well Great Depression era tactics should still apply….
The average Trump supporter basically does think you can self finance your way out of this: Electricity and a/c isn’t a necessity for living and people lived without that stuff 100 years ago. Internet isn’t a necessity and neither is having a cell phone. Owning a vehicle isn’t a necessity, simply walk or add 3+ hours a day you don’t have to your commute waiting on public transportation. The average person is always fighting weight gain, so cut food costs with controlled
starvationrationing. Deodorant, toilet paper and hygiene isn’t a necessity either. Needless to say no one deserves to be happy and you should be spending no money on video games, eating out, or anything fun. But spend money on dating and having kids because our society definitely deserves you give them more workers. Also, privacy isn’t a necessity too so if you aren’t sharing a studio apartment with 4 other people you have nothing to complain about. If this is an issue than you should have chosen to get lucky and be rich, maybe pray about it too because God knows best.This is unironically my boomer evangelical mother’s opinion.
There’s a famous Agatha Christie quote where she mentions that when she was young, she never imagined she’d be rich enough to own an automobile or poor enough to not have servants in her house. At some point, the affordability of one shot way past the other.
In my lifetime, I’ve seen huge cost increases in housing, and huge cost decreases in most technological products. When I was a kid, the normal TV size was something like 20 inches, and cost more than a month’s rent for a typical apartment. In 1990, the average rent was $447, according to this. I found a Sears catalog from 1989 with a 25 inch TV selling for $549, and a 20 inch TV for $318. It would be hard to convince someone from 1990 that one day the cheapest, shittiest apartments in the poorest neighborhoods would rent for more than a 60-inch TV per month. Or that the typical ambulance ride costs something like a month’s salary of a factory worker.
That’s the real problem with old people’s sense of money. The human tendency is to assume that all products cost the same multiple of those products prices in their early adulthood, so the luxury products of their youth remain the luxury products of today. These old people are stuck in some kind of Agatha Christie style of cost comparison, without the self awareness, and thinking that someone who owns a cell phone should be able to afford to buy a single family detached house, or couldn’t possibly be bankrupted by a single Emergency Room visit.
I totally agree with you that this is true, but I think it’s more a problem with reactionary thinking than anything else. The way I see it, the type of thinking that leads to reactionary comments is individualistic solutions to social and economic problems because you’re not allowed to question affordability.
People of all ages pull this shit. I can’t count how many times some millennial on reddit made unwanted suggestions for a poor person’s budgeting or grocery purchases. It is obviously difficult for older folks to understand things they’re not experiencing, but I don’t think that’s the primary issue.
Ask any traitor lunatic under 40 what to do about high prices, they’ll tell you exactly.
I definitely see this a lot. Any time someone complains about the unaffordability of life you get a swarm of people prying into their personal details desperately trying to figure out how that person’s situation is their own fault.
Exactly. I never want to hear from someone making >$300,000 that I should be eating lentils all week.
Please stop blaming “old people”. It’s a divide and conquer tactic. I have grown children that are struggling with housing costs, and I absolutely understand why. Because greedy wealthy people/corporations are buying up all the property. If “old people” are pulling the avocado toast argument—they’re probably wealthy. Young wealthy people use the same argument. Something to think about regarding TVs. They were expensive back in the day, but they lasted 30+ years. ✌️ ☮️
Please stop blaming “old people”.
I’m not “blaming” anyone. I’m pointing out the mechanism that causes a portion of old people to be out of touch on these things. They rely on their own experiences to draw inferences that don’t actually apply to others.
"That’s the real problem with old people’s sense of money”. That is blaming old people.
“Blame” means to attribute for some negative result. There’s no assigning fault here, just an observation, and an explanation behind that observation.
If I said “Bob is a fucking idiot,” that’s not blaming Bob for anything.
So yeah, I stand by my explanation behind the observation in OP’s screenshot: that people tend to draw on past experiences even when those experiences are no longer as relevant, or are even actively misleading. And that the phenomenon I describe (that not all prices inflate at the same rate or preserve the same ratios to each other) exacerbates the problem.
OK. I’m seeing “the real problem with old people”. So, de facto, there’s a problem with old people.
The topic of the original posted screenshot is about inter-generational financial advice. I’m pointing out the need for intellectual humility when talking to a younger generation, by identifying a specific cognitive bias that tends to trip people up. And because this particular bias forms through experience, it tends to apply more to people with longer experience (that is, people who are older).
I thought my original comment wasn’t judgmental, and didn’t even purport to claim that all (or most) old people actually fall victim to the bias, to where they’re acting upon that bias. I’m just pointing out that it’s something to look out for, and to keep in mind, if you’re ever in the position to be giving younger generations financial advice.
Coming in here and trying to defend old people against an imagined attack is, frankly, off topic and not particularly helpful.
It is absolutely OK to assign accurate blame and this basic misunderstanding absolutely afflicts people who aren’t rich. The kind of person who bought their house when it’s cheap and thinks the $2000 they pay in property taxes per year are murderous whilst ignoring the fact that folks around them are paying $2000 a month in rent.
