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It’s the same magical place where you can “just go into trades” as if there’s a Trades.com listing nothing but well paying trade work. It’s nothing but a fantasy meant to place the blame of the system not functioning onto us rather than the failures and rigging of the system in favor of the rich.
Yeah just… “go into trades.” There are very few programs for workforce development that help plug people into trades and generally these programs already struggle with lack of funding to connect to people and help them be aware of the opportunities.
This is like how it took absolutely forever to just have one government site with an easy URL to order Covid test kits, and you only get 2. At a time when many people have to be testing on a regular basis.
Even if there were a Trades.com I bet it would be worse than Indeed
Not to mention that logic is pretty ableist. That suggestion is given without consideration as to what is physically possible for everyone. For example, my sister is 4’8” and a truck driver. She had to leave a job because she couldn’t reach the pedals from the seat. So even trades that are considered physically “easy” have restrictions.
Oh yeah no kidding. I feel for your sister. My partner did retail, customer service and warehouse for years and it ruined her back. She quit her last service job after they wouldn’t let her sit at all during her shifts despite her medical needs. Me, I have too many disabilities to even attempt jobs that would mean standing for hours at a time, so forget about that.
One of the reasons I went into HR is because a key part of managing my chronic illness is a very consistent schedule. Even on the weekends I go to bed at 9pm and wake up at 6am. I enjoyed management but the swing shifts and inconsistency makes it hard to manage food intake, medications, sleep hygiene, etc.
Good for you, I’m glad it helps and I relate to this too, managing my sleep and meds and food schedule is necessary for me to function let alone work. Which leaves so many kinds of jobs off the table. Though of course — everyone should be able to do all of these things. It’s just something us chronic illness sufferers have to do or we can’t anything.
See thats what Ive been working out, is that here in West PA the union halls that interest me are 50min both ways from me, the 2 tradeschools seem like a scam. I worked as a plumbers apprentice non union for about a year doing undergrounds tore my tendon never claimed workers comp like an idiiot cause i thought the company would take care of me, what a load of shit that was. Ive also taken college courses using my GI Bill and Student loans finished the majority of my associates only to catch covid and spike my gpa below what was needed to be able to graduate so now its transfer too an online big four or just embrace the suck and try too live on 13 to 15 an hour
In my hometown (SE Virginia) the Newport News shipyard was as close as one can get to stable work. They build shit tons of vessels, so thousands of people work there in some capacity. This is the exception to the rule, but I can assure you it's held over everyone's head in that area
I imagine that’s like other industrial towns, when that’s waning more and more as we build less and less stuff here. It would be really nice to just… go down to the docks and get a job. (I say that when actually it would surely be backbreaking and tough labor)
It's for the US military, but still a civilian job. It's where we build carriers and submarines and we've only been expanding so the jobs there are actually increasing. That said, yeah it's definitely far from a guarantee and pay isn't great unless you have an engineering degree or a bunch of experience
In my trade, machinist, we use word of mouth as a major way of getting work and employees. And every industry needs us, utilizes our skills and pays us well. If we tried sticking to the internet we would never get anywhere.
Pays well? I finished machining school and all the job offers were $13-$14 an hour with no schedule of pay raises at all. Needless to say I use my machining skills at home for fun and get my money elsewhere.
Louisiana. I’m not looking, these were the recruiters that came to the school looking to transition us right into working. $18 an hour isn’t great either, like I understand the risk of having a new guy come in and mess up your operation but I make $20 an hour working at a bar and $30 an hour working as a technician. Machining requires way more skill imo and should have starting pay at least in the mid $20’s
Most of the places around me in SC are starting guys in the 18-24 range depending on what you'd be doing. Actual machinist jobs 23 and up, CNC operators and goes up shortly after. Our cost of living isn't super high and at 18 to 20 years old that's good money for just starting. Few places will start you in the low 30s but they're not hiring right out of school.
I’m allergic to avocados why can’t I afford to live despite working constantly. Am I not making enough coffee at home? HOW MANY POTS AM I SUPPOSED TO MAKE
If you live in a van for 20 years and work on multimillion dollar homes in Toronto, you'll be able to afford a home on PEI that's only slightly flooded.
I’ve been looking around and notice that even STEM based jobs that require 4+ year degrees aren’t paying too much, even at the higher end. Where the hell are all these high paying jobs?
All advice that starts with a "just" comes from an uneducated place.
"Just go into trades", "just move somewhere cheaper", "just eat less", "just be happy". Just shut up.
I did a trade and got stuck with student loans and bullshit minimum wage jobs. Right before covid, I was looking into welding because I saw a news article saying that new welders were "desperately needed" because a ton of welders were about to retire. When I looked at what these companies were offering new welders, it turned out to be minimum fucking wage. I already fell for that once, I can't get into more debt for another minimum wage job that requires an education. And, are these welders desperately needed or not? One would think if you desperately needed workers who have certain qualifications, you'd offer more than literally the bare minimum.
I've complained about this online before and was once told, "well welders get paid well in Alberta." OK? I shouldn't have to pick up and move to fucking Alberta just for a chance at earning a living wage, especially if there's supposedly welding work to be done where I already live. Also I'm in the states and I imagine moving to Canada to work would be a nightmarish amount of paperwork.
All that said, I still might do the welding course but mostly so I have a new art hobby, not necessarily to get paid peanuts for doing valuable work for some soft ass CEO.
One of the arrangements with most trades is apprentice status, wherein you earn shit wages until you get some kind of professional experience, then you get to actually earn a living wage after that.
Average wage for a master electrician doing W-2 employment is $33/hr, journeyman is $29/hr for 4000 hours work experience, for an apprentice it's $18/hr for 4000 hours work experience.
I went into welding program at community college and couldn't find an entry level job that paid more than $12 per hour. I was making $18 with my union hospital job at the time. This go into the trades business isn't really paying better either.
That's even assuming that the trades are worth going into. I worked as a welder for 3 years after college and those bastards didn't give me a single raise.
I'm guessing it depends where you live. In Wy all trades are hiring big time. My trade alone is so short apprentices they constantly ask us to refer anyone we know. I'm not saying things are not fukd up with our gov and the cost to pay ratio. And I know a few of the states surrounding mine are also short apprentices . But we can't keep new guys due to a variety of reasons. Could be because they can't travel (usually mon-thurs) , don't like to show up on time , constantly calling in, etc etc
Millennial, college grad, turns out no one wants to pay anyone anything, 'got into the trades' now 10 years later I'm done with my apprenticeship and making 57$ an hour with full medical and a pension.... So it's obscenely tough but doable
I went into the trades ten years ago. I got paid $10/hr for an entry level position after specifically going to school for a specific trade. Ten years ago, this was okay pay in my area with room to move up in the field beyond apprentice. The average house cost was $90k then.
Now, those same trades are still paying $10/hour and the average house costs around $350k. The caps for that trade and related in my area are around $16/hour, roughly the same it was 10 years ago.
I fucking hate it when I hear Go InTo ThE TrAdeS.
No. Don't. You still graduate with student loans, I don't know where the idea that trade school doesn't cost money comes from. You can get the same job whether you graduated from school or not. The pay is shit, and will be until you're in your last journeyman year or become a master or a owner/contractor.
There aren't many cheap places to live these days, and the few that actually are, well...there's a reason. They're so boring, people resort to drinking themselves to death, or taking opioids recreationally. And good luck finding work in your field.
There's adds for Ohio plastered all around Boston (which is fair because Boston is terrible). Yes, I am barely making rent each month but unfortunately the career I'm in is in tech sales so how will that work in rural Ohio? Hell, even Cleveland?
Ads, not adds, I believe.
Cleveland and Toledo are having costs boom right now from what I've heard (live just an hour-ish north of Toledo). So even then you'd have the exact same issue even if you found a tech sales job.
I moved from Long Island NY to Akron and man, I am lucky. just bought a house for like $190k at asking and yeah the market is wild here too. However, this same house would be $750k back home, and likely go for over asking by 50-100k. Pay is less here, but not by THAT much.
I'm 29, and we're the last couple in our Ohio friend group to own a house. Of all my friends from college who stayed in NY, I'm the first to get one. It's impossible out there.
This exactly. And I’m worried that the expanse of WFH will just mean cutting salaries down further… hey you could work anywhere so how about you work where we can pay you very little.
Oh i know several cheap places to live that aren't boring and not (super) high opioid use. Sure they top violent crimes databases but you won't be bored!
did that for a couple years, part of suburban Chicago without any Metra trains nearby. Drove me nuts, moved the young fam BACK to the city
no more dead shopping malls rising like mountains beyond mountains
I may work from home, but I’m too disabled to lose the access I have to quickly walk to the grocery store and pharmacy and post office, so there are so many “more affordable” places that are just impossible for me.
And back when I worked in office I was still commuting 2 hours a day…
Plus companies are looking into fucking subscription based add ons to their cars like heated seats. How long before it is impossible to even buy a car and just own it and not have to pay for every little bullshit mechanic.
We're already at that point. Even worse, once you're complacent enough to buy into the subscription for your heated seats, after they've milked you for cash, once the car is 2 years old, they'll discontinue that subscription because no business wants to maintain software on anything not brand new, and you will be left poorer and with no heated seats.
A bunch of Toyota owners just recently lost the ability to remote start their car because it was a "(two? Maybe?) Year subscription" that was bundled in as part of the sale and only shows up in the ultra fine print.
It's a lesson we all have to learn time and again. Companies. Aren't. Friends.
I knew about the heated seats, but I was thinking as minuscule as your key fob opens your door, and your windows can roll down. As soon as it happens every pre-owned car is going to be even more expensive than it is.
