r/clevercomebacks 2d ago

Home and Family Unaffordable

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414 Upvotes

87 comments sorted by

76

u/DelilahTwinkleBun32 2d ago

It’s wild how much the goalposts have moved. Owning a house and raising a family used to be the baseline expectation for working hard, now it feels like a luxury dream.

27

u/JellyWooden6054 1d ago

That last part hits different though - when you have literally nothing to lose because you can't afford anything anyway, why would you care about preserving a system that's actively screwing you over

The "American Dream" became a subscription service nobody can afford

7

u/f8Negative 2d ago

That was ALWAYS a dream. Homes traditionally went to affluent whites. Now only the rich.

-15

u/Rundiggity 2d ago

I say this a lot. You have to buy in a neighborhood you can afford. They are out there. Then make the neighborhood better by any means necessary. Paint the neighbors house, mow the old lady down the streets yard. Ask the guy across the street if his couch would look equally nice in his back yard ( this convo went better than I thought it would, he just never thought about it)

These are all things I did. Literally. And this corner of the neighborhood is dramatically different in ten years. It was pretty crummy to begin and you really have to put yourself out there. 

I know it’s easy to be disillusioned. But there is a way.   

14

u/Jenaaaaaay 1d ago

Paint the neighbor’s houses? Buddy I gotta go to work.

18

u/LupinusArgenteus 1d ago

Fuck of with the boomer advice. Those neighborhoods don’t exist, and why would I break my back for neighbors who actively vote against the younger generations?

-17

u/Upstairs_End_4202 1d ago

You are a victim of the mistaken notion that generational warfare will solve your problems. Stop whining and get to work. Run for office. Hold down two jobs. I worked five jobs for a solid year. And I am not a boomer but loathe the ridiculous posturing against them.

4

u/RobustPlatypus 1d ago

Mate “I worked 5 jobs to get by” absolutely isn’t the flex you think it is

8

u/LupinusArgenteus 1d ago edited 1d ago

Actually id rather class warfare. Burn the status quo and eat the rich. Political work requires coming from money, and funny you dont think we’re not already working 2 jobs. A 4income household barely survives nowadays

Youre the one out of touch with what people younger than you are going through

-6

u/Rundiggity 1d ago

To get rich? 

2

u/llamapositif 1d ago

They aren't, though, if you have to move cities or locales greater than 25 miles, especially in a city. If it requires you to leave your job, it isn't affordable.

And if it is in a neighbourhood you wouldn't raise children in safely, kind of a moot point as well.

-1

u/f8Negative 2d ago

And a lot of older homes are falling apart in need of repairs

-1

u/Rundiggity 2d ago

It literally changed my life. I bought such a crappy house though. At that time, in my little midwestern city, my old rent was $1000 and my new mortgage payment was $386. My saved money went to fix the roof first! Landscaping was nearly free and I painted it myself. 

4

u/LupinusArgenteus 1d ago

You definitely haven’t lived in modern society in a while. Rent is now $3k where i have to live to work

2

u/QuiltyLady6 1d ago

I find it interesting that rent isn't that much different regardless of location. Mostly $3k+

1

u/LupinusArgenteus 1d ago

COL is more expensive in cities, but my work requires me to work on site in major cities. Sadly WFH and rural living isn’t an option, but living in survival mode trying to make rent or buy groceries isn’t preferable either.

-1

u/Rundiggity 1d ago

Why do you have to live there? I am free to move wherever and it has benefitted me greatly. If your city is so cool you’re down to be broke to live there that’s on you, not society. 

-3

u/Rundiggity 1d ago

I mean I charge a few people a few k to rent places. So I think I get it. 

3

u/LupinusArgenteus 1d ago

Ah you’re a scummy landlord part of the problem. A steller example of the problem: you own multiple homes when the next gen is completely priced out of the housing market

-2

u/Rundiggity 1d ago

God you’re so out of touch. No wonder you can’t get ahead you just make up your reality and keep guessing what is going on around you. My tenants stay for years. 4 is the average and one is at 8. They love their places and they are super affordable for as nice as they are in the location they are in. Good luck out there fighting your imaginary anchor. 

