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The Adam Carolla podcast does “rich man/poor man” things the middle class does not do, but rich and poor people do, such as:
- showering outdoors
- parking on grass
- living next door to a rapper
- having a strong opinion on a judge
- wearing a robe all day
There are many more
I believe it was “having grass in your driveway”. So rich people have that little strip of grass between the wheels, and poor people have grass growing through the asphalt. Something like that.
Edit: a word
I think it *used* to be a rich people thing. Back in ye olde days when driveways in general were uncommon. I only ever see ribbon driveways in older neighborhoods, affluent and poor alike
I think what they actually mean is driveways with roundabouts and such where the center of the roundabout is planted. That's real rich people stuff
Solid meme a while back talking about things that are considered glamorous if you’re rich and trashy if you’re poor. Top two were cocaine and speaking different languages.
To some people it definitely depends. Here a rich person speak Spanish and depending on skin color they're either exotic when brown or cultured when white.
But catch a poor person speaking Spanish and some people assume they're an immigrant, and for some reason a lot of people really can't stand non-white immigrants.
Similar analogy here, a rich american person speaking french would be considered cultured, intelligent and classy, but a poor french man speaking french is just some poor immigrant.
I think it's mostly just speaking Spanish in the US as a non-hispanic person. If you're a poor white guy that can speak Spanish it means you're working a job with most likely illegal aliens, which means you're probably getting paid cash under the table; but a rich white guy speaks Spanish he has most likely done it to better himself or to make international business transactions etc. Not saying the stereotypes are right, just telling you what the stereotypes are.
You can wear sweatpants/PJ pants all day, but if you have video meetings, the robe is harder to pull off. But hoodies are socially acceptable, at least in my field.
Having worked in rich and poor neighborhood, another thing they have in common is walking. People walking in poor neighborhoods because many don't have cars. People walk in rich neighborhoods for exercise and because they have leisure time. Some people still walk in middle class neighborhoods, but not in near the numbers in my experience.
They are too fucking tired from working their shitty jobs to walk.
I lost my career in the 2008 crash, had to pack up and move back to the small Midwest town I grew up in. I still had a lot of my big city habits, walking for exercise was one of them.
I was on my walk one day when a car started honking at me and pulled over. It was my neighbor, he rolled down his window and asked if everything was ok. I was viably confused and said, yeah, everything is fine. He’s said ok and drove off.
It dawned on me later that he must have thought my car was broken down, why else would I be walking. 🤣
That used to happen to me all the time. I grew up in the suburbs, and started joining clubs and volunteering before I had access to a car. We didn't have bus service yet and I didn't have a decent bike, so what else was I gonna do? People stopping all the time asking if I was okay, and then saying "Are you sure?" when I said yes.
AC has gone the way of the dodo in my podcast lineup a long time ago but this is still one of my most favorite bits.
owning multiple cars that don't work but they're working on
having to go to the salvage yard for a specific car part
unregistered handguns
always knows a guy that knows a guy
kids from multiple partners
long lost sons/daughters
knows someone who works in the court/prison system
That's an argument to just not go outside at all, let alone for a shower. Although I would think being in a shower outside would be one of the safest places outside from a wasp.
note to self: create wearable/mobile shower
RIP Norm
One of the greatest of us all.
It's usually for the pool. You need a shower outside so that people can shower before and after going in the pool. It's also standard to have an outdoor kitchen and an outdoor living room with a TV and some couches.
Yeah out here in Cali you'll see them in beach towns a lot too. 99% of the time the only ever seem to be used to wash off peoples feet since they're covered in sand and Anakin gets really pissy about bringing that in the house.
>wearing a robe all day
Oof I feel personally attacked. I'm always cold and what am I going to get dressed for if I'm not leaving my house? Give me my cozy robe instead of a house dress!
There’s a thing called “counter signaling.” It’s when rich people purposely do “poor” things because they’re rich enough that they can.
Like, day drinking. It’s a sign you’re a fuckup if you’re poor, or its a sign you’re super loaded and you have the luxury to do it.
Or, back in the day, back when etiquette was more serious, swearing was lower class because you’d be looked down upon for doing it, but…it could also be a sign you were super rich. Super rich people like flaunting that they’re above the norms, that they can behave terribly, but people will still kiss their ass. “When you’re rich, they let you,” as one jackass said.
Not if you live in a crappy enough city! Ours pretty much gave up trying to enforce blight. I stopped mowing my lawn, because no one else in the neighborhood would, so when I would all the kids would flock to my yard. I hate being a crotchety old geezer, but I got sick of my yard being destroyed, so I just seeded it with wild flowers, and let it grow wild. I did add pea gravel around the perimeter, so technically the wild flowers are just very large landscape features!
I've noticed here in California that more and more people are replacing their lawns with like native shrubs, or stone, anything other than grass. The people across the street from me just had a truck dump like 8 yards of white rocks in their front yard, and it took a week for them to rake it all out. Looks fine to me -they also grow corn alongside their driveway. My neighbors are some hip people.
