This seems like a romantically bohemian way to approximate a pampered middle class kid's idea of how poor people live. If you want to save money, you can try what they actually do, which is move to a less desirable neighborhood and spend one third what you do on rent for an apartment.
You live in a crazy expensive neck of the woods? Nice to meet you; I live in Japan, cry me a river. There's old folks on social security and single mothers in your town. Most of them don't shower with wet wipes.
I can't tell if my revulsion for this idea is class disdain because I'm too well off to consider it or class disdain because when I wasn't well off we had too much pride to ever stoop to anything like that.
It is interesting also to note that the ability to lead any kind of normal or predictable life in this fashion is itself a privilege. People in the software business can get away with wearing the same clothes, coming in wrinkled, missing the occasional shower, and, for that matter, getting in a little later after having to move the van in the middle of the night. Our field is extremely accommodating.
Put yourself in the shoes of a call-center worker (and if you want to be mean to the issue, make that call-center worker female). These jobs have dress codes. They're also aggressively monitored during the day and require attentiveness and a cordial demeanor. And obviously, a typical call-center worker cannot depend on the idea of taking off in the van for a month, driving to some other city, and having the same economic prospects when they arrive. Most people cannot afford to be playful with the idea of job security.
It's weird to find yourself thinking, "must be nice to be an iOS developer who can live in a van". Especially when you think of the people who do it because they're forced to do it.
I found the article to be a little glib about its subject. Glib is the word I would use, for romanticizing a scenario that many Americans actually experience as an intractable nightmare. I found myself first thinking about how nice it would be to pull up to the oceanfront, lay down in my "living room" van, and doze off reading a book while listening to the waves... then I thought of the scene in The Pursuit Of Happiness (not a great movie, but a great scene) where Will Smith has to put his kid to bed in a closet in a train station.
I used to work in a call center. I'm not female, but I knew a female or two who worked there. There was no dress code. There was aggressive monitoring, but there was a script and the cordial demeanor becomes automatic very quickly. The pay and job security wouldn't justify taking off for a month, though the turnover was high enough that after coming back, if they were still in business you could probably return to work right away.
True, I worked in a number of call centres a few years back.
There is a variety of cultures in these places, from having to turn up in a suit and tie and account for your time down to 10 second intervals to super laid back.
More formal places did tend to pay better and provide better equipment though. I had experiences in some where you had to twiddle with the headphone wire and hold it in the right position or you wouldn't be able to hear the customer.
The market for call centre workers back in ~2007 was highly liquid, if you got sick of one job after a few months it was no big deal to just quit on the spot and be able to walk into another one within a week or two.
The one thing I can never figure out is why managers of some types of companies run them the way they do. Why couldn't a call center employee work with a headset from a van and wear whatever they please? There's all sorts of strange practices that some of these companies do. Never in a million years would I ask an employee to submit to a drug test before being employed for example- yet that's what things like call centers do.
I want my employees to be happy, because they are the people that make the company work. When I talk to a manager of a company like this - they act like I've never managed anything before and just 'dont get it'.
Why couldn't a call center employee ... wear whatever they please?
Presumably the managerial types are trying to help cultivate a "professional" environment.
Never in a million years would I ask an employee to submit to a drug test
I understand the personal freedoms angle, but I can also sympathize with employers who are tired of discovering that guy they hired last week is actually a raging meth head.
What does it matter if their employees are meth heads, they shouldn't have to be tested.
If they are unproductive, look like shit, have poor time management, have mood swings etc then they are a liability to their employer because of those things, not because they "do drugs".
On the other hand if they are productive, are professional, [any other positive attribute] and contribute to their employer, does it matter if they are on drugs at the time?
Granted, I've never meet anyone that are actually functional members of society once they start abusing something like meth, but my point is that employees should be judged purely on their performance in the workplace or how they contribute.
You've never had to deal with someone who came to work while on drugs, have you?
Someone can go from comparatively normal to crazy enough to freak everyone out and maybe get someone hurt in no time flat. That's a bit of a problem, especially given that some people work at places where accidents like slitting one's wrist wide open, crushing one's hand and being killed by an item dropped by a forklift happen a little too regularly, even to people who are not thus impaired.
I think the GGP was referring mainly to workplaces that don't involve dealing with dangerous equipment. Besides there's a big difference between smoking some pot outside of work hours and coming to work under the influence of meth.
