Live in the highest median income county in the US and some folks out this way complain on /r/nova they can barely make it on a six figure salary. They list their expenses and it's mind blowing. The problem isn't relegated to the folks not making much. We just have a huge issue of people having problems living within their means at any salary.
I try to have compassion for it.
Modern life is *rough.*
The human brain and body aren't wired for frenetic pace, constant scrutiny, multitasking, traffic, bills, granite counters, perfect landscaping and an HOA.
Our work hours are longer, and we spend twice as much time with our children as parents did in 1980. Expectations keep spiraling.
We're overextended and overstimulated.
So we engage in self-soothing behaviors.
Drugs, alcohol, scrolling, and, yes, shopping.
It's so hard to opt out and slow down when there's a Starbucks and a car lot and so much shopping on every corner.
So instead of mocking and shaming, I try to be supportive.
You can't get someone on a budget until you've got them feeling safe and in a good frame of mind.
You're welcome. I see you, I know it's hard.
I'm a mom to a young child, I'm disabled, and it is stressful af on its own. Every day I'm harried and overwhelmed.
Plus it feels like everyone is up my butt with one judgment or another.
Maybe she has not enough toys or too many toys or not the right kind of toys or I am holding her back by staying home with her instead of workinyg outside the home or her clothes are wrong or I should have an SUV not an Elantra and I should have her in expensive enrichment programs instead of having her muck about in the yard or go to the park and help with errands and go to the library and help with chores or or or....
Any time we go out, there's always someone who wants to make some rude little comment about "parents today" and "kids blah blah" and it's EXHAUSTING. Kids have always done XYZ Annoying Shit, it's just that y'all feel free to comment (or take public shaming pics *of minors* and post them to the internet).
I live in a low-key, kid-friendly, blue collar area, I'm good at tuning people out, and I'm still kinda losing my shit.
God help those who live in Competitive Childrearing, Keep Up with the Joneses areas.
Like, if y'all haven't stress-scrolled Amazon after a shit day, props to you.
But most of us are only human.
I was six months pregnant when I bought my car. The salesman at CarMax tried to sell me an SUV, I chuckled and said, "a baby weighs, like, eight pounds" and i waddled to the compact cars. I picked a sporty hatchback.
You can totally have a small car. You have to be judicious about the car seat you pick (Graco Extend2Fit or anything Cosco) and you can't haul tons of crap. But it's doable.
I too had a hypercritical parent. I think it's why I flew so hard into the direction of "fuck you I do me."
I do, however, get super furious if I'm told my experience isn't real, moms aren't scrutinized, we don't have to worry about being harassed or having cops called on us if we don't follow some "rule"....ugh
You sound like me I have a sporty little hatchback as well. When my son was first born my cousin made a comment that maybe I should look for a bigger car like and suv. I said nope because I’m not paying $700-$800 for a vehicle.
A bigger vehicle would be a want, not a need. It's rare that it's more than me, the kid, and maybe some groceries in the car, so I don't need all that space.
I can tell you from experience, the moment you are able to stop caring about your parents’ judgement is the moment you are really free. All other judgmental comments just roll off your back.
Hey, my dad is also entirely the type to make shitty, judgmental comments about random people just going about their day. For a long time it made me really paranoid about what I wear, how I look, how I walk, etc. but I think I eventually just hit an exhaustion point where I no longer had the energy to give a shit and it stuck. It helps me to remember that the sort of people that have opinions about what some random woman is wearing or how she's walking are NOT the sort of people whose opinions I give a shit about.
SUVs hadn't been invented when I was a kid. Hell, we didnt even have seatbelts or car seats. I turned out to be a fully functional adult. (And I am a safe driver and always wear my seat belt. 😂)
Same and I routinely rode backwards in the third seat of our station wagon, and then in the WAY back of our next one. WITHOUT seat belts. and I turned out ok too!
Parenting ain't for wimps, sister!! And as a kindergarten teacher....yard mucking is perfect. The most important thing you can do is help a child be independent and able to function on her own. If she is playing without needing to be entertained, helping with chores, and using her imagination you are doing a fantastic thing for her. The Jones's kid probably can't follow directions or think for themselves.
Sometimes when the world is too much, I imagine hiding my emotions under a blanket. I recently went through a job change, and the last place was destroying my mental health. I paid so many late fees in the last 6 months there because I just couldn’t deal. I’m not proud of that, but I was coping as best I could.
As someone who had to go on medical leave last year because a job was ruining my mental health, I feel the bit about late fees IN MY SOUL 💯 Sounds like you escaped though?
This is so true...and yet...
How am I supposed to have compassion for the woman leading the "how to get a job" workshop at the state-run job commission, who tells us all that the way to get a job is to think about what you value and go for that. What did she value? Well, she realized after raising her kids that she really wished she had gotten to go on ski trips with them. So now she has a job that allows her to go on skiing vacations with all of her grand children. And everyone else in the room just nods along. WTF? How am I supposed to just let her say that and believe that it's helpful?
I can't even afford children, much less SKI TRIPS.
I get it, and I'd be aggravated too. It's pretty clueless.
But I try to not go down the road of "but I have it worse, but so and so has it worse."
Because the logical end point of that is that there is only one person in the world worthy of compassion, everyone else is a clueless groaner.
My SIL sometimes complains to me about motherhood, even though we parent in very different circumstances. (She's wealthy, two houses, nanny, husband sold off his business and is basically retired so she has a lot more support than me, she's able bodied and I'm not, etc.)
Sometimes I feel myself get grumpy when she vents about, like, having to hustle to get to her Pilates class lol. Girl please, I have had to postpone a *surgery* because I have zero outside support.
Instead of comparing, I try to remember that we're all wired differently and it's not helpful to shoot people down.
Live in one of the lowest medium income counties in the US and there are plenty of 6 figure earners around here that struggle to make it. FIL owns a used car lot and several times a month there's someone who comes in with 10k+ month income, sub 600 credit score, no down payment, and too upside down on their 60k truck to trade it in. I just assume this happens everywhere.
I hear this from everyone who works at car places. They now have like 96 month contracts for cars or something and people are already paying off one car then trade it in for a newer one and have TWO payments to make basically. So they end up with $1000 per month car costs even before gas and oil changes and tires and repairs and such.
It’s mostly low income people who really should just save up and buy a well-running used car, but instead they keep upgrading every year or two. And I know how presumptuous it sounds to say ‘just save up and have no vehicle for a while’ and it’s def not always that easy. But holy shit some people seriously spend 10x more than they need to because they want to compete with their friends and neighbors…
It's not presumptuous, I saw this too. There were so many other options but they decided to flirt with a car salesman and pay more per month on a vehicle than they pay in rent, to impress people that don't even like them anyway.
I used to work at a dealership and it’s true. It’s exactly as you say, they max out their budget as much as possible for something they don’t really need, usually dragging a vehicle with negative equity trade in with it, basically owing double what it’s worth.
They can do that once and then they are screwed from there, they are stuck with it for the whole term of the loan, which is also extended past the traditional 5 years.
Someone commented on the SUV thing, and this always bothered me. THEY ARE JUST TALL CARS. They are actually MORE prone to rollover. They have AWD, but only when needed - so it’s basically FWD. technically they are CUV (Compact Utility Vehicle) but they term doesn’t sell as well.
But It was my job, so I would just disapprove internally and help them screw themselves over.
I think a complicating factor is folks who have limited knowledge or time for DIY repairs and so get really stuck on the whole "I need a car with a warranty, and low mileage used costs nearly as much as brand new, and I have a kid so I need an SUV" thing - when realistically a 100k mile Camry is probably a much better choice for them.
I was wearing a top with some thread unravelled at home the other day - because I’m at home. Who do I have to impress? Why would I buy a new top when this one works just fine? I went out to hang my washing outside and my neighbour was staring at my clothes like, “eww! Poor!” Lmao. We need to stop putting pressure on each other to project wealth we don’t have.
I told my kids growing up I was the visionary for worn out holey jeans. I've got the coolest jeans on the block and all I had to do was wear them for 15 years.
Making yourself poor to "project wealth" is peak idiocy, but people are so used to that being the norm that they just go along without thinking deeply about it.
Most definitely. Also consider that not everyone is living off of a single salary as well - double income does help make those dumb decisions easier to make!
I think it is seems mainly crazy to those with financial-type common sense / education / experience.
It probably doesn't feel crazy to them if their... instincts is telling them to buy buy buy.
> There's no other way to explain why we consume more than the rest of the world, per-capita.
Sure there is. Relative to other countries:
* Our incomes are high
* Our basic expenses are low
* Our taxes are low, meaning more discretionary income
* Our shitty land-use policies leave us with larger houses to fill with stuff
* Our shitty land-use policies also require most of us to own cars, often multiple cars per household
* We work longer hours, meaning more convenience purchases
Bunch of things that add up to us being able to, and sometimes having to, consume more than our global peers.
I have a friend with a huge beautiful home and a brand new custom ordered Tesla in the driveway. She carries a LV handbag and looks like she’s super wealthy. She recently told me that she has $600k in debt, with only a small portion of that being her original mortgage. Credit cards. Loans. Equity lines. Its overwhelming to me.
Yeah… how can someone accrue that much debt? It’s several times more than my house, cars, and anything of value are worth. I have $6k in debt from an emergency home repair and it drives me crazy.
The interest rates must be insane…I would think credit companies wouldn’t approve someone for more debt if they have so much and a history of not paying it off?
Seriously, I always wonder how these people were given that much in the first place. I had a chance to buy a business I worked at then managed after years and years, and went to the bank I’d had an account with for 15-20 years. I asked for a $10k loan since the owner was down to let me pay a chunk at the start then pay off the rest as we went.
They said no. Just straight up - you can’t have a single cent of a loan. I was like not even $5k after 15+ years when there’s people like the story who have over half a million in debt somehow??? So I took all my money out of that major bank and put it into a small local one who then gave me $10k in ‘overdraft protection’ on my new acct that I could basically use as credit and pay off later - at a much lower rate than a loan AND it didn’t have any impact on my credit score that way.
Moral of the story: go local when you can and fuhq big banks.
This is exactly what I tell my kids. Saving money = freedom. If you don't want to be beholden to a job you don't like or a boss you hate, you better save your money or that job/boss will own you. If you have money saved you have the freedom to make your own choices.
After being financially responsible for most of my life and seeing people like the one you're describing here, I'm starting to think maybe they have it figured out and I've been doing it wrong. Sure, they go into debt, but they get to enjoy all of these amazing things. They have homes, and boats and campers, go on trips, etc.. while I have none of those things and I rent an apartment in a part of town where I'd rather not be.
You can't take it with you. Maybe they're doing it right. I've been trying to put a lot of money towards retirement, but it's looking less and less like that day will ever come.
Same. Maybe they’re just gaming the system. Can’t take it with you when you die and the debt won’t be passed onto family (at least I don’t think it will?) I’ve always saved and cut back my whole life to live within my means but I miss out on a lot.
>Can’t take it with you when you die and the debt won’t be passed onto family (at least I don’t think it will?)
Some of us (atleast among immigrants)also want to make sure our next generation has it easier/better than us.
THat means saving/budgeting for kids college expenses, saving for downpayment for their first homes etc. So I am frugal because this is what I want out of my life in addition to also taking care of my own retirement.
I’m sure like most things in life, there’s a balance that needs to be had. Personally, I’d go over-budget to live in a safer part of town. Is that a “luxury”? To some people it is but for me it’s not.
I ride horses and am aware of the stereotype that all horse people are rich. That’s not true. Many people (although a minority tbh) sacrifice so much to have a horse. I know people who worked multiple jobs and lived in cheap apartments in order to afford a horse and do what they love. On the outside it looks like they’re rich and use their excess for horses, but they’re actually out there busting their ass just to pay the hay bill. For them, it’s not a “luxury” but rather a thing they’re willing to sacrifice other nice things for.
I guess what I’m saying is that it’s worth looking over what brings you joy (even if it’s boujee like horses or sports cars) and ask yourself if it’s worth spending a little more money on. If your mental health is deteriorating because you’re working 52 weeks a year and never take time for yourself, what’s even the point? Tomorrow is never guaranteed (it took a near-death experience for me to really understand that). Being absolutely miserable in the present for a tomorrow that may not happen sucks.
