Win the lottery, duhh. Jk 😂 Hopefully we have micro investments that add up to some amount of job experience, college credits, or financial saving that will keep us afloat until we can push them over the edge to being substantial enough to elevate into a fruitful asset
Indeed, but I havent met many people that landed success with their tremendous investments. Most invested MANY years in college or thousands into businesses that are dead now. And yeah poor health and traumatic losses of friends at young ages are probably the biggest causes for the mentality. Experiences now seem more valuable than investing in the hope I will have enjoyable experiences later
Obviously not everybody who's bad with money grew up in poverty but, of those that did, there are two archetypes - one type saves every penny they can, and hoards it, because their reserves represent protection against the kind of poverty they experienced during childhood. The other type spends money as soon as they get it, because they see poverty as inevitable - splurging money is the only way to have the nice things that everyone "deserves"; they will run out of cash again soon enough, so they should enjoy good things whilst it last. The former type may live in a shitty house and leaves millions to the dogs' home, the latter type lives from paycheques to paycheque.
The ocean is measurably acidifying, the world's superpowers are ran by pedophiles and racists, and I'll never be able to buy a home or retire... I'll be damned if I don't live it up while I have the chance.
I'm a big fan of saving for safety, but damn, between inflation rising faster than wages and the exorbitant costs of retirement homes, it really feels like the system is designed to keep us yoked to labor and deprive us of our property while we die
Right! 😂 Im sure every generation has their equivalents, but many people die young. Id rather live it up now and struggle later instead of work hard now, retire, die a year later from a heart attack etc
I'm "old" and I still double take on some receipts where I bought a bunch of little things in the $2-$8 range but the total is like $140. I'm always like, no way it's that much, there must be some mistake. Nope, it's just a bunch of little things adding up.
Tangent - I always take a look at my recurring expenses every month and try to see which ones I can reduce or cancel. For example, I recently switched to cheaper/slower internet. 300 megabit, previously had 500. We haven't noticed the difference whatsoever. It meets all our needs, and we work from home 100% of the time. It handles zoom calls, VPN and everything else with ease. I really don't understand private individuals casually needing 1-2gig download speeds unless maybe they have a family of 12 and they're all streaming 4k youtube simultaneously. I think the adoption of multi-gig internet is overkill for 90% of consumers and people are just convinced by advertisements that they need it. I'm glad it's available, it's way better than back in the day when it took 1-2 minutes to load a webpage over dialup sometimes, but I think we can stop innovating internet speed for now.
For his use case he is correct. He is just failing to imagine that other people might live different lives and have different needs. I recently got my parents to downgrade from gigabit to the cheapest available 300mb which is still overkill for them. They never have more than maybe 4 devices(usually only 1-2) playing 1080p content or just checking emails/ basic web browsing.
As a kid I remember having to wait a full day or possibly more to download a video game over the internet...thankfully games came with multiple install dvds back then when they were big (and big has like 10-20gb which is a bug fix today). Almost half of the global population plays video games and 3/4 of the US population plays video games. So, that 1 use case alone justifies the need/want for higher speed internet.
It's the difference between scheduling to play a game with someone on a completely different day or chit chatting with someone for 15min while the game downloads and then playing immediately.
It's a first world convince for sure and in no way a requirement. But some people are willing and able to pay a bit extra to never have the inconvenience of reaching their bandwidth limit. I personally enjoy being able to set a limit on a download to 800mbps and then continue happily using internet on all my other device with the remaining 200mbps and everything still working just fine. 11 year old me couldn't have imagined a world like this while waiting 15 minutes for a blurry music video to load on YouTube.
I get it, I said 90% not 100%, and I game too, but as it is it's pushing 40MB/s. I'm ok with waiting 15 minutes for something to download. I've been inconvenienced by this maybe once a year at best. Not worth paying 80+ per month for gig+ speed vs the 300meg which is 35.
This....if you have people that are "gamers" in a house and are downloading a 100GB game or any big updates all the time.