When I worked in low paid (mainly call centre) jobs, people coming to work high was a pretty common thing. The jobs were easy and repetitive enough that it didn't affect performance at all. In fact if they had started drug testing they would probably have lost many of their best employees.
I assume it's more about predicting these things before employment begins - someone might look ok at the interview but if you found out traces of drugs in his blood that could be an indicator that this is not their usual state.
Basically we're talking about low-skilled jobs that always have plenty of applicants, filtering a bit too many people isn't that big of a deal when there're still plenty of others remaining afterwards.
It's just a cheap initial filter, as long as it's better than completely arbitrary it's probably beneficial to have.
Not that it matters much, and this is only anecdotal but I had friends who would smoke pretty frequently. A lot of call centers, and retail spots would drug test. My friends would still get the job if they got past the initial interview. It seems like most companies are more interested in harder drugs, which I can understand.
On topic: I think that if you're looking for a cost effective way to live, do what someone said earlier and move to a less prominent neighborhood. This seems like it would be more along the lines of "fun to do for a couple weeks".
Drug tests are much easier, cheaper and quicker. You don't have to risk putting them in the workplace and then wait till they screw up. You don't have to wait for the manager to look at their behaviour and make a call. You don't have to worry that the manager might know the person and be easy on them. One quick test and it filters out lots.
The call center I used to work at had no dress code and no drug tests. In fact, almost everyone who worked there, other than myself, was constantly stoned.
Good to know we shouldn't have pleasure so long as there is any man who can't share in it.
[EDIT] single father/middle class technocrat here, living paycheck to paycheck. Many of my friends make less than I do. By this measure of hubris, I should not go out to eat so long as fellow engineers are looking for work.
As anyone who has had my comments inflicted on them long enough can tell you, if I had meant to point out that people shouldn't enjoy living out of a van (if that's there thing), I would have made that point, repeatedly, in painful detail. That's not what I was saying.
"Glib is the word I would use, for romanticizing a scenario"
I would use glib in the same way that people romanticize people living in poverty. Particularly single moms with good kids living in the ghetto. Single mom works so hard holding down 3 jobs cleaning offices and her kids all work hard if only they were given a chance and didn't live in the projects. (Watch http://www.pruitt-igoe.com/ on netflix to see a little back story)
While that situation exists of course (and in fact I remember growing up commercials for the united negro college fund)
I grew up in extreme poverty on a very dangerous street. My father died when I was a child, and with half an income, my mom was forced to work several jobs to support herself and 5 children. The only place we could afford to live was the "ghetto". My siblings and I worked hard each day, with no electricity on some days, no running water on others.
Even with this hard work, only 2 of my siblings have managed to excel to middle class or beyond. None of us have ever been arrested or addicted to drugs or alcohol.
Why did the 3 children advance, while 2 are still struggling? It is because when my father died, my younger 2 siblings were 3 and 4 years old. We moved to the bad neighborhood the year after, and they grew up with no realistic model of "success" with which to strive. The model they were exposed to was that of my mother's new role - take on as many back-breaking jobs as possible just to barely scrape by. My younger brothers work VASTLY harder than I do, with little to show for the effort.
I tell this story as a contrast to your analysis. While poverty breeds desperation (you are definitely more likely to get robbed of your luxury items while in a bad neighborhood), it also adds a grit that is hard to describe. I saw children of Crack-addicted prostitutes making sure that they got themselves and siblings to school each morning. I saw good, honest kids who had little expectation from themselves, or from the world at large. And they achieved (and received) their expectations.
I think its easy to romanticize any situation, but I would seriously implore you to reconsider your preconceived notion on the inhabitants of these low income neighborhoods. The more widespread this belief, the fewer intelligent people willing to work to fix these difficult issues.
First let me say that I feel bad for your situation and what happened to your father.
But you say "fewer intelligent people willing to work to fix these difficult issues" juxtaposed against "2 are still struggling? It is because when my father died, my younger 2 siblings were 3 and 4 years old. We moved to the bad neighborhood the year after, and they grew up with no realistic model of "success" with which to strive."
So what have the 3 children who advanced (including you) done to help the 2 that did not? I'm curious because you are suggesting that there is something that an outsider can do (and surely they can do something agreed) so I'd like to know what someone in that situation does to help their own family?