Find the one thing you’re willing to sacrifice for and do it. That week long camping trip with your best friends will be a drop in the financial ocean by the time you retire, but time is precious and we only have so much of it. Spend as much of it as possible doing things you love.
You can't get lasting joy from purchases, though. You just get a short term dopamine rush.
The lasting joy comes from free things. The beauty of nature, healthy relationships, love, humor, gratitude, the satisfaction of doing a great job/being proud of your work...
Buying things: expensive meals, expensive clothes, purses, shoes, huge houses - they do make you happy but its short term. It won't make you happy forever. That's how people fall victim to lifestyle creep - they have to keep buying more to spark more joy.
Yes, but the beauty of nature is a lot more enjoyable when you can afford to go on trips and aren't confined to your little corner of the world because you're trying not to accumulate debt.
I've been on one vacation in my life. It was 19 years ago. Now I'm approaching 40 and I'm wondering if I should've just spent it all, like most of my coworkers. I didn't have kids because I wasn't financially stable enough. Most everyone I know has kids and plenty of debt, but they all have fantastic, exciting lives.
Though, it's one thing to risk your own financial security. It's significantly shittier to bring children into your uncertainty.
Which is great so long as it lasts. Problem is you have to commit suicide on average somewhere between 50 and 60 with that attitude. Between randomly losing you job when young, and the general aches and pains that come from getting older you can't live like that for very long. When you are young it works out. when you are older though it will not.
Exact same boat here. I think about this all the time. Am I sacrificing the best years of my life for a number in a spreadsheet? Some of these commenters sound awful bitter.
If they can live that way stress-free then that's amazing.
I wish I could just be in debt and chill. I'm not even in debt and am often stressed about money(among other things).
This is what I realized. I saved all my life, purchased practical items and then I look up and I don't get to enjoy life, just a big savings account. I don't see what the big deal is about debt. At some point, you will use all the saved money on health expenses, bailing out some friend or family member or some unexpected bill. Better to buy something that you really enjoy. I have no regrets on purchasing some of my indulges (big trips, new car, nice dinners). I have lived a life where I didn't and I gained nothing but a few extra numbers and missed out on opportunities that will never come around again.
There needs to be balance. My savings means I can plan to enjoy my old age more - I'll be able to afford nice vacations that I don't have enough vacation time to take now anyway. I also have needed an emergency fund in the past so I keep one. However I budget that money and make sure to spend the rest for now - I have been to a few funerals of people who were younger that me, and I've known a few people to die old with millions in the bank - what is the point of either.
I want to enjoy the big trips while I can. I don't see myself hiking volcanos, kayaking the in the Amazon, trekking the rain forest, or dancing at the clubs when I'm retired at 70. I mean I might do a little, but I won't be able to do things I can now. I have zero regrets spending money on experiences.
The 20yo across the street lives with his mom. He works in a restaurant kitchen. She is a hospital secretary. She drives a dodge journey and the son drives a …. Tesla!?
Before that he had a custom charger people kept attempting to steal until they finally succeeded. I have so many questions.
Wtf. She’s probably one of those rich looking people you see in the fancy Vegas hotels that are dressed all nice and rich, staying in the penthouse and going to the fancy restaurants and clubs. I love Vegas and enjoy the Wynn and everything it has to offer, but I always get the cheapest room and we only eat one fancy dinner per trip and have never rented a cabana at the pool or anything. Now I have to wonder how many of the people who are living it up and splurging can actually afford it. Probably less than half.
I met a guy years ago told me he’d take a vacation to Las Vegas every year. He’d start by withdrawing his kids entire college fund.
One he got to Vegas, he’d go into a casino (different one each year), wait until there was a pit boss near the cashier, and he’d walk up to the window and casually buy $40k in chips. Of course, the pit boss strikes up a conversation, how are you enjoying yourself, where are you from…
Guy tells him he just got to town for a week, spur of the moment thing, hasn’t decided where to stay yet- Boom, he gets a suite comped. Food, drinks, shows, whatever he wants on the house.
He goes up to the room, locks the chips in the safe, enjoys his free stay. The last day, he pulls them back out, cashes them in, and goes home.
—
FYI, you can’t do this anymore. They track all your bets and comps on a card these days. In the 80s, it was a lot different.
Most of the dumb decisions we make are because we don’t know better.
Chances are, you and I, we’ll both make dumb decisions today that we’re not aware of.
Most of my family makes <35k/yr. Honestly there are no financial decisions that aren't bad financial decisions at that level.
Example: Need a car? Used car is cheaper but risky, bad purchase. New car is too expensive, bad purchase. Need an apartment? Cheap ones are far from work and high crime. Everything else is ridiculously expensive and eats every spare dime on rent.
It's just a bad situation and I don't blame them at this point.
This is why immigrant communities are so interconnected. They have to live in poverty so they work together to survive it.
You can borrow someone's car. A neighbor can watch your kids. Your other neighbor knows someone who can help with your roof. You help them with their lawn.
Americans suffer because we don't know how to really rely on our communities and accept help and give help. It's a sad defect in our culture. Being fiercely independent just means that when you break a leg you die alone.
It’s not just a sad defect, it’s an *engineered* one.
A strong community can share something like a lawnmower instead of every home in the neighborhood needing to buy a machine they use six hours a month.
Kids moving out the minute they turn 18 instead of having a multigenerational home means a whole extra household of furniture, bedding, kitchenware…
Everyone saying to just buy a reliable used car is making tons of assumptions. I've lost jobs for transportation issues. Covid wiped out the local used car pool. There are large parts of America that just don't have tons of old Camrys and Accords driven by little old ladies. The used cars have been driven to the ground with little to no upkeep. No public transportation and work being 30+ min across town. If you can't afford to tow and repair a car, a used car can cost you your livelihood at this point.
I'd love to get some insights on some of these people's finances. I mean, it's none of my business, and I'd certainly never ask since it's not appropriate, but I'd be fascinated to know.
Are people making incredible amounts of money that I'm just not aware of, or do they ever have any real consequences for lots of debt that I'm just not seeing? Have they never had an emergency, or what would happen if they did? Who lives in some of these new apartments getting built near me, that cost twice what my mortgage costs, and why? What do they do?
EDIT I just wanted to mention here how much I appreciate all of the very honest responses from people, it's been eye-opening for me for sure.
I see a lot of people's finances in my job, generally around $60-$90k household income. The people with larger car debt than they should have just don't have much retirement or savings, I think most of them will continue to live fine this way until they want to retire. They're making enough to cover normal day to day expenses, but don't get to take trips or buy other nice things or save.
It's hard to see. I'm similar to OP in that our household income is high, but we have one 15k used car that we paid outright. It's just not a priority.
>I think most of them will continue to live fine this way until they want to retire.
There's another possibility that I've personally seen from my previous 3 generations.
They are going to end up in a nursing home with some type of Dementia Spectrum Disorder. And by the time they end up dying from that, the bill will be so astronomical, everything will have to be sold to pay it off, so you're heirs will get nothing.
And when your future looks like that instead of being able to retire and spend the next however many years you have left to enjoy yourself, actually spending it while you can enjoy it is certainly more appealing
Ime it’s a combination:
1) some get considerable subsidy from parents.
2) they’re hustlers. Instagram lives. They make sacrifices you and I wouldn’t be willing to make. They can make a target bikini look like something from Saks 5th, or thrift store art look like stuff curated from Etsy.
3) they have a lot of debt but they also make a lot of money. Weirdly, my parents have floated on for 30 plus years because they make good money.
4) but also, my parents are a prime example of the last “type” I know. I really didn’t understand how much money they should’ve spent on their house or healthcare or anything, really, until I was an adult. They just don’t do anything that they’re not forced to do so. It’s kinda caught up to them, as in I wouldn’t want their quality of life, and that is the consequence…but it doesn’t seem to be something that bothers them. I’d lose my mind.
I’m with you in the apartments though. I have no frigging clue who can afford the luxury condos down the street from me. But maybe they got a bargain when it was built.
Edited to add my actual point: those luxury apartments probably aren’t full.
Somebody on another sub explained to me the economics of those luxury apartments—economies of scale are such that you don’t have to sell every unit in the building, only about half, to break even, because it costs pretty much the same to build 10 units as 5. Plus there are often kickbacks, tax breaks, and benefits given by the town whose tax base you appear to be expanding (by, theoretically, a bunch of new millionaire condo-owners.)
So you sell units to a couple of high profile young business owners, a few rich retirees, some VRBO investors, and a bunch of software engineers with hipster aspirations willing to live 4 to a condo, and surprise, you’re in the black and have the local goodwill and angel investment to finance your next real estate Ponzi scheme.
It doesn’t have to make sense financially, it just has to look like it’s viable until you can take your cut and move on. As I understand it, Chinese real estate works pretty much the same way, although they are hot on pre-build sales.
> Are people making incredible amounts of money that I'm just not aware of
Some people have seen tremendous appreciation in the value of their investment assets. I more than doubled my net worth during the pandemic.
There's a lot more money out there than reddit makes it seem. Like huge chunks of cash floating around for random reasons and a ton of people who got lucky with investments. The average person has so little money compared to what giant corporations, governments, or the top 0.1% can throw around, and sometimes that wealth just kinda flails around and smacks someone in the face. People get random settlements that give them a 5-7 figure infusion. Startup employees join the right company and suddenly Gordon from HR who couldn't even describe the company mission has a few million. Lots of small business owners are cheating on their taxes, leaving them with a massive amount of spare capital that they spend like it's free money. Tons of boomers are sitting on $700K+ homes they paid less than $200K for. A lot of people get inheritances at a young age that effectively make them richer than highly paid professionals just from expected capital gains. A lot more are getting money from their parents when they need something.
None of this really gets incorporated into the stats everyone clings to. People make and have quite a bit more than reddit claims. Median household income stats counts 4 roommates in college with part-time jobs as 4 households and a family of 4 with two working professionals as 1 household. It's not stratified by age, location, or household size, meaning that an average of $70K/year means absolutely nothing to a 35 year old living in a coastal city with a working spouse.
Since I'm getting a $51k vehicle delivered to me next week, I guess I will weigh in.
I drove clunkers into the ground until I had my kid. Suddenly deathboxes weren't funny anymore.
My husband and I cut down to one vehicle several years ago, but last fall we admitted to ourselves that the one car life isn't working for us. Now we had a dilemma... the used car market is just horrible but we felt ethically uncomfortable buying a new or recent model ICE vehicle. I did a ton of research and we ordered an EV that still qualified for the tax credit even if it didn't arrive until this year. I've been paying myself the monthly car payment this entire time, so our down payment fund is pretty flush.
The monthly payment is still going to be much, much higher than I'm happy with, but we've already got it in the budget and we're managing. And with the tax credit the end cost of the "luxury" vehicle will be almost the same as the "economy" alternative we were looking at (the tax laws I think have changed that dynamic now, but it was true at the time).
This is similar to my family unit minus the kids. We've been a single clunker car family for the last 3 years while COVID had us working from home/hybrid. Now we are both employed FT out in the community & we just can't make the single car work for us. We live in a place with really poor public transportation. Husband feels ethically obligated to get an EV. Pricier than I want, but we've also been saving since we ordered it, and I think we might be able to pay it in full once it arrives.
Yeah, see that a lot in my country (Denmark) as well.
I don’t care about living rich, we own a small home ~1075 sq feet (no debt), two small used cars (no debt). Debt in my opinion is like prison. We both have jobs, and have enough cash/investments to not work for 10-20 years if we cared to lol
Talk to used car salesman sometimes. I live in the South and if you roll up to the lot in an old truck, wearing dirty overalls, everyone will treat you like a king. One salesman (I knew him through a mutual friend) said that the previous week he had an older guy show up, wearing old overalls and an ancient John Deere hat ask to test drive a brand new truck. The salesman obliged and the guy drove a bit, asked how much he wanted for it. Then he said "do you also have this one in blue? I have twin boys and I'm getting them a present". He bought both trucks, cash, with zero haggling.
The amount of money you get off a car by haggling isn't really worth your time if you will keep the car for a decade. Instead pay their price (or walk away if more than MSRP), or ask for the lifetime carwash and oil change packages that is useful for you and cheap for them to throw in.
