So growing up, I had this idea that the American dream was about that if you put in an honest amount of work, you would be rewarded with a good life. This would mean you would be able to take care of yourself and your family, afford a car and a house. In my view, working one job would probably be enough.
Nowadays, I get the idea that the American dream has become about working your ass off in order to have a chance to become a millionaire. Somehow glorifying “the grind” appears to be a part of it too now.
The american dream was for the boomers who were promised pensions and social securitybin an era where the dollar had some semblance of value. We will never ever have those things. Even the boomers who get 800$ in SS are eaten alive with rent and forced into starving or living out of their cars in today’s economy.
The american dream is called that because, you have to be asleep to believe it. We are much more awake as a society to the systems reality. Most of us are wagies that only exist in the eyes of the govt and corpos to pay taxes and generate profit until we get too old then put to pasture. The average life expectancy is 75, most of the boomers who retired at 65 maybe had 10-15 ‘golden years’ they couldn’t enjoy cause they were too old
You don’t need the american dream. You don’t need to work your whole life to pay off a 500,000$ mortgage on some shitty suburbanite hellhole with a terrible hoa. You don’t need to go the common path most people do. I feel pity for anyone who got tricked into being an indentured slave to the banks/economy because they were a thoughtless monkey in their 20s who signed the dotted line on 50k in debt for a worthless degree and another 300k debt on a house because “family/kids”. The only way to really be happy is to gibe the finger to the normal path and do something alternative.
Work hard, learn to save/invest in actual assets, don’t squirrel away your money in a bank account forever since inflation will eat away its value if you just have it sit there. Have an e-fund of 3k to 6k, buy a van and convert it into a semi-living/camping space. Develop hobbies with actual skills, start your own small concession business. Don’t buy a house buy land and develop the skills to build one yourself while living in a canvas tent. Plainly put, most people are too stupid, lazy, and unwilling to go without modern convinence. It takes a surprisingly little amount of money to live a comfortable lifestyle if you are intelligent, creative, driven, adaptive, and open to new experiences even if the outcome may be uncertain.
No you live out of your car for a few months while you work and pay yourself the 800-2500$ in "rent’ you become your own landlord and save that money towards a used van or boxtruck you want (stay away from RVs campers trailers and skoolies they are all money sinks maintenance wise) it wont ve comfy living out of a suv or prius but plenty people have done it, helps if your short. for cooking and heat you get a Coleman propane stove make sure to do research and install detectors. Showers either boil some water and do farmers bath or get a new pump sprayer spay paint it black and solar warm the water. You pee in a bottle and go water a tree. You have a sealable poop bucket. Get a shower tent if you need. You buy nonperishable foods or use a cooler with ice. Summers will be rough without air conditioning, no lie. Either tolerate the season with plenty of water and shade or invest in enough solar+power station or fuel gens to run air conditioning in a small canvas tent. Or go to a colder higher elevation, nice benefit of nomadic living is being able to go anywhere anytime. Live well below your means, become your own landlord, become a resident of a state like Nevada where they don’t do property or income tax and get some nomadic living in. Explore the country and all its beauty before its all gone. If you work hard for part of the year and save really well and live cheap you can get by on a year or even a year and a half no work. Or you can put the nose to the grinder/get a skilled high pay position to save up 10-15k and buy a plot of land somewhere with natural resources like wood and water then plop a little cabin on it.
Or i could get a job and skip straight to the end.
I have a good job though, $15 an hour in a low CoL area, and I only have like 3 hours of work a day.
Before this i made about $21 an hour plus like 8 hours of overtime amd that job was gravy until we got a bad manager that made all of the experienced employees quit.
The american dream was for the boomers who were promised pensions and social securitybin an era where the dollar had some semblance of value.
No, the phrase was coined in the early 1900s, and became popular when used in 1931 by a historian named James Truslow Adams, who was writing about the great depression and its aftermath. At the time, it was almost the opposite of what most people mean when they use the phrase today - he was saying Americans were too focused on money, and the American Dream was a better life for all its citizens, regardless of race or wealth - basically about everyone being treated fairly.
