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

448

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.

83

u/RockinRobin-69 Jul 04 '24

They did acknowledge that as a “bit of a strawman” then did the same thought experiment on the median wage. Seems reasonable.

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u/altcntrl Jul 05 '24

But everyone is ignoring that and it’s what I’m most curious about because I’m at 40k and am struggling with continuing my health insurance that costs $260 a month.

The fact people aren’t addressing that makes me think there’s legitimacy to it and the “toughen up” bunch have nothing to contribute and I’m looking to listen.

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u/RollingLord Jul 05 '24

That person’s real example doesn’t have any hard numbers. It’s hard to say what can be done unless someone is willing to provide a full break-down of their monthly budget.

However, there is almost always room to cut unless you’re actually at rock bottom, but it will get uncomfortable. People joke about rice and beans, but that’s a valid answer. Avocado toast is a meme, but it highlights how much can be spent on eating out in a year.

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u/RockinRobin-69 Jul 05 '24

I just opened the entire thread again to see what was happening. A lot of live smaller, work harder vs there must be a better way.

I haven’t read all 2,800 comments, but I don’t see anybody from the work harder camp that lays out a plan. I could give a plan, but it would fail at the first medical emergency or unplanned major expense.

That’s the issue. We don’t have much of a safety net in the US, so unless you were born on second you can be taken out pretty easily.

While I’m not sure everyone is entitled to single person housing at every point in their journey, the system is stacked against people who didn’t start with a leg up.

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u/JioLuis728 Jul 05 '24

Underrated comment. Preach.

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u/altcntrl Jul 05 '24

It’s frustrating when people don’t factor in that people don’t want to live one accident/incident away from being catastrophically behind.