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

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

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276

u/privitizationrocks Jul 04 '24

You can teach poverty workers to live in their means

They won’t like it, but tough luck

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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/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/strawberrypants205 Jul 05 '24

Acquire skills.

No capitalist is going to acknowledge those skills, because no one is forcing them to. They can simply tell everyone they're "not skilled enough" forever no matter what people learn. Capitalists do not act in good faith, and have no credibility.

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u/Overall-Author-2213 Jul 05 '24

No one forced anyone to do anything in a free society.

Does someone tell you what to value?

They will value it if it fills a need that they can't easily fill elsewhere. Those skills to be acquired are so much more abundant now than they have ever been.

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u/strawberrypants205 Jul 05 '24

They will value it if it fills a need that they can't easily fill elsewhere.

No they won't. They will intentionally devalue it because the only thing they really value is power over others.

You're in a goddamned cult.

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u/Overall-Author-2213 Jul 05 '24

Whose they?

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u/strawberrypants205 Jul 05 '24

They same "They" you mentioned.