cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/33704049
Wanted to add, “Fuck Cars!!”
Car payments for decades of one’s life are not the way to go.
ITT: the working class shitting on each other just like the billionaires intended
Only 3 718$ payments left on my car and I paid off 4/5 credit cards. Turned them all off to. Just being slow with my Best Buy credit card.
oh no. are those poor people ok? they cant budget 150k? i feel really bad for them. is there perhaps a venmo? I make less than 50k, but gosh, i didnt realize they had it so hard.
Amazing. Class war between poor and middleclass while billionaires laugh all the way to their private jet
if you make $150k but live in a HCOL area and have kids, and perhaps one or two expensive medical conditions in the family, maybe some student loan debt and a mortgage, congrats you’re paycheck to paycheck
I literally know someone like this.
It’s not about the numbers. Working class is working class.
$150k household income is not enough to afford a house, middle class standard of living, children, and retirement savings since you don’t have a pension. at least in my area.
it’ll get you lower middle class, maybe.
I’m not saying these people should be having money issues, they need to budget appropriately. but what used to be possible 20 years ago just isn’t now, you need to choose one big thing to drop, whether that’s a detached house, children, expensive hobbies, trips, etc
there’s too much shifting of the goal posts for what middle class is, I think it has slipped too far downwards
Imo the entire concept of the middle class should be abandoned as capitalist propaganda. There’s the rich and there’s the working class. Anything else is a distraction to keep us from focusing on the rich stealing from the workers. Bezos owns a $500,000,000 yacht while thousands of his employees rely on government assistance programs which are funded by taxes he doesn’t even pay.
Owning class, working class and then you do have a mid point of worker/owner class. Their money comes partly from their labour but also partly from their wealth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petite_bourgeoisie ?
Although members of the petite bourgeoisie can buy the labour of others, they typically work alongside their employees, unlike the haute bourgeoisie. Examples can include shopkeepers, artisans and other smaller-scale entrepreneurs.
Those at the midpoint still have to work to live, so they are working class. 🤷
At some point it’s more that they want the extra money than they have to work, and they own so they are also the owning class
If they don’t have to work to live, they’re no longer working class (Musk still works at Tesla, but clearly doesn’t need to). But I’m not sure what your point is. Are you saying that those who derive their wealth from the labor of workers but who can’t afford a yacht should be treated differently than billionaires? I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t have progressive tax rates, I’m only saying that an arbitrarily defined ‘middle class’ exists solely so that you and I are distracted by exactly these discussions, and provides no benefit to determining what is justifiable economic policy.
children? when we’ve hit the climate crisis tipping point? no thanks, i’d rather not bring people into this world who are going to die a painful death from a climate related catastrophe.
It feels like the whole world has been an externalized cost for the very rich.
What this article fails to mention is that all houses within 2hrs of the San Francisco Bay Area are close to a million dollars plus at least 1k a month in property taxes. With insufficient public transportation cars are a necessity
Yeah public transit in the bay area is famously trash. You just need one more lane.
Move to sacramento and spend six hours each morning on the commute so you dont have to use amtrak like some cucked little bitch who likes to sleep and read.
POV: You’re a USian on disability benefits who is just assumed to be able to survive on 12k a year whilst being literally disabled and unable to do most things healthy people can. And now people with 150k a year, 10 times my income, are complaining. 👁️👄👁️
The system is designed to keep everyone living cheque to cheque
There’s room for all of us to be angry. I think it’s reasonable to complain if you work 50 hours a week for that income, have to be away from your family, who also need to be housed and clothed and to eat and care for their health, and all you have is scraps left over and aren’t saving much, if any.
When you make $150k, you usually have to live in a preposterously expensive area and have your entire life structured around your job. You eat better meals and have a better car so you can work better, and if you don’t you’re fired because someone else will. Student loans are how you got there to begin. It costs a lot money to work.
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Felt that when the UK started talking about the cost of living. I remember someone on TV crying about how they couldn’t afford food on their £35k salary. This was several years ago too.
At the time I was having to live off £8k in apprenticeship wages.
Disability benefits? That’s not real. I think you’re thinking of “bureaucratic dead ends”.
We don’t make this much but do make enough it seems like we ought to be easily comfortable (two good salaries, cars paid off) but -
How did we get here? Nobody comes out the gate making that much, we each started out making little to nothing, then went to school, had kids, got school debt and a credit card for the monthly deficit, paid off the school debt, the credit card still paying on so long after. It’s still the deficit debt, for emergency situations that come up. I funded HSA so those are not usually medical now but dogs, car repairs, house repairs. We are making progress but it’s dead expensive and slow to do so.
