Tugboat Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 On 1/4/2024 at 6:33 PM, ReggieCamp said: No, it's not you. Most Tesla's are fast, and most people who drive fast cars make the short trip to idiot driver. Cybertrucks are gonna breed a whole new breed of idiot driver. A truck that hauls a giant payload, bullet-proof glass and goes 0-60 in 2.9 seconds. It's not even just "fast cars", it's a special certain type of Tesla idiot. On the highway home from Christmas, i had a dip**** Tesla go whipping past me, immediately cut in front of me for literally no reason with no other cars in sight. Kicking up a whole mess of the already super poor visibility from the blowing snow. On top of what was pretty intense polished black ice and heavy crosswinds that were occasionally yawing my AWD car with great winter tires out in a fairly unnerving little way. But Tesla drivers seems to develop this invincibility complex. A superiority complex where nobody else matters and especially not pedestrians. And the actual vehicle completely isolates them from road feel that might tell them..."hey yo, ****s real slippy and dangerous here slow down *******". Later saw what i'm assuming was the same Tesla in the ditch down the road with the lights still on. Definitely did not stop. Close enough to an actual city they can sit and think about what they did, and hope their battery doesn't die for heat. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tugboat Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 On 1/4/2024 at 10:11 AM, AkronsWitness said: Its tough man, after crunching the numbers my wife literally quit her job to be a stay at home mom because as a teacher, we found she was essentially going to work to pay the daycare bill. So why not just be a stay at home parent at that point. This is also a very big problem with teachers in general is that once they have kids, they quit because their salaries dont make it worth staying. A lot of other teachers at her school have done the same thing, then once all the kids are in Kindergarten--they have to refind jobs again. So basically we have a single income household for a bare minimum 4 years pending future kids, that could turn into 6-8 years. More power to you for having that sweet gig though lol I wish we could find something like that. Update: As for your question about multiple kids, that also factored in to her just leaving her job. No chance would could afford 2 kids in daycare. You get a little bit of a price break for multiples, I think something like 1.5x or 1.75x--so if daycare costs 1,550 for one kid, we would still be paying around $2,500-2,750 per month for two. Hell no. no no no. This is why you've gotta do kids in bulk. Just fire 'em out in rapid succession. But no, really, i think a lot of this issue is that people can't afford to live comfortably on a single salary anymore. So you get both partners working and they just keep working to pay the rent and stuff...and then you find out how expensive daycare is. So unless you've got a real good work from home solution, what do you do? It's insane. At some point, the math especially if you do have more than one kid probably just says, have one "stay-at-home" parent. Especially if it's a teacher who is extensively trained in this, and commensurately supremely underpaid anyway. Their time is probably worth more with your own kids until they're school aged. I was a beneficiary of that back when it wasn't even entirely a thing. Still ended up in preschool because it was cheap because my mom worked there. But my mom's a teacher and she ditched that for a bunch of years to stay home with my sister and i because we were close in age. Screwed her over on her pension stuff though in the end. But probably still worthwhile in the end, especially since it was the only way to make things work at the time. Had a weird conversation with my dad vaguely about that over the holidays. About how 80s salaries relate to today and the prices of housing back when i was born and he was still in college and somehow made it all work. Did some math and he just sorta quietly accepted defeat and moved on, because the numbers just don't number right. I told him what the average rent in the already rundown tenement he lived in at the time is today...and he just sorta went blank for a second. There was a lot more to it, but i think that was a big part in driving home the reality of it all. Having kids today is financially ruinous. Exaggeration. But unless you've got two really robust professional incomes, it seems like a struggle. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D82 Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 Best to just not have kids. 😂 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minutemancl Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 On 1/8/2024 at 4:19 AM, Tugboat said: Exaggeration. But unless you've got two really robust professional incomes, it seems like a struggle. It's still a struggle, even with this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AkronsWitness Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 2 hours ago, minutemancl said: It's still a struggle, even with this. lol Ive came to the conclusion that each parent needs to be making 75k/yr per child had to have any sort of normal breathing room. If you want more than 2, its 25k per year per parent after that. The official salary per child index chart: 1 Child 1 parent works. 