- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- aboringdystopia@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- aboringdystopia@lemmy.world
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yeah we’re in for a real good time in this country when the middle class can no longer service the debts they’ve taken on, historically that’s just a grand ol’ time to be alive in a capitalist nation state built entirely on credit and debt…
I love not having kids. I’m happy I have a small dog.
Good choice to not bring kids into this world.
Anyone who doesnt understand this should find some YouTube videos with young people talking about feeling extreamly unhappy in our societies.
They dont want to be here but their parents got them because they wanted more meaning in their own lives.
Pets are ridiculously expensive and definitely a luxury.
My cat costs 100 bucks a month. And brings me the only source of joy I have.
That’s cheap and I consider not having suicidal thoughts to not be a luxury.
Pets are the new kids
Goldfish are the new pets
Pet rocks are the new goldfish
Kids are insanely expensive and time consuming. Which normally isn’t a problem in a healthy society with functional communities and affordable goods and services. We aren’t in a healthy society.
lol, I can assure you that is a very yuppie mindset. Vast majority of people with pets can’t afford much beyond the food.
What? Compared to having a kid they’re extremely cheap. My small dog costs me at most about $2000 a year.
Tell that to the tremendous number of homeless people in poverty who have pets.
I also love you not having kids! Small dogs for all! ❤
I used to make low 6 figures. Work owned me. I had to be reachable nights, weekends, holidays, vacations. 50 hour weeks were slow weeks. I finally walked away. Money is no good if you don’t have time to enjoy it. I make half of what I used to make but am much happier. I actually get to spend time with my wife, hobbies, and friends.
I’m very happy for you!
I’ll bet a ways back there was an article about how 5 figure incomes weren’t what they used to be.
True. As money in the system constantly leaks to the wealthiest and they consolidate control over prices and power, a quantity of income will go perpetually down in value; nothing that is measured by buying power or has fiscal value is what it used to be, and will continue on this trend until the ENTIRE system is FUNDAMENTALLY changed.
You ever watch that movie Office Space from like 1999? In the scene in the beginning where he’s explaining to the shrink how “every day is the worst day of his life”, the economy is basically like this for the cast majority of people, and will continue to be for a higher and higher percentage of the population. This is because we live in a system that is built and everybody accepts the functions and goals of consolidation of wealth and power as fundamental to life as we know it.
There are small “woke” movements that are trying to change that in various ways, but not until we have real, open, intelligent and educated discussions that involve EVERYBODY - left, right, liberal, and conservative, will anything change.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: nobody wins until we ALL win.
Couple of observations. I am the sole earner in our house. I am fortunate that I make about $140k and we live suburban Texas. In our family of 4 our basic expenses are as follows.
Mortgage is $2100/ month
Homeowners insurance $400/ month
Property tax $200/month
Car insurance $185/month
Electricity $250/month (average)
Natural gas $40/month
Water+trash $200/month
Internet $90/month
Streaming (disney/netflix/audible) $45/month
Groceries $400-600/month
Gas $200/month
Toll roads $50-100/month
Cell phone $200/month
Coffee once a week $40/month
Date night food (once a week) $500/month
Fucking health insurance for the family is $750/month (my contribution, my employer pays the majority)
Roughly $6250/month give or take.
We don’t have consumer debt, no car notes, no child care (stay at home parent cares for the kids) no daycare, and no paid child activities.
That is just our fixed expenses, something always comes up so obviously there is more but its inconsistent.
My car is a 2019 wrx that was $30k we paid it off last year but the note on that was $470/month. I couldn’t get that car for that price today.
We have an older suv for my partner and I have an old pickup that sits unused unless we need to make a hardware run, those vehicles are paid for, no loans and have been for 10+ years.
Our last house was purchased for $191k in 2016 and we sold it for $295k this past year.
Our insurance went from $1200/year to $4800 per year on that house before we sold it. Similar thing with property taxes.
