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-What level of treatlerism are you on? - Idk, eating bananas out of season. - Check this out
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62% of high-income earners of over $300,000 a year in the 🇺🇸 United States 'still struggle with credit card debt', according to a survey by BHG Financial. linky
there's people who are shit at money and have stupid high income, so they manage to cover their payments but some unholy fraction of their monthly ass goes to debt servicing. it's insane to see.
i think they're less common now than they were in earlier times, because generally the ones i've known are like on the bad side of 50.
like i knew this guy. made quarter million a year in a LCOL area. basically, a prince of the province. tenured, full prof, academic phd on an administration track. couldn't just have a hobby like a normal person, had to have all the top of the line gear and paraphernalia associated with the hobby. zero impulse control about it either, like once he decided he was going to be a woodworker or a mountain biker or a climber or a kayak guy, he got all the most expensive, premium tier shit immediately on credit card. of course, he never used any of this shit, so it just sat in a garage or some storage space. vehicle breaks down, fuck it, just buy a new one fully loaded for whatever terms the vampire at the dealership offers first. kid could go to a great public school, but fuck that, gotta go to the most exclusive private school. kid could get free tuition at his school to study anything, but needs to go to like some elite school in a world class city with a rented apartment in the hip part of the city. guy was always leveraged out the ass and actively finding/choosing the most expensive option in every scenario.
and like, you're saying, "he could sell all that shit" and get out of his 22% APR credit card debt and like just be normal for 6 months to become immediately loaded and fully secure, but he was as proud as he was dumb and can't nobody tell such a smart person nothing about some basic shit like money. some people just decide they are owed all the finest things and will completely hamstring themselves for the next 24+ months to have it all right now.
for these people, it's like a polluted river. rivers are generally self-cleaning. stop dumping PCBs in there, and the river will eventually have birds and fish in it again. if these people stopped being a complete crazy asshole at full throttle for a year, they could be set for life and be a medium asshole because now like 20% of their income stream isn't being eaten up by debt financing. so it's like they would get a raise.
i don't know how people do like this. if i ever had some crazy money job, my first move is to bank as much as i can and/or have a paid off, low maintenance house because eventually the music is gonna stop.
YUP! I have a cousin that was like this and eventually his skills fell out of relevance and he didn’t plan for it. Hubris and a layoff ended his lifestyle pretty quick.
What was the skill?
He’s in tech, but more on the managerial side. He was the guy that would design the corpIT structure and run their day-to-day. Not a position to scoff at until his salary became too high and the tools all became SaaS.
Keeping up with the Joneses is a compulsion to some folks.
As a guy into gear-heavy hobbies in an area full of people with more money than sense, morons like this are a godsend.
This is how I would interact with hobbies if I was rich I fear
kind of a key move is to just save some bucks before you buy and generally set a monthly cap--based on how much cash actually enters your hands each month which isn't already allocated--for how much you can blow each month on stuff.
probably the majority of costs associated with the financial sector is to induce people not to do this, marketing limited time offers, "0%" financing, no money down, credit card rewards/convenience, etc.
having the cash for the purchase in an account before you buy is like the unspoken, depression-era eccentric grandparent mindset.
its crazy how much one can punch above their weight by doing this, because the buy now-pay later regime of corporate marketing dominates.
there's tons of shit now with small/independents and even franchisees where i inquire about discounts for paying for big items with cash or check and it's like "oh yeah, we can do that!" 3-5% off like a $1000 expense is some real ass shit.
big stores, i think, just can't offer such discounts between credit cards/debit, so acquirer fees are bundled in in all prices, and then part of them are funneled to rewards programs.
That’s how I was as soon as I got a job that paid above $10/hr lol. Just with less ability to crawl out - but I got that dumb luck. Meaning my partner said “wtf, have you literally never budgeted?” I then I did a cute little giggle and a spin and ran off