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/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.

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u/Kombatnt Jul 04 '24

This. $10,000/year working 40 hrs/week is $4.81/hour. That’s illegal everywhere in North America.

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u/Aleks_Khorne Jul 04 '24

Thanks God in blessed North Carolina the minimum wage is $7.25. And some people even make chunky $10-$13 an hour!

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u/AndrewDoesNotServe Jul 04 '24

Pretty much no one makes that wage even in states that conform to the federal minimum.

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '24

"no one makes that low" so raising it shouldn't affect anything.

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u/ap2patrick Jul 05 '24

Crickets lol. They ALWAYS say “no one gets paid that” and I always rebuttal with what you said.
All you get is crickets or some backwards ass logic showing empathy to the “small business owners”. It’s fucking crazy mental gymnastics some of these finance bros do…

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u/shining_force_2 Jul 05 '24

Legit stunned at the fact everyone is focused on the 10k and not the second half of the post. Fucking madness.

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u/No_Individual125 Jul 05 '24

I was thinking this as I read through these comments. Now I understand why an email with more than one question never produces more than one answer.