1 stays at home. 75k income 2 Childs 2 parent work 150k income 3 Childrens 2 parent work, extra brownnosing to your boss when applicable 200k income 4+ Childrens Find jesus and start buying lotto tickets Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sugashane Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 On 1/8/2024 at 3:19 AM, Tugboat said: This is why you've gotta do kids in bulk. Just fire 'em out in rapid succession. But no, really, i think a lot of this issue is that people can't afford to live comfortably on a single salary anymore. So you get both partners working and they just keep working to pay the rent and stuff...and then you find out how expensive daycare is. So unless you've got a real good work from home solution, what do you do? It's insane. At some point, the math especially if you do have more than one kid probably just says, have one "stay-at-home" parent. Especially if it's a teacher who is extensively trained in this, and commensurately supremely underpaid anyway. Their time is probably worth more with your own kids until they're school aged. I was a beneficiary of that back when it wasn't even entirely a thing. Still ended up in preschool because it was cheap because my mom worked there. But my mom's a teacher and she ditched that for a bunch of years to stay home with my sister and i because we were close in age. Screwed her over on her pension stuff though in the end. But probably still worthwhile in the end, especially since it was the only way to make things work at the time. Had a weird conversation with my dad vaguely about that over the holidays. About how 80s salaries relate to today and the prices of housing back when i was born and he was still in college and somehow made it all work. Did some math and he just sorta quietly accepted defeat and moved on, because the numbers just don't number right. I told him what the average rent in the already rundown tenement he lived in at the time is today...and he just sorta went blank for a second. There was a lot more to it, but i think that was a big part in driving home the reality of it all. Having kids today is financially ruinous. Exaggeration. But unless you've got two really robust professional incomes, it seems like a struggle. It was like 10 years ago, my dad was alive and we were talking about me being ticked that I got turned down for a loan, I needed a co-signer for a work truck that was only $12K. Now I was young and limited credit but already had my own business started and after paying my guys I was coming away with $60K+ (and winters were basically off so that's 9 months). He basically asked what I did wrong, because he was always able to just walk into the bank and tell his buddy he needed a loan for up to $10K and it was done in the hour. I laughed and said that isn't how it works now. Dad - "Why the hell not?" Me - "Because back in the 70 and 80s banks loaned out house loans to guys who just got out of barber college and who had a wife still in nursing school without an income yet. Then buddy systems got a ton of loans out that didn't get paid back all through the 90s." Dad - "Bull****, I always paid my loans back." Me - "How many of your buddies have declared bankruptcy? How many do it every 8-9 years?" ***Dad's eyes get a bit wider as truth hits him *** Dad - "Oh." I remember him telling my brother and me one time, "If a man makes $100 a day he can be comfortable," when I was little. When I got an apartment in Louisville I called him up, "If I make $100 per day I can afford my rent, almost." lol 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tugboat Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 5 hours ago, Sugashane said: It was like 10 years ago, my dad was alive and we were talking about me being ticked that I got turned down for a loan, I needed a co-signer for a work truck that was only $12K. Now I was young and limited credit but already had my own business started and after paying my guys I was coming away with $60K+ (and winters were basically off so that's 9 months). He basically asked what I did wrong, because he was always able to just walk into the bank and tell his buddy he needed a loan for up to $10K and it was done in the hour. I laughed and said that isn't how it works now. Dad - "Why the hell not?" Me - "Because back in the 70 and 80s banks loaned out house loans to guys who just got out of barber college and who had a wife still in nursing school without an income yet. Then buddy systems got a ton of loans out that didn't get paid back all through the 90s." Dad - "Bull****, I always paid my loans back." Me - "How many of your buddies have declared bankruptcy? How many do it every 8-9 years?" ***Dad's eyes get a bit wider as truth hits him *** Dad - "Oh." I remember him telling my brother and me one time, "If a man makes $100 a day he can be comfortable," when I was little. When I got an apartment in Louisville I called him up, "If I make $100 per day I can afford my rent, almost." lol lmao. $100 a day. 😆 Heck, there are places where $100 an hour is still tricky. idk. There's just something with those older generations where they've got themselves so financially settled that they don't even really seem to grasp the realities of today's world. I don't think it's a really malicious thing, it's just ignorance of how quickly things have changed. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naptownskinsfan Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 13 hours ago, Tugboat said: lmao. $100 a day. 😆 Heck, there are places where $100 an hour is still tricky. idk. There's just something with those older generations where they've got themselves so financially settled that they don't even really seem to grasp the realities of today's world. I don't think it's a really malicious thing, it's just ignorance of how quickly things have changed. It is extremely easy for someone in today’s world to not have a clue about how much they are screwing themselves. My fiancée’s sister lives on TikTok, is 31 years old and is constantly buying things she sees put on there and DoorDash’s 80% of her food. She rents and probably has no retirement to speak of and lives paycheck to paycheck when she doesn’t have to. Those numbers aren’t hyperbole or me hating or anything. It scares me that I might have to find a way to take care of her later in life because she is going to be my sister in law. You didn’t have that in the older generations. They worked hard, and squirreled money away wherever and however they could. At least from my family and close family friends. It was the Great Depression thing- part of the reason they are borderline hoarders is because “everything has a use.” It is way too easy for a 20 something to get into debt that will take them years to erase. I see it all of the time with people who I employ. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramssuperbowl99 Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 9 minutes ago, naptownskinsfan said: It is extremely easy for someone in today’s world to not have a clue about how much they are screwing themselves. My fiancée’s sister lives on TikTok, is 31 years old and is constantly buying things she sees put on there and DoorDash’s 80% of her food. She rents and probably has no retirement to speak of and lives paycheck to paycheck when she doesn’t have to. Those numbers aren’t hyperbole or me hating or anything. It scares me that I might have to find a way to take care of her later in life because she is going to be my sister in law. You didn’t have that in the older generations. They worked hard, and squirreled money away wherever and however they could. At least from my family and close family friends. It was the Great Depression thing- part of the reason they are borderline hoarders is because “everything has a use.” It is way too easy for a 20 something to get into debt that will take them years to erase. I see it all of the time with people who I employ. This is only part of it. The single biggest thing that has changed the conversation around childcare is urbanization. When you work on a farm, the operation is that you directly create food and livestock/clothing, and are limited by your capacity to do work. In that environment, children are quite literally free labor. People didn't have 8 kids on farms because they wanted massive families, it was good business. The kids would produce more in food and clothes than they consumed, so everyone won. When you work in a city, now the operation is fundamentally different. You go out, earn money, and use that money to buy food/clothes. In this environment, children are purely financial drains so you only have as many as you can afford/tolerate. My great-grandparents wouldn't understand what it means to "afford a kid" because they were free to them and had been free for their entire lives, so the phrase "afford a kid" is meaningless. Similarly, they've never understand a modern 50/50 relationship, to my great-grandma, a woman staying home to have kids isn't "being a housewife", she's an equal economic contributor to the household not because of the emotional value of raising kids, because she put the little bastards to work. Nobody on the older side is going to understand this, because these problems haven't ever existed in human society before now. And it's not as simple as "I can't afford kids". South Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world at 0.7. Their politicians have been doing everything they can to get people to have kids - mortgage benefits, tax benefits, etc. Not only are people still not having kids, higher income is negatively correlated with fertility rate. Nobody's grandpa is gonna have the answer to this now. They'll give a Nobel Prize to the person who figures it out, it's probably the biggest problem we'll face as a species once climate change is under control. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naptownskinsfan Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 4 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said: This is only part of it. The single biggest thing that has changed the conversation around childcare is urbanization. When you work on a farm, the operation is that you directly create food and livestock/clothing, and are limited by your capacity to do work. In that environment, children are quite literally free labor. People didn't have 8 kids on farms because they wanted massive families, it was good business. The kids would produce more in food and clothes than they consumed, so everyone won. When you work in a city, now the operation is fundamentally different. You go out, earn money, and use that money to buy food/clothes. In this environment, children are purely financial drains so you only have as many as you can afford/tolerate. My great-grandparents wouldn't understand what it means to "afford a kid" because they were free to them and had been free for their entire lives, so the phrase "afford a kid" is meaningless. Similarly, they've never understand a modern 50/50 relationship, to my great-grandma, a woman staying home to have kids isn't "being a housewife", she's an equal economic contributor to the household not because of the emotional value of raising kids, because she put the little bastards to work. Nobody on the older side is going to understand this, because these problems haven't ever existed in human society before now. And it's not as simple as "I can't afford kids". South Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world at 0.7. Their politicians have been doing everything they can to get people to have kids - mortgage benefits, tax benefits, etc. Not only are people still not having kids, higher income is negatively correlated with fertility rate. Nobody's grandpa is gonna have the answer to this now. They'll give a Nobel Prize to the person who figures it out, it's probably the biggest problem we'll face as a species once climate change is under control. I guess I am ignorant with my worldview, because the grandparents who I primarily grew up with, and I consider them my surrogate parents really instead of my dad, were doing the 50/50 relationship in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Both worked as administrators in public schools, and had generous pensions and healthcare covered because of it. They had one kid, and both literally worked in the same area when he grew up. Hell, my grandmother had a 10 minute walk to work everyday the latter part