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24 minutes ago, chocolat steve said:

If you make 100k in large metro areas, LA, Dallas, Chicago, SF,  Boston, NY, you will have to budget. If you buy a home and have a family with that income you are month to month no question. 

You should live within your means.

It is no a mandate that you must buy a house.

You have a family when you can afford to have a family. You budget and save some money. Stop buying the overpriced Starbucks and force yourself to save!!!

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4 hours ago, cavanami said:

a BS headline designed to trigger a false response!

No way 1/3, total BS!!!

If you buy in to this, you are a complete idiot!!!

I agree with you here Cav.  It's highly questionable.  I wish the media wouldn't publish stories like this, it just demeans everyone.  I know wages have stagnated and Americans out of pocket expenses have increased, but to say one third are living at least some of the time without money, even while living on a $100,000 dollar paycheck or more really staggers belief, and makes a mockery of the people who are in poverty and doing it tough. 

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It's a legitimate article. End of story. It covers a wide income group. 100k isn't the only group but if you if you make 100k in SF you are broke. Point is millions of Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck and anyone can say live below your means. Easy when its not you. There are all kinds of circumstances. Overall, Trump's great economy isn't great. Most jobs aren't enough to live more than month to month. This article is in line with the 40 percent having no more than 400 dollars stat as well. 

The facts don't care about our feelings. 

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3 hours ago, chocolat steve said:

It's a legitimate article. End of story. It covers a wide income group. 100k isn't the only group but if you if you make 100k in SF you are broke. Point is millions of Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck and anyone can say live below your means. Easy when its not you. There are all kinds of circumstances. Overall, Trump's great economy isn't great. Most jobs aren't enough to live more than month to month. This article is in line with the 40 percent having no more than 400 dollars stat as well. 

The facts don't care about our feelings. 

BS article. End of story!

As long as people like you continue to make excuses for people that cannot control their spending and want everything now, then nothing can improve. You are the problem!!!

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4 hours ago, chocolat steve said:

It's a legitimate article. End of story. It covers a wide income group. 100k isn't the only group but if you if you make 100k in SF you are broke. Point is millions of Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck and anyone can say live below your means. Easy when its not you. There are all kinds of circumstances. Overall, Trump's great economy isn't great. Most jobs aren't enough to live more than month to month. This article is in line with the 40 percent having no more than 400 dollars stat as well. 

The facts don't care about our feelings. 

I do get your point.  I try to bear in mind that I don't have to worry much about money myself but a lot of people do.  I have to say I can't really imagine having to go a week without money.  It sounds bloody horrible. 

Although I don't stint myself or my family, not by a long shot, however we don't borrow money unless it's overwhelmingly clear that the investment will pay off.  Consumerism is the new religion as they say.  People making shrines of flat screen tv's, having to have to always have the latest iPhone, kind of perplexes me. 

There is a kind of blindness to all this; yes facts don't care about our feelings, but our feelings most definitely care about the facts.  However the goddamn economy is going it's undoubtedly due to Obama policies.  Economic policies take years to take effect, the fact that moments after Trump was elected he was crowing about the economy just goes to show how ignorant most people are - including the pundits and so called economic geniuses.  

It's true - people are struggling, but it's extremely unhelpful to exaggerate the problem.  And worse it trivializes the poor people that do deserve our concern and the reforms that any decent, wealthy society should provide.  

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Peter Schiff called the 2008 recession. He voted for Trump. He is one of the people I listen about the general economy because I trade forex on the side. He voted for Trump for economic reasons only. He opposes AOC, he opposes Sanders. He calls 'balls and strikes'. I disagree with him about a few things. Ideologically I disagree with him and he is very anti cryptos which I disagree with him as well. He calls out Trump's economy for what it is. 

 

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3 hours ago, cavanami said:

BS article. End of story!

As long as people like you continue to make excuses for people that cannot control their spending and want everything now, then nothing can improve. You are the problem!!!

