Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common • Hacker News Board

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#321

Post by a11595 » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 9:12 AM UTC

leoedin wrote: post #27

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…

I think the very fact that people in wildly different circumstances are living paycheck to paycheck is a huge flag that this isn't as simple a problem as "they don't get paid enough". Income and expenses are intricately linked by psychology. It's almost irrelevant what your paycheck is, if you're prone to this problem then somehow expenses will always rise to meet it. If expenses weren't actually determined by payche…

This is exactly spot on. Two personal stories. I was flying out to CT for a couple of years, made a friend there at the dojo who gave me private "fight against a guy with a knife" lessons. Always money problems, always bitched how if he just had 10k to pay off his debt his life would change. After a year, I said eh, wtf, here's 15k as a gift. A year later he calls me up. I haven't been out his for over a year at that point, and we haven't talked in 6 months. "Dude, help, my truck was repoed." The dude paid off his 10k of debt, took the extra 5 as a downpayment on a 30k truck, and increased his monthly bills by a third. Idiot (me).

Another story - long time college buddy of mine is trying to start a club promotion business. I dump about 20k into it to help him get started. The guy has a bachelor's in graphic design, and a master's in marketing. Two years later, he's calling me up for cash. He blew through my money, blew through his money, and decided to move to california - no job set up, no money in the bank, no car. I helped him out again w/ another 5k - very good friend. I a year he calls me up, doesn't ask for cash. I'm living in Spain at this point, and he says he couldn't get it going in cali and is working as a bouncer at a club. Wants to move to Barcelona and try it there - again no job lined up, no connections, but hey - he speaks spanish.

idiots are idiots, and they'll keep giving losers money until they learn. haven't talked to either of these losers in 15 years.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#322

Post by tjr225 » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 9:12 AM UTC

derekp7 wrote: post #10

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…

You bring up a good point, that even people who make decent money still can't get ahead much more than those making close to minimum wage. Why is this? My theory, is that life is full of stress, and throwing money at problems can make some causes of stress diminish. Whereas a minimum wage worker will shovel his own driveway, a higher paid office worker may typically have a snow plow contractor on retainer (for them i…

I think a lot of my stress comes from the fact that, while I wouldn't have done anything differently, I had to put myself in the hole 60k or so to come out of the economic tar sands of being from nowhere, and doing some really dumb shit as a kid.

I think that people should both be free to make childish mistakes and still succeed(without putting themselves in the hole) and i also fear for a medical emergency that tosses me back in the hole outside of my own fault.

My only point is that I think healthcare and higher education are necessary to exist in the modern world, therefor they are a right, and our government - and tax payers - should provide these things to everyone.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#323

Post by BuckRogers » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 9:16 AM UTC

I spent most of my life trying to be sure I didn't end up that way. It's a choice. It's not easy if you had no parental help, guidance or financial backing. But that was me. I have done it, mostly through sheer personality (persistence) and just-enough IQ points to put ideas into action. Some people would say it's because of the color of my skin, which I assure you no one gave a damn about when I've been interviewing nonstop for 6 months straight, 3-4 times a week (roughly half of those a 30minute-1hour commute across the city on public transportation), and getting some rather rude rejections. Many people wouldn't even do it, unless it was on a platter for them. They accept less, what's easy.

I've seen poor people, the middle class and wealthy alike end up living check to check. As my Depression-era grandmother always said, it's not what you earn, it's what you save. There's many ways to do that. You can work more, find a way to earn more while you do work, or spend less. I do all three to ensure I remain in the middle class, with a growing savings account.

Most people have fanciful dreams they never achieve, shooting a little high for their talents. My most important career goal has been to not make Walmart greeter my retirement plan. I'm doing everything I can. Tomorrow morning in effort to prevent that, I'm maxing out my yearly contribution to my Roth IRA, which I opened up alongside my 401K/rollover traditional IRA. So what was I doing before I saw this story show up on my Firefox Livemarks? Working on a SQL query, while my wife is out eating burgers with her mom. It requires dedication to stay afloat.

I know there's a lot of people here just like me. While I started on a Commodore128 and it's my passion (I know of many ways to make money, much easier), many people in this field found it because they simply wanted to improve their lives, which I admire. There's also some that didn't really earn their positions, carefully crafted and placed by their loving parents, and will have a lot of issue with my story, not fully understanding that it has been done and can be done from the bottom.

