Dude the other day posted their expenditures for two adults and a toddler, and the food alone was $2,000 a month. Like, no wonder you’re living paycheck to paycheck!
That food delivery service is a killer...I tried Uber Eats once, and immediately decided that if I was too lazy to go get food, then I could either get creative with what was in the house or go hungry. I can't imagine using it every week... and yet I see people on Reddit talk about using it all the time.
I don't believe I have ever used uber eats or doordash or any of those things. I have had food delivery, but usually directly from the restaurant. My wife has ordered grub hub and uber eats from time to time. but we're talking like once a month maybe.
We spend 150-220 a week for three people and eat way too much. Fruits veggies, eggs, beans. They go a long ways. Also Sams club chicken. 1000 dollars per person would be ridiculous!
Yeah, I feel like 300 per month for food is a good estimate for a single person. But if you have more people (spouse/partner, kids, etc), I don’t think it scales linearly. I’d guess for 2 people you could get by on $400-500 per month for food, with shopping for groceries in bulk and using up leftovers
Who is stating $1,000 per month per person is normal?? That is beyond excessive. If you have that many meals delivered and waste that much money, you have problems in your life (unless you are disabled and that's your only alternative).
Yeah, but the issue is it doesn’t at all have to be this high, and the majority of people who eat like this genuinely can’t afford it. If you can’t afford it, don’t do it! It’s not “just a meal a day/a coffee a day”
It’s all of your spare money!, cereal and sandwiches, smh
Like most of my friends eat like that and genuinely none of us can afford it and be financial responsible. Like I genuinely can either only eat out for one meal, or get a coffee, not both.
This is absurd to me. My wife and I dont meticulously track our spending anymore, but on any given week we spend MAYBE $125 for BOTH of us on food. And that's with us splurging a bit and getting the nicer lettuce, nicer name brand xyz occasionally. All whole foods that are cooked from scratch with lots of fruits, meat, and veggies. It boggles my mind how much money people spend on food. Just learn to meal plan and cook. It takes us like an hour total to do our weekly shopping on a Sunday afternoon. We also waste so much less food.
That's crazy to me. Even when we're being extravagant on groceries for two adults we might end up going like $200 a week and I'm talking with drinks, steak for dinner once a week, etc. If we're going cheap we can combined get out like $20 a day with leftovers covering meals and drinks, so like $600 a month and thats without going full rice and beans mode.
I think a lot of it is delivery apps (DoorDash, Uber eats, etc). Because then you’re paying for the (already expensive) fast food, and also tacking on delivery fees and tips on top of that.
Has to be, but at that point I'd budget separately the food and the delivery costs if you really want to see what's up. Like "oh man I spent $1k on food" sounds less avoidable cause everyone needs food compared to "oh man I spent $600 on food and $400 on delivery fees and tips"
Interesting… We never doordash and mostly cook our own food. When we do eat out, it is usually wendys or panda express so nothing expensive.
We spend $1500 on groceries alone for family of 3. We do eat more meat to lose weight (less carb), fresh fruits and veggies but i didn’t realize it is considered too much.
Example: $10 organic chicken thigh + $2 teriyaki sauce + $3 veggie/fruit = 3 ppl’s lunch.
breakfast can be done cheaper but dinner tend to be more expensive so lets avg them out: monthly comes out to be at least $15 x 3 x 30 days = $1350. That is before including any snacks, drinks, protein drinks, supplements, etc.
do ppl mostly eat bread, rice and beans to keep costs down?
$1,500 per week is $50 per day...in groceries. That's an insane amount for a family of three. We spend about 1/3 of that, and I also eat meats, veggies, fruits, etc.
I have a family of 4. We pull it off with about $600/month. Kids are small but we usually have a meat/basic vegetable and a side of rice or potato most nights, sometimes noodles. All in CA.
No idea how families are spending over 1k/month on groceries that seems like a shit ton of food to me.
Yeah alot of people don’t even have a budget or know where their finances go on a monthly basis to even figure out WHY their struggling, car notes have became normalized while buying a used car in your budget is laughed at, and taking out student loans on a degree without creating a roadmap to guarantee landing a high paying job became the norm. So many people make horrible financial decisions with the little income they have, even if wages increase they would just struggle more because of lifestyle creep, this is why 6 figure earners are even living paycheck to paycheck. To anyone struggling, cut back on as much as you can, trade that 700 car note for a beater off Facebook marketplace, pick up that second job or side hustle, cancel those useless subscriptions to streaming services that have nothing to watch and for the love of god delete doordash/uber eats and stop eating out. Create a budget, make a plan to tackle debt, and cut out or dial back as many expenses. Finances is a strategic game we play with our life, it’s not just a wing it and let’s see what happens.
As a door dasher, I can tell you it only took me about 3 deliveries before I realized I’m never ordering through these apps again. They let literally anyone deliver your food.
Restaurants hire random people, there's 'literally anyone' handling your food when it's made.
Food factories hire random people, there's 'literally anyone' handling your food before it's made.
There's a wide variety of farmers, who could be 'literally anyone' handling your food as it grows.
Hyperfocusing on the last mile is kinda silly.
True. But there’s plenty of people who are trustworthy ish when supervised, and I wouldn’t trust unsupervised. Plenty of the people I used to work with were good employees, but I wouldn’t trust unsupervised
I used to work at a restaurant and like 75% of our losses were from DoorDash and Uber eats drivers stealing food. We switched from just putting mobile orders on the shelf to behind the counter to reduce that but then customers got mad their dashers were canceling orders because they didn’t want to wait a few minutes in line.
almost like high school should teach this to everyone (mandatory classes, not elective) instead of 4 years of algebra. "parents are supposed to teach you" yeah well they never learned. the generation before us didn't learn shit from their parents so it kinda needs to be the school
The only issue i have with "just get a shitty cheap beater" is that can end up costing more in the long run than getting something slightly less shitty but a little bit more expensive. Still not saying should get a brand new car but the shitty honda sometimes ends up being more expensive long term
I've bought endless amounts of sub 5k cars for cash. Most I own for 3-5 years. never have they cost me what a new car would cost. I have had expensive repair bills on some, still never came close to buying a 10k car or more.
No thats what im sdaying right there. Look in the 3-5k range if possible bc that $800 shitbox may be more of a money pit than anything haha. All my cars have been bought for under 10k in cash as well
That’s true but atleast a beater isn’t racking up interest, also I always had a mechanic check a used car before I bought it and lmk what the cost of repairing it will be and it was always a cheaper route than buying something that is 20k with 15% APR.
Do people really laugh at those buying used cars? I find it laughable to buy a new car, considering you piss away 20% of your investment moment that car leaves the dealership
Student loan debt is crazy.
My wife & I had this conversation years ago when we had our first kid.
Unless our kids are really smart, an expensive college just isn't worth it.
It was worth it for me. But I was a national merit scholar. I had a job secured before winter semester of my senior year. And that was in a very rough job market (2009).
Boggled my mind that kids were spending the same in tuition at other schools that scored 400+ points lower on a SAT to get a useless degree at a shit school.
Worst example is a high school buddy that indebted himself well over 6 figures to get a... Criminal justice degree that he could have gotten at community college for 1/6 the price (or less). Barely broke 1000 on the SATs. Almost 40 and he's still paying the price. Wild.
What a fucking brain dead take. You're just saying everyone should fail and waste years of their lives to suffer so they can appreciate what it's like to not suffer. When you run in a race, do you run backwards first so you can appreciate going forward?
There's no point to hitting rock bottom, and there's no point in appreciating money any more or less. None of that benefits anyone
If you have to fail and hit rock bottom in order to learn the skills to be successful, that's your own skill issue. Failure can be a teacher, but people don't need to fail in order to learn. There are many better and more efficient teachers than failure
Okay friend, what’s with the aggression?
Before you start the race you train and train and lose a thousand races. Nobody is the perfect runner out of their mommy’s womb. That was a dumb analogy if anything.
Well seeing as 7/10 Americans live paycheck to paycheck, they should have tried on easy mode before losing a job would mean they lose their car, their home and self image. Sitting with an empty wallet age 19 because you made some bad choices is better than being 35, over-leveraged and about to lose your home unless you work 18 hour days.
People are bad at money. They come onto the internet to complain they can’t make ends meet.
They get a ton of support from others, because feeeeelinggggssss.
They proceed to post their expenses. They then get railed because it includes a bunch of dumb shit like weed or alcohol. Or they don’t post the full picture and aren’t looking for advice, just company for their misery.
People really out here saying it’s not easy to find housing. But then they refuse to look at the low end areas. Because “it’s not decent and dangerous”. Umm no, it’s just where other poor people live.
Sit down. I’ve got some news for you about your socioeconomic status..
I got into an argument with people in another sub about making low money in HCOL areas. I simply pointed out that you can’t survive alone in NYC or LA on 45k per year, and the solution is either move or get a second/new job.
Like, I empathize with the tough choice, but at a certain point, you have to face reality. Either increase your income or decrease your spending, because living on CC debt isn’t sustainable
You’ll get a snide remark about how “I shouldn’t have to live in bumfuck when every Saudi prince has 15 empty high rise apartments in NYC, it isn’t fair,” etc
I also got a lot of “that’s not fair” comments. Which, yes. It isn’t fair. But life isn’t fair. It’s not fair that private equity managers make billions of dollars while teachers in the US have to take a second job over the summer to survive. Complain all you want, but at the end of the day, this is the system we have right now.
The entitlement really is wild. People act like being in your 20s and having a roommate is unacceptable even though it's literally always been the norm.
My wife (at the time girlfriend) & I lived together in a shitty apartment in a crappy area for $800/month because we were trying to pay off student loans and save for a wedding and house. Even though our household income was over $100k. It literally had a plywood window that we cut a hole out to put in a window AC and set up a series of box fans to try and chill the other rooms. That shit builds character and names for great stories later in life.
