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this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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As someone who falls into this category, yes I have a mortgage, yes I have kids, yes it's insanely hard to juggle it all and keep your head above water... I have worked hard since 15 years old with only 2 times since having longer than 2 weeks off consecutively and I just turned 40. My job is fair, but can have long hours, on call, and work on weekends. The salary seems great, but where I live, plus being 2023 it just barely cuts it. As it is now I can get by, but my future for retirement looks pretty bleak right now. My wife has a decade old student loan that's $500 a month and interest has basically kept it there and I have no way to afford paying over that amount which even if I did would still take 10 more years to possibly pay it off so this loan is for life.
So stagnant wages, student loan debt, rising costs on everything, no programs to help middle class, and finally the need for services or certifications that appear to be needed more and more for everything which also takes your money. If I can barely get by I don't want to see how people less fortunate seem to do it... I honestly think about what if I didn't have kids probably weekly because it seems like the better decision for survival. It's messed up that you can do everything right yet still feel so close to failure at any given emergency. So screw her and her so called "hard life". People our age do deserve better and more needs to be done to help. You know how much of a difference it would make if we had free daycare like some other countries? That's just one thing and it would turn my life around tremendously. There is so much that can be done, but it never does.
Idk man sounds like you're just not working hard like Whoopi is.
Have you tried making coffee at home??
Lay off the avocado toast!
That is a really cool thing about being California poor. I can barely afford shit, but I do have a 2 story avocado tree on the property I rent. I have so many avocados I plan weekly meal menus around them ripening.
I turn 40 next month and I've done everything right and I'm BARELY keeping up.
I got good grades in school. I did as much community college as I could and then my parents paid for the rest of my bachelor's. I worked hard at my jobs. I put myself through school for another degree so I could move up (and paid for it out of my savings, no loans). I had two kids and went back to work. I paid the crippling $3k a month to have them in daycare. I moved closer family to get their help after school. I drive a modest car and I live in a modest house. I have no vices - no drugs, no alcohol, no gambling. I cook my own food and do my own cleaning. I worked a "side hustle" for most of my 20s and early 30s (writing, making maybe 500-1k a month). I've saved everything I didn't spend on rent, food, and utilities. I've never bought a coffee, or traveled outside the US, or traveled much at all. I am in good health. I married a good partner, and he's a software engineer with no debt.
I literally did everything right, and yet we are behind on savings, we can't afford to repair anything but the absolute essentials on our home, and we're counting the days until we write our last daycare check so we can start... saving for college.
It's hard not to think that shelling out over $140k to the daycare over the past 7 years didn't have something to do with it.
And then there are my 79-year-old parents, watching my husband and I run this treadmill, and scratching their heads in wonder. We have so much less than they did at my age, and yet we have two incomes! How are we not living in absolute luxury?!
What a different world they lived in. Sometimes, when I feel like feeling bad, I remember that my dad's pension pays him more every month than I earn doing my 40 hour a week software developer job. A pension! Imagine being paid while not even working.
(It was definitely the kids that did us in - I often think about how much more secure we would be without the daycare costs.)
I have worked hard since 15 years old with only 2 times since having longer than 2 weeks off consecutively and I just turned 40.
Holy Fuck! That sounds like a nightmare. How do you accept everything happening around you?