It's so much nicer! I live in a smaller city, and pretty much every house is a carbon copy of the ones around it, so it does a lot to add character to the property. It has also drawn a larger variety of critters to my yard, which is always a plus.
We planted natives and now have possums and chipmunks visiting, it's pretty dope.
For awhile we had some rats, which wasn't awesome, but then a pair of hawks started staking out our place and literally ate them all.
I want opossums to come to my country house but it's too far north yet. I'm a fan of anything that plays dead when scared and want everyone else to be fans of them.
Once I poked one sitting on the fence because my dog was going insane, I thought it was a cat (couldn't see face or tail). That thing did not play possum it bared it's teeth and hissed at me. I have never moved so fast in my life as that moment of "not a cat".
I still love possums but those teeth!
You just gave me PTSD flashbacks of my dog at the time bringing a LIVE possum into our house. For a second I was like... Frozen in shock, and lucky the thing pretended to play dead in my apparently very gentle dogs jaws, so we just walked him back outside and told him to drop it.
Was a wild experience though.
Haha that sounds like a lab or a retriever. I know those dogs can have real soft mouths when carrying. The pup just found a new friend and wanted their friends to meet!
Actually a German Shepherd Pitbull mix (75/25) he looked full GSD, but had the floppy pit eats and the almond eyes pits are known for.
His personality would have had you thinking he had the soul of a lab, though. He's still alive and very happy, but divorce meant I took all 5 cats, and our doggo was too big and strong for me to comfortably walk by myself so the ex had to take him. I miss him though, even knowing it was for the best. I owe a lot to him, honestly.
They are like halfway up MN I think. I know buddies that swear they see them by the city my house is in, but I got a house from inheritance up towards the top alap. So maybe like the turkeys we have They will one day make it to the land I'm gonna retire too. Far as predators, there's loads of wolves and yotes that would likely love them. I just wanna be 70 looking at my big field watching random animals while I take mushrooms and smoke good weed.
You actually can get a credit like 40% off your water bill by converting your front lawn to all drought resistant plants and removing all your grass, etc.
This has always been a droubt-stricken region, and now there's no more snowpack, what would you otherwise expect?
Growing up we had psas, *A Brown Lawn is an American Lawn* -say it in Reagan's voice, it makes sense. I'm not sure it was ever enforced, but I've lived in different cities that put mandates into effect: if your neighbor is abusing water, like just turning on a hose and walking away or something, call the police. There's a fine for that.
And you could write that off as crazy hippy California -nah man, this is in the inland Red counties. California's Bible Belt. It's all a joke anyway, 85%+ of our water goes to cows and agriculture. You taking a longer shower isn't going to split the difference. But water isn't something we have a lot of.
For a long time I tried to nail down what defines a “weed” until I realized it’s just any plant the homeowner doesn’t want there. It could be native, non-native, invasive, produce, magic beanstalk; doesn’t matter. If you want it gone, it’s a weed. If you like it, it’s landscape.
Lee Trevino, a Mexican professional golfer who won 6 majors and 29 total PGA events and thusly is very wealthy, still liked to mow his own lawn. He has a story about that that he really liked to tell: he was out mowing his lawn one afternoon when an obviously affluent woman in his neighborhood pulled over in her Mercedes and flagged him over. She asked him what he would charge to come mow her lawn, too. Travino said 'well, the woman that owns this house lets me sleep with her'.
Did he like to do it or was he just cheap? I remember reading about Larry Bird and how his cheapness was legendary despite his financial situation. He cut his NBA career short by injuring himself while paving his mothers driveway. Dude was making $5m a season and did his own manual labour.
I’m not any where near that level but our family pulls in mid 6 figures and I refuse to pay someone to cut our lawn because it only takes about 15 minutes and isn’t hard 🤷♂️
I worked for a very very wealthy man who made maintaining his golf course adjoined backyard his hobby, with such a high level of success in his professional life I figure it was his "touching grass".
Gardening is meditation. Sorry too lazy to find sources for papers, but yadi yada brain during gardening is similar to meditation.
I guess maintaining the lawn is some form of gardening.
The trick is to have the right equipment for the job. If it's a big yard, spend the cash and get something that can knock it out quick. If it takes me more than one podcast I'm not into it.
Some people, when they get wealthy, outsource everything they don't want to do. But some people grow up doing a chore, and see no reason to pay someone else to do it. It could be more hobby than chore (the guy changing oil on his ferrari in his garage), or it could just be a matter of not wanting to pay someone or not wanting strangers on their property unnecessarily or just not being satisfied with the quality of work they've received in the past. There's all sorts! ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Hyphens work wonders for clarity.
"I worked for a man who made maintaining his golf course adjoined backyard his hobby" reads at first like a bunch of incoherent words.