Unless you have managed a 10% return or salary increase, your money doesn’t go as far as it used to.
I am happy to pay my fair share of taxes. For what I am paid, I feel like its reasonable to contribute more in taxes based on my earnings, but as a result, my take home is obviously not $140k. So when you figure fixed expenses are ~$75k, plus my 401k contributions, savings for my kids college fund, and incidentals for stuff like car tires, birthdays, christmas, house repairs, medical expenses, etc, its relatively easy to eat up the remainder of that pool.
Why pay $200/mo for cell service when companies like Mint and Cricket exist? You could be paying under $200/yr for that alone.
I’m just impressed by the groceries. Our family spends twice that much but boys do eat a lot.
And all these rich jerks saying if you stop paying for streaming services you’ll be rich too
Don’t forget about my one $7.70 coffee per week. That’s what is the issue.
What would Suze Orman and Dave Ramsey say about this extravagant internet connection you’re using right now? And did you eat today? Just expense after expense with you.
Dave Ramsey would call you “lazy” and then proceed to tell people he doesn’t “do lazy.”
Is that before or after he demands you set aside way too much money to tithe at church each week?
I was explaining this to my neighbor on a fixed income, that it costs over $6k a month to run my household, she looked genuinely confused for a second as she runs her life on about 1/30th that cash. What’s awful is we’re still going in the hole and I’m just using my 403(b) to collect my employer match so I can cash it out regularly and pay off expenses. So no savings is occurring.
Surely there’s some significant expenses you can cut.
Your house is too big and you own too many cars
The car are all fully paid for and have been for a while. Only one gets driven at a time and my commute is about 5 miles. The collective value of the cars is less than 35k. Other than my wrx, the others have 250k+ miles.
I won’t argue on the house, I will also say I don’t really care. We aren’t strapped for money, our needs are met, we contribute to savings at a good rate, and when interest rates drop we will refinance the house which will free up ~$600/month or we will reduce the loan term. Our interest rate went from 2.25 to 6.7 percent when we moved.
Its real easy to say "your house is too big’ without knowing anything about where someone lives or their circumstances.
Yeah, I saw that $30k for a car and immediately dismissed everything this person said. I’ve never in my life paid more than $8k for a vehicle.
$30k was an expensive car… 10 years ago. The average price for a new car topped $50k last month. $30k in my area would maybe get you a used car, probably two or three years old from a car rental company dumping old inventory with too many miles. The used car market still hasn’t calmed down after the component shortage that nearly halted new car production a few years ago. And since used car prices are still astronomically inflated, new cars can sell for whatever the hell they want and they’ll still have wait-lists.
30k is not an expensive car. You’re doing great buying used, but that’s a low price for a decent new car.
What vehicle insurance do you have that is 260 a month in insurance? I have two cars both fully insured and I am paying 800 a year TOTAL.
Bruh, what? Mine is $2000 for two cars. Full coverage on both, and both of us have spotless driving records. Not even a single parking ticket in over 15 years (since we both started driving). My car is $1200 per year, and my wife’s is $800. Her car is 3 years older than mine.
FWIW, my area (North Texas) is notorious for bad drivers and uninsured drivers. Even if my driving record is spotless, the rest of the idiots on the road make my premiums go up.
My bad, its $185/month, just checked. The drivers, comprehensive coverage, my old truck, wife’s old suv, and my wrx. Progressive was cheaper by a significant margin vs state farm.
AH, 3 cars would do it. I saw you mentioned the WRX which I know is a “risky” car. But I was like, dang I haven’t had those prices since I was a 19 year old with an accident on record.
Yeah, clean record for 8+ years I am older than 35. Its gotta partially be the area. We got a homeowners insurance quote on one of the houses we looked at, regular house, $400k price, they wanted $16k per year in homeowners insurance… Not in a flood zone, no historical damage, no extra risk factors.