Basically those people making so much and credit card debt may be paying off their path to making so much.
And I know better than to complain, having been in much worse situations.
I find car insurance more outrageous than car payments.
I remember talking with some Americans a few years ago, they worked in the tech industry, so definitely on the upper side of the income range. And even they said they were feeling the crunch around 2022-2023. I can only imagine how it felt for the regular people.
Quite the contrast with the official numbers which claimed the American economy is growing. Let’s just say that the election outcome was not surprising.
Well the rich are gaining obscene amounts of money. So many of the large companies are pulling in record profits. So in that sense, the american economy is growing. The peoblem is theyre squeezing the rest of us for that.
60% of Americans living pay check to pay check for whatever reason. In 2008 this number was 40%.
There is no way to tell why this is happening. 🤡
Its actually up to 68% now.
Source?
Article:
Source Study:
https://www.pymnts.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/PYMNTS-New-Reality-Check-February-March-2024.pdf
Oh hey, Forbes says nearly 72% of those living paycheck to paycheck have less than $2,000 in savings!
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/living-paycheck-to-paycheck-statistics-2024/
Yeah, this is what an economic collapse looks like, Great Depression 2.0, hold onto your butt, and good luck.
EDIT:
We also have a massive negative net worth problem.
Negative net worth means you have more debt than assets.
Because this is difficult to measure accurately, unless you are a credit bureau…we’ve got anywhere between 1 in 10 and 1 in 3 Americans with more debt than assets, ie, they are de facto debt slaves.
https://www.creditkarma.com/about/commentary/americans-have-a-net-worth-problem-and-its-not-positive
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/whats-your-net-worth-25-of-americans-say-theirs-is-%240-or-less
These are all from 2 or 3 years ago, I imagine its now closer to 1 in 3 than 1 in 10.
Every time you hear about ‘the economy’, replace it with ‘rich people yacht money’.
And it only works when ‘the economy’ is strong, rising, booming, zooming, etc.
Quite the contrast with the official numbers which claimed the American economy is growing. Let’s just say that the election outcome was not surprising.
Between that and Biden refusing to take action regarding Gaza, the election was forfeited in 2023.
Biden refusing to take action regarding Gaza, the election was forfeited in 2023.
Which is bizarre because Trump promised the extermination of all Palestinians.
“Don’t vote for Biden because he won’t stop genocide. Let Trump win because he promised to help genocide.”
Being anti Genocide isn’t a “purity test” it’s a absic requirement. If a candidate for offices fails that and loses it’s their fault 100%
But the weirdness isn’t that Harris lost by not saying she would stop the genocide. It is that Trump win by promising genocide.
By making it bipartisan they removed it as an issue to differenciate cannidates
Just ignore what I said about the economy and blame everything on people who are anti-genocide.
I only meant to point out that one weirdness.
But “the economy is bad” was another.
“Don’t vote for Biden because the economy is bad now. Let Trump win because the economy was worse than when Trump was last president.”
About 38% of all new jobs created in the five years before the pandemic paid above-average wages, VantageScore’s data shows. But this year that share has fallen to 7%, signaling that companies are creating fewer white-collar positions. That poses a challenge to higher-income Americans who suffer a job loss because it may be tougher to find new employment than in previous years.
I feels like this is very important as it actually the reason why they’re struggling on repayment, because technically they aren’t making 150k per year but 0 per year.
But the financial management criticism still sound.
I qualified for a needs based preschool for the kid. The cutoff was 11k a month. They consider anything less to be struggling. It seemed laughably high, but it must be based on what they’ve surveyed.
Credit cards and car payments must be part of that. We have neither type of debt and get by with a fraction of that need cap! But the average car I see around here is either a new F150 pickup or a Dodge Charger, neither of which come cheap.
120k per year is like, 80th percentile in the US.
Yeah, this is California in particular and I think it’s the median income.
I was curious what this might look like, so I ran some numbers. It would be easy to hit this in a high cost of living area where rent will easily run 5-6k per month, but what about a medium cost of living place? I assumed a family of 4 with both parents working for 75k each and a 20% total tax rate (FICA, federal, state). All of this is based on what I know of typical cost of living items in the US.
