less), but only worthwhile if I could
| totally get rid of the car: only 25% of car ownership cost is
| fuel, 75% or EUR5000 is maintenance + depreciation.
|
| my calculations (sorry if formatting is off)
|
| depreciation:
|
| 13000 purchase (5y old ex-lease car)
|
| 1000 after purchase: change of timing belt + water pump etc
|
| resale: 5y after
|
| 6000 ?? residual value
|
| 1800/y depreciation
|
| annual maintenance:
|
| 250 (1000 for 2 sets of seasonal tires every 4 years)
|
| 1000 (insurance + road tax)
|
| 40 official checkup
|
| 200 basic service (oil, filters)
|
| 1000 ?? fixing things + parking + road tolls + tickets
|
| 2490/y maintenance
|
| fuel (europe) 6.5l/100km diesel 20.000km annual mieage 1.3 EUR/l
| diesel (don't buy at highways)
|
| 1690/y fuel
|
| garage 75/m (comes with my apartment) 900/y garage
|
| total cost: 6680 EUR/y
|
| total cost: 0.334 EUR/km
|
| I also figured I do 500 trips during school year (40 weeks, 12.5
| trips per weak)
|
| total cost: 13.36 EUR/trip
|
| This is surprisingly high. I need to find a way to make more
| trips :)
|
| OK, that includes holidays in which I do half of my annual
| mileage (10.000km) but in the end most of the cost is fixed:
| depreciation + maintenance. Sadly, even at free electricity EV is
| not going to be much better. Only 100% ride sharing will bring a
| cost reduction that will influence decisions.
| ghaff wrote:
| Car maintenance is pretty heavily influenced by mileage.
| (Albeit less so in areas with snow/salt.) Though some of the
| things you include as maintenance are mostly annual costs.
| paultopia wrote:
| This argument ignores tail risks. Sometimes that 5% max capacity
| usage is something that turns out to be incredibly important and
| not substitutable short term.
|
| I'll be a lot of people are regretting not building some slack
| capacity into their housing and transportation right now, when
| public transit is potentially dangerous and the whole family
| might be working from home thanks to COVID.
| chickenpotpie wrote:
| Oof this hits close to home. Moved right before COVID started
| and got an apartment right next to my job. Figured I didn't
| need space for an office. My commute is short and I can just
| use the apartment common areas if I need to wfh. 1 month later
| and I'm wfh full time in a studio apartment and my desk is in
| my closet because I have no space and the common areas are
| closed.
| whoisburbansky wrote:
| This is a really good point; the cost of excess capacity is
| effectively just an insurance policy that you buy ahead of
| time, lump sum, one time payment. I'm not sure you could
| replicate this with an actual insurance policy to collectivize
| the risk and reduce costs, at least not with the example of
| housing in a pandemic in mind.
| quicklime wrote:
| How much slack capacity is reasonable though? Sure, it's good
| to have a non-zero amount. But that doesn't mean that the
| opposite extreme - having 20x the capacity that you actually
| use - is the right way to go.
|
| If the best place is anywhere in the middle of those two
| extremes (e.g. to have 5x the capacity), it won't be possible
| to achieve while everything is based on individual private
| ownership. We'd have to share, and build the slack capacity
| into the shared pool of vehicles.
| [deleted]
| gkop wrote:
| Example: you have one or more larger pets and live in an
| earthquake zone. Owning a car leaves you with a chance to
| safely evacuate in time.
| hirundo wrote:
| He argues as if living on the outskirts is mostly about affording
| a yard that you don't really need, but there's so much more
| benefit than that for kids living in a rural area.
|
| When I was a preteen in the late 60s and early 70s I got to
| explore and be independent in a way that is rare today, though I
| lived in a vast densely populated suburb. At age ten I would hop
| on my little stingray bike and explore for a dozen miles in any
| direction. Today that would be an invitation to have your
| children seized by child protective services.
|
| It's still like that in rural areas. A kid can explore the
| wilderness with her dog on a Saturday and not be expected until
| dinner. Crime is much less of a concern where there are far fewer
| people. The air is cleaner, the night sky is darker, wildlife is
| all around. If she skins her knee or gets lost, she gets to deal
| with it herself rather than having an adult on tap. This breeds
| more independent people with hard earned self confidence. She can
| watch and help her parents do a bazillion things around the house
| that they'd dial up a contractor for in the city.
|
| Yeah, it's harder to get a ride share, and you can't work in an
| office in the city without a very long commute. But there are
| higher priorities than those, like growing better humans.
| clairity wrote:
| i grew up in a rural area and appreciated the freedoms that
| entailed, but in no way is that the only, or best, way to
| develop independence in children.
|
| what you're describing is more an indictment of poor risk
| assessment, that parents are paranoid and over-protective for
| no good reason, than some inherent difference of rural vs urban
| living. crime is not a serious concern anywhere, just like
| getting eaten by a bear is not a serious concern anywhere.
| klyrs wrote:
| > just like getting eaten by a bear is not a serious concern
| anywhere.
|
| You must not live in Grizzly country. It's a serious concern.
| clairity wrote:
| no, that's exactly the point, it's not. the risk is
| overblown, even considering bear country. the worldwide
| risk is on the order a few dozen attacks (not deaths) per
| year, primarily to defend their cubs, with extreme hunger
| being a secondary cause (bears understandably don't risk
| fights without good reason).
| packet_nerd wrote:
| I grew up in grizzly country in Northwest Montana, spent
| loads of time out in the wilderness on my own or with my
| younger brothers, and even saw a mamma grizzly with two
| cubs in the wild once. They are absolutely not a serious
| concern.[1] We used to make fun of outsiders who feared
| just getting out of the car without their guns and pepper
| spray. :-)
|
| [1] That being said, please don't be stupid: keep your
| distance and show them all due respect.
| klyrs wrote:
| Yeah, I'd laugh at those outsiders, too. Campsites are
| different. Idiots leave food around, which grizzlies
| find, and come to expect. Then the next idiot comes
| around, wipes salmon grease on his pants, goes to sleep
| wearing those same pants, and gets eaten.
|
| I agree with your [1] -- where you're taking the concern
| seriously.
| mattzito wrote:
| I agree with you - I think that rural life is quite empowering,
| but can be quite isolating as well. I also think that cities
| can inspire a sense of independence and self-reliance - in NYC,
| many middle schoolers ride the subway alone. In my apartment,
| we fix things ourselves, and my 6 year old already has a
| working understanding of plumbing and electrical. She's also
| been exposed to a diversity of cultures and ideas, not all of
| them pleasant, but all educational.
|
| Overall, I find the suburbs to be the worst of both worlds -
| overprotective parents shuffling their kids in cars from
| scheduled activity to activity with other kids of a similar
| ethnic and socioeconomic background
| tropdrop wrote:
| Echoing kgermino's statement, I also live in a (small but
| dense) city on the East Coast, in a very walkable neighborhood
| where the train station is a ten minute walk away from my
| house. There are kids bicycling and playing outside, lots of
| families with dogs, all enabled because the roads are smaller
| and we're still a walking distance from food, hardware store,
| etc.