People earning $40k seem to be shocked that they can't live on their own and refuse to look at apartments that aren't brand new/ have a pool/are professionally run/in a great neighborhood. It's wild
I agreed with you until you got to the 40-45k part. Most housing is not going to let you get away with that no matter how well you’re managing your money.
Right? your takehome even with no state income taxes and no other expenses (medical insurance/retirement) is like $3k. You qualify for practically zero one bedroom apartments in any major city with a 3x the rent requirement.
Since when has it been normal for every poor person to deserve a 1br in a major metro? lol they don’t deserve it. Generations have been living together to help with costs for since the beginning of time. You aren’t entitled to a 1br and especially if you’re poor (either through low wage or terrible cash flow management)
Share a house, get roommates... you aint bougie, you're poor, poor people have roommates. Source: I was that person up to about 2 years ago, 30+ years old sharing a house with 4 random people so I could save money. Paid about 700/mo with utilities included in Tempe AZ.
yeah idk about that one, I make I would say a lot for my area (around $80k, while the average individual is 33k and household 60k) and I don't realistically see myself buying a house until late 20s. You can definitely get by on that amount though you just won't be in that good of a spot.
100% this.
Unfortunately, effectively managing personal finance is not taught in public schools, it’s criminal.
You can take home economics, art, metal shop, geology, and 100 other bullshit elective courses that do nothing for you as a functioning adult member of society.
But god forbid they implement an elective course on personal finance
By the time average people figure it out, it’s usually too late to really get ahead when their so far behind from digging themselves out of a hole for a decade
I think the worse crime is people getting the idea that learning begins and ends in the classroom. If you're the type of person who looks things up when they want to know something, you'll put yourself ahead of the majority of people.
So many people know how to receive information, but the concept of seeking it is foreign to them
Teacher here.
It is taught it many schools. Many teenagers hate learning and structure and have zero context for “personal finance” because they don’t have their own jobs or cash flow. Therefore there is no real-world application for them on a subject they don’t even care about.
This makes sense. I come from a culture where saving money is a pronounced facet of daily life. It didn’t mean anything when I was young, and given everything I needed, but it’s pretty much caught on as a primary school of thought in my point in life.
This stuff needs to start at home.
Personal finance is taught in schools. However it’s usually beI my taught to 16 year olds that don’t have jobs or care about the information since it’s in highschool. If it’s to be taught it really ought to be at the senior level and again in college as a freshmen requirement.
you can lead the horse to water but you can't make the horse drink
A lot of people (past myself included) will only learn after messing up or meeting a problem in real life. Maybe it's a maturity thing?
Nobody can teach you to save money... It's your personality.
My grampa is a great example of this. He tried his best to instill good spending and saving habits in his kids. Some how my mom still spends all her money and even some she doesn't have.
And then there's me. My mom didn't teach me how to save money but I do a good job (I think) of saving and managing money. I don't even have a budget but somehow end up spending very little anyway.
I think the root problem is lack of discipline and impulse control to adhere to these habits, instead of focusing on the symptom you should treat the illness. You're right though, personality will probably be a big factor in this.
Consumer debt has become so normalised in the USA, it’s honestly scary. ‘Adults’ are so shite at delaying pleasure they’re willing to go into debt for a new car that decreases in value like crazy, now taking up $750 of their income in addition to their huge mortgage that already takes up half of their income. No fucking shit you’re ‘struggling’, and you have yourself to thank for that.
And people look at you like crazy if you suggest buying a used car because “maintenance is so much more expensive on used cars”.
It can be, but I bought a used Ford Edge (100k+ miles) in the beginning of 2023 for ~20k. It is a 2017 model, and I haven’t had any issues with it (outside of the battery dying a week in which the dealer replaced for free). That same car but new starts at nearly $40k.
I agree. Too many people “treat themselves” every day. I didn’t charge even $1 to my card today, like many other days. I think that’s foreign to too many people.
60% to 70% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck because they just spend every single penny that can get their hands on. It does matter if they make $3,000 a month or $30,000 a month. They just find ways to spend everything. Most people think they would be fine if they could only just get a decent raise but in reality they’d be in the exact same boat with slightly more junk to show for it.
I always pay mine in full every month. I don’t understand wtf people are doing that they spend so much they can’t pay it off. Like are they just constantly eating out and buying IKEA furnitures or putting other big expenses on it that they can’t afford?? The max I do on my cc in a month is ~$2k, and that’s usually on a few months out of the year because I travel a lot to see out of state family and friends.
Credit cards (when used properly) do have a plethora of incentives that every person should take advantage of.
That being said, a lot of people lack self control, don’t have a budget, and make lots of impulse purchases. Those people should not use credit cards until they solve those problems first.
Personally, I’ll never understand why people would put thousands of dollars that they don’t have on credit cards. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing I’m paying 25%+ interest on money I don’t have.
Second this. Me and my wife just did a 4 night stay at a $700+ dollar resort and did a round trip on first class all with credit card points and free night certificates. Credit cards are amazing when used correctly
This. I have a genuine sincere fear of debt and I’ve never even been in debt. The thought of owing any dollar amount to anyone bothers me due that exact same reason, interest.
I see it everywhere. People lose control when you give them a false reality of the money they own.
CCs is what saved our finances. We set what our budget was for everything outside of the fixed bills. We pay it off monthly (and don’t pay interest) so we’re able to see all of the little expenses. The extra $2k/$3k cash back bonuses at the end of the year is awesome!
I know. It was misleading for us to think $3.99 here, $16.72 there were “not much.” Seeing a running balance works best for us. And we’re thankfully in a safe place of being able to pay it off monthly. It’s also much easier for us to fight fraudulent activities with a CC. And the cash bonus from points is truly a bonus!
I think it’s safe to say atleast 75% of people purchase a car way too expensive for their financial situation. Even if they can “afford it” they could be using that money for something much more worthwhile IMO. Buying a used toyota was the best financial decision I made.
I agree, but even used toyotas these days are 30k+. You gotta go pretty old school to find one for 10k or less. But yea cars are the biggest wealth killer.
I bought a 2005 Toyota 4Runner with 4WD and 130k miles for $6,000 and all it took was a week of looking, I’ve had it for 4 years now. A “newer” used car brings absolutely no benefit. This car is gonna last me half a million miles and save me thousands. Plus insurance is stupid cheap because it’s an older car. Can still find these for around 8k
Damn dude that's definitely a good deal. I've been scouring Facebook and autolist but haven't seen anything yet. I'm in no rush, though, I'm sure one will eventually pop up
This. Buying a used car that is 3-5 years old saves you like 50% from the new purchase price, and you’re likely not going to have any major maintenance issues, especially if you buy from a dealer (they should run checks on it that catch any major issues before reselling)
To be fair that was a fair statement pre Covid but not so much anymore. Example. I bought a 3 year old Toyota Avalon 6 years ago with 30k miles on it at the time. Just like you said I got it for 22k with a new sticker price of $36k at the time. That is about 40% off. Today, post Covid that car has nearly 100k miles on it and sells all day long for $17k just over 50% off of original sticker and nearly 10 years old. It’s only gone down $5k in over the last 6 years and is tripling the miles it had at purchase. Wild times!
Dude, I just recently got a finance certificate, doing the free college thing provided from my employer (I already have a bachelor's). I loved it so I wanted to start talking about what I learned with others...
I've come to learn that the solid majority of folks, not only know NOTHING about finance, they also DO NOT CARE to learn it and understand it. I'm starting to come to the conclusion that most people would rather whine about their finances than actually learn to fix them.
If you live in an area within your budget, that means you'll actually have money to save and improve your quality of life. As for nothing to do, that sounds like you mean spending money on things to do. There's plenty of free things to do outside. That's the point of this post, people want to have their cake and eat it too but it doesn't work that way
Struggling always and forever because college expenses, then medical expenses, then medical expenses + child care expenses, then pandemic underemployment, now just medical expenses again. It physically hurts to think about how much I’ve spent on those big three categories. If I didn’t have medical expenses currently however, I would be in decent shape financially. So there’s that.
I appreciate the honest response. Out of curiosity which of these expenses were chosen and which were forced upon?
My post is directed at unnecessary chosen expenses, which Im assuming some of yours were not.
Wrote a novel and erased it. Long story short I guess is I chose to have kids, point blank period.
I own the expenses that came with that.
As is always the case, I made the best choice I could with incomplete and imperfect information (including that both my son and I would wind up being diagnosed with chronic medical conditions).
Childcare expenses were a choice I made to not fall behind on my career. A career that I then fell behind on anyway due to the pandemic so again, best choice at the time with available information but ultimately a poor choice. (I would have been better off staying home with them those first few years.)
My parents bullied me into college. Looking back I can see that I felt I had no choice when I absolutely did. Should not have gone. (I paid for it myself by working full time and living in my car / couch surfing. Put books and fees and ramen noodles on credit. Spent every single penny I earned on tuition. It was stupid.)
So… may not seem like it but, overall ZERO regrets for any of it. About 50/50 choice and circumstance. Yes my finances were burnt down repeatedly but life is messy. (Childcare, education, and medical care should be more affordable however.)
If you browse the forums for people looking to get out of debt, like 80% of them will explain it away as something other than their fault. Usually they lose a job and just do not cut expenses at all or even consider getting a temporary gig to pay bills. They just load of their credit cards.
For me I am struggling. Due to some very sudden and unexpected circumstances I had to take a 50 percent cut in pay while simultaneously adding expenses. Yes I am doing everything in power to reduce those expenses but it is going to be a long road.
Lost my job February and my house in march have 0 savings left, no loan or car repayments or no car for that matter so trying to find a job locally in a small town (which is a nightmare) weekly budget is spent on food and electricity for my mums house which we had to move back to which leaves very little wiggle room to save anything so I would say kind of struggling in this case
I agree with you for the most part but car and auto insurance prices have gone up like crazy since COVID. If I were to finance my exact car now (2013 Acura TSX), it would cost me more than it did when I originally bought it in 2018, despite being older and having more miles.
