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Our generation's lack of work ethic and money skills.

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Red Squirrel said:
There is no where near 2k left over. There's tons of other deductions that I did not go over, this was just a rough calculation to show that a big chunk of the money we earn we lose to taxes. 37% is still too much. Anyone who thinks this is ok is clearly suffering from stockholm syndrome and enjoys working for free as a slave to the government for a couple months a year. That's basically what it is. My actual pay cheques add up to around $4,000/mo the rest is all taken off before, a big chunk of that being taxes. Then I have to pay taxes again any time I pay for anything. A lot of those deductions I will also be taxed on at some point later on, such as ESP, retirement fund, etc.

We need a smaller government that is more efficient and asks less of us.

They are asking more than we can give. (that's what Trudeau said to the veterans)
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I pay a bit less tax then you (living in a high tax state in the US) but then I also will have to pay $950/mo through my employer for a family health insurance plan (true cost of which would be well over $2k/mo). Do you think healthcare should be included in your taxes or would you rather have the wild west like we have? Where doctors and hospitals can't even tell you how much a procedure is going to cost, and getting knocked out in a car crash or other injury might lead you to medical bankruptcy because you're not even conscious to refuse the ambulance but you can't pay the bills

Also, it seems like you're paying too much for gas. $200 for your main car and then an extra $200 for a truck? How many miles is your commute? Have you considered getting something more fuel efficient?

Does Canada sales tax apply to groceries? Because it doesn't here at least in all states I'm aware of. From what I can tell online, it doesn't. So by far the biggest "essential" category is actually untaxed as far as sales-tax go. Yeah it sucks if you want to buy new Macbook or graphics card. Buying on the used market from private parties is generally not subject to sales tax reporting but if you have to have the latest greatest thing new then... sorry I guess?

I hate to say this but from the way you complain about expenses all the time I figured you were making way less than $89k especially in Canada where salaries are usually lower across the board than the US. From what I gather, you're in a low cost of living area too (not Toronto or Vancouver) - that should be plenty of money to live on, fund retirement etc. There's people that are a lot less fortunate than you that don't complain like this. Maybe there are some tax-advantaged retirement plans or similar vehicles you can take advantage of to greatly reduce your tax burden (I'm not too familiar with what is available up there)
 
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The main complaint is the fact that I earn that much but yet hardly see any of it. With this kind of salary I should have paid off the house by now, and be able to afford to actually save a lot of money and retire by 40, but reality is, between taxes and bills, there is really not much left over after. I honestly don't know how people making a more average salary are managing in this economy... I guess, a lot of them don't. I'm complaining more in general and not just for myself, because the government keep saying they want to reduce costs of living, yet keep taxing us to oblivion. If they actually cared about reducing cost of living the first thing they would do is reduce our tax burden.

The $200 for gas is for heating, the other is for truck, it's just a rough estimate. I only have one vehicle. It's around $160 to fill the tank give or take $20 depending on gas prices and lasts me around 3 weeks, so just rounded to $200. The heating gas I will be saving on once I get the wood stove going, just need to do the outside chimney. That bill doubled a couple years ago, mostly because of carbon tax.

Some grocery items we don't pay tax on but some we do. The "savings" from that is fairly minor in grand scheme of things though.

It wouldn't be so bad if we actually saw our tax dollars at work, but we don't. Roads are crumbling, health care is crumbling, everything is crumbling. Then we watch the government spend money on all sorts of crap that doesn't help most people, and fly around on their private jets spending millions on high class lavish vacations while we work hard to pay for them.

At this point any extra money I get goes towards debt, but also sometimes fun stuff... still need to live to some extent. There is really not much room for stuff like that though but sometimes have to splurge. Once debt is paid off then I would focus more on savings. The retirement fund is not going to be enough to actually retire on, because that too will be taxed, and all costs of living will probably be triple or even more by the time I get to that point if nothing is done about inflation.
 
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@Red Squirrel - I don't know what cost of living you have to deal with but I'm pretty sure you could make twice that in the states. That said, I haven't been in the labor market for over 20 years but I was making 60k at my last job and I was still pissed that I didn't get a raise after a year.
 
