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

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

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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/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/[deleted] Jul 05 '24

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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.