4 ms·

Honest question about first story: how come they need $1000/week if they spend on groceries $100/week? I am sure rent eats a large chunk of that thousand but it

by demaga 2y ago

Honest question about first story: how come they need $1000/week if they spend on groceries $100/week? I am sure rent eats a large chunk of that thousand but it still doesn't add up.

mkmk3 2y ago
Car, insurance, medical bills, student debt, at a guess?
- demaga 2y ago
  Okay, it makes sense. Thanks. As a person living outside of the US, all of those didn't even cross my mind (maybe except for car payments).
- Arnt 2y ago
  Four children. What a parent needs is an ATM.
jaggederest 2y ago
It's a very high cost of living area. I live here. In this area (Portland metro) you should expect they spend about half their money on rent, if not even a bit more. $2500-$3000 a month would not be surprising for a family of 6. The cost of healthcare is also extremely high, 22% on average in the metro area. This is probably skewed by the elderly. Add in a phone bill, electricity ($150 average), internet, garbage, water & sewer and $1000 a week for a family of 6 seems low to me, actually. They're doing a very good job making do with their relatively modest income ($77k/yr), only 55% of the area median income for a family of 6.
- demaga 2y ago
  Wow I wouldn't think that a small town an hour away from Portland would be so expensive. By the way, for a family of 6 they spend way less on groceries than I would expect.
  - christkv 2y ago
    Without a complete breakdown is impossible to know what they spend their money on. Is their car cost high, student loans?, energy, streaming?
  - Avshalom 2y ago
    Depends on what small town that is. Hood River for instance (... which has a Taco Bell and a Mcdonalds) is easily that expensive.
- inglor_cz 2y ago
  So, NIMBYism doing its dirty work? People love to hate billionaires, but most NIMBY initiatives that block housing development and drive up the rents are pushed by groups of regular citizens, not the super-rich. Also true outside the US. Czechia hardly has any millionaires, but bored pensioners with a quest to meddle in everything are plentiful and they have, uh, results. So do some green NGOs.
  - fc417fc802 2y ago
    This. We continue to own goal ourselves and then blame the ultra wealthy. It's quite perplexing. That isn't to claim that there aren't issues stemming from income inequality. Just that cost of living issues are some of the most pressing day-to-day and are often self inflicted (voting against infrastructure, voting against public transit, voting in favor of boneheaded zoning, etc).
  - rsync 2y ago
    Exactly. I, also, hate democracy when it produces results I disagree with.
    - inglor_cz 2y ago
      Most NIMBY movements don't rely on democratic majorities. Often, it is "just" work of a tiny minority of very dedicated people who found out ways to hijack the standard mechanisms to the detriment of supermajorities.
- TuringNYC 2y ago
  >> It's a very high cost of living area. I dont know about Portland, but I live in suburbs of NY. Even an hour away, what you save in rent you end up giving up in the entire drive-park-ride-subway shuffle. - You have to drive to the train station (pay for car, insurance, gas). Homes walking distance to train station are extra premium costs. - You have to pay to park at the station (~$10/day for me) - You have to pay for the rail ticket ($37 roundtrip / day for me) - You have to pay for the subway/bus from the rail station to the office ($5.50 / day) All-in, on RTO day trip costs $53 not including the car. Its not huge for a tech worker, but for many people this is prohibitive. https://www.njtransit.com/fares https://www.njtransit.com/fares You can use pre-tax FSA transit accounts, but 1/3 of the time the cards dont work and you pay out of pocket. Then you cannot reimburse because FSA providers like HealthEquity do not allow transit post-reimbursement, even when their cards malfunction. Then, you lose the balance if you dont (cant) spend your balance in time. The entire system is set up to squeeze people.
