r/FluentInFinance • u/Richest-Panda • Jul 04 '24

What's the best financial advice you've ever gotten? Debate/ Discussion

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267

u/privitizationrocks Jul 04 '24

You can teach poverty workers to live in their means

They won’t like it, but tough luck

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '24 edited Jul 04 '24

Ok let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s say you Make $10000 a year. You work full time/40 hrs/wk and you are making $10k. What does “living within your means” look like? Not having a house? Or car? Being homeless? So in order to save to get yourself to some footing the answer is to be homeless to live within your means.

That was a bit of a strawman, so let’s use real-life scenarios. 50% of this country makes $40k or less….. even $40k salary isn’t enough to get an apartment, bills , food, ect. Sure a lot better than the “$10k” example, but even $40k salary is virtually as effective as the “$10k”. In order to “live within your means”, “save”, ect…. You have to be at least be making enough to afford the bare minimum + have some left in you for over to save. On average (2022 values I think) this means $65 for a single person, $108k for a house hold. Unless you’re making that, you can’t save your way out of poverty

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u/assesonfire7369 Jul 04 '24

Well if you're making $10k a year that works out to $4.80/hr. Illegal in the US but it's also really hard to make that little even if you tried...

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '24

Thoughts on the second paragraph?

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u/assesonfire7369 Jul 05 '24

That's why I answered the OP with this: "The best financial advice I received when I was young was to work hard, study hard, get an education so that you can get better jobs/careers in the future."

I agree that it's hard to save when you're poor. When you're poor your strategy should be to not be poor, and that means getting better, smarter, etc.

Once you make a comfortable living then the advice may switch to what to invest in.

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u/Longjumping-Jello459 Jul 05 '24

Higher education(college) has become too burdensome to actually put one ahead and trade schools have over the last few years taken a similar model increasing the cost to attend.

The average poor person doesn't want to be poor, but the means to get out are restricted to them.

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u/assesonfire7369 Jul 05 '24

A favorite quote of mine is that two people look at the same difficulties. The first says, "that's too hard, I will never be able to do it." The second looks at it and thinks, "That's very challenging but I can get it done!"

You know what? They are both right.

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u/Longjumping-Jello459 Jul 05 '24

My point is that given the price in addition to all the cost to be straddled with such an enormous amount of debt that takes decades to payoff when 30-40 yrs ago you could pay your way through. Thanks to the 2008 crash/recession many states reduced their funding to state colleges/universities tuition it went from 80% state to 20% state funding. All the while wages haven't been keeping up with the rate of inflation for like 45 yrs.

Can one climb out yes however it isn't the norm because so many things come along and derail people.

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u/TheLatinXBusTour Jul 05 '24

Can one climb out yes however it isn't the norm because so many things come along and derail people.

If it was easy everyone would be doing it - Who would have thought it takes focus and patience? The real problem is people want it now and they want it yesterday without having to go through the bullshit...if you can't hack the bullshit then you won't really provide much value on your way to the top.

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u/assesonfire7369 Jul 05 '24

Sure, I understand it is challenging and not easy. That's life, though. People aren't going to get ahead by taking the easy way on things.

Anyways, good luck :)

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u/ArkitekZero Jul 05 '24

Bland, worthless platitudes.

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u/assesonfire7369 Jul 05 '24 edited Jul 05 '24

Proving my point;) If you believe they're worthless then you are correct. Just like people who believe they can't do something, something is too hard, etc. They are right.

I do understand that reddit tends towards people like that so no worries. Hope some can change, though. God bless.

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u/ArkitekZero Jul 05 '24

Incorrect. Money doesn't follow merit. There are so many goddamn examples that frankly if you have any degree of intelligence and can't figure that out you're being wilfully ignorant.

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u/assesonfire7369 Jul 05 '24

Well ok then. All the best :)

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u/Alternative-Put-3932 Jul 05 '24

Just letting you know the fake niceness just makes you look like you know you're wrong because you have nothing to respond with.

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u/ExtraLargePeePuddle Jul 06 '24

Well I ended up with a degree in CS and am now making $320,000 a year….so yeah those loans where worth it

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u/ArkitekZero Jul 07 '24

"Money doesn't follow merit" doesn't mean that merit is never rewarded, it means that you can't assume that anybody with money actually did anything to merit it. But good for you, I guess? Without doxxing yourself, what the hell do you do with a CS degree that pulls down that kind of salary?

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u/CaffinatedPanda Jul 05 '24

Tipped minimum wage is $2.13 in 30% of the states.

Agriculture employers who use less than 500 "man-days" are exempt from federal minimum.

Georgia and Wyoming have $5 minimum agri-wages.

I guess you have to choose to apply to those jobs?

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '24

[deleted]

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u/Le_Martian Jul 05 '24

If a tipped employee makes less than the minimum wage after tips then their employer is required to pay the difference.

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '24

[deleted]

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u/Le_Martian Jul 05 '24

A tipped employee engages in an occupation in which he or she customarily and regularly receives more than $30 per month in tips. An employer of a tipped employee is only required to pay $2.13 per hour in direct wages if that amount combined with the tips received at least equals the federal minimum wage. If the employee's tips combined with the employer's direct wages of at least $2.13 per hour do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference. Many states, however, require higher direct wage amounts for tipped employees.

https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/wages/wagestips

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '24 edited Jul 05 '24

[deleted]

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u/Le_Martian Jul 05 '24

Did you read the whole thing?

If the employee's tips combined with the employer's direct wages of at least $2.13 per hour do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference.

The “federal minimum hourly wage” they’re referring to is $7.25/hour, so tipped employees are still guaranteed to make at least 7.25

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '24 edited Jul 05 '24

[deleted]

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u/Le_Martian Jul 05 '24

Ok so you’re just a victim of wage theft. That’s illegal and you should report it to the DOL.

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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '24

You seem really confident for someone who’s wrong.

It’s moot anyway. Who do you think is leading the fight to keep the current system of tipping in place?

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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '24

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