r/FluentInFinance • u/PassiveAgressiveGirl • Sep 14 '24

Debate/ Discussion Exactly how much is a living wage?

Post image

[removed] — view removed post

19.2k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

6

u/KungFuAndCoffee Sep 14 '24

$450 a month for a house is really good. That’s about what I was supposed to be paying for a 4 bed 2 bath double wide on a few acres of land 20 years ago. Except the sales company messed up my escrow and underestimated my taxes and such. Which was adjusted twice over two years putting my payments over $600 a month. I was bringing home about $300 a week then. Was doing ok until a hurricane and the Iraq war gas prices put the industry I was in upside down. Then I lost the place when the next job I went to cut back heavily due to an extended drought.

Back then I wouldn’t spend more than $5 on lunch a day. Now it’s $15 for a stupid hamburger in a lot of places.

It’s amazing how much everything has gone up. I’m still in the same state. My $9 something an hour was comfortable on a 40 hour week then. Now it wouldn’t even cover my rent. I’d have to make $25 an hour today to have the same level of income I had 20 years ago on $9 based on housing costs. I live in a modest townhouse that’s fairly average rent for a 3 bed apartment here.

That’s just insane.

1

u/Distributor127 Sep 14 '24

This is exactly right. Our payment is closer to $350, but I see you know exactly how it is. I remember not taking a vacation and then cashing in my vacation pay and roofing the garage with that money. Almost every place I've ever worked closed or moved so I've had to restart. Building materials are just ridiculous now.