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So you'll have $600 per year. Good luck buying housing on that budget.

by kaybe 4y ago

sifar 4y ago
An alternative way to look at it is you would need a 12K investment @5% to generate those $600. Now how many such $600 are lurking in your habits. May be that would change your perspective.
cloutchaser 4y ago
It's an example ffs. If that's your criticism of what I wrote, it doesn't really make sense, everyone can personally decide how much they want to spend on avoidable luxuries. But btw, $50 a month means $50 extra you can spend on mortgage payments, which can actually add a couple of thousand dollars to your budget potentially.
- Mordisquitos 4y ago
  Everyone can personally decide how much they want to spend on avoidable luxuries, of course. It just so happens that the "avoidable luxuries" that the overwhelming majority of the population can afford—the clichéd old lattes and avocado toast—are mere rounding errors when compared to the cost of housing that is keeping them from being able to own a home.
- mmarq 4y ago
  Having been in that situation, with a good salary (3 times the average of the UK) and spending close to 0 in leisure, I can tell you that it’s still impossible to buy a decent house in London even if you give up on all avoidable luxuries, because you need a 160-200K£ deposit, that would require 20-30 years of savings. The average salary in London is 35K£, the average house cost 500K£ and if it doesn’t fall apart and if it’s not in the middle of nowhere, a 2-bed flat cost 600K£. I find extremely dishonest and patronising to suggest that people can’t buy houses because they spend too much on avocados or Netflix. Even if one spent 5000£ a year on these, which is an order of magnitude too high for the average earner, it’s still going to take them 40 years of monastic life to save 200K£. I’m out of that infernal loop only because a few years ago my salary jumped above 250K£ and I’ve made 200-300K£, after tax, in a single year when my employer did its IPO. Let’s not pretend that the average person can buy a half decent family home in a decent part of the UK just by working hard and giving up lattes.
  - cloutchaser 4y ago
    > If you DON'T spend $50 on lattes, then obviously you can't save that money. I did acknowledge that if this doesn't apply to you, then it doesn't apply to you. Yes somewhere like London I imagine this might be true, although looking at the amount of people in lines in coffee shops and lunch places spending £15-20 on lunch, a lot of people it DOES apply to. If you find it impossible, and the math doesn't work, fine. But I think a lot of people use articles like this as an excuse to never be frugal in any way.
    - mmarq 4y ago
      People line up for 15-20£ lunches because they have to, because they have been forced to go back to the office to make their daily sacrifice to Micronus, the petty god of middle management, and to Parasitus, the evil god of real estate. They may live more frugal lives, and feed themselves with close to expiration Tesco sandwiches that cost 0.01£ (why, it’s left as an exercise), but it won’t help them getting out of poverty and renting (which in itself is a form of poverty in a country where tenants can and are routinely evicted for asking repairs). So it’s not impossible to live a more frugal life and save 5£ a day, which is less than 2000£ a year, it’s pointless if the price of the average house increases by 7-8% a year. What is one doing this for? To please the editor of the Daily Telegraph who complains about millennials? The only way out for the individual is to earn more or to enjoy a lottery-like event, such as my company going public. The collective way out will probably require political action, of what kind I don’t know nor I care. But we can’t pretend that the better educated generation in the entire history of mankind can’t buy houses because they can’t budget and spend too much on avocados and takeaways.
      - zpeti 4y ago
        >People line up for 15-20£ lunches because they have to, because they have been forced to go back to the office to make their daily sacrifice to Micronus, the petty god of middle management, and to Parasitus, the evil god of real estate. How is going back to the office forcing you to buy £15 lunches? You don't have to even eat Tesco sandwiches. Believe it or not my parents made their own sandwiches at home, which probably has a cost of around £1 for a lunch. So you can save £10-14 on lunch. And they might actually be tastier, but again, needs personal input and work. And your math is completely off again. £2000 per year is £20,000 in 10 years, plus interest you might have £25-30k. And you can save way more than £5 a day, easily if you actually - ACTUALLY - pay attention and have personal control. That's getting close to a deposit on a house.

