Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common • Hacker News Board

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#351

Post by war1025 » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #349

war1025 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The exclusive fixation on "thousands" vs. "many hundreds" or "tens of thousands" is intellectually dishonest.

I disagree. Using credit cards for cash back is on the same order as going to Starbucks or not. Using them to build better credit is also a small-scale gain if you aren't taking on more debt than you can handle.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#352

Post by ken » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 6:45 PM 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…

> If expenses weren't actually determined by paycheck, the number of people living paycheck to paycheck would be a really small number. Everyone else would either be building a surplus each month or going further into debt.

These people are going further into debt. It's just that this debt is usually not in the form of cash.

Need an oil change? Well, I can put that off for a while. Need to go to the doctor? Well, I can put that off for a while. Need to renew my license? Well, I probably won't get pulled over for it this month. It's amazing what necessities you can postpone, if you're willing to take on personal technical debt, in the form of risk.

This is how people at the lower end live "paycheck to paycheck". It's not just that they're dumb and spend every penny as soon as they get it. It's that they bend as many of the rules as they can, in order to maximize the cash they have on hand for the rules that can't be bent.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#353

Post by diminoten » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 7:38 PM UTC

war1025 wrote: post #351

diminoten wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exclusive fixation on "thousands" vs. "many hundreds" or "tens of thousands" is intellectually dishonest.

I disagree. Using credit cards for cash back is on the same order as going to Starbucks or not. Using them to build better credit is also a small-scale gain if you aren't taking on more debt than you can handle.

No it's not, by an order of magnitude, and no you don't need to take on debt to build credit, in fact that doesn't even work.

It just sounds like you also don't know how credit cards work...

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#354

Post by war1025 » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 7:53 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #353

war1025 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Using credit cards for cash back is on the same order as going to Starbucks or not. Using them to build better credit is also a small-scale gain if you aren't taking on more debt than you can handle.

No it's not, by an order of magnitude, and no you don't need to take on debt to build credit, in fact that doesn't even work. It just sounds like you also don't know how credit cards work...

Looks like you weren't the person who replied about using credit cards to build credit and get lower interest rates on loans. So that probably explains some of the disconnect here.

Cashback is definitely on the same order of magnitude as a Starbucks habit.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#355

Post by diminoten » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 7:59 PM UTC

war1025 wrote: post #354

diminoten wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not, by an order of magnitude, and no you don't need to take on debt to build credit, in fact that doesn't even work. It just sounds like you also don't know how credit cards work...

Looks like you weren't the person who replied about using credit cards to build credit and get lower interest rates on loans. So that probably explains some of the disconnect here. Cashback is definitely on the same order of magnitude as a Starbucks habit.

> Cashback is definitely on the same order of magnitude as a Starbucks habit.

False. Starbucks habit is $10/week, or $520/year. A 2% cashback card will return ~$2,000 annually for a family of 4 with a household income of ~$100,000 (the vast majority of HN users).

Please stop replying. Thanks.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#356

Post by WalterSear » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 8:00 PM UTC

randallsquared wrote: post #304

WalterSear wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an asinine statement. We aren't bacteria. We don't have to behave like bacteria, irregardless of one's relationship to authoritarianism or social conformity. And we should not forgive, let alone celebrate, people who do behave like bacteria.

It's not a nuanced statement, but it certainly isn't asinine. It's just the minimum positive effect you can have on the future -- the lowest bar, if you will. You could, with similar effect, make the same statements about bacteria in response to "People should live" or "People should thrive".

In the context more than 75% of black children, and more than half of hispanic children being born out of wedlock, and comparable statistics for all poverty stricken population groups, calling it "the minimum positive effect you can have on the future" is a really an asinine statement. It's not a positive effect.

https://cis.org/Camarota/Births-Unmarried-Mothers-Nativity-a...

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#357

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 8:05 PM UTC

pixl97 wrote: post #335

Kalium wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be honest, I don't know what the business model would be, but it seems like it should be in the banks long-term best interest to create rich, prosperous people with invest-able funds. They are literally in a position to create their own wealthy customer base. You're right! It's absolutely in the best interest of a bank to help create a prosperous, happy, long-term customer with investable funds. Of course, this…

>Are they just all collectively oblivious? The market cant see past the next quarter. Long term thinking requires visionaries that can sell the idea, without them you get 3÷ growth at any cost (including signing up customers for services they didn't ask for, Wells Fargo). Banks are late up with Too Big To Fail these days to care about the long term.

[deleted]

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#358

Post by greedo » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 8:27 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #295

greedo wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Survivor benefits cap out at 75% of the worker's benefits. That itself caps out to $2675. So a spouse with kids would get at most $2006/month. Not horrible, but a parent with two kids would just be over the poverty level. And realistically, most people at that age would have small accrued benefits.

$2000/month is more than a lot of people in the US make working full time. I would argue $2000/month is a very significant benefit to a survivor. It’s also inflation adjusted.

For a single person, sure. A single parent with 2 kids? Very scary.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#359

Post by war1025 » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 8:30 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #355

war1025 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like you weren't the person who replied about using credit cards to build credit and get lower interest rates on loans. So that probably explains some of the disconnect here. Cashback is definitely on the same order of magnitude as a Starbucks habit.

> Cashback is definitely on the same order of magnitude as a Starbucks habit. False. Starbucks habit is $10/week, or $520/year. A 2% cashback card will return ~$2,000 annually for a family of 4 with a household income of ~$100,000 (the vast majority of HN users). Please stop replying. Thanks.

Assuming your Starbucks habit is daily, you're looking at closer to $30/week, or $1500/year.

If you are making $100k a year, your take home pay is probably closer to $70k. Assuming you are financially responsible and saving a decent amount, that means you are spending generously maybe $50k/ year. At 2% cash back, that comes out to $1000/year.

Same order of magnitude.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#360

Post by Zelmor » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 8:44 PM UTC

Now I'm talking from an Eastern European perspective, but this writing is pretty one-sided with people working in (liberal) arts fields with 4 kids. HVAC repair folks, plumbers, electrical repairmen have as much an income as a software developer here.

So go get a blue collar job, if your libarts degree isn't paying for it. Welding pays well, sure it's dirty, sure it's hard, but there is zero competition in these fields.