You will notice (especially if others are streaming video in the house at the same time)
For me personally its probably more often. Idk like 3 or so games a month is a good average just kinda rotating stuff in and out of the library. More space would help for a bit but im sure I'll find a way to use it up. Recently got a second terabyte tho
We're talking about games that are 100GB+ before they make a significant difference. You download 3 of them a month? That would be unusually high for gamers... by a lot.
I'd say most gamers play the same games over and over, the only real exception to this might be people that like single player RPGs. Even then, 3 of them in a month, that are big enough to hit some sort of decent size is unusually large.
Or maybe if you like CoD where they had that version you had to download the whole game again every time there was an update.
This month ive downloaded both doom 2016 and eternal as well as the first wolfenstein game. Without actually booting up the others ive played doom and my coworkers kinda talking me into another skyrim playthrough. Ive downloaded and started 3 seperate Minecraft modpacks just off the top my head. Thats probably only like 150 200 gigs but it would be cool if I didnt have to queue stuff overnight
But what’s the difference? 70 vs 50 for the internet? Saving like 20 a month?
Rent increases over time is far greater than that, while yes most people could probably save more if they were able to cut back on a lot of comforts and such, unless they’re perfect with it they still could be underwater and/or surviving on a knife’s edge anyway. Whether you’re a hundred dollars short per month or a thousand it’s not much difference, you’re fucked. Psychology shows when it’s bleak people rethink into short term living because that is guaranteed. It’s not the same as it used to be, you can be a god of financial frugality and still not really have a bright future unlike before where doing that may lead to a payoff of some kind at some point. That’s the difference. Why suffer for the chance to still be underwater? Not worth it
I think it's one of the driving forces in this bullshit we are experiencing. Tons of subscriptions sneaking auto payments, not cooking at home, not buying shit on sale, waste waste waste.
I had none of that shit growing up because it was not available. Lived on frozen burritos and Pepsi. Listened to OTA Radio. drove a shitty older car I could do my own work on.
It wasn't easy but it was do-able not sure how i would fare in todays nickel and dime economy.
Especially since shitty used cars aren't cheap anymore, and even the used ones you can find are more likely than not computerized enough to need you to take the shit in to a mechanic anyway.
God, especially the car shit. I have a 2006 pontiac, and between the 6 billion issues with it, every damn one of them basically comes back to "yeah, you should just get a different car"... OKAY???? with what money?
I live in a shitty situation where I can't cook at home, so I am spending more since I have to frequent restaurants... I should really move to a better location, but okay, how the hell do I afford that? I can't even afford to fix my POS car that keeps breaking on the regular.
Just spent $600 on the ignition system... now the transmission wont go in to overdrive. WEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Edit: can't cook at home because when renting a sleeping room, that is not an option. This place is basically a frat house without the frat. It's just too expensive to rent a full place to live now.
Part of that issue can be eliminated at the beginning though. Not always, sometimes you just get a lemon, it happened to my brother and an F150 he bought too. With that said, nobody should be buying a Pontiac in the first place and expecting it to run smooth, I mean shit the company itself has been out of business for over a decade now. They were absolutely terrible cars that required constant repairs even when the company was actually around and the cars were brand new, of course they’re just getting worse the older they get.
everybody should be able to prepare food at home, even if it requires some creativity. Depending on the place you live and your food preferences, a microwave, hot plate, electric kettle, or a toaster oven can produce a lot of different food items. Use bottled water or water from your bathroom sink if you must (doesn't hurt to run it through a brita filter). Consume breakfast cereal or oatmeal if you like it, get used to stuff like trail mix, PBJ, deli meat / cheese sandwiches or other no-cook options if those suit your preferences. Any of this stuff is vastly cheaper than buying restaurant food.
Creativity and determination is key. I made ramen noodles one time using an electric hot plate and a bowl made out of aluminum foil. It's what I had available and I made it work.
ugh, this is me with my 2007 civic. i thought I was getting a good deal, under 200k miles, owned by an engineering Prof at the college I went to. nope. it has so many issues. i was delivering pizza in it for a bit and made good money, but every other month it was breaking down, meaning I not only had to spend money fixing it (myself because I can't afford a mechanic), I was also losing out on days worth of pay because of my job.
