PetYoutuber
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Feb 6, 2024 1:41 AM
PetYoutuber
91283
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66
gsynth
Born 1988 in France. Mother a teacher, father a supermarket employee. No family money at all. We had all that, minus the holidays (we did have road trip holidays from time to time but that was it). And of course no college to pay because it's free. But yeah it *was* like that for the middle class.
youreathing
They weren't necessarily rich. Shit just cost WAY less and wages were proportionally better compared to the cost of living back then.
jwillustrat
We went to Disney when I was five and then we went to next Mexico when I was 19. We ate a lot of canned foods.
Navrodel
Median American single person income in 1990: $29,540
Inflation adjusted to 2022: $65,526
Median in 2022: $40,480
We. Have. Been. Robed.
mthrndr01
Look at this fancy pants who can afford a robe
DrNick
Two cars is not unattainable. Two new cars may as well be though.
crushingbore
We had as many as five cars. But four of them were total shitboxes.
manystripes
Yeah, we had a 4 bedroom house bought for around $60k in 1992, 4 cars, 3 of which were purchased used for under $1k each and were constantly being repaired, and college mostly paid for by low interest federal loans (IIRC my best loans were around 2% interest, and nothing over 6%). We didn't have the overseas vacations but we did take road trips regularly, mostly camping. I'm pretty sure we weren't rich but it's hard to be objective about it through the lens of nostalgia
KAPTKipper
There is no middle class, it's been wiped out, erased and shrunk to sub-atomic
RouxedChef
Reading this reminded me of 98% of what writer/director John Hughes created
101Medic
No shit. What the fuck did their parents do?! Had to be mobbed up
TheArrestingAbhorrentArrantAbominableAlliterator
Remember when Principal Vernon said "I make $31,000 a year and I have a home" That's about $90k today. Ohio median income by 2020 census was 58-66k. Ohio Median home price today was $215k (is $274k now).
RouxedChef
That's depressing
FlannaganTheRed
turns out when wages don't keep up with cost of living your middle class disappears. who knew.
Atomic2
My family (2 adults, 2 kids, 1 grandparent) came to America with NOTHING in 1992. In chicago suburbs, working menial jobs, my parents were able to afford a 3bdr 1.5ba town house and [used] 2 cars by 1995. We bought our first new car in 1997 (honda civic ~$14k I think). We went to mexico as a family in 1998. I think my parents went to europe (without the kids). My dad worked maintenance for Amtrak, my mom did bookkeeping. This was barely lower middle class.
Atomic2
Meant to say, parents traveled to europe relatively soon after our mexico trip. They traveled to europe every 5 or so years from then on with some mexico and canada trips sprinkled inbetween.
Gingercatsarerockstars
The only thing about this that sounds "rich" is the overseas vacation. Otherwise it sounds like middle class suburbia in the 90s.
MeanWinchester
My dad worked, my mum didn't. He worked normal 9-5 hours in a fairly well paying job (lower salary than my current job). We lived in a five bedroom house, had two cars, annual overseas holiday, he contributed heavily towards my sister's university fees (she was the only one who went) and all three of his children's weddings. Don't try to misrepresent the fact that it used to be possible to achieve this all on a single income and it no longer is.
Volpe42
What I'm seeing here is that people in the 90s had benefited from Reaganomics before the other shoe dropped
sgnight13
Yep. My parents lived exactly the lifestyle defined above, and were able to do it because they were able to buy a starter home in the early 80s even when they didn't have a substantial income and start building equity in their early 20s. Oh, and free tuition/employers that were willing to pay for masters programs. Then they consistently voted for Republicans and just slammed the door on me and my siblings.
Volpe42
Thing is that was a limited time deal because of things that were done to solve the problem then in hopes that in the future they could fix what was done. So you're essentially pining for a broken system
CoffeeZombie
This is absolutely correct.
DamnedIfYouDo
I make ~$165K a year, the wife stays home and manages the house, family, and kids. We're broke....well, maybe not as broke as others, but all our vacations are road trips and any major car or home repair means a decent adjustment to our lifestyle for a while (we have very modest cars, one is actually broken and we're saving up for a down payment for a new one to replace it). I don't know how others do it.
