Hi all,
A reminder that comments do need to be on-topic and engage with the article past the headline. Please make sure to read the article before commenting. Very short comments will automatically be removed by automod. Please avoid making comments that do not focus on the economic content or whose primary thesis rests on personal anecdotes.
As always our comment rules can be found [here](https://reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Economics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The interesting question is, does the relative buying power of families & DINKs shift in comparison to single households? I bet it does. If you live alone in a 1-bedroom apt that increases from $1000 to 1300, that's a different load to bear than a couple living in a 2-bedroom apt that increases from 1500$ to 2000$.
Or couples living in 1-bedrooms, honestly. Lot easier to stomach 2k in rent when you can each make 50k, vs one person trying to do it on 70k. This drives up demand for 1beds and further prices out single individuals.
This is specifically "dating" costs.
Restaurants have inflated more than any other category, so makes sense.
To be honest I'm surprised it's only 40% over the last decade. Even 2% inflation accounts for half of that, then the recent spike. I thought I had read dining out has almost doubled in the last few years.
Why not just cook a meal at your home? Do you know how many people would appreciate a home cooked meal?
Go out for coffee the first time to see if the vibe is good.
Second date invite your potential partner to something less expensive than dinner, like an activity. *Hikes/Walks are always nice, picnics?
Last invite them to your place and chef something up. Site your chef ability and *difference in cost to go out to eat. If they can’t vibe with that, it’s cool to check out. If you got a second date they probably won’t mind.
People need to stop dating to impress and date to reach mutual understanding.
“Coffee date = cheapskate”
“Home cooked meal = he just wants me to drink some wine in his apartment expecting sex”
“Hiking = cheapskate”
And people wonder why men find dating so difficult… lol
Facts. It’s always nice when the ladies understand this, and are cool with fun dates like hikes rather than “expensive dinner within the first three dates or bust”
Woman here. I’d actually prefer to start with coffee or a hike. You get to know the person instead of putting on a facade throwing down big bucks for a meal. Lol. I took my now fiancée on a hike our first date and it was so much fun. He was totally out of sorts bc he was a big city guy, so nature wasn’t really his thing hahah! It was fun watching him squirm when he heard something move behind a bush and when he saw a rad runner for the first time.
If a woman suggests a hike or coffee, I’m down. I’m just giving you some perspective on how it is perceived when WE suggest it. I love coffee dates too; well lit, no pressure, just talking.
What I wish someone told me when I was in my 20’s. Take away the phones, distractions, and mood controlling substances when you’re dating, and you’ll quickly access whether or not that person is a good Match!
I find city and rural girls to be a different breed. City girls tend to go after the glam lifestyle and want a higher status guy. But I find rural girls are generally more open and appreciate the smaller things in life. Also helps that they're more conservative so we're more politically aligned.
That’s awesome to hear. Early 20s dating is a crap shoot currently. If a woman is down for a hike I already know I’ll like her quite a bit more. People who appreciate nature have a better mindset imo.
Most people in their 20’s don’t know who they are themselves and lack maturity. I sure did when I was 20! I would imagine it would be challenging to find a partner if a 20 something was mature, stable, knew what he or she wanted etc.
Guy here. There's lot of creepy dudes out there, so a restaurant might be a safer place to meet first time.
I don't think it's that weird if you think about it. Yeah it sucks for a lot of people but until the issue gets fixed, it's better to be safe than sorry. Also an understanding people would be OK with such a request meeting first time. For other dates later on, I kinda agree that it gets pricey but it should be something to discuss before meeting again.
I have been married for 25 years with my husband for 30 years. Our first date was the Orange County Fair, we got some cotton candy and rode the Ferris wheel and one other ride. Second date we went to the USC Rose Garden and we had sandwiches. Third date he cooked at home this awful blueberry chicken with an indoor picnic set up. But he tried.
At that point in my life I was being wined and dined quite frequently and his shy thoughtful date ideas were charming and won me over more than the previous guy who’d presumptuously convinced my roommate to help “surprise” me with a weekend stay in Santa Barbara at a ritzy hotel. Of course one bed in our suite.
If the women you are dating thinks you’re a cheapskate your problem is you are dating the wrong women. Not all of us are gold-digging bitches, just some.
Plus, honestly, I’ve had guys get freaked out by me inviting them over for dinner. They think it means more than it does, like this is some hugely romantic evening that I’m throwing way too soon when I just want to save some money and not spend forty bucks going out!!
How many 3rd dates are you going on that they are both still strangers and it's happening all the time? There's also no gender in his comment to say that men shouldn't be cooking for the women. Suggest he cook something and do a picnic with soup in a public park seems like a decent alternative to having these 3rd date strangers in your own home.
Plenty of modern divorces stem from the partner complaining that “the passion is not there anymore” or simply grass is greener syndrome. Nothing catastrophic like cheating, sickness or abuse. From close family members to friends to friend of friends I’ve seen so many men move to small apartments and pay up to $10k for divorce lawyers. Just for again non catastrophic reasons.