In suburban texas, you’re probably getting hit by the uninsured drivers bit, even if you’re not actually getting the uninsured drivers coverage. The area is just bad in regards to the amount of drivers on the road without it.
I thought making >100,000 would be awesome but I’m just living paycheck to paycheck.
I was just telling a co-worker the other day; growing up in a family of 4 with a stay at home Mom. We didn’t struggle, 4 bedroom home, 2nd 2 car garage in the back my dad built, pool in the backyard (above ground, but a pool nonetheless) and my brother and I basically got what we wanted. The most money my dad ever made in a single year was about $80k as a union pipefitter. My wife and I both work full time, I make 6 figures alone plus her salary, with a single child who’s now 16. We are barely making it in our 2 bedroom duplex. Which we were only able to purchase thanks to a USDA loan with zero down.
Edit: corrected grammar
80K 30 years ago is is 175K today, probaby more if you think about purchasing power.
you were upper middle class dude.
but also where you live matters. 6 figures is nothing in a major city. it’s a lot in a rural area or minor city. six figures in nyc/sf/boston/seattle is a necessity for a studio apartment. if you make like 60-80K you need roommates.
my dad made like 25K a year so we had to live 2-2.5 hours from a major city in order to afford a basic life. when he retired at 66 he was only making 50K a year in 2004, and we still lived 1.5 hours from a major city even though we had ‘upgraded’ from the crappy rural town to a exurb.
But wages haven’t mixed to match. I’d be very surprised if pipe fitters are making anything close to 175k.
100k and up is still frequently thought of as being a well paying job.
Big keyword there is Union it helped even people not in the union. Graph union membership to avg income from 1970 onwards and its crystal clear.
It’s crazy, I feel so irresponsible but it’s just the economic situation we’re in.
I cannot find a single place to rent that’s only 1/3rd of my income and not half.
No, you’re overspending.
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Depends on the area, and it can be hard to move out of big cities sometimes.
it’s also hard to stop buying ubereats evernight.
This. Probably lives in some fancy apartment
I make low six figures, definitely not in survival mode. I’m probably abnormal, as I grew up with money insecurity, and had to file bankruptcy in the early 2010s.
When my income started going up, after a certain point I just started living like it didn’t. I save 30-40% of my pay every month. I’m not cheap, but I’m frugal and willing to wait for sales on stuff if it’s not something I need right this moment.
I have well over a year of expenses in a HYSA.
I bought my last car in 2020 for 24k USD fora new previous year model that was still on the lot and paid 1/3rd cash up front with a zero interest deal financing to keep the monthly cost down.
Paid off all my debts, student loans, everything but the mortgage. And since I work remotely and am an introvert, my wife and I moved to the rurals and got a mortgage for half of what it would be in our previous city. I will likely have it paid off in 2-3 years, maybe 6-7 years into a 30 year mortgage.
Living on six figures had not been all that difficult. I don’t even really think about money anymore and it’s a weight off me. It’s living on six figures while keeping up with the Joneses, celebrity influencers, and advertisers, going into massive debt for sake of appearances and potentially invoking the envy of others to prove you’re somehow better or you’ve “made it” and “deserve it” … that’s hard.
life is easy if you live on a budget.
vast majority of americans, of any income level, low or high, absolutely refuse to do that.
most of their consumption is impulsive and based on peer pressure. most common example is how many people buy cars that are like 50%+ of their salary. I knew so many people buy 40-50K cars on 60-70K salaries then constantly whining about how expensive their car was…
when i was making 60-70K… I bought a 20K car. but of course everyone made fun of me for being ‘cheap’ and driving a ‘shitbox’. etc. apparently I was supposed to buy a overpriced luxury car like a BMW/Mini or SUV?
I’ve had so many girlfriends… who just lost their shit at me for not spending my money on stupid expensive shit. Once I had one go through my bank statements, find out I had 50K in cash (was saving for a house), and demand I spend it on taking her on a trip to Africa. I said no and she flipped out and screamed at me, called me names, and we broke up. In her mind I was huge selfish asshole for ‘hoarding’ my money to buy a house and not spending it on taking her traveling.
