this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2025

269 points (94.7% liked)

Fuck Cars

12831 readers

1187 users here now

A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!

Rules

1. Be Civil

You may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.

2. No hate speech

Don't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.

3. Don't harass people

Don't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.

4. Stay on topic

This community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.

5. No reposts

Do not repost content that has already been posted in this community.

Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.

Posting Guidelines

In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:

[meta] for discussions/suggestions about this community itself
[article] for news articles
[blog] for any blog-style content
[video] for video resources
[academic] for academic studies and sources
[discussion] for text post questions, rants, and/or discussions
[meme] for memes
[image] for any non-meme images
[misc] for anything that doesn’t fall cleanly into any of the other categories

Recommended communities:

!yimby@lemmy.world

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

toaster@slrpnk.net

grue@lemmy.world

Toaster1@lemmy.world

269

Even households earning $150,000 a year are struggling with credit card and car payments (www.cbsnews.com)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/fuckcars@lemmy.world

111 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/33704049

Wanted to add, "Fuck Cars!!"

Car payments for decades of one's life are not the way to go.

(page 2) 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] taiyang@lemmy.world 17 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I qualified for a needs based preschool for the kid. The cutoff was 11k a month. They consider anything less to be struggling. It seemed laughably high, but it must be based on what they've surveyed.

Credit cards and car payments must be part of that. We have neither type of debt and get by with a fraction of that need cap! But the average car I see around here is either a new F150 pickup or a Dodge Charger, neither of which come cheap.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

120k per year is like, 80th percentile in the US.

[–] taiyang@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

Yeah, this is California in particular and I think it's the median income.

[–] Mac@mander.xyz 8 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Not to detract from the statement being made but many people will sign away all their money regardless of their income.

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

More income means more spendy spend

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 days ago

I would rather use it to pay off the mortgage and cut back on hours worked

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 8 points 3 days ago (15 children)

If a median new car is 50k and used car is 30k that's a out 1k or 600 per month note alone.

Insurance is 100-200 per month plus gas and maintenance prolly another 200-300 per month so for a single adult to "drive with dignity" it costs 1k to start

Now double it for a couple and household is 2k on vehicles alone.

Makes me wonder if high school kids still get cars like people did pre covid lol

This cost structure doesn't make sense. When suburban family has to run a fleet of 3-4 cars

[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Insurance is way more than $100-200 a month. For my partner and I (both women with fairly clean histories since we don't drive much) to insure a 2020 Fit, it was about $2500 for 6 months. That was the cheapest we could find for basic coverage.

We ended up fleeing to Canada and importing the car. Insurance costs went down to almost 1/3 of that, a little under $2k for the year

I own and fully paid off the car fwiw

Edit: exact amount was $2493.00, after discounts

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

1 car two driver 2500 per 6 month... You must be from Boston

[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Close, NY

[–] AlfredoJohn@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

What does fairly clean histories mean, honestly? Over 400 a month is crazy high. Did you make claims on minor issues that should have just been handled outside of insurance, i.e. dont just factor in deductible cost but monthly increase on your premium after a claim is filed in the future? Were you getting multiple small traffic citations? One big one? Etc.

[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I had one claim probably 7+ years ago after a chunk of metal fell off a truck and fucked up my car tire and bumper. I was not at fault. My partner has zero. We're both in our 30s and have been driving since we were young, but we had been car-less for a few years prior to buying this one.

I've had to deal with a lot of profiling bullshit before but nothing that affects insurance. Nothing stuck either, just a lot of going to courts to clear my name.

But other than that, idk. Parking tickets, maybe?

[–] fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 days ago

High schoolers don't l. Driver's license acquisition rates are going down too, since they can't afford to have a car

load more comments (13 replies)

[–] blarghly@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (8 children)

I know this is going to go against the "everything is terrible" narrative. But unpopular opinion - these people are just dumb. If you are making 150k per year and struggling to pay your bills, then that is your own fault. Live somewhere cheaper. Buy a cheaper car and learn to do your own repairs and maintenance. Cook your own food. Dont rack up credit card debt. And dont have kids if you can't afford them.