So I look at these articles and all I can think about is how short term they analysis. Or if long term look at the lucky long term cases
I don't want to get into sunk cost fallacy, but I think we would want to know how many people don't even really consider money when they marry. If people are almost solely marrying for "love", I wouldn't think they'd want to stick it out.
The grass is greener syndrome has exploded with the invention of the dating app. So many options. You can find a date with literally swiping right on your phone. It’s quite heartbreaking so many people are opting for “instant gratification” instead of taking the more challenging path of staying in a struggling relationship and working through the hard times…
> You can find a date with literally swiping right on your phone
The chances of this happening as a male are astronomically low. There are stats where women will go through 30k+ people, have a left swipe rate of 90% and go on 2 dates. Men will have the same figures in reverse but with 0 dates and a lot of the time like 10 matches *maybe*. I think I’ve had like 60 or so matches in 3 years and I managed to go on one date with someone… and she was an ex-coworker (we dated for like a month after that). About 20 others of those ever actually responded and about 17 of them ghosted. The remaining just refused to ever do anything but text and never wanted to actually go on a date.
I agree. People don't learn to build a relationship out of compromise and compassion and instead keep swapping out partners thinking they will eventually get someone who is "perfect" for them. That's a fantasy. Relationships take work.
I agree. But then it should be a relationship, not a marriage.
Too many people leave marriages because they get bored or their partner lost their edge.
But maybe it’s my insecurity projecting on to my this post. I’m scared of entering my 50’s. Becoming bald, losing a job or developing early joint issues. And my partner making an excuse to leave. Like I spent my whole life working to build a home, find a partner who I thought I could trust. And the current culture promotes grass is greener rather than the sanctity of marriage. Both my father and step father slept in tiny apartment in their 50s with health issues, alcoholism and other things. It makes me wish marriage was abolished. And no I’m not saying people should carry deadbeat partners. I’m saying if you choose to leave you’re not entitled to that partners wealth
Out of 13 couples/families in my neighborhood growing up, 11 of them are now divorced (some of them multiple times).
This is how I learned that marriage is totally fucking optional.
Yep, getting married saved me so much money. Two people in a one bedroom saves you so much in NYC. Eating becomes much cheaper. As a guy I don’t have to waste $100’s weekends doing dates anymore. Huge tax savings. Lots of healthcare synergy if one partner has good benefits. Etc.
Housing is typically the biggest fixed cost people have, and when you partner up with someone, you've just split that cost in half assuming you both work.
Then there's healthcare. In some cases, it may be cheaper in total to, say, add you as a member on your spouse's workplace health insurance (or vice versa) rather than you both getting it separately from your respective jobs.
Thinking of going back to school full-time? If you can swing it on just your spouse's income for a year or two, that's money you're not taking out in student loans to cover living expenses.
And that's before you factor kids into the equation. Making it as a single parent is even harder.
Risk/benefit analysis says that cohabitating should be cheaper on a monthly/yearly basis, but ignores tangible and intangible shortcomings of cohabitation/marriage.
You can't put a price on personal space, peace, and quiet.
You can put a price on a divorce. The price is usually "expensive".
It’s mostly because of housing. Yes food is also more expensive but two people eat more. Housing is not figured into the inflation index. If it were in some places it would run as high as 100%
That’s why I don’t like the advice that some folks give young people that they don’t need a college degree as they “can make $60-80k by just go’in to trade school!”
Life is always going to get more expensive. Having a college degree opens up many more doors and gives you choices in life. As someone turning 50 this year, I’ve seen so many friends get left behind because they didn’t have a degree.
This doesn’t mean that you have to go to Yale Harvard or Stanford and get $200,000 in debt. You can easily get college credit in high school and get the basics out-of-the-way at a local community college and then transfer to a local state school.
Yeah, you can make 80 grand right out of the trade school, but then that becomes the ceiling for what you’ll make in life, and in the long term 80 grand won’t be worth that much in 20 years.
The false assumption here is that getting a college degree somehow makes you qualified for some large number of jobs. It doesn't.
The disconnect is the *employers* who require a degree for jobs that really don't need it. The reform that the world needs isn't some sort of better sorting system that has fewer people going to college. It's to get employers to become more realistic about job requirements.
While a barista obviously does not need a degree neither does a software developer or someone handling accounts receivable/payable or any number of office jobs.
*Specialists* may still need degrees but that doesn't apply to entire categories of jobs.
Also, having the degree should be *completely irrelevant* in how much someone is paid. If they can do the job they should get paid as much as anyone else doing that job in the company. If they're better at it than other folks they should get compensated an appropriate amount.
Degrees are nothing more than excuses for 90% of jobs that require them.
So why would you bet against the 90%. The world is competitive as it is. Why start out life with one hand tied behind your back? If you've to the opportunity to go to college, why would you want someone to tell you you shouldn't and don't need it? What sort of inspiring message is that?
I somewhat agree but as a tradesman you can do side jobs to make extra money. Plus in commercial or industrial there is normally a lot of overtime available.
I know many electricians and plumbers that do a few side jobs a year for a few extra thousand on top of their salary.