I don’t know where you live, but property taxes are sky rocketing as well. And, thanks to global warming, house insurance is also sky rocketing. A lot of people who own their home are facing difficulties. There are communities in British Columbia where insurance companies refuse to offer fire coverage. There are communities in British Columbia where insurance companies refuse to offer flood insurance. These same insurance companies used to. You know why they won’t now?? Because the Oligarchs own the insurance companies, and they know what’s coming.
“Have you tried simply having more money?”
Life’s really easy when you’re born rich and white.
If you’re born rich it doesn’t matter what color you are. The difference is probably being born middle class and white, that’s probably where you reap the most benefit from systemic racism. Being born poor, doesn’t matter, the cards are forever stacked against you.
We had to give up entirely on affording a house. There are ROOMS for rent at $1200 here. This used to be a low COL area until COVID. We had low infection rates so a ton of people moved here and we don’t have the infrastructure to support them. We’ve been priced out of what living space we did have and since there’s still the illusion it’s cheap to live here, it’s almost impossible to get a living wage.
Having taken the point of this post as it was intended, we can also recognize that learning how to manage your money is in fact always a good thing. Will basic hygiene undo generations of economics? No, but we certainly shouldn’t NOT teach young people to manage their money.
Nobody on earth has suggested we stop teaching economic literacy. We should however stop pretending it is sufficient. We require systemic change.
I think there’s a suggestion we start teaching it. I’m 37, but there were idiots who didn’t understand credit cards when I was 18, and there’s just as many now, and there were just as many in 1995. I think this response thread here was meant to say yes, understanding the system is fucked, even if we come out on the other side with a functional economy, people still need to learn some personal responsibility when it comes to spending.
I wish I felt confident in that. But you can almost hear it right in this tweet. The mere suggestion of financial literacy is borderline offensive.
It’s similar to how the notion of reducing your personal environmental impact is actively shit upon these days. Say anything about it and someone will shout you down about how corporations pollute more.
It’s very similar: there are larger forces polluting the environment that make your personal behaviors insufficient to solve the problem.
All true.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do what you can personally.
I used to pay $1100 for a 3 bedroom apartment 10 years ago, now a 2 bedroom is $2600+
All CEOs are bastards or something
No one wants to work (for nothing) anymore!
Landlords are not greedy. They are inherently parasitic.
Adam Smith would agree with you.
I paid $750 for a 2br 30 years ago. I pay $850 for a 3br now. I used to live outside San Francisco, now I’m in Ohio.
Not living in Ohio is worth at least $1k a month, so that tracks.
Yeah places with really low rents, there’s always a reason. But sometimes it’s still an option.
Ha, I was just being snarky. I’ve never liked the few parts of Ohio I’ve been at, but I’m guessing there are some good places there.
Honestly there are some beautiful and amazing places in Ohio and some places you don’t even want to be on accident. I have a friend who is a civil engineer, his college was funded by Youngstown on the condition he worked there for five years after he graduated. A group of friends were going on a motorcycle trip to Maine and we met at his place for the first night. I was running out of gas as we got into Youngstown but the group wanted to go to a Shell for fuel so I coasted in on fumes. While we were filling our bikes seven people were screaming at each other and it broke out into a full-out brawl. I was worried about knives or guns coming out but we were done so we just burned the hell out of that place. I would bet you can still find a house in Youngstown for under $100k.
Hot take, but it’s both. I make $40k in a major american city, and while it sucks I have a decent amount saved up, I live alone, and I’ve paid off all my debt (although I’ll probably never be able to afford a home).
To be clear, I don’t think anyone should have to cut the corners I do to live with financial security, and not everyone can (my partner is disabled, financial security is a pipe dream for them), but it isn’t impossible for most people.
I make $40k in a major american city
I hope you have healthcare, because that sounds terrifying.
I do, I actually have very good insurance and a pretty-alright 401k. My partner doesn’t, and it’s… brutal. They’ve got several serious health conditions that they just hope aren’t going to kill them in the next decade or so.
Nobody should be subjected to that.
My own mother has been talking about leaving town and rather then selling her house, her plan is to rent the house out survive off the rent she collects.
on its own that wouldnt be outrageous, if it werent for the fact my mother is extremely irresponsible with money and her lifestyle and bad habits are essentially going to be paid for by someone else.
its opened my eyes on landlords… a lot of them dont work, and they dont even do the minimum for their tenants. they just expect to get paid.
They now have services that are essentially landlord insurance where they will perform any service for you that needs to happen for a set price for low maintenance properties.
My mortgage is close to 1600 a month. Plus HOA fees on top of that.
I dont think rent being at that price range is always greedy landlords.
I think you’re right. The problem is that salaries are not keeping up. It’s been a chronic problem.
What’s your interest rate? That plays a huge factor in what your monthly payments are.
Im at 5%
Look at what it would cost to rent a similar house in your area in terms of sq footage and location. Note a house not an apartment I shouldn’t be surprised if its closer to $3500
I have the same mortgage and a property manager I talked to said my house would rent for $2300. Major American city.
Actually there’s an influx of similar properties around here that are just asking for 1600ish per month.
Ya what market, sq footage and bedrooms?
So someone is renting it out. It’s all supply and demand?? I don’t think landlord just leave their apartment empty unless someone comes with 1600 bucks rents.
In Denver here, it’s hard to find apartment and 2 bed 2 bath close to boulder is 2500 bucks minimum. But people still want to stay close to boulder rather than living on cheaper town.
