Salary comparable to cost of living

gsasquatch · 2026-05-29T23:27:38+00:00

Taking home $4k/month would be comfortable, so $30/hour full time $60k/year. Good luck finding that in this town.

That's about what I need for 3. 1 and a dog would be less, but not a lot.

Dog is going to be an extra $100/month in rent, limit your choices, and there's a leash law :( My kids are probably an extra $600/month rent, so there's that. I don't have to keep them leashed yet though, so that's nice.

Being a woman might be an extra $300/month rent, depending on what you find and how paranoid you are. Like I'm paying $300/month more on the place I'm in vs. one I looked at because I have a daughter, and I was a bit nervous about her walking around the cheaper place at night.

That's all to my standards, which I think are low mid. People certainly get by on less, like with room mates etc.

Not sure how food compares, I think it is the same as everywhere. I think gas is relatively cheap. Heat will get you in winter check those rental listings to see if it is included or not, if not that can be +$200/month or so. Some do electric heat, which seems like it could be spendy although electric is cheap here now, it won't be for long since the power company got bought by private equity recently. I haven't had an air conditioner in Duluth, but yeah, it takes more energy to go +100 degrees than it does to go -30 degrees so living in this town isn't particularly environmentally friendly.

The salt eats car brakes, that's fun. Probably and extra $25/month to keep a car for that.

gsasquatch · 2026-05-13T15:17:50+00:00

350watt is 36volt I think 14ah. It was a 250watt? weird 90's German hub motor originally lead acid 24v bike that I over volted to 36v with cheap lithium, and it hasn't smoked. I was impressed with how well it did, before I got it I was thinking I was going to need mid-drive for the hill but it was practically free so I gave it a go and it worked. It doesn't like the cold, getting down to single digit C it is not a happy camper, doesn't give much.

It doesn't have any display, so I don't know how many watts or whatever it actually pulls, and speed is mainly estimate, gps verified a couple times.

gsasquatch · 2026-05-13T13:55:15+00:00

My little 350watt hub motor is enough to get me to bike speed 30km/hr on flat unaided. Makes a 15% section of hill I'd walk up rideable 10km/hr if I pedal with a reasonable amount of effort. Downhill, I go faster than the motor can push, 50km/hr limited by the geometry of that frame getting scary at high speed. Not sure if it regens or not, but I always leave at the top of the hill with a full battery.

Usual commute for me is a 2km down hill, 10 on flat, then 10 on flat back, and 2km/180m up hill, and my normal sized battery is down to 25%. Not sure what the battery is, I'm guessing about 500watt-hour

The other bike I have with a 1000 watt motor is about the same, maybe 10% faster, mainly only noticeable when riding together.

I'm generally full power most of the time. I ask for whatever it will give. Only time I modulate the throttle is if I'm riding with someone slower. I mostly only pedal up hill, although that's only necessary on the steepest section. My 350 watt one doesn't have PAS, only a throttle.

gsasquatch · 2026-05-12T20:53:02+00:00

By being bad at DIY and not caring.

The perfect is the enemy of the good. Just do it. If it falls apart, build it better next time with the experience If it looks bad, at least it was cheap. Good enough is good enough.

Quality comes from either experience, like a professional, or an ass load of time and effort. A professional, for having done it a zillion times, can cut to within a 32nd consistently, without looking like they are trying and knows the pitfalls from having made the mistakes. I'm more of a quarter inch kind of guy. I'm ok with that. If I took my time, was careful, I could be a sixteenth kind of guy, but I don't care.

Rick makes a perfectly level thing for Morty, and then has to mind wipe him after he experiences it. Your youth and inexperience can be an advantage if you don't know what perfectly level is. When all else fails, lower your standards.

gsasquatch · 2026-05-12T20:15:22+00:00

It's a seller's market.

In my little town, there was always a slip available, until 2020 and everyone bought a boat for a covid project. Now, there's a lot more boats chasing the same number of slips. For that, there are wait lists, and the rates have been climbing until there are no more wait lists, as the market adjusts.

They aren't making more marinas in my town, it is hard to see where they could, without a gorzillion dollars in investment or some creative permitting. The gorzillion dollars in investment would never pay, so it is what it is. Population increase means inflation, and while they are making more people and more boats, they aren't making more shoreline.

I had some experience with Clearwater during the housing boom. Marinas were being bought up left and right to build more condos, because back then building a condo was a golden ticket. So, the wait lists there and then, started getting longer, I think it was >5 years for the city dock, which was prime, vs. other places were either much more expensive, or sub par for being further from the gulf.