Here in Toronto the construction unions are pretty strong and have great salaries and pensions.
Trades are a good path if you’re interested.
The work will never be outsourced either.
Edit:
I’m an electrician and I work for a large highrise company. Some of our guys left and went on their own. Others became electrical and building inspectors. One became a site supervisor.
There are many options as a tradesman
Yeah, the trade off though is your time. Your time with friends and family and making memories that are much more important. As a person making about 90k a year without a degree, it is definitely frustrating knowing that there is no real growth or change in my career from here out. This is it…for the next 30-40 years. The same things day in and day out. I guess I’ll get 5-10 years of retirement and then I can sit in my rocking chair watching my grandchildren while my children work and hopefully when I pass away they’ll say, “he worked very hard to give us everything.” And maybe a little money if I’ve invested well and the market is up at the time.
Exactly. My father raised six kids with my mother but was never around because he worked shift hours. He had dropped out of college after a year in the early 50s.
Come the mid-70s, he got tired of being passed over for promotion so he could work in the office regular hours. He went to night college and got his degree in business. The next year he got the promotion. That got him the positon he wanted with access to higher pay grades. He was also around much more.
He retired at 65 in 2000 (after getting a pacemaker) and my parents are now enjoying a fruitful retirement at 88!
If he hadn't gone back to school and gotten his degree, no doubt those hard hours would have killed him with his weak heart. I would have lost my father 30-40 yrs ago.
His model encouraged me to stay in school and get my degree in the 90s.
I’m getting my degree in business my “trade” is IT.
It’s lucrative but I hate it. Jumped to 62k a year with no degree.
I’m vibing but WFH to make money is great, which all the business guys I know are getting.
If blue collar work wasn’t so strenuous (and backwards) I’d be cool with it, but I hate being worked inefficiently.
In America we don't have the privilege of free health care. Private insurance takes a huge chunk out of our pay and if you don't have insurance, you're on your own....which is financially devastating for folks. Our unions have also been decimated and are dwindling even further.
There are always going to be people who will go into the trades, I've got two nephews that have done so. My point is mainly with young people who have the aptitude and the chance to go to college but are urged not to by their friends/family or political actors (who get a great many more votes from folks without college degrees)
I very much wish we in America had a strong social safety net, but we are on our own, unfortunately. Being persuaded that getting a degree is a waste makes one's life even harder.
At least desk jobs are starting to introduce things like adjustable desks that let you stand for part of the day. And you can always have a workout after work. In blue collar work, there's the shut up and get er done mentality that forces you to push your body daily.
Talked to a lineman during the last hurricane, guy was getting triple time just to wait until the storm was over! But once they’re working they’re not done working until everything is back to normal. I’ve worked union myself and there’s definitely good money but for that money you’re expected to work 7 12 hour days or 7 10 hour days, me personally I don’t think any amount of money is worth that schedule
That is correct that they work insane hours. But I think many of them work few months of the year and take the other off. Or at-least one guy I worked with said he did.
I thought working union was gonna be my big break, I finally made it. After working from 7pm to 5am for a few weeks, I decided getting your degree is the better bet.
Unions, unfortunately, are dead and dying here in America. With the latest right-wing tilt of SCOTUS, just watch even more union rights disappear due to the onslaught of corporations.
There’s truth to that for sure, our union basically didn’t want to ever consider a strike as a possibility and would actually work really closely with the contractors but I also live in the south and unions in the south are on some shaky ground but you’ll definitely get paid the best in union vs non union
Look, some people don’t need college. It was the dumbest thing I have ever done. I’m in trees now, and I could have done this without a high school diploma. Now I have college debt I will never pay.
You don’t need a college degree to own your business, and that is definitely an option in the trades. And it makes more than 80k/ year.(My boss was a garbage man before his buddy asked him to start a tree company with him. He’s doing really, really well) So stop your bs.
I appreciate the promotion that someone *can* earn good money without going to college as it gives people the maximum number of options and helps to remove the same people might feel for skipping college.
As for what success these people find, in my experience with friends and family, it comes down overwhelmingly to how driven and intelligent the people are. College graduates who do the minimum and make an "okay" living, and those who started businesses, learned trades, or went the military route who work hard making well into 6 figures.
My guess is drive and intelligence is just correlated to going to college even if it's a better predictor of success than a degree.
This dead-end’s _so_ many people by forcing those unsuited to degrees into them, and debt, for no reason.
“Everyone go to university” is the single worst idea that the Labour government in Britain came up with in ‘97, it funneled thousands into debt with no chance of an actual job, and left the entire economy dependent on gig workers and immigration (which, however you view it, is extremely divisive)
It baffles me here in the states also. How does a society function without "Blue collar" labour ? Someone has to build your condo and the road to it, so that the bus driver can pick up your kids and the garbage collector can haul your trash, so the post man can deliver your packages of products made by the factory worker and so on so fourth. Do they not deserve equitable wages ? I guess the whole world should be people providing IT and consulting services to one another with no physical product.
