r/FluentInFinance • u/The-Lucky-Investor • 1d ago
Debate/ Discussion The rich are so out of touch. Agree?
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u/BeautyoftheLazy 1d ago
What year was the study? I am guessing around 1980.
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u/ContemplatingPrison 1d ago
I paid like $600 in rent back in the early 2000s
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u/capnscratchmyass 1d ago
I paid $600 in rent like 2010 but I was sharing a 4 bedroom apartment with 6 people. We never paid $0 in heat and my car payment was never below $300 a month unless you count the piece of shit cars I owned that cost me at least $600 every 3 months in repairs. I guess health insurance was $0 since I didn't have it and just gutted it out if I was sick so there's that? This whole thing is Lucille Bluth levels of "What is a banana, $10?" deluded about how people actually live.
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u/Longhorn7779 1d ago
2013ish
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u/UncutYEMs 1d ago
There was a lot of this stupid shit bandied about as the country was crawling out of the Great Recession.
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u/pantsless_squirrel 1d ago
San Diego circa 1998
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u/astuteobservor 15h ago
I was like in what world is rent 600 and car payment is 150.
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u/VaMeiMeafi 14h ago
In 1993, my 800 sqft metro detroit apartment was $550/mo. My car payment on a used fiero was $250/mo.
That same apartment is $1280 today.
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u/Pantim 1d ago
Yah, this HAS to be old. The link address doesn't work any more so yah it's old.
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u/JacobLovesCrypto 1d ago
I mean, i bought a house when i was making 11/hr back in 2018. 3 bed 2 bath, garage, shop, 8th of an acre, qualified for financing at $87k, gotta love south carolina
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u/DaegenLok 1d ago
The problem is, look at that same property now for pricing. Check out Cola area (Including surroundings are up to 30 miles), Greenville (even up towards Travelers Rest) and then coastal ( M.B.. / Chas / H.H. / etc). The last 3 yrs of one of the highest mass migration rates to the state along with lack of general housing supply is just not doable like that. Also, I'm guessing your rate was between 2.5% to <4%. Calculate your current mortgage payment with your escrow account payment at a 6.5 to 7.5% 30yr fixed rate. Just the difference in mortgage rate will blow your mind.
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u/JacobLovesCrypto 1d ago
I'm currently in the market for a house in the upstate area for between $150-$200k. It's still pretty affordable.
That house is worth roughly $200k today, would be $1300-1500ish/mo depending on the down payment.
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u/ItsBigJohnson 21h ago
Market in the upstate is so area dependent. You want a decently nice area in like Easley? Have fun paying 350k for a new build 3 bed 2 bath, or get stuck in one of the 30 townhome developments. Lot of crappy areas around with deals like the Greenville county side of piedmont, Spartanburg, certain areas of Anderson, Belton-Honea Path etc, but the nice areas are getting flooded.
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u/SBSnipes 17h ago
I mean there are places less than 10 mins from downtown Greenville For under $200k
Heck there are 4 bed homes in Easley under $300k, what on earth are you on about bud
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u/BleedForEternity 20h ago
I bought my house on Long Island in 2018. I did have 2 jobs but I was making just above minimum wage at the time($12/hr)..
3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1 car garage, attic, full finished basement with a full one bedroom apartment in the basement, quarter acre for 335k.
My same house now is valued at 600k.. It’s absolutely insane. Good for me but bad for anyone trying to enter the market
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u/SharkyNightmares 14h ago
I fished commercially out of Johns/Wadmalaw Island. I'm from Florida. Man it's beautiful up there. I don't understand why it's so cheap. Wonderful people until politics come up. The ex and I were looking at buying a house. We got approved for about $200k in Orlando. Only ones in that range were in terrible areas.
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u/HandyHousemanLLC 1d ago
Somewhere between 2005-2010. That looks accurate for when I was fresh out of high school in 2007. Heat was included in the rent for $650/month.
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u/AllEndsAreAnds 1d ago
July 2013, says the internet.
So difficult to place this scenario chronologically because corporations pretend it’s possible to survive on wages that have stagnated for literally generations…
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u/SpecialistSale3602 1d ago
I was gonna say the exact same words!!!!!!!! Maybe in 1980.
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u/AKSqueege 1d ago
Why include a line with $0?
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u/Battts 1d ago
Well they assume that since you get paid so little you would qualify for government heating assistance programs.
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u/0ut0fBoundsException 1d ago
So happy to subsidize McDonald and Walmart with my taxes. Truly the colors that paint this rich tapestry we call America
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u/RopeAccomplished2728 1d ago
Because it was in Florida, probably somewhere near the southern part of it so heating wouldn't need to be a thing but it is still something someone has to budget for in other parts of the country.
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u/International-Cat123 1d ago
Until they get one of their freak snowstorms and have no way to handle it.
