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A comment on Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?. Parent comment

Re:Poll: How much do you make as a programmer? by BrandonM on Friday July 15, 2011 @12:47PM (#2768083)
A 1 liter bottle of coke is about $1.50-2. Some people do have several large screen TVs. Mostly, though, college education is really expensive, minimum wage is comparatively low, medical coverage isn't nationalized, and debt is (or at least used to be) easy to acquire.

In other words, it's easy to come out of college with $50-100K in student loans. It's also easy to get a major injury without medical insurance, pay $10K out of pocket to rectify it, and rack up another $10-15K by living on credit for a year.

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Re:Poll: How much do you make as a programmer? by BrandonM on Friday July 15, 2011 @03:39PM (#2768767)
Paying a student loan of $60K over 25 years at 3.5% interest is $300 per month. Paying the medical bills of $10K over 2 years at 0% interest is $415 per month. Paying the credit card bills of $15K over 5 years at 14% interest is $350 per month. Ugh... $1K in debt payment alone.
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