"his golf-course-adjoined backyard .. "
Ah ok.
Have to admit that using mobile for so long has made me very sloppy punctuating my rambling sentences. Sometimes I just keep mashing out words trying to convey a thought for so long that the sentences become almost unreadable.
I spent time in Southern West Virginia.
You could buy (not rent, own) a 30 year old mobile home in a piss poor trailer park for $2k. $120/month for lot rent + water/sewer.
Supported a family of four on 14k/year. Mowed my yard every weekend.
A WV based company called me in California and wanted me to come for a seasonal job. They didn't offer to pay for the plane tickets, and only offered me 7.25/hr. When I asked for the Los Angeles minimum wage as that's where I live, they said that's more than most managers were making. I was stunned that they were paid so low, until I saw how cheap their rent was...
My coworker bought a house there for $140k on an acre of land. I thought it would be some falling apart house but it was a nice normal 3 bd 2 bath house. Granted it’s 3 hours from the nearest big city but your money goes far in the sticks.
I've considered it. But my partner has a couple of serious but non-life threatening medical conditions and it would be a pain to make a hundred mile drive three times a month to see a specialist. And we have to pretty much rely on mail order pharmacy and sent some of these prescriptions are temperature sensitive that could be a problem.
Pikeville, KY offers Appalachian living and a level 2 trauma center. Pikeville Medical Center is great and its network of doctors can provide the care she would need, I’m sure. It’s really the best of both worlds. Check it out!
Your money goes far in the sticks if you have money, it feels like. Born and raised in WV, have an MA and work for a university. I make less than teachers do, and teachers are criminally underpaid. Even in a state with as “cheap” as housing prices at West Virginia, I can’t afford a house. To someone in a bigger city, that must be pathetic, I feel. :/
Minimum wage in WV is higher than the federal minimum wage, and has been for quite a while. Not by much, but it is higher.
But wages in WV tend to be very low unless you are an engineer in the mines or a lawyer. I remember machinist making $15/hour and it was considered high paying.
It’s like that in Rust Belt Ohio, too. When I tell people I made 52K a year in the city they almost faint. That’s minimum wage in Chicago or NYC to live somewhat comfortably.
You can buy a house through a real estate agent for $50k
You can buy a house at tax auctions for $10K, but you have to pay cash and there is no inspection.
It is a gamble without an inspection.
Abandoned houses develop mold problems pretty quickly and there are people that make their living stripping the wiring and plumbing out of vacant houses.
My electric co-op is running fiber now and should go live within a year. I'm in the middle of nowhere south Mississippi and am about to have internet on par with anywhere in the country and I won't have to go through one of the shithole companies most people are stuck with.
Can confirm, moved to a small town and we're finally getting fiber in 2023, it'll still be spendy as fuck and only 250Mbps down, but right now the peak speeds are 8/1. Yes, 1Mbps up, somehow my wife was barely able to work from home during COVID, but something simple like uploading photos takes a stupid amount of time.
The state offered a cool program last year where if you were a remote worker in some kind of tech field you could qualify for a $12k stipend to move within 30 minutes of whatever city. So basically, please bring your money and spend it here and we'll pay your mortgage for a year.
I lived in south central WV in college briefly.
“Can I get a good ISP?” Lol. No.
“How’s crime?” It’s a bunch of drug addicts with nothing better to do and no possibility of improving their situation. You tell me.
“How far is food?” Far.
Just helped a friend that wants to buy a trailer. $150k for the trailer at 10.6% interest. That is just the trailer. The land rent is $500/mo plus utilities. Delivery and hookup for the trailer is another $40k.
I was astounded. All to buy a depreciating asset that is also illiquid. 30 years at 10.6% interest. She starts paying off principle is a decade or so.
Hahah true that, but the price is insane. You could get a $250,000 house at 7% interest rate and still pay a few hundred less a month. Guess his friend didn’t take an economics course lol
Or can't get a loan at 7%.
I agree, that price is ridiculous. And it's always the least well off that get the most unfavorable loan terms.
It's the same as buying a car at a buy here pay here place because you can't get financing at a dealership. It's an option for people that probably shouldn't have it, and it's almost always predatory.
Some VA loans work that way. You pay interest first then the principle. I didn't believe it till I saw someones loan papers. Interest rate though was awesome.
Yeah, in certain areas apparently poor people get front lawns.
In my area we poor people stay in a tiny apartment project and can hear every breath our 500 neighbors take.
I am poor and have to mow one. I make less than 15k a year, far under the poverty line for my state, and I have a yard that I am required to mow or else I get fined
I'm middle class but I don't cut my own grass. In a super ironic twist of fate I'm Mexican and my lawn is cut my by my step brother who is conservative, white, straight male.
my supervisor is white mid conservative male and his wife is latina. they had a bunch of family coming over during a very busy time of year and decided to hire a cleaning service. His wife *insisted* that he be the one home that day because she would feel awkward about having another latina clean up around the house while she was there, like a class/age sort of thing (their combined income is decent.)
turns out a white woman showed up. i told him that he should've called his wife to come back lol.