I broke up with 3 different women too because when it came to living together talk, they basically refused to budget. and when I found out how much they were spending… well it was over. They were spending like 120% more than they made and just piling up debt year after year with credit cards and personal loans. And when you tried to explain to them that was not how you become financially secure, they just told you what a rich asshole you were and that you should be ‘generous’ and give them your money to ‘help’ them.
life is easy if you live on a budget.
vast majority of americans, of any income level, low or high, absolutely refuse to do that.
While I share some frustration on the matter, I’d also point out:
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It’s not as if we’re taught to do that in school. Maybe if your parents do that, great. The financial extent of my entire K-12 education taught me how to write a check and balance my checkbook. Unless I was an exceptionally bad case, that’s it by way of financial literacy that you can expect as a baseline.
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We live in an environment where the risks aren’t, say, being gored by an elephant or the sort of things we evolved to deal with. The threats to your financial health are companies set up to compete as hard as possible as they can to get you to spend as much on their products as they can. We built an environment to encourage those, and they are really, really good at it.
Like, a lot of people in the thread talk about how people overspend on vehicles. Okay, I don’t disagree: America could generally do just fine with less-extravagant vehicles. But…think about how many decades and how many marketing resources have been devoted to achieving that state. There are a lot of experts with a lot of data working very hard on that.
It’s not as if we’re taught to do that in school.
It’s crazy, isn’t it? I went to a “good” school (non-public school, better education from elementary through high school) growing up and even then our home economics courses only taught us how to sew and make pillows and shit (I’m not entirely knocking it, I can stitch up and patch clothes). The only teacher who taught financial education was a substitute we might have seen for one lesson twice a year or something. I still remember him too, Mr. Roland. He called it his Roland-omics course.
It’s been like… 25 years now or something. Mr. Roland, bro, sir, if you’re still out there, thanks for the head start. I completely bombed financially in my 20s, but recovered in my 30s after bankruptcy, in part remembering and working on a lot of the stuff you taught, and I’m thriving now.
Like, a lot of people in the thread talk about how people overspend on vehicles. Okay, I don’t disagree: America could generally do just fine with less-extravagant vehicles. But…think about how many decades and how many marketing resources have been devoted to achieving that state. There are a lot of experts with a lot of data working very hard on that.
I mean, yeah. But… consumerism. It’s literally the problem. People need to work on their susceptibility to this. Just because something is sold to you does not mean you have to buy it. I don’t buy anything major without at least a few weeks to a month of research, and longer the more expensive it is. And I’ll commonly wishlist something if I feel an overwhelming sense of desire to buy it and can’t figure out why. Sometimes I legitimately want something, but other times it’s just social or advertising pressure, memetic desire. I figure if I come back later and still want it, it’s worth considering, but often it just gets removed from the list. The desire, the want is temporary. Marketing is very good at manipulating your base desires and making something seem like a need when it’s far from it.
People and businesses will always be selling, always manipulating.You have to learn to curb your impulses and tame the monkey brain. There is a level of personal responsibility required.
The only teacher who taught financial education was a substitute we might have seen for one lesson twice a year or something. I still remember him too, Mr. Roland. He called it his Roland-omics course.
I mean, we definitely didn’t even have that. And like you, home economics for me was basic sewing, cooking, some crafts.
Oh, there was one point in driver’s ed — an elective course — where we covered getting quotes from multiple car insurance providers rather than just taking the first one. I guess I should count that.
People need to work on their susceptibility to this.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, and that’s gotta be part of it, but humans are humans. They don’t get better at that across generations unless doing it wrong is killing them, and even then, evolution isn’t a fast process. So basically, every new young human is starting from scratch.
