Reality check on what people earn

If you want more people riding Stealth's then all it takes is letting more people to throw their leg over one for a test ride. Ride first then talk price. Regular people hear $5-6k for a bicycle of any kind, and their brains reject it off hand regardless of their income.

Sure it's possible to live pretty damn well with a 100k/yr income, but I'd be willing to bet that a majority with that income don't because they piss their money away in the wrong ways, so they live no better than others making under $50k. Location has a lot to do with it too, because in some locals are so expensive to live that $100k is not much above scraping by.
 
well spoken John, I'm with Zombiess, its not what you make but how you spend it, I nearly have a house paid off and plan to earn less to enjoy life more, but then I like to travel which costs lots or travel with bike makes sense
 
DAND214 said:
Anyone here lost a job worth while lately?
Click to expand...
Yes, in 2007 when CompUSA shutdown; I lost the job I'd had for almost 12 years, not too long after I'd FINALLY gotten to a pay level that nearly supported me and my two (usually leeching) sisters. It sucked. I had enough money from their "severance" to take a couple months off and ponder and look for a better job, but really I couldn't find one that would hire me (for most, I was "overqualified" meaning I was worth more than they were willing to pay, and they didn't care that I'd take it anyway just to have a job).

I got the job I have now only because my old tech manager from CompUSA called me up and asked if I could help out while i looked for a better job (which I have yet to find). Since then I've outlasted every other person that I've worked with, including all my managers, and have decided that I like working there better than anywhere else I've ever worked...even though it's still retail, it's not quite the same. And the people are in general better, both as customers and fellow employees. I just wish it paid enough. :(
 
$100 a year may not be rich, but it's sure not the middle of middle class, as you see on that chart. A shitload of us get by on half that, and many have to combine two parents working to even reach 50-60k combined.

One of the things that irks me when politicians talk. They seem to think everybody has a spare 10k for whatever. NOT.

Learning to cook well is the best life skill you can ever get. One by one, I've crossed nearly all the favorite restaraunts off the list, as I learned to cook their best dish better than they do, for 1/4 the cost. Only a few places left we eat out at, often with a gift card somebody gave us for birthday or christmas. Back when we were really poor, we learned to cook because we had no choice. But now we can afford to eat steak fairly often, provided we don't blow $30 on having it cooked for us.
 
dogman said:
Learning to cook well is the best life skill you can ever get. One by one, I've crossed nearly all the favorite restaraunts off the list, as I learned to cook their best dish better than they do, for 1/4 the cost.
Click to expand...

+1
 
I took my gf out to dinner last night to her favorite restaurant because she got a good promotion at work. $36 total is on the low end for dinner for two, but to me, that adds up if doing twice a week. I don't mind a special occasion and she works really hard at work, so I wanted to celebrate a little.

I told her I would enjoy her cooking more than any restaurant on my birthday in a month.
 
I survive on 2 meals a day, normally, and can't pack it away like most people. A typical dinner for me might be a $2 DoubleStacker™ from BK, and I toss the top bun since I'm not a fan of the seeds. For lunch, a McChicken for $1.20. If I did that every day (and survived) that'd only be $96/mo.

That's a little more than AW's goal/budget of $72, but not by much. I'm sure he eats better than that though. :wink:
 
REdiculous said:
If I did that every day (and survived) that'd only be $96/mo.

That's a little more than AW's goal/budget of $72, but not by much. I'm sure he eats better than that though. :wink:
Click to expand...
That's a big if! And you never drink anything other than water? Even water costs something sometimes.
 
Ever seen the movie super size me. Fast food diet plus zero excercise hurts the guys health nearly as much as alcoholisim. :p

Fortunately, you can just do some pedaling to minimize that effect. 8)

One of my favorite guilty pleasures, is the cheapskate meal at McDonalds. There is a one buck cheeseburger on the menu, but not shown is the McDouble. Use the code word McDouble in my local mickeyD's and you get a double meat, single cheese burger for a buck. Add a small fries and you get dinner or lunch for two under five bucks. Screw drinking thier coke, where all the profit is.

Kinda funny, a saturday at noon, I sometimes end up in a long line of old gray haired guys, all ordering two mcdoubles and two dollar fries. :lol: Must take about twenty of us old fart cheapskates to make a buck of profit for the store owner. :twisted:

That's one meal I don't think I can cook my self cheaper. And the closest store is pretty close to the house.
 