I'm sure some people in the comments will all be like "no, no, you dont understand - it's impossible to save money even at $150k incomes!" Bullshit! There are people who manage to get by on minimum wage. Or on $50k per year. Or hell, on $100k per year. I managed to retire at 31 and never broke the six figure mark. Now, I'm a cheap bastard and basically dedicated my life for 8 years to giving my cubical the middle finger - but if it is possible for me to do that, then yes, it is completely possible for people making $150k to not go deep into debt. It is absurd that I have to not only say this, but defend it against delusional doomers who just want to say that literally everything is hopeless and no one can ever get ahead.

Yeah, no. You know all the brand spanking new lifted pavement-princess pickups you see everywhere? Those were bought on credit. You know how DoorDash and McDonalds continue being profitable despite being absurdly expensive these days? They can do that because people keep paying them! Or the shopping malls that continue churning out shit fast fashion clothing that will disintegrate in 6 hours? Lots of them are packed on the weekends!

Straight up: outside of some very unusual circumstances, if you are bringing in $150k and still can't keep up with your bills, You. Are. A. Dumbass.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 4 points 3 days ago (8 children)

managed to retire at 31 and never broke the six figure mark.

How does the math om that look like

[–] grue@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (2 children)

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/

TL;DR: have a very high savings rate. For example, if you can cut your spending to 1/3 of your income, you can retire in about 10 years.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Interesting. If the chart there is right (big assumption, interest/inflation will impact it a lot!) I could retire in around 30 years, but that is about the same time my mortgage is paid off which is by far my largest expense and is more than everything else combined. So presumably earlier retirement should be possible as less money is actually going to be needed at that point.

Also expecting my mortgage rate to drop soon, but tempting to reduce the number of years to pay it off instead and keep paying as much as I am now.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If the chart there is right (big assumption, interest/inflation will impact it a lot!)

It's based on an analysis of historical stock market returns and already takes that stuff into account.

Basically, in order for the assumption to not hold, the market has to be so fucked that the correct investment strategy would've been ammo and freeze-dried food instead of stocks to begin with. You're really talking about weird stuff like "sovereign risks," like maybe the US becoming a fascist pariah state and destabilizing completely, or fucking with the Fed and causing Zimbabwe-style hyperinflation, or something like that. The risk is never zero, but it's incredibly unlikely (...right? 😬)

but that is about the same time my mortgage is paid off which is by far my largest expense...

Also expecting my mortgage rate to drop soon, but tempting to reduce the number of years to pay it off instead and keep paying as much as I am now.

Having a mortgage or not doesn't matter as much as you think it does, once you consider things like opportunity cost and time value of money. You could pay off your mortgage at the cost of investing less and then have smaller withdrawals from that smaller account balance in retirement, or you could invest more instead of paying extra on the mortgage and make larger withdrawals from a larger account balance in retirement. Six of one; half a dozen of the other.

Basically, it cancels out if mortgage interest rates and investment rates of return are equal, give or take risk tolerance.

If your mortgage is at today's rates (close enough to the 7% expected return of the stock market) then I guess you might as well pay it down for simplicity's sake, but if you're like me and have a 3% mortgage from a decade ago you're better off keeping it and enjoying the 4% arbitrage.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Now tell me how a guy making under 100k per year 2015-2025 accumulates enough calital to retire

[–] grue@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

🤷 I don't know anything about that guy's circumstances (what country he's in, what he's invested in, etc.) beyond what he wrote in the thread. All I know is that his claims aren't as implausible as you're trying to imply they are.

(I could take a guess that his monthly spending is probably $2k, give or take a few hundred, if that gives you some idea of how it's done.)

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Right and I am assuming that it is impossible....

Assume 90k US mid cost of living city. 63k net, let's say he can make it work on 40k.

That's 23kx10=230k

Let's say he is investment guru. That's noe 350k

Now tell me where in us you are "retiring" on this cash

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 days ago

I think the maths there is that 63k income then you spend 21k on living expenses and you can save the rest. Then you retire in a decade.

But I think mortgages might complicate this, in a good way. If you are paying a mortgage that is a repayment you can expect to stop paying at some point, so your living costs will drop when that happens.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

$63k net

You're not paying $27k in taxes when you're maxing out your 401k, IRA, and HSA and thus lowering your AGI by $34,800. In fact, between that and the other deductions and credits, the taxable income would be closer to $40k and total tax owed would be more like $5k.

