Save the middle class!

"El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First!" (lightningzone) 01/19/2019 at 13:12 • Filed to: None

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Or the soul of America will be lost.

PatBateman > El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! 01/19/2019 at 13:41

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About 12 years ago, a newly-graduated 23 year old sat down in my office, asking for my help in structuring her finances. She kept running out of money before her next paycheck, even though she had low rent and a $75k salary.

Upon inspecting her monthly expenditures, it became evident that her problems lay in her excessive ancillary expenditures like entertainment, eating-out, cell phone, internet, and grocery bills . She declined to lower any of her spending in those departments for the following reasons:

1. “I can’t stop going out to happy hour with my girls, we’ve been doing it forever.”

2. “I’m a foodie.”

3. “ I need the top cellphone package because of my data usage.”

4. “ I need the fastest internet speeds available because.”

5. “ I only eat organic when I cook for my boyfriend and I , and Whole Foods has the best organic produce and meats.”

Not in all cases, but the middle class, from what I’ve seen many times , have traded in long-term security for short-term comfort.

Spanfeller is a twat > El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! 01/19/2019 at 14:06

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Lets stop talking about the middle class and start discussing how fucked the average class is.

Here everyone is nostalgic of the 70s when the “middle class” had a lot of money. Yeah... the middle class.... they were rich.... the issue is that we didn’t see the poverty beyond the city limits.... we never bothered to see the racism in the south destroying communities and their capacity to leave poverty.

So, were they really ‘ middle’ class? Or were they rich but didn’t have the data (or humility) to face it?

El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! > PatBateman 01/19/2019 at 14:16

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Wasn’t the middle class supposed to be about both comfort and security? The w ay productivity increased in the last few decades, should require every American, minimum wage, low to medium skilled worker to be paid at least $750 a week without a problem. A middle class worker should be getting at least $2000 a week to really fit into the middle class. However, trickle down economics failed America. It’s obvious that if you have 3 dogs and give the big one 2 steaks, it will not share with the smaller ones. It will eat until it’s full, and after that, the small dogs will get the leftovers, if there’s any.

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > PatBateman 01/19/2019 at 15:03

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The eating out thing is the biggest killer. You can overpay for your cell phone and internet monthly, but that expense that can be easily matched by eating out just twice (app + entree + 2 drinks, plus picking up the tab for someone else for whatever reason on occasion).

Four years ago, my best friend made I think $15k more than me, and had... Nothing. Not even a car. He and his lady ate out every night, drank frequently, plus marijuana (which ain’t cheap). Then he always would say he was broke. He lived paycheck to paycheck so tightly, that he already KNEW what his next check was going to pay for and how long the money would last.

Another story: our friend visited from New York and said her tactic for paying rent was always being 5 days late, that way she was allowed to call in to the agency and pay over the phone, versus paying online and having a processing fee. She said when she would pay online, on time, the agency would take so long to process (3-5 days), that they told her she was always late anyways. When I suggested, "Why don't you just pay early enough so that 3-5 days to process wouldn't make you late at all? Or may a month early the same day like a scheduled bill?" she looked at me like the lights were on but no one was home. Pay early?!?!! Gasp.  

DoctorNine > El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! 01/19/2019 at 15:49

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gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo 01/19/2019 at 18:27

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After starting seeing a young woman after a long hiatus , yeah eating out adds up quick.

I had a friend who after college was living on his own and would go out eating and drinking 4-6 times a week, (as well as go to strip clubs a few time). He would always complain he never had any money, till a year later we were talking and he goes how he calculated he dropped over 12k eating out. 

DipodomysDeserti > PatBateman 01/19/2019 at 19:02

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Middle class is making $73k straight out of college in 2007? Eating organic foods is costing the middle class?

Sounds like Pat passed out while watching Fox News, only to awake in a Coors Light fueled fever dream.

Y our client needed AA more than a financial planner. If you couldn’t pay your bills on $73k/yr with cheap rent in 2007, you were drinking a whole lotta your paycheck “going out to happy hour” with your girls.

That’s not middle class, that’s entitled rich girl paying for her own shit for the first time in her life.

When people talk about the middle class, they’re talking about people who have had to actually work for their education and money, not rich kids who make less money than their parents.

PatBateman > DipodomysDeserti 01/19/2019 at 23:18

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$75k is middle class. She got a degree and a good job right out of college. But that’s the point, isn’t it? She could have been perfectly comfortable at that wage level, but instead spent all of her money, every cent of every paycheck, on the “upgraded” bullshit that she didn’t need. The crap she didn’t need, but wanted and happily exchanged financial security to get it. I see it more times than I’d like to, honestly. The circumstances change, but the punchline is the same; “I want the nicer things that I think I deserve now, but not the lower end stuff I could afford forever.”

