partial_accumen

My point is that just because you are living paycheck to paycheck doesn’t mean you can’t still save.

For many, it does.

It’s a decision that you have to make but it is doable because no matter how bad you’re situation is

I think that is an extremely myopic view if you’re making that as a blanket statement. There are absolutely people that spend every last penny of their paycheck each week on absolute necessities and still go without other necessities. There are families that have some or all of the members skip meals because they don’t have enough money for food. There are people that can’t afford something as simple as basic underwear that isn’t worn out because they live with so few means. Some people have to skip taking life saving medicines because they simply can’t afford that. Suggesting folks in any of those type of situations aren’t deciding to cut back is a choice they are making is heartless.

Even people that aren’t in as extreme situations as those, they may be buried under mountains of debt. Sure, saving a small emergency fund is good, but if they are paying down debt with all of their with the remaining amount of their paycheck, then the idea of saving for a house, car, child’s education, or even retirement are likely out of reach for them.

there are other people getting by on 5%-10% less than you. By insisting that someone living paycheck to paycheck can’t also have savings is what’s doing a disservice to them.

I truly hope you never have to live in real poverty. I also hope that you have the good sense to never say what you said here to someone in poverty. I’m not saying you would. I’m not suggesting you did. I’m not strawmanning you here.

Are there people that aren’t in poverty simply living above their means and could cut 5%, 10%, or even more without negatively affecting their lives or health? Absolutely! I’m not going to sit here and claim that everyone exhausting every penny in their paycheck before getting their next one is spending it only on necessities. For those that are simply living above your means, you are giving good advice to them! I agree with you on that.

That joke took me way too long to get.

Of course having the savings made a difference when something major happened, that was the whole point.

And that is the monumental difference between what you are describing I would just call “sticking to a budget” vs living paycheck to paycheck. Those living paycheck to paycheck don’t have that option to pull from savings because they have no savings. You did. What you were doing, by any definition I’ve run across up until yours, wasn’t living paycheck to paycheck.

If you want to keep saying you’re living paycheck to paycheck, certainly you can. Its a free country, but you’re going to confuse people you talk to or misrepresent to them your situation. It may also be doing a disservice to those that are living paycheck to paycheck.

And yes, when I had unexpected bills, and later when I lost my job, I did dip into my savings because that’s why I had it, but that 10% want going to be the difference between me living paycheck to paycheck, or not.

I’m not sure I understand your logic. If you dipped into your savings, then you clearly thought it was needed in those extreme times and it made a material difference. If it wouldn’t have made a difference, then why did you even dip into your savings?

I love it!!

I’m with you. The meme needs an update though with “the rest of the Epstein files”.

I mean, isn’t this exact email in the article part of the Epstein files?

Would you consider someone adding to their 401k each check to not be living paycheck to paycheck?

No.

So yes, I had access to money, but I was still living paycheck to paycheck because I had strict rules on when I could access that money - and I tried to pay back to my savings anything I took out, when possible.

Here is the key difference. You are not spending your additional funds because of choices you’ve made to save. Folks living paycheck to paycheck don’t have additional funds to save. All of the paycheck is spent inside of that pay period. At any time you could have chosen to spend your saved money, but you chose not to. What you’re doing what most would call “budgeting” and your choice to not spend your savings are “sticking to your budget”. If you had a dire emergency such as being injured or ill for long enough to miss a paycheck would you have tapped your savings to stay afloat and pay your expenses even though it would have broken your budget? I think most would say “yes”. I know I would. This is the difference. Those living paycheck to paycheck aren’t able to put aside money to create an ever growing savings, as you did.

I very much commend you on your savings and budgeting! You’re on great financial footing with your circumstances and your choices. Nicely done!

Its not a binary yes/no condition, but instead different levels depending on how not-paycheck-to-paycheck you can get. It gives you the wonderful opportunity of thinking about tomorrow instead of today, next week instead of this week, next month instead of this month, and next year instead of this year.

Especially with today’s cost of living and the challenge of holding good employment this is simply out-of-reach of so many people. However, if its possible for someone to cut back enough to get to the state of having unspent money left over when the next paycheck arrives, its really good path to get on.

It sounds very counter intuitive, but life actually gets less expensive when you’re not constantly broke. It can be simple things like buying a 24 pack of toilet paper at a small fraction of the cost per roll compared to a 4 pack of toilet paper. It can also be as large as being able to afford to buy good tires for your car when your current ones are worn out. The worn out ones you’ve tried to “make due with” may leave you stranded on the side of the road with a flat paying for roadside service or a tow missing work or even worse, having good tires could mean being able to quickly stop the car in an emergency avoiding a collision costing thousands in auto repairs, medical bills, and possible legal costs.

So my definition of living paycheck to paycheck is likely different from yours, if you don’t allow for saving.

If you never exhausted your supply of money (as you say you not only had savings, and were even adding to it with unspent money from each paycheck), I’m confused what exactly is “paycheck to paycheck” about your situation then? Is it simply that you receive a paycheck and then at the next pay interval you receive another paycheck? What is your definition?

