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I don't even know if there is a Walmart near me and if there was one I would shop at it. They flyer I posted is of a butcher, there are plenty of other supermarkets with similar prices, the ones I go to (now) are locally owned. I've been able to eat like this in Wisconsin (Woodmans was great), Chicago, Boston, San Francisco (SF was the hardest, but it could be done, they tax groceries too), etc... might there be rural places that cost more, sure.
I was using Walmart because they do price matching for every supermarket in your area with a circular that isn't 10 for $10.
Quote:
Originally Posted by timberline742
I don't really freeze much as I have a small freezer (just some really great deals, I can't really buy bulk due to space), I get what I need for the week on the weekend and cook it Sunday.
I understand that and that is a great logic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by timberline742
Sure, the prices might not be the exact same, but you shop for bargains.
Agreed but if you need say hamburger patties because you ate yours and they are not on sale when you need them, you can't exactly wait until they are on sale.
Quote:
Originally Posted by timberline742
Lots of this is about "wants". I don't want to freeze the meat, I don't want to take a bus or bike to a place further away, I don't want to eat the same thing every day/week, I don't want frozen veggies, etc etc etc.
Agreed but you can't exactly live off say ramen noodles. Dont get me wrong, you can do a lot with ramen and they are pretty cheap but in the long-run the use of ramen noodles is unhealthy due to the high amounts of sodium.
And what part do you understand how you can't live on $1600 in certain parts of the country! We, and by we several people have debunk your expenses and costs now. Also I brought up the minimum wage as people can't survive on that, and your $1600 is only a few hundred bucks more. Imagine if you have kids on $1600 a month, you are screwed. Do people who make $40 grand a year act like things are hard to get by, yes and they are whiny. But acting like $1600 a month is easy to get by is wrong. Once you get to $2000 it's easier, especially having a little spending money and not only be able to afford bananas and Chicken and Rice everyday.
Ok where did you debunk my $1600? I went by the expenses YOU LISTED FOR YOUR AREA when I wrote out my detailed budget. You know the area where you claimed you couldn't live on $1600? So were you completely lying about your numbers? Because if you weren't then my budget does prove you can live in your area with that amount.
Also now your bringing in kids? Really? If someone is stupid enough to have a kid while making $1600 that's not called "not having enough money to raise a kid" its called stupidity. Its the same as going out and leasing a BMW when you only make $1600.
Also the only thing that you posted up to this point that makes sense is what I put in bold. But if you go back and read my all my other posts, you will see that I never said its "easy" to make it on $1600. I just said its possible.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mkpunk
Agreed but if you need say hamburger patties because you ate yours and they are not on sale when you need them, you can't exactly wait until they are on sale.
Agreed but you can't exactly live off say ramen noodles. Dont get me wrong, you can do a lot with ramen and they are pretty cheap but in the long-run the use of ramen noodles is unhealthy due to the high amounts of sodium.
Well, don't get hamburger patties that week. Simple. I don't need them every week. I generally don't get beef as they're more expensive and I can get chicken or turkey for less, usually. But not on sale? Ok, I'm eating something else that is. (Which is why the Chain CPI makes a ton of sense).
Oh, sure you can. You don't use the seasoning packs where the sodium is. I get lo mein though or rice and mix in mixed frozen veggies or something like that. Not as convenient but a big bag of wheat or egg lo mein can be had for $2-3, enough for a week of dinners. Again, you don't have to be like that all the time, but a week of brown rice with veggies isn't really a burden if nothing you want is on sale.
The only fallacy here is your complete denial in refusing to understand what I typed. I can't for the life me figure out how your failing to understand a very simple concept. Read everything again, this time without bias because you already want to argue the opposite of what I'm saying. Here is my original statement:
"If someone has a take home pay of at least $1600/month they can manage to live with a roommate and get out of their parents house. "
Where in that post did I say ANYTHING regarding a degree or qualification? I made a pretty black and white statement. The only reason the college issue came up was someone wanted to cherry pick the budget and gave a "what if the person has student loans"? So I added in the $150 just to show that they can still afford to live on $1600. I will say again my post regarding the $1600 DOES NOT imply the person has a college degree. Get that out of your head.