SomeDetroitGuy
I make $170k/year and we have a nice 3 BR house on a lake, 2 cars, annual vacations to the Caribbean plus a road trip somewhere close (Chicago or up north or Cedar Point), can afford to send my two kids to an elite university (Michigan or Michigan State), and roof repairs are going to be affordable. I know not everyone wants to shovel snow 2 or 3 days a year but shit is awesome living in Michigan.
PetYoutuber
Michigan is a great school. Probably too 5 state school in the country. Most places aren’t going to provide such a good school for in state prices
pancakeEwokEscapade
It’s not so much their parents were rich, as that is considered middle class,
apLundell
The sad thing is that J.K. Lopes-Main has internalized that a healthy middle class is impossible, and when someone tells him otherwise he assumes the other person is delusional. Who benefits by pretending the 90s were as bad as today? The rich, that's who.
Ranb40
On a $30k to $120k yearly income from 1988 to 2016 I raised two kids, put one through college, paid off a mortgage, survived cancer, serious leg fracture (8 surgeries) and took 10 overseas (Thailand, Germany) vacations. I did this by living in a cheap double wide trailer, driving a cheap car, no smoking, little drinking and 100% medical coverage (no dental) for the family for $700/year. We can do this medical for all Americans. We are citizens of a country, not every person for themselves.
Ranb40
I bought the trailer in 2002 for $70k, still live in it. That was a huge plus.
poochyena
That seems kinda expensive for a trailer, no? I bought a full house with yard for $78k in 2018 in a good medium sized city.
Ranb40
Double wide trailer with attached garage on 1/3 acre of sloping land consisting of rocks, weeds and moss. It was already 20 years old when I bought it. It was the going rate for the area near Bremerton WA. It is valued at $160k now for taxes. That sucks.
poochyena
ah, ok, so its a big property. I was imagining a small property in a trailer park. Thats twice the size of my yard.
Ranb40
I'm surrounded by modest stick built houses. My house/land might be bringing down my neighbor's property values. :)
Lance4lot
Heavily dependent on the country you live in. For Germany that's definitely middle class... But we also don't have to pay for college/university which saves a LOT of money!
coolkidwestern
This doesn’t seem like excess, more like not poverty, why shouldn’t there be a middle class?
pyaremohan
bippityboppitybuttsex
In the 1950s, City College of New York was free. Fucking Free... most kids could pay their school's annual tuition with a summer job flipping burgers... my mom did it, literally (and her parents were immigrants).
Mamaof2QTs
From 1999-2001 I went to community college in Texas. Tuition cost $2K and with my tax return all $2K was reimbursed. Essentially my first two years were free. My junior and senior years set me back $30K.
flarflarf
depending on what you count as tuition, ALL california public higher education (UC, CSU, community colleges) were tuition free until the mid-1970s.
AyatollahBahloni
Once again, ladies and gentlemen, and assorted non-gendered species... Ronald Reagan.
flarflarf
it was a team effort on the part of a lot of people, but reagan was absolutely quarterbacking that team
Cheeseonyourhead
My moms tuition for a semester of college cost as much as my single college math course
iamOzymandiasLookOnMyWorksDumbassAndDespair
Stepfather went to university of British Columbia and paid for it with a summer job. Thinks he is better than everyone, if he is not worm food yet. Literally handed to him. An acre of land was 3000 dollars.
Mumalot
yea, my dad paid his college IN FULL just from working construction/road jobs during the summer. Meanwhile, presentday... I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel abouuuut 16yrs AFTER graduation. The 0% interest during covid helped ALOT, but a global pandemic SHOULDNT HAVE TO HAPPEN just so ppl have a chance at a normal life. "The worst thing I've EVER done was go to College" SHOULD NEVER even be a thought, let alone a statement... but here we are.
theytookthemall
My grampa went to City College for free in the 40s. My dad worked for minimum wage, $2, and paid about $1400/yr tuition at Maryland in the 70s. In the early 2000s I worked for $5.15 minimum wage and the cheapest tuition available to me was about $16000.
CUNY is still a great deal, did my master's there and didn't have to take out any loans (because the army paid off my undergrad loans).
bippityboppitybuttsex
Hey! The Army paid off my undergrad loans too!... 'pay off your student loans with this one simple trick!'
theytookthemall
Jokes on them, now I get extra money for life! Because my joints are fucked.
bippityboppitybuttsex
My hearing loss was 'not service related'
OddlyPacific
My family had all that and 2-3 of the children went to a four year college. We still felt not rich because there were 7 of us and were definitely middle class with a teacher and a minister for income. The 3/2 house $80k, became a 5/2 and our 2 cars wars were each under $1,000. We learned how to fix houses and cars pretty fast.
