Well… That’s poor/broke adulting. When you’re born with a golden spoon in your ass, you’re whole house (read mansion) is run by what is called the help. You pay people to sort your shit out. Your kids are raised by nannies, and for the weekend you go to your seaside house on a semiprivate island in your private jet.
Yeah, like at my age, I should have a girlfriend, settle down, and have kids. But that is not my problem. I can barely take care of myself so what if I add more responsibility i didn’t ask for lol.
I know it against the spirit of the post but I have to go on a rant here.
“adulting”
I hate that word, its so stupid. It implies self infantilization, when in reality its use is just indicative of one’s attitude towards work or getting anything done. And wanting everyone else around them to take care of things.
Every roommate I’ve had who used that fucking word did not do fucking shit around the house. They were always the victim when some disagreement happened. They sometimes got mad when I asked for their portion of rent. Just absolutely manipulative narcissistic perpetual victims that expected me or other’s to do everything for them.
As soon as I save up and move I will be so happy to finally live alone for the first time in my life. Rent will be more expensive and I’ll save way less but at least there will be fewer human variables like that to deal with.
Rant away, you are speaking for many of us who just fucking try.
Thats why procrastination is such a big thing
I’m convinced the ruling class figured out how to reverse the wins the middle class made between 1945 - 1980. We’re back to being indentured servants but with the illusion of free will because we can somewhat choose our masters and sometimes work our way up to better conditions provided we help keep the lower class in line.
Is there always something that needs to be sorted, or are we all just monkeys with OCD?
Here’s the great thing about TODO lists: I control what’s on them. So I know what is completely safe to ignore and what’s going to ruin me. In most cases, I have a lot of notice about important things and can plan accordingly.
Honestly, if you can get your finances figured out, most of the important things can be automated.
Honestly, if you can get your finances figured
The difference between “call a plumber, the sink is leaking” and “I’m dedicating my weekend to DIY a pipe repair” is measured in dollars per hour.
My life changed when I move up a tax bracket. Knowing I had the financial flexibility to hire a professional (or afford a maid once a month) when I needed help really changed how stressful day to day chore routine has been.
Sure, but my point is you don’t necessarily need to move up a tax bracket to be financially stable, you need to carefully manage your money to maintain an emergency fund so you’re not screwed if something goes wrong.
Making more money makes this easier, but it’s possible at most income levels.
If you can keep up an efund, you don’t need to rely on predatory lenders or pay late fees, which dramatically improves your ability to keep that efund filled. Having access to cash helps make more reasonable decisions, maybe you’ll still spend the weekend DIYing a fix, but it’ll be a choice.
you don’t necessarily need to move up a tax bracket to be financially stable, you need to carefully manage your money
Sure. But it’s like drinking out of a martini glass. Saying “you can do it without spilling a drop” is true relative to physical balance and personal circumstances. A combination of personal discipline and good fortune means you can get by without any income. But as soon as one or the other slips, you’re in trouble.
Making more money makes this easier, but it’s possible at most income levels.
I’ve lived up and down the income scale, from squeaking by in college to living it up as a well-paid professional. To say it’s “easier” is a serious understatement. When you’re sitting out in 15° weather for a bus that’s an hour late to take you to a job that brings in $10/hr, knowing you can’t afford to go grocery shopping tomorrow if it doesn’t show, the concept of a budget feels very theoretical.
If you can keep up an efund
Then your income exceeds your expenses. That’s as much a benefit of having a higher income, as a consequence of a savvy budget. And a cash savings account comes with its own costs. Short term cash savings means less long term compound investment. It also potentially means deferred capital accumulation. If you can’t go to work without a car and you can’t fix your car without taking on debt, then you can’t afford to carry a positive balance. If you can’t afford a dishwasher, you’re spending time and energy manually scrubbing dishes when you could be sleeping or working overtime.
On the flip side, if you’re running a massive surplus then you can build a passive income through investment. Walk in the door with $1M in your wallet, get a (very conservative under most market conditions) 5% ROI, and you’re looking at the median household income with zero days worked.
It’s a mug’s game to think the economic balancing act is just a question of personal choices. And that’s before we get into the feedback loop of poverty - wherein people are effectively trained to think short term by selection bias, as potential longer-term investors get fucked by short term fluctuations in the economy.
That’s as much a benefit of having a higher income, as a consequence of a savvy budget.
Look at the statistics, plenty of people with higher incomes live paycheck to paycheck and don’t have an efund. Not having money in the bank is more often a behavioral problem than an income problem.
