I mean, I live like I’m impoverished. Rarely ever go out to eat, most of my meals are cooked by myself and extremely cheap. I wear clothes with holes in them because I can’t typically afford to buy more, and when I do have enough to shop I go thrifting. My days are spent working, and my nights are spent pirating media because I can’t afford subscriptions, or playing free to play games. I’m absolutely miserable, and still, still am nowhere close to ever saving enough money to afford a downpayment on a house.
It’s never an issue of us “living within our means.” The issue is the billionaires at the top hoarding money like dragons.
I think I need to preface my comment by saying I’m about to shitpost. I do not believe in what I’m about to write but kinda believe that’s how the billionaires think. Anyway.
I see several issues in your lifestyle where you could optimize. For one, eating everyday is just not necessary. If you only eat every other day, you’ll be healthier and spend less money.
Second: your nights are not spent working. If you only have one or two jobs and still complain about money, that’s on you. If you value having fun and playing games over living a good life, do not complain. Ideally also stop pirating because that’s the worst crime of them all.
jokes on you, sometimes I forget to eat
Yeah it’s a very centrist mindset to think this is a problem of people’s spending habits and not the economic system of exploitation taking from us.
I mean there is some merit to it. Some people get a raise or promotion and immediately buy a new car or rent a new apartment or use up all that extra money somewhere else.
I recently bought a house. The previous owner had a tenant living in it whom was trying to save enough to buy the house. That renter owned and drove a Cadillac escalade. I drive a hatchback beater car. If i had her car and gas payments, i doubt I’d have saved enough for a down payment.
Living within your means shouldn’t be a controversial statement.
Maybe not controversial but it’s certainly triggering in a time of increasing class discrepancy.
Be happy with what you have and work harder if you want more are the mantra of those that typically already have more and are never happy with what they have themselves.
while I agree, the image implies that everyone complaining is not. aka “Eat less avacado on toast”.
when in reality it means “be homeless, you will save a ton on rent!” something about the disconnect of the wealthy editors.
The image is a screenshot of a tweet featuring a pair of screenshots put near each other and stripped of context. The tweet primes you to assume bad faith and given that assumption the inner pair of screenshots does seem like it’s blaming poor people.
But honestly, if you click on a link that lists common causes of headache and the first one doesn’t apply to you, do you construct a narrative about how the editors are disconnected from people who don’t suffer from the first cause of headache?
There are people who are living paycheck to paycheck who could lower their standards of living. Listing that as a way to resolve living paycheck to paycheck that will work for some people is simply correct.
At worst, we can blame the website for tweeting about this without the appropriate disclaimers when understanding it is going out to a broader audience many of who are genuinely poor. Especially because this sort of thing is often ragebait that attracts further engagement, as it did in this instance. But we can just as well blame the person who wrote the tweet for spreading that message and boosting their engagement, or lumpenproletariat for posting a screenshot of the tweet here and further boosting their engagement.
I watch my coworker go through the same problem every two weeks. He sits there refreshing his bank app waiting for that paycheck to hit so he can afford some Doordash. Like, dude, if you’re going 24+ hours without food, maybe it’s a good idea to start buying groceries instead of paying a double premium.
fun fact. if you include your time cooking and calculate the effort and mental strain involved, giving in a financial value… it’s not like that $8 premium is saving you anything…
eggs cost $12 in some places still. groceries are not cheap.
You’re doing math wrong to justify shitty decisions.
oh I am? so your time has no value?
there is this bridge I want to build and since you have so much free time and don’t value any of it, why dont you help me. since I’m providing the materials making it free, it shouldn’t be a issue, right?
The value of anything is relative and only definable against that other circumstance.
Please allow me to introduce you to the concept of “opportunity cost.” Turns out you’re just using faulty logic to convince yourself that a burrito taxi is saving you finite resources.
This entire conversation is frustrating for a few reasons: it’s increasingly common (particularly in online spaces), it adopts the trappings of a logical conclusion while eschewing the necessary underlying frameworks and requirements of intellectual honesty and consistency, and it stems ultimately from a purposeful and willingly architected delusion.
sigh… your applying “value”(monetary/finance), to “value”(possessive)…
is it saving me financially? no, ofcourse not. im not a business, I’m not selling the servings I’m making, and buying them back from myself.
however, energy is finite. let me introduce you to spoon theory. the point that the trappings of mental exhaustion from physical and mental strain have a cost on your health and well being.
that cost /becomes/ monetary later when you lose the ability to maintain the money earning opportunities or expierence injury as a result of overwork. very real things that occur every single day.
point being, that Friday night beer and slice your m8 gets delivered from door dash is saving him from having a mental breakdown or being exhausted and burning himself on the stove. these are possessive costs that translate to literal finite costs later.