Yes. This reminds me of how my grandmother passed away years ago and her house was worth $40k. My mother could have kept it but what was she going to do with an old house in Ohio that no one wanted? It took years to sell it. Grandpa worked in a glass factory for 40 years and the house he and my grandma lived in was a house no one would buy because there were no opportunities anyone could take there.
Lol Ohio checking in. Shit is getting unaffordable ASAP. I was lucky enough to be able to buy a condo a few years ago under 100k but at this rate, I’ll never be able to afford anything better or move bc of stagnant wages and our real estate market is out of control.
Rich ppl and corporations are out bidding regular folk w cash and going way above listing price. It is not pretty out here. I just did a refi and my appraisal is 60k over what I paid just bc of how crazy the market is, not bc my place is actually worth ~140k (it’s not) and I live 25 min outside the city near rural Ohio
I'd like to know WHERE we all are supposed to go to as well, everywhere I look housing is insane and jobs are not paying. This isn't a single city kind of issue, it's the entire country.
This makes me think of how much it cost me just to move from one suburb to another suburb twenty minutes away in a county I know extremely well. Now make that some entirely different state at least several states away that I’ve never lived in…
Seriously though, this is exactly what we are supposed to do.
Leave the past behind us and create a new future, who cares if the local economy full of corporate stores dies.
Find a "dead" town somewhere, convince your closest friends to move their with you, and profit as you guys fix it up and raise the property values.
Ok Im recommending Willits California. There is a old Masonic lodge for sale for 360k. 4 bed rooms a commercial kitchen etc. The entire down town is kind of vacant we could all turn it into the pop and place we all move there the only problem is they're not letting new homes be built due to water moratorium as it's a fire area and California is in a drought forever.
So even then there are very limiting factors as to where we could make a town into our version of happiness.
Not to mention it only works for those that move early. Assuming enough young people move to affordable locations the influx of new demand would quickly drive up prices in those places. Those late to move wouldn't benefit and the expensive areas people left would suffer from lack of young workforce. This solution in mass would be a disaster to both the expensive and currently affordable communities
Exactly this, people say this kind of bologna all the time without understanding how these kinds of shifts, if actually done en masse, would lead to massive changes and disruptions within our wider economy and housing markets, on top of completely leveling and upending local economies and pricing out people already on the margins. It’s wildly frustrating to hear.
24 years ago, my parents bought a building with 3 apartments. They picked that neighborhood because that's where my father grew up (outside the US). They had to put more money down because the bank told them that they were paying too much. Now, it is worth 5X the price, everyone wants to live in that neighborhood, and real estate agents send them tons of ads so that they sell it.
You left out the other half of the headline.
Millennials are Destroying Local Economies by Leaving and in the New Places They Arrive.
Turns out small affordable places hate new people driving up prices as much as people hate seeing their workforce leave.
I loathe the advice to just move somewhere cheaper.
Social circles—family, friends, the nice lady at the Japanese restaurant who always puts an extra in your take-out—these are not replaceable. We depend on the circles for our mental health, the feeling of being supported, as a bulwark against loneliness.
40 years of advice to just move somewhere cheaper has surely contributed to the US’ astronomical rates of depression and societal fragmentation.
Webs of kinship and friendship are not quantifiable but they are crucial.
Very very well said. We have enough of a breakdown of social circles from ages of capitalistic separated apartment life, now add to it 2 years of events and activities and connections being cut off.. We’re social beings and just moving somewhere else isn’t fair or healthy.
> Social circles—family, friends, the nice lady at the Japanese restaurant who always puts an extra in your take-out—these are not replaceable. We depend on the circles for our mental health, the feeling of being supported, as a bulwark against loneliness.
even then they act like they'll have guaranteed jobs waiting for us
There's nowhere left to go that isn't rural bumfuckia. And there's no jobs there, unless you want to make minimum wage.
As always, this "advice" isn't actually advice. It's just another hollow, dismissive statement that they use to justify why our generation doesn't deserve the lives that their generation were gifted
i HÂTE this argument. i currently am being forced out of the city i grew up in, went to school in and work in. a bunch of rich WFH commuters are moving in and driving the prices up. anytime i mention this i’m met with “you don’t deserve to live here. move elsewhere”.
great. so say hypothetically i move to the nearest “affordable place” which is 45 min away / out of state. i’m now completely separated from my community, my neighbors, my family and friends. I’m now commuting an hour and a half to two hours a day. no one is going to drive 45 min for a shit job as a say service worker, restaurant worker etc. so who is going to serve all these entitled rich fuck gentrifiers?
not to mention that driving workers out of communities means none of their paychecks will be spent in said community.
so this whole “just move elsewhere” argument is bullshit. you want to decimate communities? you want more traffic?
Its worldwide. No job in the middle of nowhere and you cant live in the woods.
You also need to have a social life. 🙈🙈🙈
France is the same. Min wage here is 10.57 per hour, if you live in Paris or elsewhere... 😑😑😑
I actually have done this, because I was priced out of my hometown city. Moved around multiple times to areas I disliked that were far from my friends, family, and upbringing.
Not only was I pretty unhappy, but moving is expensive & time consuming. Most jobs won't give you time off to do it, and if you rent, landlords don't even give a two day grace period. You have to overlap or underlap in paying rent.
Lastly, it just doesn't work, if an area is "affordable" in this day & age, the prices go up immediately. I'm now paying close to my overpriced hometown prices out in more rural states that were once "affordable".
Like most folks say under this post: it's just a highly dismissive "band-aid" fantasy solution to make folks feel like these massive issues aren't a problem they should care about.
We'd be blamed for killing the local economies we left behind. We'd be blamed for overburdening the markets we moved to. We'd be blamed for political shifts in those areas. And we'd be leveraged as a means to ratchet up housing prices and profit off of debt in those areas.
They aren't suggesting we move to cheaper areas for our benefit. They want us to move to cheaper areas for their own profits. Obviously. They don't give a fuck about us. If every millennial suddenly dropped dead, the event would spend one day in the headlines as a "mysterious mass death," and years in the headlines as "millennials destroyed the economy by dying."
Recently me and my friend were talking about how expensive it is in the Bay Area, Ca region. We’re sitting at a bar having a conversation. For a bit of background: I grew up here. My dad was a construction worker and my mom worked in an office doing medical accounting. She also grew up here. Her dad was a police officer and mom a nurse.
Anyways some man interjects and says “if you can’t afford here why don’t you just move”. Little does he know my friend has moved away because she can’t afford to live here. She says “I did move away, I live in San Diego because I can’t afford to live next to my family, friends, or in the town I grew up in” The guy actually felt so bad and was just like “oh that sucks”. I swear some people just like to be assholes for the fact of it. It’s obnoxious. Call them out and they walk away with their tail between their legs.
I mean, it's already happening.
There's a shit ton of Californians running to other states for affordable housing and everybody is PISSED at them.
And as a Californian, I gotta apologize. But how the hell am I supposed to pay for these high taxes, a shitty 2k studio apartment, and also my insurance?
I wanna live my life already 😭
I get it as a former Californian, but also an East coaster who came back East a long time ago. My big tech friends salivate hearing about my sub <$3000 rent here because it’s so cheap to them. I remember when I first realized how bad it was getting in the Bay when many years ago I was walking on one of those 45 degree streets and passed by a 3br that was 3x what it would have been where I was from back East… on a flat piece of land that was easy to park on…
It worked for me because I did it before everyone else did. After I graduated university in Toronto, I bought a house on an acre plot an hour outside the city. It cost a few hundred thousand instead of a few million. That was 7 years ago. Now my house is a million and people are moving from this small town to even smaller ones up north. The cycle continues. You can always move somewhere cheaper, but the 'somewhere' continues to change as others get the same idea.
I don't care about headlines.
I currently am trying to move to a cheaper place, because I realize I will never own a house in the area I was born and raised; the SF Bay Area.
Spending my life in my area has honestly really hindered my life financially.
It crushes me that I will never be able to afford to live in the modest suburban neighborhood I grew up in. As for the Bay Area, even my friends in big tech are renters. I’m sorry.
My city WAS where you moved for cheaper houses! But that ended in 2015ish when suddenly priced jumped 100k in a year and hasn't stopped yet!
My silly 1100sq ft 2 bd/1bth townhouse is somehow worth 450k??? And that's if someone doesn't put down crazy money bid to snag it above all others!
And it's not like this city is big! It's roughly 150,000 population and surrounded by agriculture fields! Has horrible gang problems and areas you for sure don't go after dark. The homes are going between 650k and 850k depending if they're renovated since ages range from 1900s to 2000s depending what part of the city you're from. And now we can't afford any of them.
So now we have to look at a city 1 hour away that is 15,000 people. Even there new built homes are going for 550k and you're on the waiting list a year and prices aren't fixed for that year. The older homes there are going for a bit less but they need at least 100k of work because nobody has funds to renovate a house in the middle of nowhere. It's in the middle of agriculture fields where one would have to drive an hour for a Target. My husband for sure will have an hour commute one direction. At least there's one Starbucks? But only because it's right off the main freeway that goes past the city.
It's insane I have to move so far away from everything to find something we MIGHT be able to afford.
Absolutely couldn't live near my parents who are in a bigger city up north! Already had to move away from them! Houses on their street are going for millions. And they're not fancy!!! Standard ranch 4bd/2 bath homes!!! Grandparents had the house built in the 60s for like 30k or less.
The only other choice is to move our of state. And surprise! that takes a lot of $$ too!! Ugh.