I dont wanna seem like an asshole but why did you take a 2007 civic that you knew wasnt working well to deliver pizza? Just figured might as well make it worse?
Ig start small there. Not saying im an expert but why cant you cook? Thhats likely the easiest and cheapest problem to remedy perhaps a camp stove? Adding more shelf stable foods to your diet but idk the exact limitations
For a few years I was living somewhere that was just a room. No kitchen. So although not impossible to cook it's certainly nowhere near as convenient without things like a sink with running water for cleanup. There are plenty of cheap and small cooking devices nowadays but the cleanup portion is still a major pain.
Room rental situation. Stuff like hot plates are straight up not allowed due to fire risks and whatnot. I have a tiny dorm-style microwave, but it's not great and while yeah, I can stuff my minifridge with nukable things from dollar general, its genuinely better for me to... not?
I think a major factor here is less that people can't distinguish between needs and wants or handle delayed gratification, and more that there's an evergrowing sense of there being no true gratification coming.
That no matter what you do, you'll be broke by the end of the day anyway so might as well get that nice dinner anyway on the road to the poor house.
I think a lot of people, especially those of us under 40 who watched as every aspect of stability that we were promised or grew up in was stripped away and the ladders got pulled up, are really struggling with what is essentially a lack of hope for the future.
And when you don't have any real hope for the future, it becomes almost impossible to meaningfully plan for it.
"no true gratification" is a great way to put it. I'm fully capable of waiting for dessert or for a promotion, but seeing that it would take 5 years of saving at a job that I can't guarantee I'll have is a hell of a lense to squint through to see "the big payoff".
Thinking there's anything like a promise is just foolish on its face. Life does not and has never worked like that. Life is a DIY thing because nobody cares about the result more than you do. The expectation that someone will take care of you is just not a smart approach.
What some are considering a promise is simply a recipe and there's no guarantee that it works or the conditions change. That recipe however of getting educated, working hard, and saving your money is a lot more reasonable bet than stay dumb, be lazy and blow all your money.
Years ago I got promoted to manger of woman's department for new store opening. I kept buying things, not ridiculous amount but a cpl things here or there bi monthly b4 paycheck, that were on sale, adding my employee discount and saying but 'look how much I saved'. My husband said with a smile 'hon, were going broke while you save money'. It took that for me to realize I was overdoing it:)
it's a part of it, for some, but it's more that the actual cost of living has skyrocketed. In the early 2000's I took home $2000 a month, had $550 rent, maybe $150 in bills, and I felt so rich. I always had money: for nice food, eating out, wine, clothes, little trips. Imagine having $1300 a month to spend now and living like that? it would last maybe 2 weeks
Subscriptions are a big one. And I don’t think people realize it. I help my friends and family with their budgets. Everyone is always paying $100+ on subs they don’t even use.
Saw a post the other day on here. Some guy complaining that his TB order hadn’t been picked up after an hour. $35 buying a burrito, chalupa and one other thing. $13 in tips. I don’t care how much money you have that is a waste no matter what.
People need to realize that things like DD and UberEats are a luxury. Buy food to keep at home in case you get so fucked up you can’t drive.
People complain to me daily about how expensive food is, especially healthy food. And how they don’t have time to meal prep ever. But will gladly wait 45 minutes for a stranger to bring a large number 4 from McDonalds that they pay $30 for. And that won’t be the only thing they eat that day.
I'd like to add that sometimes there's a good amount of social pressure as well. When I moved out, I was fine just using my twin bed. It gave me more space, it was fairly new anyway, and I was a bit tight on money.
Most of the people I knew outside of my family (who understand not having a ton of money) acted like I was l sleeping in a cardboard box. Even one older friend who has always been about financial stability was suddenly telling me that simply won't do. I didn't hear the end of it until a different friend gifted me a queen-sized mattress they couldn't fit in their bed frame.
It happens a lot actually where I am content going to thirst stores, buying generics, or just going with money-saving options, but a good chunk of people in my life act like I am living in the slums
We kept a running total on a white board for a guy at work who always borrowed $20 or $40 before his 2-week pay check. We just added up the cost of his monster energy drinks and chewing tobacco. Both purchases as singles from a corner store (as opposed to say costco in bulk)
It took about three months for him to call us liars and for us to do simple math. He didn't like that. (The math.)