I return to my point I seem to be making alot lately, do people think “preventive care” is a scare word?
lol “spoon theory”
Fuck outta here with your pop psychology. Get back to Insta.
oh I am? so your time has no value?
That’s not what they’re talking about. Time is still a straight line. In the time it takes to order Doordash, sit and wait, and eat, that is still time ticking by. What are you doing in the meantime? Watching TV? Reading a book? Playing a game? Still using time. That time could instead be spent cooking. I struggle sometimes to cook meals for myself and my partner but when I do I have fun. I’ll put music on in the kitchen, my partner joins me and we have in depth conversations, and we make something that we need to survive (rather than a bridge, as your example).
Yes, if you choose to factor in the labour of making your own dinner into the cost of that dinner, it might end up a wash. But in terms of actual dollars when people are stretched thin enough in their wallet as it is, it’s free to just make your own dinner with what you already bought.
I’m likely making frozen perogies for us tonight. I already bought everything for them. We already have the perogies. We already have oil. We already have green onions and sour cream. That’s just things that already exist and money spent, most of which just exists here in perpetuity. I bought the perogies a week ago. The sour cream around the same time. Oil is just a pantry staple so it’s always here. So in reality, when I make dinner tonight it costs me, tonight, in terms of dollars, absolutely nothing. No money spent. Just vibing in the kitchen making perogies.
you just ignored something core. time spent cooking can’t be spent doing anything else. it’s also mentally exhausting when you work 14.5hr days and have a 2hr commute.
I swear, you must live in a major city with that attitude or work part time… idk how many times I’ve gotten home on a Friday night so knackered from stop-go traffic for a hour and another of avoiding idiots jumping two lanes without signaling to exit… after working a full shift… that I can barely remember how to cook pasta, much less stand their chopping onions, peeling potatoes and browning mince.
you don’t know exhaustion from work if you can honestly be like “lol, cook, it’s no big deal”. if I’m treating myself 1 day a week and it’s effectively costing me less in that state. for real, what logic are you using.
I swear, you must live in a major city with that attitude or work part time…
I live 20 minutes from where I work. I work full time as a local truck driver. I live on a 14 acre farm on a dirt road. My partner is disabled and doesn’t work so we’re a single income family in this modern economy.
Fuck off with your judgemental bullshit. We make it work because we have to. We don’t have another choice. If you’re too fucking lazy to buy groceries and cook dinner for yourself and bitch because takeout is too expensive; eat grass.
I don’t know exhaustion? Do you get up at 4am and come home after 11 hours at work, and have to feed farm animals before the sun goes down? Then after that haul Firewood to the basement so you and your partner don’t freeze over Night? Then help clean the house because muddy dog paws and still have to make dinner?
Yeah. I don’t know exhaustion.
were you planning on earning income during the cooking time? if not… wtf are you calculating a loss is cooking time.
super annoying when people say time=money but they spend most to that time on their ass watching tv… like sure, you could have made money but you were not going too so don’t compare time spent as a loss because… you weren’t gonna do shit anyways.
also, it’s so you don’t die… so ya know… that also outweighs whatever you think is more important
money is just a figure of value. your time is valuable. if you work 14-16 hour days (including commute time), time spent outside of work, “working” is not resting.
the amount of people I’ve seen burnt out as they spend all Thier time outside of work with habits that don’t value their own time, just Thier wallets is rediculous. Money will be spent either way, spend it on things that don’t result in you being burnt out at 25 and struggling worse.
so spend more on subpar cold food instead of learning skills like… cooking in order to save time to… relax or ???
also, you know order food is actually more unhealthy for you. higher fats, sugars, sodium etc… which inturn makes you feel more burnt out, and tired (and gain weight) which then using your justification means you need to conserve time so order more food. rinse repeat.
I see it as a compounding issue of poor health, caused by crap food, causing poor energy for your body then justifying the poor energy by thinking not doing a super simple task of… cooking…because it’ll cause more burnout so just order food.
honestly… I don’t see your point. if anything I see you justifying the problem instead of just fixing it at the root issue… the food.