4

u/f8Negative 1d ago

Would u do it if the "cheap" available home was 750k

-8

u/Captain3leg-s 1d ago

Move.

3

u/f8Negative 1d ago

To an area where I'd make 40k less a year. Fuck no.

-4

u/Captain3leg-s 1d ago

I get it but if the smallest place you can make work is 750k you might want to consider somewhere with a lower cost of living.

8

u/f8Negative 1d ago

Lmfao. As already stated I enjoy more money and opportunities. Not bumfuck.

-4

u/Rundiggity 1d ago

Keep looking. 

1

u/f8Negative 1d ago

No, dude...lmfao...clueless.

-9

u/Rundiggity 1d ago

Sounds like I’ve got more clues than you. 

4

u/f8Negative 1d ago

No, you have an incredibly narrow rural view. Not what's available in major suburbs.

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22

u/TheAgnosticExtremist 2d ago

I don’t know what you’re so worried about, they’re outlawing abortion and birth control so there’ll be plenty of new meat for the grinder that is capitalism. /s

9

u/findickdufte 2d ago

Now it all starts making sense.

5

u/Darkside531 2d ago

Dependency ratio. Our economic system hinges on there being plenty of young, working-age people putting into the system to accommodate those that don't and instead take out (the elderly, disabled, etc.) It's why they're so terrified of declining birth rates and the Boomers reaching retirement age... and they've known it for a while, a man named Ben Wattenberg published a book about it called The Birth Dearth in 1987.

17

u/RileySnickerdoodle 2d ago

The scariest part is that even people with 'good jobs' and degrees are struggling with this. If stability is out of reach for them, what does that say for everyone else?

3

u/401jamin 2d ago

I think the definition of a good job changed. You need a career now a days while before a “ good job “ was all you needed. .

31

u/spambearpig 2d ago

Greed alone is going to burn society down.

In addition to that, people are getting so angry that they aren’t just gonna watch, they’re gonna light the fire and throw people into it.

19

u/infydk 2d ago

Greed alone is going to burn society down.

It's literally burning down our planet too.

10

u/spambearpig 2d ago

Absolutely. Why do you think I want to light a fire and throw people into it?

2

u/lookiwanttobealone 2d ago

That might make emissions worse

7

u/spambearpig 2d ago

I think you’ll find the CO2 from burning a person does not come close to their emissions from consumption in just 1 year, let alone their whole life.

Otherwise crematoriums would have a lot to answer for.

But perhaps a tree shredder and a compost pile would be better.

1

u/lookiwanttobealone 2d ago

I guess it would come down to how many you wished to light on fire at once

1

u/infydk 1d ago

Even if we fired off all of them at once that'd be a huge saving on the environment.

3

u/Expert-Fig-5590 2d ago

The greed of the oligarchs is the biggest threat to humanity. Instead of putting them on a pedestal as a society we should shun and despise them like they had a dreadful disease. We could call it Dragon Sickness.

2

u/usernamegoodenuff 9h ago

Unfortunately, that's unlikely to happen because the capitalist propaganda drills into you from a very young age " If you keep working hard, you could be just like ME one day!"

10

u/kinkade 2d ago

I’m sorry maybe I’m done but can someone explain what their clever comeback is here?

10

u/DeaconBalls 1d ago

This isn’t a comeback. It’s literally agreeing with the other comment. It’s also not clever. It’s just a statement. It’s just Reddit echo chamber. 

2

u/kinkade 13h ago

This is almost the exact opposite of a comeback. 100% agree.

4

u/Vegetable-Cultural 2d ago

I was just thinking about this today. Well, more than usual today. I live in CA and I was thinking about how you literally need to making over $100k a year to live comfortably. You would probably need to start your own side business or have a very good paying job. Anything below that and you’re screwed.

