Uploaded February 2019 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
In the US: 41% live paycheck to paycheck and can’t cover a $400 unexpected expense. One hours cut, injury, illness, blown tire, and a lot of these people start contemplating potential homelessness.
Combine that with having to spend the entire day on an employer’s schedule, alongside people they may not like, because they dread missing a mortgage or credit card payment. Trading their time for money, their freedom for trinkets, and living for mere survival, working their asses off to make bankers, landlords, and merchants rich. It is easy to feel utterly powerless in those circumstances. Is it any wonder drugs like Prozac and Zoloft sell so well?
My proposed answer is teaching low-income people to apply the principles of the FIRE community to achieve what I call post-subsistence.
In the US: 41% live paycheck to paycheck and can’t cover a $400 unexpected expense. One hours cut, injury, illness, blown tire, and a lot of these people start contemplating potential homelessness.
Combine that with having to spend the entire day on an employer’s schedule, alongside people they may not like, because they dread missing a mortgage or credit card payment. Trading their time for money, their freedom for trinkets, and living for mere survival, working their asses off to make bankers, landlords, and merchants rich. It is easy to feel utterly powerless in those circumstances. Is it any wonder drugs like Prozac and Zoloft sell so well?
My proposed answer is teaching low-income people to apply the principles of the FIRE community to achieve what I call post-subsistence.