I swear, every one of you must live in a big city and work part time jobs.
my day starts at 4am and ends at 9pm. I have 1hr and 41 minutes between work and commute, to cook, clean, relax and prepare for work/sleep M-F every day. I often sleep 6.5hrs a night, as any longer means I don’t get any time to relax after work and do anything other than eat and go to bed.
you keep using possessive terms to imply that “spending money on prepared and delivered food is lower value”. when it’s not /always/ the case.
it’s incredibly frustrating as while I can relate, when I did live in CBD and commute by PT. Grabbing fresh produce, meat, cheeses, grains and pasta was easy. as it was all right there on my way.
but I still spent more than delivery. time shopping, added commute time for added layovers between trains and then the 20minuts of prep and cook time. the 1+hr spent on that, is still less than ordering a healthy meal from a local restaurant. delivered in 8 minutes or less for $12 delivery fee.
sure I could go super cheap and make bargain meals… but that was never the point of any of this.
I said it’s not any cheaper to make it yourself, if you count your time involved. I was implying the same quality meal… unless your ordering junk food, which why TF are you eating garbage anyways, I don’t see your point…
I’m seriously wondering if half of you are in some midwestern US town with 3 restaurants, and a supermarket. which is NOT the expierence of most of the world.
I do not live in the US, and even where I live, which is a tiny suburb, 1.5hrs direct from the city, I have over 40 restraints to choose from, but only 4 supermarkets in a 38km radius.
amazing you do lots and work hard.
I will always deny and refuse to accept that ordering 1 meal, with absurd delivery fee, tip etc will be cheaper then buying food in bulk and cooking it. you will never be able to math it so it looks cheaper. it won’t ever happen regardless how you try to spin your ‘time that isn’t ever spent actually earning to offset the cost of paying absurd costs for 1 meal vs 4-5 days’
also, your parents never had this issue. your grandparents never had this issue. it seems to only be people from 2000s+ that are somehow deadset on justifying their time somehow is so valuable that shopping and cooking food is worthless/pointless. enjoy spending double if not more on food and complaining it’s never enough income.
It’s still way cheaper to buy groceries and make food rather than order door dash
it’s way cheaper to buy a bag of self rising flour, and active yeast, make your own bread. and grow your own potatoes endlessly from making seed potatoes from half of every potato you harvest.
but litterally that my point, your talking a $8 difference depending on your region between ingredients and prepared. – delivery fees vary wildly, I’ve gotten $40 worth of food with a $4 delivery fee… then a few months later ordered a single pizza to share that costed me $50 and a $18 delivery fee, because it had 3 toppings and was Sicilian style…
It’s fascinating to me how you managed to contradict your own argument with this comment, that it’s actually more expensive to order out than it is to buy groceries and even factoring in ‘labour costs’ to make your own dinner.
it’s way cheaper to buy a bag of self rising flour, and active yeast, make your own bread. and grow your own potatoes endlessly from making seed potatoes from half of every potato you harvest.
We literally do that. You can grow potatoes in dollar store plastic pots. You can make your own bread and just let it rise while you sit on your ass. There are so many small things anyone can do anywhere to save money. My partner and I drink every day and it’s expensive. So next week we’re starting a home brew to help cut alcohol expenses.
how? my time is 3x the going rate, because it would be a /second job/. like I said before, how much are you valueing yourself.
if I’m ordering a pasta that had a sauce that was slow cooked over 8h. if I’m going to do the same to make my own, it’s going to be astronomically more work.
if reducing sauce by maintaining a simmer for 8h sounds like easy work, you clearly live alone, have no pets and have LOTS of free time…
however, I think I know what you are implying. it’s cheaper if I just got a $1 jar of sauce, and cheap $4 pack of thin spaghetti and a clearance special for mince for $9. so the same size serving of pasta made this way costs $9(note: serving size), that costed me $11.50 (before delivery) for delivery service.
but these things are not the same… your comparing apples to oranges and going “they are both fruit. just eat the apple, it’s cheaper”. by that logic, yes. ofcourse it’s contradictory. but also by that logic just sell everything you own and live on ramen. fml if people don’t get “living” is not “surviving”.
also I should add, if you paid yourself the $13 for the 15~ minutes of prep+cook time, it’s still bloody expensive unless your paying rediculous delivery fees that you shouldn’t order anyways.
