Eh not terrible but not great. My main issue is that the fees keep going up year on year while the quality of service and response speed from the association gets worse. All they do is issue fines, bitch about stuff and have landscapers out 5x a week to leaf blow the grass.
A condo wasn't our first choice but it was a ticket out of the shithole rental market in 2021. We went to 41 open houses and made 10 offers before we even got this.
EDIT: forgot to say but yes it's a main residence
A lot of times it's cheaper to have a SAHP rather than pay for childcare (if you can even get in). Also a lot of mom have side hustles ( how they get preyed on by mlms so easily)
So true. When I was laid off and having no luck in finding a job, I tried all kinds of hustles to make money including an MLM. I was dazzled by the promoter's huge house with pool and luxury cars. Fortunately I was too poor to make even the initial investment.
Yeah my partner and I are dual income no kids and only with budgeting is our 6 figure net total income enough to afford a mortgage and still survive.
No way this one dude with 70k a year (55-60k after taxes) is affording a $400,000 home lmao.
As someone who has survived 500 after rent, taxes, bills...
It's possible. You won't live well, but it's possible.
Although, I didn't have utilities or a car. So Jacob the home and car owner is FUCKED.
Nah Jacob is gonna starve. Unless he has kids then he might get some assistance. Or if he splits the bills with a partner … but then what if he is being abused? He can’t leave cause he will be homeless?
Hmm I don’t drugs are as prevalent as you think in order to sustain all the Jacob’s.
We are drowning
$120k less for a home will demand $120k in work to make it livable. Assuming it’s not like, in some economically depressed town in rural flyover country, 400k is like the baseline for a decent 2br condo in most cities.
1-2 year old Toyotas barely depreciate too.
…and I’m just now realizing you’re being facetious.
I don’t think you’re following along. $120K reduction puts him at $300K. I bought my house for $120K in 2019 and it appraised for $225K recently... 3br/2ba on an acre of land in a city of 150K people in the Deep South.
Here’s a brand new Corolla for $24K: https://www.jimhudsontoyota.com/inventory/new-2024-toyota-corolla-le-front-wheel-drive-le-5yfb4mde0rp159159/
Yeah, these last few years have been the exception. I’ve always bought a year or two old. I lucked up buying my Titan though. I was going to buy a two year old used one for $37K while the new ones were $57K. Their sales slumped so hard that I got a brand new one for $42K after several hours of haggling.
It’s a fair comparison. In 1973, you could get a Pontiac Trans Am or a GTO for $4k. A BMW 2002 started a $3850 in basic trim. You didn’t need to resort to a Pinto for $2k when you could step up to a nicer car so cheaply.
I think they were just making a joke. "The example is already outrageous for the house price alone given that salary, might as well make the car more luxurious while we're at it."
I'm pretty sure this graphic is just showing the national averages for each purchase for their corresponding years.
It's meant to show you how impossible it is to buy the average house/car on the average salary.
It's also why we've taken to using the *median* income since there's a *massive* spread on those datasets. And why we should also start using median car and home price (although that doesn't reflect the *availability* of those prices, so there's a good argument against it)
It cost me probably close to 35k for 1.5 years of school with living expenses. Did my community college super cheap from home, but moved for that final couple years.
Can't imagine someone spending 4-6 years and doing it all at a state school.
My friends a few years older than me did state schools for like a 1.5k for a semester and when I finally made it there it was 4k for 12 credit hours, the only bright side was I could take 18 credit hours and it only went up a couple hundred dollars.
10k rent for 20 months x500(single room in a house)
15k 5kx3 for each normal semester(books and classes)
2500 I think it was 1200x2 for summer/winter classes
4680 I'll call food/other, but it was probably more than that with random stuff at any given time(calling it 60 per week, I ate a chipotle bowl a lot of days, but it was definitely not $10 at that point)
If you live with your parents, you don't need to pay room and board.
That said, my wife and I paid for our daughter's room and board for four years at a state college.
And Jacob might not be getting any social security because Jim went full MAGA and is planning another coup to install a president that will get rid of all New Deal benefits.
Yeah.. I make 6 figures and my wife does fairly well and we are scraping by. Every month we have to postpone at least 1 bill. It’s absurd.. I finally got to a place where I’m like YES! I’m making really good money! Whoops, everything’s more expensive now.
Luckily, assuming those incomes, you can 100% be comfortable and saving money if you stop spending it all. Can probably put away thousands per month. Take responsibility.
Man cmon in what world is near $200,000 not enough money to live on? You could comfortable spend $5500-6000 a month on rent/mortgage and still have $60000 post tax to spend on food, cars, and the like.
You can get a very nice 3 bedroom house/apartment in both California and New York City for less than 5k. So yeah, if this dude is “scraping by” he fundamentally sucks with money
Unless he’s got 4 the dude is still horrible with money. 200k household income in the highest tax state in California is a net income of just over $146k. Let’s assume 2 kids
Assuming they rent a 3 bedroom house for $4500 a month (once again plenty available all over California for that price and lower) that is $92,000 post housing. The average 4 person household spends $1200 a month on groceries in California, but lets assume they spend 20% more, so that’s $75000 left. Let’s assume 2 cars under payment at $1000 total a month with $100 each in monthly upkeep (brand new $25000 cars at 6%) that’s $60.6k left. Let’s assume childcare for 2 kids before the age of 5 (atp they’re in school). Average cost in Californias most expensive county (alameda) is $14500, so that’s $31.7k left. Let’s add another $500, per kid, per month, as a general expense fund. You’re now at $17.3k. Let’s assume a further 7,300 in random expenses and unplanned emergencies/trips/COL adjustments.