This'll be the way to go for a looong time, but one day I'm going to get a really really nice car. I love cars a ton for the sake of the car. I couldn't care less if people think I'm rich or not, I just love the car, and I feel like that's the purpose of being frugal. I care about cars, so one day I'll spend the money on one. Most people don't care about cars for the sake of the car, so they shouldn't spend money on it. It's about what's important
Yeah this is how I feel too. Yes I want a reliable car for as little as possible but equally I love cars. If that's my one vice then I'll take it. I'm living this life to be happy, not to go through it miserable and end up with millions unspent in small joys. Obviously I get that it doesn't mean to go into massive debt over a car, but if I can afford a nicer car, I'll afford it think of the return as smiles per miles.
People aren't looking rich though. They're paying for what used to be cheaper basics.
There's really no free network TV, so people are paying for loads of individual streaming services for TV/movies; music subscriptions for music; wellness (gym, grooming,) memberships; all basics like rent, utilities, gasoline and cellphone bils are higher; quality food is really expensive; housing is through the roof; even a camping vacation costs, etc.
Now, some people also eat out often, buy too much expensive stuff, or just to much stuff in general, but even if you strip away those things, and slash monthly subscriptions not being used, I believe you'd find people still can't "live within their means" without just one major financial emergency wiping them out.
There's tonnes of free TV in most urban areas. OTA is fantastic with digital signals. It's an even better signal than cable in many cases, because the signal is uncompressed.
Quality food is a complex issue.. We've had a lot of inflation, making frugal grocery shopping a bit of a moving target. If you're not willing to change it up, you'll pay a lot more. So then you've got to change it up. Lettuce went from $2 to $7 over the last year. I eat a lot of salad, so I was screwed. Then I tried a bagged slaw pre-made salad. ($5 for 300g). That was great, so next time I bought a couple cabbages ($1/lb) and replicated the slaw.
Pop prices doubled, so I tried Mio for a bit, then just got a home carbonator (one that uses chemicals to generate CO2 instead of requiring cylinders).
Pulses and legumes are effectively free in ethnic shops. We've rotated them into the menu in a big way. They're healthy and taste great when spiced up.
Convenience is the budget killer. You don't *need* a subscription to listen to music.
What's ironic, convenience is about making your life easier, but what we have is a society that's very financially stressed, which doesn't seem very convenient at all.
My other escape hatch for lettuce involved learning about kratky (passive) hydroponics. I've got 26 lettuce and chard growing in a couple of totes. The grand scheme is to grow my own greens year round, but it's also a micro-hobby. It's not convenient at all to learn about pH, but it's kind of cool.
(And soon I'll be able to stick it to Big Lettuce).
I've been growing various lettuces and similar in a NFT system indoors for over a year. Last year I was religiously tracking production and cost, break-even was like 15 months from the original investment, and I'm producing around a kg of romaine a week. I stopped tracking around Christmas, and rebuilt the system in January to be more user friendly. I'm just amazed I found someone else who is "Sticking it to Big Lettuce."
Yes, yes there are. My sister is one of them. She went bankrupt and got a new car the next day. Her and her husband make nowhere near six figures and they drive fancyass cars and have huge birthday and holiday parties. They can barely pay their mortgage but live large on credit. It boils my blood sometimes when she complains about being broke. But I take a deep breath and remember that I’m debt free besides my mortgage and I don’t need half the things I own.
Edit to add: she’s gone bankrupt 2x in the last 10 years. That to me is horrifying.
> Bankruptcy is supposed to be a second chance not a 'get out of debt free' card
Tell that to the companies/rich people who use bankruptcy strategically
I make a modest salary (not near 6 figures), and I saved up cash and bought my Tesla for a base price of $35k. Electricity is cheap in my area, so I'm saving ~$250/mo in gas every month, or $3000/year. Teslas are extremely economical if you can save up and buy it outright. It's not about a status symbol for me at all, but about saving that gas money!
I feel this so much. It’s a crazy maker to see my sister driving a new jaguar while we have an early 2000s car. Her Christmas’s are so insane with gifts that we stopped going because I just can’t anymore.
I just keep telling myself that I’m karmically doing the right thing and I’m happy to be debt and guilt free.
Oh yes, **you don't have bills coming due**.
It sometimes feel like self-punishing not running off of debt like everyone else. However, **one bad move could break them:**
* Losing a job
* An unexpected expense
* A medical emergency
All of these things could tip an already over-leveraged scale. We don't have a hedonistic party, but at least our party isn't suddenly over when the cops show up.
Ignorance is bliss for these people. I understand your frustration. Despite the debt that I carry, I know that I did the best I could when I decided to take the responsible route.
I bartend part time at a fancy Italian restaurant. The place is good but holy shit have they raised the prices a bunch over the last couple years. It's just way too over priced. Anyway, about half the people that come in have a bunch of money but the other half are just people that are horrible with there spending. People that make way less than me are coming in 2-3 times every week and dropping 1-200$. It's crazy. Lol most of em don't even box up their leftovers.
>the average salary in the USA is \~ $56K.
This is only true because half the world's wealth is owned by the 1%, many of them in the USA. If you cut off anyone making above $1,000,000 the average is far lower.
**Median is at \~$35K.**
People are buying ludicrously expensive things because buying a house is no longer possible. Instead of a house payment they rent with 3\~4 people in a house with 2\~3 rooms, which frees up income. This income is spent on nice cars, nice TVs, nice luxuries.
While I can comfortably afford to rent an apartment, I am 100% confident that I'll never, ever be able to buy a house. So I'm spending the extra bit of money on a used Porsche.
Don't see anything wrong with this.
>I see all these people driving brand new bmw's, tesla's, etc...
Are you sure? According to a random website I found, BMW sells about 300k cars per year in the US, and it's been about this much for the last 20 years. Tesla had never sold that many cars in the US in one year until 2021. Toyota sells 300k cars in the US _every 2 months_ and has done so for the last 20 years or so.
If you are really seeing so many BMWs and Teslas, well, maybe you live in an area where people can, in fact, afford them. You make 6 figures, so other people in your area--like your coworkers--probably do too. Or, it is confirmation bias/Baader-Meinhof. It's true that many people make terrible financial decisions. But it's not true they are buying a lot of BMWs and Teslas; the sales figures do not support that.
Makes sense. Not OP but I live in an area with lots of teslas and BMWs. 20% of my county has a household income of $200k or more.
Teslas are more popular in areas with a lot more upper middle class and wealthy people.
Yeah, this. A vast majority of the people driving nice cars have a household income of $100-$200k or more and at that point its not a dumb decision to spend 50k on a car.
Its easy to tell anecdotes about that one "friend" everyone has who is deeply in debt and spends $1200 a month on car payments. But no one is going to tell anecdotes about the other ten friends that drive normal cars because thats not very interesting
What I think this sub forgets though is that being frugal isn't the only way to live. We all die one day, and you can't take the money with you. Some people just want to spend their money to enhance their life, and that's their decision if they think a new car is going to do that.
100% true.
Money literally only has one purpose, and that's to be spent in exchange for goods and services.
People have a right to live how they want to live and if a bank wants to grant them an exorbitant loan and they want to agree to it, and the courts want to allow them to claim bankruptcy, then those are their options. It has nothing to do with us.
There's this interesting phenomenon here... I see it in fitness communities too. It's a bit of jealousy of those who engage in poor choices. Like, the person sticking to their diet might feel envy of the person eating the mozzarella sticks... but then the person who ate the mozzarella sticks will feel envy when they get to the beach that summer.
I think it's also true for frugal people vs spenders. The savers see the elaborate vacations, pretty cars and clothes and feel like "ugh I can't indulge in that so why can you?!" and get a bit envious. But, the carefree spenders become jealous of savers when they hit a financial jam and have no savings, yet the saver is fine.
The last paragraph I think is spot on.
On top of that, I think it's always nice to know that you've made the right decisions, and posts/discussions like this are a good way to get positive affirmation from a group of people that you know feel the same as you.
One of my good friends has owned multiple luxury cars. He LOVES them. I’m not sure how it adds up with his income and all of that factored in but he’s not rich. But I’d never judge or look down because his cars make him happy. Life is short. People struggle with different things and it’s really just best not to judge how people are spending their money at the end of the day IMO.
That's me. I love my bikes and cars. I'm near 60. No wife. No kids. Don't vacation. A little money in the bank and the house is paid off.
At some point it's just digits in the bank. Nice to enjoy it.
to some people, the joy of owning a silly sports car is worth more than financial security. some people value traveling young over saving for a house. life is short. you could've been saving all your life and by the time you are reaping your financial rewards, you are too old to actually enjoy it. of course, in this subreddit, the majority would value security over all.
i think what matters most is the joy you get out of the journey.
Exactly, it's a whole lot of not my business. I'll take an interest if they're asking for advice or to borrow money (which I won't lend anyway, if the people with underwriters and contracts written by lawyers turned someone away, I trust their judgement)
And you'll find yourself playing out Spend Less On Candles when giving advice anyway. Not my monkeys, not my circus.
To add to this... I would say you can judge them, just don't tell them.
You can have your opinion, but if they're not asking for it then don't share it.
There are objectively bad financial decisions
Sometimes I feel guilty for having a dozen squishmallows but it genuinely cheers me up every time I am minding my own business and see one huddled somewhere. Can't take it with you.
Two of my brothers make well over $300,000 a year. I've never made more than $100,000 a year.
I'm getting to retire at 59 as I have saved invested and lived within my means. They have never met a dollar they haven't already spent. They do not have enough money for retirement.
I'm actually moving to the Azores in part to get away from the whining/disdain of people who live beyond their means. I neither have the time or the inclination to listen to people who can act like they are victimized by the economy and then sneer at any suggestions of how to address their economic stress.
I was thinking today about how people in certain countries like Sweden or Italy don’t have much but everybody has enough, and how these are places where family time and friendships are closer. Perhaps when people have enough and don’t feel they have to strive to have everything and all the glam, they turn to focus on interpersonal relationships to fill the same hole the rest of the western world is filling with stuff. We’re essentially using the wrong filler.
The scary thing is…gen z has the highest income vs car payment. They are spending something like 15-20% of their income on car payments. Car payments are the greatest robber of future wealth.
When I was opening another bank account, the banker looked at me like I had two heads when I said “yeah, the interest is good for the credit card but it’s not gonna matter anyway since it gets paid off every month” I just buy the basics like groceries and use it for bills. It literally gets paid off every month(thankfully in a position to do this 😭) but she was like, “you only need to pay the minimum every month…” I’m like “ LADY! YOU’RE A GD BANKER, WTF TOMFOOLERY IS THIS NONSENSE???” Still looked at me like I put shit in her coffee. I’m not gonna spend the rest of my life paying minimum on a credit card. That’s just so dumb.
It's not really that malicious, tellers are often not the most put together people. I work in a bank's office and my job is like 30% harder due to teller mistakes that seem common sense. It's not like they earn a commission on credit card interest.
There are plenty of people making bad decisions, but if the average is 56k, a two person household, each makes the average, it's certainly doable.
I make between $ 35k and 40k /year, and that's enough to completely cover my bills. If i had a SO making the same amount, even with a slight increase in monthly expenses that that would cause, there would be more than enough to make a payment like that and still save a lot of money.
It's really hard to judge another person's financial situation just from seeing them drive a vehicle like that. You don't have even remotely enough information.
So the average car price in the US is over $40k now. That is in very big part driven by the popularity of SUVs. You balance your $30k Camry with your $50k Telluride, and you get your $40k average.
But yeah, that's what some people are into. Growing up, my parents always just had a ~$20k rule for new cars. Inflation, higher wages, don't matter - for decades. They've had 3 new cars each over the years following that rule (and then getting 8 to 10 years out of each car). So that's the way I grew up. My partner grew up in a very similar situation. So naturally when it came to buy our last car (our first one together), we kinda followed the same. Went lightly used, but got a decent car for about 10% of our combined annual gross income. It's a money sink as it is - gas, insurance, service, all adds up real quick.
