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Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: December 16th, 2023

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  • I’ve always saved very aggressively, even when I didn’t have any money. When I first moved out, I ate nothing but rice, lentils, eggs, and lard for several months to save a slush fund. Even today, I make ~15-20k USD below median income for my city, and I’ve managed to save just shy of 10k in the past year and a half.

    Obviously the ongoing coat of living crisis is a big deal that needs to be addressed, but we also need to acknowledge that saving your money is unpleasant, and a significant number of people aren’t willing to do what’s necessary in order to build financial security.

    My friends (I don’t get out much, I only have a couple) all have significantly better income/expense ratios than I do, and have exactly nothing saved. Honestly I don’t think that would change if you gave them all an extra $20k/year, because they will find a way to rationalize something into being a necessity.


  • I live in DFW, a large amalgamation of two cities and a bunch if suburban sprawl in Texas.
    I live in a neighborhood that is considered extremely walkable, as I am directly across the street from a university and less than a mile from city hall.

    Here are my walking distances:

    • To the nearest convenience store: 1.8km
    • To the nearest chain supermarket: 4.3 km (They have a monopoly though, so unless you can afford whole foods, the closest good one is like 22.5 km)
    • To the bus stop: Lol, we don’t have busses. A neighboring city does, so I guess 29 km?
    • To the nearest park: Nearest park is 2.8km. Nearest public space is only 1.5km because I live right next to city hall.
    • To the nearest big supermarket: 8.9 km to Walmart.
    • To the nearest library: 1.5km, again, I live right next to city hall.
    • To the nearest train station: 16km, unless you mean one for intercity travel. We don’t have one of those because Amtrak is slowly being killed.

    Straight-line distance to Big Ben: we don’t have a Big Ben, but we killed JFK and that’s 34km away.

    Bonus fun fact, I commute 42km each day. This is considered far by most people here, 32km would be much more reasonable.



  • It depends. I think it’s definitely less common here because it just isn’t needed most of the time. Even a working class retiree should have a pension or 401k, social security, and some kind of savings from their life as a working adult.

    To require the support of your children, you’d have to be unable to work, not entitled to substantial amounts of social security, not have paid into a retirement plan, and not have saved any money from when you did work.

    I know a couple of people who support their parents, and they either spend their ENTIRE lives in poverty making sub-minimum wage (which is pretty uncommon), or they just straight up blew all their money because they assumed their kid would take care of them. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for the second category.