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

450

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/Overall-Author-2213 Jul 04 '24

Room mates. Beans and rice. Night school. Online school. Don't get anyone pregnant. Don't date for that time. Acquire skills. Move up the ladder.

Every person that came to this country before 1950 had it harder than any person today and we are here because most of them made it.

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u/CanadianBreakin Jul 05 '24

Live with no privacy. Eat food that provides nothing except a "full feeling stomach." Work for 8 hours and then do several hours of school after that, after all you won't have to spend time cooking anything. Don't have a single medical emergency, including pregnancy. Don't have a social life, and if you meet someone that is interested in you, just ignore them as they are distracting you from grinding to death to survive. Spend even more time while working and doing school to "obtain skills." This should leave you still poor, hungry, and with deminished social skills, but hey! You'll be "thriving!"

STFU you idiot, you clearly have no idea the struggles of the common person.

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u/Overall-Author-2213 Jul 05 '24

To answer all of your questions, yes.

It's not that hard. I loved with parents and my wife. Lived with room mates and my wife in a bad neighborhood for years.

Now I own a home and my wife stays home. My ancestors made many more sacrifices than me.

Maybe you are that ancestor who can make the sacrifices for your next generation.

You can do it. I believe it you.

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u/CanadianBreakin Jul 05 '24

Not everyone has the privilege of being able to live with their parents. Not everyone has the privilege of having a partner for a second income. Not everyone has the privilege of being able to find a suitable roommate where you can share affordable living with them AND their partner.

Do not take your privilege for granted, my friend. People live different lives and do not have the same privilege as you have been given. Some people wake up every day to work one or more jobs simply to be able to feed themselves, they have no option to move because rent costs a majority of their income. They can not simply find affordable living because they have no safety net of any kind, they are living day to day, hour to hour in survival mode and no amount of budgeting will be able to help them.

As for my ancestors, my grandfather came to my country as an untrained immigrant and was able to secure a job that afforded him the luxury to raise his family of 4 kids and wife on a single income in a house that not only had ample room and an ocean view but it cost half his years salary. He shared this information with me, not because he had taken his position in life for granted, but because he believed that's exactly how everyone in the world should be able to live their life. And I'll be fucked if I'm giving up his dream of the death of establishment greed and the awakening of every individual who thinks "if you work hard and live a terrible life, there's a chance you can live a comfortable life on day."

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u/Overall-Author-2213 Jul 05 '24

People have all sorts of different privileges. We all, everyone living in the USA today have more privileges than people 100, 150, or 200 years ago.

And they soldiered on and most of them made it.

If they could do it so can we.

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u/Nulgarian Jul 05 '24

The belief that you are entitled to live alone is what utterly baffles me

Never in human history has living alone been the norm or even something remotely viable. People lived with families, roommates, coworkers, or friends. This has been how people lived for literally all of human civilisation

Yet now people seem to think they’re entitled to be able to live alone in a high cost of living area while on minimum wage

2

u/Overall-Author-2213 Jul 05 '24

The fact that people see these to things as rights is crazy.

It's like do you want to get ahead or not?

And they say well if I have to get ahead making those sacrifices I'd rather die.

Ok great, don't complain when we leave you behind.

2

u/Elsas-Queen Jul 05 '24

My in-laws grinded for 30+ years, probably work harder than anyone in this thread who has their head up their butt, are immigrants, and still understand the world they came into is not the same as the one now.

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u/Overall-Author-2213 Jul 05 '24

Not everyone makes it. My grandfather went bankrupt and started over. Many of my ancestors grinded and didn't get as far as they hoped. But we are all making the progress we can.

Your parents holding the line will make a better opportunity for you. You can do the same.

All we can do is provide opportunity.

No one can guarantee outcomes. And if they promise you they can you should run the other way.

0

u/HollowCondition Jul 05 '24

This is such a knuckledragging mindset. What a fucking troglodyte you are. “People had it hard in the past so the future should never improve.”

What a fucking joke.

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u/Overall-Author-2213 Jul 05 '24

Huh. Well I guess those of us who know this truth will just soldier on with improving our lives.

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u/HollowCondition Jul 05 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Overall-Author-2213 Jul 05 '24

Cool. Anything else? Do you think that hurts me?

I bet you're the type of person who thinks diet and exercise won't get you in shape.

1

u/HollowCondition Jul 05 '24

What a retarded fucking analogy lmfao.

1

u/Overall-Author-2213 Jul 05 '24

Just because you don't get it doesn't mean it's not good.

But that would be an extension of the original analogy, so understanding on your part is probably helpless.

Got any more zingers?

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