Survive? Barely

I’m on SSDI in a high cost of living town.

Don’t even ask what my credit score is…

Gas station

150,000 Base Pay
 22,500 401K Deduction
 47,000 Social Security, State, Federal and Property tax
   6,000 Health and benefits
 24,000 2bd apartment and utilities
   4,000 insurance 2 Cars and Life
   6,000 1 car payment for Daughter
   4,000 Gas for truck and car

So after necessary monthly outlays that's 36500 left roughly 3k a month. Feeding myself and two adult sized kids is more than 1k a month easy.  Dog food and maintenance for a GSD is probably close to 200 a month. Braces and other endless expenses that are too much to enumerate.

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My wife and I make an ok living but not great. I make roughly 60k a year and take home 36k after 401k,benefits, etc etc and she takes home roughly 20k a year. It rough that's for sure but we live like we are extremely poor and are planning to pay off the house soon so that will free up 700 a month for more home improvement projects to finish this house up.

You serious, Clark?  Fucking welfare.  The FSA is growing in ranks every day under liberal administrations.   So basically, you and I are subsidizing these fuckers.

One of my friends has a degree in pharmacy but by her own choosing has taken a minimum wage, part-time job. She mentioned the other day that she doesn’t eat meat very often now.

I see lots of people consolidating around family, if they have that support structure.  Those that dont tend to take more risky actions like moving in with a gf/bf they have known for a short period of time, or worse wracking up debt.  That debt is a ticking bomb because at some point a bunch of people are going to be maxed out or just file for bankruptcy protection.  With the way the feds are bailing out the banks, I am not going to have a lot of give a shits when the little guy says fuck this and dumps their debt too.

We need to focus the election on the cost of food, gas, energy, etc.  Everything else is a distraction that should be responded to with "why are you trying to starve poor people?"

You’re in the get bent over fucked range. Good money, can’t do any tax advantages, credits are long past phased out.

150-300k income is the rape range.

I think a lot of it is the emotional “I’m making 6 figures!  I made it!”  That was true 20 years ago.

HCE income is now…160k?  I’m kinda guessing. Taxes will fuck ya. The guy making 30-40/hr has no idea the rapage.

You're right I'm phased out of a lot of stuff.  Not even close to itemizing. I'm in a red state, but still paying 8K in state taxes. I pay more in taxes than a lot of people earn. After my kids graduate I hope to bail to a state with no state income tax.  Not expecting anyone to feel sorry for me, but more of an illustration as to how quickly all of that money disappears.

I've been doing the processing myself on a lot of what we buy.  Its pretty easy to learn, you can watch a YT video on it as you go and the skill might be useful in the future.  

Another way I reduce protein costs is my grocery stores mark clearances in the morning.  I'll stop by at lunch and shop like a European prioritizing clearance items.  Maybe a lot of things are on clearance, and I'll just load up.  Its not too rare to get our staples up to 50% off.

I'm a lawyer and my practice includes bankruptcy and lately it has been all bankruptcy.

I've been doing 60 hours work weeks for months now doing nothing but bankruptcy cases with no end in sight.

I see everyone's bank statements, their mortgage documents and car purchase/lease agreements and it just boggles my mind on how people spend money

I had a guy who makes $170k a year and is in debt up to his eyeballs with multiple credit cards with $35k+ balances.  My paralegal asked me how could that happen so we went over his bank statements and it was obvious.  multiple purchases of $8 a day at a coffee house, all sorts of entertainment, trips, shopping sprees, paying both his mortgage and his girlfriend's rent, uber eats almost daily and large restaurant bills day after day, yet he was on a weekly rental plan for furniture.  This particular month he had $14k come in but spent $18k.

Then there are the cars.  Seems like most are paying $1k+ on their car payments.  One guy is paying $2k for a Tesla and won't give it up.  I once saw a lady with a $45k balance on her car loan and it was a 7 year old car worth maybe $15k because each time she'd roll over the negative equity and had a high interest rate.

So to answer OP's question on how people get by is they go into debt to live beyond their means, they make minimum payments on their cards, do balance transfers and then get credit line increases.  This goes on until they run out of credit, so then they stop paying their mortgages, which frees up cash so they take a trip to Disney.  I swear half of the cases I file are for people who have gone to Disney within the 90 days before filing bankruptcy.  Lastly they get behind on their massive car payments and rush to file BK before their cars get repossessed.  Then, shortly after they file and they wipe out the $1k balance on their latest iphone, I call them and their phone has been shut off.  I got a panicked call from someone the other day.... he was traveling and his cell phone was shut off and didn't know how to live without a phone and tried to get another plan with a different company but was denied due to just filing bankruptcy and he was FREAKING out.  What do I do he asked.  I said go to some place that sells prepaid phones or better yet, go to MetroPCS and get a free phone, just pay the $35 activation fee and $35 for first month's service.  But that is some low end phone he protested.  Well, then don't have a phone, your choice.

At the end of the day I wonder what I'm doing wrong because I drive a 12 year old car, pack a lunch to work and only eat out once a week on date night.