PetYoutuber
7 kids!! Did your parents pay for their college?
OddlyPacific
No but they helped a little. The older two got in when a part time job at the video rental store covered a state school. The third one has over $60k in student loans from years at USC and LeHigh that amounted to a college professor position in central Tennessee. The rest of us gathered some student loan debt on our own well after leaving the house.
iTakeQuotesOutOfContext
Yeah but that’s not supposed to be rich. They don’t realize they were rich because financial stability wasn’t an indicator of wealth in the 90’s. I grew up with tons of friends who had one income households that I was jealous of and I’m realizing their one income was something like my current situation. I’m a government employee analogous to a middle manager. I make an amount that should set me relatively free… and yet.
airbreather
People need to realize that "middle class" is an incredibly broad range. If you only exclude absolute poverty and ridiculous wealth, you haven't really zoomed in on a particular demographic.
fancygiraph
You remember Al Bundy ? He had a house and took roadtrips. He worked at a shoe store
Promethianfire
Okay, we have a 4 bedroom house in the chicago suburbs, 2 cars, annual vacation, and college funds for our 2 kids on < $200k combined income. ...Of course, my wife and I didn't meet until our mid 30s and our first kid came when I was 40.
Angel337
Median household income is something like ~$75k - 85k, so $200k is definitely in the top 10-15% of household. (ie: rich)
Promethianfire
I realize that. I was only refuting the $400k figure.
Atomic2
Same, same, same except we had kids in our 30s. That said, chicago has a relatively affordable cost of living.
PetYoutuber
You’re still making way more than an average dual income household though. Do you have sufficient savings for two kids to go to college? Today that’s like 160,000 for a cheap state school 320k for private school.
Promethianfire
Also - yes, I realize we are. I was just refuting the $400k requirement claimed in the post.
Promethianfire
Sufficient yet, lord no, but our kids are 2 and 6.
PetYoutuber
Haha gotcha well I’m sure you’ll be there in 12-16 years.
nowinsituation
It wasn't that easy n in the 1990s...middle class? Foreign trips? ...things weren't much better then...maybe 1950s or 60s...but even then a foreign trip was for wealthier people
TheArrestingAbhorrentArrantAbominableAlliterator
I went to school with some very, very rich kids in the 90s. No international travel. But Disney twice a year and could bring friends. (I was not in that clique.)
shitheadtookmyname
Ppl be out here forgetting that for a significant portion of Americans, a foreign trip means like three to five hours driving a car. Y'all realize Canada and Mexico are right there, right?
DutchBoeremeisie
I was also wondering where this person was thinking of. We were supposedly middle class when I was a kid, but we couldn't afford annual trips and I never even got on a plane till I was an adult.
Goochami
I disagree. I bought a townhouse and went to Europe twice in the late 90’s. I was a bartender.
nowinsituation
any kids? what kind of bar? and where...I mean buying a town house in a place like Memphis or Albany or some other similar small city, and taking a trip to like Spain or Portugal, and working in a hot night club where tips are big- it can be done today....but with kids? living in a major metro area or suburb- like NYC or San Francisco? impossible.
Goochami
Restaurant bar in a beach town. Big tips during the season not so much in the off season. No kids. I now manage that restaurant and wouldn’t be able to rent my place for the going rate today. It was only $200 more round trip to fly to The Netherlands than south Florida at the time.
HardyandRamanujan
Always an easy shot to complain about another generation. "It was easier then!" This is the reverse of the "all young people are lazy" rant of boomers
poochyena
Yea I don't think things were better in the 1950s for anyone other than straight white christian men.
astrangehop
Something like 90 percent union membership.those guys weren't all straight white Christian men.
poochyena
You have to first be hired to be part of the union.
shakefu
Depends where you lived. In the 90s my parents made maaayyybe a combined $120k in Virginia and we had 2 cars, 3 bedrooms, took yearly trips to Europe (Danish family) and lived on a half acre in a nice neighborhood.
comacomacomacomachameleon
If you flew internationally in the 1950s, you were absolutely rich
Yay295
or in the military
onlyhalfghost
and by the 1960s, once again still at least middle class. Enlisted don't fly.
Sooner70
If you *flew* in the 1950s....
