Featured Population bomb and cars

People just aren't having kids. It's too expensive to do so.

Where I live I can't afford a house, period. My wife's and my combined income do not suffice for even half or what the cheapest little run down condo costs. But rents keep skyrocketing. I just keep hoping and praying that the little old lady doesn't sell the property to some investment firm because then we won't be able to afford to live here.

If my current Avalon broke I'm now afraid to buy another car after seeing what's going on in the used car market. I just found two more people who bought used cars that suddenly, after the warranty period but before even 100k miles blew a major +$5k component. And these cars are way more expensive than pre pandemic prices.

Good thing I switched jobs to one that pays for nearly all our medical. I was facing paying nearly 1/3 of my take-home pay in premiums alone with an over $18k deductible this year.

Good thing the wife and I cook and can source groceries cheaply. But even then I feel the crunch.

We have no subscriptions (ok, so I have a yearly subscription for a Microsoft Office 365 account, but no Netflix or anything like that). I really need to switch from our current phone provider, because even though we have the cheapest rate they offer it would be cheaper to go back to prepay. And I'm even thinking of getting rid of the $30/month internet and just going to the library when I need to connect.

And no addictions, no cigarettes, no alcohol, no coffee shop coffee, etc.

And no debts.

Yet sometimes I look at the numbers and freak out and wonder what's going to happen to us. Where's a cheap state to live at that still pays a decent wage? We may have to move there.

I often wonder if it would be in the best interests of my family to forgo owning a vehicle. That would be a significant savings, hundreds of dollars each month, that could be put towards something more important.

 

I did field service work for 15 years; sold my car after 18 months of sitting on my driveway. Unfortunately, US public transportation sucks when compared to other countries....
When I quit to take a job that paid 20% more, with regular 9-5 hours - I thought I made out like a bandit. After buying a good used car and fixing all the minor issues that made it unreliable. Insurance, maintenance, gas cost turned that 20% raise into a 3% raise, but I had regular, predictable hours with pension, so it wasn't a total loss.
@bwilson4web stated above, you'll be trading family time for work time (at least on-call). You'll get to move your schedule around a bit, but one way or another - the work needs to get done. As you can see from above, I went the other way. As you get older, you begin to realize what's more important to you.

Good Luck.....

 

Less cars would be a good thing. Sure there are downsides, but we’ll get through them, and the upside is so much better

 

Those were the days. After living on a ship 24 by 7 for 2 years, I got a job with Honeywell as a Programmer Trainee and part of the work was operating some systems for some government agencies in a service bureau arrangement. I though I was in heaven. 100% raise, double time on Saturdays and triple time on Sundays. Reserve weekends still paid and I could take paid vacation to do my 2 weeks in the summer. 4 month later moved into creating operating systems and compilers for the government customers and commercial customers on the east coast. 13 company name changes (some with ownership changes attached) a wife and 2 wonderful kids later I retired from managing a secure operating systems development group and 2 weeks later received word we had gotten the patent I had been working on.

 

Well, I wouldn't be opposed to working 70 hours a week if #1 I didn't need 80 hours a week to afford the cheapest place in town and #2 if I didn't have kids and a wife. Like what's the point in living if all a person does is work? Don't go to your kids' events. Don't be there for your wife. Don't have time to fix the leaking sink.

I've known lots of people that worked 70 hours a week and are all divorced with children that hate them. I do work overtime from time to time. I haven't taken any time off, even though I do need to see a dentist, but don't have time or money for that. So the answer is, just work more. Great. For what. A small 50-year-old apartment, and nothing else. Nada. Zilch. Just to say I actually own a piece of land. Which would be nice to a degree. But if the reason I'd like a home is to have a nice family life but I can't have a nice family life because I got to work 80 hours a week and my wife does too, then what's the point???

 

seems like everyone is working 70 hour weeks these days, and the always available by phone

 

Well, they can do that if they want. I'm not doing that for a tiny run down condo.

Besides, I'd have to quit my current job I just started and find two others since I can't work more than 60 hours a week nor drive more than 11 hrs a day and they were also pretty strict about not taking up a job that would distract me or take my sleep away from being able to do this one.

