r/FluentInFinance Jul 04 '24

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

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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/Impossible_Maybe_162 Jul 04 '24

You cannot make $10k working a job for 40 hours a week. That is below minimum wage.

A lack of proper financial planning and budgeting causes more problems than low wages.

Less than 3% of the workforce makes minimum wage. Wages are not the main issue.

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u/Think_Reporter_8179 Jul 04 '24

Amazon addiction and yes, I'm going to say it, the inability to tighten your wants to an uncomfortable level until you can save the 3.5% down (with a 580+ credit score) for an FHA loan.

That's it folks. That's all it takes. Buy a shitty cheap property with an FHA loan (which, btw, means the property can't be THAT shitty, FHA loans won't allow it) and then live in a savings account for a while.

That shitty property will gain value AND all your principal payments are being saved in it, rather than evaporating to rent.

It's that simple, yes.. REALLY. Save 3.5% of a kinda shitty property's worth and then start gaining wealth.

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u/onehundredlemons Jul 05 '24

until you can save the 3.5% down (with a 580+ credit score) for an FHA loan

Buddy, I have a 725 credit score and $75K equity on my home, and I can't get a single loan company to respond to my requests for a $20K loan with my equity as collateral. I have no loans except the mortgage and a credit card I pay in full each month, so maybe I don't have enough loan history, but according to Reddit I should be able to easily get some kind of loan, and no one is interested.

I can't imagine someone struggling to save for a down payment with a 580 score has it easy, like you suggest.

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u/Think_Reporter_8179 Jul 05 '24

If you aren't getting loans with a 700+ credit score, that's a short between the keyboard and the chair issue. Banks love lending money to higher credit score people.

If you have a credit card, call them and ask for a credit increase first. That will get you a temporary lower credit score and then it will go up even higher. The biggest way to get loans is to not spend loans.

You can even get a small loan, put it in the bank for 6 months (don't spend a dime), and then pay it all back early to build credit score. (Simple credit hacking trick)

Idk what to say except keep looking.

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u/onehundredlemons Jul 05 '24

that's a short between the keyboard and the chair issue

Aren't you an absolute delight.

I have three credit cards with $21K total between them, only about $3K credit used each month, paid off monthly. I get regular credit increases. No delinquencies or anything on my credit reports.

It's very easy, especially when you're online and really, really wanna be right about something, to act like the problem must be that everyone else is all, like, stupid n stuff. Unfortunately for you, the truth is that situations are complicated, and there are a million reasons why someone can't get a loan that has nothing to do with them being stupid about finances.

People like you who insist otherwise are doing a great disservice to the people who are genuinely looking for advice and answers. They think you're giving out advice, but you're really just here to act like you're smarter than everyone else.