Budgets and priorities

[Rifleman97]

Interesting, I will go check my car that is a 2024 Mazda BT50 to be sure I thought has a cumin floor. I may have to check with another member who recently bought a Base model Toyota wagon with the Vinyl floor.

Central heating is not the standard in Australia. We grew up with Aussie made Aquacool air conditioners that were a basic evaporative cooler and 1 small gas heater. We had a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom house with an outside toilet in the 70’s. There were more modern houses in the street but most were modest.

Reverse cycle split systems are more affordable now.

I’m not trying to to shame anyone but I do honestly believe that expectations and standards have changed.

I also believe that trimming the smaller items that we take for granted could save dollars for those trying to to get out of the rent cycle or get a deposit.

I’m not a wealthy person but I am fortunate to live where housing is affordable but I personally know young people who won’t settle for what they should consider affordable.

If I had never bought a beer or a cigarette and saved all that money it would have add up.

Nowadays buying Coffee at the shops seems to be an everyday necessity for many.

I should point out that a lot of the things you’re saying may be more true in Australia than America. Where I live, the winters can get down to -30C. I’ve never seen a house built post 1910 that didn’t have central heating in my area in my entire life. In warmer parts of the world that’s probably a luxury, but here it’s the way of life. There simply isn’t enough trees in the country (in the US) anymore to heat every home with a wood stove and/or fireplace. Especially where I live which is prairie land, with very few trees outside of directly next to rivers. Mostly corn fields and grasslands, and the trees we do have are primarily hardwoods which are very slow to replace.

As for the carpeted car, the cheapest lowest base model vehicle I’ve ever been in was a ford F150 base model, the one below the regular base model that’s made for businesses to buy in bulk. It had carpeted flooring in it, crank windows, no cd player, no Bluetooth, no cruise control, only color option was white, and that truck was over $30,000. There isn’t a Mazda dealer within a pretty far distance of me, so forgive me if I’ve never been in one.

I don’t buy Toyotas, they’re overpriced for what they are, so I don’t know about them either. Maybe if they could make a Prius that could have an engine that lasts more than 100k miles before needing an engine swap, or a new 5k EV battery swap, I’ll consider one. As the gas mileage would save me money in the long run. But where I live every Prius over 130k I’ve found for sale is on its second or third engine. And their tundra gets the worst mileage of any truck in its class, on top of only running premium gas. No thanks, does the opposite of being a “value buy”

The standards used to be to simply have a home that was not too run down to bankrupt you with repairs on a single income. Now the standards are find a home you can even qualify for the mortgage for at all, on 2 incomes. I have a friend who lives in Hobart, and the housing market there has exploded to the point what used to be 2-3 incomes per home price, for the same exact home, is now 10-15 incomes.

The only reason I can afford a home at all, is because I don’t buy any luxuries. I cook at home for every meal, I don’t smoke at all, I don’t drink at all, I buy the powdered coffee creamer and milk, and make my own coffee at home (including lattes when I have time and energy, as they’re just foamed milk and espresso), my home is built in the 60’s and has not had a single update since outside of replacing the existing furnace and AC a few times as they’ve worn out, I make considerably more than the average income (although it’s nothing crazy) and even still my home is slightly more than 50% of my income. It still even has the original carpet From the 1960’s in almost every room, the original kitchen, and the original ugly green paint. The only thing that’s been updated is the deck which was installed in the 90’s. The home is quite out of the way, although not in a sketchy neighborhood where shootings happen frequently (I do live in America after all, it happens) and when it snows my road is one of the last one to get plowed. Often being 3 days after the snow when it gets cleared. I sometimes need to put on chains just to be able to get to work.

In the 1950’s and 1960’s, minimum wage could have bought this home. It would’ve been tight, but it could have. Now, minimum wage would require 160 hours per WEEK (not counting overtime because minimum wage jobs here won’t let you do overtime, so you’d have to have 4 jobs) to just cover the mortgage, with $100 give or take for the entire rest of the budget for the month. And people here are fighting the raising of the minimum wage for some reason.

The reason you and your generation think that it’s all about the luxury spending, is because when you were young living was cheap and luxuries were expensive. Now luxuries are super cheap, whereas living is expensive. A TV back in the day could be as much as a month or more of income, now it’s less than a day’s income. (Based on US averages) A cable TV subscription was several days income, now netflix style subscriptions can be had for roughly 1, maybe 2 hours of income depending on if basing on average wage or minimum wage.

In the states, yearly university tuition could be paid for in under 60 days of minimum wage work. Now it would take several years of minimum wage work to pay for one year, so student loan debt here is through the roof. Health insurance here is $400 per month now, when back in the day you didn’t need insurance and the doctor charged reasonable rates with cash. Most jobs in the US that pay more than $20 an hour won’t hire someone unless they have a 4 year degree, meaning having 50-100k in debt. Some of those things aren’t really a thing in Australia but they very much are in the states.

Edit to clarify, on the really old houses “central heating” means hot water heating throughout the house. It’s still a central boiler, and imo is a better heating system than we have today, but expensive to build so it’s rarely done anymore.

