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I grew up in a home where my grandparents and even my father would have stories about the Great Depression... Dad had kids later in life.
We would make do or fix things... Dad would say anyone could buy new and the moment they did whatever they bought was now used...
Times have changed... kids drive new or fairly new cars... we just drove what "We" could afford... not a single one of my friends had Mom and Dad buy them a car... if we were old enough to buy a car at 16, we were old enough to pay insurance on that car...
One aspect was harder working on cars back in the day in that I had to spend money on repair books... now, any 12 year old can go on the net and watch a video for just about any repair...
Quality and durability were traits most consumer's looked for... buying a color set that might have cost a months wages was a huge investment... these items were not throw away items... if they broke, they got fixed.
Still remember when Dad surprises mom at Christmas with a new frost free refrigerator... she was thrilled and the neighbors came over to take a look... most people I work with would walk out if their husband bought them a new refrigerator as a Christmas present...
People had to spend real money to buy a TV, Refrigerator, Travel by Plane, etc... all of which is much cheaper today... a friend flew to Seattle on Southwest for $89... less than a few hours work...
Expectations.... some have high ones and others not so high...
I think having a 1972 car that I bought in 1982 and drove daily for the next 20 years with no engine, transmission or suspension issues is a testament to Plymouth Valiants... not me and I still have it.
In 2002, I bought my one and only new car and it's been great too... only two items aside from normal maintenance... a voltage regulator and a window regulator... both less than $40 each...
Here's a not so good picture in front of my first house... 30 years later I still have this car... and the trailer too... who needs the expense and overhead of a truck when I trailer can haul and carry more?
True in many cases, but not all. Since everyone wants to live in cool places like San Francisco and NYC, salaries for highly-educated professionals can actually be lower there relative to the cost of living than in podunk places like Texas or South Dakota. Which is one reason young people should be as flexible in their job search as possible. Do you REALLY want to pay the "hip city" tax if you don't need to?
The cost of living in place like SF or NYC isn't because of a "hip tax" - a lot of people want to live there, there are great paying jobs there, there is limited land to build on, and residents are willing to pay a ton of money to live there, so prices rise. Do you think people actually enjoy paying thousands per month for a place that might be $500-$700 in most of flyover country? Absolutely not, but the top jobs in fields like tech and finance are not in podunk South Dakota or Texas. People gravitate to where the jobs are.
Thanks. I didn't intend on sounding self righteous your situation sounded pretty awful. Having no parental role models makes life a lot worse, and with noone to tell you not to have children etc (understandably you tried to form your own family independent from your own) life can turn awry quickly. My parents were divorced but I had enough good role models to keep me more or less on the straight and narrow, graduate college (childfree) and high school, and get a job. I'm in my mid 20s, and independent and repaying loans at an accelerated rate.
Did you ever enter the medical field? I'm not a physician but I do work in the industry And I'd recommend your children look into it. Tons of different fields outside just nurse, doctor, pharmacist as well.
Even still school is 300% more than it was in the 90s. Med school tuition in 1990 was 40,000. Now its on average about 150k. I think we need to cut the student loan program to rein these monster schools in. The government is just wildly distorting the market. That is the millenials biggest crutch. Also unaffordable housing is somewhat of a problem, though I think that'll improve once the boomers start dying off and homes flood the market.
You cannot get welfare in college thats true. But otherwise your story seems to be mutually exclusive from the time period. Crappy family situations haunt millenials as well. I knew some people in college that had their utilities shut off mid semester, and another friend get evicted and become homeless. Both were children of broken homes.
The cost of living in place like SF or NYC isn't because of a "hip tax" - a lot of people want to live there, there are great paying jobs there, there is limited land to build on, and residents are willing to pay a ton of money to live there, so prices rise. Do you think people actually enjoy paying thousands per month for a place that might be $500-$700 in most of flyover country? Absolutely not, but the top jobs in fields like tech and finance are not in podunk South Dakota or Texas. People gravitate to where the jobs are.
Reread my post. For many highly educated professionals, the salaries in flyover country are HIGHER than they are in places like SF and NYC, even though the cost of living in flyover country is lower. And the reason for that is precisely because more people would prefer to live in SF or NYC than Fargo, ND. The higher salaries are necessary for recruitment. If you're one of the people who's willing to relocate to one of those unpopular areas, it can pay off very handsomely.
I'm earning over 30% more working in Omaha than I'd be earning if I was working in the same field on either coast - and with a lower cost of living, to boot. Any time my hospital needs to recruit someone new, we know it may take upwards of a year to hire someone, despite the excellent salaries offered, because most medical professionals won't even consider relocating here - the ones that do typically grew up in the area. I don't blame people who grew up in high cost-of-living areas for wanting to stay in their familiar haunts, but they absolutely shouldn't assume that the only place they will be paid well is NYC. It's often not the case.
Last edited by Aredhel; 01-28-2015 at 04:05 PM..
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