"Mak[ing] it work on $40k" means he has roughly $45k/year ($3750/month) to invest.

Let's say he is investment guru.

Absolutely not. Dipshits who think they're "gurus" lose their shirts. Let's assume the guy put it in SPY (an S&P 500 index ETF).

According to https://www.stoculator.com/ (which kinda sucks, but was the first calculator I found that could both do periodic investments and use actual historical stock market returns instead of assuming a fixed rate of return), $1 initial + $3750/month invested into SPY starting 10 years ago would be worth $971,047.99 today. That's within a rounding error of $1M, which is how much you need for that $40k annual spending at a 4% safe withdrawal rate (SWR).

Now tell me where in us you are "retiring" on this cash

To the same place he was "mak[ing] it work on $40k." His spending in retirement doesn't have to change, and thus neither do his living circumstances.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You can't touch 401k until retirement, max 401k contribution is 24k per year
HSA is only good for health expenses and retirement, max per year is 8k. So 32k is max you can put into tax sheltered accounts at that age.

But even if we assume he got 1m you are talking about all locked up in tax sheltered accounts:

How is he living on this money between age 30-65? Taking penalties on withdrawal?

Also, even if he got 1million in cash, 43k is the rate on tbills, but that will be taxed so it closer to 35k cash to spend.

Where in the US can person live a decent quality of life on 35k with out owning a home outright?

Note that while you are living on 35k your million nest egg is being eaten by Inflation. How is that supposed to last 30 years before retirement?

The math does not work.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

First of all, you forgot about the IRA (and got the numbers of the other two wrong). 401k ($23,500) + IRA ($7,000) + HSA ($4,300) = $34,800. Being able to contribute ~$8k to an HSA would imply that you're talking about a whole family instead of a single person, which might in turn imply access to even more tax-sheltered investment space in the form of the spouse's IRA had maybe even 401k, if both partners work.

Second, HSAs aren't just a retirement account, they're the best kind because you can pay your medical bills out of pocket, save up your receipts, and then cash them in for tax-free withdrawals after you retire (even before age 65, because you're just getting reimbursed for your previous medical expenses, not taking a distribution).

How is he living on this money between age 30-65? Taking penalties on withdrawal?

There are several strategies to access retirement funds "early", including a Roth conversion ladder or 72(t) Substantially Equal Periodic Payments.

Also, you're right that not all the money fits in the tax-sheltered accounts; specifically; $45k - $34,800 = $10,200/year would get invested in a taxable account. That adds up to plenty of non-early-withdrawal-penalized assets to tide a person over in the first few years of retirement, before their Roth pipeline has a chance to kick in.

Also, even if he got 1million in cash, 43k is the rate on tbills, but that will be taxed so it closer to 35k cash to spend.

What do "cash" or "tbills" have to do with anything? We're talking about investing in the stock market -- specifically the S&P 500 in this hypothetical example -- and that doesn't change in retirement. You stay invested in stocks! The notion of the stock market having a 10% average stock market returns (and inflation averaging 3%, causing net returns of 7%) is already built in to the concept of a "Safe Withdrawal Rate."

Where in the US can person live a decent quality of life on 35k with out owning a home outright?

Figuring that out was a prerequisite for being able to save all the money up to begin with. You yourself assumed it as a given: "let’s say he can make it work on 40k." If we can assume he can figure it out in year 1, we can also assume he can continue to figure it out (in inflation-adjusted terms) in year 10 and beyond.

Also, who says this doesn't include home ownership? My 'FIRE journey' involved buying a house in a decent part of a decent city in year 1, which happened to be during the Great Recession, so my mortgage + taxes + insurance are still <$1000/month to this day. Granted, that circumstance no longer exists, but that doesn't mean there aren't other ways to make ownership (or otherwise hedging against rent inflation) happen, such as "house hacking" or living on a boat.

By the way, owning a home "outright" is generally mathematically inferior to carrying a mortgage and using the money you would've spent paying off the loan early to buy more stocks instead.

Note that while you are living on 35k your million nest egg is being eaten by Inflation. How is that supposed to last 30 years before retirement?

