Ask Lemmy

Paycheck to paycheck gang with very little if anything goes wrong

Cost of life is a huge factor, I live in Italy, our paychecks are very thin but, especially in the southern regions, cost of life is relatively, especially if you don't have to travel too far for work.

I'm able to save a few hundred euros per month (my paycheck is a net of about 1700€).

Yeah but I haven't really been financially stable for my entire adult life.

My parents did alright, both retired office workers you'd classify as middle class but I am uneducated and never managed to save anything.

I've been unemployed since 04-2025, and while I still have a long way to go, my savings are starting to dwindle. The job market is tough for coders that find generative AI, wasteful, unethical, and a copyright hazard, in addition to not being much impressed with the output, even from tests earlier this year. I wonder if the new convenience store needs people.

Well, tomorrow my bank account will be down to about 10$ due to the credit payment, and because I just went to another city to get diagnosed and prescribed meds. Then I will have to spend it and go into the negative soon, on top of the credit I'm paying off. My pay also just does not accumulate, it is too low to accumulate by a significant amount. I might pay off the debt in 5.5 years.

I think I got 80 years for how long I'd take me to retire with how much I was saving before.

Have been all my life.

My wife and I make about 140k combined and live someplace that is relatively low cost. We aren't struggling the way many people are but we are a more careful with spending than we have been in the past.

Everytime i manage to save a few thousand and think im adding to my savings, suddenly we need a root canal, i blow a tire, doctor wants an MRI because he felt something odd.... and poof, all my savings are gone.

No, but I have been fairly fortunate with familial circumstances.

I'm not struggling, but I'm not that far off considering the salary I'm paid. I should be doing very well, but instead, I'm merely managing. I'm grateful for that, but also I know if I'm scraping by, how the fuck is everyone else doing...?

I guess with some exceptions. In the last couple of years, my wife and I finally started to live very comfortable lives for the first time in about 15 years of struggles. We were even able to afford to move to Japan, where with our income life is even better and safer.

Everyone except the already very wealthy yes.

Elect Republicans, get republican policies.

The country still hadnt really recovered from Reagan, then we got Bush, then we got Trump.

Obama and Biden could only do so much to stop the dumpster fire, and Nazis are famously bad for the economy.

Doing ok. Less income, but investments and savings are holding...

Yep. I moved to rural Japan because my company was fine with remote anywhere in Japan. Started my small farm and my life here. They assured me it wouldn't be a barrier for advancement as well.

Now, the same company is trying to get everyone fulltime back in the office, over 4 hours each way from my house. They won't pay the cost of even one day. I will likely lose my job. I don't think I live through this.

Meh. Close but annoyed more than anything but I fully admit I am an outlier making > $200k CAD a year.

I feel for everyone who is struggling and I'm sure to always tell my kids they have more in common with the homeless man in the park than they do with Elon Musk.

Is it great? No, but I'm above water and not having to cut back. Couldn't afford kids though

I think people answering need to state where they are. I know some people are doing badly around here, southern BC, but most are doing the same as they were. Everyone is nervous about how Trump is going to fuck things up next. Rich are still rich. Impoverished are still impoverished and the in-between still run a spectrum of how they are doing. Not everyone is honest. One family member alternately crows about how well his stocks are doing, while saying everything is going to hell, while vacationing (expensively) for 6 months of the year. An Albertan relative is complaining of being in the poor house although he just drove his family all around Western Canada in a 350 pulling a big trailer - that was $1000s in fuel alone. Meanwhile a recently divorced friend thinks she's living the life on $70K income because she no longer has to support deadbeat alcoholic husband. My kids are Millenials and they and their friends are getting married, having kids, buying townhouses or sometimes even houses. How people are doing is very subjective. How they feel they are doing is often a measure of how anxious they are about their future. However the median of the population isn't getting better. Incomes are only rising for a small percentage. Remember that in the good old days big businesses and their owners - not mom and pop operations - paid taxes that contributed to society's needs. Since Reagan this has disappeared, not just in the US but also Canada in order to compete. The average person's income has paid the price. All to create the billionaire class who see all workers as an expense to get rid of. I'm all right financially, not rich but not poor, but I worry alot about how others are going to make it through.

Yes. I stopped thinking I can pay it all off. Hopefully when I die, my debt dies with me.

Yes but I have a safety net for now.

Edit: I just found out that there's going to be a data center built less than a mile away from where I live. Life is about to turn to hell.

I am.

To answer your question, though: no. Some people are doing GREAT. It may not be a majority of people, but anyone who was rich in 2015 is now super rich. The super rich are now obscenely rich. Even a majority of the moderately well-off - e.g. people who own their houses outright or people with >3 times their annual income in investments - are doing pretty damn well. That is part of the reason that Trump, no matter how vile or incompetent, never dips below 30% approval. People will overlook all kinds of evil when their bottom line is improving.

I am. Laid off along with 90% of my colleagues from my previous job & replaced with AI. A few months have gone by hunting for a new job.

My 401k is up, especially compared to the Trump crash in March but in general as well. Not enough to retire though. I still have a job but it’s looking precarious: lots of layoffs

Just got back from moving the second kid into his dorm room. College expenses for two kids are mighty frightening

No, I gotta say we are doing pretty well, but our household combined higher education time is about 20 years, and it's not art history (sorry art history).

I do feel bad though that people are having a hard time and, while I don't have a second house or a boat, I'm trying to give back wherever and whenever I can.

I'm okay since I don't need much, but my "fucksgiving" is gone. I used to be very altruistic. Now, I've been enjoying watching businesses fall apart because I don't care to justify my cost to repair things. Schadenfreude. I'd rather cut my spending. This is just reverberation towards people that took advantage of me.

The fediverse undoubedtly skews to the educated middle class; most of us are squeezed but not dry.

Not really. I'm my industry I'm making just as much as I have the last several years. Some parts of my business have slowed down, others have increased.

Suicide is on the menu.

I’m unemployed for a entire year , it sucks and I’m sick of being unemployed