> It’s super easy to blow through a 250K salary (which is not 250k in your pocket each year.)

As someone in that side (if I made 180k post-tax, I would be living paycheck to paycheck - I became aware of it because I'm funemployed with a big spreadsheet), it is not at all poverty, but it is more of a cashflow quirk when they say this.

They're saying their outflow matches their in-flow, but not that all of it is actually being spent (the mortgage at 2.5% is equity).

Not having a bunch of cash in the bank or merely maintaining a 100k rainy day balance isn't paycheck to paycheck, even though these people might describe it so.

So the people who make 250k who live "paycheck to paycheck" are actually sitting on top of a big comfort cushion which they are loathe to remove for financial cushion. That is okay if it is a deliberate choice instead of a "save face, keep with the joneses" peer pressure to keep spending.

This is not even remotely comparable to actual poverty where the floor is fast approaching you if you miss a month.

These articles can be described as feeding some people's "more money can't fix money problems" and some other's mistaken belief that spending everything you get is what paycheck to paycheck means. Also totally different if it is debt you are paying off instead of actually spending.

Also a hit-piece on the "earn and spend" millenials, which is somewhat fair because I don't know if I could be this affluent in my retirement, the way the economy is tilting.

All great points and I agree.

What's different about this generation (esp in the UK where I live) is that they're becoming reasonably asset rich but they feel poor day to day. This is because they spend a lot of their income on mortgage payments (much of which is equity) and they're auto enrolled into pretty decent pensions which also is a building asset (but not one that they 'feel').

Getting things you can certainly afford on credit (which may be the right decision given low rates plus high inflation) compounds the problem.

You're going to buy a car for 40k after a year of saving. You spend 11 months looking at a big number building up in your account thinking 'hey I'm rich' or you spend 12 months with 'no money in your account' feeling poor. But the outcome is the same. Cheap credit creates many situations where credit is better than cash - so will make the feeling of 'no money' worse.

This is a great point.

more realistically for most people than private schooling and expensive vacations are day care and routine medical bills (as opposed to debt). Day care costs some families nearly what I spend on rent, and that's just for standard run of the mill understaffed day care services, not private/in-home or specialized care. Medical expenses get insane very quickly, with many people spending hundreds every month on medications alone, but add recurring costs like dental, vision, and mental health services to that and you can blow through huge amounts of cash every year.

Most people in the US were already living paycheck to paycheck before the pandemic which ate into what little savings they had or forced them into credit card debt and now sky-high prices are putting even more pressure on people's budgets. It'd be crazy if the number of people living paycheck to paycheck wasn't expanding.

And all these people look at the man living within his means and think he's "doing it wrong" because he's piling his family into an old Ford Taurus and wearing Walmart jeans instead of spending twice as much for a Camry and Levis.

My parents don't live within driving distance of jobs, also they are religious totalitarians.

My parents don't live where my career is, where my career is its too expensive to buy a home even at my relatively high salary until you've saved for 10 years. Had I stayed where my parents are geography my career would have stagnated and peaked 10 years ago. Where there are good jobs and upward mobility home prices are also high with a high barrier to entry ($250k+ down payment).

in 2020, there were massive layoffs across the world and in india, workers from the city simply moved back to their native homes to weather the storm.

why didn't americans do that and decided to penny pinch/take more loans rather than saving costs?

In the world of remote-first, do you really think geography matters as much?

Americans also often don’t have the same relationship with their nuclear families. In India, and from what I’ve heard Europe and AUNZ, it’s not uncommon to live at home and commute to university and sometimes after. That’s anathema to the American model. 18 and you’re out the door.

Many of my friends’ parents financially cut them off when they graduated high school, and/or immediately moved out of their town to a lower tax area (and these are upper middle class folks). So that safety net of weathering the storm in a hometown may not always be there IME.

so, you are saying, because of social reasons, entire generations are literally wasting money because "muh child is past 18?"

wait, let me get this straight. i don't get "Many of my friends’ parents financially cut them off when they graduated high school," i've read this a lot of times. does this mean the parents force the children to stand on their own feet and not extend to them financial support or do you mean they cut them off of their money as is. don't these people know about inheritance?