I will make it even simpler:
"Its irrelevant if the person is a HS dropout, HS graduate, has some college, has a bachelors or has a masters. All I'm saying is if someone has a take home of $1600 a month they can afford to live on their own."
First off, you need to read and not dismiss posts that are different than your's. That is your bias, you dismiss anything that goes against your idea.
For someone to get the entry level pay you need to live on your $1600, a month budget, they need college. Why because if it is not an exact requirement, it is a prefered requirement for most entry-level jobs.
First off, you need to read and not dismiss posts that are different than your's. That is your bias, you dismiss anything that goes against your idea.
For someone to get the entry level pay you need to live on your $1600, a month budget, they need college. Why because if it is not an exact requirement, it is a prefered requirement for most entry-level jobs.
I never dismissed anyone's post. in fact I read them all word for word. When I was responding to panderson I even used his own numbers to give my examples just to show that I paid attention to what he wrote. I will try to say what I said differently, maybe then you will see what I was trying to say.
I'm not stating WHAT qualification is required to get a job that pays $1600. All I'm saying is WHOEVER gets a job that pays $1,600 and is single can live off that if they get a roommate ALMOST EVERYWHERE IN THE COUNTRY. That's it, I wasn't saying anything more.
That's why I haven't responded to your counters regarding education because they were irrelevant to the point I was making. By the way your arguments regarding the education factors WERE valid. It just had nothing to do with what I was talking about. I hope you can see what I meant by my post now. By the way I apologize if the tone of my previous post to you was harsh, that was not my intention.
In regards to the food, I'm sorry that you don't know how to properly budget for food. That's YOUR fault. I eat very healthy and get my fill of food. I also know how to budget. Based on your last post where you stated every cost you had as a line item to show that you can't possible live off $1,600; yet all your costs added up to LESS THEN $1600 (once you accounted for roommate paying half of certain things) speaking volumes about your lack of even basic financial/mathematical understanding.
Second, in regards to your health insurance, YOU said it was $120. You said your PREVIOUS place charged $200. So I calculated that based on what you said. So now your saying its $200 again? Your either very confused regarding every aspect of your life or your a liar. Same goes for the gas, you said you paid $160 for gas when you USED to drive to work. So what does that have to do with the now? You said currently you fill up once every 2 weeks which is approx. $80/month. Which is EXACTLY what I estimated for the budget.
First you say that I'm wrong assuming that kids are lazy and like to go out to bars. And now your saying you SHOULD go out sometimes? Again your either very confused or a hypocrite. Then you go into a rant about what drives a strong economy. You can't have it both ways. If you go with your theory of you want to spend to make the economy strong then stop complain that you can't live on $1600 because that's YOUR FAULT for overspending.
FYI, I live very well. Without going into too many details, the house I own that is expensive enough to where it would cost $3300 to rent, I go on approx. 3 vacations a year and I eat out with the wife once a week. I'm not even including the other hobbies I $$ spend on. You know how I got to this point? By not complaining about having "no money!" and living within my means until I had a substantial income.
Again now your bringing up costs from the PAST? SERIOUSLY?? You stated in your previous post what your PRESENT costs were and by those calculations you would have more then enough with $1600. By the way since you are so keen on bringing up the point about "enjoying life." My budget enve left you with $300 excess (if you have no student debt). That should be more then enough for entertainment. Unless of course your the type that spends $50 at the bar like you claimed that you don't.
No I clearly didn't act like anything of the above. Here was the original argument summed up very clearly. I said that you can live on a take home pay of $1,600 IF you get a roommate. You said "NO ITS IMPOSSIBLE" and then you proceeded to list all the costs for YOUR area. I used the EXACT same numbers you quoted to show how you were wrong. That's just pure mathematics and it was based on YOUR own calculations. So now your coming back and backtracking when I clearly just gave a factual response to why you were wrong. Remember math never lies. By the way I NEVER insulted your intelligence. But by the way your posting arguments that make no sense, your insulting your own intelligence.