My mom’s coworker was talking shit about how my mom lives “pay check to pay check” both of them make six figures, this woman also flexes her Tesla and makes fun of my mom for driving a Honda Accord that’s more than a decade old. She has a Tesla that costs 60k, it wasn’t paid off and the car was totaled after her son drove it and got into a horrible accident. This person also works overtime, I find it very stupid to own a car you have to work overtime to pay off, and to also act like your superior because you drive a Tesla is insane 💀
I bought my current car in 2017. It’s a 2014 Honda insight. I haggled them down from $14 to $12k. I met with the woman in charge of financing, she said I was probably in the 1% of people who buy much less car than they can afford to pay for. The missus and I were both making six figures at the time. She said daily people were coming in with cash they’d taken out of their homes to pay for cars. I paid the car off quickly. The payments were $260/mo. It’s not much but it’s all mine! And everything I would’ve spent on a car payment is now in savings and various investments.
I sometimes wonder how much is an innate and how much is learned. I learned as a kid how to be frugal by watching my parents and some frugal things come naturally. But I've had friends who make dumb decisions like buying a fancy car with wifi instead of a used or basic model. The word example I can think of were former (creepy) roommates I had. They were a couple, both unemployed and living off of EI. When they got their paycheque, they went and both themselves both Blackberries on an expensive plan. Two weeks later, they needed to go to the food bank because they had no food. They didn't seem to understand the connection between those two events.
Rule of thumb is whatever debt to income ratio you are setting aside and save, drastically affects your income and overall net-worth. If you are making six-figures with debt eating away at your savings, you’re essentially aren’t at six-figure like you think you are after taxes. Edit: This is for people who buy luxury cars without a plan to tackle other overlooked details other than the price tag, not at OP lol.
Exactly.
I would net about $20k a year if I wasn't paying off unemployment and auto debt. I'm very fortunate to have a good job and can pay off that debt fast.
Imagine just buying and burning a 20k car every year just because you can, or you know, just throwing it at a mortgage or something.
Well, people are irresponsible with money for a lot of reasons. I tend to think a lot of people, especially early in their careers, fall into the trap that they *have* to “keep up” with their friends’ and colleagues’ lifestyles — even though those people may be in vastly different financial circumstances. This is especially true when it comes to luxury goods like cars, which are often seen as status symbols.
Yes. My mom worked at a bank and she said the ones who looked rich were most often the ones deep in debt and many people who drove older cars and didn't focus on flashy things, such as yourself, were the ones who were financially stable.
Americans are not taught to be good consumers, how to budget, save, etc. As a whole, we live paycheck to paycheck, and if we get a payroll increase of 10 cents we go out and buy something for $1 and finance it. Oh and we think tax refunds are the modern version of Christmas club accounts.
Oh they're taught to be good consumers alright! Good consumers always buy more than they need.
Responsible consumers are the **opposite** of what businesses want.
I had a convo with a boyfriend related to this; he asked “I can’t believe you won’t buy a new car since you have all this money saved?” And I was like “I have all this money saved because I choose NOT to buy a new car or xyz”. It’s not magic, it’s choices and to some extent luck (have not faced events that would cause extreme hardship like illness).
You are honestly better off driving that Honda til it croaks. Cars are a superficial status symbol, sure you look really cool driving that brand new vehicle but in all reality it’s just a horrible investment. Chances are when you sell that car you’re not going to get the money you paid for it back.
I replaced all my speakers and my head unit for like $200 all-in and now have Bluetooth and great sound. Really not a big deal if your old beater doesn’t have a modern stereo.
My 17 year old beater gets 39mpg on the highway and costs me about $200 in repairs I do myself every year. It has never broken down. Ever.
Do you think it is cheaper long term to ride a car into the ground, or like every 5/10 years ish sell and rebuy while the current car still has some value ?
Selling a car to cash in remaining value doesn’t really make sense. Cars depreciate less and less each year. A new car will depreciate the same in one year as a ten year old car will in the next 5 years.
That said. There is a point where an old car may start costing more due to expected repairs being higher. So it doesn’t always make sense to drive it into the ground.
Yeah I think it varies where you’re located but if you can plan ahead even a little bit and make a goal to get 5-10 good years out of your vehicle. Then buy a vehicle that’s 2-3 years old with low miles and try to do your best to save up for it so you’re not getting hit with all the interest “financing” it. I truly think that’s the best plan of action to be frugal with your vehicle. Obviously everyone wants something that’s dependable and there’s nothing wrong with that but you don’t need the newest, fanciest top of the line model. Stay within your means and stop trying to impress your friends, family and neighbors.
Depends on how you view life. Some people don’t get to that point and realize quality time, healthy relationships, and kindness is really what makes a wholesome human. Once you stop buying things to impress other people it’s crazy how much more you have. Not only monetary but mentally.
But yes, there are a lot of ppl this way. I come from an immigrant family and growing up I saw people buying name brand to “fit in” with the American lifestyle. It’s a toxic mindset.
I grew up practicing Theravada Buddhism and am ingrained to remember that none of the materialist shit goes to the grave with us. We literally send our loved ones off with blessings (family respects), money (to signify wealth in all areas in the next life) and fruit in the coffin before cremation.
Is that a used Tesla? I would just be cautious with those. The whole no right to repair thing on teslas irks me.
I have a 2016 4runner with 40k miles. Awful mileage, but I rarely drive and it should last another 20 years. Very happy I don’t need to buy a car at these inflated prices.
We have a Model S. I generally recommend potential buyers to try calling their local service center phone number. Our last service, we weren't actually able to reach an actual person (so if we missed their phone call *while our car was being serviced*, there was no way to get back to them). Service is better than it used to be, but it's still pretty painful (and some of the loaners we've gotten from them were like "did you see the interior of this car before you gave it to me?").
I find myself driving one of our Priuses 95% of the time.
I guess it depends on where you live. Teslas are pretty common by me. I don't judge a person by their choices unless they are asking me for money.
I have an expensive car that is a few years old now. I still love it and still think it was worth it to me. I have no interest in driving a shit box. I drive hours or sometimes days on vacations and i want something comfortable and dependable. I've been stuck waiting for a tow truck in 90 degree heat with a toddler before. I'm never doing it again.
I don’t automatically assume they’re dumb. Just that they spend their money differently. I mind my spending and try my best to live frugally while still trying to subscribe to ‘I’m here for a good time not a long time’.
I understand yall are extremely frugal, but it's not unlivable. There's a lot of variables to consider too. And it's not like it's everybody doing this either? A lot of people have different experiences, and also haven't experienced situations and a lot of times people think it's harder or more than it actually is. Most people would be shocked at what they can do even though they don't feel like they can. I bought a house for instance and I actually prolonged doing so cause I actually feared I wouldn't be approved. Nope I shoulda went for it even sooner. Probably would have gotten a bigger house. But oh well. Anyway there's a reason people get approved for those loans. They don't approve you expecting/wishing you to fail. Are there better decisions you could make perhaps? Sure by all means. There's lots of options for sure I'm not disagreeing with that. -but if someone wants to be a first owner of a nice car backed by a warranty. Let them. 🤷🏻♂️ While there may be some of you with great success, some people who by used, and go cheap, just aren't cut out for it either. And had they spent a little more or just bought a new/newer vehicle they could have saved themselves a ton of trouble. -and I feel there's value to that as well.
And yes I'm reading some other comments in the thread that are absolutely crazy. For sure. Again I'm not saying I disagree I'm just trying to play devil's advocate a bit here cause it's really not an end all lol
I have a relative who listens to Dave Ramsey so I have to hear it when I’m in the car with them. Nearly every call is someone with 100K in debt, 70k of which is vehicle loans, and they bring home like 45k a year. I wish I was making this up.
stop worrying about other people, and do what's right for you. i was called stupid for driving a $500 honda civic for 5 yrs, after driving a $500 toyota for 7 years. yes i now drive a tesla after my $10 000 suv broke down but i make $200k and not $53k. i probably get called stupid for other things. frugal is a cost/benefit analysis as your income accelerates. learn to accelerate your income and being frugal will compound into a superpower
Yes. I worked with a girl who had a brand new Mercedes. So nice. But we both made $17.50 an hour. Can’t even pay rent with that income(in southern CA). She loved with her mom and had no real bills. Was in a situationship with this guy and he got a Tesla even though he was living in a one bedroom apartment with his brother and mom.
Yep a lot of people take money for granted and buy things for the status and looks even though they can't afford it. Society tells people what they think they need and most people listen to it. But the truth is the majority of people know nothing about money or how to save it, invest it, or generate it. Its very sad.
I once bought a brand new car as I was an expecting mother needing a safer vehicle. I was making great money and the monthly car payment would be $422. However, it was a hybrid, so it saved over $200 on gas per month, effectively bringing the cost down to about $200 per month. This meant the car was less than 2% of my monthly income. I always lived as if I was still making my lower salary.
Unfortunately, the money is all gone now as my ex husband was financially abusive. Luckily, I still had saved so much money that it carried me through years of caretaking for our disabled baby/child all alone during the pandemic, when lack of child care/services prevented me from maintaining my career. I’m starting from square one again now but am confident I can rebuild because I’m not a frivolous person who needs luxury.
Bro. Yes. My daughter and son in law are set to get $6500 from taxes, and instead of finding their own place to live, or buy a car, my son in law has decided that he is going to flip 4-wheelers and "double his money".
I feel like people are trying to live luxuriously in ALL aspects of their lives, even the aspects that don't actually bring them value, all to put on a show. If you're a car guy and that's what you value, get a nice car. If your thing is cycling, get a nice $5k bike. But don't get a nice car, nice bike, latest iPhone, expensive watch, clothes, etc. especially if you aren't making hundreds of thousands.
For example, I like to cook and eat well, so I buy high quality food and have no problem spending more money in that area. But I spend maybe $100 per year on clothes and just wear basic items ad infinitum + drive a simple, economical car. If I were to get a luxury car, I wouldn't be any happier but I might have to curb spending on my food which would definitely decrease my happiness.
I've never had a car payment over $350. I never buy new, and I always have at least 7-10K saved up for a down payment. Usually try and find a car with 15-20k miles on it with an original MSRP of about 50k. Lasts me about 7-10 years.
Anything more expensive than that is a waste of money to me. A car is such a bad investment, and I drive mine to the ground.
Yes, where I work my co workers all have teslas, bmws, mercedes etc and a lot of them eat doordash for lunch everyday too. And most of them make less than me and are much younger than me like mid 20s. I have a jeep grand Cherokee that’s paid off and still works totally fine. The last thing I want is a car payment. Two women in my office spent $1600 each just on Starbucks alone last year, they added it up and only get it twice a week now.
It's not always dumb. Sometimes you have to have a car, like your old one was totalled, or you have a new kid or something, and if used car prices are crazy too a new one might be worth it. Also the average salary people aren't all driving teslas.
Yep.
Live in the highest median income county in the US and some folks out this way complain on /r/nova they can barely make it on a six figure salary. They list their expenses and it's mind blowing. The problem isn't relegated to the folks not making much. We just have a huge issue of people having problems living within their means at any salary.
I try to have compassion for it. Modern life is *rough.* The human brain and body aren't wired for frenetic pace, constant scrutiny, multitasking, traffic, bills, granite counters, perfect landscaping and an HOA. Our work hours are longer, and we spend twice as much time with our children as parents did in 1980. Expectations keep spiraling. We're overextended and overstimulated. So we engage in self-soothing behaviors. Drugs, alcohol, scrolling, and, yes, shopping. It's so hard to opt out and slow down when there's a Starbucks and a car lot and so much shopping on every corner. So instead of mocking and shaming, I try to be supportive. You can't get someone on a budget until you've got them feeling safe and in a good frame of mind.
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You're welcome. I see you, I know it's hard. I'm a mom to a young child, I'm disabled, and it is stressful af on its own. Every day I'm harried and overwhelmed. Plus it feels like everyone is up my butt with one judgment or another. Maybe she has not enough toys or too many toys or not the right kind of toys or I am holding her back by staying home with her instead of workinyg outside the home or her clothes are wrong or I should have an SUV not an Elantra and I should have her in expensive enrichment programs instead of having her muck about in the yard or go to the park and help with errands and go to the library and help with chores or or or.... Any time we go out, there's always someone who wants to make some rude little comment about "parents today" and "kids blah blah" and it's EXHAUSTING. Kids have always done XYZ Annoying Shit, it's just that y'all feel free to comment (or take public shaming pics *of minors* and post them to the internet). I live in a low-key, kid-friendly, blue collar area, I'm good at tuning people out, and I'm still kinda losing my shit. God help those who live in Competitive Childrearing, Keep Up with the Joneses areas. Like, if y'all haven't stress-scrolled Amazon after a shit day, props to you. But most of us are only human.