On another note do you also feel that part of the problem is perhaps having more kids than you can support? Depending on your income it would generally be easier to provide a good lifestyle for 2 kids then for 5, correct? Don't take offense I simply would like to know your thoughts.
My fathers death was not expected, and, while tight, we were able to live fine before he died. Two incomes turned to one as us kids grew older, taller, more needy. I don't think it's an offensive question, and my situation influenced me to stop at 2 kids.
Also, I get rather preachy with my brothers about how I believe they should proceed with their lives... And they listen, but it's a bit hard to change how people see the world.
I'm impressed that you're able to do a sociological study of "the others" as you drive through their neighborhoods, probably with your windows up and doors locked.
Non-snarkily, I think people are the same everywhere, mostly good and hard working with occasional cheating when they think they can get away with it. From my personal anecdata, I've seen both shady deplorable acts and admirable selfless acts from millionaires, middle class, working poor, and even from homeless people on the street.
I do think that the fact that poor people have to rely on help from their social network more often makes them more humble in general.
"Non-snarkily, I think people are the same everywhere, mostly good and hard working"
If that is the case then why do I keep my windows up when I drive through those neighborhoods. Are you saying I have nothing to fear driving my new expensive car through, say, many areas of Newark NJ or areas such as the "Badlands" in Phila PA? Or that I am safe to walk the streets in those areas? And if those areas are so great and wonderful places to raise families why are the actual good hard working people that live there trying to get out to provide better for their children?
I have no idea about those neighborhoods, but I've spent plenty of time in east Oakland without incident, statistically the 4th most dangerous city in the country. No matter how much crap you hear in the news it's not an actual war zone, most people lead normal day to day lives. From my experience people want to get out because the government services like schools and police suck, not because they hate their neighbors.
"but I've spent plenty of time in east Oakland without incident, statistically the 4th most dangerous city in the country."
You do what you can do to protect yourself. While crime can and does happen everywhere there are places that you are more likely to be a victim of a crime. Probability wise of course.
Even with respect to car theft you will find that insurance companies charged rates depending on where you live and even where you park your car (garage etc.) There is a basis for this you know.
Let's suppose, for the sake or argument, that 40% of the population of the "Badlands" are truly evil murderous thieves, who have no compunction firing a pistol into your car as you drive by, and suppose further that every day each one of them partakes of this pastime.
A horrible, dangerous place, seething with evil, yes? Far worse than the reality, no doubt, but let's go with it.
As an outside observer, the effect of white collar crime would appear to have hit Americans far harder than the crime discussed here - and it's effects have been felt world wide too. Behaviors allowed and encouraged in big banking have been very destructive to lives. And I'll make a safe net that the perpetrators lived in so-called good areas. So while worrying about being car-jacked in the badlands, behavior in the good lands sees your company fail, job lost and car repossessed.
Perhaps a touch overwrought, but another angle to consider.
If that is the case then why do I keep my windows up when I drive through those neighborhoods.
Because you are paranoid or watch too much TV maybe?
The fact that you feel in danger, does not mean you actually are, and inversely just because you feel safe does not mean that you are. You are vastly more likely to hurt yourself by crashing your car than by someone else attacking you after seeing that you have your windows down.
This goes for most things really. In terms of injury, the most dangerous person in most people's lives is themselves.
Patrick, he does write "it’s worth noting that we are talking about people that want to live in vans."
I was a lower middle class kid with a lackluster middle class education and good manners so I was able to scrape by on $17K a year and "live" off my motorcycle and later out of my truck in between stints at a lodge in back country Alaska. It was privileged. Sure. And there were before the crash many of us doing it. None of us had any responsibilities. Why the disdain? No one ever claimed it was more than it was. There's a leisure class at both ends of the economic spectrum. For the most part, there were very few Trustafarians. We were middle class kids who wanted to climb/write novels/surf/snowboard/insert your interest here.
We all sacrificed future income for those days. No need for disdain. We all make our own choices.
Thanks for this counterpoint. I've met various beach bums, ski instructors, and summer resort waiters, from all social classes, who were taking a break in this way. Compare also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gap_year and the concept of a wanderjahr.
> This seems like a romantically bohemian way to approximate a pampered middle class kid's idea of how poor people live.
That's pretty insulting, Patrick. Having been a person who grew up very, very poor and a person who's also done something similar to this (lived in the woods), I can tell you that (for me) it was not about trying to "experience" poverty. It was about getting away from the madness and complexities of modern life... the bills, the spending, the distraction, the self-reliance, the responsibilities.