It matters a great deal what your house or rent costs though as you can't afford shit if that shit is sky high and you don't want to raise a family in a violent crime infested ghetto.

Things have changed drastically since covid. The cost of living nearly doubled in many places AZ being one of them.  We are running out of places that you can afford to live and still have career options.   Five years ago things were significantly easier if you lived a low cost lifestyle.  For many now due to this rapid and massive inflation a low cost lifestyle is barely keeping your head above water .

We have lived debt free for 35 years. Don't buy toys and vanity shit. I buy my cars used and in cash. Don't take expensive vacations. We maybe dine out once a month max. I don't give a crap about what's in style to the latest and greatest. No tv, no cable, and no drug or alcohol addictions. In short, I don't give a crap what the world does, thinks, or dictate how I live. I refuse to keep up with the Jonses, fu#k the Jonses.  We produce much of our own food. We prefer to make our butter, some cheese, and bread. We keep three freezers stocked with our own grass-fed beef, lamb, and goat. We raise our own chickens, ducks, and turkeys. I have no idea what eggs cost. Our eggs are freshly laid. The only meat we buy is Pork sausage or bacon.

It is all about attitude and lifestyle. Life doesn't have to be complicated to enjoy it. The simpler you make life the more time you have to enjoy it. The choice is yours.

Check out Western Arkansas. The Natural State is a great place to enjoy life with a reasonable cost of living. No state income tax, sales tax is 9% but my property tax in MI for 4.7 acres was 3X what I pay for 240 acres here. Gas is below average, The people mind their own business. One warning, if you are obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses, you will be disappointed, they don't live here.

Arkansas is full.

Great info here. The parameters have been established and clearly shown on the far ends of the spectrum of survivability and crash and burn. Its going to get interesting. Bad part is when people completely fuck up their lives they tend to look to .gov to bail them out. And democrats are happy to do it.

It's funny because it's true!

We had a guy work with us for two weeks from Arkansas. He made it sound like a wonderful place to live. He was traveling around, State to State at the time filling in for vacations and such, and said NC was the trashiest state he’d ever seen because of all the litter.

Luckily, I bought all the shit I need prior to 2019 (cars, house, all the associated crap)

Timing just worked out. I couldn’t afford half of what I have with my current, unchanged income now.

I feel for anyone who didn’t. They’re up shit creek.

You know that you are trashy when someone from Arkansas calls you trashy!

I don't have everything figured out but from what I'm reading in this thread I'm sure happy with my 6 year old GMC Canyon. I'm also happy with my paid for home and everything else. My Wife wants to travel more that the Boxerdog passed last October. We can and will. We are literally millionaires and have no issues funding our lifestyle. My thoughts are that BECAUSE we lived below our means for all these decades we CAN do as we please.

My best friend told me several years ago ( MAI Appraiser) that people in their 60s' were getting HELOCS and doing other stupid shit. It seems to me that "keeping up with the Jones" is pure insanity. Both of us were self employed for our entire lives and had the financial control to save save save. He's off to Spain for a month soon and we're planning our next trip. I made a ton of money over my lifetime and have been retired for a long time. It sure is nice mowing my own place after being out of the country last week. Fair trade in my book AND the way I mow it makes the Wife happy along with new drapes for the place next week and a new shower starting tomorrow and more getting ready to sell. I lived in fear of being broke so long that it became a habit.

My house has doubled in price and my mortgage rate, if it wasn't fixed, would be ridiculous. Literally a 100% increase in both from 175k to 350k and 2.5% to 5%.

There is no way I could afford my house today.

My grocery bill has doubled as well.

Meanwhile my salary went up 4%.

Hookers and Blow dreams on a Porn and Pain Pills budget!

Seriously, we got hit pretty good by Pedo Joe’s marxist economy but given our salaries, we are doing much better than others right now. It still hurts even with near zero CC debt and house 80% paid off. With credit cards, we use them and pay the full balance within the billing cycle to improve our credit scores, however in this new leftist reality paying your bills and having a good credit score is racist and insensitive to the government teat sucking commie leeches. Success as a White AngloSaxon Christian American Patriot heterosexual couple is evil nowadays!

Well, call me a racist evil motherfucker married to a real woman then!

Germany assessed Austria-Hungary in WWI and declared, "We are shackled to a corpse."

Assessing our fellow blue-voting Americans:  their voting habits, their priorities, their spending of OUR money, tolerance of crime, promotion of sexual deviancy, hostility toward Christianity, racism against Whites, willingness to sic law enforcement upon us, BLM/Antifa street violence, ability to cheat the vote....

...we aren't just shackled to corpse but a zombie trying to eat us.

How? Government handouts. The more kids they have, the more they make. Free rent, free food, free cell phones and computers, free internet, free heat for their home and in some cases free electricity. Their kids get free food at school, free school supplies and free clothing. Their field trips and extracurricular activities are paid for through a slush fund the school keeps on hand provided by school donors.

On top of all this, many/most of them sell and transport drugs. Them or their baby daddy or grandson. Also theft and fencing of stolen goods. Facebook Marketplace is full of new power tools and outdoor power equipment that has never been used at a discount. Why is that? Nobody ever asks why a seller has 5 brand new Dewalt drills for 1/3 off?