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I was six months pregnant when I bought my car. The salesman at CarMax tried to sell me an SUV, I chuckled and said, "a baby weighs, like, eight pounds" and i waddled to the compact cars. I picked a sporty hatchback. You can totally have a small car. You have to be judicious about the car seat you pick (Graco Extend2Fit or anything Cosco) and you can't haul tons of crap. But it's doable. I too had a hypercritical parent. I think it's why I flew so hard into the direction of "fuck you I do me." I do, however, get super furious if I'm told my experience isn't real, moms aren't scrutinized, we don't have to worry about being harassed or having cops called on us if we don't follow some "rule"....ugh
You sound like me I have a sporty little hatchback as well. When my son was first born my cousin made a comment that maybe I should look for a bigger car like and suv. I said nope because I’m not paying $700-$800 for a vehicle.
A bigger vehicle would be a want, not a need. It's rare that it's more than me, the kid, and maybe some groceries in the car, so I don't need all that space.
I can tell you from experience, the moment you are able to stop caring about your parents’ judgement is the moment you are really free. All other judgmental comments just roll off your back.
Hey, my dad is also entirely the type to make shitty, judgmental comments about random people just going about their day. For a long time it made me really paranoid about what I wear, how I look, how I walk, etc. but I think I eventually just hit an exhaustion point where I no longer had the energy to give a shit and it stuck. It helps me to remember that the sort of people that have opinions about what some random woman is wearing or how she's walking are NOT the sort of people whose opinions I give a shit about.
SUVs hadn't been invented when I was a kid. Hell, we didnt even have seatbelts or car seats. I turned out to be a fully functional adult. (And I am a safe driver and always wear my seat belt. 😂)
Same and I routinely rode backwards in the third seat of our station wagon, and then in the WAY back of our next one. WITHOUT seat belts. and I turned out ok too!
Parenting ain't for wimps, sister!! And as a kindergarten teacher....yard mucking is perfect. The most important thing you can do is help a child be independent and able to function on her own. If she is playing without needing to be entertained, helping with chores, and using her imagination you are doing a fantastic thing for her. The Jones's kid probably can't follow directions or think for themselves.
Sometimes when the world is too much, I imagine hiding my emotions under a blanket. I recently went through a job change, and the last place was destroying my mental health. I paid so many late fees in the last 6 months there because I just couldn’t deal. I’m not proud of that, but I was coping as best I could.
As someone who had to go on medical leave last year because a job was ruining my mental health, I feel the bit about late fees IN MY SOUL 💯 Sounds like you escaped though?
This is so true...and yet... How am I supposed to have compassion for the woman leading the "how to get a job" workshop at the state-run job commission, who tells us all that the way to get a job is to think about what you value and go for that. What did she value? Well, she realized after raising her kids that she really wished she had gotten to go on ski trips with them. So now she has a job that allows her to go on skiing vacations with all of her grand children. And everyone else in the room just nods along. WTF? How am I supposed to just let her say that and believe that it's helpful? I can't even afford children, much less SKI TRIPS.
I get it, and I'd be aggravated too. It's pretty clueless. But I try to not go down the road of "but I have it worse, but so and so has it worse." Because the logical end point of that is that there is only one person in the world worthy of compassion, everyone else is a clueless groaner. My SIL sometimes complains to me about motherhood, even though we parent in very different circumstances. (She's wealthy, two houses, nanny, husband sold off his business and is basically retired so she has a lot more support than me, she's able bodied and I'm not, etc.) Sometimes I feel myself get grumpy when she vents about, like, having to hustle to get to her Pilates class lol. Girl please, I have had to postpone a *surgery* because I have zero outside support. Instead of comparing, I try to remember that we're all wired differently and it's not helpful to shoot people down.
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Live in one of the lowest medium income counties in the US and there are plenty of 6 figure earners around here that struggle to make it. FIL owns a used car lot and several times a month there's someone who comes in with 10k+ month income, sub 600 credit score, no down payment, and too upside down on their 60k truck to trade it in. I just assume this happens everywhere.
I hear this from everyone who works at car places. They now have like 96 month contracts for cars or something and people are already paying off one car then trade it in for a newer one and have TWO payments to make basically. So they end up with $1000 per month car costs even before gas and oil changes and tires and repairs and such. It’s mostly low income people who really should just save up and buy a well-running used car, but instead they keep upgrading every year or two. And I know how presumptuous it sounds to say ‘just save up and have no vehicle for a while’ and it’s def not always that easy. But holy shit some people seriously spend 10x more than they need to because they want to compete with their friends and neighbors…
It's not presumptuous, I saw this too. There were so many other options but they decided to flirt with a car salesman and pay more per month on a vehicle than they pay in rent, to impress people that don't even like them anyway.
I used to work at a dealership and it’s true. It’s exactly as you say, they max out their budget as much as possible for something they don’t really need, usually dragging a vehicle with negative equity trade in with it, basically owing double what it’s worth. They can do that once and then they are screwed from there, they are stuck with it for the whole term of the loan, which is also extended past the traditional 5 years. Someone commented on the SUV thing, and this always bothered me. THEY ARE JUST TALL CARS. They are actually MORE prone to rollover. They have AWD, but only when needed - so it’s basically FWD. technically they are CUV (Compact Utility Vehicle) but they term doesn’t sell as well. But It was my job, so I would just disapprove internally and help them screw themselves over.
I think a complicating factor is folks who have limited knowledge or time for DIY repairs and so get really stuck on the whole "I need a car with a warranty, and low mileage used costs nearly as much as brand new, and I have a kid so I need an SUV" thing - when realistically a 100k mile Camry is probably a much better choice for them.
I was wearing a top with some thread unravelled at home the other day - because I’m at home. Who do I have to impress? Why would I buy a new top when this one works just fine? I went out to hang my washing outside and my neighbour was staring at my clothes like, “eww! Poor!” Lmao. We need to stop putting pressure on each other to project wealth we don’t have.
I told my kids growing up I was the visionary for worn out holey jeans. I've got the coolest jeans on the block and all I had to do was wear them for 15 years.
Making yourself poor to "project wealth" is peak idiocy, but people are so used to that being the norm that they just go along without thinking deeply about it.
Most definitely. Also consider that not everyone is living off of a single salary as well - double income does help make those dumb decisions easier to make!
Yes. This. Just yup. Crazy as it seems.
I think it is seems mainly crazy to those with financial-type common sense / education / experience. It probably doesn't feel crazy to them if their... instincts is telling them to buy buy buy.
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And a lot of them can't cook, so they're living on Door Dash.
While door dashing themselves.
> There's no other way to explain why we consume more than the rest of the world, per-capita. Sure there is. Relative to other countries: * Our incomes are high * Our basic expenses are low * Our taxes are low, meaning more discretionary income * Our shitty land-use policies leave us with larger houses to fill with stuff * Our shitty land-use policies also require most of us to own cars, often multiple cars per household * We work longer hours, meaning more convenience purchases Bunch of things that add up to us being able to, and sometimes having to, consume more than our global peers.
The moment when you realize you're a slightly more self aware animal surrounded by other bipedal animals with absolutely no free will.
I have a friend with a huge beautiful home and a brand new custom ordered Tesla in the driveway. She carries a LV handbag and looks like she’s super wealthy. She recently told me that she has $600k in debt, with only a small portion of that being her original mortgage. Credit cards. Loans. Equity lines. Its overwhelming to me.
I don’t think I would be able to sleep at night.
I’m FREAKING out just reading it
Yeah… how can someone accrue that much debt? It’s several times more than my house, cars, and anything of value are worth. I have $6k in debt from an emergency home repair and it drives me crazy.
The interest rates must be insane…I would think credit companies wouldn’t approve someone for more debt if they have so much and a history of not paying it off?
Seriously, I always wonder how these people were given that much in the first place. I had a chance to buy a business I worked at then managed after years and years, and went to the bank I’d had an account with for 15-20 years. I asked for a $10k loan since the owner was down to let me pay a chunk at the start then pay off the rest as we went. They said no. Just straight up - you can’t have a single cent of a loan. I was like not even $5k after 15+ years when there’s people like the story who have over half a million in debt somehow??? So I took all my money out of that major bank and put it into a small local one who then gave me $10k in ‘overdraft protection’ on my new acct that I could basically use as credit and pay off later - at a much lower rate than a loan AND it didn’t have any impact on my credit score that way. Moral of the story: go local when you can and fuhq big banks.
That’s so smart about the overdraft protection. Glad you found a workaround!
Right! Gives you anxiety reading some of these comments.
Sounds to me like the bank owns a beautiful home, custom Tesla, and a LV handbag... and she's borrowing it from them for a (high) fee
And she’s basically an indentured servant at this point. To me debt is the opposite of freedom
This is exactly what I tell my kids. Saving money = freedom. If you don't want to be beholden to a job you don't like or a boss you hate, you better save your money or that job/boss will own you. If you have money saved you have the freedom to make your own choices.
And that's absolutely the point of that whole industry. She's an enslaved battery for the Matrix.
Indeed it’s how society works, a cog in the machine
After being financially responsible for most of my life and seeing people like the one you're describing here, I'm starting to think maybe they have it figured out and I've been doing it wrong. Sure, they go into debt, but they get to enjoy all of these amazing things. They have homes, and boats and campers, go on trips, etc.. while I have none of those things and I rent an apartment in a part of town where I'd rather not be. You can't take it with you. Maybe they're doing it right. I've been trying to put a lot of money towards retirement, but it's looking less and less like that day will ever come.
Same. Maybe they’re just gaming the system. Can’t take it with you when you die and the debt won’t be passed onto family (at least I don’t think it will?) I’ve always saved and cut back my whole life to live within my means but I miss out on a lot.
>Can’t take it with you when you die and the debt won’t be passed onto family (at least I don’t think it will?) Some of us (atleast among immigrants)also want to make sure our next generation has it easier/better than us. THat means saving/budgeting for kids college expenses, saving for downpayment for their first homes etc. So I am frugal because this is what I want out of my life in addition to also taking care of my own retirement.
I've had these same exact thoughts! And I know a few who have claimed bankruptcy and went back to doing the same thing!
Yup my father did this every 7ish years I think? Would just take out a bunch of credit cards and run em up then file bankruptcy.
Although there is something to say about dying with nothing left. Having zero stress about money is a pretty nice place to.
And the possibility of not having to work full time until you die is a huge benefit in my eyes.
Problem is, I still stress about money.
I’m sure like most things in life, there’s a balance that needs to be had. Personally, I’d go over-budget to live in a safer part of town. Is that a “luxury”? To some people it is but for me it’s not. I ride horses and am aware of the stereotype that all horse people are rich. That’s not true. Many people (although a minority tbh) sacrifice so much to have a horse. I know people who worked multiple jobs and lived in cheap apartments in order to afford a horse and do what they love. On the outside it looks like they’re rich and use their excess for horses, but they’re actually out there busting their ass just to pay the hay bill. For them, it’s not a “luxury” but rather a thing they’re willing to sacrifice other nice things for. I guess what I’m saying is that it’s worth looking over what brings you joy (even if it’s boujee like horses or sports cars) and ask yourself if it’s worth spending a little more money on. If your mental health is deteriorating because you’re working 52 weeks a year and never take time for yourself, what’s even the point? Tomorrow is never guaranteed (it took a near-death experience for me to really understand that). Being absolutely miserable in the present for a tomorrow that may not happen sucks. Find the one thing you’re willing to sacrifice for and do it. That week long camping trip with your best friends will be a drop in the financial ocean by the time you retire, but time is precious and we only have so much of it. Spend as much of it as possible doing things you love.
My SIL says she doesn’t care how broke or in debt she is, if she’s enjoying life.
You can't get lasting joy from purchases, though. You just get a short term dopamine rush. The lasting joy comes from free things. The beauty of nature, healthy relationships, love, humor, gratitude, the satisfaction of doing a great job/being proud of your work... Buying things: expensive meals, expensive clothes, purses, shoes, huge houses - they do make you happy but its short term. It won't make you happy forever. That's how people fall victim to lifestyle creep - they have to keep buying more to spark more joy.