Doordash doesn’t operate where I live but the last time I ordered any from a food delivery app while traveling it was a premium of about $30 per plate over the cost of home cooking. I feed my family of 4 on a grocery budget of about $500/month and that’s without really trying to be frugal
It also doesn’t take a ton of mental effort to boil some water, toss some noodles in, strain it after 5 minutes then pour a jar of spaghetti sauce in, which for a household of one can easily make up 3 meals, and costs about $5. Toss a freezer bag of veggies (less than $1) into the microwave and you’ve got enough veggies to pair with multiple meals too. Too much veggies in one freezer bag? Cut it open, pour your preferred quantity into a microwave safe bowl with a lid and you’re golden
If one can afford to eat out I’m not going to criticize them for eating out or ordering delivery on a lazy day, but if they’re draining their bank account because they never learned to cook something basic that’s something they should probably take the time to learn
imagine feeding 4 on $500… 3 pets and 2 adults, we Average $230/week…
that’s bread, long life milk (1x monthly), 2 jars of Bolognese sauce, a frozen bag of ravioli, dried pasta of some kind, 5x protein of some kind (usually frozen veggie meat replacement, as all the beef/chicken/turkey/roo/croc mince is off or nearly off by the time we get home and we get food poisoning…) of some sort, a few snacks, some produce, a few yogurts, grains and rice. every fortnight is pet food and litter.
we stopped getting eggs, started getting beans and lentils in bulk. canned goods when they are on sale… still never less than $150.
the bulk of the price is not even the proteins. is the grains/produce/pasta and snacks. when we cut down on snacks, then we end up with even higher spending, as we ended up eating larger meals more often…
I’m really thinking alot of you must be in north America near the grain belts or something…
–
also 30 minutes maximum for pasta is average in our house. 10 minutes of prep/brown, 8 minutes to boil, 9-12 cook time. considering we have 1.5hrs to eat and a 2hr commute… it’s exhausting some times.
imagine feeding 4 on $500… 3 pets and 2 adults, we Average $230/week…
I don’t think I could spend that much on my weekly groceries if I tried. Most weeks my groceries are around $80ish but some items that come in large quantities and/or get purchased infrequently make that more like $120 some weeks. $500 is a pretty fair average estimate for our current budget and food preferences. Admittedly we do eat a fair amount of frozen foods and pre-prepared stuff like frozen pancakes, frozen veggies, frozen pizzas, bagels, trail mixes, pre-sliced sandwich meat and cheese, etc.
The biggest costs is usually the proteins and certain pre-prepared items like frozen pizzas, basically the most labor-intensive items because labor is the most expensive component of any price where I live.
I’m really thinking alot of you must be in north America near the grain belts or something…
Yes I’m in the Midwestern US. I was thrown off by your use of the $ sign. Funnily enough the majority of the food in the US gets shipped a pretty long distance. While I live in a small town surrounded by farming communities, other than dairy products and eggs almost all of what is grown near me isn’t for eating. It’s almost all feed corn and soybeans and a good chunk of that just gets turned into ethanol. My frozen veggies usually indicates on the packaging that it was grown in the global South, my potatoes get shipped from Idaho (over a thousand miles away) and the fresh fruits and veggies also are often also grown in the global South and shipped in outside of specific times of the year when they’re in season more locally. The obvious thing when looking at what costs more or less when it comes to food is the biggest cost is labor. Prepared foods that require multiple steps to prepare cost more, meats which realistically require quite a bit of human labor to both rear the cattle and later to butcher the meat into appropriate cuts is usually the largest cost per line item on my grocery purchases. Fruits and veggies are either imported from countries with lower labor costs or heavily mechanized or both, so they tend to be fairly cheap, and processed foods tend to be more expensive due to the amount of facilities that have to perform each step of the process adding in labor costs and profit margins
also 30 minutes maximum for pasta is average in our house. 10 minutes of prep/brown, 8 minutes to boil, 9-12 cook time. considering we have 1.5hrs to eat and a 2hr commute… it’s exhausting some times.
I’ve been there. Last year I worked a job that involved getting up at 6am to immediately get ready and go to work, then not getting home again until 6pm, at which point I’d need to quickly prepare some food, wolf it down and start getting the kids to bed at 7pm, then I’d have about 2 hours to tackle every other obligation before I needed to go to sleep and repeat the process. It sucks. My kids would ask if I was “ever coming home” on many days. I hope everyone who lives such a life can find balance and a better life.
