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.....Let's talk about that: ways in which a US senior living on a shoestring can create personal happiness.
I'm not a US senior...my city has been voted the most unaffordable place to live in all of North America and it's not actually something to brag about. If I was low-income I think I could create personal happiness but I believe income does indeed have statistically significant effect on happiness.
Location: Formerly Pleasanton Ca, now in Marietta Ga
10,402 posts, read 8,639,206 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BigfishTim
They say money can't buy you happiness, but I think a LACK OF MONEY certainly brings you a lot of unhappiness.
110 percent.
The last person who chided me about that topic because I worked extra hard to do better has admitted after 20 years that I was right and she was wrong. She has no savings, horrible credit, and lives in a mobile home.
I’m quite the opposite.
NO ONE wants to steal your money OP!! If people are poor enough to qualify for government assistance I don’t envy them but feel sorry for them. Some people literally can’t afford the basics such as food, shelter, medications, etc. You truly lack an empathy gene.
I’m grateful for what I have and have worked hard. Many poor people worked just as hard but have had bad experiences out of their control happen to them. Sure some people are just lazy and don’t want to work but there’s always a few people like that but not the majority.
There are several topics going on right now in the Retirement forum, all seemingly converging on the same discussion on how to provide for comfortable life in retirement without working (or without working very long) for it.
But at least the point I was trying to make in every one of the threads is: if your income is very small (say, just SSI), why do you focus on ways of extorting more $ from people who work (or have worked) hard, rather than on creative ways of making yourself happy with the little that you have? Let's talk about that: ways in which a US senior living on a shoestring can create personal happiness.
PS- In case you can't make sense of the title of this thread, it paraphrases this song :
stephen stills love the one you're with lyrics https://g.co/kgs/C6Be4e
Not everyone sings to your tune.
There are posts with a lot of advise on how to enjoy life without "stealing from you". Where are your suggestions?
I can't imagine that anyone would be happy if they're routinely unable to afford food or shelter. Some people are going to have far less desire for discretionary spending than others.
But do tell me who in the US is routinely unable to afford food or shelter.
The minimum wage in my state (MA) is $15 per hour. For 40 hours of work a week, that is about $2,400 per month. That income is too high for Medicaid, but with Obamacare,you'd be paying maybe $50 or less for health insurance per month if it is not covered by the employer. In Worcester, MA you can rent a nice studio, in a good location where you don't need a car, for $1,200 a month (that is a market-rate rent). I eat healthy food, and my food spending is essentially never over $250 per month. I pay about $22 for my monthly utilities for a studio in Boston. You can get a cheap cellphone plan. Your state tax in MA on the above income, will be about $1k per year, and the IRS tax a little over $1k. That leaves you about $600 per month for discretionary spending.
Alternatively, suppose your only income is SSI of $914. Your health insurance is free via Medicaid. You are on the waiting list for a subsidized apartment where you'll be paying only 1/3 of your income in rent, ie, about $305. The average monthly rent for a mobile home in the US in the year 2022 was $633. If you stay there by yourself while waiting for a subsidized apartment, it will leave you only about $280 per month for everything else (still more than I spend for food, but in MA you will qualify for up to $281 per month in food stamps for a single person, which leaves your own $280 intact). If you split the trailer rent with a roommate, your share of the rent will be $318, and leave you almost $600 for other purposes.
Not everyone sings to your tune.
There are posts with a lot of advise on how to enjoy life without "stealing from you". Where are your suggestions?
I have posted in other places how I lived when I had very little $. I hoped this would be the thread for suggestions! What is your situation, and what specifically interests you in terms of suggestions? Housing? Healthcare? Daily life? Travel?
NO ONE wants to steal your money OP!! If people are poor enough to qualify for government assistance I don’t envy them but feel sorry for them. Some people literally can’t afford the basics such as food, shelter, medications, etc. You truly lack an empathy gene.
I’m grateful for what I have and have worked hard. Many poor people worked just as hard but have had bad experiences out of their control happen to them. Sure some people are just lazy and don’t want to work but there’s always a few people like that but not the majority.
I am no longer in a high tax bracket, so it is true that there is a very limited potential for stealing from me personally (although it can still happen, if property taxes are raised to 5% of property value per year, as it is planned for one of my properties, which I am consequently selling). Where do you think this "government assistance" that you mention comes from? Government does not have any money except what it collects in taxes, so your government assistance is actually the assistance provided by taxpayers who pay a % of the product of their work in taxes. Weren't you the one who advocated raising taxes to 50%? In some states (notably CA), federal + fica + state tax already approaches 50% for self-employed single people without dependents when they reach a certain income level (specifically, I can tell you that a medical professional of that description who earned $350k per year about 15 years ago paid 47% of that income in the form of three taxes that I mentioned. You probably realize why I know that piece of info :-).
Our Government does not understand the root cause of inflation. We need a balanced budget and to start reducing our national debt!
The government does understand that, but career politicians care about their career, not about curbing inflation by balancing the budget, which would require budget cuts.
Good for you, and I mean that. But why in the world are we killing ourselves working for four decades to maybe, just maybe, get time to live life on our own terms? The vast majority of people I know are stressed to the max, working multiple jobs/gigs for the privilege of being a fine productive member of society, and take drugs of one form or another to cope with it all.
You work your entire life to:
put food on the table
put a roof over your head
save & invest & amass sufficient wealth that one day, several decades hence, you can retire without jeopardizing #1 & #2.
That's it. Anything else is gravy. Strike that: Everything else is gravy.
That's because you had GOALS in life and was working hard towards it everyday. That's the key, isn't it? To have goals in life so you know you're working towards that objective, whether you're young & poor or rich & retired. We need goals in life.
Frankly, I ultimately achieved a pretty high income accidentally, because I was REQUIRED to function at high level, in order to keep renewing my one-year visas in the US for several decades while my immigration case was being processed. Without that requirement, and if I had been born and raised in the US, I'm not sure that I would have had that much ambition - because in the US you can have a totally decent life with a very easy job which does not pay what my (very hard) job paid, but it pays enough. And such low-level or mid-level jobs are widely available in the US.
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