Enthusiastic sh.it.head

  • 6 Posts
  • 177 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • Naive in the sense that it doesn’t adequately account for the situation of many people. Not everyone has the circumstances where they can do this. I can’t help but feel there’s some survivorship bias influencing your position.

    I’m curious, though, if you’re up to illustrating (if not, totally fine): You are a single mother of two sons, ages 7 and 8, living in Generic State, USA. You have a high school degree and no post-secondary education. You have limited support, solely in the form of limited childcare, from family/the wider community. You make about $1600.00 USD per month, after taxes, working 50 hours a week at a physical workplace. You’re finding yourself with $10 left at the end of each month, after all legitimately necessary expenses (rent, food, basic utilities) are paid for. Let’s make it easy and say you have no debt.

    What are you doing, and where are you going, if following your advice? It should be noted these circumstances are actually quite a bit better than other folks in the U.S. To be clear, I don’t think this is a gotcha, nor is it intended to be - I just want to see your approach here.

    Edit: Monthly wage should be after taxes, not before, and changed $900 to $1600 (based roughly on monthly takehome pay at Ohio’s minimum wage rate, and I calculated for 1 pay period rather than 2 per month)


  • So, question: You’re someone with a not-remote-friendly skill set. You save your money to travel - travel, mind you, not immigrate, so subject to the visa requirements of travellers/tourists (as this seems to be what you’re talking about - immigration is a whole different kettle of fish). The money runs out. What do?

    Or - you’re living paycheck to paycheck with children. You try to save money to travel for the reasons you’ve brought up here. It’s not possible. What do?

    No offence, but your account of travel as a solution here seems deeply naive. It can work for some, sure, but “just leave the country bro” simply isn’t an option at all for many, many people.