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we now have a whole load of dual income families . we never had that when i was a kid .most moms did not work . so yeah wages may have been stagnant but incomes are times two
my sister and i shared 1 bedroom in a nyc housing project
And your kids didn’t have to because upward mobility was an opportunity for even those without a college degree. Try being born into the lower middle class today and getting out of it without a 4 year degree. Much harder to get ahead today.
we now have a whole load of dual income families . we never had that when i was a kid .most moms did not work . so yeah wages may have been stagnant but incomes are times two
They are times 2 because they HAVE to be to cover out of control housing, medical and college (ie, labor intensive) costs. There is no choice anymore.....most people have to have 2 incomes.
it can be done . i have trained so many through the years to enter our factory automation business from all walks of life . many who turned out successful had no college degree and came from the poorer area's . .
if the motivation and drive is there other qualities you have can shine . my associate was a picker packer from the warehouse who had the drive to move a head . he learned the basics but had a great trait in being able to sell . he retired when i did making over 200k a year ..
They are times 2 because they HAVE to be to cover out of control housing, medical and college (ie, labor intensive) costs. There is no choice anymore.....most people have to have 2 incomes.
exactly , so a lot of that makes up for one stagnant income in the old days in lots of cases .we pay for loads of stuff today that use to be free . tv ,water , no internet bills , blue cross blue shield was free . so yeah you need two incomes today to compensate .,
we do what we have to do . i think i was the last person we knew to get cable . we put 3 kids through local college . whatever it took we managed to get through it but we both worked .
exactly , so a lot of that makes up for one stagnant income in the old days in lots of cases .we pay for loads of stuff today that use to be free . tv ,water , no internet bills , blue cross blue shield was free . so yeah you need two incomes today to compensate .,
we do what we have to do . i think i was the last person we knew to get cable . we put 3 kids through local college . whatever it took we managed to get through it but we both worked .
Cable pfffft
Cable TV costs around 60-80 a month in most jurisdictions. Internet another 50-80.
That's around $1700 a year. That is about what it costs for one semester of community college, if you're lucky enough to live in a district where the tuition is relatively low. That's before fees and before books.
It is not even 1/5th of one emergency room visit.
Also, I think people fail to realize how many people are dropping cable. They've been losing subscribers for YEARS.
a triple play cable package here is about 179 a month with no premium stations . that is 2148.00 a year . i think we pay about 400 or so for 2 years of xm radio for the car , 149 every two years for star link for the car plus 2 cell phone bills . our utility bill for a small apartment in nyc is about 169 a month on average and that is just electric . my first apartment cost less to rent then that electric bill .
Exactly. People expect to have cellphones, cable TV and all sorts of fun toys. In addition we want better cars, bigger houses, better more varied foods and all sorts of things we did not have and could not have paid for decades ago.
we now have a whole load of dual income families . we never had that when i was a kid .most moms did not work . so yeah wages may have been stagnant but incomes are times two
Most households have two earners out of necessity. The income is doubled but it's the same amount of buying power you used to get from one income. And then they have to pay half of that to daycare.
a triple play cable package here is about 179 a month with no premium stations . that is 2148.00 a year . i think we pay about 400 or so for 2 years of xm radio for the car , 149 every two years for star link for the car plus 2 cell phone bills . our utility bill for a small apartment in nyc is about 169 a month on average and that is just electric . my first apartment cost less to rent then that electric bill .
we had none of that stuff when i was growing up .
Neither did we, but it's not because we were superior people. The world changed and we changed with it, marketing changed, the messages we got changed, the use of credit changed..little by little we change with it. We start out saying "okay, $15 a month for cable, I'll try it". Little by little people become accustomed to these things, and the prices raise little by little, slowly enough at first that we become used to it like the proverbial frog in the hot water.
I agree with you my grandparents were "thrifty", and my bikes when I was small were junkers my grandfather fixed up for me... but they spent much of their early life in survival mode, escaping a country as kids where they were persecuted, then as young adults with families going through the depression and then war. They grew up pragmatists based on fear from the environment they grew up in and the world in general.
Then we went through party time again and started spending it up and thinking of "now" versus the future, just like they did in the 20's before the depression (we are not the first generation of indulgent excess).
We did mot grow up in fear, we grew up in a world of relative abundance. Madison Avenue took up that mantle and ran with it, they started innovating and inventing new things, we went to the moon.
I am not saying people are not more entitled then our grandparents, I'm just saying if we were in their world we would have been like them, and if they were born now they would be like us. Neither is inherently "better" because it can't be taken out of the context of their world and experiences.
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