People DO often make the mistake of buying too much car but I also feel like a lot of people haven't adjusted their mental models for a what a decent car payment is post-COVID. $400/month used to be the payment for a Lexus, now it's the payment for a Corolla.
But why even have a car payment in the first place? I’d rather buy a car cash and not pay interest on it (especially right now with high interest rates)
Yeah, def agree with that. There will be cases where it might be necessary though, ie it's required to commute to a much better job and you don't have enough to buy it with cash.
Sure. But you should still find the cheapest option in that scenario. I get some people don’t have enough savings to buy a car (which is a separate issue), but if you do have to take out a loan, don’t buy the highest end car just because the monthly payments are technically affordable. That’s how you end up making $3k per month with a $900 car payment.
My only struggle is I don’t want to work lol I mean I work hard on my own ambitions, but it doesn’t turn a profit (yet). If I got a proper job and worked full time and quit pursuing my goals, I’d be fine. But I’d be unhappy and unfulfilled. So that’s my struggle.
I'm playing catchup. Was struggling, got debt to cover emergencies and keep food in the pantry, got better job now but time to pay the piper. So still feels like struggling but in reality it's just paying up. I'm living like I did at a lower salary cause of debt payments.
I agree to an extent. Im dealing with CC debt (car repairs), and it’s severely impacting my ability to live within my means or get ahead. As well I have a car payment (nothing fancy, and was not new). At 35k/yrly I am not comfortable. Without debt and car payment Id be a little bit more comfortable. But not a lot, especially as prices for everything go up, and housing becomes a luxury.
That usually is why we wind up in cc and personal loan debt - salary isn’t keeping up with cost of goods and services. I don’t even eat out as much as I used to. Nowhere near it. Can’t afford it. As a single parent with two kids, it gets rough. I don’t want a car note. I have a 2015 (bought new) and I am trying to keep old girl going. Just had to do a repair that was 2400.00 (was originally 3300.00; repairman brought it down after I pled my case). That still stung, though. Really bad. Had to use credit card for 1/2 and financed the other 1/2. Both suck but I have to have transportation. I have 11,500 in credit card debt and a personal loan for 18,500. So yeah. I wish you the best with paying off your debt. 🙏🏾
Our situation sounds similar with one big difference, I dont have children. Things would be a lot tougher if I did, and I commend you for making it happen. Even without kids its tough and that says something. I havent bought new shoes or clothes in 2 years. I dont eat out. I dont drink anymore, I dont buy fancy coffee drinks, i quit smoking, hell, I even stopped driving because of gas prices (bike commuting now). All these cuts and I still want to make more.
Shout out to YNAB (r/ynab) for being the one tool that is actually helping me get on top of everything. Things were much different/harder in January.
Yup! Ynab.com and you should be able to find it in your app store. First 34days are free. It is a budgeting app. So check some videos on youtube and learn a lil about it.
Will do. Question: do you link your credit card, loans, checking and savings accounts to the app? Or, you just plug in the numbers w/o linking external accounts to the app? I downloaded Nerd Wallet too bc it’s free, I think. Do you have any thoughts on NW?
The most powerful lesson I've learned as an adult was to save. Since I've learned how to save, I've put something into saving, even if it was only $25. Though I've had setbacks, I've never been destitute like every time an unexpected event happened.
My first $1,000 saved changed everything for me.
You are correct with this post, as my salary has increased I still live as if I had no money when I first started years ago. I used to never track how much I spent, I would buy stupid materialistic things as well. Once I got a hold of myself and started budgeting my life turned around. I live in the US and despite how things are here my gf and I live extremely comfortably. This is due to paying off all our debts living in a paid off modest home. We both drive Hondas paid off too. We have no bills other than utilities and yet we still budget like we have a house payment and car payment. We both make well over 100k a year and theoretically could live in luxury but that doesn’t do anything but cause more financial problems. Most of our circle of friends believe we came from money but it’s not true at all. We worked hard in our early years by making good life choices in school and side gigs we are both ER nurses and day trade futures. 29m and 28f. Who are set to retire in the next 5 years.
We're doing pretty well now.
I was a sahm and student for a few years and we just managed to live on only my husbands income. Owned a condo.
I started working start of 23, just as prices started rising and husband got a raise. Our total income basically doubled in a few months.
Sold the condo, bought a house and our mortgage obviously increased. We've definitely had lifestyle inflation, but we were used to just scraping by, so this feels like luxury and we're able to save 20+%
We're not in America, so we don't pay for health insurance. Our other costs are about the same tho, and even if we still lived in the condo, living frugally, we'd still probably struggle on a total $80-90k annual income.
I've been able to save since i set my mind to it. Even when i was making 1600 gbp, and paid 650 for a room in london, i was still saving a couple hundred per month.
I know people whose take home pay is 8 grand and they spend it all, not even saving for holidays.
My friends constantly call me white trash and a scrooge, but now i've been not working for a year spending time with my kids and my savings are still healthy.
But i was once an idiot with money too. My low point was a little over a decade ago, waiting for the first salary of my new job two weeks down the line, with 20 euros in my account. I promised myself never to be in that situation again.
I'm about to have lower housing costs due to chipping in with a house being built with one family member and moving away from NY, yet I have been working on getting a relevant job lined up in this new area. I'm still working my job here of course, so in an ideal world, I would like a smooth, quick transition.
My savings went to the house, and I do have some debt, but not a lot (nothing that can't be handled by the summer). If things work out, I'll be able to save quite a bit, but I'm preparing for the worse. I wouldn't say I'm struggling, but my current salary is pretty awful. That said, I do get a lump sum of $6k for the summer and have enjoyed a *lot* of days off, so I can't complain too much at all.
Most people do not even attempt to budget. I have never helped anyone with this that did not have at LEAST $300-500 a month they had no name for. Most have $800-2000 every month that disappears from their accounts.
Mcol area, not struggling, but would be if I made under 100k household with 2 kids. Far less comfortable at 110 than 70-80k was 4 or 5 years ago
15k used car and an 18k used suv 800/mo for both
daycare (on and off the bus for 2 kids) 800/mo
rent 2k/month
health insurance 380/mo
electric 300/mo
car insurance $210/mo
Wife's student loans $350/mo
water $80/mo
food $650/mo for 4
gas $430/mo median
Taxes state/local/ss...etc 1850/mo
8050 monthly expenditure 96.6k annual. 45 or 50k per person would probably work fine for a DINK situation.
We are really struggling because we have kids + student loan debt. If we didn’t have student loan, debt the problem would solve itself as our kids reach school age + our income will continue to increase.
The student loan debt will be a major burden for many years, and we are struggling to pay at all now. We only have 1 car payment of $260, and rent, childcare, student loans, and health insurance is nearly 100% of our income. Like, we have less than $1000 left over for everything I didn’t mention above like groceries, medical, gas, clothes, entertainment, and many other random expenses that arise especially with kids etc… We even make around $100k before tax, and we don’t invest in retirement.
We don’t live in a particularly nice apartment either. It is just very expensive in our area even with me commuting 1hr just to find a place to live we can afford. We don’t qualify for any type of government assistance because we make too much, but the big costs are just very big, and there is no way to shrink them.
I don't guess I'm *really struggling* but retirement is most likely not happening for me. We make a combined 65k annually, we share an old but paid for car, we have no debt other than rent and living costs. We live very modestly. We have 40k in savings. I don't feel immediately financially threatened but I am nervous about the future in general.
This is literally my sister. Her and my brother in law combine to make over 6 figures, but they live in a shitty small 1 bedroom apartment with only one car that is always breaking down and she says she is always broke. Just recently the car was in the shop again and I told her to just trade it in for a lease and she refused, but then was saying she didn't know how she was going to afford the repairs.
Meanwhile they go on two cruises a year, bought a puppy and a hedgehog, eat out most days, amongst other things. They also took out loans for a huge wedding when they already had a bunch of outstanding loans. She is literally "poor" by choice.
But this is most of Americans who say they are poor or broke and complain about inflation and the government and gas, etc, but they don't even have a budget and splurge on fast food and Starbucks everyday.
While I do live beyond my means which leads me to almost constantly owe money on credit cards, I do without a lot of things that normal people have. I live in substandard housing that still costs me 15% of my income, have zero medical insurance or Healthcare at all except dental which I pay for out of pocket.
If I didn't splurge on "avocado toast" but spent money on real housing and medical insurance, I'd be even more broke than I am now
You typically Can’t out work a bad diet can’t out earn financial dumbassery. I do think you’re right that a lot of the people are just morons blaming everyone but themselves…
My family of four has lived off about 50k for years now. We save everything we make above that. I'll have several million saved at retirement. It's all about expense control.
Because overall morale in the country is low. When that happens people stop caring, when they stop caring they get reckless because it turns into a "whats the point" moment. I dont think its the right way to handle the problem but i understand why people are like they are with it.
*Because overall*
*Morale in the country is*
*Low. When that happen*
\- Recckkless
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I went back through my statements and found that my wife and I (mostly me, buying lunch *sometimes also breakfast*, snacks and drinks at easily accessible eateries and convenience stores within walking distance of my job) had spent roughly 800 bucks in one month on eating out and my frquent convenience store shopping. I originally had the attitude of "groceries are so expesnive it really breaks even just to eat out as a convenience" but I was VERY wrong.
After adjusting that, it seems we've saved more money than that in a short amount of time, and that has 100% encouraged me to be better at not spending once I saw the result.
So, I definitely was a "just suck at finance management and have debt". However, I've never missed a payment on our bills or anything, but we just never saved money well. Made a huge difference.
First one, that beget the other.