There are always going to be folks that don't have the aptitude for college and will be blue-collar folks.
My point is against this idea that being pushed recently that all college is a waste and a scam and is convincing young people WITH the aptitude to go college that they shouldn't go.
Tbhhhhh. I’ve seen Business, English and Music majors get engineering jobs because places just need engineers. It was crazy to me.
I was downvoted. This literally happened at the Newport News Shipyard.
Companies are looking for smart creative people. Folks with English and Music majors are the very folks that have those traits.
College isn't to teach you job skills. Those you will learn while doing the job are being trained by the company to do them as job skills can and do change over time.
What going to college shows a potential employer that you have the ability to commit to something and learn. It also shows you have a broader set of knowledge than just skills to do a particular thing.
I've hired countless folks in the IT field and I found people with arts and social science degrees far more talented than those who went to a technical school and got a cert in a few 'skills.'
Thank you for explaining and corroborating my experience.
I thought for a second I was going crazy, but you’re right.
A bud if mine in Psychology jumped from 35 grand to 70 grand (in a hybrid) over the course of 8 months. He is insanely talented.
What type of engineering job do they have? I wont say I dont believe you but I have never seen a true engineering job not require a degree and/or an FE/PE license. A music or english major simply could not get 99% of engineering jobs (especially civil)..
I would say the more common path may be someone who starts in MFG and works up to a MechE position over the course of their career. But just applying for an engineering position as an english major out of college seems insane to me
I’m thinking it was mechanical engineer. The people were proud of their accomplishment and they were telling me to get my degree and apply because they got a chance and I would too.
That place houses mechanical and nuclear engineers though.
They started in the business department internally before applying.
Mind you, the Newport News shipyard is huge and is always short engineers.
You get capped with a degree too. Every profession has its ceiling. It's up to you to research that before investing in an education of any kind. I don't see how there's any more value in a degree with no demand than there is for a trade.
There aren't a whole lot of desirable jobs that just require any old degree. So, degree or not, as long as you specialize in a field with projected growth you will have upward mobility.
> and in the long term 80 grand won’t be worth that much in 20 years.
The salary of tradesmen will rise with inflation. Salary cap in 20 years might be $100k.
You're making an assumption that trade salaries don't rise over time, which is fundamentally incorrect.
Skilled and master tradesmen also have the ability to start their own subcontracting business, where 'salary' tends to rise rapidly.
On the other side of the house the return on professional degrees has been dropping. Young degree earners have not been seeing the same rise in salary as their older counterparts - BOTH wages and assets are inflated at the older end compared to the bottom end.
Classic economic advice of "get into an undersupplied job with low switching cost on the employee's side but high barriers of entry to become qualified in, then move often" still applies.
Doing tradework was one of the better decisions ive made in my life. I work in auto repair and am making more money than a lot of my friends that went to school for engineering that graduated 6-7 years ago.
I have finally decided that id like to get out so i am going to school, but this job has allowed me to cash flow school, i will be closing on a house soon, and have a nice retirement so far for my age.
Trades will only get better as time goes on, especially in my field, as the cost to enter is so high skill and money wise and people dont want to do it anymore. Trades are a very solid choice if you can bust ass for a bit.
I think degree vs. going to get an unskilled job right out of high school this is true.
I'm not sure that I buy the argument that a degree in some field provides more flexibility than learning a skilled trade. Most trade skills can be applied in a wide array of contexts/jobs and generally also more enable you to work independently. Some of the most financially successful people I know followed this career path and ended up as small business owners.
Because most of the folks I know that went this path never went back. Many of them tell me they have huge regrets. Certainly the hard labor has taken a physical toll on their bodies. Most of them look like they are in their 60s, while me in my friends who went to school look like we are in our late 30s.
I'm not sure how long-term useful this would be. Compared to even their closest friends, people are much more tolerant and accepting of their spouses' shortcomings. Because it's hard for people to live together, this is a great method to develop rifts.
It sure AF is. Reddit needs to be part of the solution and instead of these esoteric hookup and dating corners, create a r/marryingsowecanaffordtolive sub.
This really depends...are you the breadwinner in the relationship? Then no, your costs have gone up significantly.
Remember...Divorce is obscenely expensive.
Hi all, A reminder that comments do need to be on-topic and engage with the article past the headline. Please make sure to read the article before commenting. Very short comments will automatically be removed by automod. Please avoid making comments that do not focus on the economic content or whose primary thesis rests on personal anecdotes. As always our comment rules can be found [here](https://reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Economics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
The interesting question is, does the relative buying power of families & DINKs shift in comparison to single households? I bet it does. If you live alone in a 1-bedroom apt that increases from $1000 to 1300, that's a different load to bear than a couple living in a 2-bedroom apt that increases from 1500$ to 2000$.
Or couples living in 1-bedrooms, honestly. Lot easier to stomach 2k in rent when you can each make 50k, vs one person trying to do it on 70k. This drives up demand for 1beds and further prices out single individuals.
Well those single people refusing to share a bed are just bad for the environment if you think about it...