There’s no politics attached to my personal experiences. They weren’t all Democrats, or Republicans, or Libertarians, or etc etc. I once saw a guy get $500,000 and blow it in 6 months, returning to a lower class level of living . I saw someone blow through $5,000,000 in less than five years, and now is scraping by in life. The ONLY two things those two people had in common were 1) they refused to listen to my financial advice to the point of neglect, and 2) they wanted nice things right this second and didn’t think twice about trading in their future security to get them.

You can try to label me however you want in an attempt to  disqualify my experiences and opinions, but it doesn’t make me wrong.

DipodomysDeserti > PatBateman 01/19/2019 at 23:35

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I couldn’t give a shit what political label someone wants to attach to themseves. Pretty sure just as many Ds watch Fox as Rs, and everyone loves Coors.

I was 22 in 2009 and bought my house, bought/grew organic food, and travelled around the world making a lot less than $73k.

However, I’d had a job since I was 14 and put myself through college (mostly because I got an academic scholarship). I probably wouldn’t have gone to college otherwise.

I went to school with a bunch of shithead rich kids who had no idea how to live without mommy and daddy’s checkbook. They thought living on their parent’s dole while in college was “middle class”.

I wasn’t trying to discount your experiences, just pointing out that your experience with one shithead is not indicative of how the rest of us “middle class” people live.

*full disclosure, I don’t know if I qualify as middle class. My family definitely has the stuff and experiences to qualify, but my wife and I work a handful of jobs to achieve such things. We’re middle class in income, but not in hustle.

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > PatBateman 01/20/2019 at 01:17

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I think people are really bad at 1 first extablishing a budget, and 2) keeping in mind what is the standard and not a peak.

I have an older coworker who has an older mid range german luxary car. It is very nice, but with 200k a money pit every 6 months. The last time it was in the shop he was renting a nissan something and bitching to enterprise that it didn’t have enough power as his car and didn’t have awd (de spite him running near bald tires). I asked him if he looked at a new one or something else as every 6 months hes dropping a fwe grand to keep this thing on the road. “oh a new one is 60k, I can’t afford that”.  

It is interesting how people respond when they learn i like cars and then shocked that i drive a volt. Yeah I could buy a 3 series but like owning a v8 i dont want to get ac limated to that standard.

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > Spanfeller is a twat 01/20/2019 at 01:21

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There was a good bbc special on the 2009 financial crisis and the effect 5 years later and a powerful part was “we’ve seen this all before, just not in suburbia”

PatBateman > DipodomysDeserti 01/20/2019 at 09:58

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Sounds like Pat passed out while watching Fox News, only to awake in a Coors Light fueled fever dream.

Yeah, I’m sure you meant this in the nicest way possible, right? Not trying to insinuate that I’m a drunken Republican shill who gets his talking points from the GOP’s propaganda machine?   Don’t slap a tag on me and then swear you didn’t do it. That’s a stupid thing to do, and I know you’re not stupid.

And experience with ONE “shithead”? I literally have been working in the banking and investments industry as a front line employee for over two decades, with people from every socioeconomic level, and you try to bottle all my experiences into the dealings of one woman? That was an example. An example I’ve seen many times over, in different scenarios.

But what do I know?  I’m just a dumb drunken trumpster, I guess.  Believe whatever you want to believe.

DipodomysDeserti > PatBateman 01/20/2019 at 11:43

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Actually, I was just trying to make a joke about how old people think young people waste money on things like organic food. But yeah, take it to heart and get upset by it...

PatBateman > DipodomysDeserti 01/20/2019 at 23:44

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The only thing I’m getting annoyed with (note: not “upset”) is your insistence on trying to disqualify my personal professional experience with rude, off-handed personal comments.  I didn’t think you were like that. 

DipodomysDeserti > PatBateman 01/21/2019 at 00:43

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I wouldn’t take anything I write too personally. I’m a very sarcastic and irreverent person surrounded by friends and family with extremely thick skin (we’d all be dead without it).

I was able to afford my house in 2009 as a result of the fuckery carried out by people within the financial sector in the early ‘00s , so don’t think for a second that I don’t appreciate the expertise of professional bankers.

And I most definitey believe you that lots of middle class shitheads would go to a bank seeking financial advice. My uncle has been a banker for thirty years. Homeboy makes a living off people being morons.