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Comment by kemotep | Hacker News Reader

Even a brand new iPhone 16 is “only” $800. Plans for unlimited internet can be had for less than $40 a month.

Using that phone for 5 years would only add like $60 to their total monthly expenses. Is that truly unattainable? Is that really what is keeping people from buying a house?

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I do believe that's a privilege to throw an extra $60 per month at something for five years straight. It's not truly stopping us from buying a house, but this mentality that everything could be bought on credit, this consumerism is where we are hurt.

They sell phones and data plans for cash that you prepay for. The 50-60 bucks was taking a monthly amortization over what would likely be a few thousand dollars upfront in expenses. Paying thousands upfront and using something for 5-6 years versus buying on credit for zero dollars down from the consumer perspective can have the same costs. Maybe it is more beneficial to not use credit long term. But unless you are also paying cash upfront you need credit and a credit history to buy a house.

You can easily cut that in half by buying last years model from someone who does insist on having the latest one.

$60 is ~14% of the monthly budget, so yeah, I think that would make an impact.

That is a shit ton of money for someone living in a poor rural area living on the bare minimum. It is only cheap if you are living in a city where you are earning far more money.

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