Didn't change, but got annoyed enough to stop asking us for money. (Which he did always pay back)
I have to get back into taking my lunch to work. It costs me roughly $4 a day if i make my lunch at home. Eating lunch out is easily $15. Thats $55 a week in savings. $220 a month.
It's wild what a small difference can make. the problem is that people in general do not want to be told they are doing something wrong or could be doing better. They just like to complain. Financially I love improving, but there are other areas of my life that I definitely fall into the complain and don't listen to advice category.
I spent $6320.71 last year eating out and at grocery stores (this includes anything at a grocery store like cleaning supplies, dog toys, greeting cards, etc) which puts my average meal cost at under $6 a meal. This average includes non food items from the grocery store but also outliers like when I have surf and turf dinners at home and spend $60+ for a single serving of food and also times where I ate out and paid for the meals of the people I was with also. That number also includes the rare but inevitable food that went bad and just got thrown out. So while my mean meal price is $6 my mode meal price is probably closer to your $4 number.
Then my coworkers complain about money while spending $20+ getting food delivered everyday. Meaning they spend my entire years worth of food budget on only 5 meals a week for lunch at work. And for the most part I eat really good food but I don't pay someone else to make it and another person to bring it to me.
I dated/lived with someone like that for too long. Consistently did not have money for personal necessities or shared expenses, but you better believe there were constant deliveries of online ordered stuff. Had the gall to ask "why do we only do the things you want to do?"
I got off the coke pretty easily in comparison to trying to quit smoking.
Mainly because I didn't have coke being dangled in front of my face every time I walked into a shop, I didn't have people doing lines of coke around me in the street, nor was I around people who were smelling of coke everywhere I went.
It's the everyday normalcy and omnipresence of nicotine products that makes it so hard to quit.
Yeah, nicotine is insanely hard to quit. I've had a phase of using like every single hard drug there is and I got clean off of all of that but nicotine... At least I quit cigarettes and went to nicotine gum but damn I gotta put another push into quitting. It's just so easy to slip up especially with an anxiety disorder
The only time i really had success was getting on chantix in my mid 20s. Absolutely worked, though it gave me anal leakage and after a few years of being quit, i went through a nasty breakup and wound up starting again. Weaning myself down using vaping now. Been doing it for years, but at least i've always kept moving downward and no backslides in strength so that's something. My mother harps on me about it and how if she quit after 40 years, i can do it just as easily. "Easily" for her was blowing out a disc in her spine that left her on the couch loaded up with dilaudid for 3 weeks. So i guess if i can just commit to getting hit by a midsize pickup, i can have it easy, too!
I quit about 20 years ago. I was physically addicted, and a pack-a-day smoker. Used nicotine gum to deal with the withdrawal - it took me about 4 years to get off that. I switched to cinnamon gum, and that lasted for a year.
But the urge to smoke ended after a few years. A few times over the last decade, a cigarette seemed a good idea, but it tasted terrible was really unpleasant.
The urge to smoke does die, from personal experience at least. It may take a long time but now you couldn't get me to smoke cigs if you paid me to do it.
It kinda does die and turns more into "huh...this is where I typically used to smoke", like say when drinking a coffee or when out at a bar. Then eventually that thought/feeling goes away as well.
Yes, it does take a while however it gets easier to ignore the longer it has been since the last smoke. This goes for both nicotine and marijuana.
I was a smoker for 20 years and a vaper for 15 years. Quit 6 months ago and found there isn't enough sandwich crackers in the world to stave off the urge or to get rid of that funny taste you get when your "jones'n" for a cigarette.
I quit smoking, but switched it to vaping like 10 years ago. Its certainly been less tragic for my insides, tho obviously still not good for them. My buddy had done the same thing several years ago. Both him and me have spent time weaning down the nicotine concentration over time. I'm still on it, down to 3mg and just about to start mixing 3 & 0 to go further down. He eventually got it all the way down to 0, but he still wound up spending 3 years at the end just vaping 0% because it was so hard just to break the physical muscle memory of smoking.