The art of fine-tuning how you convince people to buy your thing is a developing field, and knowledge gets passed down among experts in written form, trained into them. We have marketing, advertising, communication science, psychology, economics. The rate of improvement blows past any kind of change that humans can biologically do.
Maybe we could teach humans how to deal with some of that, but my point is that we aren’t doing so, not in an institutionalized form. As a new human, I’m not just given some body of knowledge to counter all that work in trying to influence me. Each generation that goes by, you’d kind of expect humans to get worse at dealing with it, on the net, because the crowd influencing us is getting better more-quickly.
Sometimes we have regulations to deal with certain types of problematic things: pyramid schemes, misleading advertising, etc. But I’d say that that’s relatively limited.
EDIT: For the US, if you look at most of what the increase of spending over the past century is on, it’s on housing. Like, as society has gotten wealthier, our relative share of spending on, say, food has declined. But housing is up as a percentage of spending. And the housing we have is substantially larger in terms of per-capita square footage than it has been for past generations.
EDIT2:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/decline-u-s-housing-affordability-1967-2023/
This one doesn’t go back a full century, but it does do the last 60.
In that time, median household real income has risen by a bit over 50%.
And median household real house price has risen by about 107%.
EDIT3: And over the past century, average household size has declined, also worth pointing out, so there are also fewer people in those larger, more-expensive houses.
EDIT4: One more fun chart:
EDIT5: This has some data that goes back the full century that I wanted:
https://thehustle.co/originals/why-america-has-so-many-big-houses
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Seriously, people are nuts about spending, cars and trucks especially. Some of these things cost more than my monthly mortgage, and nearly always financed with crap terms.
My last car before I got the new one in 2020 was an ‘07 Hyundai Accent hatchback and I beat it up for 14 years.
If I hadn’t moved out to the boonies and needed something that could handle at least light off-road, I’d still be driving it. I went for a 2020 KIA Sportage CUV with AWD I put some good all-terrain tires on it (Nitto Nomad Grapplers). It’s not fancy but it has an ICE engine and can handle hills, mud, etc. and goes where I need.
I get that people want fancy cars and shit, but I just can’t even. I got a decent direct drive racing wheel for my PC setup; if I wanna drive something fancy I’ll do it virtually, without the $800+ monthly payment.
Edit - yikes about the girlfriends. My wife is as frugal as I am, probably even more so. She’s very anti-materialism. Back when we were actually broke I spent a lot of time stressed and angry over financial stuff, especially over “big” purchases (like anything over $50 or $100, which is sad to think about now). Nowadays I encourage her to get stuff she wants. She rarely wants things, and when she does, it should be quality, no point in skimping. We have it and we’re talking like hundreds sometimes, neither of us is springing for huge purchases without consulting each other.
I also make a point to donate to our local food bank monthly and buy food for the holiday food drives in the area because I get I have it better than most these days and feel like I should be doing what I can to help.
marketing works. most people are convinced that buying a expensive car is a reflection of their personality and that if you buy a cheap car you’re a cheap shitty person. hence why so many people buy awful, expensive, objectively shitty vehicles like Jeeps, because it means they are ‘tough and adventurous’.
same applies to clothing, electronics, travel, blah blah. travel is cheap if you go to places that aren’t popular.
I’m at about $160k and I still drive a 2012 base model manual Kia Soul haha.
GM at my local Lowe’s is probably near that. Drives a POS pickup older than my 2004 F150. :)
Wow! I cannot fathom women acting like that. I’ve have 50 lovers in life, most of which were relationships or tentative relationships. Not one woman has ever chastised me for not making enough or not spending enough on them. I’d be horrified, kick 'em to the dirt instantly!
