1st Gen. Lunch Table - General Discussion

Haha! Ghost?! Funny part about the AC debacle, was the girls complained to me about having high electric bills a month or two later.

 

They went to a very expensive private college and were dumber than shit.

 

We have a large contingent of international students who were caught a few years ago paying to pass the English language test that's required for admission.

Then later (at least for the required Kines classes) would try to send one person to sign in for 5.

Keep in mind these students are required to open a trust with all 4 years of tuition prepaid before they're allowed to attend. However said students also drive vehicles more expensive than most of the staff, I've seen more BMWs and Mercedes than I can count. A few Maserati, some Porsche, at least one Lambo.

 

https://youtu.be/WUsT__k9dAU

ive always thought that was a beastie boys song.

 

Sounds like some of the students I went to BU with back in the day. Had one girl from Romania who was ONLY taking an English class. Spent the rest of her time partying.

Not sure how you get to live in the school apartments and only pay for one class, but with enough money I guess anything is possible.

 

Same thing here in College Station! Students driving new lifted 90k diesels, and land rovers. I have a client that is the head of the finance department and he was laughing about it. Guy drives a Corolla (he's smart). meanwhile girls in college to be a teacher driving new Rovers. Insanity.

 

It's fucking wild, some kid will roll up in a brand new Beemer and the kid next to him has a 93 Tercel with bald tires, cracked windshield, and half the body gone..

I saw a goddamn K car the other day, I didn't think those existed here anymore at the rate they rusted.

 

I swear our society is fucked. My generation bitches and moans about not making enough money but the reality is that so many of them are absolutely horrible with money. The same ones complaining about wages also eat out and go drinking constantly. Many of them perpetually trade in vehicles and always have a car payment too.

We have friends that make over $300K/year and they are buried in debt. They keep having to take out HELOC's so they can roll their credit card debt into those. It's amazing. If I made what he makes for as many years as he had, I would have invested enough money to be able to retire by 40-43.

 

One problem is the high cost of living. Which brings us back full circle to the migration from CA to places like TN. I would say 300k in CA feels like how Id imagine 80k would feel somewhere like TN.

 

Exactly mirrors my time at Purdue at the turn of the century. Foreign kids rolling $50-150k cars, speaking no English, not tipping, getting lost constantly, and occasionally murdering their family with a hammer. (that was a TA IIRC)
The local kids and townees rode bikes and drove whatever POS they got for free from a relative, but they tipped better. (have I mentioned I delivered pizza during college?)

I can tell you here in IN the cost of living is quite low compared to basically everywhere outside of Appalachia. My 3325sqft home on .5 acre cost us less than a shitty/mediocre apartment on the east coast or a bungalow without a view on the west. I like to use home values to approximate the relative cost of living instead of income because income can vary wildly even within a community.

 

Even 80k in most of TN is a good living. Those friends here making $300k should be able to stack away at least $100k a year. $300k here is CRAZY money.

 

If supply cant keep up with demand i worry about bfe communities. Like if THE gas station by possum walk, tx shut down. There are hundreds of families over 20 miles from civilization.

Think these people are a priority? Long lines at the pharmacy all day long.

walmart @ crockett, tx. 27 miles from my great aunts property.

 

I was a college "kid" a few years ago. I got off work early one day so I took the SHO up to school and sat in the parking lot for a bit. My serp belt decided to shred itself while I was sitting there. As I was changing it in the parking lot my trig teacher came out and basically said how it was good I was getting my degree so I wouldn't have to drive old shit anymore and could buy something new. I was half offended since I intentionally sought that car out and love that POS. But yeah, it's was a community college so not too many fancy cars there except the stupid kids buying brand new pick ups they couldn't afford.

 

Someone recently made a comment about me getting a new truck one day and I had to remind them I like my 20 year old truck. I especially like that it's paid off.

 

I swear we had a 1st Gen PM thread I was in. Going through my list of PMs, and thought it was odd I hadn't seen anything recently from there. Now I can't find it. Did I fat finger a tab to leave it? Did it die out? Did I get the boot because I'm kinda thinking of buying a '22?

I think it was @bmf4069 who started it? Maybe @FirstGenVol ?

 

It was probably Sirfive. They have had several different group PM's over the last several months.

You're gonna sell your Best Gen for a truck that doesn't even come with tow hooks?

 

I sent you the link via PM.
#skillschallenge

 

So much of this. ^

I know a guy from work. I believe he makes about $22/hour, he's in a Frontline job that you can get right out of high school. It can be stressful if you aren't organized but its cake if you are. He just went on LOA because he felt overwhelmed. He has a roommate who is a drunk and he wants to move out but claims he can't afford to. He drives a new Civic and has payments on it, bad credit, and eats out daily.

I wanna tell him get your shit together. Sell that car, get out of that payment and buy a $5k used civic. Spend 6 months settling your debts, throw every penny you make at them and eat beans/rice or pasta daily until you're clear. Then go find another place to live and start budgeting. I can't say that though because he's the type to call HR and blame me for his meltdown.

10 years ago I was making $18 an hour, had a car payment, had a gas guzzler, and paid twice what he pays for rent. That tells me he can get by on what he makes, he just needs to stop playing and be a grown up.

 

My Best Gen doesn't have tow hooks...

Don't worry, it'll stay in the family. My parents want a reliable truck again without paying and arm and a leg. Figured if I give them a good deal on it and then when/if they want to sell it, I get first right of refusal.

