What sucks is every time I seem to get over a salary plateu some crazy world changing event happens and the price of goods goes up to where I feel like I haven’t gained a thing.
Chased $100k salary my whole young adult life. I am finally achieving it and that number. Which is great don’t get me wrong, but it’s not the finish line I saw at 16
Same. I came close this year to hit 100k, and I'm moving to second shift for next year to get there, but damn, it still feels like I can't afford anything my dad could when he was my age.
He had a four bedroom home with a pool, two cars, and supported a wife and two kids on a entry level factory job with no college education. Granted, the house was in a pretty rural part of Ohio, but I'm still in a one bedroom apartment.
My grandfather was a forklift mechanic at the GM factory in Youngstown from 17-65. Retired with a great pension. Had a lot of health troubles towards the end and he never had issues with money. Two kids and a wife, beautiful suburban two story home with a pool.
“Record profits” can kiss my ass. I think everyone would be okay with paying more to go out to eat when you have an actual patio and bbq grill at the house as an alternative .
There's a beautiful century house on almost 60 acres the next street over from ours. I decided to look into the history, as the house as intrigued me since we moved to the area. Came upon an obituary of the gentleman who bought the house and land the '50s. He was a factory line worker, supported a wife and four children.
The property is currently valued at $1.8 - 2 million. What factory line worker salary today is going to buy that and support a wife and four kids?
In the 1950s, the world was still decimated from WWII and the US cornered every industry. Japan was a decade away from getting back on its feet. China was over 4 decades away from joining the WTO. Now, Americans are competing against the world but aren’t good at anything except maybe tech and pharmaceuticals, two very gated industries.
It’s not what you make, but rather how much you save/invest. I agree that things were certainly much more affordable in the past, but make a budget that includes investing and you’ll be shocked at how much money you can get!
This is what I was trying to avoid with my comment. I almost didn’t post it because I don’t want to gloat.
I am incredibly grateful to make the money I do, and it pains me to see others struggle more that work just as hard as I do. Millienials are now the glue at a lot of small businesses…It’s just wild how far the goalpost has moved for all of us.
I know that feel I stayed somewhere for 18 years and I left making $36k to go to a job making $38k 😅
Now I make $56k, but I work M-F and 7a-3p, which I will fight tooth and nail to keep that schedule. I don’t even have kids. I just like being able to do shit and get home before it gets super late
My exes Boomer parents tried to relate - about how they didn’t feel they had breathing room until breaking $30k a year in their second or third year working after graduation - in 1973
I’d never made $30k in a year before, and this year I’ll make around $75k, and I only got my promotion in July. Shit can change quick. I went to a community college.
Same here. Finally got a decent payrate, had some savings, and then Covid and super inflation happened, and now my dream salary is pennies again and I'm back to square one.
Yeah, what sucks is doing the math on a six figure income and realizing that take home is so low that after the cost of living you'll never be able to save enough to retire. Oh and that cheap house that you bought for $110,000 in 2017 is now worth two and a half times that so your taxes are as much as the mortgage was when you bought it but you can't sell it because even downsizing at this point would cost twice as much because of interest rates. I'm really not trying to complain because my parents, and many others have had it worse. Just seems like the goalposts keep moving.
That cheap house for 110k in 2017... Where I'm at in Utah, actually went up by 4x. I really wish I was joking. My parents bought their house for 120k. It was recently appraised at around 500k now. Home ownership isn't even a dream anymore.
I wish it felt better knowing there’s a lot of us. But I feel like we just got swindled when we were too young to know what was going on lol. The boomers lifted the bridge after they crossed and Gen X has been sweeping up whatever scraps they can.
I swore when my wife and I made $60k a year together we'd be able to at least pay off some debt. Now I make that on my own, but rent is closing in on 2k a month and these two kids ain't getting any cheaper as they age (although thank god we are completely past diapers and pull ups).
That 3k on the credit card is just gonna have to stay there a bit longer...
Born in 88, working since 9 years old, on my own since 16. I lost everything in Hurricane Sandy, including my job. Started working at a cookie store for minimum wage in April 2013, and have never made more than ~$60-70k.
Landlords and renting practices are horrible, even in cities where tenants are protected, In cities where a huge portion of the central city housing is co-ops, like NYC, there are insane financing rules.
Costs of commodities has done nothing but increase, medical bills have gone up, and insurance fucks with you and of course is tied to employment.
I'm currently a millionaire, because I invested my money diligently and continued to do so the entire time, especially considering 2010 through today has been one of the biggest bull markets in history. Compound interest is a beast, so DCA combined with some small bets on speculation have led to massive windfalls.
Unless you dealt with major medical issues or caring for family members that aren't children (condoms were invented hundreds of years ago), there's no excuse for being destitute when the opportunities were there.
100k used to be this goal where I thought I could do whatever I want within reason.
It's barely breathing room.