>and/or immediately moved out of their town to a lower tax area

this one, specifically in india is literally never a concern. taxes are same across the entire country so no one even considers this

>So that safety net of weathering the storm in a hometown may not always be there IME.

correct me if i am wrong but i suppose there are two things at play here. parents' insistence on always being right and not taking care of their children however old (when they have the resources nonetheless) as a sign of "american way" and the children thinking "i will stay at a homeless shelter rather than go back to my parents home because muh privacy, independence"?

Disclaimer that it's a spectrum, so what's true for one family isn't true for another.

But yes, historically a large proportion of WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) families in the US are very individualistic, and of the mindset that once when you graduate college, (barring a grace year or two), you're expected to rent/own your place. Apartments exist as a place that are more affordable than condos or homes. Inheritance exists, but that's considered as only a "when the oldest generation dies" sort of thing.

I do find this trend feels like it dovetails with a greater percentage of estranged kids/adults, and isolation for the oldest generation. Quite a lot of estrangement is necessary; this isn't a judgement on that choice, merely commenting there may be more friction under the surface leading to that mindset.

I mention the first line because (quasi-) immigrant families (like mine) are a lot more of your mindset. Makes far more sense to save, and there's less cultural taboo with multi-generation households.

some raw data: https://www.boredpanda.com/young-adults-moving-from-parents-...

> does this mean the parents force the children to stand on their own feet and not extend to them financial support or do you mean they cut them off of their money as is. don't these people know about inheritance?

More or less, yeah. In America, you are expected to be your own person when you turn 18. That almost always means having a job and paying for a place to live, even if it means flipping burgers and renting a room at mom and dad's house.

Though, I've been reconsidering that expectation with all these articles over the past few years of parents helping their kids with down payments on their kid's houses. Now there's parent plus student loans.

Inheritance? Many older adults also live paycheck to paycheck and are drowning in debt, and might explain how eager some parents are to kick their kids out. In America, inheritance usually only happens when both parents die, but many kids won't see a penny of inheritance.

One thing to note is that there is no “one” American culture. What’s true in one place may not be the reality 50 miles where you but can be true 100 miles where you are.

And fights over inheritance often causes deep family rifts.

Unless your parents own a home or some asset or pay into life insurance there is nothing to inherit as most of the middle class is in debt

Exactly, I could have inherited the family business but my dad wouldn't let me, in his words I'd be "inheriting debt".

even remote first workers in tier 1 and 2 tech markets are going to have better developed networks than those in relative backwaters. i think few europeans appreciate how geography influences outcomes in north america. if you live in mobile alabama or toledo ohio you have to really work to compete for jobs with someone in new york or san francisco or even a second tier city like raleigh durham or toronto.

> why didn't americans do that

They did. In 2020, 52% of young adults in America were living with their parents. The number is lower now but not by a lot.

Many jobs, like mine, are not able to be fully remote.

And yes, geography does really matter now that half of the US is making basic women's Healthcare illegal. No amount of money would drive someone to move their family to a place where basic Healthcare is denied for every woman.

Do you think this was a worthwhile trade-off? Would life be that much worse back home near family, with a stagnated career owning your own cheaper home?

I didn't for a while, now I think it was.

you can earn 100k, blow 90% of that for rent/mortgage and general living expenses in a big city or get to live with your parents and earn half while saving much more.

maybe that doesn't appeal to a lot of people, they look at the CTC as opposed to your net savings

My hometown had zero programming positions. The next town over had 1 company that required programmers, at about $9 an hour. So I went to college 300 miles south where the small cities are.

Because of the above, this hometown is also nearly 100% inhabited by the kind of assholes and do-nothings that never grew past highschool, the entire town is run by an entirely homogeneous clique that quite literally would rather it still be the jim crow era, and many locals still had klan hoods in the attic.

No one can afford a home here. In my hometown even very small homes are now going for $1.5m+

I dont want to live with my parents. its that simple