You’re still left with 10k left over, and you get access to another 30k when the kids go to school and don’t need full time childcare, or 20k+ if they need part time childcare. I was more than aggressive with the cost of housing, transportation, food, and ridiculously so with childcare (outside of that specific county you’d save close to $5000 per child). I chose one of the most expensive states in the country to live, with the highest tax obligation. I just don’t see a reality where 200k is scraping by unless you have sex like a 20th century Christian or you suck with money
Again I wouldn’t say horrible with money. This is a fine mock budget but it’s not exactly flush with left over cash. Are you really saving for retirement and kids college etc w this budget? Can you afford a healthcare incident? What if you or your kid gets hurt or sick?
Do you live in an area where the public schools are good enough you don’t have to send your kids to a private school? Do they play sports or have any commitments like dance or gymnastics?
Sure you can get by and would probably be comfortably middle class in most rural parts of the country but in major metro areas you’re probably cutting it close if you even could afford a home in those areas which not likely
To agree with you yes you’d be comfortable on this household income in a lot of places
There is no upper limit for spending.
Without seeing all his spending numbers we cant say anything about him, we can just assume he lives in way too expensive place for his income or he have some other spending problem.
I mean we absolutely can say that he has no idea how to spend his money, considering near 200k is enough to live an upper middle class lifestyle in every major city in the world
I make 6 figures and my wife doesn’t work and we’re doing fine. It depends on where and how you live. We moved somewhere warmer and cheaper when I became remote after Covid.
Feminism giving women the right to decide their own lives forced the rich to hoard all the wealth in our economy? If we had kept women as second class citizens, the rich would share their wealth with the rest of us? Is that why countries that still oppress women are super rich?
Then outlaw being outside the system with anti-homeless laws and housing regulations in the name of safety and you have created an endless supply of wage or prison slaves.
College tuition for Jim would be approx $14.462 today, less than half of what Jacob paid and Jim's annual salary in 1973 would be just under $74k today.
Shit's fucked.
not anywhere that has a lot of jobs. I'd say he might be a tech worker working remote, but in 2024 those are like...senior level jobs paying 250k+. all the replaceable cog tech jobs paying only 70k are getting called back to office to hideously expensive places.
that said, if you can work remote or whatever, there's still affordable places. even in california. Imperial county, for example, has houses around 300-400k. But the best paying jobs there are either owning farms or dealing meth. Or commuting 2-3 hours into San Diego.
In St. Louis, my budget for looking recently was 200k and I found a lovely place for 150k. 1/4acre 1000sqft+bsmt. Another 205k place was 1/2 acre, 3500sqft total and facing a golf course on a dead end street.
Canadian real estate is the only reason I don’t move up there.
Not to counter OP, but it's always the same shit from these guys.
> Where can I get a house for less than $500,000?!
> - Guy in GTA
Literally anywhere else in Canada.
I don’t know about good. I just went on cargurus and put 20k used, and most of them have between 50-100k miles. I can’t see paying 20k for a car with 50k miles.
That car will last you 150k - 100k miles. So about 8 - 10 years. $2.5k - $2k a year. If you save, that's not a bad deal. Most people now don't save, though because they buy the greatest and latest thing when we don't always need that. Same with eating out a lot.
Cars don’t “last” 150-250k miles. They last about 120-140k then have constant repairs and issues. 20 years ago nobody would pay more than 2-3k for a car over 100k miles. No thank you.
> Why is Jacob buying a $48k car with a $70k salary?
70k is still above median salary and 40-50k is pretty common for a new car, i'd guess that many people are in that boat.
22k + ~1k destination + documentation fee of $~900 if you live in a shithole like Florida + sales tax of 6% + mandatory ToyoCare and factory installed packages if you live in the southeast because there's a distributor that has a monopoly on the region and you're looking at more like 26k. And you're going to have to wait since a base corolla is probably one of the most in demand sedans and with the least profit, so they don't really wanna sell them.
The financial industry, in close collaboration with the Federal Reserve and both political parties, has sold your expected productivity for the next 50 years and already given it to the rich. What are you going to do? Get back to work.
Who said banks were inherently the issue? Just because things share commonalities, doesn’t mean they’re the exact same… as evidence by the different outcomes.
Mr president , something is deadly wrong with your economy, I haven’t had any work for a year and a half .
I am a sculptor fabricator and 50 year welding veteran , there just nothing happening in the marketplace not even chickenfeed ( small jobs) .
Buying power of the dollar. Every time I hear people argue that in their day they only made so much and interest rates on houses were double digits.
Look at what the dollar got you. Today, even beggars get mad at a few dollars that might get handed to them.
$37k tuition? $48k car?
We might be dumb enough to simply trust the 1973 numbers but these 2023 numbers are wild. Out of state tuition paying full price isn't a reasonable choice. Private school with no scholarships isn't a reasonable choice.
Jacob is running up debt and complaining like it's somebody else's fault.
It looks like OP was roughly using median numbers for everything. I think the point they were trying to make was in 1973 a median salary could afford a median new car, home, and education. In 2024 a median salary cannot afford a median new car, home, and education.
It’s a bit simplified, but I don’t think the point he was trying to get across was Jacob is irresponsible. Rather it’s harder to buy the same things with the same income. What isn’t a reasonable choice on for a median income today was in 1973. I believe that’s the message they were trying to get across.
I think you're thinking this is the yearly tuition, but like with the house and car I think this is meant to be the total cost. $37k for a 4 year degree is pretty cheap.
Then those same older people claim we just don't want to work and that's why. Maybe they feel that acknowledging they had life easier than us makes them feel as if they didn't work for it. They certainly did - you can't achieve those things just by sitting there staring at the wall. But the opportunities were easier to come by. Not so much now.
What college tuition is $37K these days? Penn State University is $19K state resident. Room and Board is $13K. Total $33K a year time 4 years = $132K.