|
| Do not confuse the singe-zoned, panopticon-esque tracts of land
| with nothing around but houses with small yards and not a
| single shred of grocery stores, points of interest or wildlife-
| allocated land for dozens of square miles (necessitating car
| travel) [1] with "living in cities." Additionally, crime goes
| down not just with a fewer number of people, but also with
| people taking ownership over their community - as you'll see in
| loved neighborhoods of bigger cities like New York - rather
| than barricading themselves inside their house and watching
| with suspicion any person that walks past their shuttered
| blinds, because in places so hostile to travel on foot, no one
| in their right mind walks.
|
| In an era of continuously increasing human footprint on the
| planet, we should not be talking about the (environmentally and
| fiscally) expensive expansion of humans to the corners of the
| planet that remain "rural" and a respite for our Earth's
| natural resources. We should consider how to use _properly_ the
| space we have already colonized, and we should begin with
| elimination of single-zoned tracts of land.
|
| 1 - https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/7/7/abolish-
| single-...
| pdonis wrote:
| _> we should begin with elimination of single-zoned tracts of
| land_
|
| Not everyone's needs and preferences are the same. It's great
| that your city meets your needs and preferences. That doesn't
| give you the right to impose your preferred solution on
| everybody else.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Hilarious.
|
| What do you think zoning is, if not "imposing <someone's>
| preferred solution on everyone else [ who might develop it
| ]" ?
|
| Zoning is explicitly how communities act to stop people
| from doing things in with property there that a
| sufficiently powerful subset (hopefully a majority, but
| only hopefully) of the people _already there_ don 't like.
| astura wrote:
| >Yeah, it's harder to get a ride share, and you can't work in
| an office in the city without a very long commute. But there
| are higher priorities than those, like growing better humans
|
| Pretty ridiculous statement here.
|
| So, the kids I knew in college who grew up in rural areas all
| said a lot of their peers (and sometime them) got (sometimes
| heavily) involved in drugs/alcohol because "there was nothing
| else to do."
|
| >Crime is much less of a concern where there are far fewer
| people.
|
| Disagree completely, I believe there is safety in numbers and
| the community mostly watches out for kids. (Personal experience
| here)
| PHGamer wrote:
| sounds to me like thats a reason for CPS to be shut down.
| codemac wrote:
| > Crime is much less of a concern where there are far fewer
| people.
|
| Crime in rural areas today is rampant due to the opioid crisis.
| I don't know of a small town that hasn't been absolutely torn
| apart. Ironically while small town crime is way up due to
| opioids & heroin, it's down in large cities, about as low as
| rural towns in the 70s.
|
| > If she skins her knee or gets lost, she gets to deal with it
| herself rather than having an adult on tap.
|
| Tell me which kids don't have cellphones these days? All my
| friend's kids in rural (very rural) areas have them for
| "safety", and 2g-3g reaches pretty much every hollow.
|
| Your description does not match the experiences I've had in the
| last 10 years, and as someone who grew up in a very rural area
| (~1k people/sq mi) and now lives in a very urban area (~18k
| people/sq mi).
| epa wrote:
| ~1k people/sq mi is not "very rural"
| codemac wrote:
| Just went with wikipedia's number for my hometown.
|
| The city pop is 3k, but the county is only 16k, for an area
| of 450 square miles. I did not grow up in city limits, and
| the area was less than half the population back then.
|
| Just was trying to give some very conservative numbers.
| More than happy to meet more yokels like me :)
| [deleted]
| hirundo wrote:
| Where I live in New Mexico it's closer to 10 people/sq mi.
| There is poor cell phone reception on some high points and
| none elsewhere. So I hike with a PLB. This area does have a
| serious drug problem but there are so few people that the
| threat is low. Where I typically hike I've seen maybe a half
| dozen people, at a distance, in a dozen years.
| kgermino wrote:
| > But it's still like that in rural areas. A kid can explore
| the wilderness with her dog on a Saturday and not be expected
| until dinner. Crime is much less of a concern where there are
| far fewer people. The air is cleaner, the sky is darker,
| wildlife is all around. If she skins her knee or gets lost, she
| gets to deal with it herself rather than having an adult on
| tap. This breeds more independent people with hard earned self
| confidence. She can watch and help her parents do a bazillion
| things around the house that they'd dial up a contractor for in
| the city.
|
| In my experience this is very common in cities too. It's the
| suburbs that prevent it. I don't have kids yet, but in my (very
| urban) neighborhood it's extremely common to have kids out and
| about on their own. It's generally seen as being very safe.
|
| When I talk to coworkers with kids in the suburbs they're much
| more worried about letting their kids run around without
| adults. To be fair, it makes some sense: cars are one of the
| biggest killers of kids, and they're a much bigger risk in the
| suburbs (where most streets are wide and fast) than the city.
| secabeen wrote:
| >Today that would be an invitation to have your children
| seized by child protective services.
|
| This is a common refrain, but I've never seen more than one-
| or-two anecdotal accounts of this happening. Do you have
| citations or articles that support common CPS intervention in
| cases like this? In my experience CPS is primarily focused on
| abuse and malnutrition, and tries everything possible to keep
| families together.
|
| Parents act like the world outside is scary and dangerous,
| despite declining crime rates. I think that many younger kids
| are in dual-income families, and are at after-school care
| from 3-6 every day. Those that aren't are often in after-
| school activities, and aren't home, bored with time to burn
| outside. If the kids are home, they'd rather play Fortnite or
| Call of Duty with their online friends than build a fort in
| the riverbed.
| novok wrote:
| You don't see it in the news that much, but you get phone
| calls because nosy neighbour reports an unattended kid
| outside. Law in some places say that children have to be
| supervised until 12, etc.
|
| The phone calls create a chilling effect as parents tell
| other parents. So if you even want to avoid the helicopter
| parent trend, society forces you to be their chauffeur.
|
| So no, kids don't get taken away immediately, but the
| singular phone call is enough to stop it in %99 of cases.
|
| But here are some links (go through the links that the
| articles give too):
|
| * Started by some new stories:
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-
| now/2018/03/27/fr...
|
| * The linked article author went through an entire lawsuit
| about this with BC's CPS: https://5kids1condo.com/we-won-
| common-sense-prevails-in-bus-...
|
| I bet if you did 10 minutes of google research yourself you
| could find plenty more.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| It's funny you ask; the person who runs the linked
| submission actually got told in 2017 that they had to keep
| their kids under constant supervision until they were 10,
| after an anonymous tip that they were letting their kids
| ride the bus unsupervised.
|
| They recently lost a legal battle but are continuing to
| appeal. http://5kids1condo.com/i-took-the-government-to-
| court-for-ki...
| astura wrote:
| Extremely common in cities, that's how I grew up in the 90s.
|
| However, the kids I met in college who grew up in rural areas
| had to be driven everywhere. Looking at their faces when I'd
| mention taking the bus to a concert as a teen, you'd think I
| was talking about performing wizardry.