Charmonium said:
@Red Squirrel - I don't know what cost of living you have to deal with but I'm pretty sure you could make twice that in the states. That said, I haven't been in the labor market for over 20 years but I was making 60k at my last job and I was still pissed that I didn't get a raise after a year.
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TBH I'm in a fairly cushy job, the work to money ratio is as best as it can get. To make more money I would need to go work in the mines, like drilling etc, or become a manager. Drilling is ok, because you get lot of time off, which is one of the perks of my current job, but it's hard on the body.

My ideal goal is to try to cut my costs of living as much as I can. Only so much I can do though. Long term I do want to build a cabin in the woods, but that's a long game as there is a lot of work involved and only so much time and money to do it. My property is over an hour from town which makes it difficult.
 
I personally think he’s doing well considering where he is living. All I can really say is, consider yourself fortunate. You own a home and vehicle, sounds like paying extra on your debt routinely, and have (some) savings left over every month.

Retiring at 40 isn’t a realistic goal for most people unless you’re a unicorn tech startup bro with stock options, inherited some money, or are earning 250k+. I think maybe there’s a cognitive dissonance of “feeling” like 89k would ever be enough money for that and I can’t decide if my advice would be to just continue saving and paying off debt as you are, or maybe take a break from that for a while and enjoy life a little.

Maybe take a pause on the extra mortgage payments for some period of time (3 to 6 mos) and invest in some life experiences- book a vacation, travel a bit and then re-evaluate your near and long term goals with an eye on what is actually reachable. Nothing is more depressing than setting goals that are either unreachable or on too long of a timeline. We’re wired for near term satisfaction so having minor milestones along the way helps a lot. If you’re really determined to pay the mortgage off so early maybe reward yourself with these sort of “breaks” when you hit 75, 50, 25% principal etc

It sounds almost to me like you’re experiencing burnout and I don’t know if it would be from your job or maybe self-induced due to your lifestyle and goals. But either way best of luck and hope you figure it all out!
 
Dr. Detroit said:
Everyone is too blame - And Biden could have kept the Trump Exec Order in Place including Remain in Mexico and continued to build the wall which after years of being stopped he restarted with gusto and is using Exec Power to avoid environmental stops.

The current Immigration bill is trash - everyone knows the R's would never agree to it, it was just posturing to make them look bad.
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If you think the wall is going to work (it won't), Biden is pursing it with gusto (he's not) and that the bi-partisan bill that meets a number of requirements the republicans said they needed in an October conference that is largely written by a republican and was supported by the republican senate majority leader is something 'R's would never agree to' and it's just posturing to make them look bad then continuing this line of conversation is just going to be a waste of my time.

The housing shortage is an issue and will only get worse in the near future
 
He's completely dead, which is different than mostly dead.
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Red Squirrel said:
The main complaint is the fact that I earn that much but yet hardly see any of it. ...
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No you don't earn that much. You earn your take-home pay. Everything else is a tax on your employer. If all your taxes were cut to zero, your pay scale would regress to the take-home amount, because that is the market value of your labor.

Except now you'd have to pay for everything your taxes pay for, but at higher prices because you aren't buying in bulk like your government does. That's why American healthcare is twice as expensive as yours. We're doing what you're advocating: buying healthcare ourselves instead of pooling all our money to buy it much more efficiently.
 
I suppose that's true, if companies knew we were getting our entire pay cheque they'd just pay us less.

Same reason I'm against UBI, because if we had UBI they would just pay us less and/or utility companies would charge us more. So I guess it would be a wash, either way.
 
Charmonium said:
@Red Squirrel - I don't know what cost of living you have to deal with but I'm pretty sure you could make twice that in the states. That said, I haven't been in the labor market for over 20 years but I was making 60k at my last job and I was still pissed that I didn't get a raise after a year.
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That user does not exist in reality, so I wouldn't even trust what they claim. There's guaranteed to be something way off.

Like, they're probably giving a lot of money (tithing perhaps) to their Church but are griping about the government (which objectively provides something in return for those taxes).
 