It's a gently used car. It's weekend road trips as a vacation and MAYBE every other year I can get on a plane and go someplace domestic for a few days. MAYBE.
You still spend half your income on rent and try so hard to save for a down payment you allow yourself nothing. By the time you get it, you realize you did nothing with most of your 20s other than grind. Oh and in that decade houses doubled or tripled or quadrupled in price. Or interest rates spiked up. Or you saved 100 bucks a week but groceries have gone up so you save 50 a week now. Wait, a fat orange pedophile started a war, now you save nothing at all.
I feel you. I am there but live in a HCOL area, so I'm seriously cutting back to afford winter this year. My family is considering moving somewhere cheaper in the next 5 years, but the job market is insane.
You're not wrong, but the MLMs are an a completely different level of predatory bullshit.
Like they actively have you give them potentially thousands of dollars for the opportunity to sell their cheap shit without every telling you you're basically just throwing that money away.
I mean unless you had an unlimited supply of brand new customers you could go to and how they required you to get customers, by referral and acceptance of referral only, it is not a great way to make money since their products are actually decent. I still have everything from my demo kit except my steak knife, I think an ex took it, and besides the chef knife, I have not sharpened anything and it still cuts well. The sheers even still cut pennies.
I never saw it as a way out. It was a quick job I tried and then moved on to something vastly more promising(IT).
My mother bought a set off of my sister during her brief stink as a Cutco saleswoman.
My youngest was about 7 at the time, and my mom warned her when they were delivered that she had to be really careful because the new knives were really sharp. And this girl dead ass grabbed one, ran it across her palm, and then turned to my mom and said “wow, these ARE sharp!”
(And she grew up to be a delightful and well adjusted human being.)
lol I did the same thing 20+ years ago! Once I sold out to family and friends over the summer it was done, it was always just a summer job. I did manage to sell one of those elite kits with every knife in it that was like $2k. That couple hundred dollars lasted a whole month back then 😭 got caught smoking weed at that “retreat” they had over a weekend. So much fun, would recommend 10/10.
In a round about way found my way to IT also, congrats! I also have my like the chef knife, shears, two of those flat spread-then-cut knifes, one steak knife, and bread/filet knife. I wish I still had the cleaver, that thing was seriously badass
Fox was a struggling network at the time and the ratings for the show weren't great. After a particular raunchy episode, a woman started a protest campaign. That protest led to increased viewership. If that woman hadn't protested, Fox would probably be gone. No Fox means no Simpsons. No Simpsons means TONS of other shows might not exist.
Well it's definitely our fault. I mean we're obviously the ones who chose to be born after a singularly prosperous period in human history that led to vastly expanded wealth and opportunities available to lower- and middle-class households. What we were thinking?
Born in 88, working since 9 years old, on my own since 16. I lost everything in Hurricane Sandy, including my job. Started working at a cookie store for minimum wage in April 2013, and have never made more than ~$60-70k.
Landlords and renting practices are horrible, even in cities where tenants are protected, in cities where a huge portion of the central city housing is co-ops, like NYC, there are insane financing rules.
Costs of commodities has done nothing but increase, medical bills have gone up, and insurance fucks with you and of course is tied to employment.
I'm currently a millionaire, because I invested my money diligently and continued to do so the entire time, especially considering 2010 through today has been one of the biggest bull markets in history. Compound interest is a beast, so DCA combined with some small bets on speculation have led to massive windfalls.
Unless you dealt with major medical issues or caring for family members that aren't children (condoms were invented hundreds of years ago), there's no excuse for being destitute when the opportunities were there.
Sorry, i don't believe in money fairies and trees. Someone has to pay you when you ask to turn in your shares.
They have lost value by giving you more money than you gave them.
Whether that value loss comes in the form of bad trades, inflation, or socialized losses doesn't change the fact that you were gambling to not be the first one. And the rest of us are gambling not to be the later two, against our will.
I will say this: while I don't believe kids should devote all their free time to working, I will say I do think kids should at least have a part time job at some point in high school. There's a huge difference between the people who have and haven't from our hires. We pay a fairly good entry wage, but the amount that struggle with it being their first job out of college is absurd, and largely because they cannot interact with clients. The worst are those who come with masters degrees and no work history. They just lack people skills entirely. It's very frustrating cause we can't exactly teach that
We needed better balance as kids, but there was an overcorrection to the opposite. It's not just money- it's learning how to navigate a work environment (and shenanigans- I had a couple jobs I truly enjoyed as a kid for various reasons)
Gots me everything I ever wanted, I can tell you that. Happiness ain't in things you know.
My bank accounts summed over 100k this week and it made me realize a lot of stuff. Firstly, that despite beginning a career at 30, I am not a loser. And secondly, a lot of people I thought had made it, haven't.
Things are harder now, yeah, but there are always winners. And losers. Who you are depends on who you are, if that makes any sense to you.