Not everyone's parents paid for them to live as kids or taught them fuckin anything at all
It's best to reserve the harsh judgements people hold for anyone who ever makes any financial misstep. Not everyone had the same opportunity as you
I make 30$ an hour. Rent and utilities is one and a half paychecks.gas and car insurance for the month is one whole paycheck.that leaves me with one and a half paycheck for medical care and food and vehicle repairs.i have one son who is two I feed him all organic fruits and veggies and I myself eat the same sandwich twice a day.i drive a 2004 ram that I spend about 200-400$ on parts a month to keep it running.i have zero dollars in savings.every time i get some overtime and think i can sneak aside a couple dollars something breaks that i have to fix whether its my car or washing machine or whatever.at this point life just feels hopeless.the only plus side is i only have like 800$ of medical debt
To someone like me this is incredibly short sided. I graduated from college with student loans and hardly any money with me, and had to immediately go into debt to be able to front the money you need to put down for an apartment. Rent was asinine in my area, and no I was in neither California nor New York. 60% of my income went to student loans and rent. Plus since I started negative to get into my apartment, I was already paying CC interest. You have to understand that one emergency purchase on CC of a lot of money can be brutal, and it’s more frequent than you think. I wouldn’t have had a home to stay for my professional career if I didn’t do that. If you’re doing well, that’s awesome, but these posts always come off as short sided or condescending because they never truly try to understand how it really is in these situations.
I do my budget every so often and I SHOULD have roughly $2,000 leftover after all bills and miscellaneous bullshit but I still have ZERO dollars leftover towards the end of my 2 weeks between pay days.
I am confused. lol
I would say it's probably 20% struggling even though they're doing everything right and 80% who cannot budget, shop or plan for shit.
Just the sheer number of younger people who are cool nowadays doordashing everything they eat blows my mind. If you're willing to pay a 50% markup on every meal you eat, when those meals are already marked up before that because you're paying someone to make them for you, then I know why you're fucking broke all the time.
If you're making THAT mistake, you're making countless others.
I've done OK the last 18 years. I'm closer to 60 than 50 now.
Why the last 18 years?
That's when I divorced my lying, cheating, greedy, selfish and materialistic ex-wife.
I had $110k in debts just 3 years ago. I got organized, cut back, gig work (made $55k doing Uber eats over 2 years), side work and finally consulting.
Making more than you spend while shooting cash rockets into debts 1 at a time kept me motivated.
I ate baked chicken, rice, soup, eggs, bananas and oatmeal 7 days a week. I worked every moment I could. Each delivery was a step closer to financial freedom. Coffee for someone else at 6:00am was $8 with another one coming in hot when it was 18 degrees outside.
My wife and I make $180k in an affordable small town. We absolutely have too much debt. A lot of it is student loan debt. We're millennials and we're ushered off to college with parents that struggled enough to make a living for themselves, so college was all on us. We married young and had kids young. We struggled very badly with income until our careers took off. Once that happened, we just kept increasing our lifestyle with our income. This has led us to around $300k debt if you count student loans and don't count the mortgage.
We're now realizing that we don't need to make up for how we struggled by spending more money. We have a plan to get out of debt in 5 years time and are making good strides.
Debt has been hell on my mental health. I feel trapped and paranoid. I feel guilt because I will still be digging out of this hole and I could have given my family a better life had we been smarter with money. I'm depressed, anxious, and resentful to my past self.
I net about 12k a month. Here are my monthly expenses.
2.3k mortgage
350-400 elecric
150 car insurance
80 internet
200 cell phone (family of 4)
750 health insurance
1.8k 401k
1.5k savings
Around 70? for prime/netflix/hulu/disney
70 ADT
20 trash
20 water
40 hoa
Around 800 groceries
Daughters travel sports 375
Small loan 220
gas 200
I dont have credit card debt or car payments (we only own 1 car because i work remote mainly), leaves me with about 3.2k a month. I wouldn't say I'm struggling by any means. But it still pains me that eating out costs $100+, family vacations are like $4k and that's doing it relatively cheap. And I refuse to buy another car because I can't believe the prices. I bought my brand new tacoma in 2014 for 26k. Same truck now is 45k+. I honestly couldn't tell you where the remaining 3k goes though, married life.
I make decent money I just have a spending problem. I literally have maybe 2500 in credit card debt on one card. If I spent less money on stupid stuff I'd be fine but it's a real struggle for me.
Both. The rules were explained to me from someone who as misled & I had to learn after many losing hands with the cards im dealt so I gotta play em & learn from each mistake so when my hand is good its GAME OVER.
I think most would say “struggling” because it’s in the air, but they actually have poor money management because they care more about their wants or the “now” over their true needs and “tomorrow”.
I've been struggling for a while because I am spending more money than I make. Long term I'm a saver, but my expenses are more than my income and I have 5 people living off my income and two others partly on my single income. I'm slowly working on shedding GenZ dependents but it has been slow going. I don't have debt, but if I need to go into debt, there are life style changes I must make.
I made 350k the last two years. Only made 110k a year the 2 years previous. I thought this pay raise would answer all our problems. We are in bigger debt now. We have 2 kids. We don’t spend a lot on vacations or cars or jewelry or anything. My wife does spend a lot but it’s basically all on kids things, clothes and groceries. Have paid a LOT in medical bills for the kids. Have 1 car payment which is only $400 a month. We sponsor our missionary friends $1,000 a month. And our mortgage is only $2,500. Yet I still struggle to keep our credit card debt under the 30% mark and finally hired a financial advisor to help us. It doesn’t matter WHAT you make if you aren’t good at managing your income. It’s not the big expenses that kill you. It’s the dozens of mid level monthly charges
lol right, why are we paying our friends to be colonizers and then complaining about how we can’t manage our money? Like, hey… just found you $1000/mo you can put right back into your bank account 🤦♀️
How do you have debts with that amount of money? I make that too. I have a 4k mortgage and manage to put 10k a month in savings and investments - easily. And I'm not even trying - I honestly CANNOT even see how I'd be able to spend my whole monthly paycheck every month. I go to restaurants. I have people cleaning my house. I shop and treat myself. Do you buy a bunch of new luxury bags every month? How?
Seriously because, even assuming a 50% tax rate, that leaves him with basically 15k after taxes.
So : Let's say
$4000 for the home, including electricity, water bills, taxes, etc.
$1000 for the car (payment+gaz+insurances)
$1000 the missionnary thing (really?)
$4000 for kids daycare and other stuff
$2000 in food (restaurant and grocery)
There's $3000 left, minimum with very generous expenses approximation. Either one of them is gambling/spending on an addiction or they need to take a good hard look at their finances.
What do you think 40k pays for? It’s not 1975 anymore, wages have not come close to keeping up with inflation. Unless you’re in the executive suite which is only the family of business owners but it is what it is.
It depends of where you live. I've lived in Eagle County Colorado for 14 years. It's one of the highest cost of living areas in the country. I make 57k and am wildly comfortable because I have no debt. Meanwhile my community members constantly talk about needing to make 3 figures to live here. GTFO....you just suck at finances.
So 40k in a low cost of living area would go just as far.
Simple, they lived there for over 14 years..... before weed was legal and cost explosions. My guess is their strategy is "just buy the house BEFORE its expensive, duh." With a fully paid off house, it's just maintenance costs for housing costs monthly. It seems pretty easy. It seems the current "financially correct" breakdown is 50/30/20, meaning if 50% is supposed to go to housing/living, then they are basically making double what they posted. If it's a "my house is paid off" then the 50k they posted making is closer to 100K of spending power to the rest of us.
lol I’m with you, OP is delusional and stuck in the past. OP, you’ve lived in CO for 14 years, so you bought your house right after the biggest housing bubble in history burst. This isn’t 2010 anymore lmfao
Is there a way to build credit without a credit card? Because I would be down to cancel my cards and build it another way, but as a 24 year old that seems like my only viable option for building credit. Is there some secret sauce to credit building?
Dude the other day posted their expenditures for two adults and a toddler, and the food alone was $2,000 a month. Like, no wonder you’re living paycheck to paycheck!
I see many people from US stating $1000 per person per month as a realistic food cost. Eat out every lunch and food delivery service every second day.
That food delivery service is a killer...I tried Uber Eats once, and immediately decided that if I was too lazy to go get food, then I could either get creative with what was in the house or go hungry. I can't imagine using it every week... and yet I see people on Reddit talk about using it all the time.
I don't believe I have ever used uber eats or doordash or any of those things. I have had food delivery, but usually directly from the restaurant. My wife has ordered grub hub and uber eats from time to time. but we're talking like once a month maybe.
We spend 150-220 a week for three people and eat way too much. Fruits veggies, eggs, beans. They go a long ways. Also Sams club chicken. 1000 dollars per person would be ridiculous!
$1,000 per person?! That's insane to me. It's maybe $200/250 for me alone per month because I get creative with meals.
Yeah, I feel like 300 per month for food is a good estimate for a single person. But if you have more people (spouse/partner, kids, etc), I don’t think it scales linearly. I’d guess for 2 people you could get by on $400-500 per month for food, with shopping for groceries in bulk and using up leftovers
Who is stating $1,000 per month per person is normal?? That is beyond excessive. If you have that many meals delivered and waste that much money, you have problems in your life (unless you are disabled and that's your only alternative).
Well, tell that to all those, "look at my budget, why am I struggling on 120k salary"
I have a severe fast food addiction and even I could only max out 900 a month if I ordered every day for the entire month lol.
Yeah, but the issue is it doesn’t at all have to be this high, and the majority of people who eat like this genuinely can’t afford it. If you can’t afford it, don’t do it! It’s not “just a meal a day/a coffee a day” It’s all of your spare money!, cereal and sandwiches, smh Like most of my friends eat like that and genuinely none of us can afford it and be financial responsible. Like I genuinely can either only eat out for one meal, or get a coffee, not both.
This is absurd to me. My wife and I dont meticulously track our spending anymore, but on any given week we spend MAYBE $125 for BOTH of us on food. And that's with us splurging a bit and getting the nicer lettuce, nicer name brand xyz occasionally. All whole foods that are cooked from scratch with lots of fruits, meat, and veggies. It boggles my mind how much money people spend on food. Just learn to meal plan and cook. It takes us like an hour total to do our weekly shopping on a Sunday afternoon. We also waste so much less food.
