- You wouldn’t know any of that to look at me. I like to think I appear reasonably prosperous. Nor would you know it to look at my résumé. I have had a passably good career as a writer—five books, hundreds of articles published, a number of awards and fellowships, and a small (very small) but respectable reputation. You wouldn’t even know it to look at my tax return. I am nowhere near rich, but I have typically made a solid middle- or even, at times, upper-middle-class income, which is about all a writer can expect, even a writer who also teaches and lectures and writes television scripts, as I do. And you certainly wouldn’t know it to talk to me, because the last thing I would ever do—until now—is admit to financial insecurity or, as I think of it, “financial impotence,” because it has many of the characteristics of sexual impotence, not least of which is the desperate need to mask it and pretend everything is going swimmingly. In truth, it may be more embarrassing than sexual impotence. “You are more likely to hear from your buddy that he is on Viagra than that he has credit-card problems,” says Brad Klontz, a financial psychologist who teaches at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, and ministers to individuals with financial issues. “Much more likely.” America is a country, as Donald Trump has reminded us, of winners and losers, alphas and weaklings. To struggle financially is a source of shame, a daily humiliation—even a form of social suicide. Silence is the only protection.
I like to walk to explore my city, and last summer I walked past this house (Google Street View warning). I looked at the large home with its long lake frontage and a fountain built in the most desirable part of town and asked myself "I wonder if they worry about money." Turns out they probably do. One thing the article didn't touch on was people renting indefinitely. I have friends who essentially intend to rent forever because they have no budget buffer to save up for a down payment, and even if they could, the cities are too expensive to buy in. So each month their money goes to the property owner, and when it comes time to move, they'll have zero equity. I think in 30 years a lot of my peers will find themselves with little retirement and little equity in anything. It'll be a problem. I've been living well below my means for some time. Articles like this help me feel like I'm doing the right thing.
Hold my beer. So that's Jerome Fisher's house. He graduated law school in 1948 and is retired. He bought the place in 1967. Whatever the mortgage was, he probably paid it off 2007 or before; he's still paying $57k a year in property taxes, though. This is the sort of 'boomer that the OWS crowd loves to hate on. He's a big donor - not Koch brothers crazy but $4k to Bush in '04, $4500 to the RNC in '04, $4500 to Michele Bachmann in 2010. Going back to 1999 he's $186k in individual contributions, $9k in joint contributions. His kids don't worry either. They're getting the house.
Well I'm impressed. Do you want your beer back? That's pretty depressing, but I'm glad to see he's paying what to me would be a huge chunk of money each year in taxes. The kids will get the house, sell it and turn around and buy themselves super nice houses mortgage-free.
Thanks. I'm fortunate in having a steady, solid income, and I left college with no debt (mostly courtesy the Army National Guard). I hope I'm able to keep making it work. At times I feel like I just need to keep my head down for the next thirty years and I'll be fine, but that's pretty depressing. I once did the math on the cost of tuition at my state university and found it had gone up 7% per year. It looks like spring 2016 was $5200/semester. I think I paid $1850 for fall 1999. That's 6.4% per year. What I did wasn't easy, and it's already much harder.
Do you think some of them have fears about job security and feel renting provides mobility that could make dealing with unemployment significantly easier? Or just a change in jobs in general, it seems like house ownership and a tie to one geographic area is a way to boon yourself to potential stagnancy and one job unless you're living in an economic hub.
I think that applies more to people who are currently renting but may intend to buy once they've settled down. For many people who never intend to buy renting is a way to avoid general maintenance and emergency repairs that come along with owning a house. Although it might not be favourable in the long run, it's comforting to know that if the stove quits or the basement floods it's somebody else's problem. Of course theres also people who are just stuck renting because they can't save enough to buy but I figure that's not really who we are talking about here.
Yes! I do think this is a factor. Two friends were in a house but had to move after one was laid off, and they're now renting after taking a loss on selling their house. I own a condo, and the challenge of leaving the area weighs on my mind.renting provides mobility
If my fiancee didn't already own a house, I would have been one of those "renters for ever" kind of guys. I had accepted that, and was planning for it. I found a house with four bedrooms, and a reasonable monthly rent. I moved in and rented out the other three rooms to young couples who were trying to get a start. The two people could live in a small room for a year or two, pay low rent, play house, and save a little money. I could live with interesting young people, pay low rent, and feel good about helping out some young couples. It worked great, and I planned on just continuing that way for as long as I could. Then I met my fiancee. Now we live together in her house. It's probably the only house I will ever live in again. And that's a big change for me, but also pretty dang cool. And, an added benefit, is that when I fix things around the house, or do home improvement projects, I am improving HER house. Yeah, we will soon be married and all that, but this will always be HER house, and it feels really good doing nice things for HER house. But yeah... that Pew calculator? I'm dead center in the middle - 52% - for Seattle.