So you'll have $600 per year. Good luck buying housing on that budget.

by kaybe 4y ago

So you'll have $600 per year. Good luck buying housing on that budget.

An alternative way to look at it is you would need a 12K investment @5% to generate those $600. Now how many such $600 are lurking in your habits. May be that would change your perspective.

cloutchaser 4y ago

It's an example ffs. If that's your criticism of what I wrote, it doesn't really make sense, everyone can personally decide how much they want to spend on avoidable luxuries. But btw, $50 a month means $50 extra you can spend on mortgage payments, which can actually add a couple of thousand dollars to your budget potentially.

Mordisquitos 4y ago
Everyone can personally decide how much they want to spend on avoidable luxuries, of course. It just so happens that the "avoidable luxuries" that the overwhelming majority of the population can afford—the clichéd old lattes and avocado toast—are mere rounding errors when compared to the cost of housing that is keeping them from being able to own a home.
mmarq 4y ago
Having been in that situation, with a good salary (3 times the average of the UK) and spending close to 0 in leisure, I can tell you that it’s still impossible to buy a decent house in London even if you give up on all avoidable luxuries, because you need a 160-200K£ deposit, that would require 20-30 years of savings. The average salary in London is 35K£, the average house cost 500K£ and if it doesn’t fall apart and if it’s not in the middle of nowhere, a 2-bed flat cost 600K£. I find extremely dishonest and patronising to suggest that people can’t buy houses because they spend too much on avocados or Netflix. Even if one spent 5000£ a year on these, which is an order of magnitude too high for the average earner, it’s still going to take them 40 years of monastic life to save 200K£. I’m out of that infernal loop only because a few years ago my salary jumped above 250K£ and I’ve made 200-300K£, after tax, in a single year when my employer did its IPO. Let’s not pretend that the average person can buy a half decent family home in a decent part of the UK just by working hard and giving up lattes.
- cloutchaser 4y ago
  > If you DON'T spend $50 on lattes, then obviously you can't save that money. I did acknowledge that if this doesn't apply to you, then it doesn't apply to you. Yes somewhere like London I imagine this might be true, although looking at the amount of people in lines in coffee shops and lunch places spending £15-20 on lunch, a lot of people it DOES apply to. If you find it impossible, and the math doesn't work, fine. But I think a lot of people use articles like this as an excuse to never be frugal in any way.
  - mmarq 4y ago
    People line up for 15-20£ lunches because they have to, because they have been forced to go back to the office to make their daily sacrifice to Micronus, the petty god of middle management, and to Parasitus, the evil god of real estate. They may live more frugal lives, and feed themselves with close to expiration Tesco sandwiches that cost 0.01£ (why, it’s left as an exercise), but it won’t help them getting out of poverty and renting (which in itself is a form of poverty in a country where tenants can and are routinely evicted for asking repairs). So it’s not impossible to live a more frugal life and save 5£ a day, which is less than 2000£ a year, it’s pointless if the price of the average house increases by 7-8% a year. What is one doing this for? To please the editor of the Daily Telegraph who complains about millennials? The only way out for the individual is to earn more or to enjoy a lottery-like event, such as my company going public. The collective way out will probably require political action, of what kind I don’t know nor I care. But we can’t pretend that the better educated generation in the entire history of mankind can’t buy houses because they can’t budget and spend too much on avocados and takeaways.
    - zpeti 4y ago
      >People line up for 15-20£ lunches because they have to, because they have been forced to go back to the office to make their daily sacrifice to Micronus, the petty god of middle management, and to Parasitus, the evil god of real estate. How is going back to the office forcing you to buy £15 lunches? You don't have to even eat Tesco sandwiches. Believe it or not my parents made their own sandwiches at home, which probably has a cost of around £1 for a lunch. So you can save £10-14 on lunch. And they might actually be tastier, but again, needs personal input and work. And your math is completely off again. £2000 per year is £20,000 in 10 years, plus interest you might have £25-30k. And you can save way more than £5 a day, easily if you actually - ACTUALLY - pay attention and have personal control. That's getting close to a deposit on a house.