Out of state is an additional $20K a year = $212K.
The new car is also dumb. Toyota Camry starting MSRP is $28400.
48k usd is 65k Canadian (which is where I live). There is no way in hell my peers are spending that kind of money relative to salary in the pic, when adjusted to my location. The other figure are accurate but the car cost is absurd lol
Something will give soon… imagine all the vacant properties the banks own. One day people will just start moving it and they won’t be able to evict anyone because everyone will chase them off.
The key here is that comparatively all the numbers are a factor of 15 except for the salary. It took “them” 60 years to devalue our work to half its spending power. But if you have a two salary home you would have to have both salaries be about 70k each. That’s a shame.
If Jacob earned 70k in my community he'd be doing very well for himself. He still wouldn't own a home. I'm just saying, Jacob's average salary is hugely inflated. Half of all Americans, HALF, are low income or living in poverty.
lol if you haven’t ran the numbers yet for Jacob, you will see this is mathematically impossible for him to qualify for all of this 🤣
I’m not laughing, I’m actually crying by how sad our situation is guys 🥺
Far be it from me to give financial advice, but Jacob shouldn't have bought a $49k car while meaning only $70k. He should have bought something for half that or less.
The housing and rental trap is a big issue. I know someone who bought in the early 2010s and their mortgage plus taxes are half of my rent on a smaller place. Buying today wouldn't fix that, since the mortgage and taxes would have gone up with the home price. All budgeting goes out the window when your fixed housing cost is a big chunk of your take home pay. Rampant speculation in housing hasn't been met with price caps, and it's squeezed a captive market entirely too hard.
Ummmm I'm not going to say things are fair for the middle class.
But mortgages and car payments were decades of debt long before shit got as stupid as it is now
When I was younger car loans were 4 years. Now they’re 6 or 7. And sure, mortgages were decades of debt. But decades of debt at 20% of your take home is drastically different then decades of debt at 30-40% of your take home. 5 years ago it cost you $600 a month for every 100k you borrowed for a home, so my $420k home is about $2400 a month piti. Now, this same mortgage would cost me $4000 a month. I say this same mortgage and not this same house, because now my home is “worth” 1.2 million, and there’s no way I could afford the 11-12000 a month it would cost to buy now.
No, but everything is relative. And relative to today, a larger share of gdp went to wages back then, people were much more able to afford the standard of living, there was a more robust social safety net, and people could reasonably expect to buy a home and a car with much less relative money than they can now. I lived through the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. The times were far more optimistic than now. Things seemed to be on a far more positive trajectory. Now, nobody believes things are trending in the right direction. It’s one disaster after another, and most likely it’s all due to the greed of the wealthy oligarchs. Climate change? War? Poverty and crime? Crashing economy? All go back to that.
The 70s were optimistic?
Cold war. Inflation. The start of the manufacturing exodus in the rust belt.
The 80s were better, but there was still the Cold War and AIDS
I was busy in the 90s so I didn't pay attention to much.
But yes, people are more pessimistic now and with damn good reason
The bad news is unignorable
Not that there's more of it, just that its better reported
I’m In rural north Georgia, town of 6000 population. The going rate here is $250-300 per sq ft. So a small $1500 sq ft home is right around $400k. And all the small towns around here are the same. And we’re about an hour north of the outskirts of Atlanta.
Also not factoring how hard it is to get a job now. Anecdotally I heard many older people growing up tell stories about getting a first job by walking to a handful of nearby businesses and getting hired on the spot. Now I put out 30 applications just to get an interview.
I understand that the numbers are still skewed even when you adjust for inflation, and that the average salary is included in there to show this, but I really wish charts would adjust the numbers with inflation. It makes the things a lot easier to compare.
It’s the same as people in 1873 comparing prices and debt back in 1923. Think real hard about this. Back in 1923 people made under 1k a year. There were less than 2k that made 70 k a year. You could get a home for less than $7000 and gas was 0.14 a gallon. Butter was 0.36 a lb, being almost $18 a lb today if you factored everything in.
Probably so, because in 1923 people were going into the Great Depression, and also couldn’t buy homes or afford basic standards of living. Then, shortly after that we had the new deal, which reset the equation to a more equitable distribution of wealth. And as we’ve gotten further away from the new deal, and it’s slowly all been rolled back and repealed, we are again right where people were in 1923….looking down the barrel of massive wars, a declining standard of living, and a loss of hope that our children will thrive and own homes.
As someone that was pressured into college by everyone around him. Where my only goal was to avoid going with the herd. I'll argue college isn't worth it. I think less then 25percent of everyone I've met actually use their college degree. Not only that you need internships and sometimes it's almost impossible to find a good internship. Personally, I do not think college is worth it. The while experience made me resentful. Career and trade school yes but college is a no.
Want to go into nursing, lawyer, accounting? Then college may be right for you. Wait you don't understand calculus? Then don't bother going to college. Want to be a cook, computer artist etc, career specific school. Plumbing, HVAC, then trade school.
Cars are money pits. If your car is old and had minor damage, your insurance will say it's totaled due to value. Need a new car hood and your car is only worth 2,000? It's totaled.
Whenever you're in debt someone else is getting rich.
Most HS do not care if you're suitable for college. They want you to go anyway to say most of their graduates go onto college.
Don't bother with college and try and make as much money as fast as humanly possible. Consider a career focused education. College is mostly general knowledge anyway and is remedial high school material. After you finished the remedial you have additional general knowledge. Your actual major is about 25percent of what you'll end up doing in college. Only g if you can really do so on your own without any loan. Live at home longer and do all of the chores. Don't bother with a car. Share a car or take public transportation or even an Uber.
Invest all your money into sp500, value and growth ETFs.
