| WIKI | FAQ | Tech FAQ | |
 http://csua.com/feed/ | |
| ||||||
| 5/24 |
| 2007/7/5 [Transportation/Car, Reference/Tax] UID:47179 Activity:very high |
7/5 "All we really want is to get paid and get laid."
http://www.csua.org/u/j35 (Yahoo Business)
\_ "How much money buys happiness? A wide body of research suggests the
number is approximately forty thousand dollars a year." Uh, the
poverty line in SF is $60K/year. Maybe 40K a year will buy you
everything you need in hick states.
\_ No the poverty line is not 60K.
\_ Maybe you don't need what you think you need.
\_ Start with $40k. Tax it (fed, state, sales, etc): $25k.
Subtract rent for $1k/month dump: $13k.
Subtract $1k/month for Food+utilities+life misc: $1k.
Cool. You now have $1k in your pocket at the end of the
year. Way to live the good life. How's that retirement
plan going?
\_ 1. You are way off on your taxes.
\_ Ok, give us your numbers then. All taxes.
\_ 30K or so. Sales tax isn't fair cause it's
not part of your rent and you are counting that
into the daily living expenses.
\_ Ok fine sales taxes are in other things. Adding
5K/yr back isn't that much. I had you in a
$1k/month rental. That rental could easily and
fairly be a lot higher, it would still be a dump
and you'd be at the same post-rent level.
2. 40k in the city, you are going to need to budget, yeah.
If you are spending 1k/month on general stuff you
are probably overspending.
\_ Food+utilities+clothes+transport+whatever else you
do with your life not adding to $1k? Ooookkaaaayy.
\_ Dude right now I'm at about 1K/month for life
expenses. I get out. I do stuff, I eat out
at nice places. 1K/month is plenty for general
happiness. That goes double when outside of
the Bay Area. You do realize that people outside
of the BA buy houses with incomes around 40k.
\_ So how's your retirement plan going? What
happens if you lose your job and it takes a
month to find a new one? 3 months? 6+ months?
\_ You know that median income in the Bay Area is
less than $40k/yr, right? Somehow most people
manage to get by on an income you think is
impossible.
\_ The other person below says it is $60k.
\_ Median per capita income is $30k, household
(family) income is $62k.
http://www.csua.org/u/j3d
3. Yeah, living in the second or third most expensive
area in the country you probably need to add a bit
to the numbers given in a fluff journalism piece.
\_ I wasn't the one who said you could do it in SF for
$40k. I was only responding.
\_ 40k is journalism fluff for no frills middle
class. Not having to worry how you will pay
rent. Not having to worry about every dollar
you spend. It doesn't mean being able to buy
anything you want.
\_ I didn't say it did. I don't know where you're
going with this line of reasoning.
4. One of the points of the article is that having that
extra money, while nice, generally doesn't make
people happier. It buys people nice toys but that
doesn't really lead to long term happiness.
\- having to worry less about "if my car/kid needs
$2k/$10k in repairs" does make life better.
\_ I've lived for a long time on a lower middle
class wage. You know what, I didn't spend my
time worrying about what if my car broke down.
The only real sacrifice that I had to make that
ever bugged me was lack of health insurance for
a year, and that was something I porbably could
have gotten if I was willing to make a few cuts
in my spending.
\_ If your car or your leg broke you would have
worried a lot more about it.
\_ As I said, health insurance worried me.
The car, on the other hand, was a <5K
beater. It got me from A to B. If it
needed 5K in repairs I would have just
gotten another car. That I could afford.
\_ So you have no health insurance, a
broken leg would ruin you and when your
car breaks you're wiped out. Maybe
that's ok when you're 23 and can live on
a friend's couch for a while or your
mom's basement but that's not living.
We haven't even talked about marriage or
kids and you skipped my comments on
retirement. I don't think working until
the day you die is living. Maybe that's
ok for you, but count me out of that
plan, thanks.
\_ As I said before, lack of health
insurance WAS something that bothered
me. It just wasn't something I dealt
with. Instead I let it bug me until
I got a better job that had health
insurance.
\_ Median household income in the Bay
Area is $62k. That is how most people
have to live. Count yourself blessed.
\_ You read the part where we're
talking about $40k in SF, not $62k
in the Bay Area, right? Also, the
above person says it is below
$40k. Can you two get together on
this? I'm not going to respond to
two drastically different numbers
at the same time as if both were
true.
\_ Do you know the difference
median and average?
\_ Sorry, should have said median
fixed.
\_ In the City of SF, median
household income is even lower.
