Thinking about Stache in terms of Food

[wageslave23]

I was trying to figure out a way to better visualize my stache and the amount of money things cost today relative to historical costs.  I put my stache in terms of food.  For example if my stache $100,000 and my food costs are roughly $2000 yearly, then I have 50 yrs worth of food saved up.  Or at 4% withdrawal, I have 2x a years supply of food to live off of each year.  In these terms, 200 yrs ago I would be fucking rich!

I believe that in caveman/hunter gatherer days, food would have been the most expensive commodity from a time and energy standpoint.  I would guess spending 2-3 hrs a day looking for food would be typical.  Now if I earn $25/hr take home, it would only take me about 6 hrs to have a months supply of food.  Or 12 mins to find food for each day.  So food is crazy cheap now. 

In log cabin days, a dwelling would probably take 6 months to build and require a couple weeks worth of maintenance a year.  A house at $150k today would take roughly 3 yrs of working full time to "build" in today's world.  And re taxes, maintenance, etc would require 3 weeks worth of working each year to pay for it.  So housing is much more expensive.  In terms of food, a house costs 75 yrs worth of food and 1.5 yrs of food in maintenance every year. 

Cars in terms of food cost about 1 years worth of food for gas, and a cheap car another years worth of food for depreciation and maintenance. 

When looking at a yearly budget in terms of food.  Food would be 1 yr of food.  Housing ($1500 mortgage) would be 9 yrs of food.  Car would be 2 yrs of food.  Thats insanely expensive for anyone living 100 yrs ago or earlier!

The point is if you could convince yourself to live the lifestyle of 200 yrs ago, with today's cheap food, you would work less than 30 minutes a day to pay for your food and housing.

[afox]

and what made the food cheap and better?  technology.

didnt people have housing and transportation costs 200 years ago?

[hadabeardonce]

Our net worth is currently 1.2mil Jack in the Box tacos, but most of that is tied up in the 100k cappuccinos in equity we have in our condo. I drive a car that's worth 6,896 lbs. of bananas...

[ketchup]

I paid about 12,375 42oz bags of peanut M&Ms for my house, my car is worth about 2,800lbs of yellow onions, and I have about 40lbs of ground beef in my wallet.

[wageslave23]

and what made the food cheap and better?  technology.

didnt people have housing and transportation costs 200 years ago?

Transportation costs would have been zero (for walking) or some hay (for a horse).  The only costs for a house after the initial time spent building it would be a little bit of elbow grease for maintenance.  That's why I said 30 min a day of labor instead of 12 min for the cost of food alone.  Of course there would be some other costs like clothes, candles, etc.  But the point is that the major cost throughout history was food, and now we have extremely cheap food in relative terms.  The thing that keeps us from working less is our tremendous growth in consumption.

[Davnasty]

I work for around 400lbs of peanuts/day. Plus benefits.