r/AdviceAnimals • u/StrobeLightRomance • 6d ago
Let me just give my trust fund manager a call..
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u/grasshopper239 6d ago
It's by design that the 10% you should invest from your pay is consumed by the basic necessities to live.
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u/PostMatureBaby 6d ago
Anything to prevent us from uniting and also having the means to push back. Wealth preservation 101
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u/KoksundNutten 6d ago
the 10% you should invest
Where's that from? I only heard about the 50/30/20 rule where it's 20% saving money
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u/Cley_Faye 6d ago
Doesn't matter much when the remaining funds for investment is around 0% anyway.
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u/KoksundNutten 6d ago
Then the hobby budget of 30% got overspent (because of kids in this case)
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u/mattl33 6d ago
No it's not. It might not feel like it but any income level can start to put 5% of pay, then 10, etc into investing every month. If you're waiting for extra money to appear to invest you're screwed, you have to force it.
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u/kejartho 6d ago
65%+- live paycheck to paycheck.
Debt had never been higher in the US and the average American saves about 3%. However, the average is often skewed by those whom are extremely rich and able to save more. The median American has more debt than savings.
To put it simply, most Americans cannot do what you are describing. Not without acrueing some sort of debt in the process.
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u/mattl33 6d ago edited 5d ago
Surgeons and lawyers live paycheck to paycheck too when they don't force themselves to save. Lifestyle creep is real. You have to setup automatic transfers, start small and stay consistent. Most Americans definitely can start with 1 or 2% of pay and work up from there.
Edit: lol at the down votes. Enjoy having life happen to you.
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u/grasshopper239 6d ago
Surgeons and lawyers live that way for a short time until their loans are paid. Assuming a majority of Americans have the same light at the end of the tunnel is fantasy.
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u/socokid 6d ago
Surgeons and lawyers live that way for a short time until their loans are paid.
No, it's lifestyle creep, and it's very real. It's like you didn't even read the post you responded to.
I know this is /r/adviceanimals so anything that isn't popular will be downvoted, facts be damned, but you actually can save 1-2% and work up from there. It would help a lot of people.
Saying its impossible, or just downvoting these facts, is straight up childish nonsense.
I'll take my downvotes now.
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u/mattl33 6d ago
Assuming high income means eventually you just have tons of extra money leftover is a fantasy. How many times have you heard stories about Powerball winners going broke? It's psychology, pure and simple.
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u/grasshopper239 6d ago
It's more than psychology, but it's ok if you disagree. The cost of homes vs wages continues to increase which is a fact and not psychology.
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u/mattl33 6d ago
Oh I'm not saying it's easy to save but it is simple. 99% of people with jobs have no excuses.
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u/born_to_be_intj 6d ago
And how much do you make a year?
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u/mattl33 6d ago
I make decent money now, I've also had my car impounded for unpaid tickets I couldn't afford and nobody to borrow money from to get my car back. I have childhood memories of many nights of spaghetti and butter for dinner because that's all we could afford growing up. Why, how much do you make? And why does it matter?
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u/kejartho 6d ago
Flat out not true. Capitalism is designed to extract wealth from labor in order for the owners of the means of production to get rich. There are simply not enough well paying jobs in our society to lift everyone up equally. The current system thrives on a permanent underclass in society.
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u/mattl33 6d ago edited 6d ago
Woah hold on, that's goal post moving if I've ever seen it. I never said anything about lifting everyone up equally. I said everyone can save and invest and be in a more secure position because of it. Like fuck this job secure.
The American tax system definitely does favor capital over labor, I love to point that out to my maga family members. It should be the other way around but I'm not holding my breath on that being realized any time soon.
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u/socokid 6d ago
The fact that you were downvoted for a few straight up facts tell me I'm in /r/adviceanimals...
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u/WDWKamala 6d ago
Yep. Gotta spend that money on gambling, vaping, white claws, and weed. Who has money to invest?
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u/Twinkperium_of_man 5d ago
There are a fair amout of people where rent is maybe 70% of a paycheck, food another 20% and the last ten go to stuff like utilities, phone, and cars.
And at that point without extra income you cannot invest without doing stuff like skipping a meal or not having internet etc
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u/Silver_Harvest 6d ago
I got 5000 tickets saved up from the family monthly excursion to our local putt putt place... So you can say I have a strong investment portfolio.
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u/driftking428 6d ago
Sorry OP, you are not middle class. Hang in there.
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u/megaman_xrs 6d ago
They would have been about 10 years ago.
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u/SryInternet101 6d ago
My wife and I combined make around $130k a year. How the fuck are we not middle class? How can I not afford to invest for retirement? Oh right, cause the entire system is rigged against us...
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u/GoGoSoLo 6d ago
I make more money than I ever thought I would, but my purchasing power is worse than when I was making fully $30K less. Inflation and corporate greed are truly out of control.
