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Big screen TV's and eating out would be my picks. You can see some really poor looking homes, but there's one thing in common. They ALL have a big screen TV in the living room, and perhaps in other rooms we can't see from the windows.
You can go to Sam's Club and buy a very large TV for well under $1,000.
My 55" TV was $599 back in 2019. I have a 43" wall mounted in my home office bedroom that looks enormous in this small bedroom. I believe it was $299.
That's not that much money, and it's a one-time purchase that will ideally last for years.
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Originally Posted by oneasterisk
It's great you live within your limitations. Others believe life owes them more so they live beyond their reality.
The US provides safety nets for those who seek them. You pay your taxes and it's their for those that need it. Even private entities like churches or aid orgs are available. It's commendable to want to do it your own, but nothing wrong with asking for help. I was recently grumbling to my friend about having to get a plumber to come out and fix my leaking shower. He told me it's probably just the valve cartridge that needs replacing. I spent some time on YouTube and it didn't seem too difficult. I ordered the part and did the swap and sure enough it fixed the leak. $40 part saved me $300 plumber visit, all because I talked to someone.
So much of this "safety net" is contingent upon where you live. It's also a big factor in homeless and migration patterns.
I live in one of the most conservative parts of Tennessee, which is itself a conservative state. I'm a 37 year old legally single white guy with no kids. I'm at the back of the queue for any social assistance. Realistically, I have absolutely nothing to fall back on.
The only weird thing on that list was the trampoline?!?!
I overheard a guy yesterday (renting the waterfront home next door) about suing the trustee so he could have more access to his money...........as he was sitting there on an upside down 5 gallon bucket smoking cigarettes! Seemed like the trustee was preventing exactly what whoever feared Junior would do with his money!
Lottery tickets........people spend stupid amounts of money on those, & then wonder why they can't make ends meet.
Because they are going to WIN!
I worked for a guy 25 years ago that won the lottery twice, 3mm and then 20mm. Clearly he beat the odds, but still spent 5K a week on tickets "because its a write-off!"............umm ok but you are still blowing 1/4 million a year on scrap paper!
He did have a funny rule: Don't buy any tickets where the prize won't change your life. Why buy a scratch ticket that offers a $5000 max prize? What is 5K taxed after the win: $4000? What does 4K do? Give you a big weekend in Disneyworld?
I've never liked scratch tickets, they are dirty to scratch! They do have $20-30-50 tickets that payout millions but a ticket that expensive is crazy to me.
Oh, maybe treating a college degree as necessary for an entry level job, keeping anyone who can't afford college in the minimum wage jobs.
Requiring a perfect credit score for employment and making sure the people who get hired aren't too old.
Requiring the amount of income to rent to be at least three times more before taking an application.
Systematically eliminating all resumes for a job opening from people with the last name of Washington or Hernandez so they don't get hired.
There's a lot more. Shall I go on?
We live in a competitive society where you make your own way through life.
If you can’t afford to live in a high COL city or metro area, then you have to consider moving to a less expensive area, even if it’s in another part of the country.
Americans do this all the time.
Also, even if you get into college, that doesn’t mean you’re going to graduate. If you do graduate, your degree may not even lead to a well-paying job.
There are simply no guarantees about outcomes like that.
This video may grab more attention by providing an opportunity to look down on people, but all the middle class people I know who are habitually broke are like that because they spend too much money on education and activities for their children. It is easy to frugal-shame someone for an unnecessary $200 tattoo, but what about a $12K/year private school because the public district is failing?
........need a license to show up to work and that a college degree is now required for many jobs that were once performed by high school graduates?
Once, a high school graduate could read and write and do some relatively complicated math, and write a term paper and do research, and they knew a bit of geography. They also know how to show up a couple of minutes early and to be ready to start performing at start-up time for the day and how to follow the rules and regulations. That is no longer true and maybe you can get those skills with a college graduate, and maybe you can't.
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.........someone making $15 an hour (a wage many businesses are still screaming about paying) to paying for an apartment that's only $666 a month. Let's see you find one for that amount of rent. You see the problem here?.....