|
| As a city kid I could literally go anywhere I wanted at any
| time, just walk, hop on my bike, or the bus. My parents left
| dollar bills in a designated spot for bus fare if we wanted
| to go somewhere.
|
| There was even "wilderness" in the city I grew up in. I grew
| up building tree forts of dubious structural integrity and
| swimming in streams. Without adults being involved, just the
| neighborhood kids. I loved that there were always
| neighborhood kids, there was always a playmate around - just
| walk outside and see who was out and about. This was all
| elementary school age.
|
| The good part about "neighborhood kids" is you don't get to
| choose them, they were just whoever lived in your area - so
| you learn to get along with people you'd otherwise not hang
| out with.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > To be fair, it makes some sense: cars are one of the
| biggest killers of kids, and they're a much bigger risk in
| the suburbs (where most streets are wide and fast) than the
| city.
|
| On the flip side, I see far more reckless driving in the city
| than in the burbs. Blowing lights or stop signs or excessive
| speeding are all more common in the city often directly in
| front of police. That wouldn't fly in the suburbs, and
| moreover people sort of expect traffic laws to be followed
| within reason (people still speed, but it's not normal to go
| 70 in a 45). Further, I have a strong suspicion that there
| are more hit-and-runs in the city than the suburbs. In the
| burbs, streets are wider and the speed limits are higher, but
| they have push-to-walk buttons and almost everyone stops well
| before the light turns red.
| mywittyname wrote:
| I live in an urbanized suburb (SFH, but 5 miles from a city
| core) and kids are out all the time. We have a few helicopter
| parents that feel the need to monitor their kids constantly,
| but for the most part, the parks, buses, restaurants,
| convenience stores, etc are all full of kids/teens. They
| don't even really cause trouble either. You'd think a group
| of teenage boys would be assholes, but nope, they just kind
| of mind their own business.
|
| Once you get to the cookie-cutter subdivisions in the far
| suburbs, that's when the kids all disappear. Part of it might
| be helicopter parenting, but I think it's caused mostly by a
| lack of any outdoor activities. Riding your bike means going
| to the next subdivision over. Repeat that a half-dozen times
| and you get to a heavily trafficked road that can be followed
| for a few miles to a strip mall with a Target. Even all of
| the nice parks in these places are only accessible via car --
| surrounded on all sized by 4-6 lane traffic going 45+MPH.
| sharadov wrote:
| Where is this, I want to move there!
| departure wrote:
| It happens in my single-family home and duplex filled
| neighboorhood in urban Austin TX.
| zrules wrote:
| Can you say which neighborhood it is? If you'd rather
| not, can you recommend some neighborhoods?
|
| I'm considering moving the family to Austin but have
| mostly been only looking at the new suburb developments
| in the south- and northwest.
| ianmobbs wrote:
| > But there are higher priorities than those, like growing
| better humans.
|
| I grew up in a suburban bordering on semi-rural area, and while
| I do think living in a rural region certainly has it's benefits
| (like the ones you describe), implying it by default "grows
| better humans" than those living in an urban area is
| ridiculous.
| prions wrote:
| When people talk about raising kids right, it always pans back
| to growing up in a rural area away from most people. Besides
| the dark skies/wilderness why is growing up in a rural area
| better than in a city for children?
|
| Given that the majority of people live in a city/metropolitan
| area, I'll assert that my subjective opinion that growing up in
| a city would be better for a child than your subjective opinion
| that rural areas are better.
| therealmarv wrote:
| also: kids are not always staying kids. I was happy when I
| was a teenager that I could explore the city on my own and
| independent and with friends and not stuck in a (for teenager
| boring) rural area.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| This is the guy that lets his kids free-range in the city. I
| don't think you can accuse him of mollycoddling his kids.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skaoQy04EjU
| staticassertion wrote:
| Growing up in NYC I walked home alone, took the subway to meet
| friends, walked around all of manhattan a million times, etc.
| Most of that started around age 13-14, and as a preteen I would
| have my slightly older sister along with me.
|
| At 15 I started to bike everywhere. I took my bike to the
| Hudson river path and I could get anywhere I wanted in 10-20
| minutes - visiting a friend who lived downtown, or head up to
| Central Park to meet up and bike around with others, try out
| some diners uptown, etc.
|
| At 16 my friends and I would walk around the east side, walking
| for miles in the middle of the night.
|
| I don't think it was negligent at all, but I felt _extremely_
| independent because I could get anywhere as a kid without
| needing a car. I 've always found that growing up in a city
| that felt safe and had great public transportation made me
| extremely independent at an early age.
| woodruffw wrote:
| For even more context to this: when you're a child in NYC,
| the public school system gives you a free MetroCard _as soon
| as you start elementary school._ They 're meant to be for
| commuting, but they have a small enough eligibility radius
| and extra rides to make them generally useful. Once I got one
| (I was maybe 8 or 9) I was more or less independent, as were
| all of my childhood friends.
|
| This is in stark contrast to people I befriended in college,
| who were (1) largely reliant on their parents for
| socialization and exploration until they were old enough to
| drive, and (2) incapable of handling the general mishegass
| that happens in urban environments without me as their tour
| guide. This doesn't make them bad people or dependent in some
| profoundly handicapping way; it just goes to show that a
| frontiersman's notion of "independence" is perhaps not the
| most interesting one in 2020.
| staticassertion wrote:
| Oh hell yeah. Those cards were like little slices of
| plastic magic. Every once in a while someone would lose
| one, or claim to lose it, and you could snag the extra and
| get yourself anywhere from an extra 3 to 6 rides, and with
| free transfers that basically meant you could be anywhere
| any time for free.
|
| I went to school upstate and it was impossible to get
| around without a car. Everyone was totally reliant on them,
| and I guess as kids you were always beholden to whoever was
| licensed/ had a car. To me that's insane, we could get
| anywhere _for free_ , whenever.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Yep! I seem to recall the MetroCards claiming to only
| have three daily rides on them, but actually working at
| least four or five times (presumably as a margin of
| error/safety for lost kids). I used mine more than once
| to ditch school and take the D out to Coney Island :-)
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Two of my kids got to see the before/after of this sort of
| thing when we took them to Berlin for a semester (I was
| guest lecturing at the TU). Since they had to take the
| S/U-Bahn to get to school, we got them monthly passes that
| let them go anywhere, anytime "for free". For a 14 and 17
| year old, I think it seemed like heaven. The older one
| would go to nightclubs and come home at 03:00 and we
| weren't worried about drunk driving etc. The younger one
| could explore the whole city (hello, Dolores Burritos!)
| with her friends, or go to Idea to get art supplies,
| without us.
|
| Getting back to Philadelphia where everything collapsed
| back to "Dad, can you drive me to ..." was depressing for
| everyone I think.
| marcinzm wrote:
| Same. I bicycled around my neighborhood with friends when I
| was I think 10 without any real oversight. I'm guessing some
| adults kept watch either outside or from windows when we
| played on our block but we could roam further out on our own.
| taurath wrote:
| You also are dependent on parents to go see most friends, and
| the amount of kids nearby will be fewer. That independence
| doesn't really start until 16 when you get a car. All this to
| say is everything comes with trade offs.
