6 ms·

I don't want to tut-tut the poor, but I do want to tut-tut consumer culture in general. There are a whole lot of people who _should_ be able to afford an unexp

I don't want to tut-tut the poor, but I do want to tut-tut consumer culture in general. There are a whole lot of people who _should_ be able to afford an unexpected car repair bill, and could quite easily do so, if they weren't spending $100 a month on cable TV, $800 every other year on a high-end smartphone, $500/month on owning an SUV when a $200/mo economy car would serve just fine, etc., and put the money into a basic rainy day fund instead. And a middle and working class that was just a little bit more frugal might create some downward pressure on prices that would, in turn, alleviate what less wealthy people need to pay on just the basics.

bryanlarsen 7y ago
> $100 a month on cable TV given that the average American spends 4 hours/day watching TV[1], that's well under $1 per hour of entertainment. There aren't a lot of hobbies or entertainment media that are cheaper. 1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/186833/average-television-use-per-person-in-the-us-since-2002/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/186833/average-televisio...
- gruez 7y ago
  Just because it's cheap doesn't mean there aren't cheaper alternatives. Most people could easily replace that with a netflix subscription for $13, since they already have an internet connection.
  - toss1 7y ago
    People could also replace it all with a free library card. It isn't like television/video is some kind of necessity for life.
    - batty_alex 7y ago
      > People could also replace it all with a free library card Going to the library takes a whole hell of a lot more time and work than turning on your TV.
      - asah 7y ago
        Borrow a stack of books/CDs/etc at once.
      - toss1 7y ago
        Not if you count the 30-40% of the time you waste watching commercials, vs one trip to the library for a stack of books.
  - downrightmike 7y ago
    Yeah, but then the cable companies will charge you anything over 1TB. And if you have more than 2 screens, because of kids, it will add up, so the cable company will relax that cap IF you also buy cable TV. Remember cable companies are assholes.
    - gruez 7y ago
      I'm not too convinced. Let's assume we devote 70% of the 1TB cap to streaming (netflix, youtube, etc.). This leaves 300GB for anything else, which be more than enough. Using netfilx's highest bitrate for 1080p, we get 268 hours of content for 700 GB. At the highest bitrate for 720p, we get 518 hours of content. Dividing that by 30 days, we get 8.9 and 17.3 hours per day for 1080p and 720p respectively. 8.9 hours split among two screens (one for kids and one for adults) might be tight if they don't have anything else to do, but 17.3 hours sounds more than enough if the kids are in school and the adults are employed full-time.
    - qes 7y ago
      > if you have more than 2 screens, because of kids, it will add up I download and seed hundreds of GB's a month of torrents and run a couple cryptocurrency nodes in a household of 4 where everyone uses youtube, netflix, and spotify often and we've broken 1TB once in a decade..
      - parliament32 7y ago
        Meanwhile, some roommates and I hit 1TB in a week in a 4 person household. After quickly switching to an unlimited plan, some data accounting showed almost 80% of that came from the three game consoles playing online (fast connection = you're always the host in Destiny 2 apparently). What I'm saying is YMMV. I bet you'd see different results if one or two of your housemates turned on 4K on youtube/netflix.
    - Ididntdothis 7y ago
      Blowing through 1 terabyte in a month sounds pretty difficult. You have to do lot of steaming to use that much.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- reilly3000 7y ago
  I think the point was more that entertainment isn't really a necessity at all, even if its a 'good value'. If entertainment is in fact a necessity, most public libraries offer an immense amount of choices of physical and digital media available for free.
  - mumblemumble 7y ago
    Nah, entertainment is a necessity, but that doesn't necessarily mean that any given choice of entertainment is a cost-effective choice of entertainment. Just focusing on TV, for starters there's free TV over the air. There's YouTube and Amazon Prime Video and Netflix and CuriosityStream and Hulu and whatever your local state-supported TV network is putting online for free, there's DVDs from your public library, etc. etc. No, these options won't let you catch the latest Game of Thrones episode as soon as it airs, but they'll keep you entertained. If you really want to get nitty-gritty about it, there is at least an interesting thought experiment you can run where someone who's both living paycheck to paycheck and paying for a sizable cable TV package has, intentionally or not, chosen, say, ESPN over financial solvency. Because that cable TV bill could be converted into a steadily growing rainy day fund.
- reverend_gonzo 7y ago
  Huh? Books, sports, art, music, are all way cheaper forms of entertaining oneself. Most hobbies or entertainment don't have a charge per hour.
  - tboughen 7y ago
    I think the charge per hour aspect reflects the amortised cost of engaging in the activity. Books can be free if borrowed from a library - but ownership has an ‘hourly cost’ Mind sports like chess have an insanely low hourly cost, but regular sports that involve consumables like trainers have an hourly cost. Music is free if you sing, but otherwise involves buying and maintaining an instrument. Strings, for example are consumables.
    - SkyBelow 7y ago
      >Books can be free if borrowed from a library - but ownership has an ‘hourly cost’ Even the library has a cost, but it is generally much much lower if you have good access to a library.
  - sudosteph 7y ago
