Comment on Anon saves up
BoxOfFeet@lemmy.world 5 days agoI have questions. How were you able to live for a year on 16K? Even if we disregard healthcare, that wouldn’t even cover my mortgage. Let alone food, or especially travel and fun. You Were able to afford a phone? Utilities? Did you have any extras, like streaming services? I’m guessing you have the luxury of public transportation, so I can understand no car payments or gas and maintenance costs.
Granted, I do live in the US. But I can’t imagine everything is that much more expensive here. £16K is like, $20K right now, I’d live for maybe 2 months on that.
Skullgrid@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Let’s see…
16k is about 1,300 a month. I paid about 700 for rent, and 2018 was before the current inflation wave, so 1,698.95 in today’s pound sterling, leaving me with about 600 a month
I was on calorie restrictions as part of my “get/stay in shape” , and usually ate pasta, rice, eggs and protein powder, with vegetables whenever , small amounts of cheese and condiments/hot sauce. My usual goal for food budget was £10 a day.
Other expenditures were internet, electric, water and climbing gym membership. That’s it. I think I was buying CBD vapes at the time for my anxiety as well, but that was a more occasional expense. I can’t remember how much those things were, maybe 40 for internet? I can’t remember my mobile phone plan.
No car, no subscriptions, or other recurring costs. NHS for healthcare.
You spend 10k a month?? I currently earn somewhere between 4-5K dollars , what do you spend that money on?
BoxOfFeet@lemmy.world 5 days ago
I was thinking wrong. I was going off my salary rather than my take home. After taxes, health insurance, and retirement, it’s about $6k.
$1360 for my mortgage, which is really quite good as it’s only 3.25%. Im pretty stuck in my house with current interest rates. $516 for one of my cars. $343 for one of my watches. About $300-400 for electricity in the summer, $80 for natural gas. $368 for car insurance. $168 for phones. $87 for internet. And $309 on a loan for some renovations. $30 planned parenthood donation. Typically about $40/week for gas.
Amazon prime, Disney+, Spotify, Netflix, Paramount+. Idk what else. I guess the rest is just groceries, eating out, and hobbies.
That’s just the stuff I pay from my income, my wife and I never got joint bank accounts. She takes home about 3k, and she pays for our other car, which is $327, her student loan, which is $300, and childcare which is $295/week. Plus she puts money in the savings account.
This discussion is making me think about the number of subscriptions I have, and the amount of expendable income I waste.
Skullgrid@lemmy.world 5 days ago
yeah, I have no idea why you’re spending 343 on a watch every month. Also, this just re-validates my perspective that a car would just ruin me financially, and would have done so my entire life.
BoxOfFeet@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Well, I could have just bought it. But it’s a 0% interest loan. Same thing I did with my other two luxury watches, and it’s almost done. Having a two year commitment to it definitely keeps me from looking at any more! I really like watches. It’s probably my last one for a long time, anyway. Kids are expensive. $8600 for a watch over two years is cheap compared to $15k a year just in childcare. That’s just one kid.
You can have a car for a lot less, but we have relatively new cars and I opted for a lot of insurance for my own peace of mind. If we had any public transit options, we could get by with one car for sure. But there is nothing here. There is a city bus system that primarily caters to the low income, which is a great start. But it really only goes to like, the grocery stores and the urgent cares. Nowhere near our daycare, and definitely way short of the 30 miles to my office. We also have a shuttle bus that you can call for, that’s only $3 a ride, but thats really just for the disabled and elderly. I’d say we have better transit than a lot of metropolitan cities I’ve been to, but obviously our society is completely car-centric.