There’s been much ballyhoo lately about cost of living and affordability in media lately (deservedly so, imo) but I’m curious how hard it is for those of us who are a little more capable than normies (we like to think).
Feel free to be somewhat vague. Not asking anyone to doxx themselves. I’ll start.
In my mid-thirties. Married, two kids. Combined income is just under 100k. We live in a low cost of living area which has helped us a lot. We were able to buy a house in ‘21 with a 15 year mortgage and it feels like we got on the last lifeboat off the Titanic. We’ve been able to build about a 200k net worth, about half of which is home equity.
Day to day expenses are getting tougher, however. We’ve never had a car payment but our older kid has started school and that has put a strain on us since he goes to a private Christian school. I’ve worked in education and I consider sending a kid to public school to be akin to child abuse.
It feels harder and harder to save and invest. Just making ends meet with two kids in this red state feels like a Herculean task. Wondering if anyone else feels the same way.
I'm old, just had my third kid and bought a house a few years back at 7.1% on the 30 year because the property was too perfect to wait on. Living in a medium high cost of living state and hovering around the 6 figure combined thanks to overtime.
And yet, we are doing fine. We aren't building much savings at the moment thanks to a car breakdown and the cost of having a baby (far below what hysteria would have you think), but I've got plenty backed up from when I could. We have nice little things, though nothing extravagant. I work some extra shifts when I've got nothing to do that day, and it carries us into some nice dinners and paying for everyone's hobbies.
I'm thankful everyday for the blessings I have, but a lot of the time it feels less like being blessed and closer to how it should be for everyone. And not in the sense of "Americans deserve this" but "I'm retarded and didn't do anything special, how are you so far behind?" Like I was born to two junkies and spent a chunk of my youth homeless before wasting my one chance at a new future on a Psychology degree, yet I managed the "American dream" as much as I want of it even with all the problems going on around us.
I think a decent number of people made a series of bad choices that make life hard. I've had quite a few friends make some decisions that I would consider super reckless and they were able to rebound fairly quickly. DUIs, major accidents, that kind of thing.
The system seems to forgive A fuck up, but if you're white that's basically it. You get one maybe two and then it's hard life.
The people who are not doing well In My life made a series of shitty decisions, often continuous ones like gambling, blowing cash on dumb shit, Vegas, etc for a decade or longer. So I think failure is often like success, it's not ONE big thing that makes or breaks you, it's many little things that culminate over time.
I can agree with that. Everyone I've met that is "struggling" you can usually find a clear line of bad decisions that lead up to it. Whether its life changing or simply "I spend a lot of money regularly on transient things."