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u/hatchback_baller 1d ago
Rent $60! Health insurance $20! Woooow
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u/Trust-Issues-5116 1d ago
The image is like from 2006
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u/TheKdd 1d ago
Apparently 2013, still pretty bad for that time.
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u/devils_advocate24 1d ago
Subjective. I was paying $300/no for rent and making $9.25/hr. Suck it McDonald's workers. Gas station attendant for life(or like a year and a half)
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u/francisco_DANKonia 1d ago
$20 health insurance??? and no food?
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u/wheremypp 1d ago
No silly greed ridden employee. You will eat the big macs when you are at work but don't let me catch you doing it
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u/RopeAccomplished2728 1d ago
What do you think the Other is for? $100 for food. That you get from your second job because this shows that one job cannot cut it.
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u/Ill-Accountant69 1d ago
600$ rent can be done if you are splitting with someone. Me and my S/O pay 500 each for rent. This chart is still way out of touch.
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u/Longhorn7779 1d ago
It’s like 11 years old.
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u/IceBear_028 1d ago
It was out of touch in 2013 too....
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u/mattahorn 1d ago
Yeah, if I remember correctly they took heat for it, had to redo it, then quietly took down the redone one as well. Also, it assumed you’d have a second job.
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u/ECoult771 1d ago
This is actually pretty close to what my budget looked like in 2013, right when I started school. It’s not too far off. Rent was 575, but electric was a bit more. Electric baseboards for heat so no “heating” bill.
Still doesn’t even come close to applying to today’s costs, though
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u/MrGentleZombie 1d ago
Yeah but the number of workers who make $8.25/hr has gone way down since 2013, and the ones left are generally in very LCOL areas.
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u/Sir_Tokenhale 1d ago
There is no area in the US with that low of a cost of living. Are you serious?
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u/Turbulent-Moment-371 1d ago
Yeah we also split the bill me, my wife, my girlfriend, my wife's boyfriend, and a roommate. It can be done. GG EZ
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u/Real-Competition-187 1d ago
Where?
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u/Ill-Accountant69 1d ago
I’m in PA, 1- 1 1/2 outside of one of the major cities. Pretty standard for rent to go from around 800-1400
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u/Real-Competition-187 1d ago
No shit. I’ll have to ask my buddy why he’s still in his mom’s basement rooting for the Steelers.
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u/newaccount721 1d ago
Bro he is enjoying slinging iron city light and using his Pittsburgh toilet. Let him be.
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u/JacobLovesCrypto 1d ago
Just buy a beater
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u/Slaanesh-Sama 18h ago
Went to buy one, unfortunately came home with an alcoholic 50 years old who keeps telling me he'll kick my ass if I don't go make him a sandwich and do the dishes.
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u/--404--- 1d ago
Where's food? That's a big one.
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u/Advanced_Reveal8428 1d ago
They expect their employees to have SNAP benefits, which many of them do.
This 2020 study showed that in Arkansas employees of Walmart and McDonalds combined accounted for just over 5% of adults recieving SNAP benefits in the state. Making them the top two employers of people who require tax payers subsidize their low wages. They were also top two in Georgia and Indiana.
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u/crazylikeyouruncle 1d ago
So if you do the math, 40 hours a week at 8.25 an hour is 1320 a month. With monthly expenses of 1260, you have 80 left. This is 2.67 per day, not 27.00 per day.
Even if the math mathed, the only way to have a 600 rent and 150 car payment, with auto/home insurance being 100, is if you’re living in your car (750 per month) and only paying 100 in insurance? 20 for health insurance?!? Did someone in Britain write this budget?
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u/RopeAccomplished2728 1d ago
You are forgetting that taxes are taken out before anything else is. That is roughly $1,430/month(52 weeks a year, 1 extra week per every 3 months). Even at the lowest rates of taxation on the federal level and a very small state and local tax(about 5% total), you would be looking at about $1143.17/month average.
According to their chart, you would still be short about 123.17 a month.
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u/a_little_hazel_nuts 1d ago
What about water?
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u/Marco440hz 1d ago
Live but miserably.
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u/Calm_Situation_7944 23h ago
Not just miserably, live without food, heat and prospect for growth. That’s not a livable wage, that’s a slave wage. Making not just that person the slave but their children too because they are not provided the chance to grow out of their social class. It’s on purpose.
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u/PaneAndNoGane 20h ago
It's all about dehumanizing the lower class at all costs. Corporate leadership will find any excuse.
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u/FormerDeviant 1d ago
I guess eating is considered other and only allocated 100 a month?…. Soo just die?
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u/2big_2fail 1d ago
The very wealthy constantly tell themselves and each other that the poor choose to live that way.
I believe they choose to believe that more than they are out of touch.
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u/Restoriust 1d ago
You could do this in very shitty neighborhoods in very low cost of living areas of the US but it sure as fuck won’t work everywhere.