But that’s not the point that was being made. The person your replied to was talking about someone they know spending all of their money on doordash and skipping meals because they couldn’t afford to doordash more food. That’s not doordashing to survive a capitalist hellscape, that’s spending shitloads of money to avoid picking up a basic life skill. If you can’t afford to have someone else cook and deliver your meals and pay each an extra profit margin plus tips you can’t be relying on having someone else cook and deliver your meals. Heck it might even be cheaper for such a theoretical person to hire someone local to meal prep for them if they truly don’t want to put in the effort, but even that is obviously going to cost more than going to the grocery store once a week and learning how to boil some water and do some basic cooking
Again, I’m not criticizing people for indulging in things that improve their enjoyment of life. I just spent $500 on my model railroad, so I’m no stranger to enjoying things that other people might think is a waste of money. Heck my criticism isn’t even of people lacking life skills. Shit happens and sometimes a person learns a life skill much later than they might otherwise ideally have learned it My criticism is of people who never learned basic life skills choosing to spend themselves deeper into a growing hole instead of trying something different. There’s too many people who do this because they “aren’t money people” and it boggles my mind
I wish labour was the most expensive part. much to my frustrations at my grocer, prepared meals (as long as they are not locally prepared) are far more cost effective at any volume locally.
best example of this is with meats. frozen prepared Schnitzel is 60% cheaper than its fresh counterparts. it’s also not truly “fresh” here unless it’s from a butcher, due to our duopoly of options. (our courts have already found out big two supermarkets to be price-fixing…)
I could spend pretty close to $80 just on 1l milk, 1 carton of eggs, bread, 4 cans of green beans, 4 boxes of spaghetti, 4 jars of sauce, 2 boxes of cereal and 1kg of beef mince.
I just spent on Wednesday, $208 and that was 20 things, most of it being just 2 weeks of cat litter and it was the cheapest in 80km…
location is everything it seems rn.
I think the problem is you’re taking a comment where someone described someone they know actively financially ruining themselves to order doordash instead of buying and cooking food and injecting your own specific situation into it.
Are you also going into debt and skipping meals because you exclusively order ready made food and sometimes can’t afford your ready made food orders? That’s what the poster you replied to was describing. Now if that is the situation you’re in, then it’s clearly time to start looking at what you can do to get out of that hole, whether that’s buying food infrequently from a grocer and maybe even hiring a friend or family member to do the meal prep for you, leaning heavily into meal prep and freezing, etc. but that’s ultimately up to you to determine and find the best path out of.
But from your comments it doesn’t sound like this is your situation. It sounds like your challenges are more related to commute and cost of living than over-ordering prepared food delivery. Again, only you can ultimately determine the best solution to these challenges but I sincerely hope you can find a way out other than hoping for some societal scale shakeup to the current order of things
I’d be extremely surprised to see $12 eggs anywhere, at least not as the cheapest option. To be honest, it sounds like you don’t actually buy groceries very much if you think that. As of last week at my local supermarket, eggs are $2.50-$5.00 for a dozen, depending if you opt for the organic options or not.
But yeah, this just reads as a flimsy justification for bad habits. Cooking is quite simply cheaper and always has been. It is not difficult to make filling meals for $1-3 a person (staples like rice and beans are especially cost effective), which is far, far cheaper than ordering takeout from anywhere.
Groceries absolutely have gotten more expensive and it is a problem, but there’s no world in which that problem is improved by ordering Doordash or the like all the time.
your litterally commenting on your local area. my local area “large” (which are tiny) range from $5.80(cheapest, store branded, 12pack) to $11.40 (regional mega farm brand, 12pack). [for posterity, there is premium free-range for $14].
local supermarkets stock around 8 cartons of the store brand and are sold out by noon. they often are frozen in storage to extend shelf life, and as a result have terrible taste. I’ve stopped buying them, unless I’m baking something.
rice per kg is the least effective regionally. it has to be brought in from overseas, it’s not grown here. however, it is still quite inexpensive per volume. $32/kg for jasmine.
for a hearty meal of 2 veggies, a protein, and a starch, the cheapest I can achieve locally is $13 for 2 servings. if you include my 20-40 minutes of prep, and 12 minutes of cook time. that makes the meal “cost” me around $31.
time spent cooking, is time not spent doing hobbies, reading, learning new skills to gain better employment or simply relaxing.
I’m not advocating for door dash every night, that’s insane. but 1-3 times a week pays for it’s self, if you consider your own value as part of the equation.
Cooking shouldn’t take much effort or be mentally straining. And unless you are going to be making money instead of cooking than you shouldn’t be giving it a cash value. $8 is a lot when when you need money.
You could get at least a full day of food out of $8 if you shop right.
Most things that “shouldn’t take much effort or be mentally straining” still are for me and I’m sure I’m not alone.
I deal with it rather than ordering but regardless.
Yup. I’m ADHD and work a rather demanding full time job. My partner is disabled and AuDHD. We both struggle with task management and avoidance sometimes. But sometimes you just gotta throw a pack of ramen into boiling water and eat something.