After Tax Income (monthly) 10000
Housing 2500 Child care 1500 2 Car Payments (25k each) 1000 Groceries 800 Medical (incl. insurance) 800 401k (6% deduction) 750 2 Student Loans (30k each) 700 Utilities 400 Auto Insurance 300 Total Core Expenses 8750 Leftover for Discretionary 1250
So, you’d have 1250 per month to cover clothing, auto fuel, dining out, pets, fun money, subscriptions, activities for the kids, gifts, etc. You could easily run that to zero or below every month.
Now, there may be some room to cut in this budget, like not funding your retirement and giving up your 401k match or living in a much smaller home. But I would also say some of these numbers are very generous. Rent could be over 3k, most people don’t have a 25k car loan, if you own your home you can get hit with random major repair costs, and probably most parents would laugh at my estimated child care cost.
I think a key takeaway here is that kids are really expensive. Aside from the child care costs, most people with kids will want a little more living space than is doable in an apartment and kids go through food and clothes like crazy. You could probably chop at least 2-3k per month off this budget if it was a couple living in an apartment closer into the city core, with shorter commutes and maybe even options for public transit, biking, or walking.
Childcare is closer to 1500 per child, FYI, at least in Jersey.
It’s $500/week/child near me.
I have friends who quit working. Two kids in daycare, you got a clear 30k take-home to make it work, and if you’re barely making it work with that, on top of killing yourself, that income stream just doesn’t make sense. It’s dumb.
I had a friend who was the director of a YMCA daycare, and I have no idea how they kept functioning. I crunched numbers and they barely had enough to pay their teachers. She made jack shit. It was crazy. And we still paid a fortune to go there.
Yeah, I was guessing that one might be way worse than that. When my kids were born, it was cheaper for my wife to quit working than to pay infant rate child care, but that was a long time ago.
Well that’s just living beyond your means. We really need to teach financial responsibility in schools. But we won’t, because then people might liberate themselves from bondage and then who’d work all the service jobs that white collar types want to abuse?
Here’s how America “works”:
Fuck you, there is barely any public transportation, and anyone who uses it or some non personal csr transist system is literally hated by most of society.
Oh and of course, cost of housing goes up exponentially as you try to live closer to where jobs actually exist.
Also, cars are all wildly unaffordable, and most places won’t even consider hiring you if you don’t have one.
seriously. car payments crushing people? understandable to an extent, cars are required for most americans. credit card debt? thats a personal issue.
Ehhhh I wouldn’t be so sure
It’s really easy to fall into when you’re month to month.
You just barely scraped by on the rent and essential bills. Now you have $36.29 to make it through the next 2 weeks.
But hey, you do have that credit card with a few thousand available. You need to get food for the house and $36 ain’t gonna feed the kids. You’ll be frugal. Maybe $200 or so. You’ll pay it off next month.
But next month it’s the same story. Minimum payment it is.
And next month
And next month
And then you need emergency dental surgery
And then…
hi there I’m somebody struggling with credit card debt who is considered extremely frugal with purchases
the bulk of my credit debt was incurred when I was forced to pay several months of rent using my credit card during unemployment that resulted from a mental health crisis
not everyone with credit card debt got those balances buying “frivolous” things and even many of those who did were buying those things as self-medication along the same lines as abusing alcohol, drugs, food, etc. (not an excuse, but still a reason to empathize)
a lot of people I know with large credit card balances have them because they were forced to put uncovered health expenses or astronomically large copays onto the cards in order to not severely damage their health or outright die
just a friendly reminder that the elite weaponize the working class sentiment of “some people are so much more lazy/irresponsible with money/etc. than I am!” to keep us at each other’s throats shaming each other instead of sticking together as a community
If anyone’s situation improves, look into converting credit card debt into a personal loan. The interest in some cases can be a lot less.
Usual disclaimers. Everyone’s circumstances are different, and not financial advice.
I just keep balance transferring it to new cards with promo 0% APR for some months
the balance transfer fees are significantly lower than card interest for sure (not sure about personal loan interest, I’ll have to check my bank)
every time I do this I hope that this time around is the time I finally pay it all off before a new crisis arises that I have to pay for. sigh
You’re only one bad hospital visit away from that same thing
Not to detract from the statement being made but many people will sign away all their money regardless of their income.
Yeah, this seems like part “things are bad” and part “I’m bad with money.”
More income means more spendy spend
I would rather use it to pay off the mortgage and cut back on hours worked
If a median new car is 50k and used car is 30k that’s a out 1k or 600 per month note alone.