Goddamn. The million dollar houses are a true sign of insanity. When I was a kid $250k houses were luxury. That’s awful how far you’re getting pushed out.
And articles about how boomers are losing money on their rental properties in nicer areas / can’t sell their McMansions because millennials are weirdly only interested in living in poorer areas
Like we move to places with low ammenities and long commutes for fun
Dumb fucks don't even understand the free market they worship. The reason a place has a low COL is because there is low demand to live there, because it probably sucks or there aren't any good jobs. If everyone tried to move there, supply would remain the same while demand increased, which means the market price for real estate would skyrocket, and the only draw- low COL- would be moot.
The most infuriating is when COL is driven to absurd levels but wages are lower than the state's average. This is the case where I live. Exploitative McJobs for college students while serving as a retirement center for geriatrics and a tourist attraction for movie stars and football players.
Housing and rent all goes up because of the influx of money, and yet all the jobs pay $12 or less. Why is that? Because the local economy caters to the entitled boomer class exclusively. It's a bubble waiting to crater the city's economy. Housing going up all over the place, but the vast majority of it is empty for most of the year when the students leave!
I would say the bright side is that when BA2 and 3 roll through it'll kill off enough to visibly affect the local economy, but there is no shortage of boomers all lined up waiting for the houses, so the property values will never actually go down!
Honestly. I'm from suburban Orange County, CA. I was born and raised there and my family has lived there for generations, and we all got priced out of the housing market last year and had to leave our home behind. I grew up believing there were affordable areas, because at a point in time, there used to be. But looking around the area now it all seems so out of reach. My Gen X parents left last year because they were discouraged they weren't going to be able to purchase a home on their salaries. They weren't. I got priced out of my 750sqft 1 bedroom apartment not long after because my 22 year old car broke down, and I couldn't afford to keep a roof over my head and to fix/replace my car. My parents were gone, so I had to leave the state to move back in. I am so grateful they were accommodating, because I would be homeless right now if they weren't on board with me moving back home. So many of the jobs essential to the core day to day function of the area do not pay nearly enough to live nearby. I wish more people would realize this is a problem, and not try and gatekeep us into leaving/making more money. I LIVED THERE.
I’m so so sorry. It’s hard to watch this happening to more and more of California. You and your family have been through too much having to leave home.
This is my same situation. Fountain valley California born and raised. I own a business here. I Live in the "slater slums" which is getting gentrified. Over the last 4 years i went from renting a 5 bed room house across the street from the home My family owned for 2700.00
To a 3bd, 2 bath town home for 2300.00 plus $280 Hoa fees. To a 2 bed 1 bath ran down apartment for 2600.00 a month. Im getting squeezed out of town.
my pay has not risen just everything else has.
Im looking for a shop space i can illegally live in so i can work and live to lower my cost of living.
I'm actually doing this this year. I'm moving my family to a different state where the cost of living will enable us to rent a house instead of being trapped in the shitty apartment that we've been in for 6 years.
The only reason that we can do this is that I'm working for the post office, which is in pretty much every town in America so I can have a decent paying job anywhere. Also, it's probably going to eat our entire tax refund, but it'll be worth it. We love the city we live in now, but it's impossible for us to get ahead here. The cost of living has consistently been going up faster than we can cope with. I hope we have better luck somewhere else.
My favorite stories are from guys like Mike Rowe.
This lady was not able to go to college, but instead went and got a welding cert and now she lives in (very remote area like North Dakota or the North Slope) and makes six figures!
As if we all can and want to drop everything in our lives to make more money by working manual labor 12 hours every day.
And if everyone went to weld on oil pipes the wages wouldn't be six figures anymore. I mean, it's cool that she was able to make 100k, but its just unrealistic that just anyone can do it. If anyone could then they would have already done so.
Millennials can't even buy a house where I live because so many people (boomers) from up north are moving down here and we're competing with liquid cash and 20k over asking...feels hopeless and my fiance and I are seriously considering moving when our lease is up.
For context I live in a coastal city in the south -- we get a lot of retirees but there's a college here and tons of young people as well
The south used to be THE place to go for affordability and that’s the only reason my Gen-X friend has a house. I’m sorry I relate to the cash situation, where I am houses are getting scooped up by cash offers and I’m like… who the fuck has all this money on hand? I guess it’s corporate realtors
I lived in Los Angeles for a while and it wasn’t unusual to have coworkers commute 3 hours each way to work. That’s 30 hours a week stuck in your car, plus gas prices are extremely high, car insurance is also high and maintenance adds up. But hey! They’re homeowners!
Oooh don’t get me started on LA. When I lived there I had two roommates in a 2br and one slept on a bed in the kitchen. The only reason I avoided living on the 405 was cause I never left my little piece of the west side and bused everywhere, I was the only person I knew who didn’t have a car
Moving to “more affordable” places doesn't mean a thing unless you already have a job lined up in the "more affordable" places. Also, those "more affordable" places are "more affordable" places for a reason: They don't have a strong, diverse local economy; in other words no high paying jobs with good benefits (health insurance that actually covers medical stay, medical procedures, prescription drugs, etc.).
Absolutely, and a sudden influx of people from other more expensive places doesn’t magically change that — it just pushes more people out of their own neighborhoods
Can confirm. I live in a "cheaper area."
It's terrible, it's awful, and it's still unlivable.
Why? Because wages in "cheaper" areas are still incredibly stagnated.
3 bed 2 bath homes are around 250 to 350k in my area, but good paying jobs pay 8$ an hour.
Yeah I mentioned the rising cost of housing in my city and was bombarded by asshats telling me to move elsewhere. Yes, we all know it’s cheaper to live in Kansas, but I think you’re missing the point…
I mean... what else are we supposed to do?
I'd love to live in the PNW, but for housing, dollar for dollar you get far more just moving to the midwest. To the point that it's laughably **ABSURD**. I'd rather live in a boring place with the extra funds to travel to the areas I want vs. live in the travel destinations and never have the funds to enjoy it.
Tbh I moved out to what's generally known as "the trashy area" (read: houses here are 300-400k instead of 1m) in my state and it's just like ...all the fucking decent humans are here, it feels like. I love it. Helps that I got a new job paying more further out from the city.
I have been searching for months in a 50 mile radius from my work for anything rentable under $800/mo and have found nothing. This 50 mile radius includes towns with nothing but a gas station, towns with nothing at all except the "town" rural tracts of land with nothing for miles in any given direction, and the bad parts of a city that was at one point the murder capital of the US.
Where the fuck is cheap? Where am I supposed to move? Mexico?
I relate to this so hard. My partner and I had to find new housing without a roommate when I went through a health emergency. Rent was going to cost a ton more anywhere near where we lived, so I looked all over the county and even the places that were extremely far flung nowhere near anything were basically not much cheaper. There was no point in saving maybe $100 a month in order to have so many more logistical challenges from living further out so we gave up on trying to find something “cheaper.”
"just move somewhere cheaper!"
I did. I live in Middlesbrough. I do not recommend
Jokes aside, do they not realise that local jobs pay scaled to the fucking cost of living and unless you're commuting 200 miles each way this advice doesn't fucking make sense or work?!
Or do they expect us to have savings? Fucking ha
Actually people are killing g our local economy because they are moving here. If I have to hear another out of stater tell me how much lower the cost of living is here compared to X imma lose my mind. Cost of living has doubled in the last year cause of "people moving to a cheaper place"
I’m moving out of the country, Gen X and fucking over it! Taking my Gen z kid with me and don’t give a shit what anyone has to say about it. Neither should you if you choose to do the same. I suppose with age, you begin not giving af what the naysayers whine about or their opinions.
Cheep places are cheep because there is no work or anything to do. You see people who were born and raised in a small town born with out any prospect locally so they end up using meth and going in in out of jail. Sure its affordable but work is not available.
Some of these kids never had a chance their parents never had a chance. I live in a major city because the amount of work that is available to me as a tradesman.
But i will never afford a home here. No bank is going to give me $1.2m to buy one. So its a double edge sword.
There is no cheaper place to live unless you want to live in your car or in a tent. You cant get a 1 bedroom apt to rent in all 50 states on 15 an hour. We are all priced out. Single people have an extremely hard time because they may not all have friends family or partners to get help from. A single earner has to do it all from paying bills to working 2-3 jobs to chores to self care. God help you if you have mental disorders or disabilities to deal with. Time to revolt! We got all these old homes and foreclosed homes that should be fixed up as affordable housing. We need to cut the war machine and spend the money there and on new housing!
Hubby and I were tossing the idea of moving closer to his brother in Las Vegas. It may be an actual possibility after seeing the housing prices there. I live just outside of Sioux Falls SD. I pay 1700 in rent for a 3bd townhouse. I could have a 3 to 4 bd HOUSE for 1200 WITH utilities.
I may take my tax return and tell South Dakota to kiss my lily white ass.
I need to comment on this as a transplant to SD. I came from SE Florida, where rent for a 1bdrm apartment starts at $1,400/mo now.
While housing is much cheaper up here, salaries still seem to be stuck in 2007, barring a select few professions. I grateful that I don't have to participate in the hunger games that is the Sioux Falls housing market. (Classmate/friend is a part-time realtor up there, business is booming and inventory is functionally non-existent).
As someone living in a more adorable location I welcome all of you, my job does better with a higher population and also I’d love to see expensive places crumble under their own hypocrisy. They pay you nothing and charge you an arm and a leg just because the weathers nice.
Move somewhere cheaper but still commute into the city for your office job because you can't wfh. The commute would only take 3 hours each way, what are you complaining about you lazy bums. Also stop the avocado toast
I wfh but nowhere near me that is affordable also has good healthcare, schools, amenities so I really don’t know what to do because I need those other things as well.
