Leonard Helplessness
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2018
This led me to think about personal budgeting. Figuring out how much you can/should spend in a given time on different things is a valuable skill, and one I strongly recommend everybody develop. Lou's situation has me considering a question: How much money do you need to earn to have a lifestyle like Lou's?
To do this, first we look at necessary household expenses.
So for household expenses, an average of $1000 per month. Now let's look at necessary personal expenses.
So, I think that about covers it: $585/month not inclusive of healthcare. We're also assuming the following:
So that puts us at $1,585/month for a no-frills, single-and-living-alone-in-your-own-home, shitty-car lifestyle. Lower middle class, though with a top-of-the-line smartphone and internet service, mind. All of these expenses could potentially be whittled down in various ways, if you put in the effort and are willing to make some sacrifices.
Now, let's look at how much money you need to bring in to hit that target. Taxes are a thing, after all.
I was surprised to learn that city income taxes are very prevalent in Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh, for instance, has a city tax of 3% for people who live and work there, 1% for people who work in Pittsburgh but live elsewhere. The calculator I used for hourly pay assumed 174 hours worked per month, which is about in the ballpark of what to expect if you're working 40 hours a week. Pennsylvania's minimum wage is currently $7.25/hour, though only 8% of the state's workforce is actually paid that. Everyone else is paid more.
So there you have it: A full-time job, earning $11.60/hour plus health benefits (which employers are massively incentivized by the tax system to provide), is about what it takes for a single person to live alone in reasonable comfort in Greensburg assuming they haven't destroyed their body with junk food and thus need a constant supply of insulin and other diabetic supplies.
Now, let's consider what someone could do in order to stretch that money further:
All of these things will free up money that you can save for retirement or in case something bad happens, and/or blow on computers and video games and restaurant food (restaurant spending can get obscenely high if you're not careful) and dating and booze and furry conventions and cat porn. You can also try getting a better job or working your way up at your existing job; you don't need a fucking college degree to get yourself a job with decent pay and benefits. Even fighting your way up to a $30,000/year job will land you around the following in Pennsylvania:
This income level gives you a decent chunk of change, on top of the necessary household and personal expenses, to buy shit with -- such as to save up for new electronics, or to buy video games and commission cat porn. Also, if you're working, you'll probably be busy enough that you're spending less on consumable entertainment products such as video games in the first place. This amount of income still isn't enough to both live alone and have a new iPad every month but not even fucking millionaires buy themselves a new fucking iPad every fucking month, so fuck off with that shit.
- Rent: Rent varies wildly from one location to the next, so for Lou's case, I pulled up the Pittsburgh craigslist and searched for apartments in Greensburg. It looks like you can expect to pay $550-700 per month for a decent 1-bedroom apartment in that locale. A one-bedroom apartment, by the way, includes a small kitchen, living room, and full bathroom. If you want to do a teensy studio or "efficiency" apartment (which will still have a bathroom, and generally kitchen facilities) that'll cost less, and the closer you get to the center of Pittsburgh the higher your rent is going to be. Someone like Lou who does nothing but play video games and get in fights on Twitter will likely only need a studio apartment, so let's say $550/month. If you're a poor and want to deal with communal living arrangements or other ways to split rent this will go down a shitload, as will the other household expenses, but Lou can't get along with fucking anybody.
- Renter's insurance: This one's not absolutely necessary at times, but more and more landlords are requiring it as a way to protect themselves from liability in the event that somebody gets injured in your apartment for some reason and wants to sue. In addition to liability, this also covers goods in the apartment in the event of burglary, fire, or other such shit. Someone like Lou who lives on top of an electronics hoard is going to want this. It's pretty fucking cheap and I'll put it down as $10/month.
- Utilities: Water, sewage, and trash are often just paid for by the landlord rather than directly by the tenants. However, practically any rental you might get will have you paying the energy bills, meaning electric and possibly gas. How high your monthly energy bill will be depends to a huge degree on how much you run the HVAC, which depends on the size of your home, desired temperature versus the temperature outside, and insulation quality. It also depends to a lesser extent on your usage of other appliances and how fucking wasteful you are. A lookup of climate data indicates that Greensburg can get up to 90 degrees or higher in the summer time, so a fat fuck like Lou will be running the AC a lot. It also gets below freezing in wintertime. Energy expenses even for a small home are going to be pretty fucking high just for the climate control, and someone like Lou who runs a ton of electronics constantly is going to push it higher. Based on my observation of energy bills nowadays for small apartments in areas like this I'd say we're looking at on average $150/month -- lower in the spring and fall, higher when the temperatures are at either extreme. Especially if opening windows and configuring the thermostat scheduler takes too much effort.
