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I agree that that's a major point. Still, I'm consistently utterly surprised by friends/family/colleagues with similar income but a very different predicament.

I agree that that's a major point. Still, I'm consistently utterly surprised by friends/family/colleagues with similar income but a very different predicament. I was raised on welfare myself and started out my early twenties with minimum wage jobs including factory work. Yet I always had savings, the idea that I couldn't cover a $1000 emergency would be insane to me, especially structurally. Did that mean I had to live with my parents longer than I'd have liked to? Yes. I also didn't have a car and took the bus. I had a cheap Android phone. Wore secondhand clothes. I rarely ate out, and in my first 25 years of my life I never, ever, just went somewhere to get a coffee. But I did have a home, transport, clothes, a smartphone, food and coffee, and also savings. I don't want to victim-blame, there's certainly many who're trapped in a predicament. And it certainly helped being young, healthy, flexible, without kids, there's an immeasurable privilege to that situation versus the contrary (old, sick, with dependents). But I also saw plenty who weren't trapped and spent a ton on a way too expensive lease car they didn't need. Or who always had the latest iphone, and also had a minimum wage job. Or who rented a place downtown, instead of 20 minutes commute for a 30% discount. Those are lifestyle choices, which is completely fine to make, but not unconditionally. Once you have an emergency fund and you prioritize the short term over the long-term, it's simple a personal preference. But if you have no emergency fund, or if you have long-term goals you want to meet, you need to manage it. I have lots of friends who don't even spend the 1 hour a week to make and monitor a very basic budget for example. I mean let's be frank, median household income is $64k in the US. It's about the richest in the world, especially if you exclude the tiny rich states that have a few million people like Luxembourg there's nothing to really rival it. The idea that <1 week of median household income is an emergency for 4 out of 5 households is statistically not in line with 'for most it's just their predicament, not related to lifestyle or financial planning or management'.

kenward 5y ago
My experience is pretty similar to yours but I think what you need to try to understand is that everyone has a different level of what is an acceptable "minimal" lifestyle. For a lot of people, these are habits/behaviors that they grew up with as well. It's complicated. Lack of financial literacy is another problem that, I think, exacerbates the above.
- aardvarkr 5y ago
  I understand where you’re coming from but no one is forcing them to have the latest iPhone or make other unwise decisions. Living frugally and depriving yourself of pleasures that others take for granted (like I NEVER use doordash but for others it’s a way of life multiple times a week) is a choice as well. Having a high acceptable minimum lifestyle is their choice and choices have consequences.
monetus 5y ago
I think most people don't have anything resembling stability in their minds, and spend an inordinate amount of time in a "flight or fight" mood with heightened anxiety. Median household income is 64k - this isn't a per person number and responsibilty, the rat race, it compels spending. Having the willpower to stabilize your life can be difficult, when you need stability to find willpower.
- WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
  > I think most people don't have anything resembling stability in their minds, and spend an inordinate amount of time in a "flight or fight" mood with heightened anxiety. I suspect this becomes increasingly likely as one progresses. I have become much better at important things. However, anxiety has increased - largely because I have shifted from blind confidence to educated awareness.
PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
> I mean let's be frank, median household income is $64k in the US. It's about the richest in the world [...] This is a near meaningless way to compare things. I am not sure we even have an appropriate, widely used and widely computed/measured metric for this. What matters is not the size of the median household income, but the ratio of this income to likely household expense. If you need to put far more of your income into your self-managed retirement account(s), or to pay for healthcare that isn't covered by a national insurance scheme, or to pay for membership at a recreational facility that might otherwise have been free after local taxes, or to cover current, future or past educational costs that would be an order or magnitude or more less in another locale, or to cover day care that might have been provided by your government, your effective income is not well measured by its absolute magnitude.
nomel 5y ago
Maybe a good example of "normalization of deviance" in society?
8note 5y ago
Living with your parents longer than expected sounds like your parents didn't also need you to be helping support them while you were getting these savings
- IkmoIkmo 5y ago
  > sounds like How so? I don't see the link between not moving out as soon as expected, meaning my parents must've not been financially dependent on me in any way. Would you for example suppose that parents who're in need of financial support would have their kids move out earlier than expected? I don't really follow your point.
  - wink 5y ago
    Not the OP, but we have some sort of subsidized housing here, for example for people who worked for the German State Railway (before it was privatized). So the parents got an X m2 apartment for N EUR (below market rate). When the children move out, they now have to pay N+M EUR because with 2 people they would only have been alotted an X-Y m2 apartment. Maybe an edge case, I know.
    - IkmoIkmo 5y ago
      Ah, interesting. In the Netherlands it was different and there was an opposite effect, actually I moved out to support my parents. Because my dad was dependent on the state (disability) he received a supplemental income to get his living standard to the absolute legal minimum (set at 70% of minimum wage) that all Dutch citizens have a right to regardless of circumstance. However, the government assumes that if there's say 4 people living in one home, that they're a household that can share certain costs, e.g. rent, heating, furniture etc. This means the minimum living standard can be attained with less money, so they cut your benefits. The more adults there are, the higher the discount. As I aged from a kid to a young adult, living at home meant his income was cut. Second, any income that the household makes (e.g. from my job), would be cut from his benefits, as we shared a household. e.g. if I earned 500 euros, he'd get 500 euros less. This meant that to live at home, a large portion of my minimum wage earnings (parttime, next to my studies) would go simply to make up for the cuts to my dad's benefits. Minimum wage is about 1500 here, so working a 33% job would net me 0 euros as the entire 500 went to my dad who got cut from 900 to 400 due to my job. It's a weird system that definitely is grounded in some sound logic, but also creates edge cases that aren't creating useful outcomes. It pushed me out of the house, into an expensive housing market, left my dad (who wasn't very healthy) alone in a house, that also happened to be a social home that now has empty bedrooms. It also could've pushed me to quit my job as there was no real incentive in the short-term to work, but I knew long-term it wasn't viable.