of her career. Now, I know that that wasn’t always the case. My mom’s parents were in the exact same thing you described where she was a housewife, and my grandfather worked his corporate job with Big Tobacco in DC and my mom and uncle went to school. I also never realized how labor laws have not changed that were really for the farms, as you mentioned. My boss’s kids can work in the business (which isn’t a farm, far from it) and were doing it since they were 10 years old, though this didnt happen maliciously or for any sort of “free” labor reasons. I think that even extends to his grandkids because the law is written “family.” So that is good to know. We’ve done our own research on kids and how much we will have to fix some of our spending and sacrifice some, but it isn’t as much as I’ve seen from some people. I want our debt cleared up, which takes some sacrifice now, which will help us in a couple years when we do have kids. But I also bought the home almost seven years ago, nearly new construction, and have an easy mortgage with 33% put down. I did sacrifice a ton early and lived at home so I could do that. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramssuperbowl99 Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 (edited) 7 minutes ago, naptownskinsfan said: I guess I am ignorant with my worldview, because the grandparents who I primarily grew up with, and I consider them my surrogate parents really instead of my dad, were doing the 50/50 relationship in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Both worked as administrators in public schools, and had generous pensions and healthcare covered because of it. They had one kid, and both literally worked in the same area when he grew up. Hell, my grandmother had a 10 minute walk to work everyday the latter part of her career. Now, I know that that wasn’t always the case. My mom’s parents were in the exact same thing you described where she was a housewife, and my grandfather worked his corporate job with Big Tobacco in DC and my mom and uncle went to school. I also never realized how labor laws have not changed that were really for the farms, as you mentioned. My boss’s kids can work in the business (which isn’t a farm, far from it) and were doing it since they were 10 years old, though this didnt happen maliciously or for any sort of “free” labor reasons. I think that even extends to his grandkids because the law is written “family.” So that is good to know. We’ve done our own research on kids and how much we will have to fix some of our spending and sacrifice some, but it isn’t as much as I’ve seen from some people. I want our debt cleared up, which takes some sacrifice now, which will help us in a couple years when we do have kids. But I also bought the home almost seven years ago, nearly new construction, and have an easy mortgage with 33% put down. I did sacrifice a ton early and lived at home so I could do that. The bolded is exactly why I think this topic needs a broader-scale conversation. We've got people who want kids and struggle with it and they blame themselves or another generation so they don't have to feel that inadequacy. But it's not them (or the other generation, as much as I'd love to throw this one on the boomers). This is a problem that has been 5,000 years of human civilization in the making, and anyone who is able to afford/raise a child today should be very proud of themselves. If someone can't, it's not a failure on their part, it's a side effect of this goofy transition period we're all in. Edited January 10 by ramssuperbowl99 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minutemancl Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 As some of our very good friends are now starting to get pregnant themselves, my wife is talking about now leaning towards having a 2nd kid, and as the CFO of the family, I had to tell her it wasn't financially feasible right now. At least we are in agreement that 2 is the absolute max we would ever have, but this (very tame) fight over potentially having a 2nd one isn't going to resolve anytime soon. She keeps bringing up that "people in worse situations than us have had more than one kid", and I have to remind her that most of those people she's talking about are now 50 and they had their kids 25 years ago. The world is very different now than it was 25 years ago. And those people weren't/aren't doing well financially! It's amazing how the human body can forget the amount of the trauma it went through from having a kid in just over a year. And I'm not even talking about just the actual birth, but the weeks and months following and preceding that involve sleep deprivation and drastic physical body changes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TVScout Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 17 hours ago, Tugboat said: There's just something with those older generations where they've got themselves so financially settled that they don't even really seem to grasp the realities of today's world. I don't think it's a really malicious thing, it's just ignorance of how quickly things have changed. Those olders bought their houses decades ago. Show them this chart and ask them if they could do that now: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D82 Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 2 hours ago, TVScout said: Those olders bought their houses decades ago. Show them this chart and ask them if they could do that now: Had the door opened for them and they shut it for the rest of us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AkronsWitness Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 4 hours ago, TVScout said: Those olders bought their houses decades ago. Show them this chart and ask them if they could do that now: I want to know how much of this is because AirBnB ruined the housing market. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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