| [deleted]
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I grew up in Africa.
|
| One of my favorite games was to catch African chameleons, and
| run around with them on my finger, pointing them at flies.
|
| That's a game that you won't find too easily in the US.
|
| But it was _really_ dangerous. We had some _very_ nasty snakes,
| thereabout, half the bugs could give you bites that would take
| a month to heal, and violent crime was quite prevalent. I
| learned to be quite careful.
|
| I survived. Not sure I'd want to put my kids through the same
| risks, but my parents didn't seem to have a problem with it
| (good or bad? I dunno. They were quite fascinating people, in
| their own right).
|
| It did give me a unique perspective, though. In my mind, I'm
| glad to have had it.
| ip26 wrote:
| _But it was really dangerous_
|
| My wife & I talk occasionally about an interview we read of
| some tribal group, I believe in Africa. A kid is exploring a
| machete. The westerner asks a woman why she isn't stopping
| the kid. She explains machetes are quite sharp, so the kid
| will either quickly learn to be careful- or be removed from
| the gene pool (paraphrasing).
|
| It answered a lot of questions we hadn't been able to answer
| previously. (Mainly revolving around how difficult parenting
| still is, even with all our modern miracles)
| brnt wrote:
| A finger mounted tonguegun? Kid me would've loved it! (Adult
| me too!) Best thing I could manage was a two handed digger
| (holding a Guinea pig just above the ground).
| klodolph wrote:
| Your computer is probably 95% idle. Just saying.
|
| It's generally true that you have two options--you pay a big
| capital cost for a chunk of capacity which is available to you
| whenever you need it, or you pay operational costs for renting as
| you go. This applies to guest rooms, cars, and computers.
|
| The maxims aren't very good. "Don't pay for something you don't
| use" is weak advice, because sometimes it's cheaper long-term to
| pay for unused capacity than it is to pay for usage when you need
| it. And this all gets muddled to hell as soon as you factor in
| the opportunity costs. Each option has a different amount of
| risk.
|
| "You're paying for 5% usage, 100% of the time" is just not a
| solid foundation for making these decisions.
| ghaff wrote:
| There are situations where it makes sense. If you don't
| particularly want a pickup truck for other reasons, don't buy
| one because you might want to pickup a load of mulch or a tree
| in the spring. Rent a truck at the home improvement store for
| an hour or pay for delivery.
|
| But the vast bulk of the things I own and don't use on a daily
| or even weekly basis are things that would either be a hassle
| to rent or pay for as a service, would end up costing more
| using them that way, or simply aren't practically available at
| all as a rental item.
| tome wrote:
| > Your computer is probably 95% idle. Just saying.
|
| On that point, my next machine will be in the cloud. 32 GB
| laptops cost around $1,500. For the same cost I can buy 6,250
| hours on a VPS ($.24 / hr) which is three years' working-hours
| use. It's even cheaper if I only need all 32 GB for a fraction
| of the time.
|
| In return I get zero risk of theft, zero risk of hardware
| faults, zero capital outlay. The best part is that I can try it
| for a month for $10[1] and if I don't like it I can revert to
| the status quo!
|
| [1] I'll probably start with an 8 GB machine
| klodolph wrote:
| Not that long ago, I provisioned a VM for myself and started
| doing some development there. I wanted to compile a fairly
| large project, so I stopped the VM, changed it to a much
| larger instance (32 CPUs, 128 GB memory) and ran make -j32.
|
| The build finished ten or fifteen minutes later, and I
| swapped it back out for a smaller instance. It's nice.
| hansvm wrote:
| The principle seems fine (if you don't use something much then
| the overhead of renting when you do need it is probably
| worthwhile), but it feels a bit odd applying it to cars in
| particular unless you live extremely close to work -- a bit of a
| moot point with wfh right now -- since you'll be using the car
| enough that your dominant costs are variable rather than fixed.
| If 50% of your yearly car ownership costs stem from gas and other
| variable costs then "paying for the 95%" is a strawman since the
| variable costs won't decrease by renting a car (and in fact are
| often many times higher), so you can only reduce your total costs
| by at most a 2x factor.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Living in the same city as Adrian, I very much agree with all of
| his points. Cars are expensive to operate, park, and maintain
| here, meanwhile we have 3 carshare options that are way more
| pleasant than owning a car. For excursions outside the city, I've
| decided to rent a car for every situation that I need to, and
| then consider a car purchase if the math works out better. So
| far, even after having rented a car 5 times this year, I haven't
| surpassed just the cost of insurance for the year, or the tax, or
| the annual maintenance cost, and I've increased my time spent at
| parks, in the mountains, and elsewhere.
|
| So far there's been one exception to this, which is super early
| morning and multi-day hikes that I can't get to without a rented
| car. That's it.
|
| Likewise, I'm visiting the prairies where I'm from, and spent an
| hour today raking away all that leaf falling and dog poop action
| the yards have been getting.
|
| I do enjoy long distance drives, so my partner and I rented a car
| for a month and split the cost. At about $400 each not including
| gas, it's in the range of the same car plus insurance monthly,
| but we don't pay for what we're not using.
| yardie wrote:
| After 4 years of city living we recently bought a SUV. It was
| purely emotional and just like the author mentioned the numbers
| don't work out. But I wanted to treat myself after years car-free
| living. Since COVID lockdown has started I would say public
| transportation in my city has become more reliable, and free.
| Given this change and more time working from home I have even
| less need of a car.
|
| All this free time at home had me thinking of roadtrips, boon
| docking, overlanding, and camping. So I bought a European 4WD
| SUV. Basically a money pit in fuel, maintenance, parts and
| reliability. Financially, it doesn't make sense. But all the
| money I didn't pay in car loans, maintenance, fuel, and tolls
| went to saving for a car I truly wanted.
|
| For me, buying a car makes as much sense as buying a gaming PC.
| It should be something you really want and willing to spend money
| on. If you need a car for work, get the cheapest one you can and
| factor the mileage into your salary. I've turned down many offers
| with small pay bumps simply because the expense of the commute
| made the salary bump a net negative.
| leetcrew wrote:
| kind of a tangent, but I'd argue gaming PCs aren't uneconomic
| unless you also need a laptop. a decent laptop with a 1TB ssd
| is already around $1500. with that kind of money you can buy or
| build a desktop that thoroughly outclasses even the newest
| generation of consoles.
|
| obviously that doesn't work if you really need a personal
| laptop, but how many people fit this criteria? I only use my
| laptop a week or two out of the year when I go on vacation. I'd
| probably get more out of vacation if I left the thing at home
| anyway.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| fossuser wrote:
| This largely misses a big point, lowering the threshold of access
| to do something.
|
| > Friends visiting from out of town? I'll pay for their hotel, so
| I can live in a smaller, cheaper, better located condo for the
| rest of the year.
|
| Then friends won't visit, it's more of a hassle to schedule -
| however infrequent these visits are they'll be even less
| frequent.
|
| > I have to schlep a bunch of kids far away? I'll get a Modo
| minivan, a local car share, for a few hours. Let someone else
| maintain that gorgeous van.