I’ve been stone broke, made good money and thrown it at them, everything inbetween (but mostly broke). For reference, I’m short and scrawny. LOL, I’d so love to talk IRL and see what’s up with that. Bet we could learn a thing or two from one another! (Or maybe I’m just coasting on my gargantuan penis. 🤷🏻😂)
I make just under six—because I choose to work ten months instead of all twelve. I save about the same amount every month as you mention. Phone/rent (high as most people’s mortgage tbh), groceries and insurance for bills. If I want something I buy it, but idk. I could have a bigger place but I’m not trying to impress anyone so …why bother?
I’m with you. I’m around $120-125k depending on bonuses. I could in theory make more, but I work remotely, have plenty of PTO, the job’s pretty cushy for several months the year and only rarely super busy and stressful, and I’m already saving aggressively. I haven’t capped off and could make more (heck, I’m not even senior where I am), but it would likely come with work life balance issues and a side helping of misery. No thanks.
Having enough money to live and thrive is important, but knowing when it’s enough and enjoying your life outside of it is just as important.
More than half of six-figure earners said they would have to double their income to feel financially secure.
“People used to feel when you got to six figures or above that it was a sign of financial stability,” said Libby Rodney, chief strategy officer and futurist at The Harris Poll.
Mr. Rodney is full of shit, whether he knows it or not. There was a study done on the psychology of earning more money than you need to live. There’s an interesting phenomenon that arises; people always think they need more to feel secure. $100k feels they need $150k, $400k needs $600k, and this pattern continues all the way up to $15m, on average. I wouldn’t be surprised if the peak is even higher nowadays, the study was conducted in the early 2000’s I think. I will come back and edit this with more details of said study so I’m not just talking out my ass.
it’s almost as if security is never actually produced by hoarding more and more resources for your personal nuclear family. Odd.
I thought that there was a study that showed limited returns on happiness beyond a certain threshold ($75k at the time, which is now surely well out-of-date).
Those could both be true. People feel like they need $125k more to be secure, but when they get it, it doesn’t make them as happy as they thought it would. They need another $25k more to feel that way.
the issue is they get that extra $125K. And then the start spending 95% of it on shit they weren’t buying before. They don’t get the extra 125K and not spend it.
It’s called lifestyle creep.
The ‘poorest’ people I’ve ever met were often part of the 300K+ club. Most of my friends making 100K or under aren’t the ones whining about how poor they are. It’s the people who are buying designer clothes and luxury cars.
so many people I meet are making like 100-150K a year. but they are spending way about their means on luxuries they don’t need but feel are ‘necessary’. like dropping $500 each weekend going out, which is $2000 a the end of the month. gym memberships, travel, luxury apartments, designer clothes, etc.
I mean that really isn’t the issue. If they actually do that they are doing exactly what trickle down economics says.
The issue is that in reality people don’t so that - they save a lot of that extra cash for a cushy retirement, and then work less.
Honestly, I suspect limited returns come as you fill in a checklist.
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Are you and your family clothed, fed and relatively safe?
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Are you working only one job per person?
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Is your family healthy and/or getting adequate healthcare?
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Is your family at least getting an entire high school education under their belt?
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Do you have safe and marginally convenient transportation?
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Do you at least have enough money for occasional entertainment outside the house
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Do you have a second bathroom?
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Do you have at least a small line of credit?
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Do you have a retirement? Will you be able to retire?
You don’t need all that, but once you cross that line, having more money around for things doesn’t make you happier.
Having more money would let me retire earlier, which would make me happier.
But I’m lucky and already have all my other needs met.
for most rich people those aren’t goals. the are forgone assumptions.
rich people care about going to elite expensive institutions, working for elite companies, and having designer level lifestyle in clothes, housing, and consumer goods. they love to go on about how they value ‘experiences’ while they drop 30K on some week long spiritual retreat in Bali, or some $10K weekend spa weekend in Palm springs.
the 100K people who feel poor feel poor because they thought they could afford a designer lifestyle. and all they are getting is a basic middle-class lifestyle
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I think 75k was where commute time started mattering more than income
I think that the idea was that there is a special point where you feel secure and nothing beyond that makes any difference. But that $75k number sounds familiar. It’s probably more like $120k today.