I'm always amazed at how cheaply you can eat in the 'states... We have some of the dearest grocery prices as well. You are really struggling to feed a family of 4 (with healthy food - balanced diet) for $100 per week, usually ends up closer to $150-200.
 
The whole food industry is a crock. They want us fat so that there's even more money to be made losing weight and/or receiving health care treatment related to obesity.

Poor people/families eat at McDonalds because it's cheap compared to buying and preparing healthy meals at home.
 
Austin huh? Well, you could go over and talk to my friend, Ed Cook at AF1 racing on Caesar Chavez. He sells Vespa but is now a new dealer for Zero motorcyles...the electric motorcycle company out of CA.
 
dkw12002 said:
Austin huh? Well, you could go over and talk to my friend, Ed Cook at AF1 racing on Caesar Chavez. He sells Vespa but is now a new dealer for Zero motorcyles...the electric motorcycle company out of CA. I have a bike being converted with an Amped bike kit over at Electric Ave. right now, and own an Ezip and a Hill Topper.

I also own a couple of scooters. It dawns on me that some people who rely on e-bikes for transporation more than exercise, might want to look into a small scooter. I think of this every time I am straining to pedal an e-bike up a steep hill knowing a small 50 cc scooter would zip right up the steepest hills with ease. They don't call this Hill Country for nothing. LOL

Regarding money. You can have just as much fun with enough than way more than you need. An Ezip on sale at Best Buy right now for $349 is just as much fun as any $2500 e-bike without naming names.
Click to expand...


I think you will find many will disagree that a 16mph SLA ebike is as fun as a good $2500 one.

I've had a 2 stroke 49cc Yamaha Zuma 7 years ago, it went 35mph cruising, 42mph top speed. Went up steep hills at 30mph. Sure, it's faster and easier than most ebikes, but its gas and a really annoyingly loud, polluting 2 stroker at that. I sold it after a few months because I was embarrassed how it would smoke coming off from a light (had the mixture right), and hated the noise. It was fun though, nearly as fast as my car in suburban CT.

Austin has some steep hills on the west side, so yeah, if you work off 360 or something and have one of those nasty 16% grades to climb, ICE engines typically will make more sense in that way. But most of central austin is flat and rolling, perfect for an ebike. Once in a while I hit a hill and drop to 16-18mph for a few seconds, then it's over and I'm back to 25-30mph, it doesn't actually slow my commutes down.

How can you say a gas scooter is competition for an ebike? There's a lot of places you can't take a gas scooter downtown. How about parking? If you never go downtown, then okay, not a big deal.

The biggest reason I don't like gas scooters is knowing how bad they pollute and I try to do onto others as I would like done on to me. I won't feel good about blasting 2 stroke exhaust on cyclists as I pass them and their huffing it up a hill or whatever. I just got back from a road bike ride in central Austin from 3-4pm today and it never ceases to amaze me how polluted the streets are during the daytime. It's gross. Why would anyone want to pedal a bike in that? Even taking the lower volume routes, you still suck diesel from the joe shmoe driving his massive pickup around town.

Honestly, the worst part of Austin is the traffic/air pollution (which is in every city, but Austin is also a great city in so many other ways, it just really stands out to me).
 
I understand. Old 2-strokes are really awful. New 4-strokes which is what I own, not so bad. They do put charcoal canisters on scooters now so they are a lot cleaner than a few years ago, and a lot quieter too, but locally, an e-bike is obviously cleaner. That's one reason I own e-bikes too. If a person needs to get up a hill and an e-bike won't cut it, then they have to make choices.
 
SamTexas said:
amberwolf said:
If I shop right and get lucky with sales and clearance, $36 will buy half my groceries for a month. ;)
Click to expand...
Ok, you have to share the items on your shopping list!
Click to expand...
I don't have a shopping list per-se, though I tend to have rounds of stuff I buy periodically.

