When I was in my late teens/early twenties I truly thought that in ten years I’d own a home for sure, with some hard work and dedication.

Ten years later, I don’t even get to buy groceries every week or eat every day. I’ve lost 30 pounds in the last year just from skipping so many meals.

I can’t wait to see what the next ten years holds.

And if one more person tells me I should make sure to invest for retirement… I can’t even feed myself, what you want me to invest? My retirement plan is work until I’m too old/sick/injured and then off myself.

It sounds like you need to rethink your grocery habits, or your job is woefully underpaying you, or you need to move somewhere with a non-insane cost of living.

Do you live far up north or something where groceries cost an arm and a leg due to transport costs?

Sorry, I definitely might come off as rude in this comment, but this line of thought really annoys me. Do you think people are poor simply because they’re too dumb to think “I should spend less money on groceries?” Don’t you think they’ve already considered finding a better-paying job, if such a possibility exists for them? If moving is even an option for them (which is a big if), where do you suggest they get the money to rent a moving truck, as well as the money for a security deposit on a new apartment?

Your comment is about as helpful as asking “Have you tried not being poor?”

Do you think people are poor simply because they’re too dumb to think “I should spend less money on groceries?”

It’s usually spending money poorly, yes. But I don’t blame them, I blame the lack of education on these topics.

If you aren’t even using freely available budgeting options, then I recommend to start there and assess spending.

I very rarely encounter people who complain about money but also have real concrete budget. If I ask it’s usually met with excuses and changing the topic.

If you truly have a genuine budget and still can’t figure out where the money is going, then it’s a more serious chat.

But the absurd frequency you see people posting about how they can’t afford groceries and lo and behold, they’re buying a bunch of overpriced garbage and paying extra for non necessities, it’s bananas.

If you complain about food costs and I find out you don’t know how to break down a whole chicken, I feel a little less bad for you.

If I find out your buying dumb shit, my empathy starts to go down.

I lived with and worked in a poverty stricken industry for many many years, and the constant frequency I saw people complain about money one day, then waste money the next, has gradually over time led me to just assume most people are completely inept when it comes to budgeting.

And I mean, it’s not exactly a required course in high school, so I am not that surprised.

And it’s mostly food, drugs, and alcohol when it comes to wasting money.

That and the “buying little things you dont need thatll end up in the trash” I see often. Fast fashion and all that jazz.

It’s a serious problem honestly.

I very rarely encounter people who complain about money but also have real concrete budget.

You don’t seem to understand that poor people do not need a budget. Their “budget” looks like this:

Is this absolutely essential to my survival? (ie: rent, groceries, medication, toilet paper, health insurance, etc.)

Yes? Buy it.

No? Don’t buy it.

Repeat until you run out of money.

The thought process goes like this:

Is this absolutely essential to my survival? (ie: groceries, medication, toilet paper, health insurance, etc.)

It often isn’t. I say this as someone who volunteers weekends on such a group (food donations).

It’s very often chasing dopamine hits to compensate for how utterly isolated and desolate they feel. WIthout a support network or community to back them up, the easiest at hand way to compensate is small expenditures on treating themselves to help stave off the doom.

Which add up very fast, because turns out treats aren’t free.

And this can take many forms. Collectibles, fast food, literal treats, energy drinks, coffee, cigarettes, weed, booze, etc.

When you have learned helplessness and truly believe it’s pointless to save money, it becomes trivial to waste it on dozens of little pick me ups.

I’ve seen it endless times. I’ve helped people budget and so often they are shocked to realize they are spending absurd amounts of money on their guilty pleasure.

Let me make this clear, I’ve helped a decent handful of folks unfuck their budget. They had jobs, they rented, they couldn’t figure out why saving money was hard.

We took a look and so much random shit Id be like “do you know you spent $300 at convenience stores this month?” And they’d be like “what? No way, that’s impossible”

But I’d show em and they’d be flabbergasted.

Turns out that red bull and a snack everyday before work, and a treat everyday after work, adds up to a huge hole in the pocket.

And these are people truly in poverty, min wage at best, part time, struggling to pay bills.

This is nothing but the avocado toast thing all over again you rancid piece of shit

Some houses shooting up in price due to various (shitty) factors does not mean every single house has. Only a small portion of them have which has biased the average price up.

If 10% of houses go up x5 in price, the average price will now calculate significantly higher even if the other 90% only change a small bit.

This is a common thing people try and cite. “Yeah but some house skyrocketed in price so that must mean house prices are fucked across the board”

They aren’t, that’s just a fact.

The following are fucked areas:

Major City cores as the west’s renting markets are unhinged atm.

Closer to the core suburbs of tourist destinations for the Airbnb markets

Pockets of speculation areas that are being heavily gentrified.

Properties with land large enough to be potentially capable of being split into 2 smaller properties legally, as a speculation market. (This us why sometimes you see big old spots suddenly skyrocket, they satisfy the conditions to turn into 2 properties which can be lucrative if leveraged by a rental company)

Everything else had been fairly well in lockstep with inflation from what I have seen.

Nice anecdata and all but I bought in 2020 and my place has almost doubled in value already. It’s a run of the mill condo.

