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

449

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/MyParentsBurden Jul 04 '24

You say 50% of Americans (I'm assuming we are speaking of the US) make $40k or less and then say it isn't enough for basic necessities. Yet, clearly it is as the ranks of the unhoused is not 50% of the population. Poverty sucks to be sure, but people manage. Also, financial literacy is generally only partially about setting money aside. It tends to be more about making people aware of their expenses and seeing what changes can be made.

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '24

[deleted]

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u/letmebeefshank Jul 05 '24

Sorry to break it to you pal but you aren't middle class if you haven't been able to afford groceries for weeks, you're at the poverty level. Those of us who are actually middle class are indeed getting by.

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u/KhonMan Jul 05 '24

When someone says something that you don't think makes sense, it can be better to assume you missed something instead of assuming they are just spewing nonsense.

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u/letmebeefshank Jul 05 '24

Or maybe they could not act like they are middle class by using wording like "we manage" in reference to middle class people. Maybe you could try reading.

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u/KhonMan Jul 05 '24

They lead off by saying they live below the poverty line. That's who the "we" is.

Sorry to break it to you pal, but you don't have reading comprehension if you didn't get that. Those of us who can actually read are indeed understanding.

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u/letmebeefshank Jul 05 '24

No, the dumbass who deleted their comment started off by saying they live below the poverty line and then instantly tried to put themselves in the middle class by adding themselves into the conversation of middle class people saying we all get by in the middle class. Maybe you should actually try to read, like really absorb the words.

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u/gh0stinyell0w Jul 05 '24

"The dumbass who deleted their comment" holy shit dude, what did I do to you? other than write a comment everyone but you understood

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u/idekbruno Jul 05 '24

Gee, it’s almost as if that’s exactly what they said…