- Cable internet and TV: Greensburg has gigabit internet available, so we know someone like Lou is going to absolutely require that. A lot of the big internet providers have a sweet deal for the first year, then the price jumps. The price can vary from one area to another, though when I tried it on a random Greensburg apartment I looked up, the top-shelf deals ran around $120-140/month after the initial discounts dropped off. So for someone like Lou, with the equipment rental fees on top, let's say $150/month.
- Phone: Every fucking person needs a smartphone nowadays. Most big cell plans nowadays have unlimited voice, unlimited text, and a monthly data limit. Someone like Lou is going to want unlimited data even if they're on the wi-fi everywhere they go. I had a quick look at unlimited data plans that are available, and the most expensive AT&T one runs at $85/month plus tax for one phone on the plan. Assuming you go with AT&T, 30-month payment plans are available for your phone, so for the most expensive iPhone available at the moment that's around $40/month on top of that. Adding a bit of padding on top for taxes and whatever fees AT&T decides to sneak in nowadays, let's say $140/month. More if you change phones more than once every 30 months.
So for household expenses, an average of $1000 per month. Now let's look at necessary personal expenses.
- Groceries: Encompasses food, drink, cleaning supplies, kitchen supplies, bathroom supplies, and everything else you need to maintain a home and keep food in your belly. This one varies wildly depending on your lifestyle, particularly how much of a slob you are. If you aren't afraid to spend some time in the kitchen at a cutting board, you can be having delicious meals every day for a fraction of the cost of if you were buying frozen or pre-made shit. Expending the effort to cook for yourself also is a much greater factor in how much you'll spend on groceries than is the quantity you eat; if you cook then you can be a fat fuck very cheaply. For someone like Lou, being charitable and assuming that there's no significant booze spending and that he lives on Prego and soda and frozen pizza and other processed shit, I'd say around $300-375/month would go to groceries, at most. This will go down slightly with each restaurant meal, at the expense of spending several times as much on restaurant food than on anything home-prepared. You can get down to a fraction of the $300-375 amount, even under $150/month if you take a bit of time in the kitchen making big batches of tasty food that leave good leftovers, but this is Lou we're talking about.
- Healthcare: This also hinges very heavily on lifestyle (especially if you're the kind of person who eats themselves into Type 2 diabetes at 37) as well as on age and genetics. Lou is getting up into the age where all the chickens come home to roost if you've been mistreating your body, and Type 2 is going to make a whole lot of that shit even worse. How much you actually have to pay for your healthcare, however, is heavily dependent on shit like your health insurance. Generally, due to how the United States tax system has evolved, your health insurance will be provided by your employer. The Obamacare marketplaces are a thing now too, and how much you pay into those depends on your income. This one's a gray area, and is a lot simpler if you just fucking live healthily.
- Laundry and personal care: This one is usually lower for guys, including for guys who claim to be girls but make no effort whatsoever to look or act like girls. I'm going to be charitable and assume we're tipping the hairdresser well and say $25/month. Depending on how mercilessly expensive the local coin-op laundromat is, maybe $20/month on top of that for laundry. Everything else is covered in groceries, including shaving supplies. We'll also assume that the person in question is a fat fuck who doesn't go to the gym at all, or is resorting to other means to start getting in shape.
- Transportation: This one's a bit uncertain as it depends massively on the amount of transportation you need, which depends both on your lifestyle and on your job commute. Lou knows how to use the bus system and likes to have all his shit home-delivered and doesn't ever go and visit anybody, but he's also fat as fuck which doesn't go well with walking between bus stations, so let's go ahead and go with a car. We'll say an old beater that you paid a pittance for up front, that gets mediocre gas mileage, and is in good shape -- which is a rarity up north where road salt eats through every car's undercarriage but I'm trying to be nice about this. I'm going to say $100/month for gas, $40/month for insurance, and put aside $50/month for maintenance as a conservative estimate. Shit like insurance will of course be a lot higher if you have a newer car or it has a loan on it (and thus requires comprehensive and collision insurance) or if you have a bad history as a driver. It also depends on the state; I haven't gone looking to see whether PA has different liability limits or require additional insurance types. Some states like to do that shit, which drives up the premiums.
- Clothing: Men generally spend less than women on this, unless they're actively trooning out. Clothing is a lifestyle thing, but there's a minimum you need to be spending on it especially in areas where it can get cold as fuck. Let's stay cheapish on this one: Assuming we're not constantly needing new socks due to them being destroyed by a rotting foot hole, maybe $50/month for clothes that aren't complete shit.
So, I think that about covers it: $585/month not inclusive of healthcare. We're also assuming the following:
- No pre-existing debts
- Home furnishings are spoken for in some fashion or another (if you're starting out you should just be hitting garage sales and thrift stores for this shit, anyway; from my observation thrift stores are a hilariously cheap and effective way to equip your kitchen, for instance)
- Nothing's being saved up for retirement, emergency money, vacations, holidays, or an appointment to get your gender reaffirmed by a Thai dickbutcher
So that puts us at $1,585/month for a no-frills, single-and-living-alone-in-your-own-home, shitty-car lifestyle. Lower middle class, though with a top-of-the-line smartphone and internet service, mind. All of these expenses could potentially be whittled down in various ways, if you put in the effort and are willing to make some sacrifices.