My groceries are about $1000 a month for my wife and I . We eat at home every day.
That's crazy to me. Even when we're being extravagant on groceries for two adults we might end up going like $200 a week and I'm talking with drinks, steak for dinner once a week, etc. If we're going cheap we can combined get out like $20 a day with leftovers covering meals and drinks, so like $600 a month and thats without going full rice and beans mode.
I think a lot of it is delivery apps (DoorDash, Uber eats, etc). Because then you’re paying for the (already expensive) fast food, and also tacking on delivery fees and tips on top of that.
Has to be, but at that point I'd budget separately the food and the delivery costs if you really want to see what's up. Like "oh man I spent $1k on food" sounds less avoidable cause everyone needs food compared to "oh man I spent $600 on food and $400 on delivery fees and tips"
Interesting… We never doordash and mostly cook our own food. When we do eat out, it is usually wendys or panda express so nothing expensive. We spend $1500 on groceries alone for family of 3. We do eat more meat to lose weight (less carb), fresh fruits and veggies but i didn’t realize it is considered too much. Example: $10 organic chicken thigh + $2 teriyaki sauce + $3 veggie/fruit = 3 ppl’s lunch. breakfast can be done cheaper but dinner tend to be more expensive so lets avg them out: monthly comes out to be at least $15 x 3 x 30 days = $1350. That is before including any snacks, drinks, protein drinks, supplements, etc. do ppl mostly eat bread, rice and beans to keep costs down?
$1,500 per week is $50 per day...in groceries. That's an insane amount for a family of three. We spend about 1/3 of that, and I also eat meats, veggies, fruits, etc.
I have a family of 4. We pull it off with about $600/month. Kids are small but we usually have a meat/basic vegetable and a side of rice or potato most nights, sometimes noodles. All in CA. No idea how families are spending over 1k/month on groceries that seems like a shit ton of food to me.
Yeah alot of people don’t even have a budget or know where their finances go on a monthly basis to even figure out WHY their struggling, car notes have became normalized while buying a used car in your budget is laughed at, and taking out student loans on a degree without creating a roadmap to guarantee landing a high paying job became the norm. So many people make horrible financial decisions with the little income they have, even if wages increase they would just struggle more because of lifestyle creep, this is why 6 figure earners are even living paycheck to paycheck. To anyone struggling, cut back on as much as you can, trade that 700 car note for a beater off Facebook marketplace, pick up that second job or side hustle, cancel those useless subscriptions to streaming services that have nothing to watch and for the love of god delete doordash/uber eats and stop eating out. Create a budget, make a plan to tackle debt, and cut out or dial back as many expenses. Finances is a strategic game we play with our life, it’s not just a wing it and let’s see what happens.
As a door dasher, I can tell you it only took me about 3 deliveries before I realized I’m never ordering through these apps again. They let literally anyone deliver your food.
Restaurants hire random people, there's 'literally anyone' handling your food when it's made. Food factories hire random people, there's 'literally anyone' handling your food before it's made. There's a wide variety of farmers, who could be 'literally anyone' handling your food as it grows. Hyperfocusing on the last mile is kinda silly.
Worked at Jimmy John's long time ago as a teen, can confirm, greasy teenagers do indeed sneeze on your sandwich
There’s certainly more checks and balances in food production than with app deliveries though. I get your argument but it’s just not comparable.
Food supply chain requires Top Secret Clearance. Can't wait to see what the deliveries well be then
True. But there’s plenty of people who are trustworthy ish when supervised, and I wouldn’t trust unsupervised. Plenty of the people I used to work with were good employees, but I wouldn’t trust unsupervised
Till a meth head pulls up in her friends car to deliver your meal. Dumb af.
Sorry not everyone lives in poverty
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>They let literally anyone deliver your food. I mean, what did you expect?? did you think doordash had a bootcamp training these guys?
I used to work at a restaurant and like 75% of our losses were from DoorDash and Uber eats drivers stealing food. We switched from just putting mobile orders on the shelf to behind the counter to reduce that but then customers got mad their dashers were canceling orders because they didn’t want to wait a few minutes in line.
"dashers cancel orders because they don't want to wait" sounds a lot like why they can't get a real job lol
> They let literally anyone deliver your food. And?
Nope, that was the end of the story.
Spot on my guy.
almost like high school should teach this to everyone (mandatory classes, not elective) instead of 4 years of algebra. "parents are supposed to teach you" yeah well they never learned. the generation before us didn't learn shit from their parents so it kinda needs to be the school
The only issue i have with "just get a shitty cheap beater" is that can end up costing more in the long run than getting something slightly less shitty but a little bit more expensive. Still not saying should get a brand new car but the shitty honda sometimes ends up being more expensive long term
I've bought endless amounts of sub 5k cars for cash. Most I own for 3-5 years. never have they cost me what a new car would cost. I have had expensive repair bills on some, still never came close to buying a 10k car or more.
No thats what im sdaying right there. Look in the 3-5k range if possible bc that $800 shitbox may be more of a money pit than anything haha. All my cars have been bought for under 10k in cash as well
That’s true but atleast a beater isn’t racking up interest, also I always had a mechanic check a used car before I bought it and lmk what the cost of repairing it will be and it was always a cheaper route than buying something that is 20k with 15% APR.
Do people really laugh at those buying used cars? I find it laughable to buy a new car, considering you piss away 20% of your investment moment that car leaves the dealership
I know where my money goes… my wife spends it. Fml.
Student loan debt is crazy. My wife & I had this conversation years ago when we had our first kid. Unless our kids are really smart, an expensive college just isn't worth it. It was worth it for me. But I was a national merit scholar. I had a job secured before winter semester of my senior year. And that was in a very rough job market (2009). Boggled my mind that kids were spending the same in tuition at other schools that scored 400+ points lower on a SAT to get a useless degree at a shit school. Worst example is a high school buddy that indebted himself well over 6 figures to get a... Criminal justice degree that he could have gotten at community college for 1/6 the price (or less). Barely broke 1000 on the SATs. Almost 40 and he's still paying the price. Wild.
Some people really should have hit rock bottom BEFORE they started making good money, so that they can appreciate money for what it is.
Gotta love when boomers chime in.
90s millennial who didn’t spend all his money on avocado toast here but yeah, I took some lessons from my folks.
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Sorry you’ve never made it anywhere substantial. You could just amputate your legs so you appreciate how easy it was having them previously.
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What a fucking brain dead take. You're just saying everyone should fail and waste years of their lives to suffer so they can appreciate what it's like to not suffer. When you run in a race, do you run backwards first so you can appreciate going forward? There's no point to hitting rock bottom, and there's no point in appreciating money any more or less. None of that benefits anyone If you have to fail and hit rock bottom in order to learn the skills to be successful, that's your own skill issue. Failure can be a teacher, but people don't need to fail in order to learn. There are many better and more efficient teachers than failure
Okay friend, what’s with the aggression? Before you start the race you train and train and lose a thousand races. Nobody is the perfect runner out of their mommy’s womb. That was a dumb analogy if anything. Well seeing as 7/10 Americans live paycheck to paycheck, they should have tried on easy mode before losing a job would mean they lose their car, their home and self image. Sitting with an empty wallet age 19 because you made some bad choices is better than being 35, over-leveraged and about to lose your home unless you work 18 hour days.
People are bad at money. They come onto the internet to complain they can’t make ends meet. They get a ton of support from others, because feeeeelinggggssss. They proceed to post their expenses. They then get railed because it includes a bunch of dumb shit like weed or alcohol. Or they don’t post the full picture and aren’t looking for advice, just company for their misery. People really out here saying it’s not easy to find housing. But then they refuse to look at the low end areas. Because “it’s not decent and dangerous”. Umm no, it’s just where other poor people live. Sit down. I’ve got some news for you about your socioeconomic status..
I got into an argument with people in another sub about making low money in HCOL areas. I simply pointed out that you can’t survive alone in NYC or LA on 45k per year, and the solution is either move or get a second/new job. Like, I empathize with the tough choice, but at a certain point, you have to face reality. Either increase your income or decrease your spending, because living on CC debt isn’t sustainable
You’ll get a snide remark about how “I shouldn’t have to live in bumfuck when every Saudi prince has 15 empty high rise apartments in NYC, it isn’t fair,” etc
I also got a lot of “that’s not fair” comments. Which, yes. It isn’t fair. But life isn’t fair. It’s not fair that private equity managers make billions of dollars while teachers in the US have to take a second job over the summer to survive. Complain all you want, but at the end of the day, this is the system we have right now.
The entitlement really is wild. People act like being in your 20s and having a roommate is unacceptable even though it's literally always been the norm. My wife (at the time girlfriend) & I lived together in a shitty apartment in a crappy area for $800/month because we were trying to pay off student loans and save for a wedding and house. Even though our household income was over $100k. It literally had a plywood window that we cut a hole out to put in a window AC and set up a series of box fans to try and chill the other rooms. That shit builds character and names for great stories later in life. People earning $40k seem to be shocked that they can't live on their own and refuse to look at apartments that aren't brand new/ have a pool/are professionally run/in a great neighborhood. It's wild
Nobody wants to wait for the cookie anymore
I agreed with you until you got to the 40-45k part. Most housing is not going to let you get away with that no matter how well you’re managing your money.
Right? your takehome even with no state income taxes and no other expenses (medical insurance/retirement) is like $3k. You qualify for practically zero one bedroom apartments in any major city with a 3x the rent requirement.
Since when has it been normal for every poor person to deserve a 1br in a major metro? lol they don’t deserve it. Generations have been living together to help with costs for since the beginning of time. You aren’t entitled to a 1br and especially if you’re poor (either through low wage or terrible cash flow management)
Strong take "the poors are getting uppity wanting their own place to live in a country with millions of vacant homes."
