Re:Suicide Rates Among Adolescents and Young Adults in the U...
by dgabriel on Monday June 24, 2019 @02:22PM
(#20266694)
Add a car and student loans, a reasonable food and fitness budget, and that's all of it gone.
Re:Suicide Rates Among Adolescents and Young Adults in the U...
by qes on Monday June 24, 2019 @04:37PM
(#20268194)
The poster this is in reply to said they have no debt.
> I'm in the same spot I grew up with my grandparents in, barely making it with like an extra $40/mo for ramen & beer with a friend or two one night for entertainment. No debt. It's such a common story among my similarly aged friends too.
Re:Suicide Rates Among Adolescents and Young Adults in the U...
by dgabriel on Monday June 24, 2019 @05:19PM
(#20268623)
That's a good point I missed.
Re:Suicide Rates Among Adolescents and Young Adults in the U...
by mcguire on Monday June 24, 2019 @03:33PM
(#20267524)
Good point. I never touch any of those so I keep forgetting. :-) (Well, I did have a car loan for a while...)
A $35,000 car loan, 60 mos, 5%, is about $660/mo (https://www.bankrate.com/loans/auto-loans/current-auto-loan-... average student loan debt is $38,390 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_debt), 120 mos (https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/how-long-does-it-ta...), 8% (https://www.valuepenguin.com/student-loans/student-loan-inte...) is about $466/mo. That totals to $1,126, leaving only $474 for vegetables and stuff.
Re:Suicide Rates Among Adolescents and Young Adults in the U...
by dgabriel on Monday June 24, 2019 @05:22PM
(#20268647)
You can crunch fake, sort-of-made-up numbers all day. The average man doesn't exist. My point is that it's certainly possible to be living paycheck-to-paycheck in a city with what was once a decent salary, even if you aren't blowing all your money on frivolous stuff.
"Reported Average Starting Salary" for a mechanical engineer in 1995 was $35,744, or $55,189 adjusted to 2015 (https://www.naceweb.org/job-market/compensation/salary-trend...). Federal taxes on that are about $8,078 (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040tt.pdf); let's double that to account for state and local taxes; $39,033 net after taxes, or $3,253/month.
Average rent in Seattle is $1,965 (https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/wa/se...), but many neighborhoods are lower and more in tune with upstate New York (and "20 miles outside" is anywhere between Everett, Snoqualmie, or nearly to Tacoma); let's split the difference at $1,600. That leaves $1,653/month. Call it $53 for ramen and beer one night a month (that's a lot of ramen and beer) and there's $1,600 for everything else.