Most of us are dealt a mediocre hand. I remain steadfast in that living paycheck to paycheck is ultimately a choice. A poor one at that.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#324

Post by scarejunba » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 11:16 AM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #255

sjg007 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

The efficient decision would be to swap out into an Android phone of similar vintage and sell the iPhone. You’ll come out positive because iPhones hold value better.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#325

Post by scarejunba » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 11:20 AM UTC

mac01021 wrote: post #124

SmirkingRevenge wrote: post #28

As someone who didn't learn the very basics of personal finance at the optimal point in life, I feel like it should be part of our standardized education. I'd like to think that would make things at least marginally better. Another thing I'd love to see, would be for banks to fundamentally reorient themselves to be their customer's advocates/financial guardians, instead of being yet another party encouraging people t…

So, when you log into the Bank of America website, you want to be greeted every time with things like the following? "Dude, maybe you should sell this car that you're paying $450 per month for and get a $7000 used car." "Did you know that between starbucks and happy hour you spend an average of $120 per week, and that amounts to 10% of your take-home pay?" "You currently spend $2500 per month on rent. If you downsize…

Trim App is meant to be something like this but so far it on,y does something about recurring subs, I think.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#326

Post by danieltillett » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 11:38 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #227

danieltillett wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is actually more due to the students who are not there. Yes it is true that the actual teaching is little better between districts, but the number of disruptive students that prevent any learning is vastly less in the expensive districts. If you have the ability to kick out any student who is disruptive you can turn any school in any area into a high quality school.

> the number of disruptive students that prevent any learning is vastly less. The evidence doesn't really support that, though; students in a “bad” district don't have worse performance than students with similar background in a “better” district (whether because of distraction or any other reason), “better” districts just have more students with backgrounds which are correlated with educational success, of which the…

I believe nothing when it come to data on educational outcomes as it has all been totally corrupted by politics.

Do you think smart people would bother to spend a fortune on education (either directly via private schooling or indirectly by housing) if the school didn't matter? Follow the money, not the rhetoric.

More directly I have spent sometime helping out in different schools and I have seen with my own eyes the consequences of a single disruptive child on the learning environment - all the teachers time is sucked out dealing with this one student. I can't imagine trying to teach in a classroom with 3 or 4 disruptive students.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#327

Post by lxmorj » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 12:19 PM UTC

dan-robertson wrote: post #264

taurath wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it takes 80% of your income to live at a base level of hierarchy of needs, you need roughly doubled income to be able to actually save money, and have it not be wasted away on this or that random emergency, which is going to be more frequent.

So you need to spend at most 40% of your income on food, shelter, etc before you can save anything because you need to spend the 60% on what, occasional emergencies? What do people do when they don’t have that 60% spare? Or is the key that you write “ actually save money” and by that you mean saving some significant amount of money? How much do you think that is?

I think he means 'save towards intentional use' versus 'save to soften the blows of random hardships, but never really get ahead'.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#328

Post by pixl97 » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 1:15 PM UTC

jchw wrote: post #214

leoedin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the very fact that people in wildly different circumstances are living paycheck to paycheck is a huge flag that this isn't as simple a problem as "they don't get paid enough". Income and expenses are intricately linked by psychology. It's almost irrelevant what your paycheck is, if you're prone to this problem then somehow expenses will always rise to meet it. If expenses weren't actually determined by payche…

I think a lot of people misunderstand. Before I had a nice tech job, I literally could not afford to do my dental work or take care of my car. So later on, when I started, it costed a lot more. And I spent it, because it's important. Same can be said about many expenses. When you don't have the money, you make it work even if you can't. When you do, you gotta balance it out again. Saving your money isn't as important…

Asset inflation is busy destroying society.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#329

Post by GreeniFi » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 1:20 PM UTC

lsc wrote: post #296

GreeniFi wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect a lot of people feel that part of their conspicuous consumption is part of the effort to earn more. You have to wear the right clothes, look the right way, have the right tech - or at a higher income bracket, be part of the right clubs, in order to socialise with the people who will pay you. So the two are sort of linked I suspect.

I'm pretty sure that this is actually a thing; Like once you step outside of the technical field; most everyone else really needs to "dress for the job they want" in the form of, for example, having a class-appropriate car. I think this is one of the biggest bonuses you get as a technical person; you can live with roommates and drive a beater car, if you want, and it's not a problem when getting quarter-million dolla…

I can believe this. Realtors, on a %-based fee, have to show their clients how much they’re making (for other clients). If a realtor turns up in a Mercedes, they’re basically saying: “I’m a good salesman/woman”.

Devs in SF display status in other ways. HN karma? Exits? Economists call those “hard to fake” status displays.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#330

Post by war1025 » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 1:24 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #318

war1025 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starbucks might not be breaking the bank, but it and the 10 other "not breaking the bank" habits all added together very well could be. Also in order to same "thousands" every year, you either need to be spending a significant amount of money, or be carrying a significant amount of debt. Neither are strictly necessary. Avoiding it is a good plan for a lot of people.

The logic you just gave is the classic penny wise logic, but the reality is you can have as much Starbucks as you want if you stop buying more house or car or education than you actually need. Fucking up big decisions is how Starbucks matters, and one of those fuck ups is to refuse to learn how to use a credit card. People like to pretend constant denial of small pleasure is what makes a difference because martyrdom…

I basically agree with you, but if you stop buying more house or car than you actually need, then you aren't saving thousands a year from credit card use.

It's like any optimization problem, at different stages of it there is different low hanging fruit. Yes, if you have the big expenses figured out, you are in a pretty good place. But at that point, it is reasonable to consider whether you have some small bad habits that you might be better off without.