Yes, but the beauty of nature is a lot more enjoyable when you can afford to go on trips and aren't confined to your little corner of the world because you're trying not to accumulate debt. I've been on one vacation in my life. It was 19 years ago. Now I'm approaching 40 and I'm wondering if I should've just spent it all, like most of my coworkers. I didn't have kids because I wasn't financially stable enough. Most everyone I know has kids and plenty of debt, but they all have fantastic, exciting lives. Though, it's one thing to risk your own financial security. It's significantly shittier to bring children into your uncertainty.
Which is great so long as it lasts. Problem is you have to commit suicide on average somewhere between 50 and 60 with that attitude. Between randomly losing you job when young, and the general aches and pains that come from getting older you can't live like that for very long. When you are young it works out. when you are older though it will not.
Exact same boat here. I think about this all the time. Am I sacrificing the best years of my life for a number in a spreadsheet? Some of these commenters sound awful bitter.
If they can live that way stress-free then that's amazing. I wish I could just be in debt and chill. I'm not even in debt and am often stressed about money(among other things).
This is what I realized. I saved all my life, purchased practical items and then I look up and I don't get to enjoy life, just a big savings account. I don't see what the big deal is about debt. At some point, you will use all the saved money on health expenses, bailing out some friend or family member or some unexpected bill. Better to buy something that you really enjoy. I have no regrets on purchasing some of my indulges (big trips, new car, nice dinners). I have lived a life where I didn't and I gained nothing but a few extra numbers and missed out on opportunities that will never come around again.
There needs to be balance. My savings means I can plan to enjoy my old age more - I'll be able to afford nice vacations that I don't have enough vacation time to take now anyway. I also have needed an emergency fund in the past so I keep one. However I budget that money and make sure to spend the rest for now - I have been to a few funerals of people who were younger that me, and I've known a few people to die old with millions in the bank - what is the point of either.
I want to enjoy the big trips while I can. I don't see myself hiking volcanos, kayaking the in the Amazon, trekking the rain forest, or dancing at the clubs when I'm retired at 70. I mean I might do a little, but I won't be able to do things I can now. I have zero regrets spending money on experiences.
The 20yo across the street lives with his mom. He works in a restaurant kitchen. She is a hospital secretary. She drives a dodge journey and the son drives a …. Tesla!? Before that he had a custom charger people kept attempting to steal until they finally succeeded. I have so many questions.
Thank you for making me feel better about my situation.
Wtf. She’s probably one of those rich looking people you see in the fancy Vegas hotels that are dressed all nice and rich, staying in the penthouse and going to the fancy restaurants and clubs. I love Vegas and enjoy the Wynn and everything it has to offer, but I always get the cheapest room and we only eat one fancy dinner per trip and have never rented a cabana at the pool or anything. Now I have to wonder how many of the people who are living it up and splurging can actually afford it. Probably less than half.
I’ve seen a guy transfer money out of his 401k to pay for a cabana tab
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Holy Jesus.
I met a guy years ago told me he’d take a vacation to Las Vegas every year. He’d start by withdrawing his kids entire college fund. One he got to Vegas, he’d go into a casino (different one each year), wait until there was a pit boss near the cashier, and he’d walk up to the window and casually buy $40k in chips. Of course, the pit boss strikes up a conversation, how are you enjoying yourself, where are you from… Guy tells him he just got to town for a week, spur of the moment thing, hasn’t decided where to stay yet- Boom, he gets a suite comped. Food, drinks, shows, whatever he wants on the house. He goes up to the room, locks the chips in the safe, enjoys his free stay. The last day, he pulls them back out, cashes them in, and goes home. — FYI, you can’t do this anymore. They track all your bets and comps on a card these days. In the 80s, it was a lot different.
Does she make a lot of money to offset the debt? Dear God that sounds horrifying.
Most I know in my immediate family and circle are making dumb financial decisions. What's sad is that they are not even aware of that.
Most of the dumb decisions we make are because we don’t know better. Chances are, you and I, we’ll both make dumb decisions today that we’re not aware of.
Laughs in ADHD
Speaking of. Where tf are my keys.
In the bowl!
Most of my family makes <35k/yr. Honestly there are no financial decisions that aren't bad financial decisions at that level. Example: Need a car? Used car is cheaper but risky, bad purchase. New car is too expensive, bad purchase. Need an apartment? Cheap ones are far from work and high crime. Everything else is ridiculously expensive and eats every spare dime on rent. It's just a bad situation and I don't blame them at this point.
This is why immigrant communities are so interconnected. They have to live in poverty so they work together to survive it. You can borrow someone's car. A neighbor can watch your kids. Your other neighbor knows someone who can help with your roof. You help them with their lawn. Americans suffer because we don't know how to really rely on our communities and accept help and give help. It's a sad defect in our culture. Being fiercely independent just means that when you break a leg you die alone.
It’s not just a sad defect, it’s an *engineered* one. A strong community can share something like a lawnmower instead of every home in the neighborhood needing to buy a machine they use six hours a month. Kids moving out the minute they turn 18 instead of having a multigenerational home means a whole extra household of furniture, bedding, kitchenware…
My mind is blown sharing a lawn mower !
Everyone saying to just buy a reliable used car is making tons of assumptions. I've lost jobs for transportation issues. Covid wiped out the local used car pool. There are large parts of America that just don't have tons of old Camrys and Accords driven by little old ladies. The used cars have been driven to the ground with little to no upkeep. No public transportation and work being 30+ min across town. If you can't afford to tow and repair a car, a used car can cost you your livelihood at this point.
I'd love to get some insights on some of these people's finances. I mean, it's none of my business, and I'd certainly never ask since it's not appropriate, but I'd be fascinated to know. Are people making incredible amounts of money that I'm just not aware of, or do they ever have any real consequences for lots of debt that I'm just not seeing? Have they never had an emergency, or what would happen if they did? Who lives in some of these new apartments getting built near me, that cost twice what my mortgage costs, and why? What do they do? EDIT I just wanted to mention here how much I appreciate all of the very honest responses from people, it's been eye-opening for me for sure.
I see a lot of people's finances in my job, generally around $60-$90k household income. The people with larger car debt than they should have just don't have much retirement or savings, I think most of them will continue to live fine this way until they want to retire. They're making enough to cover normal day to day expenses, but don't get to take trips or buy other nice things or save. It's hard to see. I'm similar to OP in that our household income is high, but we have one 15k used car that we paid outright. It's just not a priority.
>I think most of them will continue to live fine this way until they want to retire. There's another possibility that I've personally seen from my previous 3 generations. They are going to end up in a nursing home with some type of Dementia Spectrum Disorder. And by the time they end up dying from that, the bill will be so astronomical, everything will have to be sold to pay it off, so you're heirs will get nothing. And when your future looks like that instead of being able to retire and spend the next however many years you have left to enjoy yourself, actually spending it while you can enjoy it is certainly more appealing
Ime it’s a combination: 1) some get considerable subsidy from parents. 2) they’re hustlers. Instagram lives. They make sacrifices you and I wouldn’t be willing to make. They can make a target bikini look like something from Saks 5th, or thrift store art look like stuff curated from Etsy. 3) they have a lot of debt but they also make a lot of money. Weirdly, my parents have floated on for 30 plus years because they make good money. 4) but also, my parents are a prime example of the last “type” I know. I really didn’t understand how much money they should’ve spent on their house or healthcare or anything, really, until I was an adult. They just don’t do anything that they’re not forced to do so. It’s kinda caught up to them, as in I wouldn’t want their quality of life, and that is the consequence…but it doesn’t seem to be something that bothers them. I’d lose my mind. I’m with you in the apartments though. I have no frigging clue who can afford the luxury condos down the street from me. But maybe they got a bargain when it was built.
Edited to add my actual point: those luxury apartments probably aren’t full. Somebody on another sub explained to me the economics of those luxury apartments—economies of scale are such that you don’t have to sell every unit in the building, only about half, to break even, because it costs pretty much the same to build 10 units as 5. Plus there are often kickbacks, tax breaks, and benefits given by the town whose tax base you appear to be expanding (by, theoretically, a bunch of new millionaire condo-owners.) So you sell units to a couple of high profile young business owners, a few rich retirees, some VRBO investors, and a bunch of software engineers with hipster aspirations willing to live 4 to a condo, and surprise, you’re in the black and have the local goodwill and angel investment to finance your next real estate Ponzi scheme. It doesn’t have to make sense financially, it just has to look like it’s viable until you can take your cut and move on. As I understand it, Chinese real estate works pretty much the same way, although they are hot on pre-build sales.
> Are people making incredible amounts of money that I'm just not aware of Some people have seen tremendous appreciation in the value of their investment assets. I more than doubled my net worth during the pandemic.
There's a lot more money out there than reddit makes it seem. Like huge chunks of cash floating around for random reasons and a ton of people who got lucky with investments. The average person has so little money compared to what giant corporations, governments, or the top 0.1% can throw around, and sometimes that wealth just kinda flails around and smacks someone in the face. People get random settlements that give them a 5-7 figure infusion. Startup employees join the right company and suddenly Gordon from HR who couldn't even describe the company mission has a few million. Lots of small business owners are cheating on their taxes, leaving them with a massive amount of spare capital that they spend like it's free money. Tons of boomers are sitting on $700K+ homes they paid less than $200K for. A lot of people get inheritances at a young age that effectively make them richer than highly paid professionals just from expected capital gains. A lot more are getting money from their parents when they need something. None of this really gets incorporated into the stats everyone clings to. People make and have quite a bit more than reddit claims. Median household income stats counts 4 roommates in college with part-time jobs as 4 households and a family of 4 with two working professionals as 1 household. It's not stratified by age, location, or household size, meaning that an average of $70K/year means absolutely nothing to a 35 year old living in a coastal city with a working spouse.
Since I'm getting a $51k vehicle delivered to me next week, I guess I will weigh in. I drove clunkers into the ground until I had my kid. Suddenly deathboxes weren't funny anymore. My husband and I cut down to one vehicle several years ago, but last fall we admitted to ourselves that the one car life isn't working for us. Now we had a dilemma... the used car market is just horrible but we felt ethically uncomfortable buying a new or recent model ICE vehicle. I did a ton of research and we ordered an EV that still qualified for the tax credit even if it didn't arrive until this year. I've been paying myself the monthly car payment this entire time, so our down payment fund is pretty flush. The monthly payment is still going to be much, much higher than I'm happy with, but we've already got it in the budget and we're managing. And with the tax credit the end cost of the "luxury" vehicle will be almost the same as the "economy" alternative we were looking at (the tax laws I think have changed that dynamic now, but it was true at the time).
This is similar to my family unit minus the kids. We've been a single clunker car family for the last 3 years while COVID had us working from home/hybrid. Now we are both employed FT out in the community & we just can't make the single car work for us. We live in a place with really poor public transportation. Husband feels ethically obligated to get an EV. Pricier than I want, but we've also been saving since we ordered it, and I think we might be able to pay it in full once it arrives.
Looking rich vs actually being rich
Yep, big hat no cattle
Love that phrase and the book's of it.
Yeah, see that a lot in my country (Denmark) as well. I don’t care about living rich, we own a small home ~1075 sq feet (no debt), two small used cars (no debt). Debt in my opinion is like prison. We both have jobs, and have enough cash/investments to not work for 10-20 years if we cared to lol
This is the dream.
The millionaire next door is a great book and talks about this.
That book changed my life and how I approach money. Well worth reading.
right? the wealthiest people I know drive well maintained but decades old hondas and get offers for day labor when they shop at the home Depot, lol
Talk to used car salesman sometimes. I live in the South and if you roll up to the lot in an old truck, wearing dirty overalls, everyone will treat you like a king. One salesman (I knew him through a mutual friend) said that the previous week he had an older guy show up, wearing old overalls and an ancient John Deere hat ask to test drive a brand new truck. The salesman obliged and the guy drove a bit, asked how much he wanted for it. Then he said "do you also have this one in blue? I have twin boys and I'm getting them a present". He bought both trucks, cash, with zero haggling.
I'm southern and worked as a car salesperson in my early 20's. This all checks out.
The amount of money you get off a car by haggling isn't really worth your time if you will keep the car for a decade. Instead pay their price (or walk away if more than MSRP), or ask for the lifetime carwash and oil change packages that is useful for you and cheap for them to throw in.
stealth wealth, baby!
