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Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#251

Post by prolikewh0a »

thelasthuman wrote: post #239
wutbrodo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure lack of healthcare and low wages _is_ the main issue[1]. As the parent comment points out, it seems like that would lead to a pretty different pattern of this phenomenon. It seems to me that there's a couple broad categories that can lead to paycheck-to-paycheck living: 1) Poverty, at the level where spending on a reasonable floor of basics (food, shelter, education, leisure) leaves little for savings. T…

"2) Severe exogenous financial shocks " Like huge medical bills?

I'm not sure why you are being downvoted.

>Bankruptcies resulting from unpaid medical bills will affect nearly 2 million people this year—making health care the No. 1 cause of such filings, and outpacing bankruptcies due to credit-card bills or unpaid mortgages, according to new data.

https://www.cnbc.com/id/100840148

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#252

Post by lr4444lr »

sputr wrote: post #176

Most comments in this thread are about learning to budget/control finances. I would just like to point out what I call "The IT bubble". We all make money here. Most of us make good money. Our social circles are filled with people making money. Most people do not have this privilege. Below a certain threshold there is no such thing as budgeting/finances. It's just survival. You're not gonna budget because you can't sa…

Most of us didn't wind up in IT by random accident though: the prudent behavior of our parents fostered an appreciation of a value system that ultimately leads to life comfort, including the discipline to forego short-term pleasure in order to obtain it. These are educable elements that COULD be instilled in schools if teachers weren't hamstrung by administrators, politicians, and parents allowed to second guess their every move.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#253

Post by refurb »

thelasthuman wrote: post #241
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 average person is not a mortgage/real estate expert. They trusted professionals who misled them because of the profit motive. (For an example look into the reasons for the 2008 housing crash)

The average person might not be an expert, but they should know what their monthly payment is versus their take home pay.

Even knowing this plenty of people put themselves in precarious financial situations when buying a home.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#254

Post by lr4444lr »

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…

But you could GET to upper middle class though, and then your children or their children might have a shot at wealth from that higher starting point. Seeing the next generation do better is an amazing incentive.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#255

Post by Aeolun »

sjg007 wrote: post #37
perfmode wrote: post #6

Don’t discount the weight of emotional trauma and the self-sabotaging habits it has the potential to engender. Most people are slaves to their limbic systems. Most people don’t have self-education or resources to seek the help they need to fix these underlying problems. Society does them no favors. Media and advertising are designed to promote consumption. And not even healthy consumption. The idea that we are black…

It is an interesting argument to blame people for their own problems that are largely structural and as the article indicates, effect a large swath of society. It's the same argument for blaming the homeless who say own an iPhone.

If you’ve recently become homeless, it’s very likely you still have an iPhone (and you better hold onto it).

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#256

Post by Yen »

spidey1 wrote: post #18
perfmode wrote: post #6

Don’t discount the weight of emotional trauma and the self-sabotaging habits it has the potential to engender. Most people are slaves to their limbic systems. Most people don’t have self-education or resources to seek the help they need to fix these underlying problems. Society does them no favors. Media and advertising are designed to promote consumption. And not even healthy consumption. The idea that we are black…

How do you manage this conflict? I think a lot of us suffer from this at different scales. I've always found it difficult to work on things that will pay off in the future, even if I plan something I just don't seem to be able to carry through a long term project to the end unless I'm in an environment where there's accountability such as deadlines on projects at work. I'm very prone to instant gratification, which i…

I haven't solved this for video games, youtube, etc. I'd be interested in a solution!

For disposable income purchases, we budgeted out income, necessary expenses, savings, travel, etc., everything that requires long-term planning. The surplus (a fairly small portion) we then divided out into a per-person, per-day allowance.

I use a simple Google Form to record discretionary purchases, tracking the results in a Sheet, to account for whether this discretionary budget has a positive balance.

This has the nice effect of translating dollar values into time values, and giving a reference point for trading off the relative hedonic value of small frequent purchases vs. large infrequent purchases.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#257

Post by lr4444lr »

Something has been seriously wrong with the U.S. savings rate over the last 3-4 decades: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT

You would see by the graph that maybe we started to learn something after the 2008 meltdown, but nope - trend reverses again in 2012 or so.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#258

Post by isostatic »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #146
zozbot123 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite is the case. High rent is a localized problem (mostly found in relatively dense cities) and UBI would go a lot farther in a low-cost-of-living area where rents are low as well. So, people who have no use for living in the city (not hyper-productive or anything) would gradually opt to spread out and rents would fall.

High rent is localised? The whole of the UK has high rent AFAICT, our very poor city has high rent. Rental means paying the costs of property plus paying profit to someone who is already well off enough to front some capital (or at least to get a mortgage) plus paying profits for the bank ... how could renting ever be reasonable priced in a system that requires those without capital to pay those with capital just bec…

After the price crash in 2008 we lost 40% on our 1 bed flat. Couldn’t afford to sell after a relocation (£60k negative equity after 1 year) so had to rent it out while we rented in a different city.

We just about made a profit on the flat - about £10 a week, but we didn’t have any times of no tenant, or any unexpected major bills.

Eventually price recovered enough that we could afford to sell (below what we paid, even ignoring inflation).

Not all landlords are raking it in.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#259

Post by Aeolun »

walshemj wrote: post #220
ohithereyou wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

guild ? you know that historically they where set up to restrict access

And keep up standards. I personally enjoy the idea of having apprentice, journeyman and master programmers.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#260

Post by thelasthuman »

walshemj wrote: post #225
wccrawford wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's human psychology. Below a certain level, your mind will simply talk itself into spending your available money to make you happy. You don't need that car. A car half the price would have been plenty good enough. But you did it anyhow. You don't need fancy breakfast cereal that costs twice what the generic stuff at Aldi costs. You don't need all those electronics and toys. You don't need to eat out that much. If y…

Aldi and Liddle's cheap food is I would say a false economy.

I would like to know more, can you elaborate?
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