Again, accounting for inflation is already built into the concept of the 4% SWR. In all but the worst-case scenarios, your investment returns are not only likely to outpace inflation, they're likely to outpace your $40k annual withdrawal and your net worth is likely to continue to go up in retirement, not down.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

My 'FIRE journey' involved buying a house in a decent part of a decent city in year 1, which happened to be during the Great Recession

And there it is. Now these numbers can make some sense

Along with unprecedented bull market fueled by quantitative easing.

You are out of touch to understand housing right is likely 3x of what you paid, which stretches this 10 year horizon by another decade.

Furthermore, 401k limit in 2015 was 18k and IRA was also lower and you had to qualify for that too

For example, single filers must have a MAGI of $79,000 or less to take the full deduction for 2025.

again, 90k in 2015, this limit would be lower. to get HSA, requires a certain health plan too. HSA Is the king retirement plan after 401k match is maxed

My point being you are using cherry picked, best case scenario fact pattern to base your argument and even that requires a dash of luck. Sure some people could make it work but we are so far into the weeds lol this can't be serious

The math just does not work unless, you the income is higher and the bag is larger.

And this is essentially the classic class advice: quit being poor pleb

For context, the median individual income in 2015 for men working full time was 50k, I am pretty sure 90k is top 15%

We are literally talking top of income earners even geting a chance to play the game...

PS nice touch removing the comment, i stand by my assertion, that dude was trolling

[–] grue@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

"I can deny reality as long as I write it in bold text!" -- sure, Jan.

Look, you wanted to be informed, and I informed you. I did the math -- correctly -- for you. You wanted to know how the math worked for somebody who did the thing starting a decade ago such that they could be retired today, and I told you how it worked for somebody who started a decade ago such that they could be retired today. How it works for somebody starting today who wants to be retired ten years from now might involve slightly different tactics (especially with the Orange Dipshit trying his best to wreck the country in new and unanticipated ways), but that's not really the point.

You are out of touch to understand housing...

What part of "granted, that circumstance no longer exists, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to make ownership (or otherwise hedging against rent inflation) happen, such as “house hacking” or living on a boat" did you not understand?

You are not entitled to disingenuously quote half an argument, ignore the other half, and use that to pretend you won. Argue in good faith or don't argue at all.

If I hadn't done what I did back then, I would be doing something else now instead (probably living on a boat) to keep my costs low. But I sure as Hell wouldn't be paying $3K a month on housing! And more to the point, I can guarantee you that the other guy isn't either, even without asking him or knowing anything else about his situation.

For context, the median individual income in 2015 for men working full time was 50k, I am pretty sure 90k is top 15%

Hey, guess what: go back and re-read the earlier comments and you'll notice that you were the one who set that simplifying assumption, not me. My initial ballpark guess was that the guy's yearly spend was closer to $24k than $40k. Obviously a normal person's career progression is going to have their income gradually increasing over time, not starting at exactly $90k/year and not varying by even a cent for a decade, and my initial explanation took that into account and lowered my guess at his spending accordingly.

Setting your own simplifying assumptions for somebody to use and then bitching that the math "doesn't work" because you moved the goalposts for precision is another example of a bad-faith argument to which you are not entitled.

And this is essentially the classic class advice: quit being poor pleb

No, it's literally the opposite. The advice is "learn to be happy with the amount of money you have." The amount of money you actually have, that is, not the (much larger) amount of money you think you have because you fail to plan for the future.

You're just pulling preconceived notions out of your ass and ignoring what me and the other guy are actually telling you. This isn't 'prosperity gospel' shit; central features of the FIRE mindset are things like:

"Luxury is just another weakness"
"Is it Convenient? Would I Enjoy it? Wrong Question."
And my personal favorite, especially considering we're talking in !fuckcars about a topic that really should be discussed in !fire instead, "What Do You Mean “You Don’t Have a Bike”?!"

If you think that stuff has any resemblance to "quit being poor, pleb," I don't know what to tell you -- you're just illiterate or something. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

What it really boils down to is 21st century Stoicism and learning to avoid the Diderot Effect/hedonic adaptation -- you reduce your spending until the math does work such that you have a very high savings rate, even if that means, IDK, living in a tiny apartment with multiple roommates or something. And then accepting that and figuring out how to be happy about it anyway.

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments (7 replies)

load more comments (7 replies)

load more comments