Also, people’s goals change and “secure” means something different.
When I was making half as much as I am now, I felt fairly secure. I could pay my rent, I had no credit card debt, and I had a few months’ worth of savings. Money was not a day-to-day worry. Most of my peers were in debt and/or living paycheck-to-paycheck so I felt like I was living large.
Now I am objectively more secure but I feel less secure because I am thinking about retirement, childcare, college funds, and elder care. I have nowhere near enough savings to retire in the foreseeable future. I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever get there.
Keep your head up bro, you’ll make it. Sounds like you’re already putting in the effort and thinking about the hard stuff and the costs involved, which is more than most ever do. Lotta folks just spend and spend and put their heads in the sand when the future comes up.
I have a very modest setup and as of last year it required eighty something thousand per year to be in the black. Basically 90k if I was to be handle even the slightest of externalities. Im afraid to renew the math for prices this year and don’t even know yet for healthcare which I have to figure out by end of month.
Bingo. People typically spend more and more as they make more… making themselves financially insecure in perpetuity.
When I was making 30K a year I was spending only about 20K in expenses. Now that I make 150K a year I’m spending more like 120K. According to most of my peers I am ‘struggling’ because I’m not driving a brand new BMW 5 series and living a 2 million dollar house. So much of people’s fiancially problems is just them overspending to impress other people. I drive a 10 year old Honda. It works great. I also chose to get rescue animals rather than designer purebred animals. I shop at a cheap grocery store, not the luxury ones. and I live in a ‘boring’ area where rents/mortgages are cheaper.
I know. I’m one of them.
$100,000 with a child is nothing. Two or three children? You’re struggling.
In a VHCOL area, $100k with one child is extremely tough/you’re likely dipping into savings. Our daycare alone is over $40k/yr per kid, and only $5k ($7500 next year) is fully tax exempt.
Median 2 bedroom in my area is over $50k/yr.
$100k doesn’t cut it. “Just move to a cheaper area” is IMHO not a proper response to this—anyone who works in my city should be able to afford to raise a family here, with a high quality of life/standard of living, but that’s not really the case.
How fucking expensive is stuff over there!?
A lot of dumb people here make a lot of money and spend more than they make.
the COL also varies wildly. I could move 1.5 hours away from where I live now and pay like 1/3 of what I do now for rent/mortgage. But I’d have to drive 3+ hours a day to get to my job. and the salaries 1.5 hours outside my city are literally half what they are in the city. i’d have to take 50% paycut to work in a rural area.
things cost a lot in places where salaries are high. it’s that simple. high income areas have huge demand for jobs housing, and other necessiteis, so costs are high.
but nobody wants to live where it’s cheap to live because there are limited job opportunities. I could afford a mansion in louisiana… but my job doesn’t exist there and if it did, it would pay like 40K a year vs the 150K i make currently.
hence lots of people are moving more and more to the major cities trying to get the bigger salaries.
the COL also varies wildly. I could move 1.5 hours away from where I live now and pay like 1/3 of what I do now for rent/mortgage.
Part of that high city housing cost is zoning and other planning constraints on building upwards. Have to increase supply if you want to bring the cost down.
I post this occasionally:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/03/how-skyscrapers-can-save-the-city/308387/
If it were possible to reduce the cost-of-living bar to letting more people move to cities, it’d be possible to increase productivity for a lot of people.
I remember the “The Rent is Too Damn High” guy running for mayor of New York City a few years back. The guy had a point.
Like, policymakers have not done a great job on that.
would love to see some numbers on where tf that salary is going
Almost certainly its mostly going to rent.
most of the time these articles come out… the folks in question are massively overspending on cars, travel, and other luxury goods they really can’t afford but insist that they ‘need’.
my locally subreddit was full of people like this would would argue with you that spending $500-1000 every weekend on eating out was ‘normal’. if you are making 7K a month and spending 4K of it on partying… yeah you will feel like life is a struggle. and if you pointed out maybe they could cut back their spending they would just start insulting you calling you a loser with no life who stays at home…
1k every weekend?