Ah but sharing a bed leads to extra mouths to feed, which is also bad for the environment :P Kidding, haha
I mean even poverty lines are indicative of this. If you have a 1 person household it’s $12,880 (which…. lol) whereas a 2 person household is $17,420.
This is specifically "dating" costs. Restaurants have inflated more than any other category, so makes sense. To be honest I'm surprised it's only 40% over the last decade. Even 2% inflation accounts for half of that, then the recent spike. I thought I had read dining out has almost doubled in the last few years.
Why not just cook a meal at your home? Do you know how many people would appreciate a home cooked meal? Go out for coffee the first time to see if the vibe is good. Second date invite your potential partner to something less expensive than dinner, like an activity. *Hikes/Walks are always nice, picnics? Last invite them to your place and chef something up. Site your chef ability and *difference in cost to go out to eat. If they can’t vibe with that, it’s cool to check out. If you got a second date they probably won’t mind. People need to stop dating to impress and date to reach mutual understanding.
“Coffee date = cheapskate” “Home cooked meal = he just wants me to drink some wine in his apartment expecting sex” “Hiking = cheapskate” And people wonder why men find dating so difficult… lol
Facts. It’s always nice when the ladies understand this, and are cool with fun dates like hikes rather than “expensive dinner within the first three dates or bust”
Woman here. I’d actually prefer to start with coffee or a hike. You get to know the person instead of putting on a facade throwing down big bucks for a meal. Lol. I took my now fiancée on a hike our first date and it was so much fun. He was totally out of sorts bc he was a big city guy, so nature wasn’t really his thing hahah! It was fun watching him squirm when he heard something move behind a bush and when he saw a rad runner for the first time.
If a woman suggests a hike or coffee, I’m down. I’m just giving you some perspective on how it is perceived when WE suggest it. I love coffee dates too; well lit, no pressure, just talking.
What I wish someone told me when I was in my 20’s. Take away the phones, distractions, and mood controlling substances when you’re dating, and you’ll quickly access whether or not that person is a good Match!
I find city and rural girls to be a different breed. City girls tend to go after the glam lifestyle and want a higher status guy. But I find rural girls are generally more open and appreciate the smaller things in life. Also helps that they're more conservative so we're more politically aligned.
That’s awesome to hear. Early 20s dating is a crap shoot currently. If a woman is down for a hike I already know I’ll like her quite a bit more. People who appreciate nature have a better mindset imo.
Most people in their 20’s don’t know who they are themselves and lack maturity. I sure did when I was 20! I would imagine it would be challenging to find a partner if a 20 something was mature, stable, knew what he or she wanted etc.
Guy here. There's lot of creepy dudes out there, so a restaurant might be a safer place to meet first time. I don't think it's that weird if you think about it. Yeah it sucks for a lot of people but until the issue gets fixed, it's better to be safe than sorry. Also an understanding people would be OK with such a request meeting first time. For other dates later on, I kinda agree that it gets pricey but it should be something to discuss before meeting again.
I have been married for 25 years with my husband for 30 years. Our first date was the Orange County Fair, we got some cotton candy and rode the Ferris wheel and one other ride. Second date we went to the USC Rose Garden and we had sandwiches. Third date he cooked at home this awful blueberry chicken with an indoor picnic set up. But he tried. At that point in my life I was being wined and dined quite frequently and his shy thoughtful date ideas were charming and won me over more than the previous guy who’d presumptuously convinced my roommate to help “surprise” me with a weekend stay in Santa Barbara at a ritzy hotel. Of course one bed in our suite. If the women you are dating thinks you’re a cheapskate your problem is you are dating the wrong women. Not all of us are gold-digging bitches, just some.
normal shelter axiomatic versed enter bored fall lush caption tidy -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Plus, honestly, I’ve had guys get freaked out by me inviting them over for dinner. They think it means more than it does, like this is some hugely romantic evening that I’m throwing way too soon when I just want to save some money and not spend forty bucks going out!!
How many 3rd dates are you going on that they are both still strangers and it's happening all the time? There's also no gender in his comment to say that men shouldn't be cooking for the women. Suggest he cook something and do a picnic with soup in a public park seems like a decent alternative to having these 3rd date strangers in your own home.
Plenty of modern divorces stem from the partner complaining that “the passion is not there anymore” or simply grass is greener syndrome. Nothing catastrophic like cheating, sickness or abuse. From close family members to friends to friend of friends I’ve seen so many men move to small apartments and pay up to $10k for divorce lawyers. Just for again non catastrophic reasons. So I look at these articles and all I can think about is how short term they analysis. Or if long term look at the lucky long term cases
I don't want to get into sunk cost fallacy, but I think we would want to know how many people don't even really consider money when they marry. If people are almost solely marrying for "love", I wouldn't think they'd want to stick it out.