Usually it's whatever meat is on sale that week, for the super-duper-loss-leader type of sale. Like chicken for 88cents a pound or something silly like that. Then I buy all that I can fit in the freezer, and have it for up to several months. Same thing with beef, or turkey or whatever meat it is, but usually it's chicken that is that cheap. More often it is around $2 to $2.50/lb for chicken, and I'll buy it at that if I have no meat left, but that's expensive! If I'm gonna pay that price, I'd rather buy some bacon (a rare treat, whcih I buy only on clearance, often for $1/package (which might be 16 or 12oz)).

If I note down the expiration dates for various things I want to buy, and go to the store (safeway, at least) the day before or the day of those dates, then if they have any left they'll often be 75% off. :) Still perfectly good, but they cant' sell it past that date, so if it's still there when they close, they gotta throw it away. :( (in extremely rare circumstances, I have been there when they are closing down, and gotten some of those things for almost nothing, but most of the managers would rather throw it away than sell it for less than half price, or at best 75% off).

Veggies are harder to get cheap, and usually requires searching at places like American Foods out in Mesa, for the big restauraunt size cans of stuff, which cna be as little aas 2 bucks for a gallon-sized can (or bigger). Sometimes they have frozen veggies for real cheap, too, but i can't be picky about which veggies they are, even if i don't like that kind--better than not having any. $3 for gallon can of tomatoes, as paste, chopped, sliced, or whatever, usable for stews or sauces or chili or spaghetti, etc. Potatoes for 20 cents a pound sometimes. Once a 10lb bag for a dollar. The "fresh" veggies and fruits are really hard to get cheap, even when they're in non-prime condition. Stores would rather throw them away (and destroy them in a crusher) than sell them for less than the going rate. :roll: Some places donate that kind of stuff to the foodbanks, which at least means they don't go to waste.

Sometimes I get foodboxes like that, but unless I am in desperate need, I don't try to, because I know the supply is very limited, and there are others much worse off than I am that need it more than I do.

I can get sauces and other cooking stuff cheap, too, at AF. $20 for a 50lb box of margarine a while back, which should last me at least a year evne if I "splurge" on using it. :lol: $7 for a gallon of Lea&Perrins Worchestershire sauce, which does a great job of making less-than-stellar quality beef (or old beef) much more edible.

AF also has meat cheap, with good sales on stuff sometimes. I forget the price now, but got large packs of the patties that Wendy's uses for their burgers for real cheap, and got all the packs i could afford and fit in the freezer. I still have some now, months later. Not great as burgers, but works ok to make chili and stuff from. :)

Spices are often dollar-store stuff, but sometimes there are much better deal at AF or at regular stores that are clearing out old brands. Moving-sales for individuals often have a box of kitchen stuff that includes their spice rack, and they usually go cheap--a few bucks nets me enough of many spices for several months or more if I run across one of those.

I could probably do even better on my shopping if i had a horizontal deepfreeze, as I could store more stuff from the deep sales and thus reduce my spending during times when prices are higher. Have almost nabbed one on Freecycle/craigslist a few times, but wasn't fast enough replying.


Mostly I drink what our city calls "water" from the tap (what doesn't kill me makes me stronger, right? :lol:), but it's often "purified" by boiling it up as tea of one kind or another. Nowadays I just use whatever I find on best sale, whcih again AF has some good deals on restauraunt packs of sometimes, usualy the good stuff. Otherwise, the dollarstore varieties, which are tolerable. If I am very lucky I may be able to splurge on soda pop, like the store brands of stuff, if they have a really good sale and I've got good coupons, and made great deals on the other things I actually *need*. (plus I save the bottles for their plastic, or to store water in to even out the temperature of rooms in summer and winter).


I wish it was as cheap to get dog food, but fortunately there are times (like right now) where I get a lot of dog food for nothing or next to nothing becuase of end-of-year changeouts, or stuff people don't want or their dogs didn't like or wouldn't eat, etc. The latter is not that uncommon to find on Freecycle and sometimes on Craigslist. That lasts me thru much of the beginning of the year, sometimes all the way into summer. But when I can't do that, it can cost much more to feed the dogs than it does to feed me, so I have to cut back on my own stuff to keep them in food.
 
Thought I'd add what I earn here, so people can see why my new racebike thread is so dull :lol:

I am 31 years old and am a research associate at a university. I earn a salary of $77,328 per annum, or $2965 every 2 weeks. After superannuation, income tax, HECS debt (like a student loan, but practically no interest) I get $1975 in my pocket each fortnight. Yes, we can pay over 30 cents in the dollar in tax. But we have amazing roads and free hospitals, so it's not too bad in my mind.