I would say that you surely exaggerate, but I have learned that there is no upper limit to stupidity.
I don’t know how people are getting by. Average household income in the US is like $121k/year. I would be in trouble if that was my household income and I don’t know how people are affording groceries making $60.5k each.
I mean, many Americans live in medium to low cost of living areas. My state’s median income is below 6 figures, and even costs within the largest city are nowhere near what it costs in NYC or San Francisco.
Edit: a word
My wife and I combined make less than 100k. We’re fine, just bought a house. Wtf are all y’all spending money on?
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What’s your budget? It really depends on what your rent is and I guess how much health insurance your employer covers.
they aren’t spending $2000 on food each month. they are spend more like $200.
I want to see a budget of $200/month on food. I have a family of 4 and shopping at aldi on what I consider a reasonable budget (getting fresh fruits/veggies, chicken breasts, some frozen fruits/veggies, cereal, pasta, rice, eggs, and bread for a week is $100+ I am sure I could cut cost some but nothing we are spending on is crazy.
I’d like to see that too. It’s probably terrible. My wife and I probably spend $600 every 5-6 weeks and it’s just the two of us, no kids. And we bulk shop (Sam’s Club) so it’s cheaper. Back when we went to the supermarket it was like $500 every 2-3 weeks.
We both have health conditions, so we don’t do takeout, do all our own cooking to account for our needs. Our bill is probably a bit higher do to that, but it mostly involves avoiding salt and sugar and eating healthy as possible.
I mean, if you don’t have a choice, you make it stretch or you go hungry. There is a big difference between a poverty budget and something “average” though.
I just don’t consider spending at the level we do to be particularly extravagant and it is still expensive now.
Same, we’re not buying anything fancy. Bulk meats, some fresh fruit and vegetables, and we buy a lot of dry and powdered goods that keep (wheat gluten, pastas, beans, etc.). Milk, sour cream, eggs, butter, orange juice, some bread. We get some snacks here and there, but minimally and generally it’s stuff that can be added to make meals anyway, like tortilla chips and the like, or dips that can be thinned to make convenient sauces.
We even make our own treats, like I make my own yogurt and peanut butter from starter and whole peanuts and cashews, and my wife makes homemade ice cream sometimes.
Stop buying processed things in boxes
What are you talking about? We mostly buy whole foods. I literally posted the kinds of things we’re buying in a comment below.
Stop buying meat. Beans are cheaper, healthier, and don’t destroy the climate
Great, you saved us ~$10/week.
I won’t argue the climate benefits nor the moral or ethical implications of consuming animal products because frankly, those are justified. Strictly budget wise, beans vs chickin is marginal in percentage which is what the post was about.
Loads of people in this thread said “this is me” or “this isn’t me” but no one else shared their itemized budget.
I’m talking about dry beans, not canned. The savings are not insignificant
I mean, how much is banana? Like $10?
I buy organic ones for 35 cents each. you can get non organic ones for 25
Woosh
Couples say they would need more than 200k household income to feel comfortable having children.
stop fucking having children you can’t afford, god fucking dammit. there is no way two adults can’t survive off $100k anywhere in this country.
Economically mediated de facto sterilization is an extremely dystopian thing to just accept. I think it’s pretty justified to be more or less outraged in this case.
Definitely better to be egalitarian climate motivated
you’re not wrong—that is an angle i can understand and even agree with, but while we are living in this system it isn’t smart to pretend reality is different and stubbornly breed regardless if you should.
No. Stop having children. Even if you can afford it, the other species can’t afford having more humans.
You are absolutely incorrect.
i doubt that.
Survive? Maybe, but most people want to do more than that. If you’re like 20-something you only care about surviving, but when you get older you get tired of that.