The author didn't say anything about giving away money and collecting cans. They only espoused "minimalism".
I will say that it gave me a newfound appreciation for society and the infrastructure we have that I had previously taken for granted. I don't have to be constantly cold and wet, I can take hot showers when I want to, I can eat what I want, when I want and so on.
I heard other people calling this lower class tourism, that doesn't really seem to be the case though. It seems like a perfectly reasonable way to live for a single guy w/ a day job or someone trying to build a company. I'm not single, but if I were I would like to try something similar. Right now, I'm renting out my entire condo. I would like to rent out everything besides the garage and just live in there.
The reason? I don't like to have too many things, I feel it complicates my life. I'm fine w/ a working internet connection and a comfy bed. I don't understand why I am abusing white privilege or engaging in lower class tourism by simplifying my life.
I think there is a big problem w/ wealth distribution in this country. But, I think most of that can be blamed on our political system that basically gives the most benefits to the people who pay politicians the most to vote for bills they support and can bills they disdain. Also we have a banking system with absurd incentives that ensures rich bankers are payed by the government each time they gamble away all the nation's capital on insane investments or ponzi schemes.
As a single male, living in a van doesn't seem like it'd go very well with a nice lady-friend that I might wish to get to know better. Especially when she starts speaking with her mother about my living conditions.
That's just me, though. Perhaps I'm wrong here.
edit: I should probably clarify what I said. Living in a van, in my mind as an outside observer suggests either some sort of inability to commit, or perhaps falling on hard times, or someone who is dillusional about their circumstances; and, as an outside observer, speaks poorly of the person who is in this situation. What I was refering to with speaking to her mother -- though it truly could be any person that is a friend to your ladyfriend -- is this: This person is looking out for your ladyfriend, and when they hear such things as "he lives out of his car", and "oh, he doesn't have a home", or any other number of issues.
Yea, living in a van is a non starter for long term relationships. That was what I meant by single, someone not interested in long term relationships. Probably not the actual definition of single though.
I'm not sure if the allure is necessarily the bohemian way of feeling poor. I think much of it has to do with the minimalism of the experience. The ability to pack up and move on at a moments notice has 'starting over' feel to it, which can be quite nice. Kind of like refactoring crufty code.
A guy I know recently bought a van, and you nailed it. It has nothing to do with patio11's comment, and everything to do with the 'minimalist' experience you describe. He says it's an experiment - maybe he'll get tired of it, but it's something he wanted to try, and has the cash to spend on it (the van was not cheap). I can't say I would be interested in that variety of experiment myself, but "to each his own".
I think you mean "deleting code and starting from scratch". Refactoring code involves making changes to existing code in order to optimize it - I don't think it's analogous to packing up and moving on.
Refactoring code can also include making the code comply with "Don't Repeat Yourself", which would include removing a large amount of code and replacing it with references to a single function, etc. It also includes removing deleting dead code, another thing relateable to minimalism.
I think you read too much into it. He's just saying that "if you think living in a van by yourself would be cool for a while, this is what you can expect." I read nothing more than philosophically slanted curiosity regarding a life that most would rationally choose to avoid (including people without much money).
The case study in the article spends about $600 per month, mostly on food. That's my entire monthly budget, and my life is stationery, stable, and legal. With it, I buy: rent and utilities ($400) living with two roommates in a poor part of town; food ($100) consisting largely of bulk rice, couscous, ground beef, and other canned/dried goods; and entertainment ($100), which is largely made up of going out to eat at a cheap Chinese buffet every week or two and purchasing the occasional Steam game on sale.
So if I eat rice and beans[1] to save money while working on a startup, does that mean I'm trying to emulate the lifestyle of an Andean peasant? The article specifically says it's not about people who live in vans involuntarily, and it explicitly lists reasons for doing it that have nothing to do with saving money ("travel the country", "maintain a lifestyle of minimalism and self-reliance"). Even if your goal is just to save money, why should that involve doing what poor people do, or emulating their lifestyle? Why would you move to the shitty part of town, where you have to deal with higher rates of street violence, vandalism, theft, etc?
"is class disdain because I'm too well off to consider it or class disdain because when I wasn't well off we had too much pride to ever stoop to anything like that."