Curious where the Jacob house price came from. Jim’s was easy to find as the avg being 32k, but there’s a lot of places you can get a 250k house even today. Still doesn’t make sense.
Everyone who is not rich is screwed. We got luck as we started a decade ago. Prices in the US are bullshit, from the $7 chips to 7% interest on loans to double house cost in a few years
Loans should only be reserved for businesses. There is absolutely NO reason for a person to need to take on monetary debt for SURVIVAL. This is a FUCKED system built to FUCK people.
Food, water, and shelter are basic human needs and are NOT to be commodified, especially in a flawed organization of the economy that allows people to work and STILL not afford said basic human needs. Loans and debt are just a band-aid solution designed to destroy the middle and lower class further.
Wake the FUCK up people
>A new isn’t home 418 k and a new car isn’t 48k. Not to mention you can buy used stuff.
So your point is that it's all fine as long as you buy used junk?
What about in another few decades? Everything fine if you buy super used junk?
I’m saying these numbers are not accurate and people buy non- new homes all the time. It isn’t always junk. A lot of immigrants are buying “junk” houses as you put it and remodeling them themselves .
>I pay kids fresh out of college 100k. Not sure where they're getting that 70k a year salary from!!
Please do list what jobs you hire them for. So we can atleast look up the cost of education to procure such a job
Yeah idk how the house and car prices are calculated. I'm assuming national average but there's a pretty heavy skew there thanks to the crazy prices on the high end. You can still buy a nice civic for 25k or a nice house for 300. It's not good but these number are definitely inflated to price a point. I'd argue the 70k salary is probably pretty high as well
Jacob is NOT affording that house and car with 70k income with today's rates and prices lol. JACOB IS DEFINITELY SELLING DRUGS ON THE SIDE
Jacob's mortgage alone is like $3700 and he's only bringing home $4200 a month. 🤣
Yeah you'd probably have to double his wage for him to live comfortably, without money for vacations.
It's doubled by him having a spouse that works full time as well. But if they have kids the budget is blown again.
I just wanna know who Jacob had to blow to get a house for only 416k??!
My house is showing on zillow as 150k its only 1200sqf but it gets the job done
My condo cost 526k in 2021....which is just nuts
I don't know of a single person who owns a condo, how are the fees and stuff? Is that a main residence?
Eh not terrible but not great. My main issue is that the fees keep going up year on year while the quality of service and response speed from the association gets worse. All they do is issue fines, bitch about stuff and have landscapers out 5x a week to leaf blow the grass. A condo wasn't our first choice but it was a ticket out of the shithole rental market in 2021. We went to 41 open houses and made 10 offers before we even got this. EDIT: forgot to say but yes it's a main residence
Worse if stay at home mom who doesn't bring in anything if we talking about kidS.
A lot of times it's cheaper to have a SAHP rather than pay for childcare (if you can even get in). Also a lot of mom have side hustles ( how they get preyed on by mlms so easily)
For most those MLM side hustles are an expense and not a source of income…
So true. When I was laid off and having no luck in finding a job, I tried all kinds of hustles to make money including an MLM. I was dazzled by the promoter's huge house with pool and luxury cars. Fortunately I was too poor to make even the initial investment.
Oh yeah, they're predatory as fuck
Fucking daycare can be more expensive than rent.
Yeah my partner and I are dual income no kids and only with budgeting is our 6 figure net total income enough to afford a mortgage and still survive. No way this one dude with 70k a year (55-60k after taxes) is affording a $400,000 home lmao.
As someone who has survived 500 after rent, taxes, bills... It's possible. You won't live well, but it's possible. Although, I didn't have utilities or a car. So Jacob the home and car owner is FUCKED.
They probably assumed he was intermittent fasting…..for 43 years
Nah Jacob is gonna starve. Unless he has kids then he might get some assistance. Or if he splits the bills with a partner … but then what if he is being abused? He can’t leave cause he will be homeless? Hmm I don’t drugs are as prevalent as you think in order to sustain all the Jacob’s. We are drowning
But where did he get the downpayment Bart?
It’s 2964 and that’s with $0 down
Oh cool... except PMI, taxes and insurance...
Jacob is irresponsible with his purchases. Jacob needs to drop his house $120K and get a new Toyota Corolla.
$120k less for a home will demand $120k in work to make it livable. Assuming it’s not like, in some economically depressed town in rural flyover country, 400k is like the baseline for a decent 2br condo in most cities. 1-2 year old Toyotas barely depreciate too. …and I’m just now realizing you’re being facetious.
I'm not sure if we read the same post, but dropping the cost of his house by 120k will put him at 300k, not 120k.
You can still buy the median home in MN for that price
I don’t think you’re following along. $120K reduction puts him at $300K. I bought my house for $120K in 2019 and it appraised for $225K recently... 3br/2ba on an acre of land in a city of 150K people in the Deep South. Here’s a brand new Corolla for $24K: https://www.jimhudsontoyota.com/inventory/new-2024-toyota-corolla-le-front-wheel-drive-le-5yfb4mde0rp159159/
A 300k house today costs 3000 a month at current rates. 5 years ago it was 1800 a month.
That would be a teardown in my hometown
Buying a new car is almost always irresponsible from an economic standpoint.
Yeah, these last few years have been the exception. I’ve always bought a year or two old. I lucked up buying my Titan though. I was going to buy a two year old used one for $37K while the new ones were $57K. Their sales slumped so hard that I got a brand new one for $42K after several hours of haggling.
New car aint 48 This is a good way to show examples but cmon
It’s a fair comparison. In 1973, you could get a Pontiac Trans Am or a GTO for $4k. A BMW 2002 started a $3850 in basic trim. You didn’t need to resort to a Pinto for $2k when you could step up to a nicer car so cheaply.
my Corolla had an MSRP of $46300
A new Kia base model minivan is 33,000. If you want upgrades you will get to close to that and it’s a minivan!