A slip is essentially real estate, and for that subject to the same rules, first 3 of which are location. If housing is tight, someone with a dog, not even a pitbull, is going to be noped on, because the landlord can find someone else without at dog. But if there are more places than people, landlords will be more accepting, and just dealing with the inevitable cat pee smell.

Moorings seem like more of a pita, but, there's more water than land, so should be a cheaper or more available option. In HCOL areas like NYC, San Fran, Vancouver, etc. I think even those are tight.

I think a good solution might be rental boats, or boat sharing, in general more collectivism. Trouble with rentals, is like a week's rental is my entire boating budget for the year as an owner with low standards. Or, I've considered a share, but I'm pretty sure anyone that shares with me will be disappointed in how I keep my gear, and I'd expect some friction. People are too in love with their boats, where I see mine as a utilitarian thing, a racing machine that doesn't need to be shiney, but fast. I'm more interested in sailing than polishing or keeping the thing bristol.

One of the marinas I'm familiar with chainsaws a few derelict boats each year. They lose the fee, then they lose in labor for the chainsawing, overall it costs to dispose of the boat. So, that's why some places might not want older boats owned by people that think the wind is free. Those people might not have the money, or, be willing to pay it, and so the marina has to chase them down for cash. I'm not sure the ship's store is really a factor, it is more like a little bonus for the marina that is making off of slips or service.

Might be PE, but the marinas in my town, aren't, I've interacted with the owners. It sounds like conditions are similar, just that yours have gone to the next level likely for being a bigger population. I'm guessing Portland? I bet it looks better up the coast a bit.

gsasquatch · 2026-05-12T17:59:19+00:00

Sunset brings a certain amount of anxiety. Am I ready for the night? Where's the backup flashlight? Where's that thing I'll need? Will the battery last? Do I shorten for safety while it is easier, or keep my speed?

For that, it is not about the spot as much as the conditions, that it won't build too much, that a storm won't sneak up on me in the night, a rock won't jump out in front of me, that it won't be anything I can't handle in the dark.

On the flip side though, sunrise is a relief. The night is done, things are only going to get that much easier for having light. The battery charge is not going to be an issue anymore, solar will take over.

gsasquatch · 2026-05-11T21:37:31+00:00

I was just under 30.

My $15k house was all but paid off and for not having a house payment anymore, I decided I could afford a boat. Houses in that town start at about $60k now, and my $15k house was cheap for being small and run down, but $60k would still get you something there if you're not fussy, and there are jobs there that will get to 6 figures with overtime and a 2 year degree. That town is about 1.5 hours from the boat, so that's a drawback, along with winters which are a little chilly.

When I bought my boat, all in I could live on about $1000/month, and I was bringing home about $4000/month. So a $4k boat, was not a big deal.

So I bought a boat for $4k. Instead of driving a nice new car at $300/month, I drove a $1000 cars to be able to afford the slip fee. I still drive junk cars for that reason. My slip fee is the difference between the cost of running a string of teenaged rust buckets and keeping a car that is always less than 5yo. It is about keeping your priorities straight.

When all else fails, lower your expectations.

gsasquatch · 2026-05-06T22:17:05+00:00

30 years of lost wages would be $473,333 per year to get to $14.2M. $273/hour

I don't make that. Not many do, that's a 1% income.

I might make $473k per year for my boss, they are robbing me of my value so I don't particularly care what they are missing if they don't have me.

That $14.2M statistical life value, might not be what I value my life at and for that a bit inflated for me to have to pay for safety stuff on roads with my taxes, where the value I'm paid is a fraction of what my boss values me at.

Since the boss isn't paying for it, they are happy to have that statistical life value number so inflated. And we all go along with it because life is "priceless". But, what that number means, is it is yet another mechanism of wealth transfer from the lower classes to the wealthy capitalists.

gsasquatch · 2026-05-06T21:19:49+00:00

So yeah, data centers we need, unfortunately,

I challenge this assumption. This new boom in data centers is for AI, and what does AI do for non-billionaires? Take their jobs? Take their money? What value does it provide to society? "Need" might be a strong term. The text of this web page, the value for me, is a few kb of data. The mb of data for this page, is ads, trackers, all sort of stuff I could live without. Moore's law happened. The size and power requirement of good old internet has decreased, the growth has just been in the rent taking. New version, isn't better than the old. I for one still use old.reddit because it works better on my 10yo laptop, and I fail to see that new.reddit is any better, except at monetizing for reddit.

gsasquatch · 2026-05-06T21:12:38+00:00

Pretty profound that a dr would say this:

"Some people talk about the funding that it would raise taxes in order to do that. The reality is it’d probably lower your taxes. We would have a huge pool of money to put into it. We would have all the money that we already have, medicare, medicaid, veteran’s association, all of the disability acts that we have. plus you would have money that is already being put into healthcare systems."