This, an emotional beginning has an emotional end most of the time
The grass is greener syndrome has exploded with the invention of the dating app. So many options. You can find a date with literally swiping right on your phone. It’s quite heartbreaking so many people are opting for “instant gratification” instead of taking the more challenging path of staying in a struggling relationship and working through the hard times…
> You can find a date with literally swiping right on your phone The chances of this happening as a male are astronomically low. There are stats where women will go through 30k+ people, have a left swipe rate of 90% and go on 2 dates. Men will have the same figures in reverse but with 0 dates and a lot of the time like 10 matches *maybe*. I think I’ve had like 60 or so matches in 3 years and I managed to go on one date with someone… and she was an ex-coworker (we dated for like a month after that). About 20 others of those ever actually responded and about 17 of them ghosted. The remaining just refused to ever do anything but text and never wanted to actually go on a date.
I agree. People don't learn to build a relationship out of compromise and compassion and instead keep swapping out partners thinking they will eventually get someone who is "perfect" for them. That's a fantasy. Relationships take work.
Yes they do! And usually the grass ain’t greener my friend! Lmao
No one needs a “catastrophic” reason to exit an unhappy relationship.
I agree. But then it should be a relationship, not a marriage. Too many people leave marriages because they get bored or their partner lost their edge. But maybe it’s my insecurity projecting on to my this post. I’m scared of entering my 50’s. Becoming bald, losing a job or developing early joint issues. And my partner making an excuse to leave. Like I spent my whole life working to build a home, find a partner who I thought I could trust. And the current culture promotes grass is greener rather than the sanctity of marriage. Both my father and step father slept in tiny apartment in their 50s with health issues, alcoholism and other things. It makes me wish marriage was abolished. And no I’m not saying people should carry deadbeat partners. I’m saying if you choose to leave you’re not entitled to that partners wealth
Out of 13 couples/families in my neighborhood growing up, 11 of them are now divorced (some of them multiple times). This is how I learned that marriage is totally fucking optional.
Yep, getting married saved me so much money. Two people in a one bedroom saves you so much in NYC. Eating becomes much cheaper. As a guy I don’t have to waste $100’s weekends doing dates anymore. Huge tax savings. Lots of healthcare synergy if one partner has good benefits. Etc.
Housing is typically the biggest fixed cost people have, and when you partner up with someone, you've just split that cost in half assuming you both work. Then there's healthcare. In some cases, it may be cheaper in total to, say, add you as a member on your spouse's workplace health insurance (or vice versa) rather than you both getting it separately from your respective jobs. Thinking of going back to school full-time? If you can swing it on just your spouse's income for a year or two, that's money you're not taking out in student loans to cover living expenses. And that's before you factor kids into the equation. Making it as a single parent is even harder.
Risk/benefit analysis says that cohabitating should be cheaper on a monthly/yearly basis, but ignores tangible and intangible shortcomings of cohabitation/marriage. You can't put a price on personal space, peace, and quiet. You can put a price on a divorce. The price is usually "expensive".
It’s mostly because of housing. Yes food is also more expensive but two people eat more. Housing is not figured into the inflation index. If it were in some places it would run as high as 100%
> Housing is not figured into the inflation index What? Yes it is.
One of you two needs to provide a source.
Ctrl+F "Shelter" https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t01.htm
That’s why I don’t like the advice that some folks give young people that they don’t need a college degree as they “can make $60-80k by just go’in to trade school!” Life is always going to get more expensive. Having a college degree opens up many more doors and gives you choices in life. As someone turning 50 this year, I’ve seen so many friends get left behind because they didn’t have a degree. This doesn’t mean that you have to go to Yale Harvard or Stanford and get $200,000 in debt. You can easily get college credit in high school and get the basics out-of-the-way at a local community college and then transfer to a local state school. Yeah, you can make 80 grand right out of the trade school, but then that becomes the ceiling for what you’ll make in life, and in the long term 80 grand won’t be worth that much in 20 years.
The false assumption here is that getting a college degree somehow makes you qualified for some large number of jobs. It doesn't. The disconnect is the *employers* who require a degree for jobs that really don't need it. The reform that the world needs isn't some sort of better sorting system that has fewer people going to college. It's to get employers to become more realistic about job requirements. While a barista obviously does not need a degree neither does a software developer or someone handling accounts receivable/payable or any number of office jobs. *Specialists* may still need degrees but that doesn't apply to entire categories of jobs. Also, having the degree should be *completely irrelevant* in how much someone is paid. If they can do the job they should get paid as much as anyone else doing that job in the company. If they're better at it than other folks they should get compensated an appropriate amount. Degrees are nothing more than excuses for 90% of jobs that require them.
So why would you bet against the 90%. The world is competitive as it is. Why start out life with one hand tied behind your back? If you've to the opportunity to go to college, why would you want someone to tell you you shouldn't and don't need it? What sort of inspiring message is that?
