I read that half of Americans couldn’t cover an unexpected $1,000 expense. This sounds crazy to me. I understand that poverty exists, but the idea that an adult with a job doesn’t even have that amount saved up seems really strange.

What’s your relationship or philosophy with money? What do you credit for your financial success, or alternatively, what do you blame for your failures?

For the extra brave ones: how much savings do you have, and what are you planning to do with them?

  • avguser@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    Since I left college and started out into the “adult world”, I’ve always spent less than I made, the rest going to savings or investments toward retirement. I accomplish this by “paying myself first”. If I have already saved the money as my first priority, I can’t spend it on things like rent or groceries. So my financial choices are forced to be more conservative by design.

    Example: I forget what the max limit to IRAs were at the time (say $5k/yr) but for my first job I set up auto contributions each month and mentally took a $5k/yr salary “cut” for that job. Every time I got a raise, I made sure that at least a portion of that raise went to increasing my savings rate and attempted to avoid lifestyle creep.

    Thanks to my savings, I’ve been able to handle some emergencies in cash vs having to utilize debt to cover the expenses. It really is a snowball. I started out small, now my savings is significant compared to my income.

    I attribute a lot of my “pay yourself first” approach to reading The Automatic Millionaire, Expanded and Updated: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich early on.

    • cheers_queers@lemm.ee
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      20 days ago

      feel ya. i had $8 left before my last payday and I’m guessing it’ll be like that before my next payday too.

  • thezeesystem@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    21 days ago

    I fall between the government won’t give me SSI because I’m not disabled enough in there fucking eyes. And being disabled and can’t work.

    So financially I’m fucked and nothing I can do about it.

    Even if I had said It would only be iirc around 800 a month.

    It’s part of Amerikkka hidden eugenic programs. (Not verified but living with a disability it sure fuckin feels like it)

    • DrFuggles@feddit.org
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      21 days ago

      Please don’t! Do you qualify for state-sponsored training? I know some people who have really improved their situation by taking advantage of the courses the unemployment office offers.

  • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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    20 days ago

    I credit my success to some hard work but mostly luck. At the end of the day my first job was from a recommendation. I believe interviewed well, sure, but I don’t think they would’ve taken my resume otherwise. I’m extremely fortunate to be where I am financially.

    Shit still happens though. I lost my job about a year ago and was unemployed for like 6ish months. I had enough money in savings that it didn’t really matter but it still sucked. One thing that has been difficult for me is watching what I say. As an example, some stupid shit happened and I feel like a company owes us ~$800 and another one ~$200. (Not going into details because they’re irrelevant and I want to move on from the stress.) These things royally pissed me off. I still get upset when little things happen and I lose money. I hate it. It sucks. As much as I want to get comfort from my friends by venting about it, sometimes it’s better to shut up. Because some of them mostly just hear how I’m able to withstand losses like that and that in turn makes them feel upset that they aren’t. It’s a tricky thing.

    As for my philosophy, for the most part my wife and I have been able to spend within our means without much aggressive or intentional budgeting. It’s only been since the job loss and her being unemployed to pursue writing a novel that things have gotten tight. (And by right I just mean our savings aren’t noticably increasing.)

    Failures? Well, let’s ignore stuff like crypto and stock picks because that’s just gambling. I wish I had started maxing out my 401k in my 20s. I started on my early 30s. Also, we used to have a truly stupid amount of money in a checking account. We should’ve put it into stocks (as in total market ETFs) earlier.

    OH. THIS IS IMPORTANT. I WISH SOMEONE WOULD’VE TOLD ME HIGH YIELD CHECKING ACCOUNTS EXIST. Like, holy hell. I should’ve done that ages ago. I don’t even wanna think about how much money I’ve lost on, especially because we kept a stupidly high amount of cash in our checking account… I still haven’t moved it because it’s hard and I’m lazy but wow wow wow. This is stupidly important. The reason savings accounts are annoying so because it’s a little harder to get to your cash. But a checking account with interest? Hot damn.