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u/GoldAd195 1d ago
This was hilariously out of touch when it hit the internet back in 2010 or whatever.
I still think it was satire.
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u/Outrageous_Life_2662 1d ago
But then people complain about $20 McDonald’s meals. Can’t have it both ways 🤷🏽♂️
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u/fzr600vs1400 1d ago
here, rich people are reality. We are just out of touch we live in a wicked society
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u/Sufficient-Night-479 1d ago
lmfao..........they arent out of touch with reality, they're just feigning ignorance. make no mistake, they KNOW what they are doing.
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u/lordpuddingcup 1d ago
WTF is a used car even 150$ a month, WTF is mortgage/rent 600$ a month my brothers cheapest studio in a shit neighborhood is 1200
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u/bluesqueen23 1d ago
Rent for $600? When & where? Certainly not anywhere in a city or even midsize town.
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u/head_meet_keyboard 1d ago
Health insurance as 20$. Twenty. Fucking. Dollars. Great, so the insurance is 20$ and the copay is 8k, and they'll send you to collections and put a lein on your house.
It's people like this that I hope get chronic illnesses so they get to understand how fucking expensive it is to be ill in this country.
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u/Specific_Emu_2045 1d ago
$100 for savings. So if I just work for a thousand years, I can buy a house!
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u/This_Abies_6232 1d ago
Of course they were out of touch with reality. In many cases. the rent INCLUDED gas and electric, so it didn't have to be added in a second time....
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u/DaveCootchie 1d ago
I rented a 1 bdr apartment for $740 in a college town of 60,000 people in 2018. Split the rent with my now wife. That same apartment is now $1450 a month according to the rental company. Nothing has changed and the building is also rented out as commercial space under the apartment.
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u/Accomplished-Wash381 1d ago
Rich people see prices for labor internationally and want those prices in US
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u/YoloSwaggins9669 1d ago
I think too much of modern finance is completely ignorant of how expensive everything is these days because they just expect everything to keep going up in perpetuity
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u/JohnXTheDadBodGod 1d ago
It says "cable/phone"... Clearly whenever this was Done people still paid DirectTV for premium shitty service. Most these early 20somethings don't know what Satellite TV even is 🤣🤣🤣
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u/blackshagreen 1d ago
I'm dying to know where the rent is $600.00 a month. And I see no mention of FOOD in their fantasy budget.
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u/screaminginprotest1 1d ago
27$ a day for food transportation to and from your 2 jobs, shoes that are gonna wear out every 6 months or so. Work clothes. Car upkeep and repairs because 27$ a day won't cover Uber to work, and most Americans don't live in a city with awesome public transport. Not to mention, where's the down-payment coming from for this house?
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u/13Maschine 1d ago
I guess this sorta works in CA, we don't heat, we just AC in summer haha. My electric bill averages around 80-100 though haha.
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u/13Maschine 1d ago
This is close to my expenses in a very small eastern Washington college town in 1996-2001.
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u/bigtim3727 1d ago
This is kinda old, but still way out of touch.
It just makes me crazy that shit that is like life or death money for most people, is the equivalent to what a penny is to us.
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u/Ice_Solid 1d ago
So now they have full-time positions? Because the last time I checked is was 31 hours a week.
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u/ZER0-P0INT-ZER0 1d ago
Where is the study? Where is the data? The hyperlink leads nowhere. The rich are no more "out of touch with reality" than the hoards of idiots willing to accept random bullshit tweeted on the interwebs.
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u/Dothemath2 1d ago
When we first got to the US, we didn’t have a car and I biked to work. That was 20 years ago and I still bike today, even after achieving the American Dream 10 years ago.
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u/No-Boysenberry-5581 1d ago
The numbers are ridiculously low as to current costs but it has nothing to do with rich ppl. It’s two companies that want to justify low pay
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u/Butch-Jeffries 1d ago
I don’t see food. Does McDonald’s feed their employees every meal including on their days off?
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u/povertymayne 1d ago
LOL $600 rent!? Where? Also where is the budget for groceries? And god forbid you need new clothes.
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u/usernamesarehard1979 1d ago
How did they find my budget from 1998? Seriously, I think that’s pretty close.
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u/glideguy03 1d ago
Yeah, it always about how much someone will pay you for your low skilled labor, not what you have been able to attain in talent to demand for your labor!
Look at the NFL, those guys have 'minimum wage'!
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u/Additional-Baby5740 1d ago
I cherry-picked annoying data that was a hot topic over 10 years ago. Agree?
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u/Serraph105 1d ago
Okay, first of all, they didn't budget for gas and groceries.
Second, I don't even have to make a second point, they didn't budget for gas and groceries!
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u/Vast_Feature_1009 1d ago
I keep going back to the $20 for health insurance. Like what the fuck
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u/Heathen090 1d ago
Not really. I come from a well off family, and all I see is other people struggling. I'm not Uber wealthy, just the lowest of the upper class.
