- Joined
- Jan 17, 2016
So, the longer I have spent on the forums the more I have noticed an interesting trend. The most vocal Kiwis seem to vastly underestimate the actual value of money, or at least be quite ignorant of regional differences. For instance, in a Chris-Chan thread at one time, people expressed shock at his tugboat income and said he could never survive on it by itself, despite the fact that he would be over the poverty line in his native region and capable of affording a nice apartment, car payments, and bills (assuming he wasn't a retard.) Apparently, the amount in question (I think roughly $1,300 a month) was very low to them, yet you could buy a house in Virginia if you waited a few years and banked that right.
To a use an extremely powerlevel-y example, I have mentioned to people that I and my partner moved to a region of the Northern U.S. for a combined salary of 80k a year. Most people in the wider New England/North Atlantic region react with utter shock, as if this were dirt poor. "No reason to move!" Despite the fact that I can afford an apartment downtown in a city of 100,000+, two cars, pay my parents bills, and still save 35k-50k a year...?
Am I just more frugal than others? Are people just more sheltered in wealthier regions? Stuck up?
Where I come from, let's just say the minimum wage is low if it exists at all. I spent most of my time in the U.S. down South, where you can live comfortably on $10 an hour most places if you have two people making that income. In my precious Gulf/Caribbean homeland, $10 an hour USD leaves you living like a goddamn King.
My European father lived the high life in Barcelona in the mid 2000's on much less than what I am making now, but "Yankees" for lack of a better term, who often make much less than me, seem disinclined to believe that I am "doing well". More confusingly, many of these people are my own age, which is only just old enough to sign a lease or own property outright in their particular state, but react with a most blasé attitude to people who come from other places and have done more than them with less. I frequently get asked "what my parents do".
I am in my fucking 20's. Why would you ask that? It is my job to take care of them. We pay for their house and help with their bills. This culture seems so backwards. But am I the backwards one?
So, Kiwis, how about you? What do you think is "doing well"? How do other regions compare to yours? Do you have experiences like this? Is this "WASP" culture I hear so much about? Am I dirt poor?
@Legatus Lanius, @Splendid Meat Sticks, my northern hombres, what do you think of this?
Side Note: a man here told a dude one day to go back to his "$15 an hour burger-flipping loser job." How the fuck do you make $15 an hour flipping fucking burgers? Does that happen here? Where? How can a society have that much money? That doesn't even happen in the richest parts of Europe if you adjust for income equivalency. What the Hell?
To a use an extremely powerlevel-y example, I have mentioned to people that I and my partner moved to a region of the Northern U.S. for a combined salary of 80k a year. Most people in the wider New England/North Atlantic region react with utter shock, as if this were dirt poor. "No reason to move!" Despite the fact that I can afford an apartment downtown in a city of 100,000+, two cars, pay my parents bills, and still save 35k-50k a year...?
Am I just more frugal than others? Are people just more sheltered in wealthier regions? Stuck up?
Where I come from, let's just say the minimum wage is low if it exists at all. I spent most of my time in the U.S. down South, where you can live comfortably on $10 an hour most places if you have two people making that income. In my precious Gulf/Caribbean homeland, $10 an hour USD leaves you living like a goddamn King.
My European father lived the high life in Barcelona in the mid 2000's on much less than what I am making now, but "Yankees" for lack of a better term, who often make much less than me, seem disinclined to believe that I am "doing well". More confusingly, many of these people are my own age, which is only just old enough to sign a lease or own property outright in their particular state, but react with a most blasé attitude to people who come from other places and have done more than them with less. I frequently get asked "what my parents do".
I am in my fucking 20's. Why would you ask that? It is my job to take care of them. We pay for their house and help with their bills. This culture seems so backwards. But am I the backwards one?
So, Kiwis, how about you? What do you think is "doing well"? How do other regions compare to yours? Do you have experiences like this? Is this "WASP" culture I hear so much about? Am I dirt poor?
@Legatus Lanius, @Splendid Meat Sticks, my northern hombres, what do you think of this?
Side Note: a man here told a dude one day to go back to his "$15 an hour burger-flipping loser job." How the fuck do you make $15 an hour flipping fucking burgers? Does that happen here? Where? How can a society have that much money? That doesn't even happen in the richest parts of Europe if you adjust for income equivalency. What the Hell?