Right? I searched a couple different ways and didn't see it. Even looked at everything from The Atlantic going back several months. Pew has a calculator. Are you upper, middle or lower class? Ran our numbers and holy shitfire we are squarely upper class for Seattle. And the daycare offered us an 80% needs-based scholarship. How you like them apples? I like to talk about white people problems. Reality of the situation is I'm bordering on Thurston Howell III problems compared to most of the country.
Do you find people start to hide their financial problems more as they get older ? I just don't notice it among my generation as much as I do when I observe my parents for example. I definitely feel that my parents tried to hide their financial issues and act like they could provide things/everything was okay when in reality they really just didn't want to admit they couldn't do something for us because it made them feel shame. I remember when my mom was sick while I was in high school I had no problem buying groceries but it clearly made them sad to need that help. I don't see myself feeling that same sense of shame but maybe that's just because I haven't been in her shoes. I'm wondering if it's just because I haven't observed enough of this stuff within my age group but it sometimes feels like struggling financially is more socially acceptable. Actually just struggling in general whether that be financially, mentally or something else.
It's perfectly acceptable to be struggling at 25. It's known that the economy sucks, Ikea is your friend, and none of your peers are maxing their 401k while also covering a 1900sqft condo. It's fuckin' bullshit to be in the exact same spot at 40. I spent 9 years in LA. I came back to Washington driving the exact same fuckin' car to live in the exact same fuckin' house. The car is long since paid for and the house will be in ten years, but it's rank bullshit. The fact that I've got a whole bunch of machinations going on in the background doesn't matter - we gauge ourselves based on where we are positioned compared to our friends and if our friends are making more than us, we suck. Based on this article, I am kicking ass. We've got all sorts of retirement, our expenses are low, our revolving credit took a temporary hit from one of those "shocks" talked about and there's no fuckin' way in hell I'm tapping my retirement to pay anyone's wedding. For a pair of freelancers that haven't had a "job" in ten years we're conquering. But when I see someone younger than me driving an Aston Martin it galls. At least in LA they had the good sense to slap a Domino's sign on the top so that we all knew what they had to do to cover their lifestyles of the rich and famous.
I see what you're saying with the comparing ourselves to our peers, when I was going back to college many of my peers where graduating University and getting on with their lives but I wouldn't say it brought me a sense of shame like the article describes. I won't pretend like I was happy about it, it just wasn't something I felt shameful of. I think the attitude he is talking about from his local butcher of “If anyone says he’s sailing through, he’s lying.” is far more common now. Likely due in part to statistics and articles like this one that make people realize they aren't even close to the only one with these issues.
It's credit cards, student loans, car loans and mortgages. And I mean, shit - everyone's got like $90 a month that simply wasn't on the horizon 20 years ago before we all had to have cell phones. I can go out and get a 7-year car loan. Back when I bought my (now) beater, a two year loan seemed crazy. You just end up with this preposterous parasitic overhead that simply wasn't a factor when your parents were kids. And got help you if you smoke. I remember having my head blown off at $12 cartons of Marlboros.
I pay 70$/month for internet at the apartment and will have to upgrade to the 80$ plan because we keep getting fined for going over the data limit. + 30$ for a phone plan with no data. And then they wonder why more young people are not buying cable... Buying a house? pff most my friends will probably stay with their parents until their late 20's.everyone's got like $90 a month that simply wasn't on the horizon 20 years ago before we all had to have cell phones.
$30 a month for a phone plan with no data? Seems high (but maybe that includes a free phone, or something?) I pay $16 per month - NZ dollars, about $11 US; I get 500 MB data (which rolls over if unused, good for up to 12 months), plus I get 100 rollover minutes to NZ and AU per month; unlimited texts to NZ and AU; unlimited minutes to calls to the same provider; and most international calls are 6 cents per minute. But I pay about twice what you do for monthly internet + VOIP landline (fiber with a 500G data limit, with a small extra charge for going over).