Normally when you read stories about these outliers in life there is always a story behind it. I remember the case of the guy on the street corner who was discovered as having singing talent, made it to network news shows, was given some sort of leg up opportunity and then it turned out (iirc) that he was just some mentally ill guy and that's why he was living on street corners and homeless.
In a quote in the OP there is this as one related example:
"I didn’t waste time watching re-runs of Cheers for three hours on Netflix. I read a lot of books, I worked on my music more. When I lived in a house, I never really used my guitar because it was in another room. When I was in the RV, everything I owned was in the same room so I played my guitar a lot.”"
So we have someone who didn't play his guitar because it was in another room. And someone who spent 3 hours per day watching a sitcom on netflix. And you wonder why he is living in a van?
By the way, I located my personal laser printer in an outer office. That way each time I print something I have to getup to get the printout. I could easily put it next to my desk and only have to lift my hand. But I choose to do the extra work and get the nominal health benefits from getting off my ass as much as I can (which costs $0).
So we have someone who didn't play his guitar because it was in another room. And someone who spent 3 hours per day watching a sitcom on netflix. And you wonder why he is living in a van?
Watching Netflix for a few hours in a row and having an instrument you don't play as much as you should are incredibly common experiences. I don't know how you extrapolate that into some sort of mental illness or moral failure that leads to living in a van. I don't think he was literally too lazy to go to another room to play his guitar. It's just a way of saying that when you have a big house and a lot of stuff you can lose track of things you used to find important and fulfilling.
"I don't know how you extrapolate that into some sort of mental illness"
Where did I say that he had a mental illness?
Ask yourself this question. If you were on a job interview for a job where the employer was not desperate to fill that job with a "body", and you didn't have some super stupendous big deal advantage, or credentials, would you think that offering that anecdote reflected highly on you? Or do you think it portrays you a little like a slacker?
That's not the purpose of the anecdote. He was contrasting some of the negatives of his old lifestyle with the advantages of his new one. It's not an attempt to sum up himself as a person, let alone impress an employer.
I think it /should/ portray me as a perfectly normal person who works hard during the day and then relaxes at home at night. God forbid you should have some time to yourself after working for 10-12 hours at work!
So he's only playing his guitar because it's conveniently located in the same room, and you're only getting exercise because you have to walk to your printer sometimes. Setting up your living space so your surroundings encourage you to do things you feel you should be doing more seems like a sensible decision on both your parts.
So many negative reactions, I'm surprised. But then I've been surprised by how narrow a band "normalcy" really is before.
I lived in a van for a summer. I have a story, but I don't think it involves mental illness or laziness or wasting my life. I was working fulltime as a sysadmin at an Ivey League school and taking classes fulltime there at the same time. Yes, that meant I slept very little and had no "free time", whatever that is. One spring I was moving out of an apt I had rented with some friends for the school year and I had another apt set up for fall, but hadn't set up anything for the summer. My parents unmarked white utility van fit my bed perfectly and I decided to just not move my bed out and live in the van for the summer. I had a place to shower at work, I decorated the inside of the van, and it became home. I wasn't a creep, I wasn't homeless, my parents lived 45 minutes away so I had a fallback if it didn't work out, I had a place to shower, I had a job.
However, what I underestimated was how much people freak out if you're doing something even slightly outside of their concept of normal. I had found a great parking spot pretty near work, in a corner under some trees, however, within a week a construction worker called Safety and Security and reported a suspicious van (he was driving a jacked up mufflerless pickup truck with a rifle in the back -- who's the suspicious one?). 6am one morning, I was jolted awake by the loudest scariest banging noise I've ever heard, it felt like someone was punching me in the heart. A security guard was knocking on the sides of the van trying to see if someone was inside. I was too groggy/freaked to just stay put behind my curtains and tinted windows, I got out. He told me I can't sleep on college property, recorded my license plate and said they would be watching me.
I can't describe the lack of feeling of safety that having a locked door and a wall, specifically something thick that muffles knocking gives. I then tried parking on the streets discretely but had a hard time sleeping because I kept waiting for the cops to come knocking. I started parking a few miles away at a Walmart -- what a weird experience that was. RV's would come in and set up in a circle in the middle of the lot (I stayed on the outskirts). Every night around 2am some locals would come by and drive in circles around the RVers and throw bottles at them while yelling and squealing tires. No peace of mind there. I started parking at the local truck stop, no locals there, but now I had to worry about a sleepy truck driver backing into me in the middle of the night. Breakfast at the 24hr diner there was delicious though.
