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Comment by PaulStatezny | Hacker News Reader

But the thing is, nobody said you have to pay for Netflix or Amazon. Each person is responsible for making good choices with his or her money. Lack of financial discipline is not society's fault.

Yes, managing finances takes some level of skill when there are many different expenses in a modern personal budget. But there are ways to live frugally and get ahead. They just aren't flashy or fun.

On two very small incomes my wife and I made big financial strides early in our marriage. We were very frugal but we made it work. We had the lowest tier Internet. We had a very conservative budget for eating out and groceries. We didn't have Netflix or Amazon. Once we paid off a number of debts, our spending was able to increase responsibly.

Edit: More tactful wording.

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Standard Netflix is $12.99 per month currently. So that's $155.88 per year. Over 4 years, $623.52.

You didn't pay off $60k in student loan debt and buy a house by refraining from Netflix.

Correct. It was from being very frugal in _all_ areas of the budget. Eating out, entertainment, internet, not taking vacations that wouldn't be financially responsible. Frugal dates, frugal Christmas/holiday celebrations, living in an extremely inexpensive apartment in a not-wonderful area of town. We were pretty late adopters of smart phones because we had cheap flip phones. We gave to charity too.

It's all about priorities, and having a vision for being financially "free". The victim mentality is an _enemy_ of human creativity.

You can say, "this area is too expensive; we need to find a way to move somewhere else". You can say, "I need to sell this gas guzzler and get a cheap, used commuter car." These things aren't _fun_. But they set you up for success.

The crucial data point is missing: "two very small incomes".

US minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. 2 people working full-time at minimum wage would bring in a household income of $30k per year. But you couldn't possibly pay off $60k in debt and buy a house with that. So your household income had to be much, much higher.

One cannot save oneself into a higher income.

presumably GP and their wife did not go on to both earn minimum wage after getting their degree(s?). even today when a bachelor's degree is worth less than it once was, the median wage for college graduates at their first job is around $48k. only about 2% of people with any amount of college education actually make minimum wage. it's pretty rough living on minimum wage, but paying off student debt is very rarely a contributing factor.

You're right. It was about [REDACTED FOR PRIVACY - but much much less than parent's 48k medium income per person for college grads] before taxes, both with college degrees.

I'm sorry lapcatsoftware if it sounded like I was making light of poverty. Poverty is terrible. But at least in the US, there is _so much_ opportunity to not be stuck on a minimum wage salary. Resigning to the idea that, "Well, I guess I just have to work for minimum wage" is not going to help and it doesn't have to be true. It's sad to think that people give up mentally when there's so much they can do to help themselves.

SOMEBODY has to do that minimum wage job though, no? So even if we're looking at the median, there are tons of people who aren't being counted.

What opportunities? Tell me how an average cashier can land an average 150k/year job in a metro area? Don't forget that the said cashier has mediocre intelligence, so-so appearance, zero charisma and little talking skills. He might swap grocery store for an oil change shop, but that's about it. Our society is mostly stratified now, with a little upward mobility left for high-tech workers.

> mediocre intelligence, so-so appearance, zero charisma and little talking skills

That person is never going to move up the economic ladder no matter what rung they start on or what decade they are born in.

That person STILL deserves a modicum of dignity and stability. Most people in this category don't really care if they move up any ladder - they just want to exist and not be facing constant economic crisis and near-homelessness.

Yes, and you're part of the reason. Pessimism fuels itself.

How are you ever going to be financially free from eating out less often? A meal at a restaurant costs what, $100? That's $5K a year. No holiday, another $5K maybe? Cheaper phone, ok, you don't buy the newest iPhone, so maybe you save most of a grand in relation to iPhone couples.

Even the car cost is not as big as the sticker price, because it has residual value. Granted it may be a big figure, but it is also spread over several years.

Seems to me you're literally one raise ($10K or so, and there's two of you?) away from making up such deficits, and you want to be near opportunity for that to happen.

Investing $10k a year at 6% (average stock market returns are 6-8%) gives you $368k after 20 years (net increase of $297k over inflation at 2%). Even if you just saved it for ten years that's $100k. Neither are enough to retire on, but it gives you a lot more options. Even if housing increases faster than the stock market, that $10k is $800/month which could be going towards a mortgage (in addition to the rent they are already paying).

> $368k after 20 years

Work another year or two, and you're doing just as well.

Outside of the obvious "don't buy a gas guzzler" tropes, most of the best ways to save money will end up costing you time. Whether it's living with a longer commute or working more hours, there is a point at which people are just happier living their lives than wasting years in their prime scrounging and being miserable to afford a downpayment on a house in worse condition than what they could afford to rent. Big budget decisions like vacations and cars will obviously factor into this in a big way, but nobody's financial situation is changing massively over a Netflix subscription.

Following your own logic, it's almost like saying how dare you say you had _any_ budget for eating out? Why not just save even more money?

I think part of the disconnect is that many people today assume that life will be, or should be, pain free. Life is hard. It's always been hard. It's hard today.

I think the reason we want to believe otherwise is because of the tremendous wealth we have experienced recently, so we expect that trend to continue indefinitely.

To me, it is the lack of gratitude for what we do have and can afford that galls me.

The generation immediately after WWII gave a glimpse of what was possible, before crafty people figured out how to siphon off the majority of that wealth to those already at the top. And over time, that siphon has grown stronger.

Life should not be as hard as it is. It is hard, and it is not painless, but it's harder and more painful than it must be. We have billionaires siphoning money from the masses (either directly, or indirectly via government action) that are already struggling. Redistributing even half of their net worth would be a life-changing amount for the average person, and could put wind in the sails of many charitable/educational/scientific/medical causes.

There is no reason why the current situation should be allowed to continue, and many reasons why it should not. Obviously it's a hard practical problem to crack (given that a naive approach to redistribution of this kind would be met with a great pushback and implode various systems that we depend on), but unless we do something effective, we'll keep ruining the planet while trampling the poor at the same time.

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