In 1987 I was paid $5 per hour as accounts payable. Rent was $250 1bd. I bought a a small car for $750. Gas was .99 cents a gallon. I became homeless and continued to be intermittently for a decade. In 1999 I bought a 2bd room shack for $35k. It was not great. My wife and I were both making $10 per hour and struggling like hell with a baby. Credit card debt was all to pay for broken down cars that we didn’t even own anymore. 2016 we remodeled and sold that house and bought a better one.

I'm don't mean to be depressive but it's going to be depressive that I have felt the weight of that since I was 17 years old and it has prevented me from basically even trying in life. Though I have seen it as absolutely pointless that I will never get ahead. I will never beat poverty. The overwhelming futility of the cost of living has been the main source of my depression. My whole life.

I’m 46, and the last four years have been horrible. We are lucky to have a low mortgage, because we bought our home in 2013. The increase in home and car insurance is unsustainable. Property taxes are crazy, and energy is twice what it was in 2020. I’ve never seen prices increase at this rate, and I’m scared for my teenagers as they grow up. I hope they can afford a home.

In 1988 I worked cleaning kennels at vet hospitals and made $10/hr my husband made same at glass shop. Our rent inc utilities in North CA was $280/mo. My same job at same place is now $17/hr and rent of same apt is now $2800. Also we bought our first house just on his income as a local truck driver in SoCal in 1991 for $68,000. Our starter home is now worth $600,000+

There are statistics on this. The cost of living is way way higher. My chilshood home was purchased for x amount and sold 3x that

I don’t know where you live but here real estate has more than doubled in the last 10 years. Has your salary doubled in that same time frame?

There has always been expenses but in the past it was more manageable. Now it’s too expensive to go to McDonald’s. A place where you would spend the afternoon letting your kids burn off energy for a couple of bucks. Now it’s the cost of dinner at a local diner. Things are ridiculously expensive where one has to really think is it worth it or is this really a deal before buying. Life is so much more complicated.

When I was a young teen (early 90’s) my mom (a divorced nurse) was able to buy a very modest fixer-upper on some land for $65k. Comparable homes with no land in that area are now selling for $350k. It’s so rural that she can’t even get internet or cable to the house. But sure, $350k. wtf?

People always complain. It might feel bad now but in the 70-80s when I was growing up a dishwasher was a luxury, kids shared rooms, vacations were to see family, seeing a corvette was a rare thing, and dinner was spaghetti and jar sauce because it was cheap. Every day I see a McLaren on the road, we go on vacations to resorts, and nobody I know shops at goodwill.

I'm 48 and have never been able to afford cost of living even with good jobs ....my student loans interest was 7.5% in the early 2000s and I had to live with family most of my 20/30s due to the great recession or they lived with me ..so the whiny about how hard it is now is nothing new