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Started By
Message
re: Affordability Crisis...list the things we didn't have to pay for a few generations ago...
Posted on 8/14/24 at 1:24 pm to notsince98
Posted on 8/14/24 at 1:24 pm to notsince98
quote:
Cell phone plan - $10/mo per device
Internet - $25/mo
Those are impressive numbers.
1
Posted on 8/14/24 at 1:26 pm to sidewalkside
quote:
Cell Phones (just the device) - $20 to $30 a month per phone
Cell Phone Service (yes I will deduct the monthly expense we used to have with land lines back in the day) - Easily $100 a month more for a family as opposed to paying for one single house phone.
More expensive than landlines, sure.
quote:
Wifi/Internet - easily $100 a month
How much does this save in efficiency though?
quote:
Cable/Streaming Subscriptions - Again easily $100 a month more for a family as opposed to old school basic cable or even free over the air TV
Eh, getting one premium cable package put you close to that in the past. Plus renting the boxes (so if you had 2 TVs), etc. Also a wash.
quote:
Music Streaming Subscriptions - $10 a month for minimal streaming. The old school radio was free and we had to enjoy what was on when it was on or change the station.
If you bought 1 CD or LP or Cassette per month it's a wash.
quote:
Travel - When I was a kid we took one MAYBE two vacations in a year...now families go on 3-4-5+ vacations in a year easily. That's thousands of dollars more.
This one I do agree with, and it isn't even a necessity
Posted on 8/14/24 at 1:26 pm to jcaz
quote:
just buying cheap groceries is not easy.
It does take a bit of work. We buy staple items from Aldi and Costco. We then do some weekly meal planning around what is on sale at Hyvee. It takes about 30min/wk of extra effort/time due to multiple stops and reading the ads but saves us a lot.
Posted on 8/14/24 at 1:27 pm to TN Tygah
quote:
Yeah, but now you can play anything you want, anywhere you want, any time you want. It fricks over musicians and art suffers because of it, but listening wise? It’s never been better. I’d spent $10 on a 10 track CD that I’d get sick of in a week. And I don’t miss waiting for a good song to come on The River 99.5
Exactly. I did the free Pandora for a while, then eventually got tired of the skips and hearing ads so I subscribed. Then Spotify came along. I signed up when it was around $10 a month. I think I pay $17 or $18 now for a family plan that I share with my wife and daughter. At first I had just let my daughter log into my account on her phone, but all of the recommended music ended up being stuff I would never listen to.
Sometimes I will search for an artist or playlist, but just driving around I end up picking one of the suggested playlists based on what I've listened to and it is fine. And I can play it in the car, while working out, while cutting grass, while just relaxing on the porch through a Bluetooth speaker, in the kitchen cooking dinner through the Echo speaker etc. All for less than the price of just one album a month.
Posted on 8/14/24 at 1:27 pm to sidewalkside
quote:
PeopleCan'tLiveWithinTheirMeans Crisis
Posted on 8/14/24 at 1:28 pm to chryso
quote:
Those are impressive numbers.
The cell phone plan $10 is Tello. Unlimited talk/text and 2GB data on the T-mobile network. When the data runs out, they dont cut you off it just slows down. Even on the slower data google maps, iMessages, etc. all work just fine.
The internet is 300Mbps at&t fiber. I went to their facebook page and asked if they had any discounts and they gave me $30 off per month for 999 months, haha.
Posted on 8/14/24 at 1:29 pm to sidewalkside
quote:
Cell Phones (just the device) - $20 to $30 a month per phone
Believe it or not, back in the day you had to rent a phone from Ma Bell. You couldn't own your own equipment. A phone rental fee was included on your monthly bill.
But to answer the question, the biggest hit modern families are taking is probably healthcare. Back in the day most employers provided full health insurance and medical services and medication were a lot cheaper. Now, health insurance is a backbreaker that covers far less and the out of pocket expenses are outrageous.
Cars are more expensive but you also get more bang for your buck and they last twice as long and are more energy efficient so that's a wash.
Rent is another thing that is killing young people starting out in life. Back in the day the rule of thumb was to spend 1/4 of your take home pay on rent while you saved for a starter home. Now people are paying upwards of 50% with no hope of ever being a homeowner. I know people will respond to this with "you don't have to live in the big city!" but that's where most of the jobs and economic opportunities are concentrated these days.
Posted on 8/14/24 at 1:32 pm to sidewalkside
quote:
What else?
Good job showing that newer generations don't know the difference between wants and needs. Fact is that people can comfortably get by with much less than is currently available, they are just short sighted, ignorant, and choose not to.
Posted on 8/14/24 at 1:33 pm to OweO
quote:
What happened to baby sitters? It seems like every neighborhood had one or two moms who babysat.
They still exist, but now they charge $15-20/hr. Some even got smarter and started charging $15/hr for 1 kid, extra $10/hr for 2nd kid, then an extra $5/hr for each additional kid.
