An excerpt from a comment Jacob or ERE fame made in another thread:
2) This is a Wheaton eco-scale problem. People who are spending two or more levels above are seen as unskilled and wasteful. People spending two or more levels below are seen as austere/crazy. Here's a short level scheme which is only meant to be SUGGESTIVE, not necessarily accurate. It's more reflective of my personal observations of correlations between resistance/acceptance to/of ideas and origin.
Level: IWTYTBR, Bogleheads
Level: E-R, GRS
Level: MMM
Level: ERE
Level: No known bloggers? (the $4000/year level)
Level: Suelo/Mark Boyle.
I think Thoreau fits in the "No known bloggers" level.
"So that all the pecuniary outgoes, excepting for washing and mending, which for the most part were done out of the house, and their bills have not yet been received — and these are all and more than all the ways by which money necessarily goes out in this part of the world — were
House ................................ $28.12½
Farm one year ........................ 14.72½
Food eight months .................... 8.74
Clothing, etc., eight months ......... 8.40¾
Oil, etc., eight months .............. 2.00
In all ............................... $61.99¾
I address myself now to those of my readers who hae a living to get. And to meet this I have for farm produce sold
$23.44
Earned by day-labor .................. 13.34
In all ........................... $36.78,
which subtracted from the sum of the outgoes leaves a balance of $25.21¾ on the one side — this being very nearly the means with which I started, and the measure of expenses to be incurred — and on the other, beside the leisure and independence and health thus secured, a comfortable house for me as long as I choose to occupy it."