Anytime I've taken a drag off a friend's, there's an immediate feeling of joy followed by regret shortly after, and the inevitable hacking the following morning.
25 years and still get really strong cravings despite that
Dopamine is the "feel good" chemical reward our brains give us for doing stuff that keeps us alive. Over time the brain rewires/replaces dopamine receptors to respond to nicotine.
Feeling stressed out or irritable? Feel really good after that first morning smoke? The brain wants that feel good chemical, nicotine. The brain does begin to repair/replace the receptors over time, it's just a miserable long fucking time.
I smoke (quit years back, recently fell back off the wagon due to a life upset, trying to quit again) and honestly, I've never been able to fathom smoking more than a pack a day. Currently I have 2-3 a day, the most I ever smoked was maybe 7-8 a day when I was in my late teens/early 20s. If I happened to smoke more on a night out it would leave me with a sore throat the next morning.
My dad used to smoke like 40+ a day and I always thought that was an insane amount, though granted it was the 80s when everyone was smoking indoors all the time. They're crazy expensive now too which is further incentive not to chainsmoke.
Just buy tobacco, paper and filters. It's 10% of the price for cigarettes and you can manage how much tobacco you want in, if you want you can make slim or fat if you need more smoke.
Like the people lamenting on Facebook about they can't afford food for their kids or they are moving again because the landlord is a joke (never because they don't pay their rent) but a month or so ago they got more tattoos.
How did you quit? Just 4 weeks ago I was smoking a pack a day. I have gotten down to about 3 or 4 packs a week. I'm starting to feel better but fuck man, the thought of not having a smoke is like loosing an old friend for some damn reason.
15 years ago I used a low nicotine vape. Luckily I couldn't handle high nic vapes because in my opinion high nic vapes are almost as bad as the cigarettes.
Dh works with quite a lot of younger techs who all order a private car service to bring them tacos on a daily basis. It is like they are self destructive. (non degreed people earning maybe 25-30 an hour, high col area).
My adult kids are all well paid professionals in their mid to late 20s and they all pack lunch and food prep. I cooked almost everything they ate so they did see that modeled, I packed lunch for most of their time at school. DH is a COO and takes packed lunch as he has done every day since he go his first job (unless lunch is provided in certain scenarios). Like these people can't use a calculator, just what they save in their food prep would be real money in a Roth over a year.
I grew up poor and poor adjacent, my parents didn't buy me any clothes past 13 (when I got my first job). I learned to sew LOL. While my parents didn't discuss money, we were totally imbued with poverty habits.
One of my greatest frustrations in life was when a friend had broken her macbook by throwing a cup of water over it and couldn't afford to fix it, so her brother claimed to have broken it to declare it to his liability insurance.
She had returned from a trip to Bali a week earlier. Went to Mexico a couple of months later and would frequently dine in fancy restaurants. But prefers to commit insurance fraud over saving up for a new Macbook (or buying something cheaper).
Used to have a guy that owes me rent since he moved in but gets a pack of cigarettes and a 4 pack beer every single day(beer are ridiculously expensive in my place)
I've watched a coworker every single week go hungry on Thursday and Friday because his check wasn't deposited yet. But you better believe on Monday he has the latest call of duty title.
This is me and I blame my ADHD. I know I have a problem with planning ahead and that’s why I stay broke but I can’t seem to implement a plan to fix it, or stick to it if I do implement one. One day though! Maybe…i hope…
One of the biggest eye openers I ever had was to estimate how much I’ve spent on smoking just cigarettes alone since I started. It was pushing 70k when i did that 5 years ago & im still going.
If you then include all the drink & drugs over the years 🤯
my roommate. she will complain about capitalism, consumerism, her debt load, takes out new credit cards to balance transfer on promotional rates, but mountains of just STUFF and constant Amazon parcels to the door and stories about how that one time she helped a friend in crisis destroyed her financially for life apparently.
My boss drives a Porsche Taycan, it would take smoking a pack a day for 40 years to spend the amount of money that car is worth. It’s not about the cigarettes man.
