nixy wrote:Sure, money is important, the US overvalues income and material goods, and not having enough money is terrible. No one is debating those things. They’re debating your focus on an arbitrary number. It’s more than possible to live comfortably and do the things you describe for less than $100k. There are lots of cheap restaurants. There are inexpensive vacations. You may not eat out every day/week or vacation every month, but you can do those things. Also starting at $35k out of college does not mean you’ll die making $35k. You need to think a little longer term.BarelyConcealedRage wrote:It is important to note here that the skills I am learning in "sales" are quite a bit less useful than law then people here seem to think. At my job, I am encouraged to be misleading, to play fast and loose with legal regulations and to go directly against them sometimes even.
All for a paltry sum of 35k. This country is a nightmare where it is impossible to live a decent life unless you are 1) Albert einstein, 2) extremely lucky or 3) born wealthy.
I don't think vacation time or buying a home will make me happy. What I do know is being in an overpriced, squalid home that damaged my health taught me the value of a decent house. Vacations won't make me happy - but spending every hour at a job I will almost certaibly hate will absolutely make me unhappy.
And my 20 year old beater comment was not about purchasing a brand new car for my parents - that is completely unthinkable and outside the possibility of normal human achievement. That is a relation to the fact that she has to live in that 20 year old beater.
Tell me, without money, how do you do anythng in life but lice in your squalid apartment and watch TV all day? How do go and eat out? How do you retire? How do you travel? How do you do anything in life that makes it worth living? How are you any fundamentally different from the countless peasent ancestors whose lives are determined by their rich local Lord? There is nothing that differentiates you other than you are now less likely to die. Even the 40 hour work week is bypassed if you dont make enough money.
I feel 99% if the people who tell me otherwise had substantial assistance from their parents and do not know what i am talking about because such horror stories are alien to them.
Also I’m sorry about your parents’ situation. But you’re also talking in absolutes as if their situation means it’s true that no one can live happily on less than $100k. If your personal situation is such that you have unusual financial burdens, that’s not an indictment on the rest of US society. (That’s also not me assuming everyone else has parental support, just that not all people are trying to support two full grown adults right out of school. And really you shouldn’t have to.)
All of my coworkers who are older than me don't make much. For everyone except the owner of the business himself, they cap out at ~55k at an absolute maximum.
It doesn't matter what I "shouldn't" have to do. Without my help the United States will condemn my parents to death. My mother will die/commit suicide likely before her 70's, while my dad will ne forced to work until he keels over due to a heart attack.
Maybe people not in this situation should recognize they are born filthy rich, and stop giving advice as though it is at all reproducable for most of society. The forum obviously skews to the children wealthy (which includes people maling ~100k a year) as much as they might like to whine about how "hard" they have it.
I myself will probably have to give up the idea retirement at the age of 22. Never met someone who could do it you either didn't make lots of money or who didn't have their parents pay for everything early on. And these same people will judge me/shame me for not having good products and say its all because I just didn't work hard enough even I load on up on caffeine/adderall to work every eaking hour just to stay afloat. Even people now say I should "work on my mental health" making the assumption that:
1) I can afford mental healthcare in the first place (I have troed the free stuff - multiple month wait times and sub par service isn't going to do much)
2) I have someone I can rely on to help me while I work on it (Lol!)
Meanwhile my peers act like I am a weirdo because I never got to travel outside the country, or have a decent car, or wear name brand clothes etc etc but I still have to give these people the time of day since they will be my co workers/ employers should I ever make money.
I wish forums like this could give advice without the extremely ridiculous implicit assumptiont that you have acces to generational wealth. I always found it wierd that people here never took undergrad debt into consideration until i realized most people who post here probably had their parents pay for it.
I would honestly, seriously, and unironically sell parts of my body off for the inhertances and family support most posters in here seem to get. My parents clearly shouldn't have had children and now I have to pay the price for thst despicable mistake. I likely should never have children because of it.
Well then......