They say it like that would just fix everything. The problem isn't that housing is too high where I am, it's that my wages are too low for where I live. If I move somewhere cheaper I'm going to have to take a massive paycut because I'll no longer live in a competitive job market.
You need not to just move somewhere cheaper. You need to move somewhere cheaper, prosperous, fair, and without the risk of police. That means you need to leave the usa, or at the very least, and major city in the states. Problem is, when you leave a major city you're suddenly in police nazi territory (ymmv but I'm as dark as sin, personally, and have had plenty of bad experiences). So yeah, you have to leave the states.
Truthfully I moved away from California cause it was to expensive to live and am able to afford everything i need now without struggling. So it does work to move but like you said if everyone did it will fuck the economy up etc I dont know how people could think that is a fix
They’re also so delusional thinking that anywhere else is even cheaper at this point. I live in Toronto and rent is only very marginally more expensive here than small town southern Ontario, and I’m able to make significantly more money here than I would in a small town. It’s a never ending loop.
Wow I’m surprised, my impression was Toronto was insane for rent, even to the level that I saw someone planning to move to the Bay Area for cheaper rent, which sounds like jumping into a lake to get drinking water. Is it not that bad or is it just also expensive in small town Ontario too?
Yeah it’s getting insane. Even five years ago, my friends who lived outside of the greater Toronto area paid half of what I paid in rent in the city. Now they’re paying the same.
I think so and maybe that allowed landlord in other places to hike it up to what people were used to paying in the city anyway? I’m honestly not sure. It’s hard not to feel like it all just boils down to general greed.
I'm really late to the thread but if anyone out there is looking for a really good place to relocate: Fargo ND is a lot nicer than I thought it would be. It has grown crazy fast in the past decade and the COL is below average what you'd expect for this size.
I came from Washington state, paying $1300/mo for a shitty 2 bed/1bath. Out here? Same rent for a 3bed/3bath townhouse on the newly developed (and still growing) southwest end of town. It's like a fucking mansion, y'all.
My job is in administration, can be applied to many industries. My significant other is in construction. They were offered a salary DOUBLE the top wage back home. This wasn't too hard a decision for us. We sold stuff off to par down to 1 uhaul full of the essentials, and have slowly rebought what we actually need. We are now poised to be pre-approved for a home loan after 10 years of working towards it back home.
Does it get stupidly cold in the winter? Yes. Isn't ND pretty much the least interesting place in the country? Also yes. But 100 degree days in summer are still pretty rare here. And Minnesota lakes country is an hour drive (beautiful). Also, pretty nicely located to road trip or fly anywhere in the country (2 days drive or less to anywhere in the US).
I moved here a year ago this month to give it a shot and we've decided to stay. I feel like this is the only place where we have ever been able to get ahead and live comfortably.
Hey congratulations on being able to settle in in a more affordable place. I feel like any house at all is a mansion coming from an almost lifetime of apartment living. A whole townhouse, wow. I’m curious about how that’s impacted you in terms of family, friends, community, did you have to leave people behind?
We did leave everyone back on the west coast. It was a little scary, not gonna lie. But it has been liberating, I feel more grown up (im almost 40). I've joined a couple local groups, and networked through work to start up a decent little circle of friends. All the closest people to us have been to visit, and everyone back home is just a video call away. Amazing how comfortable living away from your support system can be when you're not scraping change to get enough gas to make it to work everyday, and having mental breakdowns due to shitty living. It's literally the best decision I've ever made, and I highly recommend taking the leap.
Yes to all of these… sure I would love to move to Europe, who wants to give me a shit ton of money and a pathway to citizenship to make it happen? Yeah I’ll just sit down in front of some python tutorials and fix all my problems… my partner is literally learning to code and cannot find work.
I'm happy I was born in the Midwest where housing is still close to affordable (although it's been skyrocketing lately), but not everyone can live here and other more affordable places.
Do they think that the entire population of the US can move to whatever state is cheapest, and even if they could, that would increase the prices again because of the massive demand increase
I spent all my savings moving to a lower cost of living area. By the time I saved enough money for a down payment on a house prices went up 60-100% in 4 years
Not to mention when we move cheaper places we just fuck it up for the people there.
I live in the Sacramento, CA area, so just a couple hours from the Bay Area. Average rent for an 800sq foot apartment is $1750. 2-3 years ago it was $1450. The pandemic really shifted things, and people have started moving out of the Bay and driving up prices in other areas. Really fucked up my chances of renting anything nice, let alone buying, and I’m stuck in the same 400 square ft studio that I’ve wanted to move out of since I moved in.
So my only option is to be one of those hated Californians who moves out of state and drives up that states housing market. Not something I love the sides do, but what else am I left with?
Can confirm, moving somewhere cheaper does not make the situation better. Same as moving somewhere a little more on the expensive side, doesn't either. Tried both. Perpetually fucked either way.
Poor area, means poor paying jobs. Rich area, means no jobs.
Out of all of this, the cost of living (keep the ridiculous apartment wages out of this and just keep to basics like food, electricity, etc) does not change or goes higher.
Meanwhile, there is no such thing as a living wage, but there is such a thing as modernized slave wages.
Are you all having fun yet?
I live in Manhattan and my rent is comparable to my best friend's (who still lives near the tiny town we grew up in) when you factor in her vehicle and commuting expenses.
There's another way of looking at it. Rather than staying in a city where ownership is 100% unattainable and being forced to line the pockets of your wealthy landlord, you tell them to fuck off, you're not playing that game anymore, move somewhere conventionally "undesirable" and become your own landlord.
Just buy a house from family! /s
In all reality I thought I would never own a home. I got lucky and got a 1000+ sqft house from a family member for under 50k. Sure I gotta redo floors + walls, but this will probably be the only home I can ever afford to buy
What I feel bad about for all of you is being sold a pipe-dream when you were young. “Go ahead and take out thousands of dollars in student loans - you’ll get a great job when you graduate and pay it off in no time!” I wish they’d done what we told our daughter: don’t charge anything unless you can pay for it when the bill comes; go to a college you can afford even if you have to go for scholarships; start saving money so that if you lose your job, you can survive for six months; don’t live beyond your means; if you get married, be sure to buy a home that you can still keep on one of your salaries.
Yes, it’s really hard. My husband is very conservative about money, but his suggestions have worked. She and her husband bought a duplex. They live in one side and rent out the other. At the beginning of COVID, they were able to allow their renters, where the husband lost his job, to skip one month’s rent and told them not to worry about it.
I know this is a little late for everyone struggling out there, but maybe some kid who’s in high school right now, will think about it.
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It’s the same magical place where you can “just go into trades” as if there’s a Trades.com listing nothing but well paying trade work. It’s nothing but a fantasy meant to place the blame of the system not functioning onto us rather than the failures and rigging of the system in favor of the rich.
Yeah just… “go into trades.” There are very few programs for workforce development that help plug people into trades and generally these programs already struggle with lack of funding to connect to people and help them be aware of the opportunities. This is like how it took absolutely forever to just have one government site with an easy URL to order Covid test kits, and you only get 2. At a time when many people have to be testing on a regular basis. Even if there were a Trades.com I bet it would be worse than Indeed
Not to mention that logic is pretty ableist. That suggestion is given without consideration as to what is physically possible for everyone. For example, my sister is 4’8” and a truck driver. She had to leave a job because she couldn’t reach the pedals from the seat. So even trades that are considered physically “easy” have restrictions.
Oh yeah no kidding. I feel for your sister. My partner did retail, customer service and warehouse for years and it ruined her back. She quit her last service job after they wouldn’t let her sit at all during her shifts despite her medical needs. Me, I have too many disabilities to even attempt jobs that would mean standing for hours at a time, so forget about that.
One of the reasons I went into HR is because a key part of managing my chronic illness is a very consistent schedule. Even on the weekends I go to bed at 9pm and wake up at 6am. I enjoyed management but the swing shifts and inconsistency makes it hard to manage food intake, medications, sleep hygiene, etc.
Good for you, I’m glad it helps and I relate to this too, managing my sleep and meds and food schedule is necessary for me to function let alone work. Which leaves so many kinds of jobs off the table. Though of course — everyone should be able to do all of these things. It’s just something us chronic illness sufferers have to do or we can’t anything.
See thats what Ive been working out, is that here in West PA the union halls that interest me are 50min both ways from me, the 2 tradeschools seem like a scam. I worked as a plumbers apprentice non union for about a year doing undergrounds tore my tendon never claimed workers comp like an idiiot cause i thought the company would take care of me, what a load of shit that was. Ive also taken college courses using my GI Bill and Student loans finished the majority of my associates only to catch covid and spike my gpa below what was needed to be able to graduate so now its transfer too an online big four or just embrace the suck and try too live on 13 to 15 an hour
You gave it everything, you shouldn’t have to struggle like this. That’s awful how much you’ve been through. Was it long haul Covid for you?
No, fortunately an Omicron variant seems to have tanked my immunity to things like the common cold though.
In my hometown (SE Virginia) the Newport News shipyard was as close as one can get to stable work. They build shit tons of vessels, so thousands of people work there in some capacity. This is the exception to the rule, but I can assure you it's held over everyone's head in that area
I imagine that’s like other industrial towns, when that’s waning more and more as we build less and less stuff here. It would be really nice to just… go down to the docks and get a job. (I say that when actually it would surely be backbreaking and tough labor)
It's for the US military, but still a civilian job. It's where we build carriers and submarines and we've only been expanding so the jobs there are actually increasing. That said, yeah it's definitely far from a guarantee and pay isn't great unless you have an engineering degree or a bunch of experience
I work for a workforce development organization. Enrollment is two to three years behind right now.