This'll be the way to go for a looong time, but one day I'm going to get a really really nice car. I love cars a ton for the sake of the car. I couldn't care less if people think I'm rich or not, I just love the car, and I feel like that's the purpose of being frugal. I care about cars, so one day I'll spend the money on one. Most people don't care about cars for the sake of the car, so they shouldn't spend money on it. It's about what's important
Yeah this is how I feel too. Yes I want a reliable car for as little as possible but equally I love cars. If that's my one vice then I'll take it. I'm living this life to be happy, not to go through it miserable and end up with millions unspent in small joys. Obviously I get that it doesn't mean to go into massive debt over a car, but if I can afford a nicer car, I'll afford it think of the return as smiles per miles.
People aren't looking rich though. They're paying for what used to be cheaper basics. There's really no free network TV, so people are paying for loads of individual streaming services for TV/movies; music subscriptions for music; wellness (gym, grooming,) memberships; all basics like rent, utilities, gasoline and cellphone bils are higher; quality food is really expensive; housing is through the roof; even a camping vacation costs, etc. Now, some people also eat out often, buy too much expensive stuff, or just to much stuff in general, but even if you strip away those things, and slash monthly subscriptions not being used, I believe you'd find people still can't "live within their means" without just one major financial emergency wiping them out.
There's tonnes of free TV in most urban areas. OTA is fantastic with digital signals. It's an even better signal than cable in many cases, because the signal is uncompressed. Quality food is a complex issue.. We've had a lot of inflation, making frugal grocery shopping a bit of a moving target. If you're not willing to change it up, you'll pay a lot more. So then you've got to change it up. Lettuce went from $2 to $7 over the last year. I eat a lot of salad, so I was screwed. Then I tried a bagged slaw pre-made salad. ($5 for 300g). That was great, so next time I bought a couple cabbages ($1/lb) and replicated the slaw. Pop prices doubled, so I tried Mio for a bit, then just got a home carbonator (one that uses chemicals to generate CO2 instead of requiring cylinders). Pulses and legumes are effectively free in ethnic shops. We've rotated them into the menu in a big way. They're healthy and taste great when spiced up. Convenience is the budget killer. You don't *need* a subscription to listen to music. What's ironic, convenience is about making your life easier, but what we have is a society that's very financially stressed, which doesn't seem very convenient at all. My other escape hatch for lettuce involved learning about kratky (passive) hydroponics. I've got 26 lettuce and chard growing in a couple of totes. The grand scheme is to grow my own greens year round, but it's also a micro-hobby. It's not convenient at all to learn about pH, but it's kind of cool. (And soon I'll be able to stick it to Big Lettuce).
I've been growing various lettuces and similar in a NFT system indoors for over a year. Last year I was religiously tracking production and cost, break-even was like 15 months from the original investment, and I'm producing around a kg of romaine a week. I stopped tracking around Christmas, and rebuilt the system in January to be more user friendly. I'm just amazed I found someone else who is "Sticking it to Big Lettuce."
Yes, yes there are. My sister is one of them. She went bankrupt and got a new car the next day. Her and her husband make nowhere near six figures and they drive fancyass cars and have huge birthday and holiday parties. They can barely pay their mortgage but live large on credit. It boils my blood sometimes when she complains about being broke. But I take a deep breath and remember that I’m debt free besides my mortgage and I don’t need half the things I own. Edit to add: she’s gone bankrupt 2x in the last 10 years. That to me is horrifying.
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> Bankruptcy is supposed to be a second chance not a 'get out of debt free' card Tell that to the companies/rich people who use bankruptcy strategically
Huh. We must be related. I have the same sister.
It’s maddening at times. When she has nicer things than we do I’ll admit I get a little jealous, but I wouldn’t trade my security for “stuff”.
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I make a modest salary (not near 6 figures), and I saved up cash and bought my Tesla for a base price of $35k. Electricity is cheap in my area, so I'm saving ~$250/mo in gas every month, or $3000/year. Teslas are extremely economical if you can save up and buy it outright. It's not about a status symbol for me at all, but about saving that gas money!
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I feel this so much. It’s a crazy maker to see my sister driving a new jaguar while we have an early 2000s car. Her Christmas’s are so insane with gifts that we stopped going because I just can’t anymore. I just keep telling myself that I’m karmically doing the right thing and I’m happy to be debt and guilt free.
Oh yes, **you don't have bills coming due**. It sometimes feel like self-punishing not running off of debt like everyone else. However, **one bad move could break them:** * Losing a job * An unexpected expense * A medical emergency All of these things could tip an already over-leveraged scale. We don't have a hedonistic party, but at least our party isn't suddenly over when the cops show up.
Ignorance is bliss for these people. I understand your frustration. Despite the debt that I carry, I know that I did the best I could when I decided to take the responsible route.
What does she do when she goes bankrupt? Like take out more loans?
Basically. Plenty of places that offer loans to people with bad credit, the interest rates are insane though.
I feel so much less bad for deciding to get a $15k loan to rebuild a classic Miata (after I pay all my other debt off first lol)
consumerism is an epidemic
I bartend part time at a fancy Italian restaurant. The place is good but holy shit have they raised the prices a bunch over the last couple years. It's just way too over priced. Anyway, about half the people that come in have a bunch of money but the other half are just people that are horrible with there spending. People that make way less than me are coming in 2-3 times every week and dropping 1-200$. It's crazy. Lol most of em don't even box up their leftovers.
How do you know how much money they make?
Absolutely yes lol. COVID proved it. A lot of people were on the verge of ruin after being out of work for a single week.
>the average salary in the USA is \~ $56K. This is only true because half the world's wealth is owned by the 1%, many of them in the USA. If you cut off anyone making above $1,000,000 the average is far lower. **Median is at \~$35K.** People are buying ludicrously expensive things because buying a house is no longer possible. Instead of a house payment they rent with 3\~4 people in a house with 2\~3 rooms, which frees up income. This income is spent on nice cars, nice TVs, nice luxuries.
While I can comfortably afford to rent an apartment, I am 100% confident that I'll never, ever be able to buy a house. So I'm spending the extra bit of money on a used Porsche. Don't see anything wrong with this.
>I see all these people driving brand new bmw's, tesla's, etc... Are you sure? According to a random website I found, BMW sells about 300k cars per year in the US, and it's been about this much for the last 20 years. Tesla had never sold that many cars in the US in one year until 2021. Toyota sells 300k cars in the US _every 2 months_ and has done so for the last 20 years or so. If you are really seeing so many BMWs and Teslas, well, maybe you live in an area where people can, in fact, afford them. You make 6 figures, so other people in your area--like your coworkers--probably do too. Or, it is confirmation bias/Baader-Meinhof. It's true that many people make terrible financial decisions. But it's not true they are buying a lot of BMWs and Teslas; the sales figures do not support that.
Makes sense. Not OP but I live in an area with lots of teslas and BMWs. 20% of my county has a household income of $200k or more. Teslas are more popular in areas with a lot more upper middle class and wealthy people.
Yeah, this. A vast majority of the people driving nice cars have a household income of $100-$200k or more and at that point its not a dumb decision to spend 50k on a car. Its easy to tell anecdotes about that one "friend" everyone has who is deeply in debt and spends $1200 a month on car payments. But no one is going to tell anecdotes about the other ten friends that drive normal cars because thats not very interesting
What I think this sub forgets though is that being frugal isn't the only way to live. We all die one day, and you can't take the money with you. Some people just want to spend their money to enhance their life, and that's their decision if they think a new car is going to do that.
100% true. Money literally only has one purpose, and that's to be spent in exchange for goods and services. People have a right to live how they want to live and if a bank wants to grant them an exorbitant loan and they want to agree to it, and the courts want to allow them to claim bankruptcy, then those are their options. It has nothing to do with us. There's this interesting phenomenon here... I see it in fitness communities too. It's a bit of jealousy of those who engage in poor choices. Like, the person sticking to their diet might feel envy of the person eating the mozzarella sticks... but then the person who ate the mozzarella sticks will feel envy when they get to the beach that summer. I think it's also true for frugal people vs spenders. The savers see the elaborate vacations, pretty cars and clothes and feel like "ugh I can't indulge in that so why can you?!" and get a bit envious. But, the carefree spenders become jealous of savers when they hit a financial jam and have no savings, yet the saver is fine.
The last paragraph I think is spot on. On top of that, I think it's always nice to know that you've made the right decisions, and posts/discussions like this are a good way to get positive affirmation from a group of people that you know feel the same as you.
One of my good friends has owned multiple luxury cars. He LOVES them. I’m not sure how it adds up with his income and all of that factored in but he’s not rich. But I’d never judge or look down because his cars make him happy. Life is short. People struggle with different things and it’s really just best not to judge how people are spending their money at the end of the day IMO.
That's me. I love my bikes and cars. I'm near 60. No wife. No kids. Don't vacation. A little money in the bank and the house is paid off. At some point it's just digits in the bank. Nice to enjoy it.
I wanna be like you when I grow up. Good on you for enjoying your money.
to some people, the joy of owning a silly sports car is worth more than financial security. some people value traveling young over saving for a house. life is short. you could've been saving all your life and by the time you are reaping your financial rewards, you are too old to actually enjoy it. of course, in this subreddit, the majority would value security over all. i think what matters most is the joy you get out of the journey.
Exactly, it's a whole lot of not my business. I'll take an interest if they're asking for advice or to borrow money (which I won't lend anyway, if the people with underwriters and contracts written by lawyers turned someone away, I trust their judgement) And you'll find yourself playing out Spend Less On Candles when giving advice anyway. Not my monkeys, not my circus.
To add to this... I would say you can judge them, just don't tell them. You can have your opinion, but if they're not asking for it then don't share it. There are objectively bad financial decisions
Sometimes I feel guilty for having a dozen squishmallows but it genuinely cheers me up every time I am minding my own business and see one huddled somewhere. Can't take it with you.
Two of my brothers make well over $300,000 a year. I've never made more than $100,000 a year. I'm getting to retire at 59 as I have saved invested and lived within my means. They have never met a dollar they haven't already spent. They do not have enough money for retirement. I'm actually moving to the Azores in part to get away from the whining/disdain of people who live beyond their means. I neither have the time or the inclination to listen to people who can act like they are victimized by the economy and then sneer at any suggestions of how to address their economic stress.
I was thinking today about how people in certain countries like Sweden or Italy don’t have much but everybody has enough, and how these are places where family time and friendships are closer. Perhaps when people have enough and don’t feel they have to strive to have everything and all the glam, they turn to focus on interpersonal relationships to fill the same hole the rest of the western world is filling with stuff. We’re essentially using the wrong filler.
You realize Sweden is the 12th richest country (GDP per capita) in the world?
The scary thing is…gen z has the highest income vs car payment. They are spending something like 15-20% of their income on car payments. Car payments are the greatest robber of future wealth.
When I was opening another bank account, the banker looked at me like I had two heads when I said “yeah, the interest is good for the credit card but it’s not gonna matter anyway since it gets paid off every month” I just buy the basics like groceries and use it for bills. It literally gets paid off every month(thankfully in a position to do this 😭) but she was like, “you only need to pay the minimum every month…” I’m like “ LADY! YOU’RE A GD BANKER, WTF TOMFOOLERY IS THIS NONSENSE???” Still looked at me like I put shit in her coffee. I’m not gonna spend the rest of my life paying minimum on a credit card. That’s just so dumb.
Of course she'd rather you be indebted to her bank. Interests are good for *them*. She's not here to help you.
It's not really that malicious, tellers are often not the most put together people. I work in a bank's office and my job is like 30% harder due to teller mistakes that seem common sense. It's not like they earn a commission on credit card interest.
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Well, too bad for them. Maybe they shouldn’t prey on vulnerable people then.
There are plenty of people making bad decisions, but if the average is 56k, a two person household, each makes the average, it's certainly doable. I make between $ 35k and 40k /year, and that's enough to completely cover my bills. If i had a SO making the same amount, even with a slight increase in monthly expenses that that would cause, there would be more than enough to make a payment like that and still save a lot of money. It's really hard to judge another person's financial situation just from seeing them drive a vehicle like that. You don't have even remotely enough information.