Ramen is a life (and money) saver in times of need. Nothing wrong with that. Keep fighting the good fight in your own way. You are (both) valid.
There is maybe a minute of actual effort to cook my eggs and put in a wrap in the morning. Once they are in pan i can do things like make my coffee or get changed for work. I am definitely saving money making my own breakfast and coffee. For the price of a bag of coffee and a bag of sugar, i could buy maybe 10 coffees.
live alone and make a single serving?
do agree on coffee, however I also live in a nation that makes some amazing coffee and $2-3 a cup 1-2x a week is reasonable. my Keurig or espresso machine takes longer and only is as cost effective if I’m drinking it every day (those unground beans go stale rather quick :( – unfortunately flavoured creamers are not a thing really outside of the states to cover the taste of stale coffee)
This sounds shitty if you phrase it like that, but there is some profound truth behind that. Your financial health depends almost more than anything else on your ability to spend less than is available to you. Ideally, you will achieve that without hurting your quality of life by optimizing your expenses, and by mentally overcoming that widespread modern delusion that quality of life is measured in money spent.
But sometimes that isn’t really possible, and at that point, even a minor reduction in standard of living can do wonders. Living as if you’re just slightly poorer than your money says you are is a borderline financial superweapon. The peace of mind that comes from knowing a random life upset (Like suddenly rising gasoline prices because of another ill-advised military adventure in the middle east) is not going to ruin you tends to more than make up for the loss of luxury and convenience from living in a 10% smaller home, driving a 10% cheaper car, going to restaurants 10% less, and so on.
What’s more, this is not a commentary on poverty. (Of course, poverty is a real problem. The growth in wages, especially on the lower end hasn’t been keeping up with the cost of living for a while now, presenting serious systemic problems.) This applies on every income level short of ultra-rich. The stories from couples living on double six-figure incomes (USD) yet still getting deeper into debt every year just boggle my mind, but this a fairly common reality in some circles.
If you realize just how badly enslaved you are by your addictions to luxury, convenience and status, you can live a much more serene, and ultimately even much richer, life.
This is absolutely it. So many people simply were dealt a shitty hand and are struggling in this capitalist hellscape because of it. But the flip side is that there’s also many people who are struggling because they are choosing not to live within their means. Through my friend group and family, I can see examples of individuals and families that are struggling because of bad luck, struggling because they choose to spend more on stuff they don’t need than they can, and struggling because they choose not to pursue better jobs (or in a couple of cases, any job at all).
But as someone who is careful to live within my means, as my career has taken off, I’m now finding myself in a financial position I never thought I’d be in. But I’m also at the financial point where I could absolutely very easily spend everything I make on things that dont actually make me happy, like eating out or buying crap I don’t actually want, or subscriptions I don’t use. Spending within your means definitely can get crazy because one might simply not realize just how wealthy they truly are (or could be with better choices)
Yep, if you learn to live on lentils you won’t have to serve the king. This is an anarchist space, and this is one of the cultural things I appreciate about anarchism. I’m too old to live like a crust punk, but I still buy used first, I live in a smaller home than I can afford, I drive a smaller car than I can afford, I make what I can, and I use community where possible.
I ain’t going back to sleeping in my car. I ain’t going back to skipping meals because I don’t have money. I ain’t going back to asking myself how far I can stretch a dollar or what I can trade for a bit of fun now and again. And to do that I live within my means and save the rest. And so when the government in my state got hostile to me I was able to bail without going hungry or sleeping in my car.
Some people ain’t got more fat to cut from their budgets. They deserve to take what they need from those who deny them a decent life. But some folks live outside or up to their means and so they feel every difficulty and stress that comes their way really fucking hard.
This is a lesson I wish I could teach other people in my life. I formed a polycule a while back and this has been the hardest part.
My wife and I both grew up on the poorer side. We got jobs and grew up faster than the rest of our friend group. Struggled through college together. Dealt with her eventually dropping out and being permanently unemployed because of a disability. Gave up on dreams like having children and taking vacations. I could sense that the housing market was rebounding in the mid-2010’s so we cobbled together enough money for a cheap house in an relatively rough neighborhood, wkth a monthly payment we could afford comfortably. Hopefully pay extra to pay it off early and save on interest. Slowly transitioned from buying everything cheap to buying stuff that was better value, but still not getting expensive stuff. Didn’t get a PS4 until 2019, and even that $199 slim model bundle with 3 games was still a significant purchase.
