Being frugal is for the rich • Hacker News Board

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#131

Post by sokoloff » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 9:38 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #124

aschearer wrote: post #3

The title here seems very inflammatory. The article questions whether some actions (e.g. painting your own home instead of hiring someone to do it) are truly frugal. It goes on to say that the philosophy of frugality is a handmaiden for wealthy. Maybe so, but why would we discourage good spending habits? For example, choosing to eat one or more meals out each day versus bulk cooking is an option available to most peo…

Here's the question: if you were to "cut back on things like eating out at restaurants and taking public transportation to work," would you be able to save 71% of your income? How long would it take you, just in cutting back on lattes and painting your own home rather than hiring a contractor, to buy a 4 bedroom house on 66 acres in Vermont? I don't really like doing plumbing, but I've replaced quite a few faucets an…

> Here's the question: if you were to "cut back on things like eating out at restaurants and taking public transportation to work," would you be able to save 71% of your income?

No, because my taxation burden alone is well above 29%.

I'm pretty sure they're calculating that they're saving 71% of their earned income, but they're almost surely not saving 71% of their earned income plus gross rent receipts.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#132

Post by ahtu123 » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 9:38 PM UTC

bhandziuk wrote: post #108

azernik wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not in big cities. Name five big cities where a average-wage worker can get by without a car and car insurance.

5 can probably be done. (assuming "average" is average for that city, not national average). NYC, DC, Seattle, SF, Boston, Chicago... Naming 10 is probably way harder.

Seattle can be tough at least. Really depends on a lot on where you live and where you work. Almost any commute can be done but it easily gets to 2h+ which is just ridiculous.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#133

Post by overeater » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

tjpaudio wrote: post #19

joefourier wrote: post #11

American salaries are difficult to make sense of from a European perspective. The referenced average salary of $36,000/year for millennials with only a high-school diploma would be a normal entry-level salary for a software engineer in most of Western Europe, and a very good salary for experienced engineers in Eastern Europe. Tax burden is higher here as well, and while the cost of housing is exorbitant many parts of…

City-based salary adjustments are really something only educated professionals get, low-wage earners are screwed in big cities. I think also it will shock you how much every day items are compared to Europe. For one, public transportation is not available to most of America. So you have to have a car and car insurance, thats hundreds of dollars more per month right there. Cellphone service costs 3x as much as anywher…

Cell phone service in the US can be cheaper than Europe. I have had Project Fi for over a year now, and it's $24/month including taxes. This includes voice, text, international texting, data, and international data. You pay per MB so I don't watch videos on my phone, but use it for everything else.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#134

Post by mod » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

qntty wrote: post #70

vorpalhex wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> continuing to build a world where they are more and more necessary My grandmother can still, to this day, recount living in an apartment with no furniture except a mattress, with my grandfather who was employed as an engineer in New York. It took, by her estimate, about two years to have enough furniture before she was willing to invite over any sorts of company. Today you can furnish an apartment reasonably with a…

My grandparents also lived through the depression. And how did they cope with it? Joined a labor union, joined the socialist party. Maybe not such a bad idea?

As a counter-anecdote, my grandmother is still alive: she was born in 1918. She just voted for Trump, to give you an idea of where she stands politically. She coped with it by scrimping and saving every penny. She literally washes saran wrap to reuse it, despite having enough pension these days to get by. She saves grocery-store bags. She eats every crumb on her plate. She never wastes leftovers, ever. She went to college at 40 years old, which was not thought of highly in her time, and had a 20-year career as a schoolteacher. She still corresponds with some past students, who are her last living friends.

My grandfather's college fund (to be a dentist) was wiped out, the bank closed. He worked at a GE factory his whole life, work that I will say was far beneath his potential. He never complained. He once traded his easy job on the line for a much harder one, where he had to lift each engine block twice to inspect some fiddly bit on it. He traded to get a 5-cent raise. If you offered my grandfather a government subsidy, he might not have been able to conceal his contempt.

I don't think the decisions of any of the individuals we've mentioned are great indicators of what's correct or incorrect, but the depression didn't influence everyone the same way.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#135

Post by pdeuchler » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #75

falcolas wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, your proof that decline is a myth is that you can buy cheap, moderate quality, mass-manufactured furniture that didn't exist in your grandparents age? Something seems awry there.

