• Spaceballstheusername@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 day ago

    Idk if you’re working minimum wage that’s a tough payment to make. You were making 680 a month if you could get 40hrs/week. Then taxes and gas for the car your spending half your income on your car. If you’re working 40hrs you aren’t a student or something so then rent and excetra. This was out of your price range if you were sensible with money and working minimum wage.

    • ITGuyLevi@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 day ago

      It would be tight, but not as impossible as it feels now; 680 seems a little low, my math had it closer to 730-ish. My mom got 40+ hours every week at a convenience store around that time, granted we didn’t have a new car (ever), but comparing it to now it seems impossible.

      Maybe I’m misremembering but rent was cheap not very long ago, in early 2004-ish I was paying $250/mo for a very small 2 bed house and the lady I ended up marrying had just moved out of a single-wide trailer that she was paying $100/mo for. At that point I was working at one of the same stores my mother had worked at except I was getting $5.15/hr (minimum wage at the time).

      Now it seems like cheap rent is 5x that much and minimum wage here is still just $7.15.