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Comment by war1025 | Hacker News Reader

It really all depends on the lifestyle you think you need to maintain.

I like to think of money a bit like gasoline.

100 gallons of gas will last you pretty well forever if you ride around on a moped.

It will get you maybe an hour or two down the road if you're driving around in a fully loaded semi.

What most people need in order to be happy is somewhere in the middle. Unfortunately, many people are determined to live in a way where their reach always exceeds their grasp.

You can't outrun financial idiocy.

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> many people are determined to live in a way where their reach always exceeds their grasp.

You mean being able to pay the rent, send their kids to university, pay their medical expenses without getting bankrupt? Because that's the kind of life most people aspire to.

> You can't outrun financial idiocy.

Following this line, most people are financial idiots, which means they are responsible for their poverty?

> Following this line, most people are financial idiots, which means they are responsible for their poverty?

Your whole comment is conflating poor financial planning with actual poverty.

If you break people into: those legitimately without enough resources to get by, those who would have enough if they knew how to manage money, and those who have enough whether or not they can manage money; I would wager that the people with enough money but terrible planning skills would be the plurality, whether or not they were the outright majority.

Once you slip into the "I can afford this because I can make the monthly payments" line of thinking, you are pretty much by definition living at the cusp of your means. That's where most people are, whether or not it's a good idea for them to be.

I understand what you mean but I find curious the term "idiocy" when we live in a society that doesn't educate us on financial planning and at the same time does everything it can (succesfully) to make us spend more, because the economy itself depends on keeping consumption high at all times.

Financial illiteracy is a better term, since I don't see why we should expect financial planning to be an innate ability.

At some point we have to decide if we want people to consume the most they can or if we want them to be "responsible".

Call it what you like. I agree our society goes out of its way to mis-educate people on the matter.

I guess maybe the difference in my mind vs illiteracy and idiocy is that someone illiterate in a matter may still manage to put together that whatever they are doing isn't working and maybe they should try something else.

The idiocy comes in when people know it's not working, and know it's designed not to work, but dammit if they aren't going to live that way anyway and complain the whole time.

Lifestyle creep is more like buying a $50k car when it's beyond your means or paying rent on a luxury apartment that you can't afford a less fancy apartment would be a better fit for your needs and budget.

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