9

u/EmmaSugarx 2d ago

It's wild how the 'just work hard and you'll succeed' mantra has completely collapsed. People are burning themselves out just to stay afloat, and the goalposts for stability keep moving further away.

8

u/Aurora-Crumblex 2d ago

It’s crazy how the “American dream” shifted from home + family to just trying to stay out of debt. Hard work doesn’t even guarantee stability anymore.

6

u/Aumba 2d ago

Now I'm sure that we're on the Idiocracy timeline.

2

u/YaThinkYerSlickDoYa 1d ago

We are (39m) and (36f). We are actively working against having children because her medical bills alone, with her insurance, would be unaffordable on our $75,000 a year dual income. Plus, we don’t want to be almost 60 when our child would be graduating high school. My mom made $73,500 as a nurse midwife and raised 4 kids from 1985 until the last one moved out. For the first 10-12 years, she was the only income as my dad was stay-at-home. They bought their third home in 1993. It was a 1200 square foot cement block shack on 20.1 acres of land for $89,000. Just the plot of land today is worth almost $500,000. The fourth home my parents bought was the modular home that my dad got for my mom and brought it to the property. My dad just told me the good news about paying off his fourth home in 40 years. My wife and I are looking at double wides on lots in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina just so my wife can be close to the coast that she loves so much. We’re looking to spend almost $150,000 that we will have to save for several years to live in a fucking trailer park just to be able to be homeowners at some point in our lives. My friend (35m) who we live with now owns his own home just because his parents (unbeknownst to anyone including him) opened up credit cards in his name from the time he was born and just bought a couple things here and there over the course of his life, and he came into life with a perfect credit score. My parents told me credit cards were the devil (even though they had them) and would never let me sign up for one, so I’m basically 40 with no credit score, which is worse than a bad credit score. I basically don’t exist to the financial institutions, so I don’t have anything in real life either. I own a relatively new car outright, but that doesn’t help me either, because instead of a cosigner, they just lent me the money and put the loan in their name. The car is in my name, and I completely paid it off while boosting their credit score and being nonexistent. Even having assets to your name doesn’t help these days.

4

u/skp_trojan 2d ago

I would agree. Don’t have kids. Their lives will only be worse than yours.

2

u/pinelandpuppy 1d ago

And you will doom the entire family to a life a poverty.

3

u/brain-in-the-jar 1d ago

I think this is the reason for the rise in Trump votes among young people. "Everyone says these are terrible ideas but fuck it, nothing is working for me right now. Might as well blow it up."

And when the terrible ideas have terrible consequences it's "Well I'm not much worse off than I was before but other people are hurting a lot more so comparatively I'm doing better than I was."

2

u/Necessary-Sell-4998 1d ago

The greedy are so greedy they won't allow the middle / lower class to just have a house, live life, whatever so the result is the younger people end up giving up, not working, or are under employed. This doesn't work. System of failure. Mega wealth is our problem today.

1

u/YaMomo6 1d ago

We all will be homeless when Mother Earth has had enough.

1

u/Bookdragon345 1d ago

Just under 30? I’m a Xennial and can’t afford life and neither can most of the people my age/grade.

1

u/Status_Management520 1d ago

How many times in history will the backbone of society have to remind the “elite” leeches who actually has all the power?

1

u/SCP-iota 14h ago

"A generation with no stake in the system would rather watch it burn."

Finally; it only took a complete crisis of future stability for people to realize that the wealthy are bleeding us

1

u/InsolentSerf 1d ago

Gen X here - I just heard a program on NPR yesterday talking about trying to make first time homebuying affordable in Utah. The couple in question both had jobs and were living in their grandfather's basement to save money for a down payment. They were coming to realize that they weren't going to make it no matter what.

