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Poignant post on the state of things

Benjamin, Get The Musket @lemmy.cafe

Poignant post on the state of things

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348 comments
  • We're DINKs just starting to push into the "living a comfortable life" range. As in, we can do what we want and enjoy doing it.

    However, bringing a kid into that picture throws all of that away. Hospital bills, diapers, just the costs in general would wipe us out.

    We most likely wouldn't qualify for any reimbursements and are already maximizing the ones we have such as house financing and taxes.

    I obsessively try to keep my "IOUs" to a minimum meaning aggressive mortgage payments and credit cards within the limitations of what I can pay off immediately but even that is difficult.

    The house needs work - new siding and windows, unexpected issues like the boiler dieing etc. And I'm generally fearful of what we'd find behind the siding (termites??? everything not up to code?) A new job like that could turn into $40-50K that we just don't have floating around.

    I don't go to doctors because I was afraid of what I might find. I'm lucky in the fact that my insurance is now pushing in the correct direction but still ludicrously expensive... And I mean ludicrously for the lack of services available that won't cost me an additional fortune.

    The wife also works a must-commute 9-5. Not sure how she, or both of us would be able to handle childcare needs and not feel like we would be neglecting the kid.

    When would I ever be able to afford a kid in these situations?

    And I am lucky to say that we are DINKs that are getting paid relatively well... How can people that are below us in income survive having kids?

  • Die.

    Whenever I hear someone say "what are people supposed to do?", that is what I remind myself is the default.

    When the rich have taken everything that they want, that is all that is leftover for literally everyone else.

    A magic utopia is not the default. That took effort to build, and now the ultra-wealthy are putting in effort to tear it down, so it is ludicrous to think that without effort that things will magically go back to the way they were. That is neither how inertia nor entropy work.

    Sorry this is upsetting, but it is the Truth. When Trump wins, it will get even worse, not better. Maybe we should do something about it.

  • I went to college, acquired two diplomas, my SO went to college and acquired one as well. My brother has two as well if I recall correctly, and his wife has one as well.

    Together, we are four college graduates with upwards of six diplomas between us.

    The four of us also had to pool our finances to afford one home.

    Quad income, one house.

    It's not a small house but it's not exactly in a high demand city (we're pretty far out in a rural area, surrounded by farmland). I also wouldn't describe the house as large. If my SO and I, or my brother and his wife were to buy this place it might be "large" but with four of us here, it's fairly modest. We have no significant land, less than a quarter of an acre, and there's nothing special about the house that makes it cost more (in fact, there were several things that should have lowered the cost). Yet here we are, scraping by with multiple incomes barely able to save at all because the monthly cost of the mortgage is so high... And we need to save, because all of those savings need to exist for when the water heater and furnace and air-conditioner inevitably fail.... They're not new, this is not a new home. I'm still finding aluminum wires that I have to rip out and replace, because if the place burns down and my insurance finds a scrap of aluminum wire, they'll deny me any coverage for the damage.

    My SO and I have no children. That fact is never changing.

    • 6 diplomas and no kids and you're having trouble affording a quarter acre in the boondocks? I'm sorry, I'm going to need more information, that just doesn't pencil unless you got a bunch of useless degrees, or are refusing to explore the job market.

      • I'm in Canada. Getting a diploma from a college isn't a degree. Most are 2-3 year certificate courses. Until recently, colleges in Canada couldn't even issue degrees. If you wanted a degree from college courses, usually you would earn a diploma and then have further studies at a university before you obtained a degree.

        Between the four of us, there are two nurses, one graphic designer, and one IT/systems/network administrator. Our combined household income is above $150,000 CAD per year (probably closer to or more than $200k, but I haven't crunched the numbers), and our home, which is less than 3000 sq ft, and cost in excess of $700,000 CAD. Monthly we pay over $4500 per month for the mortgage alone, and we have plenty of bills which are additional to that to keep the house running, as any home owner will know.

        We live in a rural community in the middle of farmland. It's a small town type thing, population in this town is under 10k. In town we have a grocery store (just one), I believe there are three pharmacies for some reason, a few medical services (clinic, dentist, eye doctor), and a handful of fast food places including an A&W, subway, pizza hut, and some local places too, mostly pizza places. To get to the next town/city over, you must drive at least 15-20 minutes to reach the city limits of another Township or city, which often doesn't get you to anywhere you would want to go, and you're probably going to need to drive at least 10-15 more minutes to get anywhere you would want to go.

        Several of us have not insignificant debts, mostly credit cards and vehicle loans, though most of us have paid off our educational loans at this point.

        These are all factual statements. As for my opinion.... I don't owe you an explanation. You can not believe me if you wish. I could not possibly care less about what you think of my situation. I don't say any of this to provide some sort of evidence or proof that the information I initially gave is valid or true; I wrote all this down to provide context because I felt context was warranted. We're all millennials, born between 1980 and 1990, and we've all worked our entire lives to try to get out from under the debt that was pushed on us from post secondary education and from the economy being in the crapper for so long. Nobody got a free ride through college, we all accumulated some educational debts. We're all hard working people and I don't need to justify that we're doing our best. The fact is, this house that we own today, would have cost half as much 15 years ago, possibly less. The problem is, at that time, we were all so saddled with debt we couldn't have hoped to afford this house even at less than half the cost, at that time. Now that we have enough to actually start the process of having a mortgage and buying a house, the market has gone to such shit that the only way for us to afford it with our stagnant wages is to pool our funds. With a simple meal at a modest restaurant costing over $50 CAD per person, it's not really a wonder why we're all struggling. We all require vehicles because there's next to nothing in our city worth going to, and the local grocery is frequently 50% + more costly than a discount grocery in the next town over (a 20 minute drive at least). So for less than $5 in fuel, we can save literally hundreds per trip on groceries. We couldn't do that without vehicles. Which isn't to mention work; we're all specialised in our fields and as you should be able to imagine, we generally need to go where that work is to earn the wage we deserve. Again, requiring vehicles in most cases.

        We're solidly middle class, and we're okay being middle class. None of us inherited significant money from family, and only because of a death in our immediate family were we even able to afford the down payment to buy a home. We're proud of what we have accomplished, and there's nothing you or anyone else can say that will take that away from us. The fact is, my entire generation has been screwed from the start. There have been more economic crisis and "once in a lifetime" collapses and such that we've been held back so significantly that it has become a near impossibility for many people I knew from highschool to achieve the same as we have despite being similarly educated and in a similar social standing.

        I do, however, take offense at the implication that we simply suck. That we've somehow squandered the opportunities that we have had.

        And with that, I bid you good day sir.

348 comments