What if I get both black Patriots to like it? ;)

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2 hours ago, panadolsandwich said:

I do get your point.  I try to bear in mind that I don't have to worry much about money myself but a lot of people do.  I have to say I can't really imagine having to go a week without money.  It sounds bloody horrible. 

Although I don't stint myself or my family, not by a long shot, however we don't borrow money unless it's overwhelmingly clear that the investment will pay off.  Consumerism is the new religion as they say.  People making shrines of flat screen tv's, having to have to always have the latest iPhone, kind of perplexes me. 

There is a kind of blindness to all this; yes facts don't care about our feelings, but our feelings most definitely care about the facts.  However the goddamn economy is going it's undoubtedly due to Obama policies.  Economic policies take years to take effect, the fact that moments after Trump was elected he was crowing about the economy just goes to show how ignorant most people are - including the pundits and so called economic geniuses.  

It's true - people are struggling, but it's extremely unhelpful to exaggerate the problem.  And worse it trivializes the poor people that do deserve our concern and the reforms that any decent, wealthy society should provide.  

The issue I am sensing is that if someone making 100k is living month to month then the whole study is wrong? Or if a person making 100k is month to month its not the economy but them? I'm not sure what the issue is, frankly. It's one of a long list of articles that talk about the economy not being as good as advertised. 

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5 hours ago, chocolat steve said:

The issue I am sensing is that if someone making 100k is living month to month then the whole study is wrong? Or if a person making 100k is month to month its not the economy but them? I'm not sure what the issue is, frankly. It's one of a long list of articles that talk about the economy not being as good as advertised. 

I get what you're saying the average American salary is about $50,000.  Let's keep these numbers round.  After tax, you're looking at $40k. 

An average American individual will spend say $5000 on health coverage and $5000 on deductibles.  Add on a 20% co-insurance say $3000.

So all of a sudden you're down from $50k to $27k in the pocket.  Leaving you roughly $500 a week to pay for everything else, accommodation, utilities, groceries etc.  I agree, this is a pretty tough ask, not impossible.

Now what a lot of Americans will do is take that $50k contract to the bank and get a $10k credit card.  They'll max it out buying iPhones, the very latest flat screen tv's etc.  The minimum repayment for that will typically be 2% so about $50/week and their balance will have $40 a week added to it.  As you can tell at this rate they're never going to pay the money back, they'll mostly just be paying interest or what you might call a usury penalty.  Added to the fact that lending practices are so lax.  The next iteration of the iPhone will need a new credit card.  Average American credit card debt is about $20,000.  So most perhaps have at least two cards, most likely three. 

So back to $500 a week.  After credit card repayment you've say got $400 a week (we're talking average American).  All of a sudden that $50k job doesn't sound so rich after all does it?

But wait, there's more.  The average American will have a $30k automobile debt, and if they went to college a $50k student debt. 

This is beginning to sound really depressing isn't it?  Will medical costs rising so fast and incomes stagnating it's getting worse. 

Compare this to a civilized country that takes care of everyone.  Our medical insurance costs are already taken from the taxes we pay.  A $50k Australian is automatically $13k richer then his American counterpart.  We do have student debt, buy it's only ever repayable once you earning over a certain amount and a modest amount is taken - interestingly you have to earn over $50k before you ever repay a cent. 

Anyhow I kind of went off on a tangent there.  Now if you are getting $100k, I know it's not a simple as this, but you getting roughly twice what the average American earns.  Let's say for simplicity's sake that we just take the $400 a week the $50k earns and just double it - $800 a week.  Already that sounds a hell of a lot more comfortable doesn't it?   Not ideal, but surely you can manage on that.  $800 a week and living from pay to pay does seem a bit preposterous.  I suppose if you're living in Manhattan it probably would, but of course the average American doesn't live in Manhattan.  It does seem like a click bait article.  

Now what if you are earning below the average, say $25k.  As you can imagine from the extremely simplified analysis above you are going to be really struggling.  Possibly not eating for a day or two until you next get paid.  Bracketing in people on $100k is trivializing these people's problems, and quite frankly is insulting to the intelligence. 

 

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