It was that kind of thing until world war II when FDR described it as people achieving freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of want, and freedom from fear. But it quickly shifted with soldiers coming home from the war, using the GI bill to get cheap mortgages and who started buying up all the convenience appliances that cropped up in the 50s.
That’s when it became more about buying a house and having lots of stuff, but even that’s before most boomers were born.
All that is true, but you forgot to add the part where the person living the life you propose is healthy, quite fit even. Not everyone, even fit young people, would do well living in a tent while they try to understand how to build a house. Let alone run a concessions stand from a van or something. That takes a massive physical toll and not even over the long run.
@recursiveparadox Thanks for your thoughts! I somewhat disagree that you need to be a fit and physically active person to do most things I mentioned. Definitely not everyone can build a cabin but if you want to live out of van and pitch tent and boondocks its certainly possible for the old and out of shape.
Here are the two things I point to. When doing my own research I came across these two particular yt channels that truly inspired me! cheaprvliving and Bushradical.
Cheaprvliving’s host Bob wells is a now 70 year old and sort of out of shape man who still manages to live the van lifestyle. Just a few weeks he reviewed putting up a canvas tent and hooking it with solar powered air conditioner. In the Midwestern desert summer.
He also has constant interviews with many people usually on the older side who are again in no way healthy or fit and some partially disabled but still able to make the nomadic lifestyle work.
Its quite sad but a lot of older people are forced into homelessness as their rent eats them alive with meager SS. Young people also sometimes appear but not as much as you would expect.
As for the concession stand thing Maybe I’m not sure how physically able you need to be to tow and detach a small concession trailer. You make a good point there. Can always have an online store and ship depending on the thing selling maybe. Bob however did have a trailer attached to one of his rigs about five years ago and managed to get it around as a 65 yo man.
Cheaprvliving channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAj7O3LCDbkIR54hAn6Zz7A
Bushradical is a couple with years of experience building cabins that have made excellent videos on how to build the cheapest and easiest lodges possible. The way they show this particular build it seems possible. They truly present it in a way that I am convinced I could realistically do it with maybe a few novice beginner mistakes. As a single person.
Bushradical easy cabin blackthereof https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOOXmfkXpkM&t=1
Everyone’s lie circumstances and desires are so different so what may work for one person won’t work for all others, but I think a lot of people have alternative options available to them that they either never think about or convince themselves they can’t for X reasons. At the end of the day people are responsible for the life they choose to live and the resulting satisfaction they get living it or lackthereof
capitalism happened.
Employers discovered they could pay you less if they kept dangling the Dream in front of you, and yet you’d work twice as hard. Profits ahoy!
The American dream is essentially trying to tell people that the United States is a meritocratic society. The more work you put in the more you get out. However, I’m sure most of us know this isn’t true. Where you were born and what family you were born into is the primary factor in determining someone’s success. So you grow up hearing stories of “hard working” billionaires and think “I can make it there if I work hard” while ignoring your family who worked their asses off and got nowhere. You see more of the lie of meritocracy as you age. People around you work hard and fail, you might succeed with less effort or fail with more. The idiotic decisions of today’s billionaires solidifies the notion that the American dream never existed and was fabricated to get people to work more for less in the hopes that one day they will make it. In reality, it all comes down to the zip code you were born in.
Check, the American dream of 1-2% is the American nightmare for more then 75%. (And probably just a disappointment for the rest)
As usual, Carlin said it best. “It’s called the American Dream because you gotta be asleep to believe it.”
To live the American dream, move to Scandinavia.
Sweden used to be fantastic but its not anymore. Too much crime and immigration issues. And incompetent / evil government, they have like 12% inflation.
I think Norway is the best place now.
Sure, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland are all great.
Sweden still has a very low crime rate compared to the US. Not even comparable. Also have extensive social services available to everyone that Americans can only dream of.
Yeah I dont even compare to the US - I think they are in their own class of worst.
But a comparison with other european countries can be made easier.
That’s basically what I was raised to believe too. The American Dream is supposed to be a house, a car, a family and a good job. But at some point, that did change to ‘you could be rich like them one day’ and I’m not sure when.