  - TylerE 2y ago
    Even for a tech worker that’s pretty huge. That’s $13,000 a year - and obviously that’s valuing your time at zero, which is certainly far far too low.
    - TuringNYC 2y ago
      True! The time aspect is huge. I try to load up Udemy courses and podcasts and try to turn it into forced learning time. w/r/t Annual Costs, note that there are slight monthly discounts available. The discounts break-even at 4days a week, so the discounts dont even work unless you are 5 days RTO. There is no winning!
TuringNYC 2y ago
>> Honest question about first story: how come they need $1000/week if they spend on groceries $100/week? (looking at my own paycheck and bank statement): - Rent / Housing - Health insurance premiums - Health insurance deductibles - Health insurance balance bills (what insurance mysteriously doesnt pay) - Health insurance co-pays - Prescription co-pays and balance bills from PBM* - Electric, Gas, Water, Sewer bills - Phone+internet (often locked into 2yr plans so you cant shop around) - (for me and some) Car insurance / gas - (for me and some) Public transport - (for some) student debt payments All this is before any restaurants (a luxury, even for qsr), savings (good luck), travel (not realistic for many), dental /orthodontic (often deferred) For those outside the US or some lucky US states, a PBM is a pharmacy "benefits" manager, which creates many rules for where you can fill your prescription to have it covered by health insurance. Mine (OptumRX) will set higher prices than I could get if I shopped around for medicine. If I choose the lower price, I either pay for it myself (out of pocket, not applying insurance) or they will bill the difference between what I paid and the higher "fair" price they set. There is no winning. Sometimes the PBM price is so high it is better to just pay out of pocket, or even to purchase the meds overseas (which I know people do, esp those closer to Canada.) Also, your doctor has to send the prescription electronically to the pharmacy, which makes it difficult to shop around since you dont actually have the prescription in hand and many doctors wont respond to you once you've left the clinic. Death by a thousand cuts.
- maxerickson 2y ago
  Prescriptions are at least somewhat transferable (you provide some information to the new pharmacy and they do it). The first example sure has a lot of payroll deductions, $680 a week is ~$35,000 a year. I guess health insurance premiums are probably deducted before the $680.
neal_jones 2y ago
Health insurance, car payments, car insurance… I might be overlooking something. But with health insurance, you have the monthly payments PLUS you have costs on top of that when you actually go to the doctor/hospital. I have “good” insurance for a family of 4 and on top of my monthly insurance premiums (maybe $500/month? I honestly try to ignore it) I paid at least 3,000 in additional. But one kid did do a 2 week hospital visit.
- qgin 2y ago
  In NYC, it’s $500 / month per person for a Bronze plan with a $6000 deductible.