In either the article’s definition or mine I don’t think the folks that meet the definitions have savings. Both definitions have and exhaustion of money component before the next paycheck. If they have funds in savings, they haven’t exhausted their funds, so they aren’t really living “paycheck to paycheck”.

The study, released Tuesday, found that nearly 24% of all households are classified as living paycheck to paycheck this year,

I am surprised and would have expected that number to be higher.

meaning their immediate earnings go toward basic necessities.

Oh, that isn’t the definition I think most people use for the term “paycheck-to-paycheck”. The definition I’m used to is more like: “When all of the income from a paycheck is exhausted inside of the interval for receiving the next paycheck”. That spending could certainly be on basic necessities as the article suggests, but it could also be on things like student loan payments, unexpected medical bills, unnecessary retail consumer goods, sweets/nicotine/alcohol, or automotive expenditures. Perhaps more succinctly, all the money from a paycheck is spent with no savings, and the cycle repeats upon receiving the next paycheck.

Any game recommendations for a person working on Mandarin?

Bannon is a piece of shit ghoul but of MAGAs most influential assholes he’s ones of the few that has enough guile to understand what will happen if they somehow lose the gambit they’ve embarked upon.

I wonder if Bannon and trump internally refer to this future state as being Bolsonaro’d.

Donald Trump is pressing the NFL’s Washington Commanders to name their planned $3.7bn stadium after him,

Toilet Bowl?

The Teapot dome?

It’s weird that this Queen of Lying and Denying Reality is somehow becoming a voice of truth…She must be worried about midterms. ROFL

I’m guessing as a career opportunist, she has built her strategy about being “an outsider looking to improve things” as a populist or someone that is critical without actually providing any solutions. When the GOP are not in power, this strategy works. However, now that the GOP control all 3 branches of government, the only way to use the “outsider” strategy is to attack the GOP itself. I don’t think for a second that, were she to gain a leadership position, she would provide rational and realistic solutions.

So we can enjoy watching them fight themselves, but I don’t think it will lead to any meaningful change or improvement in the life of Americans.

Yep, thanks for the fact check. Peter Theil is certainly a trump advisor helping shape policy but he doesn’t hold an government office. I’ve corrected my post.

As a taxpayer, let me just say: I’m very happy you are able to get that funding for food! It is possibly the best use of our tax money to make those of us going through hard times able to get basic nutrition. Feel zero shame for using SNAP. Today its you that has the need. Tomorrow it could be me. We’re in this together. I hope your future gets better and you won’t need SNAP, but until then, please know that every penny you get for SNAP I’m happy that I had even a tiny part in helping you. Be safe, friend.

Edit: Redacted a mistaken identity

I’m not sure you understand what this article is or how our markets work.

The simple fact that somebody was able even to bet a billion is insanity that should never be possible to begin with. Nobody should have a billion dollars, let alone have so much that you can just safely bet a billion dollars

He doesn’t have a billion dollars. He’s a hedge fund manager that manages (at least) a billion dollars collectively of other people’s investment money. Its that money he’s betting.

Them he’s betting.yhst the economy will crash, basically, and we’re okay with that shit.

No, he’s not. He’s betting against only two companies: Nvidia and Palantir. He has a relatively small bet against Nvidia ($187.6 million), and HUGE bet against Palantir ($912 million). I’m not sure I’d bet against Nvidia yet, but Palantir is co-founded by Peter Theil, trump’s deputy chief of staff which job has a large influence on White House policy. If you ever watched the TV show The West Wing, this would be the Josh Lyman character’s job.

We already know trump’s favor swings widely and if politics are going against trump (as recent news show) then its not unbelievable that Theil might get the boot or at least trump would punish Theil by killing lucrative government contracts to buy Palantir services.

All of this should be illegal as fuck, and this guy belongs in a jail cell

The point of shorting a stock exists so that the market can express a view that they believe a stock will fail. This is an important “canary in the coal mine” for the rest of the market. The other option is a policy that you can’t criticize a company with any meaning and investors continue to put money into failing/risky companies without this important indication of the risk.

Frankly I don’t like your idea of jailing someone that says “The emperor has no clothes”.

The fact that he was even able to make that bet is incredible. How deluded do you have to be to think the AI bubble won’t burst?

Nobody believes the AI investment/growth trajectory we have right now will continue for infinity. What nobody knows is: when the correction will occur.

• Do you pull your investments out now and sit on the sidelines waiting for the fallout while your principal loses value daily from inflation?
• What does the correction look like when it happens? Does all the value evaporate on day 1, the first week, a month? This is important to figure out for this strategy to know when to go back in.

This is the info/decisions you’d need as an average investor. What Burry is doing is the riskiest type of investments with shorting the market. If growth continue to occur he and his fund will have to pay for the growth to those whose shares he borrowed to short.

In summary, its not enough to know that a bubble exists, but to profit from it you have to figure out when it will burst and when the full burst is done.