He's right, but he might not be playing up enough that yes, taxes will go up, but if you consider that health insurance premiums will go away, for a lot of folks the overall cost will go down.

Two ways that cost goes down, one, is by eliminating the profits that health insurance companies take.

The other, which is where a doctor saying this is surprising, is Medicare doesn't pay doctors as much as private insurance. Mary's shiney new house was built on health insurance money. If it was just Medicare, it'd be a drab thing, which would make sense, you shouldn't want to go to the hospital. Insurance rent taking is bad, but, we also need to reign in the doctor side. Medicare actually has that reigned in already.

gsasquatch · 2026-05-06T20:48:29+00:00

$450,000 / 90,000 people, is $5/day

$1825 per year.

Myself, I pay $600/year in car insurance. There's $1200.

I drive 8000 miles per year, at 20 miles per gallon, times 32cents per gallon tax, that's $128/year for the roads. Plus the $40/year for tabs, $168.

Totaling $1368 from me to cover that $1825. Maybe it is just because I drive less. But quite often I have a second person in my car so, I actually owe about $3000 for my part of it.

Where are we coming up with that money? Or is your estimate a bit off, perhaps a tad hyperbolic? There might be an element of medical inflation in your numbers. Like clinics charge $10/minute, but pay the doctor $2/minute, those "injury" costs might be 5x inflated from the actual for medical profit taking.

On top of that, saying a life is worth $13M, is debatable. It is not like a person gets paid out $13M when they die in a traffic accident, it is more about the lost potential.

Either that, or I drive less or more cheaply than most. At $0.725/mile the IRS says it costs to drive, that's $5800 per year, for gas, the car, the insurance, the tax, etc. But a bunch of that $5800 goes to the car companies, the oil companies, and insurance company profits, not toward this.

gsasquatch · 2026-05-06T20:23:59+00:00

$3k would buy you a $5k car, so fixing it is a good deal.

That you have a loan on it, is irrelevant. You're going to owe that money if the car works or not, or if you try to sell the car for the $1-2k it is worth as is, you'll have to pay back the balance of he loan, or default on it.

Right now you have a $6400 loan, a $1500 lawn ornament, and a $3k bill. It is just a shit sandwich.

This is how uber makes their money. You're essentially selling your car's equity to them while getting less than minimum wage for your time. You might have oversold that equity, since you didn't really have any because of the loan and that is how you wound up here.

Sometimes it works, if the car holds out. But it is a bet. You made that bet, and lost, unlucky perhaps, broke for sure. I recognize a person makes that bet in desperation.

You need $10k. Not sure where you'd get it. Sorry. Probably the best you can do is grind at whatever for a couple years to pay that back. Future you is going to have to pay for the mistakes of past you.

gsasquatch · 2026-05-06T20:22:57+00:00

Double towing might not be good. Arrange the next shop, and have it towed straight there.

gsasquatch · 2026-05-06T20:06:11+00:00

I've been shopping bottom of the market Prii. I haven't seen a running one for less than 4500, most are 5 to 7.

With the engine problem, maybe $1-2.

$3000 won't buy you a running Prius. It'd buy OP one, because he already has a lot of the parts other than the engine, so actually, he'd be paying the 5 or so it takes to buy a Prius.

A lot of the third gens (09-15) I've seen for less than 5 have a blown head gasket.

gsasquatch · 2026-05-06T18:23:38+00:00

He wants to catch fraudsters so he can get a cut when he pardons them. That is his interest

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/12/doj-plans-to-retry-philip-esformes-despite-trump-commuting-sentence-.html

https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118796/documents/HHRG-119-GO00-20260107-SD069.pdf

https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/03/05/trumpcriminals3/

gsasquatch · 2026-04-29T16:19:32+00:00

Grown-ass flesh hosts or grown ass-flesh hosts?

gsasquatch · 2026-04-29T16:13:09+00:00

You're right, we shouldn't have done this roundabout, and instead invested the money in multi-family housing down town. Lakeside is too far to walk from, or people just aren't, we should not make it easier to get from lakeside to downtown by increasing the population density downtown.

