Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common • Hacker News Board

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#191

Post by lordnacho » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 9:43 PM UTC

throwaway10711 wrote: post #153

> “My husband is a Park Ranger in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and he had to sign his furlough papers,” one woman tweeted. ”We have a 4 yr. old and a 4-month-old, and we don’t know when his next check will come. Mortgage is due, Christmas 2 days away.” Unpopular opinion. It's _really_ hard for me to feel bad for families that have or are expecting kids without consulting their financials first. I believe…

Anyone can lose their job, do you want everyone to not have a kid if they don't have the 300k or whatever it costs already in the bank?

Even then, you could get ill, or someone could sue you. Boom, money gone, kid still on the way.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#192

Post by milesvp » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 9:43 PM UTC

astura wrote: post #88

moorhosj wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge difference between living paycheck to paycheck because you struggle to afford basic necessities and living paycheck to paycheck because you took out too large of a mortgage. In one case you have an asset to sell if needed.

The majority of people who are living paycheck to paycheck don't have enough assets to cover debts. Furthermore, paycheck to paycheck living outside of poverty and disability is rarely the result of a one time mistake, it's usually due to an inability to budget and save day-to-day. Which is the reason they end up with more debts than assets. Not to mention people who can't afford their house can often not afford to t…

Upkeep’s a killer. I kept having people tell me to buy in my 20’s, and I couldn’t fathom their logic. I could rent a 4 bedroom house for less than a mortgaged, let alone alone a mortgage plus upkeep. I kept doig the math, and I’d have to tie up a huge chunk of capital, and hope the house appreciated faster than upkeep costs, and that I didn’t piss away all gains again in realtor fees when I next needed to move. But really it’s the upkeep everyone kept ignoring in these conversations. $300/mo in my region is pretty standard, and no one would acknowledge how big this cost really was.

Rents finally started to skyrocket where I live, so buying finally made sense for us to try to lock in our housing exoense. But even then, the upkeep occassionally makes me wonder if I did the math right. Like can I put off buying a new roof another year? Or will that eat up my maintanence budget for the next couple years?

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#193

Post by ohithereyou » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 9:44 PM UTC

nunez wrote: post #170

wonderwonder wrote: post #42

Its much harder (not impossible) to attain wealth if you don't come from at least an upper middle class background. Having a safety blanket (family) that can support you if you fail allows you to take greater risks in the pursuit of greater income, including starting a business. If you fail, worst case you end up in your childhood bedroom as opposed to on the the street. If your parents are able to pay for your colle…

> If your parents are able to pay for your college tuition, you are provided with a much stronger launch pad. Ain't that the truth. I've spent 10 years at ~$1300/month paying my student loans down. I'm two years from done, but that would have been half a mortgage paid off! To be fair, though, I knew squat about personal finance coming out of college, so I probably would've burned the money some other way.

Quick back of the envelope calculation ($1300/month * 12 months/year * 12 years = $187,200) shows part of the problem - either college should not be necessary (we need a programmer's guild) or the cost of college is way too high.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#194

Post by lordnacho » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 9:53 PM UTC

metabagel wrote: post #137

fromthestart wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You don't think that you are lucky to have been born into an upper middle class family, without any serious psychological issues? You know nothing of my psychology or my personal struggles. It is infuriating to hear people tell me how easy I had it simply because now my parents are well off. Kindly take your classist prejudice elsewhere. My parents were lower middle class until about the time I went off to college.…

"You know nothing of my psychology or my personal struggles." For someone lacking in empathy, you played the victim card really quickly here.

That's not the victim card. Since when is alluding to unknown personal issues the victim card?

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#195

Post by supertrope » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 9:55 PM UTC

esotericn wrote: post #15

I'd like to read more about the history of the people in the article. The biggest issue as far as I can tell is that it's easy to 'lose' at any stage. You can make a ton of decisions starting from about age 15-20 that influence your degrees of freedom at age 40 (in the article there's a family of 3 that seemingly have little savings, for example). If you were born to a non wealthy household, the reality is that you s…

One effectively has to be a hero in terms of self-regulation, long term planning, and hustle. And never get hit with family crisis, disability, local economic depression, etc.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#196

Post by diminoten » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 9:56 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #189

diminoten wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By not making use of credit cards, you're losing out on thousands of dollars every year.

