Re: How to live on $500/month?


"Gary James" <none@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:le08v29kk0r2bqajtug0k4jp8kbh07esmm@xxxxxxxxxx
On 10 Mar 2007 02:50:21 -0500, Allan Adler <ara@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


Most of my mathematical career has been spent unemployed. Of the time that
I have been employed, a few years were spent teaching at universities,
including MIT, Brandeis and Ohio-State in Columbus, but mostly I was
supported
at subsistence levels at prestigious research institutes, such as the
Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Max-Planck-Institute fuer
Mathematik in Bonn, the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques in
France,
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay and the Mathematical
Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley. I also did a little consulting
and tutoring which added up to a total of about $35,000 over almost 10
years.
As you can imagine, that doesn't leave me much to retire on. According to
the
Social Security Administration, I will have to live on about $500 per
month when I retire. I'm almost 60 now.

Under 60 ? Which means you have over ten years before qualiffying
for the 70 year old benefits. Why not take a job, any job ? Sack
groceries, etc. In the next 10 years you may could build your SS up.
Maybe several hundred dollars a month. You sound like a guy who
needs a wife.

I'm unemployed now, as is usually the case. I don't believe I will ever
have another job. I'm not good at getting them, I'm in a category that
is difficult to hire and, above all, I am still deeply committed to my
research and other scholarly interests and will not accept employment that
doesn't leave me most of my time free to pursue them as I see fit.

Work 40 hours a week. You have the rest of the time to study and
research.

I have
published my research (for example, see Springer Lecture Notes in
Mathematics,
number 1644, which is a book on some aspects of my research) and my work
is respected. It just isn't rewarded.

I'd like to know where in the US, outside of a prison, one can live on
$500 per month. If it turns out that this isn't possible, I will have
to consider moving to a foreign country which has a significantly
lower cost of living. So, more generally, I would like to know where
on this planet I should consider retiring as an economic refugee.

Allow me to jump into this discussion at this point. My first reaction when
reading Allan's initial query was a number of cliches:

"As ye sow, so shall ye reap."
"Be careful for what you wish, because it may come true."
"Now that you've made your bed, sleep in it."
"The birds have finally come home to roost."

It would seem that Allan wants to continue his current lifestyle on $500 a
month. However were he to itemize his expectations/requirements and then
map them against that $500, he is going to quickly come face to face that he
is going to have to yield on some of those expectations/requirements. It
indeed is only the fortunate few among us who can have their cake and eat it
too. Clearly he does not see himself one of the hoi polloi and does not
want to be treated as one. One specific example is his comment on the
observation that subsidized housing being based on family size - he
wants/needs/requires a larger space than most because of his books and
research material! The immediate image is that of the person at a charity
dining room complaining that he was given meat loaf instead of filet mignon
or prime rib.

Rural areas in the US, which would be more supportive of his $500 a month
than would urban areas, certainly would not have the kind of scholarly
research materials/facilities he wants/needs/requires. Neither, I suspect,
would any area in a foreign country if only because those research
materials/facilites important to him exist only in this country. But I
could well be mistakened on this point - he could be literate in Chinese,
Spanish, or other language such that the respective country have those
research facilities and low cost of living so that he can indeed flourish in
that country.

Allan clearly is not intersted in a subsistence level of living. Nor is he
open to significantly changing the life he currently lives. He has not
shared with us his current level of income (except to say that he is
currently unemployed - "as is usually the case") such that we do not know
whether or not a steady $500 a month each and every month is less than or
more than what he has experienced over - say - the past ten years. (Mind
you, that steady $500 a month adds up to a good $60,000 over ten years such
that one would be inclined to think that this steady $500 a month amount
yields more than what he has earned over the past ten years.)

Gary has the right idea. Allan has the better part of the coming ten years
in which to hold down a job as most - if not all - of us have had to do. He
not only will build his SS up, but with prudent living and saving (!) he can
build a fair - not great - nest egg for himself. And with the right
job/employer, he can also have matching 401K contributions. Of course,
such a course of action means that Allan will necessarily have to become
much like all of us others, grit his teath, and - WORK!






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