this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
709 points (98.5% liked)
Personal Finance
3819 readers
1 users here now
Learn about budgeting, saving, getting out of debt, credit, investing, and retirement planning. Join our community, read the PF Wiki, and get on top of your finances!
Note: This community is not region centric, so if you are posting anything specific to a certain region, kindly specify that in the title (something like [USA], [EU], [AUS] etc.)
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I feel for you.
I'm in an average family earning average wages. Maintaining our standard of living is now at least $500 more a month, and that's just from utilities, rent, and groceries (!). I've cancelled everything streaming aside from Youtube. We don't eat out any longer, because that's easily jumped at least $30 a meal for a family of four. Depending on your point of view, we were fortunate enough to have things we could cut back on that weren't essentials.
I grew up fairly poor and by all metrics my family is better off, but it certainly doesn't feel like it at times. I've had more month left at the end of my money more times than I'd care to admit.
I have no idea how those who were "just getting by" are continuing to do so.
Dang, sorry about all that. "More months left at the end of my money" really hits home for me, haven't heard that expression before.
The only reason I've just been able to get by is because of friends and family, if I had any smaller of a safety net of people that care about me I would absolutely be on the streets. I'm not sure where you live, but the number of beggars has skyrocketed around me, and it's not dirty crazy homeless people that just need help in general, it's regular people out of work that are just trying to get money to pay their kids. People are selling 10$ roses on the sides of the highways to try to get by. There's no affordable housing for anyone and the best jobs available still don't pay much more than 50K a year. My boyfriend is a fully licensed mechanic and has about as much money leftover each month as a fast food worker in the '90s. Pays $1,400 in rent a month just to have a place to live (475sq ft), which is often nearly half of his income for the month.
I didn't mental ramble so much with all those complaints, I think it's just baffling in mind blowing how bad everything is and how little politicians and even companies seems to be noticing or caring about it. Citizens need money to give companies money. Eventually if people are only buying their necessities, companies won't be able to make money. It just seems so unsustainable and I don't know why more alarm bells aren't being rang.