Saving money on food to buy a guillotine is personal finance.
Exactly. $400 for mine. $100 would fill a shopping cart with groceries back then. Health insurance: $80-125/mo. Internet: $15/mo. Garage sales almost everything was less than $10, most of it was less than $5. Goodwill was a deal. DIY/homemade was a deal, a way to save money.
It was a different time. There’s no equivalent to that time today, today is pretty awful.
And now it’s all going to be so much worse thanks to MAGA, oligarchs, and Heritage.
Yes, what is up with thrift stores charging almost the same as “first-hand” stores? Yet another example of how this generation is screwed (along with all of us old people).
Ive noticed this at chains, but not at my local stores. Goodwill for example, I always see dollar tree items marked as $2+. I know Theyre from dollar tree because theyre still in the damn package.
Or they somehow want to price things off eBay prices. Bro, you are a thrift store. You aren’t some place that should be trying to get the absolute most out of an item.
Price it vaguely on what people might pay for some used, unwashed, beat to hell thing. If someone thinks they can get more by selling it online, that’s fine. That’s on them. You don’t have to compete with them. Turnover of items is more important than the most money on that old glass cup.
You used to be able to get grandpa’s old used golf clubs for $5/7 at goodwill and I put together a whole set for cheap. Moved and had to leave it behind now they put all the clubs straight online, you can’t even get them at the stores anymore. And the price is barely better than a newvset from Walmart. I wanna golf again :(
I know it’s a little off topic but eBay is a fucking scam as well… So many used items go for prices very close to brand new. I live in California, which charges VAT for ebay transactions. Add in shipping and I would be paying more than brand new for the vast majority of the inventory.
There are no good deals on ebay unless you spend a lot of time in bidding wars. You still risk getting a damaged item too…
I blame macklemore.
Now playing MACKLEMORE & RYAN LEWIS - Thrift Shop
Boutique thrift shops all try to act like they’re some amazing place to find funky retro fashion just waiting to be discovered on a Tiktok. It’s all overpriced. We’ve been to Goodwill and Habitat locally for stuff. Prices go from great to dirt cheap. They just want to move stuff, not hold on to someone’s idea of vintage cool.
Agreed.
The only way for a wage earner to bootstrap their way up is to have money when historic opportunities to invest present themselves, like March 2020 and April 2025. If you have a few thousand to invest now, chances are that will turn into a massive profit over time. And even better, hold those securities for longer than a year and you get a preferred, lower tax rate on any profits.
But most people can’t do that. They’re stuck taking out an (air quotes) “interest-free” loan from Klarna to make sure they don’t starve this week. Our politicians are, thankfully, focused on the most important priorities, like drag queen story time. (And that’s sarcasm, btw.)
Please don’t invest right now. You are right that you can make a lot of money if you know what you’re doing, but it’s still a casino. With the people running the US right now, if they ever fully implement the tariffs, the market is going to eat shit. Then you can buy if there’s some glimmer of hope like Republicans losing Congress in 2026. I’m not trying to do US defaultism here, I believe this advice holds worldwide.
I pulled all my money out when Trump got elected, and that was a good choice. If I’d gone all in on options I’d be straight up hood rich, but I can’t gamble everything we have.
I switched my retirement accounts to cash apprx feb 28, before the tariffs announcement and the market starting crashing. I just moved back into stocks this week. I’m convinced we’ve seen the worst of the tariffs… too many people are in trumps ear telling him he’s a retard. It’s only up from here.
If the US collapses, the dollars you saved from pulling your investments is worthless…
I was finally in a position to buy my first home just after the 2008 recession. Just a fluke of timing, and just enough to afford a hundred year old bungalow, but that luck gave me leverage. Sold the house 5 years later when I had a kid, paid off my college debt, and moved to a lower COL area. Never could have happened if I’d bought earlier or later.
Pooooor Heritage Foo dation
Actually think their kids will be down to be obscenely rich in the future world where coral reef diving and backcountry skiing are only possible in VR
(I have to assume wealth and intelligence have a decent correlation sometimes, but Heritage proves the relationship is certainly not 1:1)
(I have to assume wealth and intelligence have a decent correlation sometimes, but Heritage proves the relationship is certainly not 1:1)
They decidedly do not have a correlation. The majority of wealthy people inherited their wealth. Inheriting enough wealth to pay a competent finance professional has been the primary means of accruing wealth since at least the 80s. Those getting wealthy from startups and the like are outliers.
But this flies in the face of the great American delusion that everyone can white knuckle their way through large crises arising from systemic failures or engineered on purpose by oligarchs.
My first apartment (without roommates) was $600/month I think. I just check the present day at it rents for $1400! The mortgage cost on my first house (small/low cost of living area) was only $1000/month.
I just don’t know how young people are affording housing these days.
My parents, 35000 dollars for a two bedroom, 1 bath house 3 acres of land in the middle of BFE back in the 80’s
Today, 3 bed, 1 bath house with less than .25 acres, 200k same BFE area.
With inflation something comparable to my parents house in BFE, because it’s not changed all that much, should only be 100k.
And the recent minimum wage increase to 13.75 an hour passed by the people is in process of being revoked by Republicans.
And I do get tired of visiting home and taking to people that spout off the ‘back in my day’ bs.
Acronym for being in the middle of nowhere.
“Bum Fuck Egypt” or some odd variant of that.
Seriously. I’m sick of this let’s-beg-for-an-itty-bitty-change nonsense. If rent near me is $2000/month, and that’s supposed to be 1/3 of my pay, then I should be making $6000 per month ($72k per year!)
Assuming I worked a full 40 hours every week, with 4 full weeks in a month, that means I’d need to make $1,500 per week, which breaks down to $37.50 per hour (before taxes, as well as before payments for employee benefits, garnishments, etc.)
I don’t live anywhere fancy. This place is an average apartment with too little parking and too many centipedes. Thankfully, I am not paying the entire rent by myself at this time, because I don’t make anywhere near $37.50/hour.
If $13.75 was the wage of somebody who worked a full 40 hours/week, for 4 weeks, they’d only make $2,200. Total. That’s it. For the entire month.
If your fight for a new minimum wage is starting with a number less than 30, you’ve already lost.
I see a lot of folks here saying “based on inflation since X, item Y SHOULD only cost Z.” I want to point out those inflation numbers the government gives out every year are complete bullshit. Inflation has been WAY more than 30% over the last decade and a half or so (not you but someone above mentioned 30% as the inflation number since the aughts)
They change their basket of goods to artificially deflate inflation numbers, it is way way way higher than the 2% a year that they claim is the average. Add greed on top and you get the crazy insane prices we see today. For a 2% inflation to really work for everyone and not just the rich assholes then minimum wage needs to increase proportionately. Should force minimum wage up the stated inflation rate once a year. So every year min wage increases by 2% (or more depending on the actual inflation rate).