|
| You'll go fewer places and do fewer things if everytime you want
| to go somewhere you have to deal with getting a rideshare van.
|
| > Need some outdoors time? Walk a couple blocks to a park. I'm
| not interested in mowing something I only use a couple hours a
| week.
|
| No backyard cookouts, no sitting on the deck, you'll go to the
| park less frequently.
|
| It's the same for the rest of it, there are good reasons to
| reduce some of these things but the reasons he gives dismiss the
| true value.
|
| Even owning a car vs. rideshare, sure rideshare can work out to
| be cheaper (sometimes) but having every travel decision be a
| purchase decision is a lot of overhead and is a constant pressure
| not to go somewhere.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| An interesting version of that is how cloud computing relates
| to development creativity.
|
| On the surface, why have any fixed server infrastructure at
| all, anywhere? Well, if you don't, you're putting friction in
| front of anybody not authorised to spend to develop / test /
| prototype something. Yes, you can give everyone a cloud account
| and let them use that. But even then you'll have people
| cautiously limiting their usage to avoid accidentally
| overspending. By contrast, when that server is sitting their
| idle half the time, I actually feel guilty for NOT trying out
| some whacky idea on it. Of course, it can work exactly the
| opposite way - if you DO give all your developers complete
| freedom to run stuff in the cloud then they have even more
| liberty than if you give them a fixed server to work with. But
| I suspect few organisations would tolerate the potential cost
| risk from that.
|
| It's a subtle mental difference but I think it can play into
| outcomes in a significant way.
| _jal wrote:
| It is funny where people come down on this. I'm far better off
| not owning a car than if I had one, for instance, whether you
| measure in money or aggravation. Public transport here is
| lovely, rentals of multiple flavors plentiful, and maybe I'm
| strange, but when I owned a car, I knew what it cost me to own
| per mile or per day of ownership. It was routine for me to
| mentally estimate the cost of a trip.
|
| But on the other hand, I own a lot of specialty tools that
| probably only see a few minutes of use per year each, if that.
| Not having them means waits, sometime long waits, or making
| something to make do.
|
| Someone who chose to have kids probably prefers the car. What
| makes sense to own depends on what you do.
| etothepii wrote:
| I suspect your per mile / per day costs were not the marginal
| ones. Once you've bought a car and insured it the cost per
| mile is "just" the gas and a penny for wear and tear.
| _jal wrote:
| Cars wear out (depreciation), and insurance costs over
| time. It is simple math.
|
| But of course you count the cost of the car and not just
| the gas, otherwise you're not actually comparing costs.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> No backyard cookouts, no sitting on the deck, you'll go to
| the park less frequently.
|
| Hey, when some people think of the outdoors they think of a
| communal BBQ in the apartment quad. When some people think
| "park" they see green grass go to a fenced acre with sections
| for small/medium dogs. Such people are urban dwellers who
| probably shouldn't venture past city limits.
|
| But some of us own labradors, huskies or even wolfhounds.
| Walking them means a car ride to a river with a few miles to
| run. When we think "park" we think Zion or Jasper ... not
| Central. Some people like to rollerblade to the corner
| starbucks with their Havanese dog on a retractable leash. I
| prefer to save my coffee money and spend it on a proper car to
| haul me, my canoe and my chocolate lab to a river beside a
| mountain.
|
| Remember the old Toyota commercial: Dogs_love_trucks.
| Hello71 wrote:
| if it's so hard for you to consider opportunity costs when
| budgeting (a trait unfortunately shared by most humans), this
| seems like it could be easily fixed by putting the money you
| save into a discretionary spending account, to be used for
| renting hotel rooms for friends, or rideshares, or any such
| "unnecessary expenses". if your original assumption that buying
| a smaller house or whatever saves money, then this account
| should still increase in value every year, which can be rolled
| over into general savings. by keeping the money in a separate
| account, you can feel free to spend it on things that would
| otherwise be "free".
| landryraccoon wrote:
| > used for renting hotel rooms for friends
|
| Does this actually happen? I'm serious. I'd like to hear some
| stories of offering to pay for your friend staying at a hotel
| room while they are coming to visit you (and them actually
| accepting that offer). How does that even work? I mean
| socially, in terms of etiquette, embarrassment, and power
| imbalance?
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| Every travel decision is a purchase decision, you're paying for
| that gas or electricity no matter what.
| [deleted]
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I think you make fine points, but they're not universal. I
| disagree with pretty much all of them:
|
| > Then friends won't visit, it's more of a hassle to schedule -
| however infrequent these visits are they'll be even less
| frequent.
|
| I would MUCH rather stay in a nearby hotel (and have my guests
| stay in a hotel). I would feel less like I was imposing.
|
| > You'll go fewer places and do fewer things if everytime you
| want to go somewhere you have to deal with getting a rideshare
| van.
|
| I think there's likely some truth to that, but it also means I
| rearrange my life to plan for this better and also to make
| those outings more meaningful.
|
| > No backyard cookouts, no sitting on the deck, you'll go to
| the park less frequently
|
| The analogy I use is the gym: I can do workouts at home, but
| the mental routine I have for getting up and going to the gym
| means I actually go much more often. Similarly, if there was a
| nearby park I liked I'd use it much more frequently. I know I
| felt that way when I lived in the city vs. where I do now in
| the burbs (note - the burbs weren't my choice ;)
| romwell wrote:
| >I would MUCH rather stay in a nearby hotel (and have my
| guests stay in a hotel). I would feel less like I was
| imposing.
|
| You must be well-off with well-off friends.
|
| My friends would feel pretty bad if I were to pay for their
| hotel, and it is not an insignificant cost to many
| (especially since I'm living in the Bay Area).
|
| Crashing on a spare couch? No problemo.
|
| (Even if the economics of the spare couch work out in the
| favor of the hotel room. There is a utility in the spare
| couch beyond letting guests sleep on it, and that
| understanding takes away all the feelings of _imposing_ , at
| least financially.)
|
| However, all of that ignores the fundamental difference.
| You're not _my guest_ when you 're in a hotel. I can't wake
| you up for breakfast and make you coffee. We can't watch
| movies on the couch until either feels sleepy. And so on.
|
| You can't _rent_ the experience of _sharing your home_ with
| someone if you don 't have a home to share.
| landryraccoon wrote:
| > and have my guests stay in a hotel
|
| I'm curious, have you actually paid for friends to get a
| hotel room while they were visiting you? How did that work?
|
| I'm trying to imagine how I'd even offer without making it
| awkward. I don't think I could avoid making an already
| uncomfortable wealth disparity even more cringe-worthy.
|
| I think if I had to go that route I would at least rent an
| entire house on an AirBnb so I could stay with my friends -
| that way they're actually staying with me, rather than in a
| hotel in the same city.
| anm89 wrote:
| I really don't think there is any right or wrong answers to any
| of this stuff. For one it depends on how much spare money you
| have.
|
| But I think it as all just preferences on a spectrum.
| bartread wrote:
| A lot of this stuff also works even less well when you don't
| live in a city.
