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Originally Posted by packs
I didn't mention anything about what I was doing to achieve my goal. Only that I had them and they don't seem outrageous or even that much different than society has ever had. However, they seem to be much harder to get.
Do you not agree? the birthrate has fallen 23% in the last 15 years. The number of US households from 2010 to 2020 was the smallest gain in any decade between 1950 and 2010.
The idea that if you don't have what you want you aren't working hard enough is also outdated. This isn't a meritocracy and there's no such thing as working harder than everyone else to achieve more. I think it's much more likely that many people will work themselves to death and not gain very much in the process.
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Time to fire up the class wars and dig in a bit. With any luck, this will turn into a shouting match that devolves into ad hominem attacks and denials of our common humanity.
If you're struggling to acquire the necessities of life, then I'd recommend cutting back on buying cardboard.
If you're struggling to make important financial investments like buying a house or sending your kid to school, then I'd also recommend cutting back on buying cardboard.
I do think that the current home buying market is incredibly difficult, and I wouldn't want to buy a house in this market. If you're in the market to buy a house but find that it's not currently attainable, and if you want my advice, which isn't worth much, then my advice would be to continue to save for your down payment and wait for the right opportunity. Certainly that's what we did from 2002 to 2008 while living in the SF Bay Area, which was a crazy housing market in its own way. A lot of our friends took out stupid loans they couldn't afford simply because the bank would give it to them. We waited and saved, until the time was right to pull the trigger.
I also think that when it comes to education, not everyone needs to go to college. There are plenty of really great jobs in the trades to be had without a college degree. And if your kids do go to college, then make sure to be wise about that investment. Go to a school that doesn't cost an arm and a leg to attend. If necessary, then spend a year or two at a community college to accumulate GE credits. Whatever you do, study in a field that is marketable. If you're expecting everything to turn out peachy by dropping $70k per year on an expensive private school while studying in a field where you are unlikely to ever make more than $50k per year, then you should probably reevaluate your strategy.
I do think that in general, we have to be willing to work hard and sacrifice for the nicer things in life, including that house or that education. Usually that means being willing to make some important decisions about what we really want out of life, and what we can sacrifice today in order to achieve those goals.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I can tell you that we made a lot of sacrifices for a very long time to accomplish all of the things that you mention. I toiled long, long hours for over a decade to work my way up in my organization. Others bailed for an easier job and a quick bump to get 20% higher pay, while I stuck it out and kept my eye on the ultimate prize.
We lived in a 2-bedroom apartment with 3 kids so that we could save for a down payment on our house. I commuted 1.5 hours each way every day so that we could save on rent. We watched every penny, drove old beater cars, and denied ourselves a tremendous amount of potential stuff so that we could save for our kids' educations. Most of our peers around us were living the good life, buying everything they saw and going on fancy vacations, but we lived well beneath our means to save for the future.
To take it a step further, when we were ready to buy, we moved to a less expensive part of the country so that we could actually buy a house. Our kids are going to less expensive universities so that they don't have to take out gigantic student loans that will loom over them for decades to come like a veritable sword of Damocles. On that note, my son declined admittance to Stanford just last year, because spending $300k on an undergraduate degree didn't make much sense from a cost/benefit perspective.
I don't buy the doom and gloom and the talk that it's impossible to achieve our dreams. I do absolutely find that it is not easy, and requires a lot of work and sacrifices for an extended period of time that the average American is loath to actually undertake and really work in a dedicated fashion to accomplish.