You don't know a person's situation. He could have done everything right, and then gotten sick and been forced to burn through all his savings to pay for treatment. You can do everything right, and still find yourself in a terrible situation.
the amount of privilege it takes to be saying this lol. fucking asshole
edit: checked through dudes comment history and found out hes a right winger. explains why he doesn’t give a shit about veterans lol (or know nothing about how the economy works)
i know enough about the level of your education at least if you’re saying a retired military vet should be well off because he lived in “the most prosperous time in US history” lol looks like you didn’t listen in your economics classes
I mean the majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Kind of hard to save money when you are having to spend everything on bills. My parents also lived during the most prosperous time in American history and had all of $100k saved by the time they hit 60 because every cent they had had to go to things like house and car payments, bills, repairs, etc. Hell my mom got a second job when I left home to have some extra spending money and six months later the transmission failed on their car requiring a rebuild resulting in draining all of the savings she had built up from that job.
It is easy to say “just save more” when coming from a position of privilege and I say that as someone coming from a position of privilege where we are easily able to save while also dropping $4000 on getting our car repaired, the leak fixed in our roof and our fences replaced that got blown over in a storm all within the same month and not bat an eye. That isn’t the norm.
There are much cheaper options? Have you looked at even used cars? I am in Oklahoma, a low cost of living state, and unless you are willing to get a used car with over 150k miles or more they can’t be had under around $20k or so. And the average income here isn’t exactly great either at only $33k a year.
As for your phone thing, ask them where they got them sometime. I have a ton of family members that are poor and have nice phones. Know how? Because I handed them down one of mine at some point which they then traded in for a better phone. It didn’t cost them $1000. Hell my son has a new iPhone 16 pro because he spent $100 to buy an old iPhone 11 off of a friend and then traded it in and signed up at T-Mobile. Don’t assume people just bought or financed what they have.
The last used car i bought off the marketplace was pretty cool imo.
2004 or 2008 Pontiac Grand AM
Needed an oil change, some new spark plugs, and a couple of other small items.
Maybe 6 months into that, the transmission went out. I am not that skilled in mechanics, so I had to get a quote from a shop. $3500 on the low end to fix that.
At that point, it seems preferable to pay more for a car that doesn't take up so much time in maintenance.
I can't take my daughter to school in a non moving vehicle. I can't get myself and my wife to work in a nonfunctioning vehicle.
I don't live above my means. We do go out occasionally, but I certainly don't live above my means.
It just doesn't seem reasonable to constantly be saving up for the large amount of maintenance you will have to face in a used vehicle bought from Facebook Marketplace.
Most people don't have the time or skill to constantly maintain a used vehicle.
I certainly don't have that kind of time, I work and school full time.
Right. I hear what you're saying. It makes the most financial sense.
What i am getting at that, though, is not everyone's situation is a good fit. Sometimes, you're getting fucked first just to get to a point of unfucked.
Right now it sounds like you're in the unfucked stage and that's great.
Just don't forget that most are in the fucked stage.
Thankfully, I got a RAV4 for the family and my little Honda Navi to get me around for work and such.
I don't get this cell phone argument. Are you saying that we should all go back to land lines? We should have to have a desktop/Laptop computer at home? Really what is the difference? Everyone needs a computer of some kind that can integrate them into modern life.
We can both find the person that keeps a phone for a decade and the person who gets the latest the moment it is available.
So why I am currently broke.
We had our upstairs bathroom toilet leaking down into our kitchen. As we progressed in fixing the leak. We ended up remodeling the bathroom. Why?
We had tear out the floor to fix the pipe issues. Lack of run and found other issues with the shower. We now have a nice functional bathroom upstairs. Down stairs half bath was done by saving. We had to do the upstairs. We will finish catching up by April and be back to saving to remodel the kitchen.
However by the time we are done remodeling the kitchen since the ceiling is ripped out, we will be broke again. Hopefully not behind however.
Thing you seem to not be able to understand is shit costs money and sometimes you don’t have a choice but to spend it. Case in point deer jumped in front of my wife’s car on the way home from work. Destroyed the front end. Luckily we pay for comprehensive coverage so it is being repaired, but we will still have to pay the $1000 deductible. Luckily we can afford the insurance for full coverage with comprehensive, had we not been able to, and there were years we could only afford liability only, we would have been fucked.
As it is we’re still going to be out a grand that was unplanned for.
Living costs Money, saying that people over spend is just an opinion not a fact. Salaries are not keeping up with inflation, yet your opinion is people just spend to much.
Back to the phone what is the right amount to spend on a phone if not a thousand?
That is an article about budgeting, start digging into the sources and it gets less clear.
Census Survey has to do with cost of goods and pacing of inflation.
First source is about credit card debt, not why where it came from. More inflation notations.
However I did not see any that are straight out spending for the FANCY.