Ramb0Brit3
We went to Mexico every summer for 1-2 months in the 80s and 90s. My dad was just a HS teacher. We weren't wealthy at all.
martineb72
A HS teacher could make $60k/year in 1980s. Not inflation adjusted but actual amount. Most made less, but it was possible. And Mexico was very cheap to stay at. $10/night hotel rooms and food for $5 for the whole family. It was literally cheaper to stay in Mexico than paying for groceries.
Shortstack1357
Average teacher salary for HS didn't top 30k until 1989
shitheadtookmyname
You really trying to argue a teacher was RICH in the 80s?!?
yamamasyamaha
400k? Nah, depends where you live but you can get all that on a lot lower budget. Maybe not LA or NYC, but there are lots of places you can do fine on 100k, and If you can’t make that work in 200k combined income then you’re living beyond your means. 200k combined income in Oklahoma you can get 5 bathrooms and 50 acres
LordFancypantsicus
Okay, but can you MAKE 200k in the middle of bumfuck nowhere? No, you most likely cannot.
slinkydust
Remote jobs so yeah maybe not that difficult for a household
yamamasyamaha
People downvote because they are fools. I know so many people who cry about money and I tell them they could do my job and make what I make (80-120 depending on performance) but nobody wants to do sales. My BIL takes home more than I do and he’s an electrician and lives in rural MA. People just don’t want to do work they don’t like. I used to do work I liked and I got paid peanuts. Last year, I paid more in tax than I made annually in my job that utilized my psychology degree (residential home)
LordFancypantsicus
Boy, that was a lot of words that basically amounted to you digitally fondling yourself. Definitely sounds like you are in sales. Not everybody in a rural area can make 6 figures. Yes, it is great that you and your BIL make more than most, but that is the exception, not the rule.
yamamasyamaha
lol - eat a bag of shit. Iwork remotely - and that was the point. It can be done ANYWHERE. Idiot. you could work at my company and do the same job, but you don’t because sales had a bad rep. The Way my work is structured I’m more just answering questions and telling people about what we have. We have hundreds of things we make and it’s a lot to understand for people who just need to get their needs met in a budget. Our customers do need what we make, and my company is as ethical as they come.
yamamasyamaha
Remotely, with two incomes, yes. Also, you don’t have to be “the middle of nowhere”
LordFancypantsicus
Not everyone can work remotely.
yamamasyamaha
That’s true, but the places where you can’t, you don’t need to make $200k to buy a house. All you need to work remotely is decent internet - if you can’t get that, you can get houses for a lot less than anywhere else. If you can’t work at all - why the fuck are we having this conversation
TotallyNotVillain
With a comment like that you have clearly never set foot outside of your big-city bubble.
LordFancypantsicus
I grew up in a small town. Ass.
Helpfullifetips
Yeah.. but that's like saying that land in Afghanistan is pretty affordable.
TotallyNotVillain
Please explain to me how working 60 hours a week in a dead-end job just to be able to afford a studio apartment and ramen dinners is "desirable"... Because that's the shit you are defending. Me? I'd rather live in a smaller "undesirable" city where I can afford to own a home, have hobbies, and go on multiple vacations a year.
Helpfullifetips
Because if you're being realistic.. in most rural areas, you're working that same amount of time to live in a place that's 100 years old, barely works and you're going to the dollar general to get off brand ramen. Your living expenses are 1/2 the big city and so is your pay. I prefer rural areas.. I live in one. My current house was 1/4 the price of the one I sold and it's got more room and land. I'm just honest about how it has flaws. Also, when I say Oklahoma is a shit hole it's experience.
TotallyNotVillain
There are plenty of places in between the overgrown metropolises and rural areas that everyone seems to forget about, especially here in the Midwest... Cities of 100-150k people with most of the amenities of a bigger city (maybe not the trendiest stores and restaurants, but IDGAF about those) but without the absurd traffic, crazy housing prices, and soul-destroying grind culture.
yamamasyamaha
I mean nh, vt, Maine, western MA, Nevada, lots of places - i live where I live because space was more important to me than having fancy shit or living somewhere cool where dinner costs a million dollars because it’s so cool. 2 incomes nowhere close to 200k and we have 3 bed 2 bath 1 acre 2 cars 2 pets - no kids - but yes student loans. I’m only in my 30s. I just also don’t wear expensive clothes or watch or phone or car and I make a lot of food. But yeah just stay where it’s expensive and be mad
Helpfullifetips
Housing prices are all based on whether or not people actually want to live there. You have to be honest about what the reasons are that people don't want to live in certain places. You lack access to basic services often and many of the cheaper places have policies that are hostile to the inhabitants. Plus, you're in areas where you don't have access to the same health care. Some rural areas are better than others.
poochyena
Demand is only half the equation. Supply is the other half. Cities in CA are so expensive because of zoning laws that make it illegal to build more housing. Meanwhile, southern states tend to have more relaxed zoning and let developers build almost as much housing as they want, driving up competition and supply, while driving down prices.