This post was edited on 8/14/24 at 1:37 pm
Posted on 8/14/24 at 1:36 pm to danilo
quote:
Shiiiiiit. Think we took 4-5 vacations my entire childhood
Sounds like the same for my childhood, except I recently learned that we only took those vacations to evacuate for storms or our power was out from a storm.
Posted on 8/14/24 at 1:39 pm to sidewalkside
I'm not an expert on this and could be wrong but I have the feeling that family health insurance was a lot more common with most decent jobs.
My dad worked for a paper mill and I recall when my Mom -- who had been a stay at home parent since the 70s -- needed to take a job with the city school system because the new owners of the paper mill had reduced the family insurance benefits around 1990.
Something that doesn't get mentioned often in all the talk about responsible people choosing less kids is that many women who don't want to work take jobs just to get better family health insurance.
That's also when daycare --like the poster mentioned above -- becomes another added expense.
My dad worked for a paper mill and I recall when my Mom -- who had been a stay at home parent since the 70s -- needed to take a job with the city school system because the new owners of the paper mill had reduced the family insurance benefits around 1990.
Something that doesn't get mentioned often in all the talk about responsible people choosing less kids is that many women who don't want to work take jobs just to get better family health insurance.
That's also when daycare --like the poster mentioned above -- becomes another added expense.
Posted on 8/14/24 at 1:42 pm to wm72
quote:
Something that doesn't get mentioned often in all the talk about responsible people choosing less kids is that many women who don't want to work take jobs just to get better family health insurance.
That's also when daycare --like the poster mentioned above -- becomes another added expense.
Something else I noticed the other day was school fees. When I was in high school, I think we had to pay a small class fee and maybe a technology fee. I've had multiple parents comment on the hundreds of dollar they're paying in school fees for music class, gym class, AP classes, science, etc.
ETA: The long and short of it is we're getting nickled and dimed across the board. It's small increases here and there that are adding up.
This post was edited on 8/14/24 at 1:43 pm
Posted on 8/14/24 at 1:42 pm to dbb
quote:
How about private school, since public education has mostly gone to crap.
I'm wondering if my anecdotal experience is the same for others.
I went to public school, and so did many of the people in my social circle, even those who had parents who could afford private school. Off of the top of my head 90% of these people are sending their kids to private school (it may even be a higher percentage, I can really only think of one couple going the public school route).
Is this a trend that other people are seeing, too?
Posted on 8/14/24 at 1:44 pm to GreenRockTiger
"This is dumb, most of those things you don’t need"
True, but in his defense, other than the guy trying to hustle his way to Japan, they're all pretty dumb.
True, but in his defense, other than the guy trying to hustle his way to Japan, they're all pretty dumb.
Posted on 8/14/24 at 1:50 pm to sidewalkside
quote:This is one of the things that you could argue is cheaper and obviously better.
Music Streaming Subscriptions - $10 a month for minimal streaming. The old school radio was free and we had to enjoy what was on when it was on or change the station
Paying for CD’s/cassettes that only give you 15ish songs vs having it all stored in the ether with direct access to your phone. Same could be argued about movie/TV susbscription.
Posted on 8/14/24 at 1:56 pm to BluegrassBelle
quote:
Something else I noticed the other day was school fees. When I was in high school, I think we had to pay a small class fee and maybe a technology fee. I've had multiple parents comment on the hundreds of dollar they're paying in school fees for music class, gym class, AP classes, science, etc.
ETA: The long and short of it is we're getting nickled and dimed across the board. It's small increases here and there that are adding up.
Yeah, I bet there's a million extra things kids "need" for school now. Some may be that they probably do need more than those useless calculators now.
I do recall my parents buying expensive stuff for band. I vividly remember my dad complaining that my brother would have to choose the saxophone instead of all the cheaper instruments.
Posted on 8/14/24 at 1:57 pm to Ryan3232
quote:
This is one of the things that you could argue is cheaper and obviously better.
Paying for CD’s/cassettes that only give you 15ish songs vs having it all stored in the ether with direct access to your phone. Same could be argued about movie/TV susbscription.
No, it's so much better to buy expensive original vinyl records (says the guy who owns a record shop).
Posted on 8/14/24 at 1:58 pm to sidewalkside
12 oz of water.
Posted on 8/14/24 at 2:02 pm to sidewalkside
quote:
Music Streaming Subscriptions - $10 a month for minimal streaming. The old school radio was free and we had to enjoy what was on when it was on or change the station.
I am slowly building my own streaming service with Plex and Roon. I am ripping old CDs and "acquiring" others through the internet. It isn't complete, but when it is, I will no longer need to purchase streaming.
The flip side of the setup, it will easily surpass the monthly fees I am paying now for Apple Music, and will not pay for itself for many years. But once it does... it will be nice. I am up to 1000 albums so far and growing.
Posted on 8/14/24 at 2:19 pm to Tony The Tiger
Or just stream youtube music via a browser or smartubenext app to avoid ads and get all music completely on demand for free.
This post was edited on 8/14/24 at 2:20 pm
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