Don't get confused between
per capita and household income. |
| 5/24 |
|
| www.csua.org/u/j35 -> blog.penelopetrunk.com/2006/08/03/how-much-money-do-you-need-to-be-happy-hint-your-sex-life-matters-more/ Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology at Harvard University, says once you have enough money to meet basic needs - food, shelter, but not necessarily cable --incremental increases have little effect on your happiness. Ruminations on Twentysomething Life, responds to the number with, "If you want to draw a line in the sand, happiness is having enough money so you don't have to move back in with your parents." To someone who just spent four years in college living off nine-thousand-dollar loan stipends, an increase to forty thousand means a lot - moving from poverty to middle class. After you hit the forty-thousand-dollar-range money never gives you that surge in happiness again. Twentysomethings who are looking for happiness from their careers will benefit from research about their parents' choices. Richard Easterlin, professor of economics at University of Southern California says previous generations have proven that our desires adjust to our income. "At all levels of income, the typical response is that one needs 20% more to be happy." Once you have basic needs met, the axiom is true: more money does not make more happiness. The big factors in determining happiness levels are satisfaction with your job and social relationships. And in case you found yourself slipping back to thoughts of salary, according to Easterlin, "How much pleasure people get from their job is independent of how much it pays." Unfortunately, people are not good at picking a job that will make them happy. ") Gilbert recommends going into a career where people are happy. But don't ask them if their career makes them happy, because most people will say yes; they have a vested interest in convincing themselves they are happy. Instead, try out a few different professions before you settle on one. For college students, Gilbert envisions this happening with part-time jobs and internships at the cost of "giving up a few keggers and a trip to Florida over spring break." But even if you wait until you enter the workforce, it makes sense to switch from one entry-level job to another; no seniority and scant experience means you have little to lose. So it's an ideal time to figure out what will make you happy: Use a series of jobs to observe different professions at close range to see if YOU think they make people happy. It's simple, proven advice, but few people take it because they think they are unique and their experience in a career will be different. You are not unique, you are basically just like everyone else. Gilbert can, in the course of five minutes, rattle off ten reasons why people think they are unique but they are not. For example: We spend our lives finding differences between people to choose teachers, band mates and spouses, so our perception of peoples' differences is exaggerated... And then Gilbert gets to grapes: "If you spend seven years studying the differences between grapes, no two will look the same to you, but really a grape is a grape." So your first step is to stop thinking you're a special case. Take Gilbert's advice and choose a career based on your assessment of other people in that career. You next step is to focus on social relationships, because in terms of happiness, job satisfaction is very important but social relationships are most important. And by social relations, most researchers mean sex - with one, consistent partner. So consider giving your career aspirations a little less weight than you give your aspirations for sex. David Blanchflower, professor of economics at Dartmouth College says, "Going from sex once a month to sex once a week creates a big jump in happiness. He adds, to the joy of all who are underemployed, "It's true that money impacts which person you marry, but money doesn't impact the amount of sex you have." Maybe all this research simply justifies the twentysomething tendency to hold a series of entry-level jobs and put off having children. Says Karo: "All we really want is to get paid and get laid." August 3, 2006 I think the happiness researchers would say that we are all born with a tendency to be more or less happy. And, probably, in general, asexuals are not as happy as people with a more average sex drive. August 5, 2006 hehehe I guess it depends on your definition of asexual. There's "asexual because you don't want to have sex" and then there's "asexual because nobody wants to have sex with YOU" :D Depending on how one ended up as an "asexual", happiness is seriously affected. You'd be surprised how many things would never get done and how many industries would collapse without sex as a motivating factor. You'd also be surprised how many guys make a lot of money, then stand around at the bar, envious of the guys that are "pulling the chicks". As far as a consistent partner, I suppose there are a lot of guys that take pride (happiness) in the fact that they got one chick to have sex with them multiple times. or at least the ability to create and maintain a monogamous relationship to one chick could be a source of happiness for a guy. However, there's also the "been there, done that, got the T-shirt" of monogamy, so there's also happiness in "serial monogamy" or other flirtatious behavior. December 22, 2006 Bill - You pose a few interesting questions with regard to "pride (happiness) in the fact guys' got one chick to have sex with them multiple times" and "serial monogamy" however, I don't think happiness (subjective well being) is equal to "pride". Regarding serial monogamy David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald, "Money, Sex and Happiness: An Empirical Study," (2004) clearly states that the optimal number of partners over the course of their study was one . January 18, 2007 Penelope, I can't agree more with the statement that the only way money can make you happy is if you have enough to meet you basic needs, and after that it has no effect. In American society today, the richest people seem to be among the most famous. As a result, the American public is left thinking money will get them stardom. And it also seems that most people associate stardom with being happy, and most people want to be happy. February 2, 2007 Yes, it is true that relationships are important, but one of the biggest causes of Divorce is money and lack of it. When is fourty thousand a year everything to survive of of? When one has a family of 3 children that is not enough to survive off of. Most parents have a inside depression, because not only could they not give there children the life they couldn't have, but they can even give them the life they had growing up! Money isn't the Objects its the choices one with money gets to make. If they can't get a new one with in 3 months are they losing there home? This and many more are situations where money is not just an object. It's not vain to want to have the freedom to make choices the rich do! And I found that the studies about money and happiness are widespread and conclusive: When people make $100,000 they still fear losing a job, they still get divorced over money. It is true with people who make a million dollars a year. Reserach shows that people think their money problems will be solved if they earn 20% more, no matter how much they earn. Most of our problems in life stem from out outlook, not our financial situation. Optimists are happier no matter how much money they have. Pessimists are sadder no matter how much money they have. February 5, 2007 I think that money does buy happiness in my point if of view because I grew up not so rich so for the many people that experienced having money and grew up with a silver spoon in their mouth would tend to say money is not every thing or money would not buy happiness I think that idea relate to the situation person is in. And as to the idea that having sex can some what releases some of the pressure of that particular moment however it does not tend to fix the situation because their financial struggle would still remain, And that having sex is not always the way to deal with stress. One of the important pieces of the research about money and happiness is that you need to start with $40,000 a year. This is because worrying about the basi... |
| www.csua.org/u/j3d -> factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DTTable?_bm=d&-context=dt&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U&-CONTEXT=dt&-mt_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U_P053&-mt_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U_P082&-tree_id=403&-redoLog=false&-all_geo_types=N&-geo_id=38000US7000&-geo_id=38000US7040&-geo_id=38000US7120& Census 2000 Summary File 3 (SF 3) - Sample Data NOTE: Data based on a sample except in P3, P4, H3, and H4. Census 2000 Summary File 3 (SF 3) - Sample Data NOTE: Data based on a sample except in P3, P4, H3, and H4. |