Okay, this may be rather long but try and stick with me. I’m not sure how anyone is meant to survive in the current state of the U.S economy. I’m 19 and just getting started in the grownup life, and I’m genuinely scared for my future. I’m not sure if I’ll even have a roof over my head in 5 years time. I’m not going to site my sources because that would triple the length of my post, but let me break it down.
As of August 2023, the avg. American makes roughly $20/hour. Let’s suppose you have a partner to help you navigate this mess of a world. That’s $40/hour for 40 hours a week. That’s around $4,480 a month after taxes. The avg. rent for a 1 bedroom apartment is $1,750 on the low end. That’ll leave you with $2,730 a month. Utilities such as water, electric, gas, and trash avg. $430 a month. Now we’re at $2,300 a month. Car and health insurance avg. out to $320 x2 for you and your partner, which leaves us with $1,660 per month. The avg. monthly cost of gas is $200 x2 for both cars, and that puts us at $1,260. On the low end, it’s an avg. of $300 per person for groceries per month. That’s going to leave us with $660. The avg. phone payment is $115 x2 is $230. Now we’re at $430 a month. Let’s say we both own our cars and have no student loan payments, medical bills, kids, pets, internet, cable, nothing. That’s $107.50 a week for 2 people to live on. If you could manage to only spend an extra $7.50 a week and put $100 a week into a 401k it’d be around $1.1 million after 40 years, which would be enough to retire on, but then you have no money at all for any vacations, a car when yours breaks down, car maintenance, nothing. According to the numbers, it’s impossible to even live an EXTREMELY minimalist life.
If you read through all of this, thank you and I’d really appreciate your insight or any advice you have so this doesn’t end up being my exact situation in the comments. Thank you for your time, and I hope all is going well in your life. I wish you all nothing but the best.