 

[Rifleman97]

I know you are going by average. But with house I can tell you it depends on where your at. Where I am at right know I can see 3 houses one in the late 30’s one late 40 and one 51.
None had a indoor bathroom. They all had outhouses.
It was still maybe not common but it still happened a lot.
I can’t tell you the reason for the late 40 and the 51.
But my grandma thought doing your business in the house was nasty ( the grew up with outhouses)
She relented in the mid to late 50’s with the bathroom being built off the end of the porch
Bacilly a outhouses stile bathroom connected to the house but not in the house.
You will see that on a lot of old houses here until later generations redone them.
And even in fl a lot of the house form that time did not have ac.
I remember when dad put in 2 in the 70s we only ran them at night. Him and mom in one room and all the kids in another

That’s true, where I live and the indoor plumbing thing I claimed is 100% true is in the northern states (MN, IA, SD, NE) where indoor toilets became the norm very early. Probably due to just how cold it can get here in the winters. I do consider an AC a luxury in places where it doesn’t get and stay super hot. Or where it’s consistent in temp enough that your body can adjust to it. I know a lot of modern Florida houses don’t have AC but people also frequently die of heat stroke due to it on the hottest days of the year there. Not in huge numbers, but there’s also not huge numbers of people that have absolutely no access to it, even if it’s just going to a friends house that has it.

 

[jshmt13]

This is a very common graph on Zillow here in northwest Montana. Even being born 5-10 years too late makes a huge difference in looking at houses. I bought my house in 2020 at 25, no way I could afford it now. My coworkers who are 25 now and looking at houses are screwed.

I’ve noticed a lot of boomers, here especially, have this contradictory viewpoint of everything has gone to crap, the world is screwed, but also god forbid anyone younger point it out because don’t you know we didn’t buy avocado toast back in the day?

Totally agree personal responsibility plays a large part and can’t be thrown to the wayside, but it’s kind of funny watching boomers blame the younger generation for all the world’s problems.

 

[Flbt]

I should point out that a lot of the things you’re saying may be more true in Australia than America. Where I live, the winters can get down to -30C. I’ve never seen a house built post 1910 that didn’t have central heating in my area in my entire life. In warmer parts of the world that’s probably a luxury, but here it’s the way of life. There simply isn’t enough trees in the country (in the US) anymore to heat every home with a wood stove and/or fireplace. Especially where I live which is prairie land, with very few trees outside of directly next to rivers. Mostly corn fields and grasslands, and the trees we do have are primarily hardwoods which are very slow to replace.

As for the carpeted car, the cheapest lowest base model vehicle I’ve ever been in was a ford F150 base model, the one below the regular base model that’s made for businesses to buy in bulk. It had carpeted flooring in it, crank windows, no cd player, no Bluetooth, no cruise control, only color option was white, and that truck was over $30,000. There isn’t a Mazda dealer within a pretty far distance of me, so forgive me if I’ve never been in one.

I don’t buy Toyotas, they’re overpriced for what they are, so I don’t know about them either. Maybe if they could make a Prius that could have an engine that lasts more than 100k miles before needing an engine swap, or a new 5k EV battery swap, I’ll consider one. As the gas mileage would save me money in the long run. But where I live every Prius over 130k I’ve found for sale is on its second or third engine. And their tundra gets the worst mileage of any truck in its class, on top of only running premium gas. No thanks, does the opposite of being a “value buy”

The standards used to be to simply have a home that was not too run down to bankrupt you with repairs on a single income. Now the standards are find a home you can even qualify for the mortgage for at all, on 2 incomes. I have a friend who lives in Hobart, and the housing market there has exploded to the point what used to be 2-3 incomes per home price, for the same exact home, is now 10-15 incomes.

The only reason I can afford a home at all, is because I don’t buy any luxuries. I cook at home for every meal, I don’t smoke at all, I don’t drink at all, I buy the powdered coffee creamer and milk, and make my own coffee at home (including lattes when I have time and energy, as they’re just foamed milk and espresso), my home is built in the 60’s and has not had a single update since outside of replacing the existing furnace and AC a few times as they’ve worn out, I make considerably more than the average income (although it’s nothing crazy) and even still my home is slightly more than 50% of my income. It still even has the original carpet From the 1960’s in almost every room, the original kitchen, and the original ugly green paint. The only thing that’s been updated is the deck which was installed in the 90’s. The home is quite out of the way, although not in a sketchy neighborhood where shootings happen frequently (I do live in America after all, it happens) and when it snows my road is one of the last one to get plowed. Often being 3 days after the snow when it gets cleared. I sometimes need to put on chains just to be able to get to work.

In the 1950’s and 1960’s, minimum wage could have bought this home. It would’ve been tight, but it could have. Now, minimum wage would require 160 hours per WEEK (not counting overtime because minimum wage jobs here won’t let you do overtime, so you’d have to have 4 jobs) to just cover the mortgage, with $100 give or take for the entire rest of the budget for the month. And people here are fighting the raising of the minimum wage for some reason.

The reason you and your generation think that it’s all about the luxury spending, is because when you were young living was cheap and luxuries were expensive. Now luxuries are super cheap, whereas living is expensive. A TV back in the day could be as much as a month or more of income, now it’s less than a day’s income. (Based on US averages) A cable TV subscription was several days income, now netflix style subscriptions can be had for roughly 1, maybe 2 hours of income depending on if basing on average wage or minimum wage.

In the states, yearly university tuition could be paid for in under 60 days of minimum wage work. Now it would take several years of minimum wage work to pay for one year, so student loan debt here is through the roof. Health insurance here is $400 per month now, when back in the day you didn’t need insurance and the doctor charged reasonable rates with cash. Most jobs in the US that pay more than $20 an hour won’t hire someone unless they have a 4 year degree, meaning having 50-100k in debt. Some of those things aren’t really a thing in Australia but they very much are in the states.

Edit to clarify, on the really old houses “central heating” means hot water heating throughout the house. It’s still a central boiler, and imo is a better heating system than we have today, but expensive to build so it’s rarely done anymore.

You bring up a interesting point on house repair.
I had a metal roof put on in 2012 3500$ after milkle in 18 a friend had to put a roof on his
I think it’s 500 sq of so bigger. He used the same metal by the same company 20k
That’s a hell of a difference