The world will go on just fine if I have to work for the rest of my life.

Just over 60 years ago a single worker working minimum wage could buy a house. Now a median wage worker that worked 30 years of his life thus far can a condo if he gets two jobs, and his wife works too. What's it going to be like 60 years from now?

 

yea... New management wanted my personnel cell phone number. I told them I don't have one, as I was replying to a SMS from upstairs. Then they told me that they need a contact number; I said you've got my land line number. Why do you want my personnel cell phone number? Are you going to pay me a stipend? I know the facility gives management cell phones and pays for them. If you would like to discuses this further, please go through my union rep.... I followed up with a detailed email that was distributed to all parties concerned, including my HR contact - in case there was retaliation down the line.

They suckered about half of the department into giving up their personnel numbers w/o compensation. To add insult to injury, they later removed the home phone numbers column from the master contacts list, so my contact number box was empty. LoL
The office- and department- managers "resigned" about two months later. It's been 18 months and we're still cleaning up, and finding out all the messes they made and left behind.....

 

When I tell people I don't have a cell phone, I get a weird look like they are waiting for a punchline. One bank minion after I told him this repeatedly asked why I didn't want to give him the number.

 

I still wear a beeper, we still don't have WiFi everywhere - but the radios & beeper frequencies we use are close enough for the repeaters to relay the signals. They're too cheap to give us company phones.
LoL; accidentally took it overseas a few times for some volunteer work I was doing. It was fun work, but I guess I'm programmed to strap it on whenever I was working. I didn't even realized I was doing it, until one of the other volunteers pointed it out to me.
Management now-a-days don't seem to have any respect for your personnel time and expect you to be at their beck-and-call 24x7. Sorry, they're going to have to pay better and put us on salary.
BTW; I refused a half dozen promotions that would've placed me on salary and outside union protection. Even though our union is just as incompetent as our management staff, unfortunately that's all we have.

 

Perhaps that’s a geographical thing, I don’t think that was possible in the Boston metro area in 1965

 

Double checkin with misses, cause I sold stuff ( hand woven potholders, dozen little necks, blue claws hard and soffies etc. ) around the neighborhood and deliverin papers.The first we remember in the 70's was $1.25 and gas cost 0.30/gal. And as crotchity old man used to say on SNL "that's the way it was and we LIKED IT !" but we shore couldn't afford a house with our take home or a car either.
Off the books jobs were half that and waitresses got tips and - fed if they were lucky enough.

 

Every time I think no one could afford today's cars (My '19 was $37.5k ... today MSRP is $50k) I look at today's salaries for the elite professionals. And then I look on Zillow and see what the monthly payments would be to buy my father and mother's starter house. And I gasp.

I look for car sales to be seriously down with lots of people holding cash against an uncertain economy. During uncertainty, people tend to not take risks or take on debt.

It isn't just bureaucrats and car builders who are feeling threatened.

 

Yes, geographics played a part in it. But from the time minimum wage was enacted up through the early to mid 60's the federal minimum wage could afford at least your average starter home, if not an average priced home.

 

You must be thinking of the Golden Oldies days. For those that had it made, nothing else compared to the Happy Days of yore!
GMs Wage Chronology
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/bls/bls_1532_1966.pdf

Wonderin what a an average starter pad looked like in the 50's

There were a lot of cars in my high schools parking lot, but most of them were gifted (car, insurance and gas) by parents.
My first car was purchased totaled from the body shop I worked summers. I still couldn't drive it to work out of county with a Jr license $60 wk off the books, hitchhiking, parents rarely let me take their car. I was pretty jealous of my older sister who got rides to work and was able to work her way up.

I"ve been dreamin about bike week for a couple years. This year it starts the end Feb. I was lookin at house on craigslist last night. There's a catch to everything. HOA for 55+ have some relatively cheap up front costs, I didn't even bother checkin what their fees are or the rent on the land a trailer sits on. Even looked at lots off the beaten path. But with my income I can't do that on my own either.