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Comment by astura | Hacker News Reader

>Part of the reason I don’t live in America is I see a lot of people on salaries 2-4x mine who seem to be unable to have time to see their friends.

This is just a choice though. A choice Americans absolutely love making, but a choice none-the-less. On Reddit some dude was trying to argue that an individual needs $70,000 a year in fixed expenses just to live. Bare minimum. OTOH, I have what I consider an absurdly luxurious life and I spend less than $60,000/year TOTAL.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=DwlQ_5A2mKU - this is a video of someone who makes $2,200/month and has zero expenses (her parents pay for everything) and is in serious financial trouble.

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Spend some time on bogleheads and you’ll see it all - from people saving $120k a year on $140k salary, to those spending $700k a year and not finding anything to save.

The biggest thing I’ve learned is that if you have a monthly expense, it becomes “necessary fixed expense” damn quickly.

Even if it’s $50 a month for telephone sanitizing.

telephone sanitizing?

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy example of a "useless middle-manager" type occupation.

Yeh, for sure it’s a choice. I just feel like far more of my US friends make this choice than my Scottish ones.

> On Reddit some dude was trying to argue that an individual needs $70,000 a year in fixed expenses just to live. Bare minimum.

... Wait, how the hell did they figure that out? Did they itemise it? Was most of it just going on a very expensive mortgage or something? Are they including retirement savings?

(I've no rent or mortgage, due to having been very lucky with employer equity, but I'm not sure I could spend 60k EUR a year on myself even if I wanted to; there is only so much stuff that you'd reasonably want to spend money on.)

If you push them they always have $3,000/mo on candles, non negotiable or something. It’s silly.

Great reference https://x.com/dril/status/384408932061417472?lang=en

Yeah, I can't find the post again but they itemized it according to what they thought was normal basics.

I remember there was large car payments.

OI have been driving for more than 25 years, I've had a car payment for maybe 10 months in those 25 years. To me a car payment is a massive luxury, to this dude it's a minimum basic.

Frighteningly common attitude amongst Americans, including my parents. Never made sense to me. I get that American cities are basically designed to require a car, but that doesn't mean you need to finance or lease something brand new all the time.

Huh, I would argue that someone who has 70k after tax per year to spend generally shouldn't be buying a car with debt _at all_; they should be able to afford to save and buy one outright.

Yes, that's exactly my point.

I save for my cars, I don't, generally, finance them. I did finance one car once when I was a young engineer and still had student loans. I did it because I was just starting my career. Paid off the loan completely within a year.

I basically think everyone, no matter your income, should strive to save for their cars as much as possible, and try to avoid financing. Always financing a car is a trap to always spend more than you can really afford on a car. Saving and paying cash allows you to really gauge what is affordable. Even my sister in law who makes close to minimum wage has always been able to save for her cars and pay cash.

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