Insurance is 100-200 per month plus gas and maintenance prolly another 200-300 per month so for a single adult to “drive with dignity” it costs 1k to start
Now double it for a couple and household is 2k on vehicles alone.
Makes me wonder if high school kids still get cars like people did pre covid lol
This cost structure doesn’t make sense. When suburban family has to run a fleet of 3-4 cars
I did not get cars for my kids, that is so far out of reach. With the first two, I couldn’t even let them get real drivers licenses, the insurance increase was gonna be too much. With the second set, I got an electric bike for my commute and let the one going to university use my car if she would drop off the younger one at high school and even that - one teen driver no additional car- raised our insurance by $400 a month. She paid half of it and one of her sisters paid the other half, it’s down to extra $150 now she is 21. Remember - that is without adding another car, just the driver.
When I was in high school my mom kept like 2 cheap big beater cars for us (one sedan and one Suburban back when those were more like trucks) and she drove a new little red Supra. I think to buy a Suburban, a Supra, and a sedan this year would cost $170,000. If the first two were older that’s still an enormous expense, like an unimaginable expense.
Insurance is way more than $100-200 a month. For my partner and I (both women with fairly clean histories since we don’t drive much) to insure a 2020 Fit, it was about $2500 for 6 months. That was the cheapest we could find for basic coverage.
We ended up fleeing to Canada and importing the car. Insurance costs went down to almost 1/3 of that, a little under $2k for the year
I own and fully paid off the car fwiw
Edit: exact amount was $2493.00, after discounts
1 car two driver 2500 per 6 month… You must be from Boston
Close, NY
What does fairly clean histories mean, honestly? Over 400 a month is crazy high. Did you make claims on minor issues that should have just been handled outside of insurance, i.e. dont just factor in deductible cost but monthly increase on your premium after a claim is filed in the future? Were you getting multiple small traffic citations? One big one? Etc.
I had one claim probably 7+ years ago after a chunk of metal fell off a truck and fucked up my car tire and bumper. I was not at fault. My partner has zero. We’re both in our 30s and have been driving since we were young, but we had been car-less for a few years prior to buying this one.
I’ve had to deal with a lot of profiling bullshit before but nothing that affects insurance. Nothing stuck either, just a lot of going to courts to clear my name.
But other than that, idk. Parking tickets, maybe?
High schoolers don’t l. Driver’s license acquisition rates are going down too, since they can’t afford to have a car
I can currently find a bunch of used, decent Toyota corollas in the 7-10k price range. Liability insurance should be like $50/month.
Your estimates seem quite high to me.
$50 a month where? People here spin signs saying $30/month insurance but that is not insurance. Actual liability coverage here is hundreds a month. $200 would be low.
Oh, I just checked and I was wrong. I pay $61/month to Progressive for liability on a >20 year old small pickup truck in California. $100k per person, $300k per accident, in case I crash into a pile of Ferraris or something.
The liability is $50/month but uninsured motorist insurance is most of that additional $11.
I’m paying for insurance in case I get hit by someone who doesn’t have insurance? Ridiculous.
Our uninsured motorist is almost 1k every 6 months, plus bodily injury even more, the property damage coverage is not as expensive as the people damage insurance (which makes sense). It’s like a vicious circle - insurance is high for uninsured but then as it costs more, more people get uninsured.
Wow, that’s expensive. I’m a cheap ass. I’ve always had cheap, old Toyotas.
I can see how it’s nice to have a more modern car but I just can’t justify all the expenses. I’d rather retire sooner.
Yeah if I can keep the 2014 Honda going I will. Was going to keep its predecessor, the Civic but someone ran me into a phone pole and totalled it, in 2014.
Partly because it’s manual and that’s hard to find now, but I love it and it’s paid off and I don’t drive a lot.
I have no.accidents and I pay triple that for legal minimum liability
That’s wild. I pay less than $500 a year for like $100k in liability insurance. Maybe I’m just old and have a good record.
Do you have tickets?
One, red light camera. Must be my zip code
this guy was the 1k beater, 5 years ago
good job at reading
Even about 25 years ago, $1000 would get you a car without major cosmetic damage but it’d have a couple hundred thousand miles on it. You can still get that for around $3k today. I see them on craigslist right now. Where I live, minimum wage has increased 2.5x since then.
There’s your beater for roughly the same number of minimum wage hours worked.
Tell 'em, boy
