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US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago

cnn.com

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Re: US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago

#191

Post by 88913527 »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #38
gruez wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>IMHO vehicles are huge drivers of debt. There are almost no cars under $30k now, and the average sale price of new cars is pushing up near $50k. This is for bog standard stuff like Hondas and Fords, not luxury cars. I went on toyota.com and a base level corolla is only selling for $22,795. This includes a "Delivery, Processing & Handling" charge of $1,095. If for whatever reason you think that driving a compact car…

Goooooooood luck driving off a dealer lot with a $22k Toyota! Seriously, if you can do it then good on you! But back in the real world the on the lot availability of cars is abysmal and most makes are sold out for months of backlog. Like if you want a Toyota minivan it's something like a 2 year wait--unless you are willing to buy one on the lot with a $10k dealer markup.

Paying for rideshare and waiting for delivery is cheaper than paying the $10k markup for the drive-off-the-lot-today option.

Re: US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago

#192

Post by karatinversion »

jliptzin wrote: post #130
grardb wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious to know if this is a real phenomenon that has been observed. Would you be able to point me in the direction of resources to learn more about this? The reason for my skepticism is that even without deflation, a dollar tomorrow is usually worth more than a dollar today, yet tons of people* don't save or invest much/any of their money, even if they're able to. * I'm speaking from the perspective of an Americ…

A dollar tomorrow is worth less than it is today

Your local bank or credit union will trade your dollar today for more than a dollar tomorrow!

Re: US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago

#193

Post by sarchertech »

TuringNYC wrote: post #147
rayiner wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, basic expectations of things growing up are just unreachable for many. My parents lived much more comfortable lives than I do. My grandparents even more so. My wife’s grandma got married as a teenager to a trucker passing by because her family couldn’t support all their kids. This was not unusual in that generation.

Firstly I'm sorry to hear about your family's situation. I certainly dont mean to imply everything was rosy. I will compare very roughly and anecdotally across generations. I'm an Engineer (CS). So was my father, though he ended up doing accounting. So was my grandfather (civil.) My grandfather owned a home by 23 on his engineering salary. My father owned a comfortable home by 35 on his salary. The salary:homeprice r…

What was the size of your grandfather's home? If you built a comparable home today , the same distance from the center of a city of comparable size to the nearest city center when he bought the home, and you were allowed using comparable building codes, how much would that house cost?

It's nearly impossible to actually compare these things. Comfort, and safety, are inherently difficult to value. Things like energy efficiency are difficult to price because of externalities. Externalities along make these kinds of things impossible to compare.

For example, one of the reasons building was much cheaper 80 years ago was because there was very little environmental regulation.

Re: US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago

#194

Post by 01100011 »

scarface_74 wrote: post #184
01100011 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Max withholding on RSUs is something like 22% so I have to make up the difference or owe tens of thousands at the end of the year.

When I was at Amazon (ie until last Friday). We had three options - sell all, sell enough to cover taxes, or sell none of it and pay taxes - some other kind of way that I never looked into. Even if that’s not the case, what’s stopping you from selling enough stock yourself once they vest and make quarterly payments? My tax rate was 22%+7.3% FICA near the end when I moved to Florida - a state with no state income tax.

Nothing stops me. I just don't do that.

Re: US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago

#195

Post by WalterBright »

judge2020 wrote: post #83
qbasic_forever wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a _LOT_ of debt being added, household debt is up to something like 17 trillion dollars from like under 10 trillion pre pandemic. IMHO vehicles are huge drivers of debt. There are almost no cars under $30k now, and the average sale price of new cars is pushing up near $50k. This is for bog standard stuff like Hondas and Fords, not luxury cars. Used cars are incredibly expensive too. People are financing cars…

Credit card debt in the U.S. alone hit 1 Trillion https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/credit-cards/credit-ca...

This can be a misleading statistic. A lot of people use credit cards as a substitute for cash, and pay off the balance every month. This is accounted as "debt" but in a practical sense it is not.

Me, I use the credit card as a 6 week interest-free loan, plus getting the cash back discount.

Re: US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago

#196

Post by hotnfresh »

candiddevmike wrote: post #84
throwaway2203 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yup, with daycare costs we're technically top 10% and still kinda hand to mouth in a MCOL area.

I think the concept of cost of living areas is out the window. Mortgage and rent may be relatively COL dependent (kinda, but everyone is incentived to even it out nationwide), but for everything else I actually think the competition within big cities/"HCOL areas" drives down prices. In my "LCOL" flyover area I'm seeing $30+ pizza and $18 burgers, along with $10 beers at bars. It's insane.