Debt, fraud , crime.

Well. That's a depressing comparison.

Wisdom.  You have it.

This reminds me of when I heard Dave Ramsey talk about a NFL player that came to him for financial coaching.

The player told Dave "I messed up bigly."

Dave asked him how he messed up.

The player responded "all I did was save my money in my bank."

When the player came to meet Dave, he said he had $36 million in savings and none of it was invested in the indices.

Dave wanted to hug the guy because he and his wife and kids were driving around in a used minivan.

It all depends on where in NC. If cotton or tobacco was or is grown, then yes a certain demographic destroys the countryside with discarded trash.

I don’t understand it. What’s so hard about driving your trash to the nearest trash can?

I think a certain amount of it (litter) comes from trash blowing out of garbage trucks, especially the ones that dump the dumpsters but I believe the majority of it comes from sorry people throwing it out their window.

Walmart:  $1.83 for 18 eggs.  Gallon milk:  $4.20, $6.03, no tax.  You're doing it way wrong.

I think a small percentage comes from NC having neighborhood trash collection centers. People don’t seal up their bagged garbage and it just blows out and into the ditches. That or the bag falls out of the truck because the lazy bastards filled up the entire bed of their truck over the course of several months before taking it off. I’ve traveled quite a bit and have never seen this anywhere else. I could be mistaken though.

Credit cards and paycheck to paycheck in my observation.

The churches support a lot of mentally ill bums around here.  I recognize some of them from 20+ years ago, still wandering the streets, still looking confused and crazy, churches enable them to keep on keeping on.  They ought to be in an institution, but oh noes, we have to mainstream them (ie nobody wants to pay to keep them locked up, but they are fine with welfare).  The churches have also been importing dirtbags from other countries, and they don't really contribute to our society much - they are just a drain.

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Credit cards and paycheck to paycheck in my observation.

This thread reminds me of the other thread where rent payments were too high.

The OP was saying it was not feasible to buy a property because there wasn't anything he could afford.

He's getting ready to spend $20k a year in rent if he stays where he's at.

Someone else responded with multiple housing listings that could easily be afforded if the need were there.

One place was listed for $100k and it isn't perfect, but it would suffice for a single man or even a married couple.  It if it was one county outside of my residence in any direction, I'd have already gone to do a walk through.

Imagine being able to not spend $20,000 a year on rent and own a property outright within 7 years of closing.  So what if it isn't perfect.  I bought a foreclosure in 2013 and met my wife 4 months afterwards.  We've put significant efforts into our home after paying it off and we're still saving a majority of our income instead of handing it to a bank.  We invest in retirement.  We invest in brokerage accounts.

I'm going to start working for a company here in about 2 weeks where my skillsets will be utilized and I'll learn some new skills along the way.  The owner of the company is probably 15 years younger than me but he has a good head on his shoulders.  When we discussed my hourly rate, he didn't even blink.  I guess I started too low but I have that flexibility now to pick what I apply my efforts to.

Have you ever shopped a Publix? That’s why it was $14.

Covid was purposeful to decrease population and bring on this inflation. Everything is more expensive, but doesn’t need to be.  We play along, go out to eat, buy automobiles, buy retail, etc., all the while b*tching about the increase.  If Joe Blow worker taxpayer would just stop going through drive thrus, buying unnecessary items, etc., just for a while as a collective whole, they won’t make money and maybe prices would come down. Go Galt, in any way possible.  But we keep going so they’ve discovered we will keep paying.  Prices will never come down.

Inflation is the key factor.

The covid payments were flat across the nation. People out of work (for whatever reason) received and extra $600. In many places, AZ being one of them, people earned much more not to work. With all of that money injected, with no increase in products or services, simple supply and demand drives up the cost of everything. Unfortunately it won’t get better without pain and politicians will only worsen the problem in a vain attempt to avoid it.

I have always assumed that 50% of the members who come into these threads and talk about how much $$ they make over others are total gimmick accounts. I know that if I was make 3/4 of a million a year, the last place I'll be is posting about it on ARFCom

If TPTB see that , as a general rule people have money left over at the end of the month , then two things are too low .Taxes and prices .

They have also found out that there are a shit ton of people making 100 k . Those people under the old rules would have to fuck up badly to end up “poor”

Food costs go from 100 to 120 , the middle class can eat that without pain . Food costs that go from 100 to 200 , hell they could eat that too, but they are making sure that EVERY cost is doubling .

The goal is to make everyone dependent upon gov largesse to eat and have a place to live . The old economy was not getting us there fast enough .

Hence the new normal . Inflation at 100% , reported as 6%

I do it by being responsible with my spending. It's real simple to live within a small budget.

I made $20k last year and lived just fine on that. No other income.

The vast majority of those who work are going to be poor or the working poor., even all the arfcom billionaires.

@Tallahasseezz

https://www.youtube.com/@GreatDepressionCooking

We are intentionally discouraging people from making it.

Yup.  Internet bullshit.