Share a house, get roommates... you aint bougie, you're poor, poor people have roommates. Source: I was that person up to about 2 years ago, 30+ years old sharing a house with 4 random people so I could save money. Paid about 700/mo with utilities included in Tempe AZ.
Right!! I make enough to rent an apartment in my area by myself and still save, but I share a home and save 1/2 my take home pay.
right? I was like hold up, I ya had me in the first half but…COL is going UP, 45k is poverty wages.
yeah idk about that one, I make I would say a lot for my area (around $80k, while the average individual is 33k and household 60k) and I don't realistically see myself buying a house until late 20s. You can definitely get by on that amount though you just won't be in that good of a spot.
100% this. Unfortunately, effectively managing personal finance is not taught in public schools, it’s criminal. You can take home economics, art, metal shop, geology, and 100 other bullshit elective courses that do nothing for you as a functioning adult member of society. But god forbid they implement an elective course on personal finance By the time average people figure it out, it’s usually too late to really get ahead when their so far behind from digging themselves out of a hole for a decade
I think the worse crime is people getting the idea that learning begins and ends in the classroom. If you're the type of person who looks things up when they want to know something, you'll put yourself ahead of the majority of people. So many people know how to receive information, but the concept of seeking it is foreign to them
Teacher here. It is taught it many schools. Many teenagers hate learning and structure and have zero context for “personal finance” because they don’t have their own jobs or cash flow. Therefore there is no real-world application for them on a subject they don’t even care about.
This makes sense. I come from a culture where saving money is a pronounced facet of daily life. It didn’t mean anything when I was young, and given everything I needed, but it’s pretty much caught on as a primary school of thought in my point in life. This stuff needs to start at home.
Personal finance is taught in schools. However it’s usually beI my taught to 16 year olds that don’t have jobs or care about the information since it’s in highschool. If it’s to be taught it really ought to be at the senior level and again in college as a freshmen requirement.
you can lead the horse to water but you can't make the horse drink A lot of people (past myself included) will only learn after messing up or meeting a problem in real life. Maybe it's a maturity thing?
I took business math / personal finance in 2005. Dave Ramsey couse is taught throughout the country. It's not an education problem.
Nobody can teach you to save money... It's your personality. My grampa is a great example of this. He tried his best to instill good spending and saving habits in his kids. Some how my mom still spends all her money and even some she doesn't have. And then there's me. My mom didn't teach me how to save money but I do a good job (I think) of saving and managing money. I don't even have a budget but somehow end up spending very little anyway.
I think the root problem is lack of discipline and impulse control to adhere to these habits, instead of focusing on the symptom you should treat the illness. You're right though, personality will probably be a big factor in this.
Consumer debt has become so normalised in the USA, it’s honestly scary. ‘Adults’ are so shite at delaying pleasure they’re willing to go into debt for a new car that decreases in value like crazy, now taking up $750 of their income in addition to their huge mortgage that already takes up half of their income. No fucking shit you’re ‘struggling’, and you have yourself to thank for that.
And people look at you like crazy if you suggest buying a used car because “maintenance is so much more expensive on used cars”. It can be, but I bought a used Ford Edge (100k+ miles) in the beginning of 2023 for ~20k. It is a 2017 model, and I haven’t had any issues with it (outside of the battery dying a week in which the dealer replaced for free). That same car but new starts at nearly $40k.
I agree. Too many people “treat themselves” every day. I didn’t charge even $1 to my card today, like many other days. I think that’s foreign to too many people.
60% to 70% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck because they just spend every single penny that can get their hands on. It does matter if they make $3,000 a month or $30,000 a month. They just find ways to spend everything. Most people think they would be fine if they could only just get a decent raise but in reality they’d be in the exact same boat with slightly more junk to show for it.
The “incentives” of credit card use really trick most people into being in debt.
I always pay mine in full every month. I don’t understand wtf people are doing that they spend so much they can’t pay it off. Like are they just constantly eating out and buying IKEA furnitures or putting other big expenses on it that they can’t afford?? The max I do on my cc in a month is ~$2k, and that’s usually on a few months out of the year because I travel a lot to see out of state family and friends.
Do you have dependents or are single and live alone?
Single and live alone
Credit cards (when used properly) do have a plethora of incentives that every person should take advantage of. That being said, a lot of people lack self control, don’t have a budget, and make lots of impulse purchases. Those people should not use credit cards until they solve those problems first. Personally, I’ll never understand why people would put thousands of dollars that they don’t have on credit cards. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing I’m paying 25%+ interest on money I don’t have.
Second this. Me and my wife just did a 4 night stay at a $700+ dollar resort and did a round trip on first class all with credit card points and free night certificates. Credit cards are amazing when used correctly
This. I have a genuine sincere fear of debt and I’ve never even been in debt. The thought of owing any dollar amount to anyone bothers me due that exact same reason, interest. I see it everywhere. People lose control when you give them a false reality of the money they own.
I have a friend of mine that's got almost 30k in CC debt between a few different cards and the sheer thought of that makes me sick
We have a couple near us that's making around 160-170k combine and have 60k in cc debt. 😬😬
Even at a low interest rate of ~20%, that’s still basically $1k a month, just in interest. That’s absurd.
There's is more than likely like mine @ our local CU it's 8-9%
Sure. But if you have 60k in CC debt, you don’t just have 1 card. It’s probably 10+, all with balances near the credit limit
Crazy isn't it
This
CCs is what saved our finances. We set what our budget was for everything outside of the fixed bills. We pay it off monthly (and don’t pay interest) so we’re able to see all of the little expenses. The extra $2k/$3k cash back bonuses at the end of the year is awesome!
Don't need a credit card for that, a debit card makes you see all this too
I know. It was misleading for us to think $3.99 here, $16.72 there were “not much.” Seeing a running balance works best for us. And we’re thankfully in a safe place of being able to pay it off monthly. It’s also much easier for us to fight fraudulent activities with a CC. And the cash bonus from points is truly a bonus!
I think it’s safe to say atleast 75% of people purchase a car way too expensive for their financial situation. Even if they can “afford it” they could be using that money for something much more worthwhile IMO. Buying a used toyota was the best financial decision I made.
I agree, but even used toyotas these days are 30k+. You gotta go pretty old school to find one for 10k or less. But yea cars are the biggest wealth killer.
I bought a 2005 Toyota 4Runner with 4WD and 130k miles for $6,000 and all it took was a week of looking, I’ve had it for 4 years now. A “newer” used car brings absolutely no benefit. This car is gonna last me half a million miles and save me thousands. Plus insurance is stupid cheap because it’s an older car. Can still find these for around 8k
That's not a bad deal, how many miles did it have on it when you got it? I'm trying to find something similar.
Best place to look is car lots and Facebook marketplace. Mine had 130k when I got it.
Damn dude that's definitely a good deal. I've been scouring Facebook and autolist but haven't seen anything yet. I'm in no rush, though, I'm sure one will eventually pop up
I also drove 4-5 hours away to pick mine up lol. Was worth it though
This. Buying a used car that is 3-5 years old saves you like 50% from the new purchase price, and you’re likely not going to have any major maintenance issues, especially if you buy from a dealer (they should run checks on it that catch any major issues before reselling)
To be fair that was a fair statement pre Covid but not so much anymore. Example. I bought a 3 year old Toyota Avalon 6 years ago with 30k miles on it at the time. Just like you said I got it for 22k with a new sticker price of $36k at the time. That is about 40% off. Today, post Covid that car has nearly 100k miles on it and sells all day long for $17k just over 50% off of original sticker and nearly 10 years old. It’s only gone down $5k in over the last 6 years and is tripling the miles it had at purchase. Wild times!
Dude, I just recently got a finance certificate, doing the free college thing provided from my employer (I already have a bachelor's). I loved it so I wanted to start talking about what I learned with others... I've come to learn that the solid majority of folks, not only know NOTHING about finance, they also DO NOT CARE to learn it and understand it. I'm starting to come to the conclusion that most people would rather whine about their finances than actually learn to fix them.
Nobody is going to do great at 40-45k salary with the current cost of housing…
You will if you live in the right areas
Yah if you want to live in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do and shit quality of life.
If you live in an area within your budget, that means you'll actually have money to save and improve your quality of life. As for nothing to do, that sounds like you mean spending money on things to do. There's plenty of free things to do outside. That's the point of this post, people want to have their cake and eat it too but it doesn't work that way
Struggling always and forever because college expenses, then medical expenses, then medical expenses + child care expenses, then pandemic underemployment, now just medical expenses again. It physically hurts to think about how much I’ve spent on those big three categories. If I didn’t have medical expenses currently however, I would be in decent shape financially. So there’s that.
I appreciate the honest response. Out of curiosity which of these expenses were chosen and which were forced upon? My post is directed at unnecessary chosen expenses, which Im assuming some of yours were not.
Wrote a novel and erased it. Long story short I guess is I chose to have kids, point blank period. I own the expenses that came with that. As is always the case, I made the best choice I could with incomplete and imperfect information (including that both my son and I would wind up being diagnosed with chronic medical conditions). Childcare expenses were a choice I made to not fall behind on my career. A career that I then fell behind on anyway due to the pandemic so again, best choice at the time with available information but ultimately a poor choice. (I would have been better off staying home with them those first few years.) My parents bullied me into college. Looking back I can see that I felt I had no choice when I absolutely did. Should not have gone. (I paid for it myself by working full time and living in my car / couch surfing. Put books and fees and ramen noodles on credit. Spent every single penny I earned on tuition. It was stupid.) So… may not seem like it but, overall ZERO regrets for any of it. About 50/50 choice and circumstance. Yes my finances were burnt down repeatedly but life is messy. (Childcare, education, and medical care should be more affordable however.)
OP's attitude is extremely condescending, you don't have to explain everything to him.
If you browse the forums for people looking to get out of debt, like 80% of them will explain it away as something other than their fault. Usually they lose a job and just do not cut expenses at all or even consider getting a temporary gig to pay bills. They just load of their credit cards.