|
| Couple of examples...
|
| On average, I need a car once or twice a week. Maybe three out
| of every four trips something really dinky like a smart car
| would do the job, whereas on one out of four I need the mid-
| sized estate car that I actually own. I live in a small village
| so to hire a car I'd have to get on a bus to the nearest town,
| then walk to the car hire place to get the car. That probably
| adds an hour to an hour and a half every time I need an estate
| car. Am I going to deal with that BS once every two weeks? Hell
| no. Even if I did, over time would it cost less than simply
| owning the damn car? Maybe, but it's pretty fricking marginal.
| I'd save a bit on fuel, no doubt, but economical cars hold
| their value much better than those that are less economical so
| the price of the cars (I always buy used) might not be so
| different.
|
| I don't "use" my back garden a lot as a place to hang out, but
| it's certainly a handy place to leave the motorbike when I
| don't want to put it away, and also a great place for cutting
| up wood, MDF, and the like when I'm doing DIY.
|
| The space has value that goes way beyond the amount of time
| that I use it for.
|
| I could list plenty of other examples where this is true.
| alex_young wrote:
| Archive:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20200225174202/http://5kids1cond...
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| Thank you, it's dead now.
| shoo wrote:
| your blog server sits idle 95% of the time. don't pay for
| capacity to handle hypothetical peak load if you were to go
| viral by hitting the frontpage of HN. if that were to happen,
| just fail and let the punters read the blog from archive.org /
| google search cache
| romwell wrote:
| This situation and this comment sum up the article neatly.
| Thanks for the laugh!
| pgt wrote:
| The author does not account for the tail risks of driving an
| unfamiliar rental car long distances, especially in a dangerous
| country like South Africa where hijackings are super-common,
| especially in Johanneburg.
|
| How certain are you that the brakes won't fail and the CV joints
| won't go in the middle of a hijacking or a blockade of burning
| tyres in the middle of the national highway (a weekly occurrence
| in ZA)? Or that you'll be pelted with rocks by a mob of
| protesters on your way back from work (common)? Or that an
| unroadworthy minibus taxi will swerve in front of you without
| signalling (a daily driving experiience in ZA)?
|
| My Subaru Forester is costlier to maintain than a rental, but I
| know all its faults and limits. I know fast I can corner without
| sliding and I know I can get out of a sticky situation with all-
| wheel drive and a 2.5L turbo. I hope I don't need to, but I can
| outrun most hijackers and drunk drivers (there are many).
|
| Taleb says only insure against risk of ruin. I regard my SUV as
| tail-risk insurance in case shit hits the fan.
| Glyptodon wrote:
| While conceptually I agree with the idea, I'm not sold that the
| identified things the writer labels 95% idle are correct. For
| example my brother and I easily averaged more than an hour a day
| outside on a half acre lot growing up. And it's very nice to be
| able to sit on a patio and not worry that the neighbors can hear
| everything.
|
| I also find that in the modern world it's often cheaper to buy
| low quality stuff and treat it as disposable ish. For example I
| bought a very cheap electric chainsaw with the intention of
| destroying it (very sandy environment) because it was less
| expensive than renting the right tool for a job, and now I still
| have it if I need to cut a small branch or something.
| jaaron wrote:
| I lived like this for a while, both in Hong Kong and in Los
| Angeles, with two kids. There's a sense to it.
|
| But what's not discussed in this article is the friction of this
| sort of lifestyle. The time when you couldn't get the rideshare
| when you needed it. The time lost using less efficient public
| transport. The hassle you go through every time you need to do...
| anything.
|
| And as the children get older? Well, the lifestyle gets old too.
|
| Don't pay for what you don't need and won't use. I agree. Just
| keep in mind you're paying for more than just the few minutes
| you're actually in a car.
| babesh wrote:
| Yup.
|
| I rented a mini van once for a road trip over a national
| holiday. I got to the rental office, was in line for an hour,
| and then they told me it was no longer available. Not even a
| sorry. Drove our two cars instead.
|
| It takes 15 minutes each way to the nearest Home Depot to rent
| gardening tools and another 20 minutes in line. Then factor the
| drive back, and the return trip and it adds up to to 100
| minutes of my time. Also, if you are using the tool more than a
| couple of times, it's probably cheaper to buy. The only things
| that make sense to rent are specialized, expensive tools.
|
| Guest bedrooms can be used for many things. If you are sick,
| you can isolate yourself to prevent other people in the
| household from getting sick. You can have actual guests over
| and you don't have to drive them to/from and get to spend more
| time with them.
|
| Whenever CalTrain breaks down, Uber prices surge. You either
| wait 30 minutes or pay quadruple prices. SamTrans will make you
| wait for the bus that comes every half an hour.
|
| So the pluses are availability, reliability, optionality, and
| lowered transactional cost.
| secondbreakfast wrote:
| I find a lot of joy in the 5% that I can host friends, though.
| bluedino wrote:
| This makes me think of RV's or campers.
|
| A fifth wheel costs about $35,000. Many of my neighbors have
| models that cost $50,000+. You need to factor in renting out the
| campsite for a week, fuel to tow your camper there (it might be
| 100-200 miles away), and the fact that you need a large pickup
| truck to do the towing.
|
| You could rent a lot of hotels for that kind of money, or rent a
| cabin to stay in, and drive there in your car. "Roughing it"
| seems expensive.
| bluGill wrote:
| Note that you said 100-200 miles away. If you are driving much
| longer than that the cost of gas to pull it vs a mini-van is
| probably more than a hotel + restaurant meals. (depending on
| how expensive your tastes are). Maybe it works out if you have
| a luxury camper (read would splurge on the expensive hotel
| rooms), like to cook your own meals, don't drive too far every
| day. There is a reason most campers don't got very far from
| home: they need a lot of fuel.
|
| Having had a RV (which I lived in all summer - I didn't move
| it), and done real tent camping I object to calling any form of
| RV roughing it. I've been 10 hours be canoe from the nearest
| car before (it took us a full week - I've talked to some who
| did the same trip in a long day which is where the time
| estimate comes from), I know what roughing it means, and a RV
| isn't it.
| sethammons wrote:
| my sister and her husband lived out of an over an over cab
| camper for, literally, years. From San Diego to Montana to
| Alaska. She was working medical jobs in San Diego and parking
| in the RV parks. Saved a ton of money.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Imagine what bass boat fisherman pay per pound of bass caught
| when it's under $15/lb at the market. At some point, you should
| probably think of hobbies as hobbies and not demand that they
| be the most efficient means of production.
| kpennell wrote:
| I'm very into mountain biking + backpacking and I've realized
| that it's totally worth it for me to own a car. I've gone years
| without owning one and I've regretted it later. Yes, it sits
| there 98% of the time, but that 2% of the time it connects me to
| absolutely magical moments.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| If you only need a car 2% of the time, what stops taxis and
| rentals from filling that need for you?
|
| Is your car cheaper, even if you only use it once a month or
| less?
| kpennell wrote:
| yeah, it's cheaper.