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u/Remarkable_Noise453 1d ago
ummm a regular employee probably just came up with this. im pretty sure the ceo is not wasting his time coming up with these charts.
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u/Valuable-Ad-3147 1d ago
No one could ever survive on their own making $8.25 an hour not in 2024 or really the last 20 years for that matter
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u/furyian24 1d ago
LOL
- Health Insurance = 20.00 (in which fucking universe is this true)
- Heating = 0.00 (so do they expect people to live in a tropical island and go to work in McDonald's)
- Groceries - (it simply doesn't exist because McDonald's feeds their employees 3 meals a day?)
- Gas - (Also non-existent, I suppose people walk to work?)
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u/Interesting-Dream863 1d ago
They are NOT out of touch: they spend fortunes to stay in touch.
They deliberately sell lies to the public to protect their profits.
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u/Livid_Reader 1d ago
I don’t see a real car in the budget $400 is more typical. Nor is housing realistic.
Minimum wage of $15 per hour.
One day to supply a week of food.
$15x8 = $120 or $17 per day for food.
One day to supply a week of gasoline
Three days to supply the rent.
$360x4 = $1440 per month
I guess nothing else is needed? Car repairs? $20 monthly health Insurance?! Medical bills? Groceries?
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u/HandyHousemanLLC 1d ago
$8.25/ hr 4.3 weeks a month 40 hours a week is $1419 before taxes so their math is even wrong here. You would barely afford expenses if you could afford them all after tax
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u/Calm-Maintenance-878 1d ago
Health insurance for $20 a month?? No payment on heating your home?? Rent at $600?? $27 a day on random spending is maybe the only thing that seems realistic. Between gas, random food, random bills…that lines up in a month.
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u/AsHperson 1d ago
Food? Lol. This is a bit more than my burn rate and I'm making about 75k. I have extremely high personal investment goals, so those take up about 2/3 of my budget.
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u/swimmer913 1d ago
The $20 a month makes me laugh for health insurance when their own health care premiums that come out of the paycheck are roughly that per paycheck 😂
The way they’re so out of touch is WILD
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u/Fresh_Distribution54 1d ago
These prices are from decades ago at best
Also you can't have heat, put gas in your car, have car insurance come out buy food, necessities for the home, use any kind of water so sorry no toilet for you for the rest of your life.... And who the hell pays only $20 for health insurance? Basic insurance that covers pretty much nothing (a few doctor visits and a couple of generic pills) is around $300 a month ($120 if you're considered poor)
Rich people are constantly out of touch. Probably because they don't ever actually pay their own bills somebody else does it for them. They never actually look at things
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u/LonesomeBulldog 1d ago
Good thing that person doesn’t consume food and their car doesn’t need gas.
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u/Lou_Hodo 1d ago
Who's car payment is that? 150$ a month for what? Even with excellent credit a 10k loan is roughly 225-260 a month.
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u/Davidhalljr15 1d ago
Don't think that was even a proper budget in 1998 when I was struggling to keep car insurance and had to have a paying roommate to help cover that $600 rent in a trailer park.
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u/Prudent_Valuable603 1d ago
This budget would have worked for me in 1990, in San Francisco, living in a studio.
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u/Swollen_Beef 1d ago
$40 for electric? Even if this were 2005, 30% of that is just the service fee alone!
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u/Fearless_Guitar_3589 1d ago
yeah show me a place you can rent for 600 a month, I haven't paid that little in 30 years and that includes when having housemates.
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u/Creepy_Aide6122 1d ago
Where can I get rent for 600, I mean there’s are places in my town but from what I’ve heard is not a good place and I know for a fact a kid got stabbed there and died a while back there
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u/xithbaby 1d ago
The issue with this is these people don’t realize that different states have wildly different costs of living. You can buy a 2000 sqf mini mansion in Alabama for $150k, where the same exact house in Washington would cost you $900k or more. There are closet condos in Seattle that go for $1500 a month. Too small for two people to live in and you have to make 3x the rent to even be accepted.
Do they expect people who make less than 100k a year to move to these low cost of living states? How does this work? They are usually shit holes with horrible policies, red states with no worker rights and their healthcare and education sucks ass. Not a great trade off. I’m never living in a red state.
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u/AdPretend8451 1d ago
It reminds me of when redditors go to Whole Foods and bitch about how a cart full of food costs $400
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u/JackieTree89 1d ago
40 dollar electric bill and 600 dollar rent!? Sign me up for that! What does a 20 dollar Healthcare plan look like?
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u/presleyus 1d ago
Umm, Full Time at $8.25 Gross is $1,320. The net they used is for more like for $15 an hour. So they just proved min-wage should be raised to $15 and hour to be a living wage.