Danke. No worky though.

@Sirfive ?

 

Its the spot all the cool kids hand out at. And we talk about boobs and stuff.

 

More of this awaits, if you're cool enough to get in...

 

I think this nails a lot of the problem others posted the last few lines, it's impossible to afford anything these days.

I get a lot of interaction with "kids" at my job (i.e. less than 5yrs out of school). There's a recurring theme I hear from them, and I'll try to capture it as best I can without going off rails are typing a feckin book again.

A little preface: In my HS (early-mid '90s), the brainwash rhetoric of "No college, no path to success!" was definitely ramping up, and seems very alive today b/c my kids in grade school are already getting hammered. College was "attainable" cost for me. I paid my student loans from 1.75 years of community college in under 5 years.

Kids we hire today are jaded. When they graduated from high school, their adults are hammering "college, college college", ignoring a key point: Wages haven't gone up much, yet tuition is 8-10x or more at many schools. Everything their adults impressed as the path to success equals exponentially more debt today then back then.

Somehow they're expected to pay for that exponential amount of debt with the same minimum wage salaries in-place for almost 2 decades now, minimum wage in '95 for me was $4.25, today it's $7.25. Their reality after school, to "get ahead" and "stay on path":

Quality new car? $35-55k avg,
Quality used car? $15-25k avg.
State college? $12-15k per year avg. ===> Basically, same as buying a good quality used car every year for four years.
Avg 1/1 apartment rent? $1.1k-1.3k/mo ===> This is one year of my college tuition in one month just to keep a roof over their head.

Compare to me after graduating HS in '94. My top-5-in-state community college cost ~$1.2/yr (had to do loans). Roughly 2/3 my yearly salary after taxes basically paid for the my used "auntie hookup" 1992 Civic 4dr and insurance, about $350/mo. Working 50-60hrs/week at a "generous" 10¢ over minimum wage, I paid off the car and college debt in late '98.

I was damn lucky, the dot-com bubble was in full swing and anyone could get their foot in the door. In '99, I got a "skilled" tech job for $6.25, I only took b/c the pizza place I was opening manager for only paid $5.75 an hour (60¢ over minimum wage) as opening manager controlling the fate of entire store for 8-10hrs/day. I was also close to UF at the time and was able to sneak into classes I need to support my new tech job. I was a resourceful MF.

I was curious, so for shits n giggles I just looked up the cost of my community college I went to for my AA degree. In-state tuition is 3x, out-of-state is 7x compared to '95. The same job I had at Chili's back then pays $7.50/hr today (I looked it up). To which I wonder: How in the living hell is anyone expected to get ahead?

Add in inflation at 7% this year, and it's higher than we've ever seen it, wages are stagnant. The middle class are paying an extraordinary amount of the tax burden, and assholes in DC on both sides of the fence shielding Wall Street and the mega-millionaires like Bezos and Musk who pay $0 in taxes in exchange for keeping their stock portfolios paying out millions every year.

It's just silly. It's no wonder shit is upside down. I know 100% I did not have it this hard when I was their age. I for one feel bad for them. Sometimes I feel guilty knowing I make 5x what they do, doing work they're capable of doing, which - let's face it - isn't fucking fair.

Are they all a bunch of friggin' weirdos? A good lot of them, yes. But look at what they grew up in, and how technology - social media especially - has given them such a perverted view on life. When I was a kid, I only got to see what was on TV (normal stuff), dialup was just catching on, streaming video? Pfft, fat chance.

Nowadays, they're dealing with deciphering whether deepfake videos are real and 24/7 nation-state troll farms and tinfoil hat wearing adults bombarding msinformation into their brains. Honey BooBoo. Dinner with the Kardashians. Celebrity housewives. This is showing them what's "normal" in the world.

I'm incredibly happy I'm not half my age today and dealing with this. And I'm fighting like hell trying to make sure our kids are armed to handle it. We've already stressed they don't need college if they don't want it, just learn a trade or invent something, but we've also got a well-stocked education fund for them "just in case".

 

Speaking of costs, I still remember my HS physics teacher showing me his tuition bill/receipt from the 1940s. (guy was old; had my aunt and uncle as a student in the same class)

MIT cost $550/semester.

 

good afternoon everyone!

 

Amazing afternoon. Not a cloud in the sky. All would be well if i could find my angle grinder.

 

Yup. I looked up NYU for shits 'n giggles. When I was in college, $8k/yr, close to UF's pricing in my years. Today? NYU tuition is in excess of $50k/yr.

The housing component is scariest to me. I shared a nice 2/2 apartment from '95-'99. Rent + utilities avg'd ~$250 each and it was a NICE pad. Crappy thin-walled efficiency there today, $950/mo ... Hey, you can smell what you microwaved for dinner and the shit you just took as you watch TV in the living room on your futon couch+bed.

Don't even think about bringing a chick home (and we wonder why birth rates are plummeting? not gonna be anybody to take care of us when we're geriatric, if we make it that far)

I dunno. Maybe I'm being to empathetic. These guys are shocked when I buy them lunch, which I'll do for each of them at least once a month and they look at me like I'm Jesus, healing their leprosy.

 

Every time I see this, I think it's one of the methie/crackie folks wandering around downtown. I dunno what he's doing with his mouth, but it looks like tweaker mouth.