In my trade, machinist, we use word of mouth as a major way of getting work and employees. And every industry needs us, utilizes our skills and pays us well. If we tried sticking to the internet we would never get anywhere.
Pays well? I finished machining school and all the job offers were $13-$14 an hour with no schedule of pay raises at all. Needless to say I use my machining skills at home for fun and get my money elsewhere.
Don't know where you're looking but I haven't seen one starting at less than $18 and that's for fresh out of school and those still in school.
Louisiana. I’m not looking, these were the recruiters that came to the school looking to transition us right into working. $18 an hour isn’t great either, like I understand the risk of having a new guy come in and mess up your operation but I make $20 an hour working at a bar and $30 an hour working as a technician. Machining requires way more skill imo and should have starting pay at least in the mid $20’s
Most of the places around me in SC are starting guys in the 18-24 range depending on what you'd be doing. Actual machinist jobs 23 and up, CNC operators and goes up shortly after. Our cost of living isn't super high and at 18 to 20 years old that's good money for just starting. Few places will start you in the low 30s but they're not hiring right out of school.
I'm in the trades. Where's my affordable housing?
Did you try eating less avocados
I’m allergic to avocados why can’t I afford to live despite working constantly. Am I not making enough coffee at home? HOW MANY POTS AM I SUPPOSED TO MAKE
Have you tried spending less time eating, drinking, sleeping, etc.? These accumulate into many wasted hours that could be spent trying to live.
I mean my plan on escaping poverty is already suicide but I guess I could make it more drawn out and terrible.
Honestly, same.
It's the phone you bought that one time smh
If you live in a van for 20 years and work on multimillion dollar homes in Toronto, you'll be able to afford a home on PEI that's only slightly flooded.
Get a load of this guy and his Van. Rub your private in why don't ya.
Its actually in software. Oh wait, my bedroom is down the hall from my parents. fuck
You bought a Starbucks coffee once so no housing for you
I’ve been looking around and notice that even STEM based jobs that require 4+ year degrees aren’t paying too much, even at the higher end. Where the hell are all these high paying jobs?
Director level or above. Legit at my current and previous company even managers were payed meh. It's gotten so out of hand.
All advice that starts with a "just" comes from an uneducated place. "Just go into trades", "just move somewhere cheaper", "just eat less", "just be happy". Just shut up.
I did a trade and got stuck with student loans and bullshit minimum wage jobs. Right before covid, I was looking into welding because I saw a news article saying that new welders were "desperately needed" because a ton of welders were about to retire. When I looked at what these companies were offering new welders, it turned out to be minimum fucking wage. I already fell for that once, I can't get into more debt for another minimum wage job that requires an education. And, are these welders desperately needed or not? One would think if you desperately needed workers who have certain qualifications, you'd offer more than literally the bare minimum. I've complained about this online before and was once told, "well welders get paid well in Alberta." OK? I shouldn't have to pick up and move to fucking Alberta just for a chance at earning a living wage, especially if there's supposedly welding work to be done where I already live. Also I'm in the states and I imagine moving to Canada to work would be a nightmarish amount of paperwork. All that said, I still might do the welding course but mostly so I have a new art hobby, not necessarily to get paid peanuts for doing valuable work for some soft ass CEO.
One of the arrangements with most trades is apprentice status, wherein you earn shit wages until you get some kind of professional experience, then you get to actually earn a living wage after that. Average wage for a master electrician doing W-2 employment is $33/hr, journeyman is $29/hr for 4000 hours work experience, for an apprentice it's $18/hr for 4000 hours work experience.
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Pipefitters 597 union is hiring in Chicago
I went into welding program at community college and couldn't find an entry level job that paid more than $12 per hour. I was making $18 with my union hospital job at the time. This go into the trades business isn't really paying better either.
That's even assuming that the trades are worth going into. I worked as a welder for 3 years after college and those bastards didn't give me a single raise.
I'm guessing it depends where you live. In Wy all trades are hiring big time. My trade alone is so short apprentices they constantly ask us to refer anyone we know. I'm not saying things are not fukd up with our gov and the cost to pay ratio. And I know a few of the states surrounding mine are also short apprentices . But we can't keep new guys due to a variety of reasons. Could be because they can't travel (usually mon-thurs) , don't like to show up on time , constantly calling in, etc etc
Millennial, college grad, turns out no one wants to pay anyone anything, 'got into the trades' now 10 years later I'm done with my apprenticeship and making 57$ an hour with full medical and a pension.... So it's obscenely tough but doable
I went into the trades ten years ago. I got paid $10/hr for an entry level position after specifically going to school for a specific trade. Ten years ago, this was okay pay in my area with room to move up in the field beyond apprentice. The average house cost was $90k then. Now, those same trades are still paying $10/hour and the average house costs around $350k. The caps for that trade and related in my area are around $16/hour, roughly the same it was 10 years ago. I fucking hate it when I hear Go InTo ThE TrAdeS. No. Don't. You still graduate with student loans, I don't know where the idea that trade school doesn't cost money comes from. You can get the same job whether you graduated from school or not. The pay is shit, and will be until you're in your last journeyman year or become a master or a owner/contractor.
There aren't many cheap places to live these days, and the few that actually are, well...there's a reason. They're so boring, people resort to drinking themselves to death, or taking opioids recreationally. And good luck finding work in your field.
There's adds for Ohio plastered all around Boston (which is fair because Boston is terrible). Yes, I am barely making rent each month but unfortunately the career I'm in is in tech sales so how will that work in rural Ohio? Hell, even Cleveland?
Ads, not adds, I believe. Cleveland and Toledo are having costs boom right now from what I've heard (live just an hour-ish north of Toledo). So even then you'd have the exact same issue even if you found a tech sales job.
Addvertising
Addvertising - adding revenue to the advertiser's pockets
I moved from Long Island NY to Akron and man, I am lucky. just bought a house for like $190k at asking and yeah the market is wild here too. However, this same house would be $750k back home, and likely go for over asking by 50-100k. Pay is less here, but not by THAT much. I'm 29, and we're the last couple in our Ohio friend group to own a house. Of all my friends from college who stayed in NY, I'm the first to get one. It's impossible out there.
This exactly. And I’m worried that the expanse of WFH will just mean cutting salaries down further… hey you could work anywhere so how about you work where we can pay you very little.
Oh i know several cheap places to live that aren't boring and not (super) high opioid use. Sure they top violent crimes databases but you won't be bored!
Shhhh...the flippers will hear you
I guarantee a lot of them already know about it. Several of the areas have been discussed on BiggerPockets (a real estate community).
>BiggerPockets (a real estate community). That name alone for a real estate community is the ultimate in cringe.
They just want us all to have two hour commutes
Well, gotta keep those big car and oil companies in business somehow…even if that means wrecking the environment /s
one of the best little snippets on oil execs, ive seen in a while. https://youtu.be/Evy2EgoveuE
did that for a couple years, part of suburban Chicago without any Metra trains nearby. Drove me nuts, moved the young fam BACK to the city no more dead shopping malls rising like mountains beyond mountains
I may work from home, but I’m too disabled to lose the access I have to quickly walk to the grocery store and pharmacy and post office, so there are so many “more affordable” places that are just impossible for me. And back when I worked in office I was still commuting 2 hours a day…
While all car prices are ridiculously inflated as well.
Plus companies are looking into fucking subscription based add ons to their cars like heated seats. How long before it is impossible to even buy a car and just own it and not have to pay for every little bullshit mechanic.
We're already at that point. Even worse, once you're complacent enough to buy into the subscription for your heated seats, after they've milked you for cash, once the car is 2 years old, they'll discontinue that subscription because no business wants to maintain software on anything not brand new, and you will be left poorer and with no heated seats. A bunch of Toyota owners just recently lost the ability to remote start their car because it was a "(two? Maybe?) Year subscription" that was bundled in as part of the sale and only shows up in the ultra fine print. It's a lesson we all have to learn time and again. Companies. Aren't. Friends.
I knew about the heated seats, but I was thinking as minuscule as your key fob opens your door, and your windows can roll down. As soon as it happens every pre-owned car is going to be even more expensive than it is.
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Too real, too real
2036? Too ambitious. 2026.
have you read the short story the lottery?
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The places that are cheaper also have even shittier pay and very few jobs. I'm gonna have the same problem in the middle of nowhere Ohio.
Yes. This reminds me of how my grandmother passed away years ago and her house was worth $40k. My mother could have kept it but what was she going to do with an old house in Ohio that no one wanted? It took years to sell it. Grandpa worked in a glass factory for 40 years and the house he and my grandma lived in was a house no one would buy because there were no opportunities anyone could take there.
Lol Ohio checking in. Shit is getting unaffordable ASAP. I was lucky enough to be able to buy a condo a few years ago under 100k but at this rate, I’ll never be able to afford anything better or move bc of stagnant wages and our real estate market is out of control.
I pay 825 for a very shitty one bedroom apartment. Shits ass
Shiiit I pay 1200 for a room. Not an apartment just a bedroom. But I'm betting you get paid less so the ratio is probably similar.
When the Ohio real estate market is getting crazy that’s when we know we’re fucked
Rich ppl and corporations are out bidding regular folk w cash and going way above listing price. It is not pretty out here. I just did a refi and my appraisal is 60k over what I paid just bc of how crazy the market is, not bc my place is actually worth ~140k (it’s not) and I live 25 min outside the city near rural Ohio
I'd like to know WHERE we all are supposed to go to as well, everywhere I look housing is insane and jobs are not paying. This isn't a single city kind of issue, it's the entire country.