The (already high) rent prices have also approximately doubled over the same time span.

Buying in early 2020 was the difference between me being easily here and likely having to move to a cheaper area of the country.

And I’m a debt free elder millennial whose parents paid for my college.

The problem isn’t that they aren’t scraping together enough of their $30k a year to save, it’s that they make $30k a year and $15-20k of that goes to the landlord.

Nice anecdata and all but

proceeds to provide their single anecdote

That sounds 100% like your property fits roughly into one of the groups I outlineded above then.

It doesn’t, but you’ll keep believing anything you want no matter what the data says because you’re dug into an anti-reality position.

Rents have gone up across the country, and that’s after a large period of wage stagnation that didn’t keep up with inflation for three or four decades. But yeah you’re right, I’m well off not because I timed the real estate market, but instead because I didn’t buy avocado toast.

Except I have bought basically whatever I wanted and from the look of things (e.g. mega yachts and private planes) so have other people who are considerably richer than either of us.

It’s math dude, if your rent is $2k a month and you net $25k a year you aren’t going to be able to save your way out of that hole.

As an aside, people like yourself who told me to move to lower COL areas also provided extremely bad financial advice. Lower COL areas usually also have lower salaries, and you may be able to skip a dinner out in a higher COL area, but you aren’t going to make up the $20-$40k difference in salary you receive in a higher COL area by doing so.

if your rent is $2k a month and you net $25k a year you aren’t going to be able to save your way out of that hole.

Better just keep working the same job and renting the same place then, as we know those are absolutes that can’t possibly be changed to fix the problem.

Renting somewhere you can’t afford counts as bad budgeting.

Lower COL areas usually also have lower salaries

If only there was some way to live in one place, and work in another… perhaps even several ways to do that… oh well.

Seriously do people just never move, and stay in shitty jobs and settle with a shit hand?

I moved several times abd changed jobs several times in my 20s as I clawed my way out of poverty. You have to get cool with not staying tied down if you want to do well.

If a place fuckin sucks, sell your shit and move.

If your job sucks, get a better one.

If rent is insane, get roommates.

And if you struggle with getting a job, you either aren’t looking in the right places, you’ve set your standards too high, or you have some deeper rooted issue that’s red flagging your application.

Or you are struggling with systemic racism/sexism/classism/ableism in the domain which of course fuckin sucks, and that one doesn’t have as easy of a solution.

And if you struggle with getting a job, you either aren’t looking in the right places, you’ve set your standards too high, or you have some deeper rooted issue that’s red flagging your application.

I wonder if you’ll sing a different tune after the next rounds of tech layoffs.

“Learn to code, bro” doesn’t hit the same for me in the post EQ economy, and not every job can be done remotely.

The stats are clear that wages for non-c level positions have stagnated, but you’ll keep believing whatever you want despite them.

You also seem to have gone out of your way to step over the point I was making which is that I did everything you’re saying, had no dependents, and had it not been for a little bit of luck in my timing, I too would’ve been in the “can’t afford a house” camp.

A perfect example of this is actually people who stayed in the same exurban area and work similar jobs to the generation before them. I have relatives that are teachers, and former neighbors who are teachers. Wanna guess which generation is barely making ends meet in a shitty little house and which is living fat and rich next to engineering and management neighbors?

I wonder if you’ll sing a different tune after the next rounds of tech layoffs.

I am completely unaffected by this, as I am not clinging to the hulls of sinking ships.

A perfect example of this is actually people who stayed in the same exurban area and work similar jobs to the generation before them. I have relatives that are teachers, and former neighbors who are teachers. Wanna guess which generation is barely making ends meet in a shitty little house and which is living fat and rich next to engineering and management neighbors?

Local internet denizen struggles to grasp that wealth is accrued over time, more news at 11.

If you keep comparing apples to oranges, you’ll never be happy.

Also, to flip it around, if you ask both if those households what budgeting tools they use, do you think you’ll get similar answers?

I’d strongly bet the the folks struggling will go “what do you mean”? And those doing well will go “We use x”

I’d also bet if you open the two households fridges and cupboards you’ll get extremely different results that help shed some light on the situation.

I have so many, so many friends my age that complain about money, then I visit their home abd see their fridge and I instantly think “oh, well, now I see why they are having issues…”

It’s become very difficult to not just assume it’s either budget issues, or a total lack of willing to change location/job. It’s pretty much always one of those two.

The times I’ve seen people complain about it, and then their car has a bunch of fast food wrappers in it is endless. It’s a plague.

And I don’t necessarily blame them. I blame the lack of support networks, schooling, etc, that didn’t teach them how to manage their lives. The wests’ school systems churn kids out like a factory.

It’s not impossible to claw your way out, but a lot if wealthy people 100% want you to think it is so you don’t even try.

Instilling apathy is such a powerful form of control and oppression. Why bother? You can’t do it. Give up. You’ll never afford things. Just keep buying random pick me ups off Amazon instead.

Reminder that the same wealthy individuals that control nearly every source of news and info you consume also are heavily invested in city infrastructure.

The news outlets you consume from have a vested interest in keeping you thinking clawing your way up and out is impossible