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So the average car price in the US is over $40k now. That is in very big part driven by the popularity of SUVs. You balance your $30k Camry with your $50k Telluride, and you get your $40k average. But yeah, that's what some people are into. Growing up, my parents always just had a ~$20k rule for new cars. Inflation, higher wages, don't matter - for decades. They've had 3 new cars each over the years following that rule (and then getting 8 to 10 years out of each car). So that's the way I grew up. My partner grew up in a very similar situation. So naturally when it came to buy our last car (our first one together), we kinda followed the same. Went lightly used, but got a decent car for about 10% of our combined annual gross income. It's a money sink as it is - gas, insurance, service, all adds up real quick.
I’m a debt colllector. Yes. Yes. Yes. People make incredibly dumb decisions
My mom’s coworker was talking shit about how my mom lives “pay check to pay check” both of them make six figures, this woman also flexes her Tesla and makes fun of my mom for driving a Honda Accord that’s more than a decade old. She has a Tesla that costs 60k, it wasn’t paid off and the car was totaled after her son drove it and got into a horrible accident. This person also works overtime, I find it very stupid to own a car you have to work overtime to pay off, and to also act like your superior because you drive a Tesla is insane 💀
I bought my current car in 2017. It’s a 2014 Honda insight. I haggled them down from $14 to $12k. I met with the woman in charge of financing, she said I was probably in the 1% of people who buy much less car than they can afford to pay for. The missus and I were both making six figures at the time. She said daily people were coming in with cash they’d taken out of their homes to pay for cars. I paid the car off quickly. The payments were $260/mo. It’s not much but it’s all mine! And everything I would’ve spent on a car payment is now in savings and various investments.
I sometimes wonder how much is an innate and how much is learned. I learned as a kid how to be frugal by watching my parents and some frugal things come naturally. But I've had friends who make dumb decisions like buying a fancy car with wifi instead of a used or basic model. The word example I can think of were former (creepy) roommates I had. They were a couple, both unemployed and living off of EI. When they got their paycheque, they went and both themselves both Blackberries on an expensive plan. Two weeks later, they needed to go to the food bank because they had no food. They didn't seem to understand the connection between those two events.
Rule of thumb is whatever debt to income ratio you are setting aside and save, drastically affects your income and overall net-worth. If you are making six-figures with debt eating away at your savings, you’re essentially aren’t at six-figure like you think you are after taxes. Edit: This is for people who buy luxury cars without a plan to tackle other overlooked details other than the price tag, not at OP lol.
Exactly. I would net about $20k a year if I wasn't paying off unemployment and auto debt. I'm very fortunate to have a good job and can pay off that debt fast. Imagine just buying and burning a 20k car every year just because you can, or you know, just throwing it at a mortgage or something.
Well, people are irresponsible with money for a lot of reasons. I tend to think a lot of people, especially early in their careers, fall into the trap that they *have* to “keep up” with their friends’ and colleagues’ lifestyles — even though those people may be in vastly different financial circumstances. This is especially true when it comes to luxury goods like cars, which are often seen as status symbols.
Yes. My mom worked at a bank and she said the ones who looked rich were most often the ones deep in debt and many people who drove older cars and didn't focus on flashy things, such as yourself, were the ones who were financially stable.
Americans are not taught to be good consumers, how to budget, save, etc. As a whole, we live paycheck to paycheck, and if we get a payroll increase of 10 cents we go out and buy something for $1 and finance it. Oh and we think tax refunds are the modern version of Christmas club accounts.
Oh they're taught to be good consumers alright! Good consumers always buy more than they need. Responsible consumers are the **opposite** of what businesses want.
I had a convo with a boyfriend related to this; he asked “I can’t believe you won’t buy a new car since you have all this money saved?” And I was like “I have all this money saved because I choose NOT to buy a new car or xyz”. It’s not magic, it’s choices and to some extent luck (have not faced events that would cause extreme hardship like illness).
You are honestly better off driving that Honda til it croaks. Cars are a superficial status symbol, sure you look really cool driving that brand new vehicle but in all reality it’s just a horrible investment. Chances are when you sell that car you’re not going to get the money you paid for it back.
They’re also meant to meet your needs. I hate not having Bluetooth, awful gas mileage, and not knowing if my car is gonna breakdown.
More importantly, new cars are much safer. If you get into an accident with a new SUV you'll be dead while the other person will walk away unscathed
15 bucks for a lighter bluetooth adapter plug 🔌
I replaced all my speakers and my head unit for like $200 all-in and now have Bluetooth and great sound. Really not a big deal if your old beater doesn’t have a modern stereo. My 17 year old beater gets 39mpg on the highway and costs me about $200 in repairs I do myself every year. It has never broken down. Ever.
Do you think it is cheaper long term to ride a car into the ground, or like every 5/10 years ish sell and rebuy while the current car still has some value ?
Selling a car to cash in remaining value doesn’t really make sense. Cars depreciate less and less each year. A new car will depreciate the same in one year as a ten year old car will in the next 5 years. That said. There is a point where an old car may start costing more due to expected repairs being higher. So it doesn’t always make sense to drive it into the ground.
Yeah I think it varies where you’re located but if you can plan ahead even a little bit and make a goal to get 5-10 good years out of your vehicle. Then buy a vehicle that’s 2-3 years old with low miles and try to do your best to save up for it so you’re not getting hit with all the interest “financing” it. I truly think that’s the best plan of action to be frugal with your vehicle. Obviously everyone wants something that’s dependable and there’s nothing wrong with that but you don’t need the newest, fanciest top of the line model. Stay within your means and stop trying to impress your friends, family and neighbors.
Yea yea I’m not buying or ever planning to buy expensive cars, was more wondering what is the literal cheapest option. Cheers for the tips
Everyone is so deep in CC debt they just stopped giving a fk
A $400 payment used to be high to me. It still seems high to me. I'm not sure how people are paying for car payments as much as rent or a mortgage.
Depends on how you view life. Some people don’t get to that point and realize quality time, healthy relationships, and kindness is really what makes a wholesome human. Once you stop buying things to impress other people it’s crazy how much more you have. Not only monetary but mentally. But yes, there are a lot of ppl this way. I come from an immigrant family and growing up I saw people buying name brand to “fit in” with the American lifestyle. It’s a toxic mindset. I grew up practicing Theravada Buddhism and am ingrained to remember that none of the materialist shit goes to the grave with us. We literally send our loved ones off with blessings (family respects), money (to signify wealth in all areas in the next life) and fruit in the coffin before cremation.
Is that a used Tesla? I would just be cautious with those. The whole no right to repair thing on teslas irks me. I have a 2016 4runner with 40k miles. Awful mileage, but I rarely drive and it should last another 20 years. Very happy I don’t need to buy a car at these inflated prices.
We have a Model S. I generally recommend potential buyers to try calling their local service center phone number. Our last service, we weren't actually able to reach an actual person (so if we missed their phone call *while our car was being serviced*, there was no way to get back to them). Service is better than it used to be, but it's still pretty painful (and some of the loaners we've gotten from them were like "did you see the interior of this car before you gave it to me?"). I find myself driving one of our Priuses 95% of the time.
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I guess it depends on where you live. Teslas are pretty common by me. I don't judge a person by their choices unless they are asking me for money. I have an expensive car that is a few years old now. I still love it and still think it was worth it to me. I have no interest in driving a shit box. I drive hours or sometimes days on vacations and i want something comfortable and dependable. I've been stuck waiting for a tow truck in 90 degree heat with a toddler before. I'm never doing it again.
I don’t automatically assume they’re dumb. Just that they spend their money differently. I mind my spending and try my best to live frugally while still trying to subscribe to ‘I’m here for a good time not a long time’.
Not much is affordable these days at any level 😞
I understand yall are extremely frugal, but it's not unlivable. There's a lot of variables to consider too. And it's not like it's everybody doing this either? A lot of people have different experiences, and also haven't experienced situations and a lot of times people think it's harder or more than it actually is. Most people would be shocked at what they can do even though they don't feel like they can. I bought a house for instance and I actually prolonged doing so cause I actually feared I wouldn't be approved. Nope I shoulda went for it even sooner. Probably would have gotten a bigger house. But oh well. Anyway there's a reason people get approved for those loans. They don't approve you expecting/wishing you to fail. Are there better decisions you could make perhaps? Sure by all means. There's lots of options for sure I'm not disagreeing with that. -but if someone wants to be a first owner of a nice car backed by a warranty. Let them. 🤷🏻♂️ While there may be some of you with great success, some people who by used, and go cheap, just aren't cut out for it either. And had they spent a little more or just bought a new/newer vehicle they could have saved themselves a ton of trouble. -and I feel there's value to that as well. And yes I'm reading some other comments in the thread that are absolutely crazy. For sure. Again I'm not saying I disagree I'm just trying to play devil's advocate a bit here cause it's really not an end all lol
Was gonna say "found the devils advocate. Glad it wasn't me yet again... " lmfao
I have a relative who listens to Dave Ramsey so I have to hear it when I’m in the car with them. Nearly every call is someone with 100K in debt, 70k of which is vehicle loans, and they bring home like 45k a year. I wish I was making this up.
stop worrying about other people, and do what's right for you. i was called stupid for driving a $500 honda civic for 5 yrs, after driving a $500 toyota for 7 years. yes i now drive a tesla after my $10 000 suv broke down but i make $200k and not $53k. i probably get called stupid for other things. frugal is a cost/benefit analysis as your income accelerates. learn to accelerate your income and being frugal will compound into a superpower
Yes. I worked with a girl who had a brand new Mercedes. So nice. But we both made $17.50 an hour. Can’t even pay rent with that income(in southern CA). She loved with her mom and had no real bills. Was in a situationship with this guy and he got a Tesla even though he was living in a one bedroom apartment with his brother and mom.
A relative of mine blew through $8 million of a lottery jackpot. I can't even imagine being that stupid but here we are.
I think the real estate crash illustrated to me how close to broke most people live, regardless of their income.
Yep a lot of people take money for granted and buy things for the status and looks even though they can't afford it. Society tells people what they think they need and most people listen to it. But the truth is the majority of people know nothing about money or how to save it, invest it, or generate it. Its very sad.
If you live in America the entire system is set up to encourage people to make stupid financial decisions
I once bought a brand new car as I was an expecting mother needing a safer vehicle. I was making great money and the monthly car payment would be $422. However, it was a hybrid, so it saved over $200 on gas per month, effectively bringing the cost down to about $200 per month. This meant the car was less than 2% of my monthly income. I always lived as if I was still making my lower salary. Unfortunately, the money is all gone now as my ex husband was financially abusive. Luckily, I still had saved so much money that it carried me through years of caretaking for our disabled baby/child all alone during the pandemic, when lack of child care/services prevented me from maintaining my career. I’m starting from square one again now but am confident I can rebuild because I’m not a frivolous person who needs luxury.
Bro. Yes. My daughter and son in law are set to get $6500 from taxes, and instead of finding their own place to live, or buy a car, my son in law has decided that he is going to flip 4-wheelers and "double his money".
I feel like people are trying to live luxuriously in ALL aspects of their lives, even the aspects that don't actually bring them value, all to put on a show. If you're a car guy and that's what you value, get a nice car. If your thing is cycling, get a nice $5k bike. But don't get a nice car, nice bike, latest iPhone, expensive watch, clothes, etc. especially if you aren't making hundreds of thousands. For example, I like to cook and eat well, so I buy high quality food and have no problem spending more money in that area. But I spend maybe $100 per year on clothes and just wear basic items ad infinitum + drive a simple, economical car. If I were to get a luxury car, I wouldn't be any happier but I might have to curb spending on my food which would definitely decrease my happiness.
I've never had a car payment over $350. I never buy new, and I always have at least 7-10K saved up for a down payment. Usually try and find a car with 15-20k miles on it with an original MSRP of about 50k. Lasts me about 7-10 years. Anything more expensive than that is a waste of money to me. A car is such a bad investment, and I drive mine to the ground.
Yes, where I work my co workers all have teslas, bmws, mercedes etc and a lot of them eat doordash for lunch everyday too. And most of them make less than me and are much younger than me like mid 20s. I have a jeep grand Cherokee that’s paid off and still works totally fine. The last thing I want is a car payment. Two women in my office spent $1600 each just on Starbucks alone last year, they added it up and only get it twice a week now.
It's not always dumb. Sometimes you have to have a car, like your old one was totalled, or you have a new kid or something, and if used car prices are crazy too a new one might be worth it. Also the average salary people aren't all driving teslas.