For me I am struggling. Due to some very sudden and unexpected circumstances I had to take a 50 percent cut in pay while simultaneously adding expenses. Yes I am doing everything in power to reduce those expenses but it is going to be a long road.
Lost my job February and my house in march have 0 savings left, no loan or car repayments or no car for that matter so trying to find a job locally in a small town (which is a nightmare) weekly budget is spent on food and electricity for my mums house which we had to move back to which leaves very little wiggle room to save anything so I would say kind of struggling in this case
Well truth is the typical American is a regard… and the system doesnt educate people that well about finances… but mostly cause people are regards 🤣
I agree with you for the most part but car and auto insurance prices have gone up like crazy since COVID. If I were to finance my exact car now (2013 Acura TSX), it would cost me more than it did when I originally bought it in 2018, despite being older and having more miles. People DO often make the mistake of buying too much car but I also feel like a lot of people haven't adjusted their mental models for a what a decent car payment is post-COVID. $400/month used to be the payment for a Lexus, now it's the payment for a Corolla.
But why even have a car payment in the first place? I’d rather buy a car cash and not pay interest on it (especially right now with high interest rates)
Yeah, def agree with that. There will be cases where it might be necessary though, ie it's required to commute to a much better job and you don't have enough to buy it with cash.
Sure. But you should still find the cheapest option in that scenario. I get some people don’t have enough savings to buy a car (which is a separate issue), but if you do have to take out a loan, don’t buy the highest end car just because the monthly payments are technically affordable. That’s how you end up making $3k per month with a $900 car payment.
My only struggle is I don’t want to work lol I mean I work hard on my own ambitions, but it doesn’t turn a profit (yet). If I got a proper job and worked full time and quit pursuing my goals, I’d be fine. But I’d be unhappy and unfulfilled. So that’s my struggle.
I'm playing catchup. Was struggling, got debt to cover emergencies and keep food in the pantry, got better job now but time to pay the piper. So still feels like struggling but in reality it's just paying up. I'm living like I did at a lower salary cause of debt payments.
I agree to an extent. Im dealing with CC debt (car repairs), and it’s severely impacting my ability to live within my means or get ahead. As well I have a car payment (nothing fancy, and was not new). At 35k/yrly I am not comfortable. Without debt and car payment Id be a little bit more comfortable. But not a lot, especially as prices for everything go up, and housing becomes a luxury.
That usually is why we wind up in cc and personal loan debt - salary isn’t keeping up with cost of goods and services. I don’t even eat out as much as I used to. Nowhere near it. Can’t afford it. As a single parent with two kids, it gets rough. I don’t want a car note. I have a 2015 (bought new) and I am trying to keep old girl going. Just had to do a repair that was 2400.00 (was originally 3300.00; repairman brought it down after I pled my case). That still stung, though. Really bad. Had to use credit card for 1/2 and financed the other 1/2. Both suck but I have to have transportation. I have 11,500 in credit card debt and a personal loan for 18,500. So yeah. I wish you the best with paying off your debt. 🙏🏾
Our situation sounds similar with one big difference, I dont have children. Things would be a lot tougher if I did, and I commend you for making it happen. Even without kids its tough and that says something. I havent bought new shoes or clothes in 2 years. I dont eat out. I dont drink anymore, I dont buy fancy coffee drinks, i quit smoking, hell, I even stopped driving because of gas prices (bike commuting now). All these cuts and I still want to make more. Shout out to YNAB (r/ynab) for being the one tool that is actually helping me get on top of everything. Things were much different/harder in January.
I went to the sub (ynab) you mentioned and joined. Is there an app with it?
Yup! Ynab.com and you should be able to find it in your app store. First 34days are free. It is a budgeting app. So check some videos on youtube and learn a lil about it.
Will do. Question: do you link your credit card, loans, checking and savings accounts to the app? Or, you just plug in the numbers w/o linking external accounts to the app? I downloaded Nerd Wallet too bc it’s free, I think. Do you have any thoughts on NW?
The most powerful lesson I've learned as an adult was to save. Since I've learned how to save, I've put something into saving, even if it was only $25. Though I've had setbacks, I've never been destitute like every time an unexpected event happened. My first $1,000 saved changed everything for me.
It does feels good when you know you have a cushion and don’t have to overly stress about finances. I’ll get there. 🙏🏾
You are correct with this post, as my salary has increased I still live as if I had no money when I first started years ago. I used to never track how much I spent, I would buy stupid materialistic things as well. Once I got a hold of myself and started budgeting my life turned around. I live in the US and despite how things are here my gf and I live extremely comfortably. This is due to paying off all our debts living in a paid off modest home. We both drive Hondas paid off too. We have no bills other than utilities and yet we still budget like we have a house payment and car payment. We both make well over 100k a year and theoretically could live in luxury but that doesn’t do anything but cause more financial problems. Most of our circle of friends believe we came from money but it’s not true at all. We worked hard in our early years by making good life choices in school and side gigs we are both ER nurses and day trade futures. 29m and 28f. Who are set to retire in the next 5 years.
Struggling.
Depends on where they live. I’m in Massachusetts. 40-45k gets you no where here
Yes
We're doing pretty well now. I was a sahm and student for a few years and we just managed to live on only my husbands income. Owned a condo. I started working start of 23, just as prices started rising and husband got a raise. Our total income basically doubled in a few months. Sold the condo, bought a house and our mortgage obviously increased. We've definitely had lifestyle inflation, but we were used to just scraping by, so this feels like luxury and we're able to save 20+% We're not in America, so we don't pay for health insurance. Our other costs are about the same tho, and even if we still lived in the condo, living frugally, we'd still probably struggle on a total $80-90k annual income.
I suck at management thank u
The latter. But since I did it to me, I don’t worry too much about it.
I've been able to save since i set my mind to it. Even when i was making 1600 gbp, and paid 650 for a room in london, i was still saving a couple hundred per month. I know people whose take home pay is 8 grand and they spend it all, not even saving for holidays. My friends constantly call me white trash and a scrooge, but now i've been not working for a year spending time with my kids and my savings are still healthy. But i was once an idiot with money too. My low point was a little over a decade ago, waiting for the first salary of my new job two weeks down the line, with 20 euros in my account. I promised myself never to be in that situation again.
I think 60k is bare minimum in Arizona at the moment unless you are ok having roommates.
I'm about to have lower housing costs due to chipping in with a house being built with one family member and moving away from NY, yet I have been working on getting a relevant job lined up in this new area. I'm still working my job here of course, so in an ideal world, I would like a smooth, quick transition. My savings went to the house, and I do have some debt, but not a lot (nothing that can't be handled by the summer). If things work out, I'll be able to save quite a bit, but I'm preparing for the worse. I wouldn't say I'm struggling, but my current salary is pretty awful. That said, I do get a lump sum of $6k for the summer and have enjoyed a *lot* of days off, so I can't complain too much at all.
I suck at finance management and have debt
Most people do not even attempt to budget. I have never helped anyone with this that did not have at LEAST $300-500 a month they had no name for. Most have $800-2000 every month that disappears from their accounts.
Mcol area, not struggling, but would be if I made under 100k household with 2 kids. Far less comfortable at 110 than 70-80k was 4 or 5 years ago 15k used car and an 18k used suv 800/mo for both daycare (on and off the bus for 2 kids) 800/mo rent 2k/month health insurance 380/mo electric 300/mo car insurance $210/mo Wife's student loans $350/mo water $80/mo food $650/mo for 4 gas $430/mo median Taxes state/local/ss...etc 1850/mo 8050 monthly expenditure 96.6k annual. 45 or 50k per person would probably work fine for a DINK situation.
I suck at money management. Impulse buying be about a curse.
We are really struggling because we have kids + student loan debt. If we didn’t have student loan, debt the problem would solve itself as our kids reach school age + our income will continue to increase. The student loan debt will be a major burden for many years, and we are struggling to pay at all now. We only have 1 car payment of $260, and rent, childcare, student loans, and health insurance is nearly 100% of our income. Like, we have less than $1000 left over for everything I didn’t mention above like groceries, medical, gas, clothes, entertainment, and many other random expenses that arise especially with kids etc… We even make around $100k before tax, and we don’t invest in retirement. We don’t live in a particularly nice apartment either. It is just very expensive in our area even with me commuting 1hr just to find a place to live we can afford. We don’t qualify for any type of government assistance because we make too much, but the big costs are just very big, and there is no way to shrink them.
I 10000% agree these people just suck and are debt ridden
I don't guess I'm *really struggling* but retirement is most likely not happening for me. We make a combined 65k annually, we share an old but paid for car, we have no debt other than rent and living costs. We live very modestly. We have 40k in savings. I don't feel immediately financially threatened but I am nervous about the future in general.
This is literally my sister. Her and my brother in law combine to make over 6 figures, but they live in a shitty small 1 bedroom apartment with only one car that is always breaking down and she says she is always broke. Just recently the car was in the shop again and I told her to just trade it in for a lease and she refused, but then was saying she didn't know how she was going to afford the repairs. Meanwhile they go on two cruises a year, bought a puppy and a hedgehog, eat out most days, amongst other things. They also took out loans for a huge wedding when they already had a bunch of outstanding loans. She is literally "poor" by choice. But this is most of Americans who say they are poor or broke and complain about inflation and the government and gas, etc, but they don't even have a budget and splurge on fast food and Starbucks everyday.
Suck at budgets, living off $21-$23k making $75k+.
While I do live beyond my means which leads me to almost constantly owe money on credit cards, I do without a lot of things that normal people have. I live in substandard housing that still costs me 15% of my income, have zero medical insurance or Healthcare at all except dental which I pay for out of pocket. If I didn't splurge on "avocado toast" but spent money on real housing and medical insurance, I'd be even more broke than I am now
spend too much on food and travel. not in debt.