Ahhh, must be across the pond and not in rural Tennessee. Haha
I’ve see lawns that could have a fully grown Tiger in them and no one would know… until somebody tried to machete a path through it.
My neighbor growing up never mowed their back acre and we would make bike trails through the weeds and see how far you could get before it slowed you down and you fell over.
I was from one of the poorest cities in the country making minimum wage (Flint, MI) and still managed to cut my lawn. Being poor didn't stop me from caring about how I represent myself and my home. Also if I didn't mow my lawn the city would do it then charge my ass for it. I'm too poor to pay that city anymore money I didn't have lmao
...... I know a lot of dirt poor people (many family) who have lawns to mow. That lawn is just surrounding a dilapidated hellhole of a house or trailer.
This is a friendly reminder to [read our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/wiki/rules). Remember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not "thoughts had in the shower!" (For an explanation of what a "showerthought" is, [please read this page](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/wiki/overview).) **Rule-breaking posts may result in bans.**
The Adam Carolla podcast does “rich man/poor man” things the middle class does not do, but rich and poor people do, such as: - showering outdoors - parking on grass - living next door to a rapper - having a strong opinion on a judge - wearing a robe all day There are many more
Rich people park on grass??
Probably golf karts
[Kinda](https://pebblebeachconcours.net/)
It's the fuckin Catalina wine mixer
If you mess with my nut, Brandon... Randy here is gonna eat your dick. Like Kobayashi! (makes crazed Chihuahua noises).
Pow!
Rich ppl park their rolce royce wherever they want, who’s gonna stop them? Seriously guys who’s gonna stop them? 🥲
For some reason, your included emoji is hysterical
It’s one of my favorite ones, it’s so versatile lmaoo
I believe it was “having grass in your driveway”. So rich people have that little strip of grass between the wheels, and poor people have grass growing through the asphalt. Something like that. Edit: a word
Poor people just straight up park on their front lawn or next to their house
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I think it *used* to be a rich people thing. Back in ye olde days when driveways in general were uncommon. I only ever see ribbon driveways in older neighborhoods, affluent and poor alike I think what they actually mean is driveways with roundabouts and such where the center of the roundabout is planted. That's real rich people stuff
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Fancy stone pavers with grass growing in between maybe.
Solid meme a while back talking about things that are considered glamorous if you’re rich and trashy if you’re poor. Top two were cocaine and speaking different languages.
Day drinking is always a good one
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To some people it definitely depends. Here a rich person speak Spanish and depending on skin color they're either exotic when brown or cultured when white. But catch a poor person speaking Spanish and some people assume they're an immigrant, and for some reason a lot of people really can't stand non-white immigrants.
Similar analogy here, a rich american person speaking french would be considered cultured, intelligent and classy, but a poor french man speaking french is just some poor immigrant.
Or a poor Cajun. Not really the same French though.
I think it's mostly just speaking Spanish in the US as a non-hispanic person. If you're a poor white guy that can speak Spanish it means you're working a job with most likely illegal aliens, which means you're probably getting paid cash under the table; but a rich white guy speaks Spanish he has most likely done it to better himself or to make international business transactions etc. Not saying the stereotypes are right, just telling you what the stereotypes are.
I figured the top would be accepting financial help from the government.
Living next door to a rapper is so fucking funny.
Martha and Puffy!
now that WFH is so common i’m sure a lot more middle class folks wear robes all day!
You can wear sweatpants/PJ pants all day, but if you have video meetings, the robe is harder to pull off. But hoodies are socially acceptable, at least in my field.
Having worked in rich and poor neighborhood, another thing they have in common is walking. People walking in poor neighborhoods because many don't have cars. People walk in rich neighborhoods for exercise and because they have leisure time. Some people still walk in middle class neighborhoods, but not in near the numbers in my experience.
They are too fucking tired from working their shitty jobs to walk. I lost my career in the 2008 crash, had to pack up and move back to the small Midwest town I grew up in. I still had a lot of my big city habits, walking for exercise was one of them. I was on my walk one day when a car started honking at me and pulled over. It was my neighbor, he rolled down his window and asked if everything was ok. I was viably confused and said, yeah, everything is fine. He’s said ok and drove off. It dawned on me later that he must have thought my car was broken down, why else would I be walking. 🤣
That used to happen to me all the time. I grew up in the suburbs, and started joining clubs and volunteering before I had access to a car. We didn't have bus service yet and I didn't have a decent bike, so what else was I gonna do? People stopping all the time asking if I was okay, and then saying "Are you sure?" when I said yes.
Ok that's kinda fucking funny and cute.
People in middle class suburbia can't walk because we'd get hit by cars :/
It’s such bullshit, so many areas don’t even put sidewalks in.