The point you keep missing when I show multiple costs with insurance or etc depending where you work, how you have to get to work. You keep simplifying the math acting like every job I've had has the same costs to live and survive. I was debunking how $1600 is enough to survive theory, especially how your costs can fluctuate so much depending where you live. Where I used to live it was enough to survive comfortably, but in Chicago you'll be barely getting by, or need some financial help.
Well, don't get hamburger patties that week. Simple. I don't need them every week. I generally don't get beef as they're more expensive and I can get chicken or turkey for less, usually. But not on sale? Ok, I'm eating something else that is. (Which is why the Chain CPI makes a ton of sense).
Oh, sure you can. You don't use the seasoning packs where the sodium is. I get lo mein though or rice and mix in mixed frozen veggies or something like that. Not as convenient but a big bag of wheat or egg lo mein can be had for $2-3, enough for a week of dinners. Again, you don't have to be like that all the time, but a week of brown rice with veggies isn't really a burden if nothing you want is on sale.
I know the season packets have sodium, but the dried noodles themselves is just as bad. I was actually thinking of making fresh made ramen, as in make my own broth and so forth as I live next to Mitsuwa, which I think Boston area has a location. Now Mitsuwa is amazing Japanese grocery store with stuff imported from Japan and Korea; however, looking up packages for ramen and it's like 1 serving of noodles was still 50% of daily sodium. It depressed me as I thought the prepackage stuff was the problem, but it seem the noodles themselves are bad. Unless you have the proper equipment to make your own fresh noodles at home, but the noodles themselves in the store was a lot.
I never dismissed anyone's post. in fact I read them all word for word. When I was responding to panderson I even used his own numbers to give my examples just to show that I paid attention to what he wrote. I will try to say what I said differently, maybe then you will see what I was trying to say.
I'm not stating WHAT qualification is required to get a job that pays $1600. All I'm saying is WHOEVER gets a job that pays $1,600 and is single can live off that if they get a roommate ALMOST EVERYWHERE IN THE COUNTRY. That's it, I wasn't saying anything more.
That's why I haven't responded to your counters regarding education because they were irrelevant to the point I was making. By the way your arguments regarding the education factors WERE valid. It just had nothing to do with what I was talking about. I hope you can see what I meant by my post now. By the way I apologize if the tone of my previous post to you was harsh, that was not my intention.
Also Griffin lets agree to disagree as the numbers we are throwing out are very simplified and fixed, when in reality life doesn't have fixed costs. Cost of energy is skyrocketing right now for midwest and east coast people as winter is still ongoing. Seriously, it's April is next week and I'm still getting snow! It was 60 degrees this time last year for me. Obviously grocery costs are going up, especially for perishable goods like meats. Even bologna has gone up for me by 50 cents which sucks as that is my go to cheap tasty deli meat.
Roommates do make things easier, that is very true. The downside to roommates is the annoying habits you have to deal with, and sometimes they are unreliable paying their share of the rent and costs. That has happen to my friends which I mentioned earlier.
I'm sorry for being harsh on you, but you do talk smugly and down on some people by saying nobody can do math. I hate smug people who think they are better and generalize how everyone/generation is besides you. You were able to get by and had reasonable costs, for others the cost is worse. Especially with insurance costs as it varies where you live, how much your employer pays, then the co-pays and deductibles in your plans.
I have electric heat and my bill is still high. Ugh. Cut down on my going out budget!
Horrid winter.
This winter has been one of the worst in history for most of the country. In Chicago it was 3rd snowiest, and we almost broke our sub-zero record. I saw the northeast is getting more snow and blizzard like conditions as April approaches. I'm really yearning for warm weather and seeing the grass be green over soggy brown.
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