LordFancypantsicus
"While driving down prices" is pretty funny as a Texan who has watched home prices triple in almost every rural town within 100 miles. Developers don't overdevelop to deliver you better prices, they do it to make more money, and right now they are absolutely getting away with it.
Exyr
My dad was a single parent raising 2 kids. And worked for the USPS we were not rich. But he still had a 4 bedroom house 2 cars and we camped every weekend during the summer with our seadoos. A house in the Sacramento to valley in the early 90s was 60k
SmartAssX
Yea lol my parents were broke and still both had houses. We also went camping instead of big trips or if it was a big trip we drove.
SmartAssX
They were divorced
EveryGOPAccusationIsActuallyAnAdmission
I live in sac as well. My dad also was USPS until he blew out his back. Bought our house for 90k in 88, sold it for 350k a couple years ago. Didn't help with my schooling at all so I couldn't afford college. Must be real fucking nice to keep all that money...
migratingotter
Reduced ability to earn and need for savings for retirement, your dad isn’t going to live comfortably on that for the rest of his life. With your entitled attitude, you won’t be helping him out. Most children of middle to lower middle class families don’t get help going to college from their families even though the government assumes they will and base aid on that.
EveryGOPAccusationIsActuallyAnAdmission
It's not just the college. There are a lot of issues I have spent a lot of money going to therapy to resolve. They are very well off. He's retired, mom retires in a couple years. They have no debt and the house is paid off. They will live comfortably until they die. You are correct about one thing though: I won't be helping them out. Through therapy, I realized that they have burned the bridges and it is not my responsibility to rebuild them unless I want to.
migratingotter
Sorry to hear that. But college in CA is cheaper than other states cuz they still subsidize it. Worked with a woman that worked full time and went to college part time and she got her IT degree in 7 years in Ohio. Not subsidized. It’s doable, but it means not buying food & coffee out, but making it at home. Not buying new clothes & shoes until the ones you have wear out. tiny octopus did this with 2 kids and his wife for most of it. If you’re thinking ur too old, it’s just an excuse.
EveryGOPAccusationIsActuallyAnAdmission
I never finished college but I have worked really hard and am making pretty good money now. My oldest is 17 and has been accepted to 3 csu schools already and is waiting to hear on long beach and cal poly slo. My wife and I will be helping him with the costs so he doesn't end up struggling for so long like we did. It reminds me of the statements where we try to prevent our kids from suffering our traumas but then we add new ones. I hope we did well by him in the end.
AzraelEternity
Hey! Sac Valley represent! Single-income home with stay-at-home mom in a 3-bedroom house with 3 cars (a van, a little commuter truck, and a bigger truck for towing). We managed but scraped by a lot of the time. My mom told us years later that we weren't worse off because of my dad starting to get bonuses at work that ended up balancing the books.
Exyr
Never did get overseas holidays nor went to college. But in 2000 going to a UC was 1800/quarter.
Captaincuttlefish
People tend to forget houses were really cheap in the early to mid 90s. We had 3 bedrooms 2 cars and also camped a lot. Never went overseas and I feel that portion is what distinguished those living within their means and those with extra wealth.
sgnight13
I actually had a similar experience to OP even though my parents didn't make a huge amount of money. Our overseas travel was workable because my dad was self-employed and travelled a lot for work, so he'd rack up a ton of hotel/airline points and every few years we could all go on a nice vacation for very little money. There's privilege here to be sure, but I wouldn't say traveling out of the country twice a decade necessarily means you were "rich"
Captaincuttlefish
Also the whole college thing, we were left to fend for ourselves for higher education and financialy it was not worth it.
PinkyTheUnicorn2
My parents bought a house in one of the nicest neighborhoods in the state in '91 for 1/8th of what it's worth now.
minipancho94
early to mid 2000s and i was being told that the 800$ rent in the neighborhood was insanely expensive.....