Corollas start at like $22k.
New tesla model 3 performance is 48 after rebate. 45 to 50k is the median for a new fairly nice car
No the model should be a standard toyota, nissan, ford, honda or some shit. Drive home the message
Right? This should be standard Camry or Corolla territory. Even base model cars come with backup cameras and decent options now.
Why would he settle for that when he's already buying a house he can't afford
Personal finance...?
I think they were just making a joke. "The example is already outrageous for the house price alone given that salary, might as well make the car more luxurious while we're at it."
I'm pretty sure this graphic is just showing the national averages for each purchase for their corresponding years. It's meant to show you how impossible it is to buy the average house/car on the average salary. It's also why we've taken to using the *median* income since there's a *massive* spread on those datasets. And why we should also start using median car and home price (although that doesn't reflect the *availability* of those prices, so there's a good argument against it)
I make 3x Jacob and have similar loan values, and It's not easy.
Also worth noting that Jim is making below average income for 1973 while Jacob is making above average for 2023.
Fuckin' Jim...
Jacob only has $37k in college loans? Must have been a 2 year program.
I came to comment on that as well. I think 40k was 2/3rds what mine cost in 2013. And I stayed at home and went to a lower cost university.
It cost me probably close to 35k for 1.5 years of school with living expenses. Did my community college super cheap from home, but moved for that final couple years. Can't imagine someone spending 4-6 years and doing it all at a state school. My friends a few years older than me did state schools for like a 1.5k for a semester and when I finally made it there it was 4k for 12 credit hours, the only bright side was I could take 18 credit hours and it only went up a couple hundred dollars. 10k rent for 20 months x500(single room in a house) 15k 5kx3 for each normal semester(books and classes) 2500 I think it was 1200x2 for summer/winter classes 4680 I'll call food/other, but it was probably more than that with random stuff at any given time(calling it 60 per week, I ate a chipotle bowl a lot of days, but it was definitely not $10 at that point)
In-state tuition can be around $40k for some state and community colleges, and $37k is only the debt, not the total price.
Median cost to attend a state college is about $9500/year
That is just tuition. You aren't going to state college on just tuition.
If you live with your parents, you don't need to pay room and board. That said, my wife and I paid for our daughter's room and board for four years at a state college.
Maybe he did the community college route to get his general ed, and then transferred to a university to get his degree.
You know, community colleges exist…
Jim tho bitching about student loans getting canceled and how he did it all by himself
While also happily collecting that social security that Jacob et al our paying for.
And Jacob might not be getting any social security because Jim went full MAGA and is planning another coup to install a president that will get rid of all New Deal benefits.
When Making six figures anit enough anymore we have a real problem.
Yeah.. I make 6 figures and my wife does fairly well and we are scraping by. Every month we have to postpone at least 1 bill. It’s absurd.. I finally got to a place where I’m like YES! I’m making really good money! Whoops, everything’s more expensive now.
Luckily, assuming those incomes, you can 100% be comfortable and saving money if you stop spending it all. Can probably put away thousands per month. Take responsibility.
Just don’t spend money! Awwh man, why didn’t I think of that?!
Man cmon in what world is near $200,000 not enough money to live on? You could comfortable spend $5500-6000 a month on rent/mortgage and still have $60000 post tax to spend on food, cars, and the like. You can get a very nice 3 bedroom house/apartment in both California and New York City for less than 5k. So yeah, if this dude is “scraping by” he fundamentally sucks with money
Sounds like you’re not consider the fact he probably has children What are you 15? This couldn’t be a more uninformed opinion
Unless he’s got 4 the dude is still horrible with money. 200k household income in the highest tax state in California is a net income of just over $146k. Let’s assume 2 kids Assuming they rent a 3 bedroom house for $4500 a month (once again plenty available all over California for that price and lower) that is $92,000 post housing. The average 4 person household spends $1200 a month on groceries in California, but lets assume they spend 20% more, so that’s $75000 left. Let’s assume 2 cars under payment at $1000 total a month with $100 each in monthly upkeep (brand new $25000 cars at 6%) that’s $60.6k left. Let’s assume childcare for 2 kids before the age of 5 (atp they’re in school). Average cost in Californias most expensive county (alameda) is $14500, so that’s $31.7k left. Let’s add another $500, per kid, per month, as a general expense fund. You’re now at $17.3k. Let’s assume a further 7,300 in random expenses and unplanned emergencies/trips/COL adjustments. You’re still left with 10k left over, and you get access to another 30k when the kids go to school and don’t need full time childcare, or 20k+ if they need part time childcare. I was more than aggressive with the cost of housing, transportation, food, and ridiculously so with childcare (outside of that specific county you’d save close to $5000 per child). I chose one of the most expensive states in the country to live, with the highest tax obligation. I just don’t see a reality where 200k is scraping by unless you have sex like a 20th century Christian or you suck with money
Again I wouldn’t say horrible with money. This is a fine mock budget but it’s not exactly flush with left over cash. Are you really saving for retirement and kids college etc w this budget? Can you afford a healthcare incident? What if you or your kid gets hurt or sick? Do you live in an area where the public schools are good enough you don’t have to send your kids to a private school? Do they play sports or have any commitments like dance or gymnastics? Sure you can get by and would probably be comfortably middle class in most rural parts of the country but in major metro areas you’re probably cutting it close if you even could afford a home in those areas which not likely To agree with you yes you’d be comfortable on this household income in a lot of places
There is no upper limit for spending. Without seeing all his spending numbers we cant say anything about him, we can just assume he lives in way too expensive place for his income or he have some other spending problem.