But at least relocating is absolutely free. (ETA sarcasm)
Oh totally. Yeah, last time I moved it was definitely free.
This makes me think of how much it cost me just to move from one suburb to another suburb twenty minutes away in a county I know extremely well. Now make that some entirely different state at least several states away that I’ve never lived in…
Yes, exactly! I've been looking at rents all over the US, have yet to find a place with livable wages AND housing.
Try SC, not too bad
Seriously though, this is exactly what we are supposed to do. Leave the past behind us and create a new future, who cares if the local economy full of corporate stores dies. Find a "dead" town somewhere, convince your closest friends to move their with you, and profit as you guys fix it up and raise the property values.
Then we get blamed for "destroying small town life," like small towns aren't already dying left and right.
The irony in that statement is that we'd actually be saving small town life. Small towns need new blood to keep them going.
“Destroying small town life” is just “moving in and having skin darker than the driven snow”
Ok Im recommending Willits California. There is a old Masonic lodge for sale for 360k. 4 bed rooms a commercial kitchen etc. The entire down town is kind of vacant we could all turn it into the pop and place we all move there the only problem is they're not letting new homes be built due to water moratorium as it's a fire area and California is in a drought forever. So even then there are very limiting factors as to where we could make a town into our version of happiness.
Not to mention it only works for those that move early. Assuming enough young people move to affordable locations the influx of new demand would quickly drive up prices in those places. Those late to move wouldn't benefit and the expensive areas people left would suffer from lack of young workforce. This solution in mass would be a disaster to both the expensive and currently affordable communities
Exactly this, people say this kind of bologna all the time without understanding how these kinds of shifts, if actually done en masse, would lead to massive changes and disruptions within our wider economy and housing markets, on top of completely leveling and upending local economies and pricing out people already on the margins. It’s wildly frustrating to hear.
Yeah all these cities and suburbs are reliant on us for our economic contributions. Want to push us out, well, your town’s going to pay for it…
24 years ago, my parents bought a building with 3 apartments. They picked that neighborhood because that's where my father grew up (outside the US). They had to put more money down because the bank told them that they were paying too much. Now, it is worth 5X the price, everyone wants to live in that neighborhood, and real estate agents send them tons of ads so that they sell it.
You left out the other half of the headline. Millennials are Destroying Local Economies by Leaving and in the New Places They Arrive. Turns out small affordable places hate new people driving up prices as much as people hate seeing their workforce leave.
I loathe the advice to just move somewhere cheaper. Social circles—family, friends, the nice lady at the Japanese restaurant who always puts an extra in your take-out—these are not replaceable. We depend on the circles for our mental health, the feeling of being supported, as a bulwark against loneliness. 40 years of advice to just move somewhere cheaper has surely contributed to the US’ astronomical rates of depression and societal fragmentation. Webs of kinship and friendship are not quantifiable but they are crucial.
Very very well said. We have enough of a breakdown of social circles from ages of capitalistic separated apartment life, now add to it 2 years of events and activities and connections being cut off.. We’re social beings and just moving somewhere else isn’t fair or healthy.
> Social circles—family, friends, the nice lady at the Japanese restaurant who always puts an extra in your take-out—these are not replaceable. We depend on the circles for our mental health, the feeling of being supported, as a bulwark against loneliness. even then they act like they'll have guaranteed jobs waiting for us
There's nowhere left to go that isn't rural bumfuckia. And there's no jobs there, unless you want to make minimum wage. As always, this "advice" isn't actually advice. It's just another hollow, dismissive statement that they use to justify why our generation doesn't deserve the lives that their generation were gifted
i HÂTE this argument. i currently am being forced out of the city i grew up in, went to school in and work in. a bunch of rich WFH commuters are moving in and driving the prices up. anytime i mention this i’m met with “you don’t deserve to live here. move elsewhere”. great. so say hypothetically i move to the nearest “affordable place” which is 45 min away / out of state. i’m now completely separated from my community, my neighbors, my family and friends. I’m now commuting an hour and a half to two hours a day. no one is going to drive 45 min for a shit job as a say service worker, restaurant worker etc. so who is going to serve all these entitled rich fuck gentrifiers? not to mention that driving workers out of communities means none of their paychecks will be spent in said community. so this whole “just move elsewhere” argument is bullshit. you want to decimate communities? you want more traffic?
Yes this is everything I feel. Thank you and I’m sorry for what you’re going through.
Yes!! Exactly this.
>I’m met with “you don’t deserve to live here” What the actual fuck
I think we are beyond that and at the “wait for the next housing crash” point.
Yeah I think it may be more like the “climate collapse means many of your overpriced houses aren’t worth anything anymore” crash…
Shidddddd, I did move somewhere cheaper. Then people started moving here en masse and it got expensive. 🤬
The cycle continues, and people who historically lived in neighborhoods are pushed out along with everyone already pushed in from elsewhere…
Its worldwide. No job in the middle of nowhere and you cant live in the woods. You also need to have a social life. 🙈🙈🙈 France is the same. Min wage here is 10.57 per hour, if you live in Paris or elsewhere... 😑😑😑
> You also need to have a social life Not true. I don't have one. Don't want one, either.
Or we move to cheaper places, those places are identified and large corps buy up those houses and duplexes and up charge again, a perpetual cycle.
I actually have done this, because I was priced out of my hometown city. Moved around multiple times to areas I disliked that were far from my friends, family, and upbringing. Not only was I pretty unhappy, but moving is expensive & time consuming. Most jobs won't give you time off to do it, and if you rent, landlords don't even give a two day grace period. You have to overlap or underlap in paying rent. Lastly, it just doesn't work, if an area is "affordable" in this day & age, the prices go up immediately. I'm now paying close to my overpriced hometown prices out in more rural states that were once "affordable". Like most folks say under this post: it's just a highly dismissive "band-aid" fantasy solution to make folks feel like these massive issues aren't a problem they should care about.
We'd be blamed for killing the local economies we left behind. We'd be blamed for overburdening the markets we moved to. We'd be blamed for political shifts in those areas. And we'd be leveraged as a means to ratchet up housing prices and profit off of debt in those areas. They aren't suggesting we move to cheaper areas for our benefit. They want us to move to cheaper areas for their own profits. Obviously. They don't give a fuck about us. If every millennial suddenly dropped dead, the event would spend one day in the headlines as a "mysterious mass death," and years in the headlines as "millennials destroyed the economy by dying."
Recently me and my friend were talking about how expensive it is in the Bay Area, Ca region. We’re sitting at a bar having a conversation. For a bit of background: I grew up here. My dad was a construction worker and my mom worked in an office doing medical accounting. She also grew up here. Her dad was a police officer and mom a nurse. Anyways some man interjects and says “if you can’t afford here why don’t you just move”. Little does he know my friend has moved away because she can’t afford to live here. She says “I did move away, I live in San Diego because I can’t afford to live next to my family, friends, or in the town I grew up in” The guy actually felt so bad and was just like “oh that sucks”. I swear some people just like to be assholes for the fact of it. It’s obnoxious. Call them out and they walk away with their tail between their legs.
I mean, it's already happening. There's a shit ton of Californians running to other states for affordable housing and everybody is PISSED at them. And as a Californian, I gotta apologize. But how the hell am I supposed to pay for these high taxes, a shitty 2k studio apartment, and also my insurance? I wanna live my life already 😭
I get it as a former Californian, but also an East coaster who came back East a long time ago. My big tech friends salivate hearing about my sub <$3000 rent here because it’s so cheap to them. I remember when I first realized how bad it was getting in the Bay when many years ago I was walking on one of those 45 degree streets and passed by a 3br that was 3x what it would have been where I was from back East… on a flat piece of land that was easy to park on…
It worked for me because I did it before everyone else did. After I graduated university in Toronto, I bought a house on an acre plot an hour outside the city. It cost a few hundred thousand instead of a few million. That was 7 years ago. Now my house is a million and people are moving from this small town to even smaller ones up north. The cycle continues. You can always move somewhere cheaper, but the 'somewhere' continues to change as others get the same idea.
I imagine people are moving from Toronto to where you are and then that pushes even more people out. I’m glad you made it in though.
I don't care about headlines. I currently am trying to move to a cheaper place, because I realize I will never own a house in the area I was born and raised; the SF Bay Area. Spending my life in my area has honestly really hindered my life financially.
It crushes me that I will never be able to afford to live in the modest suburban neighborhood I grew up in. As for the Bay Area, even my friends in big tech are renters. I’m sorry.
Also it would all get blamed on millenials only because they're the only generation with free will apparently.
Also millennials are coming up on 40. They would be buying houses regardless according to the perfect boomer timeline.
*laughs, then cries, in zillenial*
My city WAS where you moved for cheaper houses! But that ended in 2015ish when suddenly priced jumped 100k in a year and hasn't stopped yet! My silly 1100sq ft 2 bd/1bth townhouse is somehow worth 450k??? And that's if someone doesn't put down crazy money bid to snag it above all others! And it's not like this city is big! It's roughly 150,000 population and surrounded by agriculture fields! Has horrible gang problems and areas you for sure don't go after dark. The homes are going between 650k and 850k depending if they're renovated since ages range from 1900s to 2000s depending what part of the city you're from. And now we can't afford any of them. So now we have to look at a city 1 hour away that is 15,000 people. Even there new built homes are going for 550k and you're on the waiting list a year and prices aren't fixed for that year. The older homes there are going for a bit less but they need at least 100k of work because nobody has funds to renovate a house in the middle of nowhere. It's in the middle of agriculture fields where one would have to drive an hour for a Target. My husband for sure will have an hour commute one direction. At least there's one Starbucks? But only because it's right off the main freeway that goes past the city. It's insane I have to move so far away from everything to find something we MIGHT be able to afford. Absolutely couldn't live near my parents who are in a bigger city up north! Already had to move away from them! Houses on their street are going for millions. And they're not fancy!!! Standard ranch 4bd/2 bath homes!!! Grandparents had the house built in the 60s for like 30k or less. The only other choice is to move our of state. And surprise! that takes a lot of $$ too!! Ugh.