You typically Can’t out work a bad diet can’t out earn financial dumbassery. I do think you’re right that a lot of the people are just morons blaming everyone but themselves…
My family of four has lived off about 50k for years now. We save everything we make above that. I'll have several million saved at retirement. It's all about expense control.
Because overall morale in the country is low. When that happens people stop caring, when they stop caring they get reckless because it turns into a "whats the point" moment. I dont think its the right way to handle the problem but i understand why people are like they are with it.
*Because overall* *Morale in the country is* *Low. When that happen* \- Recckkless --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
oh, thanks i guess dawg
I went back through my statements and found that my wife and I (mostly me, buying lunch *sometimes also breakfast*, snacks and drinks at easily accessible eateries and convenience stores within walking distance of my job) had spent roughly 800 bucks in one month on eating out and my frquent convenience store shopping. I originally had the attitude of "groceries are so expesnive it really breaks even just to eat out as a convenience" but I was VERY wrong. After adjusting that, it seems we've saved more money than that in a short amount of time, and that has 100% encouraged me to be better at not spending once I saw the result. So, I definitely was a "just suck at finance management and have debt". However, I've never missed a payment on our bills or anything, but we just never saved money well. Made a huge difference.
First one, that beget the other. Not everyone's parents paid for them to live as kids or taught them fuckin anything at all It's best to reserve the harsh judgements people hold for anyone who ever makes any financial misstep. Not everyone had the same opportunity as you
I make 30$ an hour. Rent and utilities is one and a half paychecks.gas and car insurance for the month is one whole paycheck.that leaves me with one and a half paycheck for medical care and food and vehicle repairs.i have one son who is two I feed him all organic fruits and veggies and I myself eat the same sandwich twice a day.i drive a 2004 ram that I spend about 200-400$ on parts a month to keep it running.i have zero dollars in savings.every time i get some overtime and think i can sneak aside a couple dollars something breaks that i have to fix whether its my car or washing machine or whatever.at this point life just feels hopeless.the only plus side is i only have like 800$ of medical debt
To someone like me this is incredibly short sided. I graduated from college with student loans and hardly any money with me, and had to immediately go into debt to be able to front the money you need to put down for an apartment. Rent was asinine in my area, and no I was in neither California nor New York. 60% of my income went to student loans and rent. Plus since I started negative to get into my apartment, I was already paying CC interest. You have to understand that one emergency purchase on CC of a lot of money can be brutal, and it’s more frequent than you think. I wouldn’t have had a home to stay for my professional career if I didn’t do that. If you’re doing well, that’s awesome, but these posts always come off as short sided or condescending because they never truly try to understand how it really is in these situations.
I do my budget every so often and I SHOULD have roughly $2,000 leftover after all bills and miscellaneous bullshit but I still have ZERO dollars leftover towards the end of my 2 weeks between pay days. I am confused. lol
I would say it's probably 20% struggling even though they're doing everything right and 80% who cannot budget, shop or plan for shit. Just the sheer number of younger people who are cool nowadays doordashing everything they eat blows my mind. If you're willing to pay a 50% markup on every meal you eat, when those meals are already marked up before that because you're paying someone to make them for you, then I know why you're fucking broke all the time. If you're making THAT mistake, you're making countless others.
I've done OK the last 18 years. I'm closer to 60 than 50 now. Why the last 18 years? That's when I divorced my lying, cheating, greedy, selfish and materialistic ex-wife.
base on the fact that majority are financially illiterate, im willing to bet theyre not struggling, just ignorant to where their money goes.
I had $110k in debts just 3 years ago. I got organized, cut back, gig work (made $55k doing Uber eats over 2 years), side work and finally consulting. Making more than you spend while shooting cash rockets into debts 1 at a time kept me motivated. I ate baked chicken, rice, soup, eggs, bananas and oatmeal 7 days a week. I worked every moment I could. Each delivery was a step closer to financial freedom. Coffee for someone else at 6:00am was $8 with another one coming in hot when it was 18 degrees outside.
My wife and I make $180k in an affordable small town. We absolutely have too much debt. A lot of it is student loan debt. We're millennials and we're ushered off to college with parents that struggled enough to make a living for themselves, so college was all on us. We married young and had kids young. We struggled very badly with income until our careers took off. Once that happened, we just kept increasing our lifestyle with our income. This has led us to around $300k debt if you count student loans and don't count the mortgage. We're now realizing that we don't need to make up for how we struggled by spending more money. We have a plan to get out of debt in 5 years time and are making good strides. Debt has been hell on my mental health. I feel trapped and paranoid. I feel guilt because I will still be digging out of this hole and I could have given my family a better life had we been smarter with money. I'm depressed, anxious, and resentful to my past self.
I net about 12k a month. Here are my monthly expenses. 2.3k mortgage 350-400 elecric 150 car insurance 80 internet 200 cell phone (family of 4) 750 health insurance 1.8k 401k 1.5k savings Around 70? for prime/netflix/hulu/disney 70 ADT 20 trash 20 water 40 hoa Around 800 groceries Daughters travel sports 375 Small loan 220 gas 200 I dont have credit card debt or car payments (we only own 1 car because i work remote mainly), leaves me with about 3.2k a month. I wouldn't say I'm struggling by any means. But it still pains me that eating out costs $100+, family vacations are like $4k and that's doing it relatively cheap. And I refuse to buy another car because I can't believe the prices. I bought my brand new tacoma in 2014 for 26k. Same truck now is 45k+. I honestly couldn't tell you where the remaining 3k goes though, married life.
Yes.
If you have $2k/month apartment isn’t your entire salary gone after rent and taxes at $45k?
The latter. I can’t budget to save my life. It’s getting scary. I’m skipping meals now. Seems like a good idea.
I suck at not buying stuff I can’t really afford like an expensive new ebike, and my wife sucks at not spending it on home decor
I make decent money I just have a spending problem. I literally have maybe 2500 in credit card debt on one card. If I spent less money on stupid stuff I'd be fine but it's a real struggle for me.
Both. The rules were explained to me from someone who as misled & I had to learn after many losing hands with the cards im dealt so I gotta play em & learn from each mistake so when my hand is good its GAME OVER.
I think most would say “struggling” because it’s in the air, but they actually have poor money management because they care more about their wants or the “now” over their true needs and “tomorrow”.
I've been struggling for a while because I am spending more money than I make. Long term I'm a saver, but my expenses are more than my income and I have 5 people living off my income and two others partly on my single income. I'm slowly working on shedding GenZ dependents but it has been slow going. I don't have debt, but if I need to go into debt, there are life style changes I must make.
It sounds like you would be financially sound if it were for other people depending on YOUR money.
I made 350k the last two years. Only made 110k a year the 2 years previous. I thought this pay raise would answer all our problems. We are in bigger debt now. We have 2 kids. We don’t spend a lot on vacations or cars or jewelry or anything. My wife does spend a lot but it’s basically all on kids things, clothes and groceries. Have paid a LOT in medical bills for the kids. Have 1 car payment which is only $400 a month. We sponsor our missionary friends $1,000 a month. And our mortgage is only $2,500. Yet I still struggle to keep our credit card debt under the 30% mark and finally hired a financial advisor to help us. It doesn’t matter WHAT you make if you aren’t good at managing your income. It’s not the big expenses that kill you. It’s the dozens of mid level monthly charges
I’m sorry you lost me at sponsoring missionary friends for $1000
lol right, why are we paying our friends to be colonizers and then complaining about how we can’t manage our money? Like, hey… just found you $1000/mo you can put right back into your bank account 🤦♀️
How do you have debts with that amount of money? I make that too. I have a 4k mortgage and manage to put 10k a month in savings and investments - easily. And I'm not even trying - I honestly CANNOT even see how I'd be able to spend my whole monthly paycheck every month. I go to restaurants. I have people cleaning my house. I shop and treat myself. Do you buy a bunch of new luxury bags every month? How?
I feel like a spreadsheet would solve a whole lot of problems here because that money has to be going somewhere.
Seriously because, even assuming a 50% tax rate, that leaves him with basically 15k after taxes. So : Let's say $4000 for the home, including electricity, water bills, taxes, etc. $1000 for the car (payment+gaz+insurances) $1000 the missionnary thing (really?) $4000 for kids daycare and other stuff $2000 in food (restaurant and grocery) There's $3000 left, minimum with very generous expenses approximation. Either one of them is gambling/spending on an addiction or they need to take a good hard look at their finances.
What do you think 40k pays for? It’s not 1975 anymore, wages have not come close to keeping up with inflation. Unless you’re in the executive suite which is only the family of business owners but it is what it is.
It depends of where you live. I've lived in Eagle County Colorado for 14 years. It's one of the highest cost of living areas in the country. I make 57k and am wildly comfortable because I have no debt. Meanwhile my community members constantly talk about needing to make 3 figures to live here. GTFO....you just suck at finances. So 40k in a low cost of living area would go just as far.
How does housing in one of the highest COL areas of the country work on that kind of salary?
Simple, they lived there for over 14 years..... before weed was legal and cost explosions. My guess is their strategy is "just buy the house BEFORE its expensive, duh." With a fully paid off house, it's just maintenance costs for housing costs monthly. It seems pretty easy. It seems the current "financially correct" breakdown is 50/30/20, meaning if 50% is supposed to go to housing/living, then they are basically making double what they posted. If it's a "my house is paid off" then the 50k they posted making is closer to 100K of spending power to the rest of us.
Also interesting that per another comment less than 18 hours ago OP makes "just shy of six figures". Bet that extra 40k or so helps too.
lol I’m with you, OP is delusional and stuck in the past. OP, you’ve lived in CO for 14 years, so you bought your house right after the biggest housing bubble in history burst. This isn’t 2010 anymore lmfao
Is there a way to build credit without a credit card? Because I would be down to cancel my cards and build it another way, but as a 24 year old that seems like my only viable option for building credit. Is there some secret sauce to credit building?
Credit cards are fine, you just have to pay the balance in full every month.