The only problem I see here is that some people do not understand the concept of roommates, or social partners, with two incomes. Two incomes can pool their funds for rent and afford $1332 a month for rent and even in my high cost of living area, you can find a place to rent for $1332 a month. It won't have a three car garage, a hot tub, and a granite and stainless steel kitchen, but they are out there.
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........ living in a slum while going to an inner city school gives a kid the same advantage of someone raised in the suburbs who has caring, well-off parents.
Some kids get a rockier start than others, but the facts are the same for everyone and the child had to make a decision at some point. The truth is that children from the slums can and do make a successful life if that is what they decide to do. This country id full of people who didn't get unlimited support from family and society and yet they still became functioning adults who can support themselves and their family.
.......I live in one of the most conservative parts of Tennessee, which is itself a conservative state. I'm a 37 year old legally single white guy with no kids. I'm at the back of the queue for any social assistance. Realistically, I have absolutely nothing to fall back on.
And society should not have to support you. You are young and apparently healthy with no dependents. Why should the tax payers support you? Go out and make your own way.
And most likely, it is not true that there is no assistance for you. There are employment counselors, lower cost community colleges that provide vocational training. There are Pell grants that can be used for vocational training. I think it is very unlikely that there is no public health clinic. Surely, you have free access to the public library.
There are no apprenticeship jobs? No one in the area needs a handyman or a landscaper?
You have no ties to the community, so move to where you have a better chance of success.
You can go to Sam's Club and buy a very large TV for well under $1,000.
My 55" TV was $599 back in 2019. I have a 43" wall mounted in my home office bedroom that looks enormous in this small bedroom. I believe it was $299.
That's not that much money, and it's a one-time purchase that will ideally last for years.
So much of this "safety net" is contingent upon where you live. It's also a big factor in homeless and migration patterns.
I live in one of the most conservative parts of Tennessee, which is itself a conservative state. I'm a 37 year old legally single white guy with no kids. I'm at the back of the queue for any social assistance. Realistically, I have absolutely nothing to fall back on.
That's most of us, though. I've never even collected unemployment, yet many people I know lost jobs for whatever reason, and then sat and "collected" for six months until the benefits ran out. Like they didn't even go looking for a job during that period because why should they when they could "collect" and sit home and watch TV?
It's a different mentality. My parents expected us to work part-time as teenagers. They provided the necessities, but if you wanted that extra pair of jeans or some cool earrings or something, you had to find a way to earn money to get them. I therefore always expected that I should work. I raised my daughter the same way. While she was getting her graduate degrees, she worked however she could, substitute teaching, driving Lyft and Uber, working in restaurants. Once in a blue moon she asked for help, but she paid me back.
Once, a high school graduate could read and write and do some relatively complicated math, and write a term paper and do research, and they knew a bit of geography. They also know how to show up a couple of minutes early and to be ready to start performing at start-up time for the day and how to follow the rules and regulations. That is no longer true and maybe you can get those skills with a college graduate, and maybe you can't.
The only problem I see here is that some people do not understand the concept of roommates, or social partners, with two incomes. Two incomes can pool their funds for rent and afford $1332 a month for rent and even in my high cost of living area, you can find a place to rent for $1332 a month. It won't have a three car garage, a hot tub, and a granite and stainless steel kitchen, but they are out there.
Some kids get a rockier start than others, but the facts are the same for everyone and the child had to make a decision at some point. The truth is that children from the slums can and do make a successful life if that is what they decide to do. This country id full of people who didn't get unlimited support from family and society and yet they still became functioning adults who can support themselves and their family.
Yup. I have a friend who grew up in the ghetto of Newark, NJ. Six kids in her family, parents split when her mother found out her father had another daughter three months younger than my friend by a woman in another city. With the same middle name as hers, that of the father's favorite aunt.
Mother got welfare, kept a bolt cutter to get back into the apartment after sundown whenever they got evicted, she got bit by a rat as a kid, all the horror stories you'd expect of a kid growing up in the slums. But the mother volunteered as a teacher's aide in the school and got her kids into every program that was offered. Five out of six have college degrees and were successful in life. My friend just retired this year with a pension. She's a widow herself now, but she owns a house in an upscale town and another one she inherited from her husband from which she gets rental income. Some people just decide that they are going to get out of what they grew up in, and they find ways to do it. Other people spend those same years looking to see what they can get for nothing and end up right where they began.
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