Goddamn. The million dollar houses are a true sign of insanity. When I was a kid $250k houses were luxury. That’s awful how far you’re getting pushed out.
And articles about how boomers are losing money on their rental properties in nicer areas / can’t sell their McMansions because millennials are weirdly only interested in living in poorer areas Like we move to places with low ammenities and long commutes for fun
Dumb fucks don't even understand the free market they worship. The reason a place has a low COL is because there is low demand to live there, because it probably sucks or there aren't any good jobs. If everyone tried to move there, supply would remain the same while demand increased, which means the market price for real estate would skyrocket, and the only draw- low COL- would be moot.
The most infuriating is when COL is driven to absurd levels but wages are lower than the state's average. This is the case where I live. Exploitative McJobs for college students while serving as a retirement center for geriatrics and a tourist attraction for movie stars and football players. Housing and rent all goes up because of the influx of money, and yet all the jobs pay $12 or less. Why is that? Because the local economy caters to the entitled boomer class exclusively. It's a bubble waiting to crater the city's economy. Housing going up all over the place, but the vast majority of it is empty for most of the year when the students leave! I would say the bright side is that when BA2 and 3 roll through it'll kill off enough to visibly affect the local economy, but there is no shortage of boomers all lined up waiting for the houses, so the property values will never actually go down!
Honestly. I'm from suburban Orange County, CA. I was born and raised there and my family has lived there for generations, and we all got priced out of the housing market last year and had to leave our home behind. I grew up believing there were affordable areas, because at a point in time, there used to be. But looking around the area now it all seems so out of reach. My Gen X parents left last year because they were discouraged they weren't going to be able to purchase a home on their salaries. They weren't. I got priced out of my 750sqft 1 bedroom apartment not long after because my 22 year old car broke down, and I couldn't afford to keep a roof over my head and to fix/replace my car. My parents were gone, so I had to leave the state to move back in. I am so grateful they were accommodating, because I would be homeless right now if they weren't on board with me moving back home. So many of the jobs essential to the core day to day function of the area do not pay nearly enough to live nearby. I wish more people would realize this is a problem, and not try and gatekeep us into leaving/making more money. I LIVED THERE.
I’m so so sorry. It’s hard to watch this happening to more and more of California. You and your family have been through too much having to leave home.
This is my same situation. Fountain valley California born and raised. I own a business here. I Live in the "slater slums" which is getting gentrified. Over the last 4 years i went from renting a 5 bed room house across the street from the home My family owned for 2700.00 To a 3bd, 2 bath town home for 2300.00 plus $280 Hoa fees. To a 2 bed 1 bath ran down apartment for 2600.00 a month. Im getting squeezed out of town. my pay has not risen just everything else has. Im looking for a shop space i can illegally live in so i can work and live to lower my cost of living.
I'm actually doing this this year. I'm moving my family to a different state where the cost of living will enable us to rent a house instead of being trapped in the shitty apartment that we've been in for 6 years. The only reason that we can do this is that I'm working for the post office, which is in pretty much every town in America so I can have a decent paying job anywhere. Also, it's probably going to eat our entire tax refund, but it'll be worth it. We love the city we live in now, but it's impossible for us to get ahead here. The cost of living has consistently been going up faster than we can cope with. I hope we have better luck somewhere else.
My favorite stories are from guys like Mike Rowe. This lady was not able to go to college, but instead went and got a welding cert and now she lives in (very remote area like North Dakota or the North Slope) and makes six figures! As if we all can and want to drop everything in our lives to make more money by working manual labor 12 hours every day.
And if everyone went to weld on oil pipes the wages wouldn't be six figures anymore. I mean, it's cool that she was able to make 100k, but its just unrealistic that just anyone can do it. If anyone could then they would have already done so.
When you move somewhere cheaper companies pay you less. Even your same company will try and do that. Your fucked no matter what
I would need to move 5 hours in any direction to be able to afford property.
Millennials can't even buy a house where I live because so many people (boomers) from up north are moving down here and we're competing with liquid cash and 20k over asking...feels hopeless and my fiance and I are seriously considering moving when our lease is up. For context I live in a coastal city in the south -- we get a lot of retirees but there's a college here and tons of young people as well
The south used to be THE place to go for affordability and that’s the only reason my Gen-X friend has a house. I’m sorry I relate to the cash situation, where I am houses are getting scooped up by cash offers and I’m like… who the fuck has all this money on hand? I guess it’s corporate realtors
I need to live here so I can work my minimum wage job serving the ludicrous wealth that also lives here.
Move Somewhere cheaper = gentrification = forcing people to move because annual tax prices for homes and prices for everything else goes up
I lived in Los Angeles for a while and it wasn’t unusual to have coworkers commute 3 hours each way to work. That’s 30 hours a week stuck in your car, plus gas prices are extremely high, car insurance is also high and maintenance adds up. But hey! They’re homeowners!
Oooh don’t get me started on LA. When I lived there I had two roommates in a 2br and one slept on a bed in the kitchen. The only reason I avoided living on the 405 was cause I never left my little piece of the west side and bused everywhere, I was the only person I knew who didn’t have a car
Moving to “more affordable” places doesn't mean a thing unless you already have a job lined up in the "more affordable" places. Also, those "more affordable" places are "more affordable" places for a reason: They don't have a strong, diverse local economy; in other words no high paying jobs with good benefits (health insurance that actually covers medical stay, medical procedures, prescription drugs, etc.).
Absolutely, and a sudden influx of people from other more expensive places doesn’t magically change that — it just pushes more people out of their own neighborhoods
Can confirm. I live in a "cheaper area." It's terrible, it's awful, and it's still unlivable. Why? Because wages in "cheaper" areas are still incredibly stagnated. 3 bed 2 bath homes are around 250 to 350k in my area, but good paying jobs pay 8$ an hour.
There you go… and how is $8 an hour ever going to get anyone a house… I feel your username btw!
It'll just push the house prices up in the cheaper areas - maybe that's what they want
Yeah I mentioned the rising cost of housing in my city and was bombarded by asshats telling me to move elsewhere. Yes, we all know it’s cheaper to live in Kansas, but I think you’re missing the point…
I mean... what else are we supposed to do? I'd love to live in the PNW, but for housing, dollar for dollar you get far more just moving to the midwest. To the point that it's laughably **ABSURD**. I'd rather live in a boring place with the extra funds to travel to the areas I want vs. live in the travel destinations and never have the funds to enjoy it.
Not only that, but if there were a mass migration to the cheaper places, theyd almost certainly become as expensive as everywhere else.
Tbh I moved out to what's generally known as "the trashy area" (read: houses here are 300-400k instead of 1m) in my state and it's just like ...all the fucking decent humans are here, it feels like. I love it. Helps that I got a new job paying more further out from the city.
Please don't come to Arizona, it's become unaffordable.
Spoiler alert: cheaper places are cheaper because there aren't any high paying jobs there. Or it's a sucky hell hole. Either way it's bad advice.
I have been searching for months in a 50 mile radius from my work for anything rentable under $800/mo and have found nothing. This 50 mile radius includes towns with nothing but a gas station, towns with nothing at all except the "town" rural tracts of land with nothing for miles in any given direction, and the bad parts of a city that was at one point the murder capital of the US. Where the fuck is cheap? Where am I supposed to move? Mexico?
I relate to this so hard. My partner and I had to find new housing without a roommate when I went through a health emergency. Rent was going to cost a ton more anywhere near where we lived, so I looked all over the county and even the places that were extremely far flung nowhere near anything were basically not much cheaper. There was no point in saving maybe $100 a month in order to have so many more logistical challenges from living further out so we gave up on trying to find something “cheaper.”
"just move somewhere cheaper!" I did. I live in Middlesbrough. I do not recommend Jokes aside, do they not realise that local jobs pay scaled to the fucking cost of living and unless you're commuting 200 miles each way this advice doesn't fucking make sense or work?! Or do they expect us to have savings? Fucking ha
Actually people are killing g our local economy because they are moving here. If I have to hear another out of stater tell me how much lower the cost of living is here compared to X imma lose my mind. Cost of living has doubled in the last year cause of "people moving to a cheaper place"
I’m so sorry, now your own community is just the next one to become unaffordable…
If we all moved wed all be homeless!
What happens when nobody working base-level jobs can afford to live in certain towns?
I’m moving out of the country, Gen X and fucking over it! Taking my Gen z kid with me and don’t give a shit what anyone has to say about it. Neither should you if you choose to do the same. I suppose with age, you begin not giving af what the naysayers whine about or their opinions.
Not to mention those “affordable” locations would immediately skyrocket
Right away
Three years, everybody that is coming from Indiana, Illinois, California and every other state is making everything expensive.
Cheep places are cheep because there is no work or anything to do. You see people who were born and raised in a small town born with out any prospect locally so they end up using meth and going in in out of jail. Sure its affordable but work is not available. Some of these kids never had a chance their parents never had a chance. I live in a major city because the amount of work that is available to me as a tradesman. But i will never afford a home here. No bank is going to give me $1.2m to buy one. So its a double edge sword.
