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Comment by raven105x | Hacker News Reader

Why is this a thing? My total, all-encompassing expenses are less than 15% of my income annually and I have zero debt. I rent a modest apartment because I am in my 20s & the loss on rent is, for now, less than the would-be loss of property taxes + HOA + home loan interest. I drive a nine year old Prius I bought when I was 18 - and I know that statistically everyone my age driving a luxury vehicle is either in debt, has outside income, or simply out-performed me financially - all of which are okay. This is just a youthful and inexperienced opinion, but it sure as hell seems like the root of the issue is not income inequality, or social theory, or any other problem requiring a solution but our national obsession of not minding our own business since people aren't at peace with themselves.

Mind you, these are sentient, presumably self-aware, humans doing this - this isn't the behavior of a bot in a game, but actual people. Yikes

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15% of the average US take home salary is about 7.5k. Can you live on that for a year? How about support a family?

You have truly lost touch with average people if you think your situation is even close to normal.

Is there any evidence to that? There is no way anyone could possibly survive for a year (outside of a third world country) on that. Those statistics likely include students working part-time etc...

There are millions of families in the US living below the poverty line.

I think you misread the person you're responding to. The average isn't 7.9k, 15% of the average is 7.9k - they are implying that the parent commenter makes far more than the average US household. (and further down, the OP states that their yearly income is ~360k, which pretty clearly demonstrates the point)

On $50,000/yr? Lots and lots of households are doing exactly that, yes, especially if we're calling that after-tax income. But no, not by spending only 15% of their income per month. More like 100%. It'd take 15% of $50k just to rent a barely-livable old, rotting single-wide and a lot way outside the city to keep it on, before any other expenses like utilities or food or transportation, and this is a pretty low-cost area.

In my friend group at least three families (two with kids) are making under $50k pre-tax income, as households. A couple others are a little over it but not by much. There are three with household incomes way over that and... go figure, each has one tech-sector worker in it. Age ranges of something like 25-36, none in college.

I like to point people towards Malcolm In The Middle. It's actually a very optimistic take on the struggle for a vast swath of American families; certainly not an exaggeration of the difficulties.

You sound like you’re managing things very well, and I don’t want to discount that in any way.

I do suspect your income is relatively quite high. Where I’m at, a modest apartment alone is more than 20% of any 20-something’s average income.

Cheapest rent is about $1,800/mo in my area (California, eh) - my car is by far the worse one around. To me, it's about what trajectory you funnel your income in to generate wealth - tangible, liquid, appreciating assets as well as ETFs, bonds & recurring revenue. The notion of someone who's my age looking at a luxury or exotic car which is a chump change spend for someone who's had 1-3 more decades to generate wealth and concluding that wrecking their own long-term trajectory by incurring depreciation & loan interest - all for the sake of superficial equality, is absolutely insane to me.

Right. I make $360k a year, and just living in a decent apartment already eats up 24% of my after tax income. Sure, if I had roommates and lived in a basic apartment, I could cut that down to 12%. Point being, it's hard to get by on only another 3%, and I'm making pretty okay money...

Pretty okay...cmon buddy.

We are at roughly the same compensation. If you save 60k a year vs 120k a year, the time it takes to own a house is cut in half, the rent and interest bleed stops twice as fast.

Now you're saving 180k a year by reducing bleed even though your expenses are the same, etc etc. Compound finance is a helluva drug

Heck, if you save 120K per year and work for 2 years, you can basically retire to places like Thailand and live like a king.

On $250k in investments, you could only sustainably withdraw $10k per year. That's not even $1k per month. That's upper middle class in Thialand, which is not exactly kingly.

Yeah but you're living like upper middle class in Thailand at age 24 with no responsibilities in OP's scenario.

Ok, fair enough, not a king. To me it'd be kingly, but I guess I feel like a king quite quickly.

Just me? Ah, alright.

Whoa there buddy. How are we going to keep this consumer driven economy afloat if irresponsible people like you go around living within their means?

Please teach me how to rent an apartment that is less than 15% of your income.

In Amsterdam: cheapest rooms I've found (not apartments, rooms) are 650 euro's. If you can get these you're really lucky.

Salary for entry level is 1600 net. This goes up to about 2300 to 2500 after 3+ years of experience (that's truly the fastest trajectory forecast FYI, it's more like 5 years).

Alright, so let's live somewhere cheaper in The Netherlands. The cheapest I could find that's in reasonable distance of Amsterdam (that's where the jobs are) is about 500 euro's.

So how do you do it? I want what you have as well. Heck, I'd live in a simple garage with very basic amenities if I'd have to.

Edit: I've tried to apply to startups in the US, there are no takers because of the visa restrictions. I've also applied to FAANG, also no takers. I have 3 CS or CS-related degrees (1 bachelor, 2 masters) and 1.5 years of work experience.

I think I was sorely misunderstood ...the point is to not spend on what you don't need - whether that's 15% of your income, or 80%, it was there to illustrate just that. When I started working at 18, my living expenses could've been 100% of my income if I even tried to live "like average". I lived like I was on welfare and saved my money and because of that, avoided the typical mid-20s credit card sinkhole, the fancy cars, and all the other crap nobody really needs. Career trajectory aside, the savings from the years when it was the hardest to save were the only way to get to this point.

IMO that's the easy part. Getting in $100K+ that isn't going to be taxed at 50% is going to be the hard part (The Netherlands, fun place).

The trick to affording things is mostly about earning. Saving definitely has its place, but if you don't earn enough, you can't save it either.

And I know that there are quite some hedge fund managers out there wasting money left and right, but in all honesty, it's tougher to get to that point than just to save.

At least, when you're me. I suppose for some people it's easier to make bank and spend it as much as possible as well. They wouldn't know how to save up.

This kid makes "roughly the same compensation" as someone making $360K/yr.

I mean, that's feekin rad for them.

But as for what that has to do with people I know, or my life?

I'm the same as you, thought the same at the same age - and saved a lot of cash. I remember telling people, why spend $1 now, when I can 12% * 40 years that $1 to make it $93.

Plow it away - families change things. Wife, kids, houses are often negative financial ROI (relative to early life), but have some life ROI. People in their 20's are often driven by status, or comparison - and not very good at thinking 30 years down the road. I Keep on...

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