WrongUn
Aye. My dad bought a 5 bedroom detached Victorian house in 1996 for £136k. It's now worth approx £900k. My first house was a tiny 2 bed, £260k. I paid double what my dad paid for a house 1/3 the size of his. But hey, good for that generation and that generation only.
imaynotbeasmartmanjenny
Looking at purchasing a house previous owner paid 36k for it in 98 selling for 285 yep no overly inflated values here
Sooner70
Houses were cheap, but interest rates were insane by today's standards. The result was a payment that wasn't that different.... And I think that's what drives real estate prices: the payment. Very few people buy houses with cash so it boils down to what payments they can make. If interest rates are high, they can't borrow much so housing prices drop. With low rates they can borrow more and that drives prices up.
whatsisname
No, what drives real estate prices is that in the USA we build out huge areas to a finished state, then freeze any future development forever. This means building new housing means we have to sprawl further and further out, which few people actuall like, which means land with existing houses become extremely valuable because it's illegal to build new, denser housing to make use of that valuable land.
whatsisname
Also, those suburban developments are built out with infrastructure paid for by borrowing, and with the homes on them not valuable enough to generate enough tax revenue to maintain that infrastructure, so the cities get raided to pick up the difference.
Exyr
70k at 8% isn't the same as 400k at 3%lol
Sooner70
8% of $70k is 5.6k (interest only cause I'm not doing the math for full mortgage) is about 20% of what I made as a new college grad back then (I actually paid 72k for a house then). In this same area, a similar home goes for about $275k now. 3% of that is $8250. Multiply that by 5 and you get $41k. That's not tooo far off what recent grads are getting paid around here.
BonafideHomicide
My dad was a single parent of 3 who absolutely refused to get or keep a job. Us kids started working for the neighbor's farm in our preteens and had to give him our cash so that he would spend food stamps on food. Our grandmother gave us a 4 bedroom house for 400 dollars a month owner carry, and I can't even count how many times we were nearly evicted because he wouldn't pay rent for 6 months at a time. Yeah, it was a dump, but what could you ask for damn near free, really?
Exyr
Thats not poor. That's abused.
BonafideHomicide
He also had about 10 cars and none of them ran.
echo57
Sounds like my dad.
BonafideHomicide
I'm sorry
migratingotter
Why didn’t you ask grandma to take you to the store to buy food with your earnings? And pay the rent? You were already paying for your food without food stamps.
BonafideHomicide
Well first of all, she didn't really give a damn about us kids. She bought the house for 40k and sold it to him for 85k. Still a great deal, considering she was willing to rent to own, but us kids didn't really factor in. It was just business, and she knew all about the mutlifacetous abuses perpetrated on us, I even had to call her and my cousin one night to come and save us because our dad was drunk and told us that he was going to kill us by morning. I had to shimmy out through the nailed shut
BonafideHomicide
door and call them but they didn't get there until after the raping but fortunately before the killing, and they still didn't do anything to help us get out. Actually I became more of the black sheep than ever after that, because I guess I was just supposed to keep my mouth shut and not embarrass the "family" . I was 11.
BonafideHomicide
I also only made about 75 cents per hour, so food was all we could manage, and even that was a stretch.
migratingotter
I’m so sorry you had to go through all of that and had such psychopathic relatives. With the way your father turned out, I wonder if she’d been abusive to him and that’s why she didn’t care. I hope you’re getting help to deal with all that happened so you can have a better life.
Volpe42
Usps paid good in the 90s though
ForGondor
This is catagorically not the point. House price:earnings ratio has increased from 2-3 to 6-15 depending on area.
Volpe42
Doesn't matter, point i was refuting was that USPS didn't pay well back then.
Exyr
I mean he was getting like 13/hr which was a little over double min wage at the time. But still here it is in 2024 my and my partner make a 80k gross a year and can barely afford it.
PostalHeathen
Shit, it pays good now. I make $27/hr, and I've only been a career clerk for about a year and a half. Benefits, including my retirement, eat up a pretty large chunk of it, though.
Volpe42
As a career rural carrier, you're obviously in an area with a differential, or you've been career for a while.
PostalHeathen
I'm a clerk. No differential in my part of the country and I've been career for a bit over a year and a half. I'm level 7 rather than the usual level 6, but that's only worth about a dollar difference.
