The new American Dream... One meme to rule them all!

originally posted by: Annee

originally posted by: EightTF3
SoCal is belongs to illegals. Walk home pay is untaxed, government handouts in housing, food, welfare,healthcare, insurance premiums ect.

I am not an illegal.

And I very much enjoy the mix of my neighborhood.

I'm talking about the inflated costs

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
a reply to: onequestion

Heh,

Here you can rent a room in a 2-bedroom place for about $800. A one bedroom will set you back about $1,100...and NOT in a particularly nice part of town. So, roommate is needed if you want to have a roof over your head for under a grand a month.

The minimum wage here is $8.75 ... but most places (retail for example) will pay more. So, lets say you make $12/hr ... if you work a 40-hour week, that's $960 a paycheck or $1920 a month ... assuming NOTHING is taken out of that. If you made $12/hr that comes out to $23,040 a year.

For 2015, someone making that would fall under the 15% tax bracket:

So, 15% of their annual income of $23,040 is $3,456.

$23,040
-$3,456
-----------
$19,584 - per year net income

Now, divide that by 12 months, and you get $1,632. Further, divide that again by 2 to get what each paycheck would look like, and you get: $816.

Now, we've established that just a room to sleep in with a toilet and someplace to prepare food will cost anywhere from $800-$1100 minimum, that looks like half of your yearly take-home income. Then we have to add other expenses:

-food
-utilities (electric can run $50-$70 a month here for an apartment)
-gasoline
-car insurance (Anchorage has an abysmal public transit system, a car is pretty much required)
-student loan debt?

So if half your monthly income is going to rent, you'd be left with about $816, which comes out to $204 a week to live off of, or $30 a day. Now, if you are really pinching pennies you can do it ... but what happens if something unexpected happens?
The above is of course assuming you are a single person with no kids.

I'm also being rather conservative. Gas can run you $40 every two weeks if you live in town just for to/from work (it's what I pay) ... Rent is probably going to be higher than $800 too. Let's run those numbers with some conservative expenses:

So, roughly $80 in gasoline a month...$60 in electricity a month...$50-60 car insurance per month...that's $190 a month. So let's take our monthly income of $1,632...

$1,632
-800 (rent)
-80 (gas)
-60 (elect)
-50 (insurance)
-------------------
$642 per month left over, or $160 a week to buy food, clothes, toilet paper, soap. And food prices? Ha!

Here's a snip from this week's grocery store flyer here in Anchorage, AK. Let's see...

Yes, that really does say $6.49 for a pound of ground beef. $4.99 for a pack of hot dogs. Orange juice?

$3-$6.99 a container.

That's insane. I just ran that fictional person through the SNAP calculator. With no outstanding child support, a car worth $2,000, an apartment of $800/mo, with a checking account as an asset of $100....

Not eligible for food stamps. I kind of expected that, but that person is still one misfortune from homelessness. I also checked, as a single person with no children, that person would also not qualify for an earned-income tax credit from the IRS. The cut off for a single wage earner without kids is $14,820/year gross or less.

Look, even if everyone had a masters degree..someone would still have to stock our shelves like our fictional retail worker.

And all of this isn't even someone making minimum wage here in my city! This is someone making $3.25 MORE per hour.

It's getting harder and harder out there each year...

I've been thinking about a Texas move for a while I figure in six months I'll be ready to go.

I'm actually trying to save money for this move instead of doing it on the fly by the seat of my pants.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: crazyewok

Hehe!

Oh really? Tell me, what can you see from the South side of the estuary, when you look north? The lights of the arcades? Southend Peir, jutting out a mile and a quarter into the Thames? The Casino at Westcliff, or the Cliffs Pavilion theatre?

I only ask, because all I see when I look out over the water, is chimneys spouting who knows what into the atmosphere, and streetlights!

Ok you have me there.......kent is a dump

a reply to: crazyewok

My aunt and cousins live there.

Sevenoaks, or near enough. I actually think that part is pretty, if you see the good bits. They play a cracking game of cricket over there as well!

a reply to: lordcomac

Well, you live in a nice town though.

My wife and I drove to Portland a couple years back to eat lobster rolls at some little seaside dive there in the bay. Had a great time. Portland is charming in that it's like a small town with a confusing but welcoming downtown area.

I noticed that everything there was quite expensive though. That's the thing. Is being a part of metro culture worth the expense?

I notice that many people are reluctant to relocate due to "lack of culture". People don't want to live in small towns because they are so accustomed to the hustle and bustle of metro areas. On the flip side, folks don't realize that they are missing an opportunity to bring their own "cultural influence" to these places. It's easy to make a hell of heaven, quite different to make a heaven of hell.