My career kept going and I hit 6 figures shortly after the pandemic. Which put our household in the top 1/3rd of income for our city. Still we stayed humble. Maybe go to a nice restaurant once a year. Order either pizza or Chinese or some other takeout once, maybe twice a month, as a treat. Paid off the student loans early. Took a couple vacations, but just long weekends spent in nearby cities we could drive to.
I learned to love the little things. Sitting on my porch on a summer weekend morning, the light filtering through the trees. Sipping some homemade iced coffee, eating some scrambled eggs. Watching the squirrels scurrying through the small bit of woods in my backyard, the birds flying from perch to perch, my cats chirping at it all from the window behind me. Playing guitar, not to make money or to try to be better than anyone else but just because it’s fun to do. Catching up on old videogames I bought used years ago and never had time to play.
Then we formed a polycule with another couple. They’re great people and I love the situation overall, but… They both grew up poor in the south, then moved to the Bay area and eventually started their own business. Then decided to move to a lower cost-of-living area and came to our small city. They make 4-5x what I do, probably in the top 5% of households in the city. They take a week long vacation roughly every 2 months, usually 1 or 2 of those trips each year being international. They usually go to an ultra expensive restaurant at least once a month. Go out to bars for drinks and order takeout a few times every week. Get their groceries delivered by one of those meal plan websites. Buys the latest AAA videogame on launch day. Watches movies in theaters as they come out. Constantly having packages delivering various trinkets and gadets and decorations.
The thing is… They don’t seem happy or at peace. They’re constantly searching for the next thing to buy. As soon as they come back from a trip they’re talking about how to be more extravagant on the next one. They seem more interested in finding greener grass than appreciating what’s under their feet.
Ope that’s rough. My wife and I are like you and yours, though we both grew up upper middle class and experienced rapid and aggressive downward mobility despite similar careers to our parents.
And yeah financial compatibility is so important, including in secondary relationships. I’m romantic, but I’m “reasonable bottle of wine, and a home-cooked meal” romantic, not a “let’s go on an extravagant trip for an anniversary” romantic. Anyone who can’t be cool with that about me is going to have a hard time, and I’ve found some people through polyamory who don’t really get living like this.
I don’t know who you think is living “at their means” in 2026. either they already live just below it to survive or just above it sucking on debt to keep up appearances at the office (so they are not fired as a result!)
groceries, rent, fuel, insurance, everything, has never been more expensive. worse it’s not local to you, this is a world wide issue at the moment.
cost of living skyrocketed in mid 2024 and has only gone up since. what you are saying implies that people can “step down” from non-essentials, like we didn’t already do that in 2020. I don’t know anyone who has been able to live “at their means” since before covid.
I’m married to a engineer, our net income should be making us a nice cushion that makes sure neither of us have to worry. instead, we had to sell all of our cars, stop every hobby, go to leasing electric cars (as buying one is too expensive and cheap petrol cars like we had cost 4x what electric does per month…) and even after all of that…
still have to carefully decide what essential thing we are cutting out of the weekly food budget… I’ve eaten so much frozen chicken and imported fake honey & pb sandwiches in the last two years for most of my meals to feel nauseated every time I see a KFC… I still wonder how anyone below our income bracket can afford anything without litterally deciding they can never save any money… (and yes before saving 70% of our combined income is going to expenses.)
compared to 2018, when only 40% was going to expenses and we could enjoy life. this is just ridiculous. reality is far worse than people realise right now…
I agree… People have too much pointless stuff. And many complain about not having money at the same time.
Excellent advice for your billionaire class.
I just want to comment it’s awesome seeing paycheque spelled correctly.
Otherwise the world order sucks balls, I also think that’s accurate beyond British spelling of cheque. If people made their demands known perhaps people could all enjoy a bit more of what our labour gives the higher classes. Mean that is bit short sighted given the population difference and all.
Wait I forgot which community this was, I hope it’s appropriate. I kept forgetting to check out what mop was about but always seemed to jive with my thoughts.
They are Canadian eh, and we keep using the “u” in colour, and honour and neighbour as well!
I’m Canadian as well so works out too eh? I just thought it was silly they dumbed down the spelling usually and usually see check and I have to confirm from a quick reading if had pay in front but cheque is simple to know it’s money related.
I keep forgetting the u in neighbour though now that I think of it. Though rarely type that one. Mostly my neighbours are nice enough I don’t have to complain and type it heh.
But its not a neighbourhood without “u”!