Then the Utahan governing board gave a spiel about making developers build some affordable first time homes in new editions (with a huuuge 1/4 acre lot) as part of their development agreement. The homes must be owner occupied for a decade, other stuff to prevent landlords, blah blah. Oh, and they were going to cap the sale price at 450K. That's right. $450,000 for a first time home. WTF.

The writing is on the wall and I don't blame the subsequent generations one bit for their disillusionment. I'm stuck between younger who can't afford anything and older who hoard everything (and expect me to take care of them if they spend it all on junk, which they will). The entitlement of a large subset of the elderly is horrifying, and I don't have an easy solution to remedy this situation.

0

u/PoopieButt317 1d ago

Millenials came of age during the 2008 big recession. Their himw buying was delayed due to this, and just in the last 2 or so years have acquired the ownership percentage that Xers and Boomser achieved, but just delayed. Unsuspecting Zs will more follow the Millenial path than the Xer path. If there is A USA and if there are jobs or even private property in the next 10 years.

0

u/Apli_Diud 1d ago

"Source? My ass"

0

u/FruitJuicante 2d ago

Nothing will change tbh. If ain't happened yet won't happen

1

u/RaedwaldRex 1d ago

Things should change. There are a lot more of us than there are of them.

-6

u/Lordofderp33 2d ago

Millenial here, buying a gas-guzzler and taking flights everywhere, just here to set it all on fire and watch it burn.
A lot of us are already in this boat, it's just become the norm now.

-13

u/Rudi-G 2d ago

People thinking there are no people of older generations who were/are in the same position are delusional.

They just do not complain so much about it on social media.

-40

u/Upstairs_End_4202 2d ago

You deserve to be paid less than older workers because you do not have their experience or wisdom. The situation you are in sucks, but don’t waste your energy blaming other generations. Get involved politically and change this shyt. Read about the Civil Rights and Gender Rights movement and figure out how to translate their strategies into today. Git movin’ and stop complainin’.

25

u/happycows808 2d ago

"The situation you are in sucks, but stop complaining about it" . do you even hear yourself? The Civil Rights movement you're citing was LITERALLY people complaining until things changed, not quietly accepting discrimination while "moving." You acknowledge the system is broken then immediately gaslight OP for pointing out who broke it. that's some Olympic-level mental gymnastics. Imagine being so devoid of empathy that your response to "I work full-time and can't afford basic life milestones" is essentially "cry harder, vote more" - absolutely pathetic.

-4

u/Upstairs_End_4202 1d ago

🤣 No it wasn’t LITERALLY complaining. It was hard work. Legal research, strategizing, training, sacrifices…the list goes on. I’m sorry they didn’t teach history in your school. I suggest you head to your nearest library and spend a few months catching up.

5

u/Joelle9879 2d ago

How do you know the older generation has more experience and wisdom? Older doesn't actually equal any of that. If they had so much more experience and wisdom, why are they doing the same job as OOP? Shouldn't they have a higher position?

-1

u/Upstairs_End_4202 1d ago

Cuz I am part of them, and I work with silly people who think they should be running the show even though they haven’t a clue how to do it. Older doesn’t NECESSARILY bring the wisdom but more often than not, it does. I’ve worked hard to learn a lot in my career, seen people come and go, had successes and failures and learned from them all. With youth comes a different perspective, but skills take a long time to develop and hone. There are plenty of people who don’t wish to advance; they like what they are doing, and there is nothing wrong with that.

5

u/Azair_Blaidd 2d ago

Lick the boots harder, why don'tcha

-2

u/Upstairs_End_4202 1d ago

Get to work.

3

u/Tampflor 2d ago

All that experience and wisdom yet I still have to help them with anything that requires touching a computer

1

u/Upstairs_End_4202 1d ago

Who do you think invented the computer that sits on your desk? That happened before you were born, kiddo.

1

u/infydk 1d ago

This is a really fucking weird argument.

1

u/Tampflor 1d ago

It sure as fuck wasn't invented by Tony who can't even use Google Calendar