    Almost everyone I know who considers music a hobby ends up spending a pretty good penny on it once they really get into it. It can easily be one of the most expensive hobbies someone has (it is for me at least). Once you've learned the basics, half of the fun is collaborating with others or recording. Costs: - Instruments & accessories (serious guitar players often have at least one acoustic and one electric - and good quality ones are going to be at least $500, but could go way higher. Other accessories: at least a metronome and tuner, potentially also some pedals, amps, drum machine, etc) - Renting/owning/traveling to a practice space if playing in a group - Educational material: Lessons, Books, sheet music, music apps - Recording / mixing equipment Sure you can get a used acoustic guitar and watch youtube videos to learn it - but I don't know many people who do that and stick to it. The real up-side though, is that decent musical gear doesn't lose a ton of value over time unless it gets broken or stolen. Also, if you're not professional, you can pace out your purchases. My personal collection grew over 10 years, and is just for amateur use, jamming with friends mostly. I've got a couple guitars, bass, keyboard, 2 banjos, amps and mics. When I add up everything I've spent, it was probably 2/3 the cost of 10 years of $100/mo cable. I wasted a decent portion of that cost on a few other instruments I never played and ending up giving away as gifts to friends though.
- isoskeles 7y ago
  It only counts as cheap if the value of those 4 hours/day of sedentary activity is greater than $4. Many would argue that it is not. But I understand you're saying that relative to other forms of entertainment it's "cheap", I'm just questioning the price relative to the value of the product itself. Also, I know a lot of people argue that watching TV can maybe relieve stress in some way, or allow them to "wind down" after a "long day" at "work", but I'm not sure you need to wind down for four hours (not saying you are saying that).
- koolba 7y ago
  Less than $1/hour if you have a family.
- sokamyung 7y ago
  library books are essentially free. They pay dividends if you read something that imparts a skill instead of being brainwashed and dumbed down by TV you pay for.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  It’s still 100 dollars you don’t have for car repair.
- imtringued 7y ago
  Pretty much every free to play game is cheaper (however it is designed to drive you nuts and spend money on useless things).
dfcagency 7y ago
This is victim blaming. Do a little back of the napkin budget on $4,200/month (GENEROUS) take-home pay in say, Fremont, California. You run out of money real, real quick.
- twh270 7y ago
  So, don't live in Fremont if you can't afford to live there. Or find a roommate(s), live with family.
  - dfcagency 7y ago
    This is a shitty, "got mine, fuck you" mentality that I really hope you re-examine.
- mumblemumble 7y ago
  It is generous; I think that's about in line with median personal income in the US. If a person can't make ends meet on that kind of money in Fremont, that probably says more about Fremont than it does about anything else.
  - greenshackle2 7y ago
    "In line" is a bit of a stretch, the median gross personal income for full time workers in the US is slightly below 4000 per month. EDIT: The median personal income for all workers (including part-time), is of course much lower, more like 2700. But it doesn't make that much sense to compare the national median income with a high CoL area, where you also expect higher salaries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...
- pkaye 7y ago
  I live in Fremont, CA. I think if you live in a nice 1-br apartment, it might take half your budget. But if you take a bigger place and roommates, it should be doable.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dv_dt 7y ago
For people who must rely on these loans, the pay for this class of jobs are too low. Your financial picture I think is mostly a myth. There is this grey margin where the jobs pays enough for minimal living expenses, but not enough any sort of long term holding or advancement with regular variation of cars breaking down, or health issues, or funding further education, or a basic vacation which everyone deserves. Society can only decline long term when more and more jobs only pay in this twilight threshold.
Aperocky 7y ago
And once people realize that and begin to change the consumer culture, that's when the next market crash happen and 10% of all workers get laid off. Saving is opposite of spending, when a lot of people spend less, they'll also earn less, some more disproportionately, this cycle continues until its a great depression. You can start from a high saving society to a high spending society and enjoy years of boom, or you can jump of a cliff - 70% of US economy is consumer spending, as in, most everyone's salary is supported by that. You can't save when you are jobless.
ActorNightly 7y ago
The problem with any line of thinking like this is that this deals with the core human nature of self agency versus pre desposition to certain things. While it seems like common logic to someone that has the ability to live cheaply and save money, the more important thing is someone emotional response in this situation - that person actually feels good about saving. Something like this is not intrinsic to human development, and is usually acquired through the persons upbringing. So when a person that makes little money decides to buy a high end smartphone, its not because they are doing it out of stupidity, they are doing it because they need to feel the same positive emotion that the former person feels. And as long as they can get by day to day, they are not incentivized to make any changes. The discussion to enact change needs to start with answering this question - how do you effectively "reprogram" someone to value delayed gratification over immediate gratification?