I live in a—4th tier is selling it short, but 3rd tier seems generous, call it 3.5th tier—city, and am always shocked at how much cheaper good restaurant food, baked goods, et c. are in "real" cities compared to here. Anything non-shit is basically 20-50% more expensive here than in HCOL cities. Makes no sense, these places should have like 1/5 the rent costs and lower labor costs than the major coastal cities, yet, prices are sky-high and quality's often not even that good.

Groceries are about the same price. More expensive for some things, cheaper for others.

Health care's more expensive here, with lower quality, because it's a flyover red state.

HCOL only seems to apply to housing. Everything else is about the same or cheaper in "HCOL" cities. May not hold for other smaller/poorer cities, but very much does for ours.

Re: US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago

#197

Post by nickjj »

scarface_74 wrote: post #131
qbasic_forever wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Goooooooood luck driving off a dealer lot with a $22k Toyota! Seriously, if you can do it then good on you! But back in the real world the on the lot availability of cars is abysmal and most makes are sold out for months of backlog. Like if you want a Toyota minivan it's something like a 2 year wait--unless you are willing to buy one on the lot with a $10k dealer markup.

Then don’t buy a new car? Buy used.

> Then don’t buy a new car? Buy used.

In 1998 I bought a used 1989 Chevy Corsica for $1,800 all-in out the door. I'll admit I don't remember how many miles it had but it never had any major problems in all the years I drove it. There was a near unlimited sea of options for ~10 year old cars for around $2,000.

In 2023, if you want a similar size 10 year old car (2013) a quick Googling suggests you'll be paying about $10,000 minimum for a car with 100-120k miles on it. Expect to pay $20,000 if you want a low'ish amount of miles (under 25k). Keep in mind this is the price on the website which you know will be more by the time you really purchase it.

Re: US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago

#198

Post by sarchertech »

Waterluvian wrote: post #180
sarchertech wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying off your mortgage early only really makes sense when you're getting close enough to retirement that you need to move more of your money to less risky investments with a lower rate of return.

My point isn’t that you need to race to pay it off. But that people think “how big a home/lifestyle can I afford with this income? I’ll do that.” You could do half that, make minimum payments if you want, and invest the rest. But either way, you find yourself in such immense control. You could lose half your income and not change your lifestyle. Or retire early. Or take bigger risks. I’ve always been fascinated how p…

For sure. Being house poor is definitely a thing. My wife and I made the decision that we'd only take on as many expenses as we could afford on only one of our salaries. That's a lot easier to do when I'm an engineer and she's a doctor, but I know plenty of friends in similar situations who are still leveraged to the hilt.

Re: US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago

#199

Post by throw__away7391 »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #16
candiddevmike wrote: post #4

As a parent with kids, I really don't know how folks are getting by with the prices of everything. I know folks who keep eating out, buying new vehicles, and even building new houses and I'm left scratching my head wondering how they afford all of this. I'm not saving nearly as much as I was years ago and I think my "lifestyle" has decreased post COVID (few vacations, eating out is a treat, gifts are for birthdays/ho…

There is a _LOT_ of debt being added, household debt is up to something like 17 trillion dollars from like under 10 trillion pre pandemic. IMHO vehicles are huge drivers of debt. There are almost no cars under $30k now, and the average sale price of new cars is pushing up near $50k. This is for bog standard stuff like Hondas and Fords, not luxury cars. Used cars are incredibly expensive too. People are financing cars…

IMHO vehicles are the main reason Americans don't feel as rich as they actually are. I've spent the past year living in 22 countries in Europe, Asia, and South America and it's pretty clear in comparison that this is where the money is going. Americans have way, way more income than basically anyone else, but it's all going to cars and driving and the necessary infrastructure and costs associated.

Re: US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago

#200

Post by Spooky23 »

adventured wrote: post #151
hikingsimulator wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDP isn't a good metric to compare household debt to. The US has an incredibly unequal society (see Gini index) and a lack of welfare compared to other Western countries. In aggregate, it means that debt is likely higher for households where that matters. The poor.

It's not the technical poor that suffer the most in the US, it's the next block up, the low income working class. The US has free healthcare for the bottom ~25%, including the poor. If you are in the low income working group, you're often largely out of luck. Those are the people suffering the most. They often don't qualify for EBT cards, they don't qualify for free healthcare, they don't qualify for housing subsidie…

The stats often don’t include benefits as income so it’s hard to really understand what’s going on.

“Free healthcare” in the form of Medicaid is a bit generous of a description for people under 65 and over 18. Few providers take it, and the benefits are really bad in many places.

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