| ptmcc wrote:
| It's not parked in my garage, equipped with racks set up
| exactly as I need, next to all my outdoor equipment ready to
| go.
|
| I drive a 16 year old car that has been paid off for many
| years. Insurance is <$1k/yr. Average maintenance & repair is
| pretty low since I don't drive a heck of a lot (1-2x
| trips/week typically).
|
| Is it strictly cheaper than rentals? Maybe, maybe not. But
| it's cheap enough to not matter, and instead optimize on
| convenience rather than cost.
|
| I'm even considering buying a new or very lightly used car in
| the nearish future, which would cost considerably more in the
| short term, but I would hang on to it for a long time barring
| unexpected circumstances. Cost (within reason) is not even a
| top 3 factor compared to convenience, comfort, and safety.
| pgt wrote:
| Maybe pay for 95% uptime? :) Here is a cached text-only version:
| http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:81YCedw...
| beck5 wrote:
| This isn't life optimisation, it's putting cost optimisation over
| happiness.
|
| Having a yard/garden with kids is wounderful, open the back door
| and shove them outside without shoes to play for accessible easy
| outdoor time.
|
| Half the fun of Friends staying over in the guest room is when
| you can have a few drinks and everyone relaxes knowing no one is
| traveling. The next morning you can all have breakfast together.
|
| Car shares are great for going to the shops on Tuesday, getting a
| car for Christmas when you want to see family is a different
| ballgame.
| lultimouomo wrote:
| My father summarizes this concept by saying that if you
| consider the actual usage time, a prostitute is way more cost-
| effective than a wife, and still it just isn't the same thing.
| shard wrote:
| That depend on whether he interacts with his wife only for
| sex. There are obviously many other tasks a wife can do,
| which could require hiring the prostitute for basically all
| waking hours, and that's not even getting into the
| misalignment of interests with a freelancer versus having a
| partner. I think the proper comparison for rent-versus-buy
| should be a girlfriend versus a wife.
| chickenpotpie wrote:
| Ok, let's end this comment train about measuring the value
| of women by what they can do for their significant other
| right now.
| atourgates wrote:
| This is also a perspective I could have much more easily bought
| into pre-COVID.
|
| We have kids, and live in a rural area, and honestly, many
| summers, don't get a ton of use out of our property and home
| because we spend most our free time and income on travel.
| Generally, we're gone at least 2-weekends a month on car trips,
| fly away for a few weekends a year, and try to fit in 1-2
| international trips as well.
|
| Obviously, all that's changed in the last year.
|
| With COVID, we've felt incredibly lucky to live in a rural area
| where our kids were able to spend basically all summer just
| "playing outside." No need to interact with other people on
| mass-transit. No shared elevators or public spaces.
|
| When we did start socializing a bit, it was very nice to have a
| nice private, outdoor space to (more) safely entertain our
| guests in.
|
| COVID is hopefully a very temporary, one-time event. But it has
| changed my perspective.
|
| Still, while I agree that the article takes optimization to
| sort of silly lengths, I do see a solid point behind it.
|
| I apply the same philosophy to boats, RVs, vacation-homes and
| the like. (Though, I admit that COVID has tested my resolve
| there a bit). Expensive investments that aren't really going to
| make sense unless you're using them far more than our family
| would. Plus, with any major purchase like that, you're "locked-
| in" to doing that one thing if you're trying to maximize the
| value of your investment.
|
| Buy a vacation home, and you're going to have a mental barrier
| going on vacation somewhere else. Buy a boat, and you're going
| to feel like you're wasting money when you spend a week of
| vacation somewhere besides a lake.
|
| TL;DR: Like most things in life, it's a balance.
| ghaff wrote:
| >Buy a vacation home, and you're going to have a mental
| barrier going on vacation somewhere else.
|
| I would probably agree with OPs sentiment in the context of
| vacation homes. They're not necessarily a great investment.
| They sort of lock you into a location. They're another thing
| you have to manage. And so forth. I'd much rather just get a
| hotel room, a B&B, etc.
|
| I've even thought of buying a small place in the city. First
| of all, I'm really glad I didn't do that in the last year or
| two. But, really, while I _wish_ I had done it 10 years ago
| knowing what I know now about property values, I also don 't
| miss having another property to manage and I can always get a
| hotel if I want to spend a weekend in town every now and
| then.
| regulation_d wrote:
| in 2019 (i.e. before covid), I threw a party at my centrally
| located, but also quite small, 1 br apartment. Had some friends
| in from out of town and put them up at a hipster boutique hotel
| 3 blocks from my apt. They hung out at my place for as long as
| they wanted, stumbled back to the hotel when they were done,
| and retreated to privacy of their own hotel room. We all walked
| to breakfast the next day.
|
| The way the math works out is that I would be able to pay for
| three nights per month in that hotel for the difference between
| a 1br and a 2br in my building.
|
| I don't think everyone reading this article needs to shoehorn
| their own situation into the analysis, but for me it makes a
| ton of sense. I kind of want a 2br, but I really wouldn't use
| the space that often and I have excellent alternatives.
| alexggordon wrote:
| While I do agree somewhat with this article, keep in mind that
| ownership of things results in different realized costs. Owning a
| house is a very different cost than owning a car, not only in
| terms of longevity but usage and storage. The fact I don't have a
| place to "store" my house does not affect the resale value,
| compared to that of a car that was only stored in a garage.
|
| If you want to maximize value of something, finding alternative
| uses for that item usually results in lower cost of ownership. My
| yard currently has about 200 square feet of garden in it, which
| provides a substantial amount of food to eat, at no additional
| cost than the water and minimal gardening supplies to keep it
| going. My kids can also use the yard, along side my garden,
| maximizing value. Once my house is paid off, my yard has a
| realized cost of close to zero. Friends can setup a tent in the
| yard with an air mattress instead of needing a guest room.
|
| That fancy mini-van? I can also be the person that rents that out
| as a potential income source. Suddenly, something that was a
| liability is now a revenue stream, and I still have the
| convenience of using it basically whenever I want.
|
| Most things you'll find you use only 5% of the time you own them,
| but their cost is low so they get no mention or attention. Other
| things are stupid to justify in terms of financial costs. Kids
| are expensive, and looking at them as an asset or a liability is
| laughable.
|
| Instead of figuring out the percentage of time the item will be
| used, try and instead maximize value from it. Split the cost of a
| lawn mower with your neighbor. Rent out your car on a car-share
| app. Car pool to school and work. When trying to purchase a big
| item, try and figure out what you really need, and fight your
| ego. Can you buy it used? Is a specific color really worth
| thousands of dollars? Life isn't something that can be explained
| through an algorithm, don't try and run every decision through
| it.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Isn't this just a personal cost benefit analysis?
| nostromo wrote:
| This is a fine argument for simplifying your life, but it is not
| a good economic argument.
|
| Hotels are expensive. Rental cars and Uber are expensive.
|
| If you even take a few Uber trips a month, you're probably better
| off owning an affordable car.
|
| If you have visitors regularly, you should probably buy a house
| with that extra bedroom. It's an asset that you can sell and
| recoup virtually 100% of your investment later on. You can't sell
| all the hotel rooms you've previously rented.