The real issue imo is that nobody seems to get a proper financial education, and resources vary greatly in quality.
Short term cash savings means less long term compound investment.
Sure, but the compound investment returns will be dwarfed by short term debt interest payments (credit card, personal loans, etc). Far too many people float credit card debt so they don’t need to touch investments. That’s the problem cash is intended to solve, and you can mitigate that opportunity cost with money market funds and high yield savings asks accounts.
If you can’t go to work without a car and you can’t fix your car without taking on debt, then you can’t afford to carry a positive balance.
Everyone’s circumstances are different, but people frequently have more options available to them than they actually consider.
For example:
- can they fix the car themselves? If you can identify the problem (most car parts stores offer free OBD2 scans), you can perform most repairs with a jack (comes with most cars), socket set ($50 or so at the hardware store), a screwdriver ($20 or so), and YouTube
- is mass transit an option? A bicycle + bus can get almost everywhere, even in my area with terrible transit options. It’ll take an extra hour, but it’s a lot cheaper than panicking and paying $1k+ for a tow and repair shop
- get a ride with a coworker or friend, or even uber until the weekend when you have more time to deal with it
- quit the job and apply for something closer - if you can survive 3+ months without income, maybe the car breaking down is the kick you needed to pull the trigger on a decision you’ve been putting off
Obviously individual circumstances differ. My point is that if you have no cash reserves, your anxiety when literally anything goes wrong can blind you to other options (I know because it has happened to me). If you have the fallback option of just paying out of pocket for a fix, you’ll probably also be able to take a step back and consider other options.
I’ve had a cash reserve since I worked my way through college. Sometimes rebuilding that cash reserve sucked and meant I had to eat really cheaply and not go out with friends. I made just over minimum wage (about $9-10/hr) while attending college full time and renting an apartment (shared a bedroom because I couldn’t afford my own room). I know how hard that it because I did it. I remember push starting my manual transmission car for weeks because I didn’t have the time or money to replace the starter.
I learned to repair my own car, and I’ve been doing my own maintenance since, even though I can now afford to take it to a shop, though I do refuse the more dangerous jobs (e.g. anything with high voltage or in the steering system). I also rode my bike + bus for a few years to save money and improve my fitness (10 mile ride, so not super close, and I was the only one doing it).
I’m not saying everyone should fix their own cars or ride the bus and bike, I’m saying that not having a cash buffer can lead to desperate decisions. Do what you can to create a surplus each month, even if it’s just a few dollars, and save that for a rainy day.
massive surplus
Yes, a higher income or asset balance makes things easier, but not having that doesn’t make it impossible, just harder.
feedback loop of poverty - wherein people are effectively trained to think short term by selection bias
Poverty is a completely different beast with its own set of causes and possible solutions. I’m not saying everyone can just “pick themselves up by their bootstraps,” I’m saying most people can do better and create a cash cushion.
But yes, family and community culture is a huge part of the problem and reduces the chances for people to better educate on managing finances themselves and break that cycle.
I’m in my 50s and I’m about to throw in the towel on this thing called life. I’m never going to retire. My entire life seems to be putting out fires from the week before. The world in general just seems to be getting worse.
I no longer see the point like I did when I was a young romantic.
https://developers.cloudflare.com/cache/reference/csam-scanning/
ehm why was the photo flagged as csam by cloudflare??
i’m from Italy, is this an eu thing?
edit: ok if i open the post from lemmy.world the image is there, so maybe is a lemmy.zip thing?
I think its a .zip thing. Unlike you I can see this particular post for some reason, but most images are currently blocked with the same error for me. Even thumbnails of news articles are blocked, not just images uploaded directly to Lemmy.
Nobody on their death bed ever wishes they’d spent more time working.
That Titan Sub guy probably had a millisecond of “Oops, probably should have revisited hull integrity one more time” regret.
i don’t think they did since they’d probably pay more attention to it in the first place if they even did so much research as playing Subnautica for a couple hours
I have to say, there is an established solution to this problem: having a functional and comminicative extended family/social network. Car trouble? Your uncle and cousin can help you fix it tomorrow. Paying rent/mortgage? Not when you live in the big family home with 3 other generations of people that’s been paid off for the last 50 years. Cooking dinner? Grandma and aunt Bethel do it every night with help from the kids. Doing your taxes? Family friend Joe is an accountant and is glad to answer a few simple questions for you.
Unfortunately, most peoples’ families are annoying as fuck.
Mormons, eh?
