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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   3057 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 10, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Very few common expenses are truly nondiscretionary. One can easily live on like 8k a year.

I'm fully with you on how most people spend way more on frivolities than they think they do, and that most people living paycheck to paycheck are just spending irresponsibly. But I think you vastly underestimate how expensive nondiscretionary expenses are. Let's just take rent as an illustrative example. Typically people pay 1/3 of their income on housing. At $8k/yr, that's $222/mo. There's no way you're going to be able to spend $222/mo on rent without roommates. Indeed, an income of $8k for a family of four is 1/4 of the federal poverty level.

Your estimation of the expenses of living are so astronomically far from reality that I am a little vicariously embarrassed that you're suggesting them. You seem to act like bills practically don't exist - that a $5k expense is trivial because one can "shuffle fries around for a while, and [McDonald's] will give you the 5k". Frankly, it's like a child's imagination of where income goes ("Woah, you make $5k in a year?!?! Think of all the toys I could get for that!!")

I guess I stayed young at heart. Granted, even the other kindergarteners thought I hated wine and overhead too much. I’ve lived on that budget for years (I also hate work). I didn’t say 8k without roommates, for a family of four. Now that you mention it, people spending too much on their kids and their kids’ “education”(including public education) is also largely pointless and/or status signaling, and imo the main reason why they aren’t having more of them.

The poverty threshold is a relative measure, in practice if not in theory. People complaining about the working poor in the west are complaining that they don’t get to spend as much on status as others, which of course is a zero-sum game.

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