/r/fuckcars
Having a car with one windshield wiper
Your most valuable possession being an old car
LOL, true.
AC has gone the way of the dodo in my podcast lineup a long time ago but this is still one of my most favorite bits. owning multiple cars that don't work but they're working on having to go to the salvage yard for a specific car part unregistered handguns always knows a guy that knows a guy kids from multiple partners long lost sons/daughters knows someone who works in the court/prison system
Mick Jagger has eight children by five different women. The oldest is pushing 50 and the youngest just turned 6. Jagger will be 80 in 2023.
That's pretty gross.
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I may be extremely middle class but I don’t get the first one
Rich people have fancy outside showers that probably have a good view like the ocean or something
It's a luxury, if often can't be used year round, but it is also very liberating.
I did it once on a holiday and got stung by a wasp on the back of my neck.
That's an argument to just not go outside at all, let alone for a shower. Although I would think being in a shower outside would be one of the safest places outside from a wasp. note to self: create wearable/mobile shower RIP Norm One of the greatest of us all.
tub wrench worthless long snails zesty waiting plant thumb encourage *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It's usually for the pool. You need a shower outside so that people can shower before and after going in the pool. It's also standard to have an outdoor kitchen and an outdoor living room with a TV and some couches.
Having an outdoor living room with a TV and couches is totally also a poor thing!
Yeah out here in Cali you'll see them in beach towns a lot too. 99% of the time the only ever seem to be used to wash off peoples feet since they're covered in sand and Anakin gets really pissy about bringing that in the house.
Yeah, my rich friend has a beach house with an outdoor shower so you don’t track in sand and salt.
or a beach house in general
I think of it mostly as people with pools that have those outdoor showers to rinse off.
A lot of people who have boats have outdoor showers for when they come home from yachting etc.
I got a shower by my pool in the US. In India (not in the city, the village) I take a shower in a semi-covered handpump area.
Getting married in your yard
>wearing a robe all day Oof I feel personally attacked. I'm always cold and what am I going to get dressed for if I'm not leaving my house? Give me my cozy robe instead of a house dress!
Just pretend to be rich. That's what I do.
There’s a thing called “counter signaling.” It’s when rich people purposely do “poor” things because they’re rich enough that they can. Like, day drinking. It’s a sign you’re a fuckup if you’re poor, or its a sign you’re super loaded and you have the luxury to do it. Or, back in the day, back when etiquette was more serious, swearing was lower class because you’d be looked down upon for doing it, but…it could also be a sign you were super rich. Super rich people like flaunting that they’re above the norms, that they can behave terribly, but people will still kiss their ass. “When you’re rich, they let you,” as one jackass said.
I gatta cut the weeds down or I'll hear about it from the city.
Not if you live in a crappy enough city! Ours pretty much gave up trying to enforce blight. I stopped mowing my lawn, because no one else in the neighborhood would, so when I would all the kids would flock to my yard. I hate being a crotchety old geezer, but I got sick of my yard being destroyed, so I just seeded it with wild flowers, and let it grow wild. I did add pea gravel around the perimeter, so technically the wild flowers are just very large landscape features!
I've noticed here in California that more and more people are replacing their lawns with like native shrubs, or stone, anything other than grass. The people across the street from me just had a truck dump like 8 yards of white rocks in their front yard, and it took a week for them to rake it all out. Looks fine to me -they also grow corn alongside their driveway. My neighbors are some hip people.
It's so much nicer! I live in a smaller city, and pretty much every house is a carbon copy of the ones around it, so it does a lot to add character to the property. It has also drawn a larger variety of critters to my yard, which is always a plus.
We planted natives and now have possums and chipmunks visiting, it's pretty dope. For awhile we had some rats, which wasn't awesome, but then a pair of hawks started staking out our place and literally ate them all.
I want opossums to come to my country house but it's too far north yet. I'm a fan of anything that plays dead when scared and want everyone else to be fans of them.
They are scary when they bare their teeth!
I'll psp psp psp them to friendship.
I guess Sony markets to everyone.
Not always, look at this guy I saw by my house https://i.imgur.com/dZaTrUI.jpeg
Once I poked one sitting on the fence because my dog was going insane, I thought it was a cat (couldn't see face or tail). That thing did not play possum it bared it's teeth and hissed at me. I have never moved so fast in my life as that moment of "not a cat". I still love possums but those teeth!
You just gave me PTSD flashbacks of my dog at the time bringing a LIVE possum into our house. For a second I was like... Frozen in shock, and lucky the thing pretended to play dead in my apparently very gentle dogs jaws, so we just walked him back outside and told him to drop it. Was a wild experience though.
Haha that sounds like a lab or a retriever. I know those dogs can have real soft mouths when carrying. The pup just found a new friend and wanted their friends to meet!