My grandmother couldn't afford a chair. Most people today have reasonably furnished apartments, smartphones, some kind of vaguely functional computer with (low speed) internet access, and probably a car. Food went from being very expensive (people actually died of starvation not that long ago!) to being so cheap that obesity is a major epidemic among the poor. Since 1940, the percent of the US with a high school degr…

This is, of course, because technology has brought those costs down. Or in the case of education, government subsidies have made college "free". Not because living wages or the economy have improved.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#136

Post by tjpaudio » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 9:41 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #26

tjpaudio wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

City-based salary adjustments are really something only educated professionals get, low-wage earners are screwed in big cities. I think also it will shock you how much every day items are compared to Europe. For one, public transportation is not available to most of America. So you have to have a car and car insurance, thats hundreds of dollars more per month right there. Cellphone service costs 3x as much as anywher…

> City-based salary adjustments are really something only educated professionals get, That's not entirely true. In many cities, minimum wage is substantially higher ($12-$15/hr) than the Federal minimum ($7.25/hr) > in big cities > So you have to have a car and car insurance Not in big cities.

If you are making $36,000 per year, you are not making minimum wage. People that make around this much, their salary doesn't vary drastically like a software engineer's does city to city.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#137

Post by nunez » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 9:41 PM UTC

joefourier wrote: post #11

American salaries are difficult to make sense of from a European perspective. The referenced average salary of $36,000/year for millennials with only a high-school diploma would be a normal entry-level salary for a software engineer in most of Western Europe, and a very good salary for experienced engineers in Eastern Europe. Tax burden is higher here as well, and while the cost of housing is exorbitant many parts of…

I honestly don't understand how enjoyably living in Europe is possible. The class divide seems to be much greater over there.

My wife and I were in Barcelona a few weeks ago to celebrate our honeymoon. Prior to going, I did some research on what life was like there. The max salary for most people in tech in the area is about €75,000 (~$USD 93.5k). This is considered a great wage over there. The rents within the city are similar to NYC (studios >€1000k, etc). Barna has a pretty good transit system, but living farther out requires a car. Also, employees get taxed HARD all over Europe and the cost of goods (groceries, entertainment, etc) aren't cheaper than their US counterparts.

The story is similar in London.

It just doesn't compute for me.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#138

Post by mcguire » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 9:42 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #84

legulere wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass produced goods including furniture is cheaper nowadays but everything else is more expensive. This includes essential things like housing and healthcare. Further the needs have also grown: without a car it’s impossible for most people to have a job

> but everything else is more expensive Yes and no. One thing to keep in mind is inflation, so we always need to compare prices to average incomes. A house is listed as being However, things have genuinely gotten more expensive in some cases usually due not to the economy, but due to safety. That's a good thing - we no longer have asbestos and lead paint, cars are safer, and working fire alarms are a thing. However,…

Yes and no.

The median home value in 1940, adjusted for inflation to 2000, was $30,600 ($2,938 pre-adjustment).[1] The median income for a man was $9,948, using the same inflation factor of 10.406639 ($956, unadjusted).[2]

The median home sales price in 2015 was about $300,000[3] while median household income was $54,000.[4]

[1] https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/valu...

[2] https://www.npr.org/2012/04/02/149575704/the-1940-census-72-...

[3] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS

[4] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2016/demo/p60-25...

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#139

Post by stretchwithme » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 9:45 PM UTC

KingMob wrote: post #102

T2_t2 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they also had less. This is the ... I'm not sure of the right word, paradox? duality? ... anyway, the problem/benefit of globalisation, that it leads to cheaper stuff. We all have more today, even on less money. Thought experiment: ask yourself when it was better to be poor: 1950, or 2018. In 1950 you could... go to the library? In 2018, even the very poor likely have a mobile phone, the internet, a games cons…

The plummeting costs of technology over time make it a poor barometer for measuring wealth. Instead of mobile phones and TVs, look at bigger items like health care, housing, and education, all of which have gotten more expensive (in the case of education, astoundingly so) even as inflation-adjusted wages have decreased.

Ignore manufactured goods and focus on labor intensive ones?

No, I think it all matters. And the fact that technology is getting cheaper IS an improvement in our standard of living. People who can find anything within minutes and talk to anybody anytime ARE wealthier than those who have to spend large amounts of time to do the same things.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#140

Post by ApolloFortyNine » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 9:46 PM UTC

ahtu123 wrote: post #127

rgbrenner wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took, by her estimate, about two years to have enough furniture before she was willing to invite over any sorts of company. ... Today you can furnish an apartment reasonably with about a months worth of wages. You do understand there's a difference between a month of wages and having a month of wages saved to spend, right? Considering most people live month to month... saving an entire month would take many people…

Really shows how some people in HN have never experienced poverty. If a households main income earner is making minimum wage they will not be making shopping trips to IKEA to furnish their whole apartment lol. IKEA is cheap but the $50 you have left over after bills won't get you much. Many months you will have a negative balance after you've paid for essentials.

>If a households main income earner is making minimum wage

Maybe you shouldn't start a family when you are making minimum wage, in a city with a high cost of living.