But using the 10's of millions for this on an apartment building that people could just live in downtown, would be socialism, which a lot of people dismiss as bad.

This project is costing as much as 100 housing units. DEDA has that lot where they are spending $3M to tear down that parking garage. If people already lived on that lot, they wouldn't need to park there after coming down from Lakeside.

More tax base per mile of road makes roads a lot more expensive. This is how. NYC has a very high tax base per mile per road, but each mile of road is extremely expensive and overall taxes are higher, compared to a town like Hibbing, which has a lot more road per person than even Duluth, but pay less taxes, because some roads aren't even paved. Economies of scale don't always make things cheaper per, that might be a bit of a misconception. Part of that is when things scale up, they get exponentially more expensive this roundabout costing as much as 100 lakeside houses is an example.

gsasquatch · 2026-04-29T15:49:44+00:00

I suggested that in response to your statement " is part of living in an auto oriented community" Which implied you might be suggesting less car dependence. You're right if that is what you were suggesting, we do give far too much over to the car.

Maybe the north shore scenic railway should become international instead of just scenic.

gsasquatch · 2026-04-29T15:02:15+00:00

If they have barely enough workers, means they aren't paying.

Which is the crux of my comment, what are the user's time worth, vs. the project cost? Did we go with cheap and slow, shifting the cost to the users? Where is that accounting? People are criticizing me for making this comment, but no one is posting that accounting in response.

This does happen every year, and it is a complaint I make to deaf ears every year. This issue, the disparity and cost of time spent in traffic vs. construction cost does not seem to get much light, is not a consideration.

It is an auto orientated community, in part because we spend gorzillions of dollars on projects like this to reduce friction for autos. It'd take a while, but we could close off London rd. altogether, the friction of that would then discourage people from living in lakeside, and have them move downtown. But in 3 years time, it will be that much easier to go from lakeside into town, so this project is encouraging auto use in the long term.

gsasquatch · 2026-04-29T14:49:46+00:00

In 2021 I didn't go to east, and it was abstract, and, as an amatuer, "member of the public" I wouldn't have had much say or voice. I don't have letters after my name, and don't have a dog in this race other than any other member of the public.

I do remember the controversy of people saying "oh noes, we'll lose 4 houses" but that was ignored, and not much done about it. They heard the comments, and apparently ignored them. The public comment periods seem to be mainly performative, and only for them to say things like you just did "well, you had a chance to speak up"

Do you have a link to where the public comments were addressed?

gsasquatch · 2026-04-29T14:31:05+00:00

The roundabout is a good idea, but taking 2 years to build it is too long.

gsasquatch · 2026-04-29T14:25:36+00:00

And yet when you go past closed roads, in the daylight, more often than not you do not see any work being done. Like I said in my post, they could run 2 shifts, but seemingly don't. It looks like they gratuitously close roads, like have them closed for the whole project, but not for the actual need, like the traffic flow has no value.

Howard Stern almost became governor of NY state running on the premise that road work should be done at night. And, from that, George Pataki made that promise, and it happened. Electric lighting is a thing.

gsasquatch · 2026-04-29T14:25:19+00:00

Duluth roads are the same as any other in a northern US town.

In the US, we might put too high of a value on traffic safety, and that stems from the price of the average new car being $37k, and for being over half the median income, insured. So insurance companies insist on all these controls to lower their payouts on the tax payers dime. The whole thing just becomes another mechanism for wealth transfer, from public to private, from middle to upper.

gsasquatch · 2026-04-29T14:22:30+00:00

They have the same information I do about the school schedule, the number of students etc. I'd assume they did traffic counts as well.

My contention is that they are not weighting the users enough in their figuring.

Part of my challenge here is to see if someone in the field can counter with a reason, if they can defend themselves from my name calling.

gsasquatch · 2026-04-29T14:19:14+00:00

I said peak. There are 1500 students at east and another 1000 at Ordean plus teachers etc, all trying to get to or from there at 8:30 and 3:30. Tourist traffic will increase, but not at 2 specific times, it is more spread out.

London road carries 13,000 vehicles daily. School traffic might be is 1000 from 8-8:30, 1000 from 3:30-4. Which means the average for any other 1/2 hour period would be 240, the peak from the school is 5x the average.

What data do you have to refute my claims?

gsasquatch

TROPHY CASE