As I look at these pages of "rock bottom" budgets, I realize that we in this country are REALLY going to have some big surprises in what we consider "necessary" should really hard times hit.
Maybe it's because we have lived for years off and on in Third World countries, and also at periods in our younger days in a "back to the land" hippie style, but the things that most middle-class people consider necessities are not only not necessites to most of the world, they aren't even necessities for maybe 40 or 50 million people here in the U.S.
In answer to a couple of comments that were made regarding our bare bones budget of $10,000 or less.......the question was asked in the OP what one would HAVE to have, yet most of you seem to have assumed that even in hard times you would still have a similar lifestyle to what you enjoy today, just more carefully budgeted. A budget that would consist of such things as full health insurance, cell phones, internet, comfortable suburban living with air conditioning, etc. So we may, indeed, be talking some apples and oranges here.
I notice that many of you seem to have the type of health insurance that pays for most everything. We have NEVER had that, and don't today. We have always carried catastrophic health insurance with a high deductible, sometimes $5,000 per person per calendar year and sometimes an even higher deductible. Regular medical care we just wrote a check. In twenty years, we never needed to use our catastrophic insurance policy. We just self insured for the small stuff.
This year I crossed over the great divide and now have Medicare. With my Part B deduction, supplemental insurance and prescription drug coverage (heck, I went for the good stuff), it costs about $250 per month. For the first time in my life, I have insurance for regular stuff like doctor visits. My husband, who is younger, at 57 years old, pays $149 per month for a $5,000 deductible policy. Were hard times to hit, I would probably drop the supplemental and drug coverage. Maybe I would just drop back to the regular old part of Medicare that is free. After all, we're talking rock bottom necessity here.
One question I find myself having is that why so many people, with apparently seven figure investment portfolios would feel they had to pay for insurance that would cover every little doctor bill. We self insure for everything that wouldn't cripple us financially, and even with unlimited money would never have paid huge bills every month for "full" insurance. Guess many of you think differently.
For example, we have never carried collision insurance on our vehicles (other than the motorhome when new when that loss could have caused a $200,000+ problem). At this point, now that it is nine years old, that risk is lessened because of depreciation, so we are considering dropping collision on that as well. For a regular vehicle where the maximum loss would be smaller, we've never carried anything but liability. And since over thirty years, we've never smushed one, at this point we are way ahead, and could cover the cost of a brand new car probably just in saved collision and comprehensive premiums. And if we added in the investment potential that those unspent insurance premiums represent, maybe even several cars.
Sometimes it seems to us that Americans want and need to feel that they are insured against EVERYTHING. My mother even took out trip insurance for trips that were going to cost her less than $2,000. Just seemed silly to us. Life is full of risks. That's just part of life.
It's actually hard to find a better diet than rice and beans, if the rice is brown rice, and the rice and beans are supplemented with some fruits and veggies. We've known folks for many years living in Mexico who eat little but rice, beans, tortillas, tomatos, onions and chiles, and are apparently quite healthy and could work our butts into the ground.
We are an incredibly spoiled society. The things we feel are necessary are unimaginable luxuries to most of the world. We may have some big adjustments necessary someday.
When I posited a $10,000 per year budget, I was envisioning a time when the market would be way down, companies reducing or eliminating dividends, etc., and wondering just how little we could spend and how we could manage without having to sell investments if our income stream really dried up. I was assuming our situation which is that we have adequate tools, etc. to do a great deal for ourselves, and even to earn or barter those skills with others. Some might be less prepared with useful skills.
That budget would assume a mostly vegetarian diet, low cost basic, but nutrional foods, thrift store or remade clothing, simple pleasures, little travel, etc. but adequate nutrition, fun in our lives, friends, and enjoyment. Very little money is necessary for that.
Please note: my comments are not meant to disparage any other's choices, but just to clarify that our thinking seems to be coming from a different place. If the bottom fell out, believe me, I wouldn't think I still needed to have a cell phone, high speed internet, full health insurance or anything like those things. I would be looking at food, clothing and shelter at levels necessary for survival and hopefully even some degree of comfort, but certainly not looking to maintain a standard middle-class lifestyle.
Obviously, I hope it would never come to that, but it sure helps you sleep at night when you realize that the tiniest percentage of what you have today is what is REALLY necessary to have.
LooseChickens