|
| Having a yard turned out to be a fantastic thing to own this year
| since parks were all forced closed. Trust that you will always
| have access to that local green space (and that it will be safe
| and accessible) turned out to be misplaced.
| albedoa wrote:
| > If you even take a few Uber trips a month, you're probably
| better off owning an affordable car.
|
| My wife and I live in the city and downsized from two cars to
| zero after doing the math last year. Granted your definition of
| "a few" might be different from mine, but it takes _way_ more
| than my definition of a few rides to break even.
|
| If you ask someone to itemize the costs of car ownership, they
| tend to miss or underestimate a few. The big ones are insurance
| and depreciation. I am confident that my total rideshare costs
| over the past year are less than _just_ the difference between
| my city insurance premium and my suburb premium on the same
| used car, and my record is spotless. The math is surprising.
| (Any cost of ownership estimate or calculator I share here can
| be reasonably challenged, so try it with your own numbers.)
|
| This isn't to speak of the other costs and risks of non-
| ownership. Every situation is different. We are lucky to have
| subsidized public transportation passes, corporate discounts on
| rentals, walkable commutes, grocery stores in every direction,
| etc.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > If you ask someone to itemize the costs of car ownership,
| they tend to miss or underestimate a few. The big ones are
| insurance and depreciation. I am confident that my total
| rideshare costs over the past year are less than just the
| difference between my city insurance premium and my suburb
| premium on the same used car, and my record is spotless. The
| math is surprising.
|
| I did this exact analysis on my car some years ago, after 5
| years of ownership. I took into account all
| repairs/maintenance, purchase price, depreciation, insurance,
| gas, city fees and parking (yes, I keep track of all those
| expenses).
|
| It came out to $288.77/month.
|
| In reality, it was a bit less, given that 2 years later
| someone wrecked my car and their insurance paid more than it
| was worth (with no major repairs in those 2 years).
|
| I then bought a much, much cheaper used car (about same value
| as my old one when it was wrecked), so the cost would be
| significantly less what I show above ($100 out of that
| $288.77 was just depreciation).
|
| Depreciation seems to be the major cost, and my car was
| fairly used (8 years old when I bought it, but low on miles).
| Don't buy a used car for more than $10K - mine was less and
| you can still see the amount of depreciation! A lot of people
| think they're beating the game by buying a 2-3 year old used
| car, but the depreciation will still be really high. Of
| course, you can get good cars for under $4K, but it may be
| risky to go long distance in those.
|
| Of course, the other trick is to get a reliable car. Pick
| only models with good histories (buy the Consumer Reports
| guide as one reference for this), and do a buyer's check
| before buying it. If you go to a used car lot and they don't
| let you do that check, then refuse to buy it.
| sokoloff wrote:
| The people for whom the advice of "buy a 2-4 year old
| certified pre-owned car" makes economic sense are the ones
| who are otherwise buying a new car. There are a ton of
| people who seem to default to "I'm buying new" for whatever
| reason.
|
| I've had excellent savings (and frankly, minimal hassle)
| from buying an 8-year old Mercedes diesel with 180K on it,
| a 7-year old Honda CR-V with 165K on it, and a 7-year old
| Alfa Spider with 24k on it in my younger days. The Mercedes
| was bullet-proof but painted with an eco-friendly paint
| system that ensured they prematurely rusted (oh, the irony
| of taking a perfectly functional car off the road to save
| the pla). The Alfa I sold running well with 125K on it a
| few years back as we were planning to have kids. The Honda
| is still my SO's daily driver with around 215K on it.
|
| I do my own wrenching on the cars, which also keeps the
| costs down, but even if I paid an independent (non-dealer)
| mechanic to do everything, decent cars just don't break
| that much any more. (The Alfa was extremely reliable. From
| 1993-2009, it broke exactly once and that was the failure
| of a Bosch distributor, nothing to do with the Italian
| heritage. The Mercedes took no major work over that time.
| The Honda did need a clutch which was $750 in parts and
| would have been around $1000 in labor.)
|
| Not feeling the need to carry collision insurance is
| another big money saver.
| boojing wrote:
| Parking can be expensive
| leetcrew wrote:
| > If you have visitors regularly, you should probably buy a
| house with that extra bedroom. It's an asset that you can sell
| and recoup virtually 100% of your investment later on. You
| can't sell all the hotel rooms you've previously rented.
|
| if you're buying a house, it probably makes sense to get one
| more room than you typically need. like you say, it's likely
| that you recoup the cost at the end anyway. if you're renting,
| it's a little different. a decent hotel room is $100-200 a
| night in most cities. that's not cheap, but having one extra
| bedroom probably adds at least that much to your monthly rent.
|
| I argued in a different post that a hotel room isn't
| necessarily a substitute for a spare room. it's a much less
| intimate way to entertain visitors. depending on the guest,
| that could be a pro or a con.
| choeger wrote:
| The guestroom/hotel thing misses one important point: The hotel
| is far away. Your guests have to leave you and get back to you at
| some point. Especially the leaving part might make it difficult
| to enjoy a shared dinner (when the guests have small kids).
| draw_down wrote:
| Well, I think it is ok to want a porch and a yard even if I am
| not using them constantly. I don't want everything in my life to
| be perfectly economically efficient. That is not a goal for me.
| achou wrote:
| In the last 18 months I've lived with 2 kids in a condo in SF
| with a car, a downtown condo in an Asian megacity without a car,
| and in suburban silicon valley with a car and large yard. For us,
| by FAR the best quality of life has been in the suburbs.
|
| Having a yard is exceptionally valuable with kids. They can be
| free to run around, play yard games, explore - all without
| draining the emotional reserves of parents. You can do this while
| you make dinner, work, or do other things that are unrealistic at
| an urban park. And you can play with them too. It is not that
| expensive to get someone to care for your yard if you have some
| financial flexibility.
|
| In a family there are many kind of resources - time, money,
| energy, emotional reserves. Scarcity in the first two are easy to
| focus on because they're quantitative. But scarcity in the latter
| two - especially emotional reserves - is actually the limited
| resource in many families. Having to deal with the stresses of
| children (even if they are mostly well behaved!) puts a real
| strain on relationships. And the friction from an urban
| environment, especially one like SF which is not child-friendly,
| or a giant megacity that has very high density, just drains away
| the scarcest resources that a family like mine actually has.
|
| If you have some financial flexibility and need serenity and
| quiet to be your best, combining kids with an urban environment
| in exchange for spending less is a very poor allocation of
| resources. It's an example of optimizing for the thing you can
| easily measure, instead of what's truly important.
| duxup wrote:
| Is measuring optimum utility for say a car or guest bedroom
| really about total usage time 24/7 ?
|
| I'm not likely at all to reach anywhere near 50% even...
|
| I wish I lived / worked places that were more walking friendly
| and etc but that's just not the case.
| elchief wrote:
| A good idea pre-COVID perhaps
|
| But I sure am glad I have my own treadmill, power cage, and car
| right now
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