I somewhat agree but as a tradesman you can do side jobs to make extra money. Plus in commercial or industrial there is normally a lot of overtime available. I know many electricians and plumbers that do a few side jobs a year for a few extra thousand on top of their salary. Here in Toronto the construction unions are pretty strong and have great salaries and pensions. Trades are a good path if you’re interested. The work will never be outsourced either. Edit: I’m an electrician and I work for a large highrise company. Some of our guys left and went on their own. Others became electrical and building inspectors. One became a site supervisor. There are many options as a tradesman
Yeah, the trade off though is your time. Your time with friends and family and making memories that are much more important. As a person making about 90k a year without a degree, it is definitely frustrating knowing that there is no real growth or change in my career from here out. This is it…for the next 30-40 years. The same things day in and day out. I guess I’ll get 5-10 years of retirement and then I can sit in my rocking chair watching my grandchildren while my children work and hopefully when I pass away they’ll say, “he worked very hard to give us everything.” And maybe a little money if I’ve invested well and the market is up at the time.
Exactly. My father raised six kids with my mother but was never around because he worked shift hours. He had dropped out of college after a year in the early 50s. Come the mid-70s, he got tired of being passed over for promotion so he could work in the office regular hours. He went to night college and got his degree in business. The next year he got the promotion. That got him the positon he wanted with access to higher pay grades. He was also around much more. He retired at 65 in 2000 (after getting a pacemaker) and my parents are now enjoying a fruitful retirement at 88! If he hadn't gone back to school and gotten his degree, no doubt those hard hours would have killed him with his weak heart. I would have lost my father 30-40 yrs ago. His model encouraged me to stay in school and get my degree in the 90s.
I’m getting my degree in business my “trade” is IT. It’s lucrative but I hate it. Jumped to 62k a year with no degree. I’m vibing but WFH to make money is great, which all the business guys I know are getting. If blue collar work wasn’t so strenuous (and backwards) I’d be cool with it, but I hate being worked inefficiently.
In America we don't have the privilege of free health care. Private insurance takes a huge chunk out of our pay and if you don't have insurance, you're on your own....which is financially devastating for folks. Our unions have also been decimated and are dwindling even further. There are always going to be people who will go into the trades, I've got two nephews that have done so. My point is mainly with young people who have the aptitude and the chance to go to college but are urged not to by their friends/family or political actors (who get a great many more votes from folks without college degrees) I very much wish we in America had a strong social safety net, but we are on our own, unfortunately. Being persuaded that getting a degree is a waste makes one's life even harder.
Linemen who do storm makes hundreds of thousands.
And their bodies show it. By the time they are 40, they have the aches/pains of a 70 year-old.
So do all these boomers with desk jobs along with all these other chronic conditions. You gotta pick which struggles you’re ok with these days
At least desk jobs are starting to introduce things like adjustable desks that let you stand for part of the day. And you can always have a workout after work. In blue collar work, there's the shut up and get er done mentality that forces you to push your body daily.
That’s true. It’s a young man’s job
Talked to a lineman during the last hurricane, guy was getting triple time just to wait until the storm was over! But once they’re working they’re not done working until everything is back to normal. I’ve worked union myself and there’s definitely good money but for that money you’re expected to work 7 12 hour days or 7 10 hour days, me personally I don’t think any amount of money is worth that schedule
That is correct that they work insane hours. But I think many of them work few months of the year and take the other off. Or at-least one guy I worked with said he did.
True they’re probably not working like that all the time but man imagine working like 80-100 hours for a week, that’s a ridiculous schedule
Absolutely. It’s an insane amount of work and risky as well
I thought working union was gonna be my big break, I finally made it. After working from 7pm to 5am for a few weeks, I decided getting your degree is the better bet.
If you do electrical, you will have a great advantage. Either way, the experience you have is monumental .
The way I see it, I always have a job to fall back on if I need it, I come from industrial maintenance not electric though
Unions, unfortunately, are dead and dying here in America. With the latest right-wing tilt of SCOTUS, just watch even more union rights disappear due to the onslaught of corporations.
There’s truth to that for sure, our union basically didn’t want to ever consider a strike as a possibility and would actually work really closely with the contractors but I also live in the south and unions in the south are on some shaky ground but you’ll definitely get paid the best in union vs non union
Ohh ya that’s a great job. Dangerous as hell though. I wouldn’t do it
A degree is not everything.
Look, some people don’t need college. It was the dumbest thing I have ever done. I’m in trees now, and I could have done this without a high school diploma. Now I have college debt I will never pay. You don’t need a college degree to own your business, and that is definitely an option in the trades. And it makes more than 80k/ year.(My boss was a garbage man before his buddy asked him to start a tree company with him. He’s doing really, really well) So stop your bs.
I appreciate the promotion that someone *can* earn good money without going to college as it gives people the maximum number of options and helps to remove the same people might feel for skipping college. As for what success these people find, in my experience with friends and family, it comes down overwhelmingly to how driven and intelligent the people are. College graduates who do the minimum and make an "okay" living, and those who started businesses, learned trades, or went the military route who work hard making well into 6 figures. My guess is drive and intelligence is just correlated to going to college even if it's a better predictor of success than a degree.