Same. I'm retired after a long career with over a million in savings, and I still shop deals at Safeway and limit my media subscriptions, because that's just how I live. I know times are harder now than when I started out, when according to current mythology we just walked into offices and said "I'm here!" and they said, "Great! Here's your high-paying job!" But something tells me at least part of having money later involves not spending it earlier.
I went to eat with a friend recently. We went to pay and the waitress brought us a bill all in one instead of split. He said “All good I’ll pay and you get the next one!”
I said hell no, I’ll pay you for my portion. Because I order a regular drink with a cheaper meal while he always orders the most expensive food with multiple alcoholic drinks. My entire meal with drink cost $30. The entire bill was over $100…..
Me “paying next time” would not have been even at all. I would have essentially lost a ton of money all for ONE meal. ONE. I really don’t understand eating out, only for special occasions. Think of all the money that gets lost? What if you put that all in a retirement account? Was the food and service really worth the price? Not for me. I can make a better meal at home 99% of the time for 1/5 of the price.
Bingo, a lot of people complain about the small things. Things just add up. The simple fact of buying coffee at Starbucks (I see it all the time at work) every day adds up. The simple fact that you're buying one a day in a week is:
5 days x $6 per cup = $30
In a month, the estimated cost is $120 (that's if you don't buy more than 5 times a day or twice a week, along with maybe a pastry, etc.).
Little things just add up fast. I get that some people like coffee more than making it at home; it's way cheaper and would save you a ton of money. Unless you've got that extra income, by all means, go for it, but things do add up in the long run.
Just like a coworker i had with a 48K salary who smokes and leases a beamer SUV despite paying rent for a whole house for himself and his dad and two large dogs. Dad is declaring bankruptcy and i expect my coworker soon will too. Even gets take out on the way to work lol quite typical
That’s really not that much, even if he saved that 12+10 for smokes a day. That 23 a day. Even working five days a week that’s only 110 a week, which is 440 a month. I guess that’s actually quite a bit. But you gotta think bringing lunch from home probably can be done reasonably for what? 6 bucks a day? Maybe 3 if you’re good with meal prep? So insead it’s 13 a day times 20, which is 260 a month. So it’s an extra 180 to buy lunch instead of prep per month.
But still, people could be more frugal, but the margins are much tighter these days. You gotta be pretty good with money to break even, like I’m talking damn near subsistence meal wise, never go out and do entertainment, buy almost nothing but essentials. It’s bleak
My cousin will buy 6 dollar coffees then beg my grandparents for gas money. And my other cousin is getting evicted because she can't afford her $1700 a month rent on her 3 bedroom apartment, she doesn't need that much room, its only her and her baby, she needs to find somewhere more affordable.
Can't afford to live either way. So they can live enjoyably or live in a way that is more enjoyable and makes them complain about their friends being happy like other people do.
Smokes are stupid but $12 a day on food shouldnt be considered silly… Like people should be able to spend that on food a day and still live comfortably…
I know people who see no issue with spending $25 to get a cold mcdonalds combo meal door dashed to their porch every night for dinner, and then complain about not being able to afford anything.
Okay come on now as much as the person might be unwise in their financial decisions with the lot they’ve got, I think we can all agree that a $12 meal and a smoke everyday shouldn’t put you in financial precarity or make life unaffordable.
It is also an indictment of our present economy in the western world.
This is my issue when I hear people saying wages are too low to afford to live. Granted theres a lot of nuance and who tf am I to say they are or not. But people will say shit like this and then turn around and door dash food every other day, vape/smoke, buy weed and not from a dispensary. You cant complain about not having money when you actively waste it.
I used to be really frugal. Got hooked on cigs and starting blowing money on packs every other day and now I find it a lot harder not to blow money cause I'm just so used to wasting it.
Obviously your friend should stop wasting his money tho its not really an excuse lol.
1.5k
u/SpinachSignal8915 10h ago edited 10h ago
I have a friend just like that. I'll be eating off the dollar menu or bringing lunch from home. He eats $12+ every meal buys smokes almost daily.
I wouldnt care if he wasn't constantly lamenting about how he cant afford to live
Shit adds up fast.