I mean we absolutely can say that he has no idea how to spend his money, considering near 200k is enough to live an upper middle class lifestyle in every major city in the world
I make 6 figures and my wife doesn’t work and we’re doing fine. It depends on where and how you live. We moved somewhere warmer and cheaper when I became remote after Covid.
So, go homeless? Excellent advice! /s
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And Jacob’s wife has to work full time and has the same amount of student loan debt and needs a 2nd car to get to her job.
> And Jacob’s wife has to work full time Thank feminism
Feminism giving women the right to decide their own lives forced the rich to hoard all the wealth in our economy? If we had kept women as second class citizens, the rich would share their wealth with the rest of us? Is that why countries that still oppress women are super rich?
Working as intended.
Then outlaw being outside the system with anti-homeless laws and housing regulations in the name of safety and you have created an endless supply of wage or prison slaves.
As I said, working as intended.
We just need to wait a little longer for it to trickle down.
How does a thousand years sound?
College tuition for Jim would be approx $14.462 today, less than half of what Jacob paid and Jim's annual salary in 1973 would be just under $74k today. Shit's fucked.
Where is Jacob living that his home is only $416100? I’m in Toronto and I couldn’t buy a doorless bathroom stall for that amount.
Most of the Midwest that is about the avg home price… and we still can’t afford it
Starter places in kansas city are like 250,000. Your salary is also a little less but it's not impossible like some areas.
WTF are you talking about, MN is probably one of the more expensive midwest states and the median home is $331k
not anywhere that has a lot of jobs. I'd say he might be a tech worker working remote, but in 2024 those are like...senior level jobs paying 250k+. all the replaceable cog tech jobs paying only 70k are getting called back to office to hideously expensive places. that said, if you can work remote or whatever, there's still affordable places. even in california. Imperial county, for example, has houses around 300-400k. But the best paying jobs there are either owning farms or dealing meth. Or commuting 2-3 hours into San Diego.
In St. Louis, my budget for looking recently was 200k and I found a lovely place for 150k. 1/4acre 1000sqft+bsmt. Another 205k place was 1/2 acre, 3500sqft total and facing a golf course on a dead end street. Canadian real estate is the only reason I don’t move up there.
That gets you a lot of home many places that isn’t a coastal tech city.
I see over 500 listings in Toronto under C$500K.
Not to counter OP, but it's always the same shit from these guys. > Where can I get a house for less than $500,000?! > - Guy in GTA Literally anywhere else in Canada.
Why is Jacob buying a $48k car with a $70k salary? That just screams financial illiteracy
That's exactly what I was thinking. 20k max is what should be spent, and you can get a good used car for that much.
I don’t know about good. I just went on cargurus and put 20k used, and most of them have between 50-100k miles. I can’t see paying 20k for a car with 50k miles.
That car will last you 150k - 100k miles. So about 8 - 10 years. $2.5k - $2k a year. If you save, that's not a bad deal. Most people now don't save, though because they buy the greatest and latest thing when we don't always need that. Same with eating out a lot.
Cars don’t “last” 150-250k miles. They last about 120-140k then have constant repairs and issues. 20 years ago nobody would pay more than 2-3k for a car over 100k miles. No thank you.
> Why is Jacob buying a $48k car with a $70k salary? 70k is still above median salary and 40-50k is pretty common for a new car, i'd guess that many people are in that boat.
A brand new Honda Accord is less than $30k. And why do they need a new car?
no one needs a new car, but plenty want one and are willing to spend too much of their monthly budget to have it.
A $48k car on top of a mortgage for a $400k house and student loans on a $70k salary isn't super smart.
yeah it's insane. on that income you likely wouldn't even qualify for a 400k home even if your car was paid for and you didn't have student loans.
30k for a new sedan is probably market rate most places, and then the financing would put total cost around 40-50k.
New base model Corollas start at like $22k. At 7% over 6 years that's $27k.
22k + ~1k destination + documentation fee of $~900 if you live in a shithole like Florida + sales tax of 6% + mandatory ToyoCare and factory installed packages if you live in the southeast because there's a distributor that has a monopoly on the region and you're looking at more like 26k. And you're going to have to wait since a base corolla is probably one of the most in demand sedans and with the least profit, so they don't really wanna sell them.
Imagine getting 7% on a car loan when you are poor.
If he's getting a mortgage for a $400k house with a $70k income then he's probably got a pretty good credit score...
Both of them bought a new car worth more than their entire college debt, so it's still a fair comparison, but they're both absolute clowns.
Whys it always gotta be “Jacob”? *my name is Jacob*
Aww, at least you’re making six figures
The financial industry, in close collaboration with the Federal Reserve and both political parties, has sold your expected productivity for the next 50 years and already given it to the rich. What are you going to do? Get back to work.
Capitalism is a death cult.
Banks exist in socialism too, so no capitalism isnt the problem here.
Who said banks were inherently the issue? Just because things share commonalities, doesn’t mean they’re the exact same… as evidence by the different outcomes.
I do because banks are the core issue.
Are they? Unchecked greed/theft/personhood of corporations seem like more of an issue than the concepts of banks as a whole. I
Unchecked greed and theft are part of banks too and money is 1 of the most powerful technology humanity have.
They definitely can have/do those things, but you don’t *have to* have/do those things to be a bank… I’m not doubting the importance of money…
Capitalism is when banks. The level of both ignorance and arrogance you display is staggering.
Mr president , something is deadly wrong with your economy, I haven’t had any work for a year and a half . I am a sculptor fabricator and 50 year welding veteran , there just nothing happening in the marketplace not even chickenfeed ( small jobs) .
I feel like college loans are predatory lending.