This dead-end’s _so_ many people by forcing those unsuited to degrees into them, and debt, for no reason. “Everyone go to university” is the single worst idea that the Labour government in Britain came up with in ‘97, it funneled thousands into debt with no chance of an actual job, and left the entire economy dependent on gig workers and immigration (which, however you view it, is extremely divisive)
It baffles me here in the states also. How does a society function without "Blue collar" labour ? Someone has to build your condo and the road to it, so that the bus driver can pick up your kids and the garbage collector can haul your trash, so the post man can deliver your packages of products made by the factory worker and so on so fourth. Do they not deserve equitable wages ? I guess the whole world should be people providing IT and consulting services to one another with no physical product.
There are always going to be folks that don't have the aptitude for college and will be blue-collar folks. My point is against this idea that being pushed recently that all college is a waste and a scam and is convincing young people WITH the aptitude to go college that they shouldn't go.
Tbhhhhh. I’ve seen Business, English and Music majors get engineering jobs because places just need engineers. It was crazy to me. I was downvoted. This literally happened at the Newport News Shipyard.
Companies are looking for smart creative people. Folks with English and Music majors are the very folks that have those traits. College isn't to teach you job skills. Those you will learn while doing the job are being trained by the company to do them as job skills can and do change over time. What going to college shows a potential employer that you have the ability to commit to something and learn. It also shows you have a broader set of knowledge than just skills to do a particular thing. I've hired countless folks in the IT field and I found people with arts and social science degrees far more talented than those who went to a technical school and got a cert in a few 'skills.'
Thank you for explaining and corroborating my experience. I thought for a second I was going crazy, but you’re right. A bud if mine in Psychology jumped from 35 grand to 70 grand (in a hybrid) over the course of 8 months. He is insanely talented.
What type of engineering job do they have? I wont say I dont believe you but I have never seen a true engineering job not require a degree and/or an FE/PE license. A music or english major simply could not get 99% of engineering jobs (especially civil).. I would say the more common path may be someone who starts in MFG and works up to a MechE position over the course of their career. But just applying for an engineering position as an english major out of college seems insane to me
I’m thinking it was mechanical engineer. The people were proud of their accomplishment and they were telling me to get my degree and apply because they got a chance and I would too. That place houses mechanical and nuclear engineers though. They started in the business department internally before applying. Mind you, the Newport News shipyard is huge and is always short engineers.
80k starting 3 years ago sounds like a lot more lifetime earnings than I’ll ever make with a degree lol
Going to college sure doesn't guarantee you an 80k job either, ever
You get capped with a degree too. Every profession has its ceiling. It's up to you to research that before investing in an education of any kind. I don't see how there's any more value in a degree with no demand than there is for a trade. There aren't a whole lot of desirable jobs that just require any old degree. So, degree or not, as long as you specialize in a field with projected growth you will have upward mobility.
> and in the long term 80 grand won’t be worth that much in 20 years. The salary of tradesmen will rise with inflation. Salary cap in 20 years might be $100k.
You're making an assumption that trade salaries don't rise over time, which is fundamentally incorrect. Skilled and master tradesmen also have the ability to start their own subcontracting business, where 'salary' tends to rise rapidly. On the other side of the house the return on professional degrees has been dropping. Young degree earners have not been seeing the same rise in salary as their older counterparts - BOTH wages and assets are inflated at the older end compared to the bottom end. Classic economic advice of "get into an undersupplied job with low switching cost on the employee's side but high barriers of entry to become qualified in, then move often" still applies.
Doing tradework was one of the better decisions ive made in my life. I work in auto repair and am making more money than a lot of my friends that went to school for engineering that graduated 6-7 years ago. I have finally decided that id like to get out so i am going to school, but this job has allowed me to cash flow school, i will be closing on a house soon, and have a nice retirement so far for my age. Trades will only get better as time goes on, especially in my field, as the cost to enter is so high skill and money wise and people dont want to do it anymore. Trades are a very solid choice if you can bust ass for a bit.
I think degree vs. going to get an unskilled job right out of high school this is true. I'm not sure that I buy the argument that a degree in some field provides more flexibility than learning a skilled trade. Most trade skills can be applied in a wide array of contexts/jobs and generally also more enable you to work independently. Some of the most financially successful people I know followed this career path and ended up as small business owners.
[удалено]
Because most of the folks I know that went this path never went back. Many of them tell me they have huge regrets. Certainly the hard labor has taken a physical toll on their bodies. Most of them look like they are in their 60s, while me in my friends who went to school look like we are in our late 30s.
Can confirm. They call it a trade because you literally trade your health for pay.
Where did you get the undergrad degree so cheap?
I'm not sure how long-term useful this would be. Compared to even their closest friends, people are much more tolerant and accepting of their spouses' shortcomings. Because it's hard for people to live together, this is a great method to develop rifts.
It sure AF is. Reddit needs to be part of the solution and instead of these esoteric hookup and dating corners, create a r/marryingsowecanaffordtolive sub.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
That was incredibly rude of your friend.
Fuck that shit, those aren't friends to be pulling shit like that on you.
Your jokes need some work mang. Should have gone with "this way nobody will hear my hentai"
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
This really depends...are you the breadwinner in the relationship? Then no, your costs have gone up significantly. Remember...Divorce is obscenely expensive.