by demaga 2y ago

Honest question about first story: how come they need $1000/week if they spend on groceries $100/week? I am sure rent eats a large chunk of that thousand but it still doesn't add up.

mkmk3 2y ago

Car, insurance, medical bills, student debt, at a guess?

demaga 2y ago
Okay, it makes sense. Thanks. As a person living outside of the US, all of those didn't even cross my mind (maybe except for car payments).
Arnt 2y ago
Four children. What a parent needs is an ATM.

jaggederest 2y ago

It's a very high cost of living area. I live here. In this area (Portland metro) you should expect they spend about half their money on rent, if not even a bit more. $2500-$3000 a month would not be surprising for a family of 6. The cost of healthcare is also extremely high, 22% on average in the metro area. This is probably skewed by the elderly. Add in a phone bill, electricity ($150 average), internet, garbage, water & sewer and $1000 a week for a family of 6 seems low to me, actually. They're doing a very good job making do with their relatively modest income ($77k/yr), only 55% of the area median income for a family of 6.

demaga 2y ago
Wow I wouldn't think that a small town an hour away from Portland would be so expensive. By the way, for a family of 6 they spend way less on groceries than I would expect.
- christkv 2y ago
  Without a complete breakdown is impossible to know what they spend their money on. Is their car cost high, student loans?, energy, streaming?
- Avshalom 2y ago
  Depends on what small town that is. Hood River for instance (... which has a Taco Bell and a Mcdonalds) is easily that expensive.
inglor_cz 2y ago
So, NIMBYism doing its dirty work? People love to hate billionaires, but most NIMBY initiatives that block housing development and drive up the rents are pushed by groups of regular citizens, not the super-rich. Also true outside the US. Czechia hardly has any millionaires, but bored pensioners with a quest to meddle in everything are plentiful and they have, uh, results. So do some green NGOs.
- fc417fc802 2y ago
  This. We continue to own goal ourselves and then blame the ultra wealthy. It's quite perplexing. That isn't to claim that there aren't issues stemming from income inequality. Just that cost of living issues are some of the most pressing day-to-day and are often self inflicted (voting against infrastructure, voting against public transit, voting in favor of boneheaded zoning, etc).
- rsync 2y ago
  Exactly. I, also, hate democracy when it produces results I disagree with.
  - inglor_cz 2y ago
    Most NIMBY movements don't rely on democratic majorities. Often, it is "just" work of a tiny minority of very dedicated people who found out ways to hijack the standard mechanisms to the detriment of supermajorities.
TuringNYC 2y ago
>> It's a very high cost of living area. I dont know about Portland, but I live in suburbs of NY. Even an hour away, what you save in rent you end up giving up in the entire drive-park-ride-subway shuffle. - You have to drive to the train station (pay for car, insurance, gas). Homes walking distance to train station are extra premium costs. - You have to pay to park at the station (~$10/day for me) - You have to pay for the rail ticket ($37 roundtrip / day for me) - You have to pay for the subway/bus from the rail station to the office ($5.50 / day) All-in, on RTO day trip costs $53 not including the car. Its not huge for a tech worker, but for many people this is prohibitive. https://www.njtransit.com/fares https://www.njtransit.com/fares You can use pre-tax FSA transit accounts, but 1/3 of the time the cards dont work and you pay out of pocket. Then you cannot reimburse because FSA providers like HealthEquity do not allow transit post-reimbursement, even when their cards malfunction. Then, you lose the balance if you dont (cant) spend your balance in time. The entire system is set up to squeeze people.
- TylerE 2y ago
  Even for a tech worker that’s pretty huge. That’s $13,000 a year - and obviously that’s valuing your time at zero, which is certainly far far too low.
  - TuringNYC 2y ago
    True! The time aspect is huge. I try to load up Udemy courses and podcasts and try to turn it into forced learning time. w/r/t Annual Costs, note that there are slight monthly discounts available. The discounts break-even at 4days a week, so the discounts dont even work unless you are 5 days RTO. There is no winning!

TuringNYC 2y ago

>> Honest question about first story: how come they need $1000/week if they spend on groceries $100/week? (looking at my own paycheck and bank statement): - Rent / Housing - Health insurance premiums - Health insurance deductibles - Health insurance balance bills (what insurance mysteriously doesnt pay) - Health insurance co-pays - Prescription co-pays and balance bills from PBM* - Electric, Gas, Water, Sewer bills - Phone+internet (often locked into 2yr plans so you cant shop around) - (for me and some) Car insurance / gas - (for me and some) Public transport - (for some) student debt payments All this is before any restaurants (a luxury, even for qsr), savings (good luck), travel (not realistic for many), dental /orthodontic (often deferred) For those outside the US or some lucky US states, a PBM is a pharmacy "benefits" manager, which creates many rules for where you can fill your prescription to have it covered by health insurance. Mine (OptumRX) will set higher prices than I could get if I shopped around for medicine. If I choose the lower price, I either pay for it myself (out of pocket, not applying insurance) or they will bill the difference between what I paid and the higher "fair" price they set. There is no winning. Sometimes the PBM price is so high it is better to just pay out of pocket, or even to purchase the meds overseas (which I know people do, esp those closer to Canada.) Also, your doctor has to send the prescription electronically to the pharmacy, which makes it difficult to shop around since you dont actually have the prescription in hand and many doctors wont respond to you once you've left the clinic. Death by a thousand cuts.

maxerickson 2y ago
Prescriptions are at least somewhat transferable (you provide some information to the new pharmacy and they do it). The first example sure has a lot of payroll deductions, $680 a week is ~$35,000 a year. I guess health insurance premiums are probably deducted before the $680.

neal_jones 2y ago

Health insurance, car payments, car insurance… I might be overlooking something. But with health insurance, you have the monthly payments PLUS you have costs on top of that when you actually go to the doctor/hospital. I have “good” insurance for a family of 4 and on top of my monthly insurance premiums (maybe $500/month? I honestly try to ignore it) I paid at least 3,000 in additional. But one kid did do a 2 week hospital visit.

qgin 2y ago
In NYC, it’s $500 / month per person for a Bronze plan with a $6000 deductible.