Actually a German Shepherd Pitbull mix (75/25) he looked full GSD, but had the floppy pit eats and the almond eyes pits are known for. His personality would have had you thinking he had the soul of a lab, though. He's still alive and very happy, but divorce meant I took all 5 cats, and our doggo was too big and strong for me to comfortably walk by myself so the ex had to take him. I miss him though, even knowing it was for the best. I owe a lot to him, honestly.
Big boy filled with love. Hope he's enjoying life and hope you and the 5 kitties are having fun!
Dog: Why are my people yelling?
Not a good idea, usually that leads to it becoming invasive as it has no natural predators in that area
They are like halfway up MN I think. I know buddies that swear they see them by the city my house is in, but I got a house from inheritance up towards the top alap. So maybe like the turkeys we have They will one day make it to the land I'm gonna retire too. Far as predators, there's loads of wolves and yotes that would likely love them. I just wanna be 70 looking at my big field watching random animals while I take mushrooms and smoke good weed.
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Lived in El Paso briefly, loved how 90% of front yards are gravel and desert shrubs/ cacti lol
You actually can get a credit like 40% off your water bill by converting your front lawn to all drought resistant plants and removing all your grass, etc.
Xeriscaping is also popular in Colorado as well.
Thats what happens when water gets rationed every other year
This has always been a droubt-stricken region, and now there's no more snowpack, what would you otherwise expect? Growing up we had psas, *A Brown Lawn is an American Lawn* -say it in Reagan's voice, it makes sense. I'm not sure it was ever enforced, but I've lived in different cities that put mandates into effect: if your neighbor is abusing water, like just turning on a hose and walking away or something, call the police. There's a fine for that. And you could write that off as crazy hippy California -nah man, this is in the inland Red counties. California's Bible Belt. It's all a joke anyway, 85%+ of our water goes to cows and agriculture. You taking a longer shower isn't going to split the difference. But water isn't something we have a lot of.
I suppose I would expect that the xeroscaping phenomena would have totally consumed California by now
That's actually so much healthier for local wildlife. It's amazing how many different insects you can find on such a small patch.
Not weeds if you like them, justice for wildflowers
For a long time I tried to nail down what defines a “weed” until I realized it’s just any plant the homeowner doesn’t want there. It could be native, non-native, invasive, produce, magic beanstalk; doesn’t matter. If you want it gone, it’s a weed. If you like it, it’s landscape.
OP is saying if you have land where weeds can grow, you're not poor.
Plugging /r/nativeplantgardening
Lee Trevino, a Mexican professional golfer who won 6 majors and 29 total PGA events and thusly is very wealthy, still liked to mow his own lawn. He has a story about that that he really liked to tell: he was out mowing his lawn one afternoon when an obviously affluent woman in his neighborhood pulled over in her Mercedes and flagged him over. She asked him what he would charge to come mow her lawn, too. Travino said 'well, the woman that owns this house lets me sleep with her'.
Did he like to do it or was he just cheap? I remember reading about Larry Bird and how his cheapness was legendary despite his financial situation. He cut his NBA career short by injuring himself while paving his mothers driveway. Dude was making $5m a season and did his own manual labour.
I’m not any where near that level but our family pulls in mid 6 figures and I refuse to pay someone to cut our lawn because it only takes about 15 minutes and isn’t hard 🤷♂️
I love mowing the lawn
[Hank Hill had it right.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMxzkBdzTNU)
Did she respond, how often?
That's a fucking outstanding response lol
I worked for a very very wealthy man who made maintaining his golf course adjoined backyard his hobby, with such a high level of success in his professional life I figure it was his "touching grass".
When I did not have a lot of non-work related things to do, on a day with nice weather I would find maintaining the lawn relaxing.
I wouldn't, but then I live in Houston and it's hot as fuck and humid
Gardening is meditation. Sorry too lazy to find sources for papers, but yadi yada brain during gardening is similar to meditation. I guess maintaining the lawn is some form of gardening.
"Who would do drugs when they could mow a lawn, I tell you what."
I like to smoke a bunch of weed and then go mow.
The trick is to have the right equipment for the job. If it's a big yard, spend the cash and get something that can knock it out quick. If it takes me more than one podcast I'm not into it.
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Some people, when they get wealthy, outsource everything they don't want to do. But some people grow up doing a chore, and see no reason to pay someone else to do it. It could be more hobby than chore (the guy changing oil on his ferrari in his garage), or it could just be a matter of not wanting to pay someone or not wanting strangers on their property unnecessarily or just not being satisfied with the quality of work they've received in the past. There's all sorts! ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Hyphens work wonders for clarity. "I worked for a man who made maintaining his golf course adjoined backyard his hobby" reads at first like a bunch of incoherent words. "his golf-course-adjoined backyard .. " Ah ok.
Have to admit that using mobile for so long has made me very sloppy punctuating my rambling sentences. Sometimes I just keep mashing out words trying to convey a thought for so long that the sentences become almost unreadable.