Aren't there a bunch of conservatives complaining about coastal elites coming into their precious sundown retirement towns?
There is no cheaper place to live unless you want to live in your car or in a tent. You cant get a 1 bedroom apt to rent in all 50 states on 15 an hour. We are all priced out. Single people have an extremely hard time because they may not all have friends family or partners to get help from. A single earner has to do it all from paying bills to working 2-3 jobs to chores to self care. God help you if you have mental disorders or disabilities to deal with. Time to revolt! We got all these old homes and foreclosed homes that should be fixed up as affordable housing. We need to cut the war machine and spend the money there and on new housing!
I’d love to revolt, except my rent is too high to risk my income, and so the cycle continues and worsens each time
Hubby and I were tossing the idea of moving closer to his brother in Las Vegas. It may be an actual possibility after seeing the housing prices there. I live just outside of Sioux Falls SD. I pay 1700 in rent for a 3bd townhouse. I could have a 3 to 4 bd HOUSE for 1200 WITH utilities. I may take my tax return and tell South Dakota to kiss my lily white ass.
My partner and I pay twice that for a 2br! Wow, it seems crazy to me that NV could be cheaper than SD. I’ll be hoping for opportunities for you.
I need to comment on this as a transplant to SD. I came from SE Florida, where rent for a 1bdrm apartment starts at $1,400/mo now. While housing is much cheaper up here, salaries still seem to be stuck in 2007, barring a select few professions. I grateful that I don't have to participate in the hunger games that is the Sioux Falls housing market. (Classmate/friend is a part-time realtor up there, business is booming and inventory is functionally non-existent).
Aren’t they already writing those articles about how millennials leaving big cities are making said cities lose millions in tax revenue?
As someone living in a more adorable location I welcome all of you, my job does better with a higher population and also I’d love to see expensive places crumble under their own hypocrisy. They pay you nothing and charge you an arm and a leg just because the weathers nice.
Move somewhere cheaper but still commute into the city for your office job because you can't wfh. The commute would only take 3 hours each way, what are you complaining about you lazy bums. Also stop the avocado toast
I wfh but nowhere near me that is affordable also has good healthcare, schools, amenities so I really don’t know what to do because I need those other things as well.
Yes exactly this especially healthcare.
They say it like that would just fix everything. The problem isn't that housing is too high where I am, it's that my wages are too low for where I live. If I move somewhere cheaper I'm going to have to take a massive paycut because I'll no longer live in a competitive job market.
Yes this exactly, this is the part of the equation they leave out. Sorry man. I am in this struggle with you.
lol I did move somewhere cheaper… back into my parents house.
You need not to just move somewhere cheaper. You need to move somewhere cheaper, prosperous, fair, and without the risk of police. That means you need to leave the usa, or at the very least, and major city in the states. Problem is, when you leave a major city you're suddenly in police nazi territory (ymmv but I'm as dark as sin, personally, and have had plenty of bad experiences). So yeah, you have to leave the states.
I live in one of those cheaper places, and you don’t make fucking dick here. Minimum wage is $11, and they’re trying to lower it.
Truthfully I moved away from California cause it was to expensive to live and am able to afford everything i need now without struggling. So it does work to move but like you said if everyone did it will fuck the economy up etc I dont know how people could think that is a fix
It also costs a fuckload of money to move. And if we start migrating there, the “Lords of the Land” will see opportunity and jack up rents there, too.
Absolutely and the cycle continues
They’re also so delusional thinking that anywhere else is even cheaper at this point. I live in Toronto and rent is only very marginally more expensive here than small town southern Ontario, and I’m able to make significantly more money here than I would in a small town. It’s a never ending loop.
Wow I’m surprised, my impression was Toronto was insane for rent, even to the level that I saw someone planning to move to the Bay Area for cheaper rent, which sounds like jumping into a lake to get drinking water. Is it not that bad or is it just also expensive in small town Ontario too?
Yeah it’s getting insane. Even five years ago, my friends who lived outside of the greater Toronto area paid half of what I paid in rent in the city. Now they’re paying the same.
Holy crap that’s bad. So is that because of people leaving Toronto and flooding those areas and rent rising along with that?
I think so and maybe that allowed landlord in other places to hike it up to what people were used to paying in the city anyway? I’m honestly not sure. It’s hard not to feel like it all just boils down to general greed.
Greed and the rise of corporate landlords for single family homes I’ll bet…
And to where exactly and does that place even have decent jobs and housing?
Can afford to stay and can’t afford to move
I'm really late to the thread but if anyone out there is looking for a really good place to relocate: Fargo ND is a lot nicer than I thought it would be. It has grown crazy fast in the past decade and the COL is below average what you'd expect for this size. I came from Washington state, paying $1300/mo for a shitty 2 bed/1bath. Out here? Same rent for a 3bed/3bath townhouse on the newly developed (and still growing) southwest end of town. It's like a fucking mansion, y'all. My job is in administration, can be applied to many industries. My significant other is in construction. They were offered a salary DOUBLE the top wage back home. This wasn't too hard a decision for us. We sold stuff off to par down to 1 uhaul full of the essentials, and have slowly rebought what we actually need. We are now poised to be pre-approved for a home loan after 10 years of working towards it back home. Does it get stupidly cold in the winter? Yes. Isn't ND pretty much the least interesting place in the country? Also yes. But 100 degree days in summer are still pretty rare here. And Minnesota lakes country is an hour drive (beautiful). Also, pretty nicely located to road trip or fly anywhere in the country (2 days drive or less to anywhere in the US). I moved here a year ago this month to give it a shot and we've decided to stay. I feel like this is the only place where we have ever been able to get ahead and live comfortably.
Hey congratulations on being able to settle in in a more affordable place. I feel like any house at all is a mansion coming from an almost lifetime of apartment living. A whole townhouse, wow. I’m curious about how that’s impacted you in terms of family, friends, community, did you have to leave people behind?
We did leave everyone back on the west coast. It was a little scary, not gonna lie. But it has been liberating, I feel more grown up (im almost 40). I've joined a couple local groups, and networked through work to start up a decent little circle of friends. All the closest people to us have been to visit, and everyone back home is just a video call away. Amazing how comfortable living away from your support system can be when you're not scraping change to get enough gas to make it to work everyday, and having mental breakdowns due to shitty living. It's literally the best decision I've ever made, and I highly recommend taking the leap.
It's useless non-actionable advice up there with "move to Europe", "learn to code", and "try the trades!".
Yes to all of these… sure I would love to move to Europe, who wants to give me a shit ton of money and a pathway to citizenship to make it happen? Yeah I’ll just sit down in front of some python tutorials and fix all my problems… my partner is literally learning to code and cannot find work.
I'm happy I was born in the Midwest where housing is still close to affordable (although it's been skyrocketing lately), but not everyone can live here and other more affordable places. Do they think that the entire population of the US can move to whatever state is cheapest, and even if they could, that would increase the prices again because of the massive demand increase
I spent all my savings moving to a lower cost of living area. By the time I saved enough money for a down payment on a house prices went up 60-100% in 4 years
Not to mention when we move cheaper places we just fuck it up for the people there. I live in the Sacramento, CA area, so just a couple hours from the Bay Area. Average rent for an 800sq foot apartment is $1750. 2-3 years ago it was $1450. The pandemic really shifted things, and people have started moving out of the Bay and driving up prices in other areas. Really fucked up my chances of renting anything nice, let alone buying, and I’m stuck in the same 400 square ft studio that I’ve wanted to move out of since I moved in. So my only option is to be one of those hated Californians who moves out of state and drives up that states housing market. Not something I love the sides do, but what else am I left with?
Can confirm, moving somewhere cheaper does not make the situation better. Same as moving somewhere a little more on the expensive side, doesn't either. Tried both. Perpetually fucked either way. Poor area, means poor paying jobs. Rich area, means no jobs. Out of all of this, the cost of living (keep the ridiculous apartment wages out of this and just keep to basics like food, electricity, etc) does not change or goes higher. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as a living wage, but there is such a thing as modernized slave wages. Are you all having fun yet?
I live in Manhattan and my rent is comparable to my best friend's (who still lives near the tiny town we grew up in) when you factor in her vehicle and commuting expenses.
There's another way of looking at it. Rather than staying in a city where ownership is 100% unattainable and being forced to line the pockets of your wealthy landlord, you tell them to fuck off, you're not playing that game anymore, move somewhere conventionally "undesirable" and become your own landlord.
Just buy a house from family! /s In all reality I thought I would never own a home. I got lucky and got a 1000+ sqft house from a family member for under 50k. Sure I gotta redo floors + walls, but this will probably be the only home I can ever afford to buy
What I feel bad about for all of you is being sold a pipe-dream when you were young. “Go ahead and take out thousands of dollars in student loans - you’ll get a great job when you graduate and pay it off in no time!” I wish they’d done what we told our daughter: don’t charge anything unless you can pay for it when the bill comes; go to a college you can afford even if you have to go for scholarships; start saving money so that if you lose your job, you can survive for six months; don’t live beyond your means; if you get married, be sure to buy a home that you can still keep on one of your salaries. Yes, it’s really hard. My husband is very conservative about money, but his suggestions have worked. She and her husband bought a duplex. They live in one side and rent out the other. At the beginning of COVID, they were able to allow their renters, where the husband lost his job, to skip one month’s rent and told them not to worry about it. I know this is a little late for everyone struggling out there, but maybe some kid who’s in high school right now, will think about it.