Next headline : younger generation are killing the restaurant industry with their « staying at home » attitude
Hmmm. 2k a month for 700sq ft in a mid area. Not sure how much more I can reduce.
I had roommates until I got married
Now you just have a roommate you have sex with.
Nah they said married so that’s not a given
have you tried being homeless! imagine the money you can save, not paying rent! you can afford to buy a house in ~20000 years (in the irradiated zones)…
It’s not that uncommon. People do that. It’s actually nice to not have “stuff” and reconnect with what it really means to be a self reliant human.
People live in their cars for awhile. Some people even just get a camping net and sleeping bag and do urban camping.
Phone, gym membership to shower, and a job. You get a more exciting life experience.
Some people even prefer it. You don’t have to have the things you’re told you need to be happy. I’ve realized it’s all like shitty drugs anyway. Sober or not so many people are sold escapism like it’s something they are supposed to have. Getting rid of all your stuff can be a blessing, like a detox from all that’s unnecessary. Lifestyles people roped into are marketed to them to make other people rich, not to make your own life better.
in many parts of the world, it’s a criminal offense not to have a permanent residency with a mailing address registered to you.
vagrancy laws first existed due to health and wealthfare concerns (albeit this was a lie), but reality is these laws remained.
as a result many employers, when they do background checks and discover you don’t have one, have to deny you as your a liability.
if your already employed, if your employer finds out, they can fire you and request compensation, due to violating liability insurance clauses.
the only way to typically do this successfully is to be self employed or to be a day labourer.
this is all before the tax issues that apply…
as some one who spent many months homeless while employed and hiding it from their employer because they didn’t make enough to continue living in a sublease… yeah… most people that prefer that typically are on a ton of copium to avoid society or actively are doing it to skirt legal requirements, to maintain a “lifestyle”…
that said, all the more power to anyone’s personal choices. I personally hate the system that makes the bare minimum include being homeless.
People live like that voluntarily? Fucking hell, I hated living like that when I had to. I’ve got two people in a studio right now and it’s better than financial insecurity, but I’m excited to move back to more space.
There’s a romantic beauty in the crust punk life, but I really like living indoors. Like, really like it.
It can be difficult to get a legitimate job without at least a mailing address.
Good point. I was lucky to be able use a past address that still was lived in by family.
in 2026 this is far more difficult. surveillance tech and AI has turned privacy into a premium feature.
I’ve seen people (nearly) lose their jobs as their employers did silent background checks throughout the year to confirm that they haven’t been convicted of a crime and it come back that Thier registered address didnt belong to them as state police were getting bad information from a databroker. flock was misreading thier plates and thinking they were living 1h away in a parking lot…
point is, when mistakes like that are made, it shows how hard it is to hide when you are doing something.
I’ve seen people (nearly) lose their jobs as their employers did silent background checks throughout the year to confirm that they haven’t been convicted of a crime and it come back that Thier registered address didnt belong to them as state police were getting bad information from a databroker
“Nearly” lost their jobs because if they did the employee can absolutely sue. What that/those companies are doing is remarkably illegal, a massive invasion of privacy, and the person/people doing it is actually criminal.
I’m a local commercial truck driver. I need to have a clean driving record to apply for a job and supply a driving record for the last 3 years. I’ve been at my job for nearly 5 now. My company cannot go behind my back and do a criminal search on me without my consent. I could move out of my house tomorrow to a new address and they don’t need to know where I live until next February when it’s for T4 tax purposes. But as long as there’s an address it doesn’t matter.
I’ve offered my address to friends attempting to move to my province so they can apply for jobs with a ‘local’ address. Any correspondence that comes to me I just send back to my friend across the country.
employment contracts include stipulations like not involving yourself in criminal activities and periodic checking of unreported criminal activities.
it is ABSOLUTELY not a crime for a employer to verify a employee has not broken a employment contract. it’s common practice. check your employment contract. most will inform you when they are going to do a background check, but it’s not a requirement.
truck drivers are EXEMPT from standard rules as your employment contracts don’t have stipulations as you are interstate subcontractors.
YOU hold the liability, not the employer.
https://www.eeoc.gov/background-checks
check your regions laws, EU & UK is different, due to workers rights unions having more teeth.
I mean most of my friends who have their own places live in 1 room studio apartments unless they’re living with somebody.
Yeah I have two kids. They have rooms, I sleep on the floor. Saving up to leave them a house. But the difficulty is getting real dumb.
Oof, single parenthood is rough. Best wishes and give the 'lil rascals some extra head pats.
As with all shit takes: “ok. you first.”
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