Unfortunately, most peoples’ families are annoying as fuck.
People are generally annoying. The trick is to remember that you are also people, and to handle the eccentricities of others with grace.
I come from a culture where multigenerational homes are a thing and me and my partner have done the unthinkable to break free from it. We have been shunned and ostricized for not following on the traditional way and as painful as it can be I will not subject my child to the burden of it. I know that te dream of having a solo home is that for many, just a dream, but multigenerational homes are a different kind of hell.
I just constantly ignore my to do list because otherwise I would never relax.
Of course, this is different from person to person, but for me, a lot of anxiety comes from me putting it off. I found that taking care of the shit as soon as possible gives me the time to truly chill until the next wave of shit comes.
The never ending chill boulder up the hill.
Haha, exactly. Wasn’t Sysiphus’s story about finding joy in a never-ending, repetitive process? I’m wondering if I’ll ever reach that level of enlightenment.
The original story was intended as a depiction of a punishment. The spin of imagining him happy was Albert Camus’s contribution. Although it wasn’t quite about finding joy in a never-ending repetitive process per se, but more about finding joy in the absence of meaning. The boulder process represents the individual’s repeated, doomed efforts to find meaning, and the rolling back down is the realization that despite their efforts, there was still no meaning to be had. Yet, the human cannot resist trying again, which is clearly absurd - hence why this is called “The Absurd”. The main idea is that the struggle itself towards meaning, although absurd, is enough to make someone happy, even if meaning does not exist. I would not want to conflate that sentiment with acceptance of repetitive, dull processes in real life. Nietzsche would have a lot to say about that, and not coincidentally, Nietzsche and Camus have a lot of overlapping thinking. If you like this stuff, I’d recommend reading Camus’s The Stranger, Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and Camus’s Myth of Sisyphus.
I love that you spent the time to explain and even recommend reads. Thank you so much. I’m not the most active reader in the world but I am curious about the topic so I think I’ll start with Camus’s Stranger.
That’s definitely the best one to start with! You’re welcome and I hope you enjoy it. There’s some metaphors and moments from it that still stuck with me.
I’ve had a weird arc. A number of months after I graduated college and started working, it finally sunk in that there wasn’t always something I needed to be studying or working on, as had been the case for like my whole academic career. I had a job that I wasn’t allowed to do outside the plant, so when I went out the gates I was done. Over the years I got promoted to positions of more and more responsibility and, even though I tried hard to keep work and home separate, at some point it was unavoidable and there was always something I needed to be doing, always emails I should be answering.
Then, after 40 years, I retired earlier this year. I had a lot to go through with selling a house and stuff, but it’s just starting to get to the point where I don’t have something I need to be doing, as had happened 40 years ago.
I think that’s a pretty normal arc. You work your butt off to get through school, then when you start working, and you have limited responsibilities, you don’t really ever work outside of work. As you become more senior, you will have more to do than can be done in the ~8 hours during the day, M-F and you start feeling like you need to work while you’re at home or whatever.
Then when you retire, every thing falls away.
I probably won’t get to retire, so, I’ll never get there. I’m glad you get to experience that again.
I just dropped from a lead position to non-lead because of this. The only work time is office time+travel for work. Outside of that work does not exist.
That’s a big quality of life change. I wasn’t super enthused about going up the chain for a long time, but then found I really enjoyed the strategic planning and organizational stuff, so went up a couple levels of management. The money was a quality of life change, too, of course.
Eh. I could make more at work but the that stuff doesn’t drive me, actually triggers severe burn out. I have a savings/debt paydown/investment strategy that gets me where I need to go.
It was also a company switch to one with stability, steady raises, better benefits, and more interesting work. So while it’s a significant trade off in salary, quality of life is vastly improved.
It for sure sounds like the right decision for you. And to be sure I was clear, when I eventually went up a leadership ladder, I was more motivated by the job than by the money, it’s just that the money was nice too. I was at the same company for just short of 40 years. I moved around some within the company to keep things interesting, and then realized my experience would be pretty useful for strategic leadership, and that I’d enjoy that kind of thing.
I think that makes sense. Having stability in life is going to be a different world tbh. 20-40yrs is a long time in personal development
A 20 year old that I worked with asked me what I did over my weekend. My response was basically a list of chores and errands.
She responded, “Nice, you were adulting hard.”
I responded, “Unfortunately, I’m just an adult.”
“I need an adult.”
“You ARE an adult.”
*proceed to get kicked in the nads*
Hobbies are important to mental health.
