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Comment by sputr | Hacker News Reader

Most comments in this thread are about learning to budget/control finances.

I would just like to point out what I call "The IT bubble". We all make money here. Most of us make good money. Our social circles are filled with people making money.

Most people do not have this privilege. Below a certain threshold there is no such thing as budgeting/finances. It's just survival. You're not gonna budget because you can't save enough to do anything real with it, so you use it to make your life just a little easier. In my country (Slovenia, aka. EU member country) over 70% of people make less than the "average pay" and most of those make minimal pay.

At least here the problem isn't financial illiteracy. The problem is that they (a) make way too little to live off and (b) worker protections have eroded past any sane point.

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> At least here the problem isn't financial illiteracy. The problem is that they (a) make way too little to live off and (b) worker protections have eroded past any sane point.

This is the crux of the reality that many face, yet is often ignored by pundits.

Raving about budgeting is missing the point: you can't budget what isn't there in the first place.

When there is something left over to budget, saving $20-$50 a month isn't going help with the problems of "a dollar is worth less every year and wages haven't kept up with inflation or cost of living in decades" and "if someone in my family gets sick or injured, we will likely take on debt that will bankrupt us".

I agree that it won’t help with that but perhaps that isn’t the point. Saving $20-$50 per month can help with situations along the lines of “some uncommon thing has gone wrong and you need $400 to fix it,” for example a car malfunction (because transport is required to get to work, this is urgent)

Yes, it can help with small expenses. However, each year that passes those expenses become more expensive while take home compensation stays at fixed dollar amount that isn't adjusted for inflation.

For example, medical expenses can, and do, bankrupt people. No amount of saving $20 each month will pay off many medical bills. It's the reason that medical expenses are the top cause of bankruptcy, followed by job loss.

The problem is that budgeting is portrayed as a panacea to poverty or an altar on which the poor are chastised for their suffering.

If it takes 80% of your income to live at a base level of hierarchy of needs, you need roughly doubled income to be able to actually save money, and have it not be wasted away on this or that random emergency, which is going to be more frequent.

So you need to spend at most 40% of your income on food, shelter, etc before you can save anything because you need to spend the 60% on what, occasional emergencies? What do people do when they don’t have that 60% spare? Or is the key that you write “actually save money” and by that you mean saving some significant amount of money? How much do you think that is?

I think he means 'save towards intentional use' versus 'save to soften the blows of random hardships, but never really get ahead'.

Keep in mind that that 40% is at a level where you still have to take the bus everywhere, live with roommates in a bad part of town, and not eat healthy. The middle class always spends and can save, being poor means you can’t.

Most of us didn't wind up in IT by random accident though: the prudent behavior of our parents fostered an appreciation of a value system that ultimately leads to life comfort, including the discipline to forego short-term pleasure in order to obtain it. These are educable elements that COULD be instilled in schools if teachers weren't hamstrung by administrators, politicians, and parents allowed to second guess their every move.

Yes, I feel like I've had to make a lot of sacrifices to get where I am at, some of which I regret.

If you keep pulling your bootstraps so hard you may break your legs

Unfortunately "just learn to code" which is what I understand your argument boils down to is, in my experience, false. I've mentored many young adults who mostly had zero IT experience and were looking to break into the field to do exactly what you're suggesting. A lot of them succeeded. But a lot of them didn't. And not just because they "were not good/smart/hardworking enough", but because they were people whose personality was incompatible with IT.

IT isn't for everyone nor should it be. What would the world look like if everyone worked in IT? Well our paychecks would be a lot lower for one.

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