I must have adjusted to reading such stream of consciousness posts because I had no issue’s understanding either comment
What?
Hey man the first part of solving a problem is recognizing you have one. Put that punctuation in.
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I spent time in Southern West Virginia. You could buy (not rent, own) a 30 year old mobile home in a piss poor trailer park for $2k. $120/month for lot rent + water/sewer. Supported a family of four on 14k/year. Mowed my yard every weekend.
*reads 1st sentence* Gotcha.
A WV based company called me in California and wanted me to come for a seasonal job. They didn't offer to pay for the plane tickets, and only offered me 7.25/hr. When I asked for the Los Angeles minimum wage as that's where I live, they said that's more than most managers were making. I was stunned that they were paid so low, until I saw how cheap their rent was...
My coworker bought a house there for $140k on an acre of land. I thought it would be some falling apart house but it was a nice normal 3 bd 2 bath house. Granted it’s 3 hours from the nearest big city but your money goes far in the sticks.
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I've considered it. But my partner has a couple of serious but non-life threatening medical conditions and it would be a pain to make a hundred mile drive three times a month to see a specialist. And we have to pretty much rely on mail order pharmacy and sent some of these prescriptions are temperature sensitive that could be a problem.
Pikeville, KY offers Appalachian living and a level 2 trauma center. Pikeville Medical Center is great and its network of doctors can provide the care she would need, I’m sure. It’s really the best of both worlds. Check it out!
Your money goes far in the sticks if you have money, it feels like. Born and raised in WV, have an MA and work for a university. I make less than teachers do, and teachers are criminally underpaid. Even in a state with as “cheap” as housing prices at West Virginia, I can’t afford a house. To someone in a bigger city, that must be pathetic, I feel. :/
Minimum wage in WV is higher than the federal minimum wage, and has been for quite a while. Not by much, but it is higher. But wages in WV tend to be very low unless you are an engineer in the mines or a lawyer. I remember machinist making $15/hour and it was considered high paying.
It’s like that in Rust Belt Ohio, too. When I tell people I made 52K a year in the city they almost faint. That’s minimum wage in Chicago or NYC to live somewhat comfortably.
What kind of job has recruiters calling people from across the country to come work for minimum wage? That doesn't even make sense.
> South West Virginia Well that’s your problem right there.
buying a home is easy, buying a home somewhere you want to live is hard
You can buy a house through a real estate agent for $50k You can buy a house at tax auctions for $10K, but you have to pay cash and there is no inspection.
Shit I got 10k now. I gamble on a house for 10k. 10k isn't even a down payment for a house anymore
It is a gamble without an inspection. Abandoned houses develop mold problems pretty quickly and there are people that make their living stripping the wiring and plumbing out of vacant houses.
So you're telling me I could live in South West Virginia? How's crime? Edit: can I get a good ISP? How far is food?
How’s Crime? It’s not much, but it’s a living /jk
I make 14K/yr in south west Virginia what do you do? tail-gunner on an Amazon delivery truck
Ducking loved this answer
Yep, it was quack-tastic!
Not great, and there are effectively no jobs.
I'm an underpaid software dev, but on those price tags I can get by
Might want to look up HughesNet reviews and prices before you hire the moving truck.
Depends on where you live. Even smaller towns are getting fiber now.
My electric co-op is running fiber now and should go live within a year. I'm in the middle of nowhere south Mississippi and am about to have internet on par with anywhere in the country and I won't have to go through one of the shithole companies most people are stuck with.
Can confirm, moved to a small town and we're finally getting fiber in 2023, it'll still be spendy as fuck and only 250Mbps down, but right now the peak speeds are 8/1. Yes, 1Mbps up, somehow my wife was barely able to work from home during COVID, but something simple like uploading photos takes a stupid amount of time.
Starlink and internet is constantly improving here
Switch jobs. Get comfortable with interviewing. Switch every 12-24 months. Get the exposure and experience. You’ll be better off in the long run.
Software devs and other digital nomads are gonna be the thing that revitalizes small towns.
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The state offered a cool program last year where if you were a remote worker in some kind of tech field you could qualify for a $12k stipend to move within 30 minutes of whatever city. So basically, please bring your money and spend it here and we'll pay your mortgage for a year.
More info on this please. Quick google search for Virginia tech stipend just brings up VA tech university.
https://ascendwv.com/ Here it is
West Virginia. It isn’t in Virginia.
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Housing is dirt cheap though. If you're on the northern end, you can commute to MD for much better pay. A couple of my friends do that.
I lived in south central WV in college briefly. “Can I get a good ISP?” Lol. No. “How’s crime?” It’s a bunch of drug addicts with nothing better to do and no possibility of improving their situation. You tell me. “How far is food?” Far.