Several hundred? Yes. “Thousands”? Not very likely for most people to be plural thousands per year.

Most people don't come to HN.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#197

Post by e1g » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

mac01021 wrote: post #130

fromthestart wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why not? Self control isn't some moral, righteousness, trait. Exhibit B. Personal responsibility is increasingly fading from the collective American vocabulary, and articles like these, which normalize nonsensical, narcicisstic decisions, like throwing away a decade pursuing 3 low demand liberal arts degrees, make the media complicit. Self control absolutely is a moral, righteous trait, particularly because those wi…

Not disagreeing with anything about your main point but > Somehow other cultures tend to place virtue in the development of discipline to which cultures are you referring?

Not OP, but also ex-Soviet: Russia is one example. Ruskis have been robbed blind by feudalism, communism, and lately capitalism - from both public and private sector - for over 200 years. This created a deep (almost traumatic) generational mistrust of any system or organized body. Since I was a toddler I was told that everything is my personal responsibility and to never expect external support. I live in NYC now and what passes for “self reliance” or “discipline” here is sweet.

It is the philosophical opposite of “safe spaces” that would make Jordan Peterson shudder, but it does create survivors. It’s an unhealthy environment that breeds mistrust and misery, and I would never want my kids to grow up in such Ayn Rand’esque culture.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#198

Post by uuwp » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 10:01 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #85

tjr225 wrote: post #2

"They work in big cities and rural towns. They’ve tried to save — but rent, child care, student loans and medical bills get in the way." Yikes. I'm not exactly living paycheck to paycheck, but I can relate to this. It's really funny - my wife and I make quite a bit of money - whatever twisted form of capitalism we currently live in has been designed in such a way to extract most of it away from us. One begins to wond…

The problem is not a "twisted form of capitalism". The problem is us . In the 1950s, a family could live on one blue-collar salary. You could probably live on a single blue-collar salary today, too - but you'd live like people did in the 1950s. You would eat out very rarely. You wouldn't have college debt because you wouldn't have a college degree. You'd only have one car. You'd have only one TV for the whole house.…

I actually think capitalism is the problem. It's the best form we know to organize a society, but it has the serious problem when money tend to stick or gravitate towards bigger chunks of money. I'm making well over 300k and can afford a decent house that I'd have to pay off my entire life. What if I had 30M and was too lazy to start a business? I would just buy 30-40 nice houses in my area and would rent them. 10 years later I would have 60M in assets plus whatever rent I've been paid. Where did those 30M come from? Did I do anything useful to the society? No. I have done nothing useful. It's just the dynamics of capitalism where another 30M sticked to my original 30M by the mere fact of their existence. If I was seriously rich, I could lobby zoning laws to benefit from monopoly and drive my wealth even higher, while giving nothing back to the society.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#199

Post by supertrope » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 10:02 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #140

metabagel wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I assumed both pairs didn't have anything sorted out until they were 30" I think it's the norm for people not to make much money in their 20s, particularly in southern California.

There is plenty of opportunity to make money in 20s though, so I can only blame a lack of research (assuming one knows how to read English and has access to the internet). If you’re smart, you can go the MD or STEM route and end up in tech or finance, or if you can get into a target law school that feed into well paying NYC/SF firms. If you can’t do that, then electricians, plumbers, and mechanics make a decent amoun…

To play devil's advocate, law suffered a supply/demand shift ten years ago. There's a steep drop off in career prospects below the top 14. The same thing will happen to TE if it becomes more popular (there's a lot of lower paying science and math jobs). The same would have happened to physicians without the residency bottleneck on supply.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#200

Post by soared » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 10:02 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #189

diminoten wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By not making use of credit cards, you're losing out on thousands of dollars every year.

Several hundred? Yes. “Thousands”? Not very likely for most people to be plural thousands per year.

Hundreds in ~2% cash back yes, but thousands by not building a strong credit score. All your major financial purchases will cost more if you're not using 1 or multiple credit cards.