I have collected this rate or a bit less for the last 3.5 years. Prior to this I was doing my PhD and as a grad student lived off about $1000 a fortnight (pretty good considering). Prior to this I was a student earning nothing much by cutting vegetables on a farm all summer.

So basically I have forgone a decent income for the first 10 productive years of my life, but the pay is pretty good now. My wife earns a bit more than me working for the federal government (CSIRO) but it's pretty similar. We never go hungry, rent is always paid and we are pretty happy with our lot. Unfortunately, Perth is one of the most expensive places in the world to live. Fresh, diabetes-avoiding produce is way more expensive than pre-frozen junk, rent is on the high side (but not too bad in our case) and eating out is basically never gonna happen. We don't have a car, walk to the shops and ride our bikes to work, so costs are pretty low. Except for electric motorbike construction of course :lol:. I reckon I can get the new bike built by the start of next year, provided I can sell Voltron. And manage to keep my job.
 
Live according to your income, with a decent safety margin; and the more you make, the bigger (%) should your margin be. That's what many people "doesn't get". You may be earning very well today, but who knows next year or in 3 years? Loans like house loans are contracts for decades. Noone can predict what will happen in 2 years, let alone a decade. That's also what many "don't get". These thinks must be taught and demonstrated in school and by your parents. They're a far more important subject than some other more "cultural" subjects, like the totally irrelevant books from a few centuries ago written in archaic language that we have to study in high school here in my country (while many students still don't write well the language, duh!).
 
dogman said:
Ever seen the movie super size me. Fast food diet plus zero excercise hurts the guys health nearly as much as alcoholisim. :p
Click to expand...

Here's an awesome rebuttal to Super Size me. This guy lost weight eating at McD's for 30 days.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVEiYwFvKvU
 
Tom Tom said:
dogman said:
Ever seen the movie super size me. Fast food diet plus zero excercise hurts the guys health nearly as much as alcoholisim. :p
Click to expand...

Here's an awesome rebuttal to Super Size me. This guy lost weight eating at McD's for 30 days.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVEiYwFvKvU
Click to expand...


I saw both films. The difference is that Supersize Me is a film about what happens if you eat McDonalds for every meal (and don't excercise,) while the objective of Fat Head is to pick apart Supersize Me. While neither one is completely objective, at least Supersize Me was treated as an experiment before reaching a conclusion. Fathead had a conclusion from the start.
 
V_Mark said:
The difference is that Supersize Me is a film about what happens if you eat McDonalds for every meal (and don't excercise,) while the objective of Fat Head is to pick apart Supersize Me. While neither one is completely objective, at least Supersize Me was treated as an experiment before reaching a conclusion. Fathead had a conclusion from the start.
Click to expand...
Fathead was testing a "theory" that many proclaim, that what makes you fat is sugar and not fat.
 
V_Mark said:
I saw both films. The difference is that Supersize Me is a film about what happens if you eat McDonalds for every meal (and don't excercise,) while the objective of Fat Head is to pick apart Supersize Me. While neither one is completely objective, at least Supersize Me was treated as an experiment before reaching a conclusion. Fathead had a conclusion from the start.
Click to expand...

The supersize movie was by no means an experiment. The guy had a preconceived notion of the outcome if you research a little more. His girlfriend is a vegan for starters. He plugged her way of eating/and book after Super size me and claims it took 7 months of eating like a vegan to lose the 25 pounds he gained at McD's.

The supersize guy has never released what he ate specifically at McD's for 30 days. How is that an experiment?

He only says he ate at McD's for a month and that he ate roughly 5000 calories a day. Again, He does not show what he ate to
consume 5000 calories a day. How is that an experiment?

Exercise doesn't matter for that amount of calories for an average person. Just to burn off 500 of those calories takes some serious effort.



All Fathead did was to keep carb intake to less than 100 grams a day by not eating bread and not drinking soda.
He shows exactly what he ate for those 30 days and includes the before and after visits to his doctor.

His movie was more of an "experiment" than super size was.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

veloman
Questioning owning a car any longer
2 3
Replies
52
Views
4,767
Kingfish
Kingfish
Back
Top