I'm not saying I'm happy, but I am saying that being a total loser is a consequence of your choices. I fucked up the entirety of my 20s. But I made some choices when I was 30 to unfuck myself and now I have money.
I’m tired of working now that it turned from me doing the fun parts of my job to me trying to write prompts for an AI to do all the fun stuff instead…while I write boring fucking paragraphs to it.
And then if the AI can’t do it I get blamed. If the AI can do it the AI gets the credit.
Yeah, I'm literally being asked to train AI to do my job. I assume that when I'm done, my career--which I've done for 30 years, and at which I'm top of my field --will become a junior prompt writing role tweaking all the knowledge and experience I've dumped into an LLM. And I'll be jobless long before retirement age, with no chance of salary replacement. Everything feels pointless. I'm so depressed I can barely get out of bed in the morning.
That just the average. Half who have jobs right now will be working 6 days a week, the other half won't be working at all, because they won't have jobs. Through the magic of sycophancy, everyone ends up with a 3 day work week.
Oh fam. I'm sorry. I started out as an art director. Switched to technical program management thinking "they might not want to pay for designers, but they'll always need people to manage complex software projects..." Turns out "they" can't wait to not have to pay us, no matter what we do.
And @Maxed_Zerker: I'm petty af. You can bet your bottom dollar I'd be training those data models completely wrong and mess up the company numbers. Ask me to train the new guy so you can dump my position AND pay the newbie more $$?! Fuck outta here
Yup. Tired of 60-70 hour workweeks on salary with inconsistent schedule and my electric bill jumping from ~$200/month to $450 while everything else goes up in cost.
Working would be fine, if the cost of literally most of my waking life wasn't being exchanged for barely scraping by paying utilities/mortgage/feeding the kids.
Yeah it's wild. My electric bill in the summer is ~$700. 5 years ago it was ~$350 doing exactly the same thing.
That's ONLY ELECTRICITY. That's a 100% increase in 5 years for something you need to live. I really doubt anyone's pay increased more than 1/10th on average during that same time.
Now add every other little price in our nation increasing.. How TF people can afford to live anymore?
This part! Like and I know I’m not making a lot but 25.83 an hour should be able to support me while also allowing me to have a nest egg at least! But nope nothing like that. It’s sad that my hope for my retirement is the world ending.
Yep! I remember making $250-$300 a week and being better off than I am now. And I make triple or more 😂 I remember being 20 and thinking "if I could make $500/week, I wouldn't even know what to do with it 😆
Same, I'm 46 and been working and/or school fulltime since 15.
My college was a co-op school which means working 3 months, school for 3 months, alternating year-round for 5 years. No summer break. My last summer break was between junior and senior year of high school.
I've taken week-long vacations occasionally but that's my longest time off in 31 years. I guess, luckily, no gaps in employment.
Yeah, this is it right here. I’ve gotten two raises in the past five years but I’m much poorer than I was because of the exponential increase of my rent and bills.
Everytime I get a new job with a significant paybump FUCKING PRICES GO UP. EVERY. GOD. DAMNED. TIME. I'm sick of it. I'm almost making double what I was 4 years ago and I'm still living paycheck to paycheck.
Same. I earned more money when I was in my 20s than I do now in my mid 30s and that’s not including inflation. I’m always looked at as a strong and positive employee, who’s won awards for performance. My field has been demolished by AI and greed. Trying to figure out what’s next and keep my chin up. It’s demoralizing though when the world feels this hopeless.
Been at it since 14, 42 now. Currently working longer and harder than I ever did and it just feels like I've been getting paid the same as back then with how expensive life incrementally got then exploded in the past few years. What the fuck are we doing as a society to accept this shit!?
When I was working at 16, I thought that be the time I was 30 if I had a college degree I would have a job that paid me enough to live, with enough for my hobbies and modest vacation, if not enough to be rich.
Nope, apparently middle class mediocrity is too much to ask for.
Been telling a older crew at the local tavern this for years. They can’t believe I’m not sitting on a paid off house and a couple new cars in the driveway. I’m married with no kids and that makes the point less valid apparently. (That we haven’t been paid on par with inflation point)
Between me and the wife we’re middle class, except when she gets her hours cut, gets laid off or in this last case, finds a new job that has it opening delayed by a month. Then despite me making $40k+, we’re suddenly on the verge of homelessness.
I've been working since I was 15 full time, have been unemployed maybe for a cumulative 6 months over that period. I've been broke for 23 year. People who tell you working hard = automatic success are either incredibly stupid or lying to you.
Agreed bruh. I think back in the old days working was just something you do. Nowadays it seems more like doing a lot not to better yourself....but to make some obscenely rich a hole even more obscenely rich
Yes!! My husband said he’s disappointed we can’t save any money. I’m just grateful we have enough to cover all the bills. I did think we’d be able to save at this point though, but the cost of living is outrageous
3.4k
u/Beneficial_Layer2583 9h ago
I’m not tired of working, but I am tired of being poor despite the fact that I’m working.