bryanlarsen 7y ago

> $100 a month on cable TV given that the average American spends 4 hours/day watching TV[1], that's well under $1 per hour of entertainment. There aren't a lot of hobbies or entertainment media that are cheaper. 1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/186833/average-television-use-per-person-in-the-us-since-2002/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/186833/average-televisio...

gruez 7y ago
Just because it's cheap doesn't mean there aren't cheaper alternatives. Most people could easily replace that with a netflix subscription for $13, since they already have an internet connection.
- toss1 7y ago
  People could also replace it all with a free library card. It isn't like television/video is some kind of necessity for life.
  - batty_alex 7y ago
    > People could also replace it all with a free library card Going to the library takes a whole hell of a lot more time and work than turning on your TV.
    - asah 7y ago
      Borrow a stack of books/CDs/etc at once.
    - toss1 7y ago
      Not if you count the 30-40% of the time you waste watching commercials, vs one trip to the library for a stack of books.
- downrightmike 7y ago
  Yeah, but then the cable companies will charge you anything over 1TB. And if you have more than 2 screens, because of kids, it will add up, so the cable company will relax that cap IF you also buy cable TV. Remember cable companies are assholes.
  - gruez 7y ago
    I'm not too convinced. Let's assume we devote 70% of the 1TB cap to streaming (netflix, youtube, etc.). This leaves 300GB for anything else, which be more than enough. Using netfilx's highest bitrate for 1080p, we get 268 hours of content for 700 GB. At the highest bitrate for 720p, we get 518 hours of content. Dividing that by 30 days, we get 8.9 and 17.3 hours per day for 1080p and 720p respectively. 8.9 hours split among two screens (one for kids and one for adults) might be tight if they don't have anything else to do, but 17.3 hours sounds more than enough if the kids are in school and the adults are employed full-time.
  - qes 7y ago
    > if you have more than 2 screens, because of kids, it will add up I download and seed hundreds of GB's a month of torrents and run a couple cryptocurrency nodes in a household of 4 where everyone uses youtube, netflix, and spotify often and we've broken 1TB once in a decade..
    - parliament32 7y ago
      Meanwhile, some roommates and I hit 1TB in a week in a 4 person household. After quickly switching to an unlimited plan, some data accounting showed almost 80% of that came from the three game consoles playing online (fast connection = you're always the host in Destiny 2 apparently). What I'm saying is YMMV. I bet you'd see different results if one or two of your housemates turned on 4K on youtube/netflix.
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    Blowing through 1 terabyte in a month sounds pretty difficult. You have to do lot of steaming to use that much.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
reilly3000 7y ago
I think the point was more that entertainment isn't really a necessity at all, even if its a 'good value'. If entertainment is in fact a necessity, most public libraries offer an immense amount of choices of physical and digital media available for free.
- mumblemumble 7y ago
  Nah, entertainment is a necessity, but that doesn't necessarily mean that any given choice of entertainment is a cost-effective choice of entertainment. Just focusing on TV, for starters there's free TV over the air. There's YouTube and Amazon Prime Video and Netflix and CuriosityStream and Hulu and whatever your local state-supported TV network is putting online for free, there's DVDs from your public library, etc. etc. No, these options won't let you catch the latest Game of Thrones episode as soon as it airs, but they'll keep you entertained. If you really want to get nitty-gritty about it, there is at least an interesting thought experiment you can run where someone who's both living paycheck to paycheck and paying for a sizable cable TV package has, intentionally or not, chosen, say, ESPN over financial solvency. Because that cable TV bill could be converted into a steadily growing rainy day fund.
reverend_gonzo 7y ago
Huh? Books, sports, art, music, are all way cheaper forms of entertaining oneself. Most hobbies or entertainment don't have a charge per hour.
- tboughen 7y ago
  I think the charge per hour aspect reflects the amortised cost of engaging in the activity. Books can be free if borrowed from a library - but ownership has an ‘hourly cost’ Mind sports like chess have an insanely low hourly cost, but regular sports that involve consumables like trainers have an hourly cost. Music is free if you sing, but otherwise involves buying and maintaining an instrument. Strings, for example are consumables.
  - SkyBelow 7y ago
    >Books can be free if borrowed from a library - but ownership has an ‘hourly cost’ Even the library has a cost, but it is generally much much lower if you have good access to a library.
- sudosteph 7y ago
  Almost everyone I know who considers music a hobby ends up spending a pretty good penny on it once they really get into it. It can easily be one of the most expensive hobbies someone has (it is for me at least). Once you've learned the basics, half of the fun is collaborating with others or recording. Costs: - Instruments & accessories (serious guitar players often have at least one acoustic and one electric - and good quality ones are going to be at least $500, but could go way higher. Other accessories: at least a metronome and tuner, potentially also some pedals, amps, drum machine, etc) - Renting/owning/traveling to a practice space if playing in a group - Educational material: Lessons, Books, sheet music, music apps - Recording / mixing equipment Sure you can get a used acoustic guitar and watch youtube videos to learn it - but I don't know many people who do that and stick to it. The real up-side though, is that decent musical gear doesn't lose a ton of value over time unless it gets broken or stolen. Also, if you're not professional, you can pace out your purchases. My personal collection grew over 10 years, and is just for amateur use, jamming with friends mostly. I've got a couple guitars, bass, keyboard, 2 banjos, amps and mics. When I add up everything I've spent, it was probably 2/3 the cost of 10 years of $100/mo cable. I wasted a decent portion of that cost on a few other instruments I never played and ending up giving away as gifts to friends though.
isoskeles 7y ago
It only counts as cheap if the value of those 4 hours/day of sedentary activity is greater than $4. Many would argue that it is not. But I understand you're saying that relative to other forms of entertainment it's "cheap", I'm just questioning the price relative to the value of the product itself. Also, I know a lot of people argue that watching TV can maybe relieve stress in some way, or allow them to "wind down" after a "long day" at "work", but I'm not sure you need to wind down for four hours (not saying you are saying that).
koolba 7y ago
Less than $1/hour if you have a family.
sokamyung 7y ago
library books are essentially free. They pay dividends if you read something that imparts a skill instead of being brainwashed and dumbed down by TV you pay for.
Ididntdothis 7y ago
It’s still 100 dollars you don’t have for car repair.
imtringued 7y ago
Pretty much every free to play game is cheaper (however it is designed to drive you nuts and spend money on useless things).