I started reading some forums about van living and found an article about how people who are forced to live in a car or van temporarily often find themselves pushed further into the fringes. I was doing this by choice, but I couldn't imagine someone who thought they could just live out of their car for a few weeks until their first paycheck from their new job could cover first/last/security deposit in a new city, only to be constantly hassled to move and then fired when someone at work found out. The numbers were troubling, something like 80% of people who temporarily attempt to live out of their cars end up actually homeless, jobless and carless.
Eventually some people renting an apt nearby and had a free parking spot let me park there. OP mentions loneliness. I didn't necessarily feel lonely, I was busy and had stuff to do, and I still had friends. But I definitely felt something, that people thought I was troubled, or needed help, or that something was wrong. And maybe they didn't really, but I realized that I myself was starting to avoid social contact. I would wake up early and sneak into work to take a shower before other people came in so they wouldn't notice, even though my boss knew I was living in a van and didn't care -- I wasn't going to lose my job if anybody found out.
When it came time to move out of the van, it was with mixed feelings. It as getting colder at night, and I would sleep better, but I had gotten used to it and now whenever I borrow my parents van to move something I feel nostalgic for that time when it was my home.
What I learned was that society does not take kindly to seemingly slight deviations from normal. The movie "Wendy and Lucy" came out a bit later and reminded me strongly of that outward push that society initiates on people who appear as "outliers". Certainly, it makes sense for the health of the system, but I was surprised by how tight the tolerances are.
I don't necessarily agree with some of the judgements you are making about how society treated you. You were acting strange and should not be surprised that people were concerned about you. There are also good social reasons why society doesn't make it easy for people to live in their cars. Safety, cleanliness, property rights, collection of taxes, etc.
You say "society does not take kindly to seemingly slight deviations from normal". I don't think your experiment that summer was a slight deviation. What you did was two standard deviations away from normal. If only 0.1% of society would ever do what you did voluntarily, that by definition makes it abnormal.
That's doesn't make it bad or wrong. Just not normal.
Yeah, I didn't mean for my comments about society to necessarily be a complaint, more that I was surprised by how strong that outward push was. Sure I expected people to be weirded out, but what I didn't expect was for how alienating that felt. Actually, what I didn't expect was that something that was comfortable and an adventure would generate not a pulling in force but a pushing out. It wasn't, 'are you ok can we help', or, 'whats your story', it was 'wtf get out of here'. It just made me think about all those times that we all/I avoid or get weirded out by people that are different. And how that very action of being weirded out can make them weirder.
"What I learned was that society does not take kindly to seemingly slight deviations from normal."
That's because it isn't efficient for society and people to not jump to conclusions. Nobody is going to take the time to see that your situation is really different then the creep that is living in a van parked outside a school for a different reason.
We hear plenty of stories of how Bill Gates and Jobs didn't shower and of course we know that they ended up fine. But we don't have any data to compare on people that followed the same strategy and didn't end up in a good place because society jumped to it's natural conclusions about people who eschew all social graces.
I find the idea attractive without any money savings. I find it very odd it's much easier to find a large crappy apartment than a small well-maintained one; I feel like it should be possible to get an apartment at any point in the 2d space of (quality, size) with the cost being some function of that, in reality the apartment seems to only be available around some tight distribution around a line in that space.
Moving into a bad neighborhood seems awful to me; for me, living in a 100 sq ft apartment would be only better than living in a 1000 sq ft one. I'm stuck living in an apartment with 2 roommates, a totally unused dining room and a very lightly used and unnecessary living room because there's no reasonable alternatives.
I'm glad my new/old mid-sized (250k inhabitants) town's only college is far from the city center (and therefor its students don't want to live in the center) & that hip young people in general have no interest in living here (mostly families, the young & hip go to the big city).
Leaves a lot of the old (and therefor small) apartments in the old (and therefor central) part of town available for rent at a semi-decent rate.
You live in a crazy expensive neck of the woods? Nice to meet you; I live in Japan, cry me a river. There's old folks on social security and single mothers in your town. Most of them don't shower with wet wipes.
I can't tell if my revulsion for this idea is class disdain because I'm too well off to consider it or class disdain because when I wasn't well off we had too much pride to ever stoop to anything like that.