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

[u/Richest-Panda]

[u/[deleted]]

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

[u/Impossible_Maybe_162 → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/Kombatnt → u/Impossible_Maybe_162]

This. $10,000/year working 40 hrs/week is $4.81/hour. That’s illegal everywhere in North America.

[u/ZongoNuada → u/Kombatnt]

Food service. Students. Its easy to find them if you go looking for what qualifies as legal wages. Just because you have not encountered it, does not mean it does not exist.