Buying power of the dollar. Every time I hear people argue that in their day they only made so much and interest rates on houses were double digits. Look at what the dollar got you. Today, even beggars get mad at a few dollars that might get handed to them.
$37k tuition? $48k car? We might be dumb enough to simply trust the 1973 numbers but these 2023 numbers are wild. Out of state tuition paying full price isn't a reasonable choice. Private school with no scholarships isn't a reasonable choice. Jacob is running up debt and complaining like it's somebody else's fault.
It looks like OP was roughly using median numbers for everything. I think the point they were trying to make was in 1973 a median salary could afford a median new car, home, and education. In 2024 a median salary cannot afford a median new car, home, and education. It’s a bit simplified, but I don’t think the point he was trying to get across was Jacob is irresponsible. Rather it’s harder to buy the same things with the same income. What isn’t a reasonable choice on for a median income today was in 1973. I believe that’s the message they were trying to get across.
This is all a result of making credit easier to obtain.
I think you're thinking this is the yearly tuition, but like with the house and car I think this is meant to be the total cost. $37k for a 4 year degree is pretty cheap.
Then those same older people claim we just don't want to work and that's why. Maybe they feel that acknowledging they had life easier than us makes them feel as if they didn't work for it. They certainly did - you can't achieve those things just by sitting there staring at the wall. But the opportunities were easier to come by. Not so much now.
What college tuition is $37K these days? Penn State University is $19K state resident. Room and Board is $13K. Total $33K a year time 4 years = $132K. Out of state is an additional $20K a year = $212K. The new car is also dumb. Toyota Camry starting MSRP is $28400.
48k for a new car is crazy tho
That's not far from the current [average price](https://www.coxautoinc.com/market-insights/kbb-atp-march-2024/) for a 2024 car, though.
48k usd is 65k Canadian (which is where I live). There is no way in hell my peers are spending that kind of money relative to salary in the pic, when adjusted to my location. The other figure are accurate but the car cost is absurd lol
you have to be a moron to spend 69% of your salary on a vehicle
Maybe if people stopped voting for Republicans our incomes could increase.
No way was college tuition $2k in 1973 for most people. It was less.
Same thing for the 2023 number, the median cost for a state college in like $9500/year
Something will give soon… imagine all the vacant properties the banks own. One day people will just start moving it and they won’t be able to evict anyone because everyone will chase them off.
The key here is that comparatively all the numbers are a factor of 15 except for the salary. It took “them” 60 years to devalue our work to half its spending power. But if you have a two salary home you would have to have both salaries be about 70k each. That’s a shame.
If Jacob earned 70k in my community he'd be doing very well for himself. He still wouldn't own a home. I'm just saying, Jacob's average salary is hugely inflated. Half of all Americans, HALF, are low income or living in poverty.
lol if you haven’t ran the numbers yet for Jacob, you will see this is mathematically impossible for him to qualify for all of this 🤣 I’m not laughing, I’m actually crying by how sad our situation is guys 🥺
Jacob doesn’t live in California where the average cost of a home is over $1 million and salaries are only elevated in a few industries.
He probably couldn't afford the house insurance there, anyway.
70k means you can qualify for only about a 250k mortgage.
Far be it from me to give financial advice, but Jacob shouldn't have bought a $49k car while meaning only $70k. He should have bought something for half that or less.
The housing and rental trap is a big issue. I know someone who bought in the early 2010s and their mortgage plus taxes are half of my rent on a smaller place. Buying today wouldn't fix that, since the mortgage and taxes would have gone up with the home price. All budgeting goes out the window when your fixed housing cost is a big chunk of your take home pay. Rampant speculation in housing hasn't been met with price caps, and it's squeezed a captive market entirely too hard.
Ummmm I'm not going to say things are fair for the middle class. But mortgages and car payments were decades of debt long before shit got as stupid as it is now
When I was younger car loans were 4 years. Now they’re 6 or 7. And sure, mortgages were decades of debt. But decades of debt at 20% of your take home is drastically different then decades of debt at 30-40% of your take home. 5 years ago it cost you $600 a month for every 100k you borrowed for a home, so my $420k home is about $2400 a month piti. Now, this same mortgage would cost me $4000 a month. I say this same mortgage and not this same house, because now my home is “worth” 1.2 million, and there’s no way I could afford the 11-12000 a month it would cost to buy now.
Not saying today is good, right, fair or sustainable All I'm saying is the past was not some kind of debt free Utopia
No, but everything is relative. And relative to today, a larger share of gdp went to wages back then, people were much more able to afford the standard of living, there was a more robust social safety net, and people could reasonably expect to buy a home and a car with much less relative money than they can now. I lived through the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. The times were far more optimistic than now. Things seemed to be on a far more positive trajectory. Now, nobody believes things are trending in the right direction. It’s one disaster after another, and most likely it’s all due to the greed of the wealthy oligarchs. Climate change? War? Poverty and crime? Crashing economy? All go back to that.
The 70s were optimistic? Cold war. Inflation. The start of the manufacturing exodus in the rust belt. The 80s were better, but there was still the Cold War and AIDS I was busy in the 90s so I didn't pay attention to much. But yes, people are more pessimistic now and with damn good reason The bad news is unignorable Not that there's more of it, just that its better reported
Is Jim still driving around in a 1973 car? Just curious.
This… is not accurate and I wonder where these numbers are coming from. The comparison can’t be done this directly either.
Attend a state college for a fraction of the cost. These studies can be skewed to accomplish any objective. Think critically.
I feel like he took the cheapest state school he could find for the 1973 number and the most expensive one for 2023
Only $416k for a new home? What a steal!