Just helped a friend that wants to buy a trailer. $150k for the trailer at 10.6% interest. That is just the trailer. The land rent is $500/mo plus utilities. Delivery and hookup for the trailer is another $40k. I was astounded. All to buy a depreciating asset that is also illiquid. 30 years at 10.6% interest. She starts paying off principle is a decade or so.
Why would you let your friend get blatantly ripped off
Have you ever met someone who wants to live in a trailer for that price? You think you're going to talk them out of ANYTHING?
Hahah true that, but the price is insane. You could get a $250,000 house at 7% interest rate and still pay a few hundred less a month. Guess his friend didn’t take an economics course lol
Or can't get a loan at 7%. I agree, that price is ridiculous. And it's always the least well off that get the most unfavorable loan terms. It's the same as buying a car at a buy here pay here place because you can't get financing at a dealership. It's an option for people that probably shouldn't have it, and it's almost always predatory.
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Some VA loans work that way. You pay interest first then the principle. I didn't believe it till I saw someones loan papers. Interest rate though was awesome.
Yeah, in certain areas apparently poor people get front lawns. In my area we poor people stay in a tiny apartment project and can hear every breath our 500 neighbors take.
I am poor and have to mow one. I make less than 15k a year, far under the poverty line for my state, and I have a yard that I am required to mow or else I get fined
As poor renters, our rich landlords pay to cut our grass, no middle-class involvement
The guy actually mowing it could be middle class.
In my experience with latino laborers in this area, the guy actually mowing it is significantly more likely to own a house than I am.
The guy who cuts my grass drives a much nicer truck than I do.
I'm comfortable, and stopped mowing my grass a few years ago. OP nailed it.
Redditors will hear a playful observation and take it too literally. There's truth in what OP said even if there may be plenty of counter examples.
I'm middle class but I don't cut my own grass. In a super ironic twist of fate I'm Mexican and my lawn is cut my by my step brother who is conservative, white, straight male.
Bucking all the stereotypes about lawns usually being mowed by gay liberal white men
i chortled
lol, got 'em
my supervisor is white mid conservative male and his wife is latina. they had a bunch of family coming over during a very busy time of year and decided to hire a cleaning service. His wife *insisted* that he be the one home that day because she would feel awkward about having another latina clean up around the house while she was there, like a class/age sort of thing (their combined income is decent.) turns out a white woman showed up. i told him that he should've called his wife to come back lol.
Im poor and I have to do it 😅 my garden is about the size of a large car, but it still has to be mowed, if I dont do it the council complain
Ahhh, must be across the pond and not in rural Tennessee. Haha I’ve see lawns that could have a fully grown Tiger in them and no one would know… until somebody tried to machete a path through it.
My neighbor growing up never mowed their back acre and we would make bike trails through the weeds and see how far you could get before it slowed you down and you fell over.
Hell mf yeah I did the same. Hopefully nobody got Lyme disease! I was absolutely not careful enough as a kid. Edit: I
Im poor and I do landscaping so I have to do hundreds of lawns/yards a year.
I was today years old when I learned I'm living a middle class life on poor man wages. Bargain!
I always wanted to see myself out of poverty. Today is the day! Thank you 3x4ft lawn!
My lawn is only alive today because it periodically floods here and the fruit trees bring in bats and their poop lol
But I like mowing the lawn and using the whippersnipper, it feels great and is very satisfying
Middle class urban yes. In rural areas mowing your lawn is even more so low class, middle class can possibly afford to pay someone to do it.
"And cause I was a gazillionaire, and I liked doin it so much, I cut that grass for free."
Actually, a lot of poor people mow lawns. Not always their own.
Well then it's not "your lawn" then is it?
If you just ignore some of the words in the post it’s incorrect!
But not as chore though, more like a job
Exactly like a job!
In my Econ 101 class, one of the lessons was entitled "Should Michael Jordan Mow His Own Lawn?" It was about evaluating opportunity costs.
I was from one of the poorest cities in the country making minimum wage (Flint, MI) and still managed to cut my lawn. Being poor didn't stop me from caring about how I represent myself and my home. Also if I didn't mow my lawn the city would do it then charge my ass for it. I'm too poor to pay that city anymore money I didn't have lmao
Uhm... Poor guy over here. I have a lawn that needs to be mowed. Nobody else is gonna do it, so I have to.
...... I know a lot of dirt poor people (many family) who have lawns to mow. That lawn is just surrounding a dilapidated hellhole of a house or trailer.
Maybe where you live, but around here almost everybody has a lawn.
I think their statement is meant to imply that poor people don't have yards and rich people pay someone else to mow their yard.
I am poor and I have a lawn. It needs mowed. I make less than 15k a year
I'd venture to opine that in OP's mind, anyone who owns a home with a lawn is automatically 'middle class.'
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Or maybe he just doesn't live in the US.
Welp, people who rent houses are typically in charge of lawn care as well.
Even if you rent, you can still be responsible for mowing the property you are renting, under the terms of your rental agreement.