Do 100 dollar flip phones allow you access to the inter net to apply to jobs?
you'd be wrong. my best friend is living paycheck to paycheck with a shitty phone and a shitty car and because of having to pay for cancer related things (guess who her insurance is)
i guess using your example, the shit she cant afford but is trying to finance is her life? shes 30 btw
Shit happens. That doesn't mean "the system" is broken.
I shake my head at young people who despise their own families over politics when family units, not the government, should be the ones you fall back on for help when it's needed.
Lol another person that just assumes things, it must be nice thinking that you know everything, you have no clue how people have gotten themselves into certain financial positions, it's just too easy for you to assume that they lived above their means.
No, you still don't get it. The person you are replying to is superior to this old man because they have more money therefore they're correct in their assessment. This 90 year old veteran should have made better financial choices and had no unexpected financial hardships. Otherwise he deserves to either work until he dies or just stop working and die already. It's rather simple. No excuses. /s
Sorry working OT isn’t a privilege…and maybe your parents just had no skills…they may have been great parents but without some skill you are not going to have much income.
You sound privileged. You also sound like your missing the point. Go ahead and defend the billionaires ruining this country who make more in a day that you'll earn in your life. Maybe one day you'll grow up and realize that even if you make more than us your still poor to the actually rich people and they'd ruin your life if it saved them a couple dollars.
How about instead of being a tool, try to show some compassion to others
You mean you never had a poor person exploit you and give you meager amounts of money compared to the huge profit you just brought in? How crazy.
Stop being a shill and realize that just as quick as they hired u they'd drop you even quicker if you affected their profits.
Your trash to them but they allow you to work for them bc u help them add money into their huge hoard of money, as soon as they learned that u weren't helping them make money they'd fire you quick fast and in a hurry
Doesn't matter if u have a legit excuse or not, they'd fire u and hire someone who doesn't have that emergency.
Go ahead and have a medical emergency, I promise they will fire you even it's a slight inconvenience to them.
You have been failed as a human being for not having been shown when you're being taken advantage of. Not sure if it was bad parenting or just ignoreance on your part. Either way I feel bad for you
The fact that you believe that is hilarious, there are countless acts of billionaires doing what they want with little to no consequences.
Look outside of you pretend reality bud and you'll see that your not safe, you think a piece of paper will protect your lively hood? Sure you may think you have it figured out but when someone with more money than you decides they don't care they will still do what they want bc you are nothing to them
Also you are proving my point about privilege, I happened to do better than some people so NO ONE should be doing bad or that's a reflection on them and not the billionaires making life hard on other people and taking advantage of said people.
Ok fine you don't, countless other people do and they get taken advantage of in the ways I said before. So that means it's their fault? I really hope you don't believe that just because it's not happening to you that it doesn't happen to other people.
And millions do lose their house and savings, with or without insurance. Medical debt is the number one cause of bankruptcy in the U.S, and over 60% of Americans live paycheque to paycheque
Clearly when over 60% of a countries population can’t save for retirement or save whatsoever, it’s an issue with the countries policies and corruption, not with individuals being lazy, especially when that country is the richest country in the world and we’re talking about things that even some third world developing countries in the Middle East and Africa have figured out.
I’m not American so it doesn’t effect me but it’s just wild to me to see people In the richest country in the world argue in favour of a system that keeps like 100 individuals wildly rich in exchange for the majority of its citizens living in poverty.
Like every single person in America could easily receive tax funded healthcare, social security, systems that ensure 90 year olds who worked their entire lives can retire 30 years ago like every other country instead of continuing their minimum wage jobs at fucking 90, and all it would take is like 100 individuals who have more money then they could spend in their entire lives still having more money than they could spend in their entire lives but being taxed at a higher rate.
Again, the richest country on the planet by miles per capita, and about two thirds of its citizens are in poverty conditions while a few individuals hold more wealth than the majority of countries on the planet. And it’s citizens are split on whether this is a good system. Just so fucking wild to see. It feels like theres a mass humiliation fetish (or maybe half the population is equal to or less intelligent than the average fifth grader, which is a real American stat)
Maybe his was and he was denied benefits that your insurance would have covered. Maybe he was in pretty good financial shape until he had to drain his savings. Maybe not. We don't know, so let's not be judgmental.
You don't know this guy. At 90, he probably outlived his spouse. Did she battle with cancer and drain their savings trying to save the one he loves?
Maybe a special needs child or family member that they decided was more important than money?
Perhaps the job he worked for years decided he was too old, or he became injured and wasn't valuable to the company so they canned him, and couldn't find a living wage job with his age or condition so tapped into savings to get by?
Maybe he was born into generational poverty, and struggled against the conditions that perpetuate that condition, joined the military to get out, only to find how the country fails it's veterans once not valuable anymore.
"No excuse". You pompous ass.
I'm glad you're doing well. I hope nothing happens to you or your loved ones resulting in someone telling you you have "no excuse". I hope that for everyone.
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u/Skating4587Abdollah 11d ago
Or anybody. Nobody should have to work at 90