Not everyone lives in the ultra high COL areas, median home price in MN is just over $300k
I’m In rural north Georgia, town of 6000 population. The going rate here is $250-300 per sq ft. So a small $1500 sq ft home is right around $400k. And all the small towns around here are the same. And we’re about an hour north of the outskirts of Atlanta.
Also not factoring how hard it is to get a job now. Anecdotally I heard many older people growing up tell stories about getting a first job by walking to a handful of nearby businesses and getting hired on the spot. Now I put out 30 applications just to get an interview.
Where did these numbers come from for house, car, etc? Are both columns in 2023 dollars (ie adjusted for inflation)?
All of those numbers need to be adjusted for inflation. Otherwise it's just saying "well we used to buy a bag of apples for $1..."
I understand that the numbers are still skewed even when you adjust for inflation, and that the average salary is included in there to show this, but I really wish charts would adjust the numbers with inflation. It makes the things a lot easier to compare.
My mom in her seventies doesn't understand why we can't make it work and thinks i just waste money
Just waiting for the people to actually rise up and start doing something about it.
It’s the same as people in 1873 comparing prices and debt back in 1923. Think real hard about this. Back in 1923 people made under 1k a year. There were less than 2k that made 70 k a year. You could get a home for less than $7000 and gas was 0.14 a gallon. Butter was 0.36 a lb, being almost $18 a lb today if you factored everything in.
Probably so, because in 1923 people were going into the Great Depression, and also couldn’t buy homes or afford basic standards of living. Then, shortly after that we had the new deal, which reset the equation to a more equitable distribution of wealth. And as we’ve gotten further away from the new deal, and it’s slowly all been rolled back and repealed, we are again right where people were in 1923….looking down the barrel of massive wars, a declining standard of living, and a loss of hope that our children will thrive and own homes.
Basically the Uber rich get richer and everyone with a standard form of income is getting more poor. It will break, it’s inevitable
Last time it broke with a world war.
As someone that was pressured into college by everyone around him. Where my only goal was to avoid going with the herd. I'll argue college isn't worth it. I think less then 25percent of everyone I've met actually use their college degree. Not only that you need internships and sometimes it's almost impossible to find a good internship. Personally, I do not think college is worth it. The while experience made me resentful. Career and trade school yes but college is a no. Want to go into nursing, lawyer, accounting? Then college may be right for you. Wait you don't understand calculus? Then don't bother going to college. Want to be a cook, computer artist etc, career specific school. Plumbing, HVAC, then trade school. Cars are money pits. If your car is old and had minor damage, your insurance will say it's totaled due to value. Need a new car hood and your car is only worth 2,000? It's totaled. Whenever you're in debt someone else is getting rich. Most HS do not care if you're suitable for college. They want you to go anyway to say most of their graduates go onto college. Don't bother with college and try and make as much money as fast as humanly possible. Consider a career focused education. College is mostly general knowledge anyway and is remedial high school material. After you finished the remedial you have additional general knowledge. Your actual major is about 25percent of what you'll end up doing in college. Only g if you can really do so on your own without any loan. Live at home longer and do all of the chores. Don't bother with a car. Share a car or take public transportation or even an Uber. Invest all your money into sp500, value and growth ETFs.
Optimistic to find a home at that price..
Jim didn't pay off that home in just 11 years. 15 maybe.
Still a crazy large amount of money if you ask me. But not many options if you're looking for QoL out of the box.
Curious where the Jacob house price came from. Jim’s was easy to find as the avg being 32k, but there’s a lot of places you can get a 250k house even today. Still doesn’t make sense.
We need cost of living as a percentage of income. I think people miss the point when cost and income both have increased.
Everyone who is not rich is screwed. We got luck as we started a decade ago. Prices in the US are bullshit, from the $7 chips to 7% interest on loans to double house cost in a few years
Loans should only be reserved for businesses. There is absolutely NO reason for a person to need to take on monetary debt for SURVIVAL. This is a FUCKED system built to FUCK people. Food, water, and shelter are basic human needs and are NOT to be commodified, especially in a flawed organization of the economy that allows people to work and STILL not afford said basic human needs. Loans and debt are just a band-aid solution designed to destroy the middle and lower class further. Wake the FUCK up people
A new isn’t home 418 k and a new car isn’t 48k. Not to mention you can buy used stuff.
>A new isn’t home 418 k and a new car isn’t 48k. Not to mention you can buy used stuff. So your point is that it's all fine as long as you buy used junk? What about in another few decades? Everything fine if you buy super used junk?
I’m saying these numbers are not accurate and people buy non- new homes all the time. It isn’t always junk. A lot of immigrants are buying “junk” houses as you put it and remodeling them themselves .
no one is paying 48000$ for a new car
Dont forget to that Both are also paying taxes to fund a genocide, one is vietnam, one is isreal.
Show this to a boomer and they will still ignore
I pay kids fresh out of college 100k. Not sure where they're getting that 70k a year salary from!!
>I pay kids fresh out of college 100k. Not sure where they're getting that 70k a year salary from!! Please do list what jobs you hire them for. So we can atleast look up the cost of education to procure such a job
Sure. Front-End Engineer. One guy that started last week didn't even go to college. He's 23. Self-taught!
Holy shit, your HR hires people w/o a degree and you pay them 100k? Yeh companies liek that can probably be counted on one hand so...
I have some open positions if you’re interested!
;( As much as I'd love to I only got good management and people skills, but not full stack dev skills. The offer is truly appreciated however! <3
Yeah idk how the house and car prices are calculated. I'm assuming national average but there's a pretty heavy skew there thanks to the crazy prices on the high end. You can still buy a nice civic for 25k or a nice house for 300. It's not good but these number are definitely inflated to price a point. I'd argue the 70k salary is probably pretty high as well
The U.S. median home price was $412,000 in September 2023, The median is not meaningfully affected by the outliers at the top.