dfcagency 7y ago

This is victim blaming. Do a little back of the napkin budget on $4,200/month (GENEROUS) take-home pay in say, Fremont, California. You run out of money real, real quick.

twh270 7y ago
So, don't live in Fremont if you can't afford to live there. Or find a roommate(s), live with family.
- dfcagency 7y ago
  This is a shitty, "got mine, fuck you" mentality that I really hope you re-examine.
mumblemumble 7y ago
It is generous; I think that's about in line with median personal income in the US. If a person can't make ends meet on that kind of money in Fremont, that probably says more about Fremont than it does about anything else.
- greenshackle2 7y ago
  "In line" is a bit of a stretch, the median gross personal income for full time workers in the US is slightly below 4000 per month. EDIT: The median personal income for all workers (including part-time), is of course much lower, more like 2700. But it doesn't make that much sense to compare the national median income with a high CoL area, where you also expect higher salaries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...
pkaye 7y ago
I live in Fremont, CA. I think if you live in a nice 1-br apartment, it might take half your budget. But if you take a bigger place and roommates, it should be doable.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

dv_dt 7y ago

For people who must rely on these loans, the pay for this class of jobs are too low. Your financial picture I think is mostly a myth. There is this grey margin where the jobs pays enough for minimal living expenses, but not enough any sort of long term holding or advancement with regular variation of cars breaking down, or health issues, or funding further education, or a basic vacation which everyone deserves. Society can only decline long term when more and more jobs only pay in this twilight threshold.

Aperocky 7y ago

And once people realize that and begin to change the consumer culture, that's when the next market crash happen and 10% of all workers get laid off. Saving is opposite of spending, when a lot of people spend less, they'll also earn less, some more disproportionately, this cycle continues until its a great depression. You can start from a high saving society to a high spending society and enjoy years of boom, or you can jump of a cliff - 70% of US economy is consumer spending, as in, most everyone's salary is supported by that. You can't save when you are jobless.

ActorNightly 7y ago

The problem with any line of thinking like this is that this deals with the core human nature of self agency versus pre desposition to certain things. While it seems like common logic to someone that has the ability to live cheaply and save money, the more important thing is someone emotional response in this situation - that person actually feels good about saving. Something like this is not intrinsic to human development, and is usually acquired through the persons upbringing. So when a person that makes little money decides to buy a high end smartphone, its not because they are doing it out of stupidity, they are doing it because they need to feel the same positive emotion that the former person feels. And as long as they can get by day to day, they are not incentivized to make any changes. The discussion to enact change needs to start with answering this question - how do you effectively "reprogram" someone to value delayed gratification over immediate gratification?