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Red Squirrel said:
I suppose that's true, if companies knew we were getting our entire pay cheque they'd just pay us less.

Same reason I'm against UBI, because if we had UBI they would just pay us less and/or utility companies would charge us more. So I guess it would be a wash, either way.
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UBI might be a wash to you but it would also help lift many out of poverty, building a stronger community.
 
4% every year adds up. A bill that cost you $100/mo is $150/mo 10 years later. Then add up all bills. You don't get anything extra for that money but you still have to pay more. Eventually need to get a higher end job and work harder. Our labour is basically being devalued by inflation as we have to work more to get the same standard of living. Either more hours, or a higher end job that requires higher credentials/work. All this while the rich and ruling class keep getting richer.

Also the reported inflation numbers tend to be MUCH lower than what the ACTUAL costs of everything are.

Just look at things like gasoline prices, natural gas prices, grocery prices, price of rent, insurance, property taxes, housing etc. Lot of those have gone up by more than 4%. Cars prices are also completely absurd now. Building materials too. The official number does not account for everything.

The news will also say things like "inflation falls by 1%" to make it sound good but it doesn't mean stuff is cheaper it just means stuff got more expensive at a lesser rate. Every time costs go up, it's cumulative, on top of all the other times it went up. This is not sustainable.
 
Would you look at that: a 2012 no one wants to work anymore humble brag thread. How timeless.

Bash the yoots for being lazy and shiftless while breaking your arm patting yourself on the back for your own success. Of course you did it all on your own steam and bootstraps. No one will ever fully understand or appreciate the incalculable levels of hard work and sacrifice you endured to be able to buy useless shit in a fruitless attempt to fill that emptiness inside. But maybe, just maybe, with enough external validation it will have all been worth it.

GTFO

Chuck got it right -​

“You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis. You are all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”​


If you are a Zoomer here in the U.S. why the fuck would you want to waste whatever time you have on seeing most of the productivity of your labor stolen from you? It's no wonder at all that most of them prefer to travel and have experiences. Embracing wake and bake instead of the rise and grind lifestyle. The only way most of them are getting a home is if their parents will it to them when they die. Why be loyal to a company that does not return it?

The climate is fucked and only going to get worse. They continue to raise the retirement age while they foster conditions that result in the first decrease in life expectancies in generations. Basically work until you die you virtual indentured servant. Zoomers are certain they will never see any of the social safety net money taken from every paycheck. In their short lives there has already been the dot com bubble, 9/11, 2008 bubble, and a global pandemic. Yet somehow they are expected to follow the exact same failed programming of those that came before them? Again GTFO.
 
Red Squirrel said:
4% every year adds up. A bill that cost you $100/mo is $150/mo 10 years later. Then add up all bills. You don't get anything extra for that money but you still have to pay more. Eventually need to get a higher end job and work harder. Our labour is basically being devalued by inflation as we have to work more to get the same standard of living. Either more hours, or a higher end job that requires higher credentials/work. All this while the rich and ruling class keep getting richer.

Also the reported inflation numbers tend to be MUCH lower than what the ACTUAL costs of everything are.

Just look at things like gasoline prices, natural gas prices, grocery prices, price of rent, insurance, property taxes, housing etc. Lot of those have gone up by more than 4%. Cars prices are also completely absurd now. Building materials too. The official number does not account for everything.

The news will also say things like "inflation falls by 1%" to make it sound good but it doesn't mean stuff is cheaper it just means stuff got more expensive at a lesser rate. Every time costs go up, it's cumulative, on top of all the other times it went up. This is not sustainable.
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So, tax the rich, raise the minimum wage, and reduce barriers to unionization, and don't put people into power whose fiscal policies would make inflation even worse (and who are opposed to the first 3 items as well)? (Austerity policies are fantastic at tanking economies..which would...raise inflation)

Is your employer not paying you more for being a skilled worker who's consistently performed for 10 years? 1) see unionization 2) find a new employer

Edit: Also, is this an OT thread or a P&N because it has the topic of P&N but the civility of OT! 🤣
 
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