Now, let's look at how much money you need to bring in to hit that target. Taxes are a thing, after all.
I was surprised to learn that city income taxes are very prevalent in Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh, for instance, has a city tax of 3% for people who live and work there, 1% for people who work in Pittsburgh but live elsewhere. The calculator I used for hourly pay assumed 174 hours worked per month, which is about in the ballpark of what to expect if you're working 40 hours a week. Pennsylvania's minimum wage is currently $7.25/hour, though only 8% of the state's workforce is actually paid that. Everyone else is paid more.
So there you have it: A full-time job, earning $11.60/hour plus health benefits (which employers are massively incentivized by the tax system to provide), is about what it takes for a single person to live alone in reasonable comfort in Greensburg assuming they haven't destroyed their body with junk food and thus need a constant supply of insulin and other diabetic supplies.
Now, let's consider what someone could do in order to stretch that money further:
- Live with somebody. For instance, you could do a 2-bedroom apartment and have a bigger living room, bigger kitchen, and each person still has their own room to sleep and jerk off in and they split the rent, utilities, and cable bills. Furries try communal living arrangements a lot, though they have a tendency to fail spectacularly because they require furries to get along with each other in real life. For somebody like Lou this could be particularly difficult, unless he learns to not melt down whenever he's asked to take out the trash.
- Spend less on utilities. Setting the thermostat a single degree higher than you otherwise would in the summertime makes a world of difference, trust me. Turning off the A/C and opening all the windows when it's a pleasant day out makes even more of a difference, for that matter. Fatasses tend to have more trouble dissipating body heat and thus end up needing to run the A/C more, so this is an instance where it pays to shed some pounds. In wintertime when you're dealing with a cold snap, remember that sweaters, throw blankets, and hot beverages can make a world of difference in staying cozy in a chilly home. It helps even more if you get off your ass and make yourself useful; even just cleaning up around the place will heat you up quickly and keep you warm.
- Spend less on cable. Consider whether you actually fucking need gigabit; even if you're streaming 4K this is likely massive overkill unless your house has like four people streaming at once. The most difference that most Lou-type people will notice between 1200Mbps and 100Mbps nowadays is when they're downloading new games and/or day one patches for those games. Think hard about how much bandwidth you need, even if you work from home.
- Spend less on your phone. If you spend most of you personal time in your home and you have a wi-fi router, you don't fucking need unlimited data so don't get it. Phone providers push this shit really hard nowadays; don't go for it unless you absolutely need to watch Netflix in HD on the bus every fucking day or something. Also, even if you're an iPhone kind of person, you probably don't need the maximum available storage and you definitely don't need the newest generation every fucking year. Seriously, get on Apple's website and look at the features they hawk for the iPhone 12; it's just "uwu look at this new CPU and camera" shit every fucking year. Consider whether to go with a different brand of phone entirely, for that matter. It depends on what you use that shit for.
- Learn to cook. This is one of the best life skills anyone can have. I'm not talking about boiling pasta and glopping Prego on top of it; I'm talking about finding recipes, getting ingredients, and turning those ingredients into a meal. It's a good deal better and cheaper than premade stuff from the store, and it's far and away cheaper and healthier than any restaurant food. A person can easily cut their monthly grocery bill in half this way, simply by spending a bit of time in the kitchen and learning basic cooking skills. It's also satisfying as all fuck to make yourself some delicious food, and if you're cooking for one, you're likely generating lots of leftovers that can be reheated at any time instead of going through the effort of going out and getting more fast food.
All of these things will free up money that you can save for retirement or in case something bad happens, and/or blow on computers and video games and restaurant food (restaurant spending can get obscenely high if you're not careful) and dating and booze and furry conventions and cat porn. You can also try getting a better job or working your way up at your existing job; you don't need a fucking college degree to get yourself a job with decent pay and benefits. Even fighting your way up to a $30,000/year job will land you around the following in Pennsylvania:
This income level gives you a decent chunk of change, on top of the necessary household and personal expenses, to buy shit with -- such as to save up for new electronics, or to buy video games and commission cat porn. Also, if you're working, you'll probably be busy enough that you're spending less on consumable entertainment products such as video games in the first place. This amount of income still isn't enough to both live alone and have a new iPad every month but not even fucking millionaires buy themselves a new fucking iPad every fucking month, so fuck off with that shit.
tl;dr -- this person is trying to get a $500/month donation stipend while he has his every fucking household and personal expense already paid for, and for most people having that money available to blow on incel luxury on top of their other expenses requires a full-time middle class job.
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