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And the simple reason that careers don’t pay enough to cover all that on one income is that to do so would raise the cost of goods and services back up to a point that it would require...a second income to survive. Those costs get passed on to the consumer.
It’s real simple. Want to live comfortably on a single income? Act your wage. Don’t get car payments. Avoid student loans, and aggressively pay them off while young if you do get them. Buy a house with a mortgage that is a small fraction on of your net pay, and pay that thing off quickly too.
You don’t have to have it all right the heck now. Normal is broke. Living month to month, making payments and retiring with nothing. Those are life choices, and not stuff that just happens.
I agree with that. I just feel it’s harder and harder to get ahead these days. You have to put off having kids longer. At some point you just have to have kids for physiologic reasons if you wish to have a family, which makes it even harder to get ahead. As a result we have a quest as consumers to get everything for cheaper and cheaper. That leads to a quest by those manufactures to cut costs (labor) to maintain profits and deliver those products at a cheaper price. Eventually those that make the products and even those that manage those that make the products, cannot afford the products. Originally Posted by FNGFO
The size of the house is irrelevant. The cost of a 1500 sq foot house can vary radically in the same locale. It’s the size of the mortgage that matters. And the simple reason that careers don’t pay enough to cover all that on one income is that to do so would raise the cost of goods and services back up to a point that it would require...a second income to survive. Those costs get passed on to the consumer.
It’s real simple. Want to live comfortably on a single income? Act your wage. Don’t get car payments. Avoid student loans, and aggressively pay them off while young if you do get them. Buy a house with a mortgage that is a small fraction on of your net pay, and pay that thing off quickly too.
You don’t have to have it all right the heck now. Normal is broke. Living month to month, making payments and retiring with nothing. Those are life choices, and not stuff that just happens.
So the question is: a generation or two ago were consumer goods much more expensive on an inflation adjusted scale? How were middle class households commonly able to raise a family of four on one income and secure a solid retirement? What has changed? Imo it looks like the compensation in the form of wages and retirement funding has become lower. I don’t think the price of goods has gotten higher? It’s gotten lower. So it should be easier to provide that traditional middle class life, but it’s not. It’s harder. Why?