Volpe42
You're making more than I do an hour, which is not supposed to be.
WammoJammo
$60,000 in 1990 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $140,816.83 today, an increase of $80,816.83 over 34 years.
Exyr
Whats your point? A house in california in 1990 could be 60-70k it now sells for 500k it doesn't add up.
WammoJammo
Hedge funds are buying up local properties driving up house prices by not putting the houses back on the market
WammoJammo
Hedge funds are buying up local properties driving up house prices by not putting the houses back on the market
WammoJammo
Hedge funds are buying up local properties driving up house prices by not putting the houses back on the market
Gaelwyn
Yeah housing costs suck. Prepandemic I was looking at one bedroom condos for $350k. I'm sure they're going for closer to twice that now.
Exyr
Where I'm at in california the median price for a house in 2019 was 200k. It's now 600k for a 3 bedroom. Something lucky was going on during the pandemic.
Exyr
Fucky*
Gaelwyn
I'm in the LA area, so prices were somewhat reasonable back around 2010 after the prior housing bubble popped, but now they're about 5 times as expensive, even in less than desirable areas. Part is due to reduction in construction projects during the pandemic and the lumber shortage. I'm hoping prices start dropping as corporations are forced to sell single family homes, but we'll see.
Zootsoot
Yeah- a trip abroad every 5 years? Hell, even in the 90’s, that was for my rich friends. I never left the country until my 30’s.
varesya
It's really not that much more expensive than some domestic vacations. The biggest difference is the airfare. Depending on where you go, the rest may even be cheaper. If anything, the reason more families don't travel internationally isn't money, it's that they don't want to have to deal with taking kids on a ~10 hour flight.
QueenOfTheFey
I got to go on my first international trip in high school, because I was taking mandarin chinese and there was a program for mandarin classes internationally to go china the year of the olympics, so it ended up being really cheap between that and the fundraising the school did.
Toastywiffle
Based only on this one comment it sounds like you were working class and your rich friends were middle class.
Zootsoot
Kinda in a weird place- my dad worked aerospace, mom was a teacher. So, educated. But my folks sucked at money management, and we lived on the edge of one of the highest income areas in the region. My friends took African safaris, and did family tours of the Pacific Rim over summers, and “summered” on Catalina Island. So “once in a lifetime” vacations were commonplace for my peers.
poochyena
It was expensive then. Its much more affordable today with cheap plane tickets.
airbreather
Today's Imgur trend is getting downvoted for pointing out that international travel is not as unattainable as people seem to have convinced themselves it is. Apparently nobody wants to hear it, they just want to hate on you for implying you have traveled (and therefore by extension are rich and/or bragging). Sigh. And I'm responding like this, apparently I am hungry for downvotes myself.
Endonae
The trend is a very poor grasp on economics in general because the primary demographic (young men) likely didn't receive any schooling on the subject because it isn't required.
QueenOfTheFey
It's still expensive tho. Lets say you can visit somewhere internationally for 2k, considering that well over half of people in g20 countries have less than 1k in savings that's not very attainable.
poochyena
2k? You can travel to the other side of the planet for 1k. My plane ticket to malaysia was just over $1k. I stayed with my gf for free, but if I didn't, a week in a hotel would have only cost $250.
QueenOfTheFey
Congrats for you. Not everyone lives where you do and has the access you do. For some people it would cost more than 2k to get to the nearest international airport, let alone get to the other side of the planet. So maybe YOU can travel to the other side of the planet for 1k my wonderfully lucky american friend, but not everyone can. And some people are even luckier than you! They may be able to travel internationally for 100. Still doesn't change anything if you don't have any to spare tho
airbreather
I suppose. And it's not like I'm wealthy or anything, and it's impossible to nail down one particular income level for the "average Imgurian", but I see lots of people posting about relatively expensive hobbies (gaming, cosplay, lego, blah blah blah). It's all about deciding what you're willing to spend your money on. If you want traveling to be your hobby, it looks like *many* people here could make that choice. No one is saying it's free, just not as impossible as they seem to think.
QueenOfTheFey
I think you're severely overestimating the cost of those hobbies, and severly underestimating what it takes to travel (not just the cost of the trip, but potentially the lost income of time off). It comes off very "you could afford a house if you stopped eating avocados" to me. It sounds like you're pretty privileged, and that's great, if you can learn to recognize it.