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nikofeyn

> "i ... live on less than $25k a year."

there's no way i can believe that. my rent alone is $24,000.

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He probably owns his home. Most people who own property don't count the imputed rent as part of their expenses.

Whether they should depends a lot on context.

Imputed rent doesn't seem like a strong concept here. If someone wants to imagine expenses, then they can certainly imagine that the player bought an annuity that pays his landlord the rent forever, so that imagining the imputed rent has to come out of his 25K is like double-counting the rent.

I'm not 100% sure I understand your comment.

Even without owning one's own home, not all areas have high rent, even within the same state. California, for example, has a pretty big swing in rents between the Bay Area and even Sacramento, let alone somewhere further north or south in the Central Valley.

Keep in mind that he's an NFL player, so he's in the offseason for most of the year, so he can live pretty much anywhere he wants. During the season a large portion of his costs are paid for by the team (hotels, meals, etc.).

I can definitely believe that as a football player he can get by on less than $25k of his own money.

It's not that hard to believe. Here [1] is a somewhat e-famous example of a three-person family whose annual spending is around ~$25k.

[1]: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/01/16/exposed-the-mmm-fa...

To be fair, I believe all of MMM's calculations exclude housing, since they own their house outright.

that's an extreme case you linked. he specifically called out it wasn't because he was frugal.

And yet you believe that this is even remotely normal:

> my rent alone is $24,000.

Good point. In most of the US, a decent 2-bedroom apartment can be had for <$1,000 / mo. An apartment that would be considered quite large by international standards.

Sure, but imagine a stereotypical American family with three kids, two cars, maybe a dog, and both parents working professional jobs. I don't see how you could consider it abnormal for them to spend $2000 a month to rent a house in the suburbs. If you're talking "globally normal" that's one thing, but by that standard nearly everyone within a thousand miles of me is in abnormally large and expensive housing.

> but by that standard nearly everyone within a thousand miles of me is in abnormally large and expensive housing.

Speaking from another side of the ocean, it's really true.

According to the statistics about energy used per capita, it's some oil producing lands and the US. And that even doesn't count all the stuff that ends on the US landfills.

> Sure, but imagine a stereotypical American family with three kids, two cars, maybe a dog, and both parents working professional jobs. I don't see how you could consider it abnormal for them to spend $2000 a month to rent a house in the suburbs.

That's a massively expensive and large house for the stereotypical American family in the majority of the country.

(They're also not going to be paying 2K to rent a house in the suburb, they're much more likely to be paying off a 200K mortgage, looking at the median US home price as well as the median in areas like Dallas, Atlanta, Charlotte...)

If you're paying a lot more than that you're either abnormal in terms of "spending way more than most / you have to" way or abnormal in the "you live in a super expensive area" way.

Let's suppose the median monthly rent in America was $1000. (It's actually $959 as of 2015, according to google.) Would you be shocked to find out someone was paying $500 a month? I mean, that's on the cheap side, but I wouldn't exactly call it weird, especially when they're probably living in rural Nebraska or something. Given that, why is it so shocking for someone to go the other direction, by the same factor?

From this, we can conclude that John is not your roommate.

If you really can't believe that, you need to get out more.

FYI I live in a fairly major US city and my rent is a quarter of yours. Your life experience is not normal.

i get out plenty. my apartment is even under market. i don't live with roommates. there is literally no way to get an apartment anywhere close to 50% cheaper by yourself in the market i am in. my experience is perfectly normal here.

even in my previous city (a major US city), my rent was only 50% less than it is now. and in that market it would be equally as hard to find one at 50% of that price.

if you live for a quarter of what i currently rent, then you must undoubtedly live with roommates or live in a not so great place (which is fine) or both, all of which i consider being frugal, which he stated he wasn't. or you simply live in a completely different market.

No roommates, just a different market. I live in Minneapolis which I do consider to be a great place. That said, the vast majority of Americans live in "different markets" than what you've described, so you might do well to understand how 24k/yr in rent is not normal for most people.

i suppose the disconnect happening in the replies is that people assume i meant normal in my rent amount. my original comment was meant to compare what an nfl player, with a family i might add, supposedly lives off of in entire year to my, me being a middle class single person, yearly rent (whether that rent is high or low or normal). so sure, he and many may live much cheaper. but cheap enough such that his taxes, utilities, food, family care, general bills, purchases, etc. all still add up to $24,000. i doubt it without heavy caveats to that number he gave.

I believe it. If he owns everything free and clear--I'm betting he does--and he avoids big purchases and fancy trips, he can basically get by on purchasing nothing but food, electricity, phone, and gas. Tack on some clothes and reasonable eating out, and you can live well on $25,000 per year. Everything else was probably paid for by the team.

> If he owns everything free and clear

So ok say he owns his house. You still have property taxes (in some places can run from 1 to 4% of property value) upkeep family costs and so on.

> and you can live well on $25,000 per year

Not with a family. Not in a safe area or what most would consider a 'nice' area.

Really? https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ seems to do OK with him, his wife and his child living on a similar amount.

yea, i thought that might be the case, but it makes his comment heavily caveated since it's entirely dependent on his employment with the nfl.

Excluding housing and healthcare, our annual expenses for the last year were roughly $11,800 for a family of 4.

Not fun, but doable.

During the season and much of the off season the team probably pays for accommodations, meals, transportation, healthcare, etc.

Also, this is Baltimore we're talking about. The only places you can reasonably spend that much in rent in Baltimore is luxury developments on the waterfront and around Patterson Park.

Baltimore.

Check out https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ lives a very comfortable life on a low amount (though he's damn rich now even if he doesn't spend it)

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