“There’s this wild disconnect between what people are experiencing and what economists are experiencing,” says Nikki Cimino, a recruiter in Denver.
There’s a term for this, HENRY. High Earner, Not Rich Yet. The lie is the “Yet”. Millennials and Gen Xers have been struggling to reach the middle class that is kept perpetually out of reach. They have given up on the idea of financial solvency and are going into debt to indulge in luxuries like having children, going on vacations, and living somewhere that isn’t a complete removed. Saving for retirement is as realistic as training to live on Mars, so why bother? Keep digging a financial hole and then lie down and die in it.
What most people don’t realize is that once you have excess income, you have options. What you do with the excess is what matters. If you don’t save and invest it, you’ll be living paycheck to paycheck for the rest of your life.
A lot of folks think being rich means just spending money on whatever you want. That’s not really the case. If you spend the excess on fancy cars or luxury items that make others think you’re rich, the irony is you’ll be working for a long time and never actually become financially independent.
Edit: well, if I’ve learned anything from this comment, it’s that everyone on Lemmy identifies as a HENRY with bad spending habits no matter how much money they make. Or, at least a temporarily embarrassed one.
If you don’t save and invest it, you’ll be living paycheck to paycheck for the rest of your life.
I don’t think you really know what “living paycheck to paycheck” actually means if you think it, in any way, involves investing.
You can have very high income and still live paycheck to paycheck if you spend every paycheck
“living paycheck to paycheck” generally means that all money is spent on living expenses and there is very little, if anything, left over. If you have any appreciable discretionary income, you are not living paycheck to paycheck.
Tell that to the people who make 150K and spend 200K a year.
Hint: they dont’ give a shit what you say.
I think his point is people are only living paycheck to paycheck out of choice when they could save and invest if they tightened their belts.
Not saying I agree, just explaining his perspective.
There are peple who are genuinly struggling.
Then there are those who choose to spend 10-20K on vacations every year and ‘feel’ they are struggling.
And these latter people will forever tell you how they are living ‘paycheck to paycheck’ and talk your ear off about how theri struggles are more genuine and ‘real’ than people who are actually poor.
The problem is that for many folks the amount they are making isn’t enough for them to live a very reasonable life AND they have nothing to invest in the first place. Suppose a household in a given area needs $100,000 to afford a VERY modest house in that area, health insurance, savings, healthy food etc. Now suppose the house has one disabled breadwinner and one fellow working for $40,000.
Because of this they live in shit town in a tiny apartment a building full of drug addicts in a not so great part of the state wherein the average life expectancy is about 10 years less than one of the good parts of the country.
The first 40k of “excess” would be spent on having a decent life, working a sane number of hours, moving into an actual home. For fully half the country the idea of having excess is laughable. It’s a crass joke.
Most areas don’t need $100,000 a year to afford a “very modest house”, you could get a nice mobile home and afford to pay off the loan in just a couple years.
the areas where most people live, however, do.
nobody wants to live in trailer park in Mobile, AL.
This is really stupid.
You’re basically telling people “just be rich” like it’s that simple.
People living paycheck-to-paycheck are not able to invest money because they don’t have excess income, they get to decide if they want to pay for rent or want to pay for food. Combine that with astonishing inflation rates and salary raises that don’t match cost of living increases or simply layoffs, and we have one fucked up situation.
This is a systemic problem. Billionaires shouldn’t exist. Billionaires are a societal problem.
edit: Oh, I see your comment isn’t directed at people living paycheck-to-paycheck, that’s a bit more reasonable then but I still think you’re missing the mark. It’s not as simple as “just increase your income” like you seem to be thinking it is.
because it is that simple.
be rich or forever be poor.
this is the system we have setup and the system that we worship.
To anyone struggling in the USA and wondering how to possibly get out, just live like Congress and become rich. Then, money problems are way easier to handle. If you have as much money as a Congressman, you will be equally as unconcerned with them as to the state of our union and you will be able to say things are great with a straight face.
Not even.
All you really need is wealthy parents. That way you never have to have any debt and get exploited by the credit system and can live your life glib and clueless and wondering why other people are so lazy and poor and didn’t work hard like you.
Some months I struggle just to save $1000 and it’s really starting to get to me
You can save $1000 a month? Damn!
Right???
I really don’t get these humble brags. Or are they actually just that disconnected from reality? Or maybe trying to mock people?
No, they genuinely think they are struggling. Rich people don’t think they are rich, because there is someone who makes more, and they are rich. The 10% thinks they are struggling because they aren’t the 1%. The 1% thinks they are struggling because they aren’t the .1% and so on and so on.
I met a doctor once who thought that she was being ‘struggling’ by only making 450K/yr and she thought she deserved 550k/yr. She was 100% genuine.
I make 3x median income. and all i ever hear is how ‘poor’ i am from my friends/peers. Because do then ‘poor’ is anything less than 250K/year w/ multiple family properties to vacation and stuff.
That person is a deluded Trump voter with zero financial skills and shit loads of bad debt. Of course everything is bad in their life.
