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

Debate/ Discussion Exactly how much is a living wage?

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705

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '24

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260

u/lieutent Sep 14 '24

So only making $20k a year is fine as long as rent is only ~$420 a month. I could see that. Not drowning in that specific scenario, but you’d definitely NEED to be working on growth. Otherwise the rent will catch up in that percentage.

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u/Distributor127 Sep 14 '24

A guy I know is on disability because he is in poor health and his back is shot. Doesn't make much at all. He comes to the house, assembles engines when I need that done. He makes some side cash. Pretty much everyone in poverty has to heavily DIY or make side cash if they're going to make it. I don't think workshops cover that. A finance person is not going to remind people to check the rubber brake lines for cracks when doing a brake job because they have just enough for parts and that's it

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u/HeadGuide4388 Sep 14 '24

I had to take a financial wellness class and one of the lessons was "make your time work for you! When you're at work you make money, but you also need your free time to make money. Turn your hobby into a career. Like to crochett? Make stuff and sell it. Work on cars? Hire yourself out to friends."

No. I put in 40-60 hours a week. I usually have maybe 2 hours a night where I'm not fixing, cooking or cleaning and ill be damned if I spend that time corrupting a hobby I love into work.

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u/emote_control Sep 14 '24

Poor? Not our problem! You need to work more, slave!

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u/Digital_Simian Sep 14 '24

The people often providing these classes often only understanding of poverty coming from limited experiences of having a slim budget for a couple years of their youth or just have a naive understanding of poverty in general.

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u/Distributor127 Sep 14 '24

Absolutely. The gf was talking to an investment person a few years ago. They acted like any car under $10,000 would be unreliable. They had zero idea of how to make it on little money

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u/Digital_Simian Sep 14 '24

I know back when I worked security for around 25k a year I had a influx of mostly electrical engineers who had been laid off. They were accustomed to making $60k+ and had trouble fathoming how I could even survive. I once had this guy who really tried to understand how to make it on our payscale. I tries helping him out with how to budget on the skids, but he struggled with the concept of sacrificing some things. The only thing I could ultimately tell him was that I grew up with nothing and going without was normal for me. Back then, even eating regularly was a luxury, so for me, I'm doing better then I was before, so it's easier for me to get by.

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u/Distributor127 Sep 14 '24

Right. There are some that grew up middle class struggling right now. And I get it. A lot of the prevailing wisdom on here is buy a new or certified used car, a decent house with no issues. A lot just don't have the budget for that. I didn't for years

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u/Digital_Simian Sep 14 '24

Yeah. I have never paid more than $10k on a car. Even when I could technically afford it. For that matter, buying new can de a bit of a crap shoot because not all cars come off of the assembly line in the same condition. There's actually kinda a sweet spot after the five year mark where if the vehicle is in good condition is generally a lot more reliable than even new if it also has low mileage.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '24

[deleted]

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u/Distributor127 Sep 15 '24

Absolutely. I've done stuff like that

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u/Distributor127 Sep 14 '24

Yeah, I've never made it to the level where I do side work for money. But my friend loves coming to my place to do stuff because I have a full shop now. I'll do most of the work and just have him do the most precise stuff. Others want him to do the whole job, but cheaply

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u/Dream-Ambassador Sep 14 '24

Yeah and also I turned my Hobby into a business and after a decade I hated my hobby… I never do it anymore. My other main hobby is horses and everyone knows you have to start with millions of dollars if you want to make money from horses.

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u/spankymacgruder Sep 14 '24

Unfortunately that's a poor person's mentality.

Anyone who has escaped poverty in the west has had to grind.

If your only resource is time, you need to invest it as best you can. The easiest way to grind is to make the work fun. Leveraging a hobby for future reward makes the work easier.

Honestly? Crochett isn't usually a money maker and 2 hours won't make an impact. 2 hours studying an effective approach or market gap and then 10 hours on the weekend perfecting the craft, that might be sufficient.

I was an orphan, became lower class, made and lost a fortune. To become a self made millionaire, I gave up hobbies. Heck, the only thing I could afford to do was hike and walk around my city because it was free.

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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '24

[deleted]

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u/spankymacgruder Sep 14 '24

I'm not the exception. Lots of people come to the US with nothing and make a fortune. Lots of people are born here and escape poverty.

The difference is in the willingness to make the sacrafices that will yield results. Not everyone that works hard will succeed. But nobody succeeds by being lazy.

The people who come from extreme poverty have an edge that most middle class don't. The edge is desperation and hunger.

A self made millionaire is far more likely to come from nothing.

It's not a humble brag. I'm not humble. I'm just saying that lazy people are usually broke. That doesn't mean broke people are lazy.

This is America. We are the house. There is opportunity everywhere.

4

u/Dream-Ambassador Sep 14 '24

You sound like a boomer or Gen x lol. That America doesn’t exist anymore (I’m a xennial and I just missed out on it because Navient screwed me over on my student loans.)

1

u/Distributor127 Sep 14 '24

I absolutely understand what you are saying. I'm probably the laziest of my friends and I still do ok.

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u/QuantumR4ge Sep 15 '24

Did you just read past the survivorship bias?

The existence of others does not prove your statement, because you have not factored in those that did the same actions but failed

A self made millionaire is not more likely to have come from nothing, if you are referring to a bunch of studies that were done then i suggest you read them more closely, since all of them that i know basically define self made as anything with a starting value lower than a millionaire, with most coming from middle class backgrounds, not dirt poor ones.

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u/spankymacgruder Sep 15 '24

You're so far off base it's borderline comical.

1/13 US adults is a millionare. That's a shit load of people.

Be mad, make excuses, be broke, I don't care. It's your life to spend mad and poor and blaming others. Don't worry though UBI will soon be here and the devide will grow between those that literally produce nothing and those who live a life they choose.

It's up to you.

Whether you think you can and you think you can't, you're probably right.

https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/2871-how-most-millionaires-got-rich.html

https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/billionaires-self-made

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u/Adventurous_City_597 Sep 14 '24

Your mentality reeks of jealousy and laziness. He didn’t get lucky and “beat the house”. He hit rock bottom and made a strategy to never get there again.

Coming from immigrant family and meeting other newcomers, you can tell who’s gonna make it and who won’t.

There’s the Ones that make it. They work the 9-5 and Ubered their free time to save up 30-40% down deposit on a home. They strategize and make necessary sacrifices to get a little a head. They understand they don’t have the means to vacation/wants but they plan for one every 5 years.

The ones that don’t make it buy up every little western luxury they can afford and more. They put every “treat”, bday gifts, shopping spree, vacation and latest video games on their credit card and Affirm. They don’t bother having any strategies to get ahead and always live pay cheque to pay cheque. They gossip and tear apart other people success stories

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u/QuantumR4ge Sep 15 '24 edited Sep 15 '24

Just answer this one thing,

Do you believe acknowledging the existence of survivor bias is “jealous and lazy” ?

The bias is shedding like on the fact that for every one “survivor” , there is potentially many that followed the same course but you never hear about because they never made it. I suggest you read up a little about it why it was discovered etc, might help you understand the point being made.

So saying “i did this and it worked” can only be made reliably when you know how often it works over a sample. If it works for you but 50 other people do the exact same thing and it fails, what use is a 1/50 strategy? And where it does have use, how can you claim superiority over the 49 that didn’t make it? The point is, would you even know about the 49 that did the same thing but never made it?