That Sounds Like A Baby Bird
Peeping, chirping, head back, mouth open, clueless and waiting for the next free thing to be given to you. Oh, sorry, wrong rant (that would be today’s stereotypical youth!) CHEAP! Now that’s what I’m talking about! So, you want everything to be cheap and more affordable, do you? Well, let’s just peer into the abyss of yesteryear and anal eyes it. That’s right, stick a microscope right up there where the problem is.
I hear that today’s “new to adulting” segregates are complaining that they can‘t make a working wage in todays capitalistic world. They also want everything to be more fair for them (oh, please don’t make me go there…. You actually need skills and a better attitude for this table), so they can afford nice things like what their parents have! Well, snowflake, this may be a realistic slap to the face for you, BUT, your parents had it tougher than you! Not by much though. We had to rent some crappy roach infested, about to be condemned house or apartment just to have shelter. Today’s housing standards are plush compared to just a few years ago (you wouldn’t make it out alive if you lived like we did). Strike one. Money is tight and you can’t survive on $15 per hour!!!?? Well, shit! Minimum wage was $3.15 when I started working. Strike two. My first rental was $275 a month (the floors were unlevel and it was poorly insulated with NO A/C), and I paid utilities on top of that which were about $185 per month on average (because of the poor insulation). Oh, and Orkin (for all the roaches) on $5.50 per hour. Although I did work 60 hours a week to make ends meet (how many hours do you work?) PLUS, groceries, car payment, gas (under $1.50 per gallon), insurance (for bare minimum that probably wouldn’t have paid out if there was a claim), clothing (buy on sale or garage sales only and NO name brands), and the occasional date night (rarely, and so cheap that I was even unimpressed). Figure that budget and tell me how bad you have it now. $1430 gross per month, $330 for taxes, $1,100 spending cash. MINUS $275 rent, $185 utilities, $350 groceries, $75 auto gas, $85 insurance (youth ins. is outrageous), $45 for clothing (that includes washing them too), $35 for Orkin (friggin’ bugs from the previous renter) leaves only $50 extra for THE WHOLE MONTH! My first car was a truck that was paid for from child support just so I had something to drive (maintenance was up to me, so I learned how to work on my own auto). Yes, prices were lower, yes wages were lower (you must be able to see where this is going by now). As wages rose, so did everything else! I’m seeing a trend here! Face it, you want higher wages to survive, then everything else goes up too! It will never end until the unskilled labor of today’s youth face facts and figure out a way to survive on less. Then greedy corporations (they want to make money too after paying all the high wages for unskilled labor) should start to lower their costs to reflect wage drops, then rent will be forced to go down since the cost of maintenance and utilities will drop (and nobody can afford the high cost of a rental anyway). Wages will also decrease along with the price drops, BUT end-of-month monies will remain about the same, percentage wise. Was it mentioned that I didn’t get sucked into the starry eyed dream world of a better life after college that comes with high student loan debt and NO promise of a better job or life!
All this whining about how hard it is to survive in todays world with the high cost of everything is real! I feel it daily, make pretty good money per month, and my house and car are paid off (I only buy with cash now). So, I can’t imagine how tough it is working for an inflated (entry level) wage and paying twice as much as it should be for rent. Although I can say STOP destroying a rental just because you can. It only keeps rent prices going higher for the next renter because you can’t clean up after yourself or hold your temper (so childish). Try hiring a contractor to fix your bad temper holes and see how you like it! Maintenance is real, and NO house goes without needing it. If you want a higher wage, try working on a construction crew (I give you 3 weeks tops for most Millennials and up). Don’t get me started on all this “work from home” BS, I work from home only because that is where my production area is, not because I feel entitled to be at home and get paid for typing stuff in my underwear (although that is what I’m doing right now).
Here’s a concept you won’t like! Try sharing a rental with 4 other people (or more) and split the bills. That should help lower your spending and put a face to the person you texted to ask if they are going to be out of the bathroom soon (just knock on the door and ask… damn, how hard is that?) I’ve heard that persons from Mexico come to our country for work, live in a house with 10 or more other people, and still send most of their check back home to their family. AND are thriving in our culture doing work most Americans (loosely used) think they are “to good” to do. If you look around, you will see it staring you back in the face. America is becoming the “Land of the ‘kinda’ free and the home of the entitled, lazy, and unintelligent”. No longer brave, America is on the expressway down the shitter pipe to becoming a third world country. Just try to speak a truth and see how many haters you get! History may never repeat itself as long as it is rewritten for snowflakes, so it won’t upset them. Let’s go through all this a third time since nobody young (under 20) remembers what happened the last time! Find an old song (country or rock, but mostly country) about this Country (yes, U.S.A.), listen to the lyrics, sadly times haven’t’ changed much in the past 60 years. The problem is that ho-hum problems are magnified for shock value, not because the problem got worse (although some things are getting worse), but because we have been conditioned that anything harsh is a threat that can’t be dealt with by the average person. Find and read Everything is Fucked (a story about hope) beginning to end!! You might come to a new realization about your life and daily events!
Cheap is a good thing until you sacrifice quality. Whoever said you can’t have cheaper, and of higher quality was a greedy liar! The problem is that we all are driven by the greedy, no matter where you are in life! I was told many years ago by a wise old man, he said “Ya know all that oil they are a fightin’ over still costs the same as it did when they found it. Nothing! That’s right, all that oil is free to whomever owns the ground it’s in. All that extra cost per gallon is all them greedy hands that touch it before you buy it for whatever you want it for”. He might not have said it that way, but it’s how you are going to read it. I asked if he meant need it for instead of want, and he said. “There ain’t nothin’ on this earth that has turned out for the better that that damn oil has took a part in making. Maybe some good light for lamps, but that’s it! People survived one way or another without it for centuries!” Profound statement to add perspective that covers almost everything we do in the world today.