    Lastly, I’ve never had a credit card. It’s been fine but it would’ve been nice to get the tiny marginal benefits of cash back and stuff.

    • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      Why does everyone think it’s this huge hassle to open a new checking or savings account? Takes like 30min.

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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          20 days ago

          Ah yeah I guess it’s easier when everything is on a credit card and you just use your checking to pay off your credit card.

  • Vraylle@fedia.io
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    21 days ago

    It’s not remotely crazy, and I have lived there. I had times where I foraged for berries and plants for food, and was lucky enough to know how and where to do so. That was a long time ago, before wages stagnated and inflation went bananas. I’m surprised more people aren’t starving to death today, just looking at the numbers.

      • Vraylle@fedia.io
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        21 days ago

        Look up prices for housing, food, etc. in your area and compare that to full time at minimum wage. Then consider a lot of companies only hire part-time and not full time. Then consider minimum wage is still the federal $7.25 in a lot of the country. See how that math looks.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    It comes down to if you rent.

    If you have a fixed mortgage, shit gets easier fast. If you rent, any wage increases is often offset by rent increases.

    Less people are able to save, because they never get out of those “tough first years” of a mortgage

  • exasperation@lemm.ee
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    21 days ago

    I read that half of Americans couldn’t cover an unexpected $1,000 expense.

    Without borrowing or selling property, yeah. Not a lot of people have that much liquid cash laying around.

    But I wouldn’t assume that this would be some kind of economic devastation. Our whole system revolves around easy credit.

    If the unexpected expense is something that can be paid for on a credit card, that 20% interest isn’t exactly ideal but for many people it can be a simple task of buying now and paying it off over 2 or 3 months. For them, $1000 isn’t a lifestyle changing expense.

    For others, $1000 might be devastating. It might be the difference between making rent or not, and ultimately lead to eviction and maybe even homelessness.

    So liquidity is a different question from financial health or resilience, even if they’re somewhat correlated. There are other metrics out there more directly measuring financial stability or vulnerability.

  • Wes4Humanity@lemm.ee
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    20 days ago

    I made a few bad moves in my 20s because I had no basis of understanding when it came to money (parents are bad with money too and never taught me anything useful), have spent my 30s desperately treading water trying to get ahead, but it seems impossible with rent going through the roof, food going crazy, plus now I have medical debt on top of my school debt… my really big mistake was wanting to help people by becoming a social worker.

    What pisses me off the most is that if you’re a plumber you get to walk in and demand whatever price you feel like, but if you’re someone who helps society, society gets to cram it up your ass and tell you to smile about it. Same goes for anyone who works for society: teachers, cops, firefighters, EMTs, social workers, librarians, nurses, etc… I don’t get why we don’t all just join together and let society fucking die until they agree to pay us what we’re really worth.

    Edit: to clarify, I’m not saying plumbers aren’t helping society. I’m saying when inflation goes up, plumber’s prices go up to match… If you’re being paid by tax money, you don’t get to do that. Nothing against plumbers, it was just an example.

    Everyone is getting fucked in our capitalist nightmare, but if you work for Walmart, WALMART investors are fucking you over… If you work for any of those jobs I listed above, SOCIETY is fucking you over (yes, I get that at the end of the day it’s still those Walmart investors fucking us over because the same 1% own everything and stop society from paying us what we’re worth by refusing to pay their fair share of taxes)

      • Wes4Humanity@lemm.ee
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        20 days ago

        “Society” doesn’t pay plumbers… Like, you don’t get your plumbing fixed and bill Medicaid you know? Individuals pay for their own plumbing, and plumbers get to set their own prices… The jobs I listed are most often paid by society as a whole, and society as a whole are screwing these professions over… Don’t get me wrong, most workers are getting screwed, it’s just different.

        • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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          20 days ago

          Society does pay plumbers, the fuck are you talking about. Where do you think the money comes from? If someone needs to hire a plumber, then they pay the plumber directly instead of their taxes doing it. It sounds like you’re salty that the government pays you vs making more being in the private sector.

      • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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        21 days ago

        Fucking entitled white collar douchebags. I guarantee plumbers help society more than fucking social workers.

    • ContrarianTrail@lemm.eeOP
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      21 days ago

      What pisses me off the most is that if you’re a plumber you get to walk in and demand whatever price you feel like

      As a plumber I can assure you that this is not how it works. I charge 60€ / h which may seem high but that’s not what I pocket from it.

      • Wes4Humanity@lemm.ee
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        20 days ago

        YOU charge… I don’t get to charge for my services… I just have to take whatever society offers… In fact, with a lot of those jobs I listed, they are legally not allowed to stop working (strike) to get better wages BECAUSE it would fuck society so bad. I’m also in the US, so my apologies if it’s not the same where you are

        • ContrarianTrail@lemm.eeOP
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          20 days ago

          You’re being paid a wage for the work you do, which is effectively the same as charging for your services. I also don’t understand why you think I can just charge my customers whatever I want. There’s a certain price range that plumbers in my area operate within, and if I set my prices higher than that, nobody will hire me.

          It’s not like society is forcing you to be a wage slave either - you’re free to start your own business, just like everyone else.

          • Wes4Humanity@lemm.ee
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            20 days ago

            If inflation causes your costs to go up, can you, and all the other plumbers in your area just go ahead and raise your prices to make up for it? Yes… People who are paid by tax money can’t just raise their rates. Even if they go private, Medicaid (in US) tells them what they can charge.

            Anyway, I didn’t mean to disparage plumbers. I was using them as an example of an equally important part of society, but that gets to adjust their prices as needed instead of having to wait for a literal act of Congress to adjust prices and pay for inflation.

            • ContrarianTrail@lemm.eeOP
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              20 days ago

              If inflation causes your costs to go up, can you, and all the other plumbers in your area just go ahead and raise your prices to make up for it?

              Fair point. That indeed I can do.

    • qprimed@lemmy.ml
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      21 days ago

      dont wanna pile on… but idk, man… next time you use a functional toilet, you might want to consider what you just said.

      plumbers are likely in the top 5 of all time life savers on this planet. just sayin’.

      respect you social work immensely, but everyone’s contributions are undervalued in this world.

      • Wes4Humanity@lemm.ee
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        20 days ago

        C’mon man… My list includes 5 jobs that literally save lives… Your figurative life saving can get right outta town

        • qprimed@lemmy.ml
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          20 days ago

          ok,

          Share of the population using safely managed sanitation facilities

          • 884 million people in the world, approximately 1 in 8, do not have access to safe water
          • 2.5 billion people across the globe lack access to adequate sanitation services
          • 1.4 million children die every year, 1 child every 20 seconds, from diarrhea caused by unclean water and poor sanitation
          • 443 million school days are lost each year to water-related diseases
          • 47% of diarrhea incidents can be reduced by hand-washing with soap at critical times
          • 87% say they washed their hands after using public lavatories
          • 77% actually wash their hands after using a public restroom
          • 46% say they wash their hands for 15 seconds or less
          • 15-20 seconds equals the amount of time recommended for hand-washing with soap and water
          • 200% the average increase in life expectancy at birth since the introduction of modern, indoor plumbing

          above Current Statistics with additional source links

          but, as you said, all of these figurative people can get right outta town.

          plumbers through history have saved countless lives, whether you think so or not. I say they are in the top 5 all-time life saving professions.

          edit: upvoted you cuz you responded :-)

          • ContrarianTrail@lemm.eeOP
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            20 days ago

            Indoor plumbing indeed is one of those things people hardly pay any attention to untill it stops working. The fact that you can just take a dump, flush and it’s gone is a luxury not even kings had few hundred years back. Cities used to have raised crosswalks so that you don’t have to step into a river of shit when crossing the road (granted that was mosly horse shit)