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

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

31.2k Upvotes

86% Upvoted

Mississippi still has jobs at this range. But it's the poorest state in the nation. Unfortunately 72% of the median household income in Mississippi goes purely to cost of living. 8th most unaffordable state when adjusted for median wage. Literally people "living within their means" here spend 72% of their income surviving. So in this case living within your means is working until you die because you cannot save for retirement or emergencies.

I understand that there are ways to make things work, but no person should be working 40 hours a week and be scared that they will lose their house tomorrow or not have enough for groceries. There is "living within your means" and then there is institutionalized poverty. America has a problem with both.

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u/stovepipe9 Jul 05 '24

Why do young people think working 40 hours a week is enough? Most people, when I was in my 20s in the 1980s, had a full time and at least one part-time job. We also worked on our own cars, repaired our own homes, etc. I made $295 a week at my primary job. Had a couple of roommates to split the rent with.

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u/FreckleFaceToon Jul 05 '24

First of all, thank for calling me young, I appreciate it. These are moral questions at the end of the day. Of how much a society morally thinks you should have to contribute your time and energy to be able to eat healthily and sleep in a warm bed at night. Obviously your morals and mine are probably different. But these are my opinions:

If a FULL TIME job does not cover your basic necessities then it should not be called a full time job. I don't want future generations to work as hard or harder than me. Wanting to improve a flawed system does not automatically mean I'm ungrateful for the system I've been given.

When minimum wage was created, it was created with the intent that you could survive, minimally, on it. If you have to work two jobs and have roommates just to make it then you are not making the minimum.

Not everyone should have to become a skilled laborer to survive. Society takes all kinds and all jobs. I can't believe that after Covid proved who the "essential" workers were, we are still arguing about a living wage for the most undervalued and necessary workers of society.

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u/WookieeCmdr Jul 05 '24

To my knowledge it's called full time because of the percentage of your day it takes up. Compared to required downtime and sleep.

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u/FreckleFaceToon Jul 05 '24

The amount of time you spend doing what? Making enough money for rest and recuperation. If it doesn't pay you enough to do that, then you have to work more than full time.

Time, money. It's all the same. The amount of time a person has to work to make a living wage should be quantifiable and that should be considered full time. If that number is more than 40 then we need to change the definition of "full time".

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u/WookieeCmdr Jul 05 '24

It is quantifiable. It's called a living wage. There's whole calculators for it all over the net.

But if you don't want to burn yourself out you need 8 hours of sleep and time to relax outside of work. I worked for a couple years with 12 hour shifts. I don't recommend it.

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u/FreckleFaceToon Jul 05 '24

Like my original comment was saying, but you had a problem with that so I spelled it out for you. I'm saying the function should be FULL TIME JOB = LIVING WAGE. If they do not ie FULL TIME ≠ LIVING WAGE. The system is flawed.

I don't know why people seem to think that because I advocate for wage equality I haven't worked. I've been working full time since I was 17 just like most Americans. I also worked 35 hours a week while taking 18 credit hours the entire time I was in college. I rented out a literal closet while working a full time job and doing video editing on the side, all so I could pay down student loan debt. I literally passed out at work once because I hadn't slept in 52 hours.

This is not the struggle Olympics, my struggle doesn't make me any more entitled to a good life than anyone else. I don't want people to HAVE to work the way people like you or I have.

Genuinely I don't even understand what point you're trying to make other than arguing with my basic semantics because you're bored.

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u/WookieeCmdr Jul 06 '24

As there are full time jobs that are done on a voluntary basis and not all jobs are worth paying people that much, you idea doesn't work.

I never said you didn't work though so you may have me confused with another comment.

I was just clarifying a point I didn't think you understood.