kenward 5y ago

My experience is pretty similar to yours but I think what you need to try to understand is that everyone has a different level of what is an acceptable "minimal" lifestyle. For a lot of people, these are habits/behaviors that they grew up with as well. It's complicated. Lack of financial literacy is another problem that, I think, exacerbates the above.

aardvarkr 5y ago
I understand where you’re coming from but no one is forcing them to have the latest iPhone or make other unwise decisions. Living frugally and depriving yourself of pleasures that others take for granted (like I NEVER use doordash but for others it’s a way of life multiple times a week) is a choice as well. Having a high acceptable minimum lifestyle is their choice and choices have consequences.

monetus 5y ago

I think most people don't have anything resembling stability in their minds, and spend an inordinate amount of time in a "flight or fight" mood with heightened anxiety. Median household income is 64k - this isn't a per person number and responsibilty, the rat race, it compels spending. Having the willpower to stabilize your life can be difficult, when you need stability to find willpower.

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
> I think most people don't have anything resembling stability in their minds, and spend an inordinate amount of time in a "flight or fight" mood with heightened anxiety. I suspect this becomes increasingly likely as one progresses. I have become much better at important things. However, anxiety has increased - largely because I have shifted from blind confidence to educated awareness.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

> I mean let's be frank, median household income is $64k in the US. It's about the richest in the world [...] This is a near meaningless way to compare things. I am not sure we even have an appropriate, widely used and widely computed/measured metric for this. What matters is not the size of the median household income, but the ratio of this income to likely household expense. If you need to put far more of your income into your self-managed retirement account(s), or to pay for healthcare that isn't covered by a national insurance scheme, or to pay for membership at a recreational facility that might otherwise have been free after local taxes, or to cover current, future or past educational costs that would be an order or magnitude or more less in another locale, or to cover day care that might have been provided by your government, your effective income is not well measured by its absolute magnitude.

nomel 5y ago

Maybe a good example of "normalization of deviance" in society?

8note 5y ago

Living with your parents longer than expected sounds like your parents didn't also need you to be helping support them while you were getting these savings

IkmoIkmo 5y ago
> sounds like How so? I don't see the link between not moving out as soon as expected, meaning my parents must've not been financially dependent on me in any way. Would you for example suppose that parents who're in need of financial support would have their kids move out earlier than expected? I don't really follow your point.
- wink 5y ago
  Not the OP, but we have some sort of subsidized housing here, for example for people who worked for the German State Railway (before it was privatized). So the parents got an X m2 apartment for N EUR (below market rate). When the children move out, they now have to pay N+M EUR because with 2 people they would only have been alotted an X-Y m2 apartment. Maybe an edge case, I know.
  - IkmoIkmo 5y ago
    Ah, interesting. In the Netherlands it was different and there was an opposite effect, actually I moved out to support my parents. Because my dad was dependent on the state (disability) he received a supplemental income to get his living standard to the absolute legal minimum (set at 70% of minimum wage) that all Dutch citizens have a right to regardless of circumstance. However, the government assumes that if there's say 4 people living in one home, that they're a household that can share certain costs, e.g. rent, heating, furniture etc. This means the minimum living standard can be attained with less money, so they cut your benefits. The more adults there are, the higher the discount. As I aged from a kid to a young adult, living at home meant his income was cut. Second, any income that the household makes (e.g. from my job), would be cut from his benefits, as we shared a household. e.g. if I earned 500 euros, he'd get 500 euros less. This meant that to live at home, a large portion of my minimum wage earnings (parttime, next to my studies) would go simply to make up for the cuts to my dad's benefits. Minimum wage is about 1500 here, so working a 33% job would net me 0 euros as the entire 500 went to my dad who got cut from 900 to 400 due to my job. It's a weird system that definitely is grounded in some sound logic, but also creates edge cases that aren't creating useful outcomes. It pushed me out of the house, into an expensive housing market, left my dad (who wasn't very healthy) alone in a house, that also happened to be a social home that now has empty bedrooms. It also could've pushed me to quit my job as there was no real incentive in the short-term to work, but I knew long-term it wasn't viable.