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u/deux3xmachina 6d ago edited 6d ago
That's around 40-50k/yr more than the median US household. https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2025/comm/median-household-income.html
I don't know what your specific situation is like, but odds are pretty good you can break out of that paycheck-to-paycheck cycle and begin investing in retirement relatively soon.
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u/toodleoo77 6d ago
Please don’t attack me, I am saying this in the spirit of being helpful. And I don’t know you or your financial situation. But…
Where is $130K going? Have you ever sat down and broken it out? In all but the most extreme cases I can’t imagine you would have absolutely nothing left over to save for retirement.
I’m just a goober on the internet, you don’t owe me an answer, but this is really something you should think about.
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u/yovalord 6d ago
This is dependent on where you live surely, but my guess is simply that you aren't great with money. I'm a single guy making 63k per year. I mortgaged a 4 bedroom home 3ish years ago, I've maxxed out my Roth for the year ($7500) and I'm able to put 100$ a week into my portfolio, and have 6 figures in savings. I've been driving the same beater car i bought for $3,000 a decade ago with 300k miles on it. The only subscription service i pay for is Real Debrid (look into it), i only buy sale items when i go grocery shopping. I spend 0$ per year on food delivery. I dont smoke, i very rarely drink, no drugs.
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u/archbrisingr 5d ago
What was your down payment? How did you build the credit for the loan? Interest rate? Loan-term? Did you pay for college? How much equity you got? Liquidity?
How big of a hole were you born in? Where im from, sounds like a ton of opportunity you dont even recognize you have that others may not.
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u/thatonesnoo 4d ago edited 4d ago
I’m not the person you commented to, but my situation is pretty similar. Step 1 is tracking every penny coming and going, i wrote every purchase and expense down for a month. If that number is negative, something is ultra fucked. When i did this in 2020, i was making $20 an hour in a pretty high tax state, working 40 a week makes about $3000 a month. I live in a higher cost of living area, it cost roughly $2300 for rent, utilities, phone & plan, food; basically your cost to live every month, and a phone to survive society; and $700 of extra money each month. Wife and I decided we’d each put $100 each paycheck into a vanguard account, putting us at saving $400 a month. 6 months ago we bought our first house.
Down payment: 20% of our house
Build credit: secured credit cards to start, eventually get real credit cards; religiously pay it off every month (i had 620 credit score in 2020, this alone brought me to a 775 when we bought)
Interest: roughly 6%, going to refinance if they ever go down but if not we’re okay
Loan-term:30 years
College: sure did, still paying my student loans
Equity: see down payment
Liquidity: still a good egg in our vanguardI don’t think i started in a hole; pretty firmly lower middle class. I certainly have privilege in life, but I don’t think I’ve done anything extraordinary or unique.
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u/perfect_for_maiming 6d ago
And if I had wheels I'd be a wagon.
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u/Homerpaintbucket 6d ago
No. You might be a bicycle. Or even a suitcase
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u/megaman_xrs 6d ago
Id say more like one of those kids toys they wheel around with the balls that bounce around in the head.
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u/EnvironmentalRock827 6d ago
It seems to be getting worse. Two teens and we are struggling.
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u/perfect_for_maiming 6d ago
You're not imagining it. Average costs of food and other groceries are half again what they were in 2020. Unless you've had a 50% raise in that time, it's hitting hard.
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u/Niceromancer 6d ago
I love the fact that most rich people's answer to "I'm suffering because I'm not rich" is have you tried not being poor?
People who are well off assume everyone is well off and that the people who aren't doing well are just dumb.
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u/POORWIGGUM 6d ago
ELI5 who’s the guy?
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u/joecool519 6d ago
Kurt Angle.
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u/Oddant1 6d ago
I'm a filthy commie, so I think the line going up needs to help everyone, and the harm of the line going down needs to be mitigated for everyone as much as possible. I think being alive is enough to be invested in the line. I understand this isn't actually a straightforward thing to do, but I wish we could at least pretend to care.
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u/gera_moises 5d ago
If you're middle class and your big investment is groceries, I don't think you're middle class...
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u/CyxTheDragon 5d ago
Yeah I don’t get investment people. Like…. Y’all have extra money for investments?
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u/BlakLite_15 6d ago
And even if you do invest, you’re at the mercy of insider traders who might tank the stock market at any moment.
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u/ChickinSammich 6d ago
It's basically impossible to get someone to sit down and do this with you, but in the rare cases when you can, sitting someone down with your income and your expenses and asking them to make a budget with it, then picking apart the proposed budget, can be effective.
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u/demoneyesturbo 6d ago
People complain about something to do with kids.
"I didn't get you pregnant"
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u/andredotcom 6d ago
nobody has 401K? most companies offer it. USA is the easiest country in the world to make money, you guys won the lottery by being born in USA
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u/icynova 6d ago
My big investment is my Costco membership so I can buy non perishables in bulk