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Being frugal is for the rich

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Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#181

Post by dsfyu404ed »

T2_t2 wrote: post #103
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…

As a fellow non-American, it took me years the realise there is no America. It is the Unites STATES of America, where the states are all very, very different. As an example, last I looked the GDP per capita in San Francisco is $48K, whereas in Miami it is $24K. That is a pretty massive difference, and leads to very different outcomes in a lot of areas. The best way to think of the USA - and China BTW, which has an ev…

Don't forget the part where in any given state the entire area outside whatever beltway rings the major city resents everyone inside it.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#182

Post by s73v3r_ »

throwaway84742 wrote: post #53
bsder wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the capitalist system with a labor market as tight as we’ve ever seen it this is addressed by getting another job for more money. Is it tight? I see very few occupations with rising wages. That's the REAL test for a tight labor market. Let me be anecdotal for a moment ... I was at a conference recently where the companies had a panel session complaining about getting more people into the business. Unlike most so…

Wages are rising at the highest rate since 2009: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/02/582641530... . And black unemployment is at historic lows a well.

That's not a meaningful stat, considering 2009 was the onset of the Great Recession. Wages are still not great.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#183

Post by mcguire »

aschearer wrote: post #10
duxup wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the title refers more to the idea that those folks selling this frugality made plenty of money already and that financial freedom is what helped them establish their lifestyle... not the frugality they sell.

I agree the article was attempting to take down that family, but even on that count I wasn't convinced. So they have a home in Massachusetts? That hardly makes them "rich". Nor is being able to hire a painting company the exclusive province of the wealthy. Perhaps pursuing FIRE is something only available to the upper middle class. That's an interesting argument, but not one put forward in the article. Furthermore, I…

Minor correction: They have a second house in Massachusetts, 1/2 a mile from MIT and 1 mile from Harvard, which they paid $460,000 for in 2012 (https://www.frugalwoods.com/2014/05/08/why-did-we-buy-our-ho...) and now rent (http://www.frugalwoods.com/2017/02/24/how-we-turned-our-city...). (Whoa, their property manager is cheap.)

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#184

Post by bhandziuk »

azernik wrote: post #180
bhandziuk wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle is the only one I have personal experience with and I've found it to be pretty good. Usually walking < 1 mile total is reasonable. If you live out in King county things are a little different of course. Are the other cities better than that?

Hence why I mentioned "average-wage" in GP; usually you can avoid owning a car only by living in housing that is out of reach for anyone making <$6k/month.

I don't understand the comment. Is Seattle not doable for <6k $/mo?

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#185

Post by basementcat »

anigbrowl wrote: post #6
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…

You're missing the point. The 'frugal culture' is selling the idea that this is the road to economic self-sufficiency while omitting or glossing over other significant information, like having a very healthy income stream to begin with. If you're poor, being frugal is very unlikely to lift you out of poverty. That doesn't mean frugality is bad, but that marketing is as the key to financial stability is deceptive.

I like to think of frugality as something akin to adding the the "-O2" argument to $CFLAGS. It isn't going to undo fundamentally bad life choices, it won't make much difference if your code is already written in inline assembly, it might help you meet requirements if you were on the edge, it might not be a terrible idea to turn it on when you're building the release binary.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#186

Post by refurb »

mcguire wrote: post #138
vorpalhex wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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/2…

You're ignoring that the percentage of people living in cities has gone up by 50% (56% -> 75%) from 1940 to 1990 (couldn't find later data).

The size of homes has also gotten much bigger.

So the $30,000 home in 1940 (in today's dollar) wouldn't look anything like a $300,000 home today.

I'd be more interested to learn what a townhouse in Manhattan cost in 1940 and 2010.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#187

Post by mcguire »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #181
T2_t2 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow non-American, it took me years the realise there is no America. It is the Unites STATES of America, where the states are all very, very different. As an example, last I looked the GDP per capita in San Francisco is $48K, whereas in Miami it is $24K. That is a pretty massive difference, and leads to very different outcomes in a lot of areas. The best way to think of the USA - and China BTW, which has an ev…

Don't forget the part where in any given state the entire area outside whatever beltway rings the major city resents everyone inside it.

That's a universal human truth.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#188

Post by throwaway66666 »

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…

Eastern european living in San Francisco now. It's the lifestyle. Back home I would go out once per week, drink 2 beers max, walk-to-and-from (4-5 euro total cost of a whole week's entertainment. Bang for your buck!). If you wanted to drink more you 'd pre-game at home, drinking unlabeled homebrewed vodka! Food? You cook it yourself (or mom would since I lived with my parents), put it in the refrigerator and warm it up every day at the week.

Now in SF, I order sushi twice per week. Go out at least 3-4 times per week and lots of times pay for drinks for friends etc, never walk when going out always rideshare. And it's not only about alcohol and food of course.

I could be saving way way more if not for this lifestyle. That's how it goes. Everyone who tells you otherwise are lying to you and worse themselves. Basic human nature. The moment you make more money, you want to take your girlfriend/boyfriend to a fancier restaurant. You want to buy the nicer phone. Except for rent prices which are insanely high, the regular cost of living is not that much higher than living in eastern europe. Actually funny enough when I first moved here, I was shocked at how cheap everything seemed - of course taking into consideration the high salaries. In many cases actually eastern europeans pay more for certain things because for some unknown reason 1 dollar turns to 1 euro, instead of 0.75 of a euro or whatever the price at the moment is. Our petty $350 salaries can sure take it!

Mate, people here have a favorite whisky!I now have a favorite whisky. And as any self-respecting adult it needs to be fancy, not the cheap stuff. Ardbeg, tastes smoky, like swalloing in dim campfire and most bars here will charge you $16 for a glass. There you have it, how people aren't saving money.

It adds up. But I also have a friend here who on a 120k engineer salary and saved 100k in 2 years. Only eating at work, living on a shared room with 3 more people in treasure island. Reimbursing bus fares to work etc. The other side of the coin. Almost everyday I say to myself that soon I will do the same, and sure enough every day I don't. Just like not going to the gym and forgetting to call mom again.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#189

Post by nck4222 »

state_less wrote: post #119
ikeyany wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What can the average person do about this system? It seems like it's only becoming more widespread.

Vote for candidates who will make healthcare a right and college affordable. While young people are bleeding out financially, rich people are getting a tax cut and they're running up the debt on the younger generation.

This is nitpicking a bit, but college is affordable, it's just very expensive.

A side effect of the government guaranteeing student loans is that universities could charge basically whatever they want, knowing that students would still be able to pay it. It funded massive expansions, but instead of universities taking on the debt, students did.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#190

Post by manigandham »

dijit wrote: post #174
manigandham wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: Poor decisions are poor decisions and it's much easier to be productive today than ever before, if that's what you choose to be. There's no reason you can't "afford" a house, everything is relative.

Not sure I follow the logic, $350 on a passable phone that lasts 5~ years and affords me the ability to save time on banking (paying bills at least) and also connecting them to unimaginable numbers of people potentially while also granting access to the worlds information. Wifi hopping and pay as you go mobile plans mean that any cost outside of the cellphone itself is miniscule. Why I think the value proposition of…

I guess my comment is more confusing than intended, but a smartphone and modern living easily lets you be productive enough to afford a house. It's not difficult when half the planet lives on dollars per day.
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