WDYT? Top ten percent of households (income)

[Carrie12345]

 

Do people not move because it's simply too expensive to move? We made the choice to come back to the Midwest but it wasn't a hard decision as the company paid that bill. But I would think in this day and age someone could find jobs online so they could go to a lower cost of living?

 

 

 

For us, moving would mean finding about $50,000 or so to attract a home buyer and cover the mortgage balance.

 

On top of that, my husband's career is contact-based.  Could he make new contacts in a different area?  Sure, eventually.  But will they be contacts with Manhattan-sized-and-numbered corporate budgets?  I doubt it.

[Murphy101]

In some cases, one can give up medical care and then one dies, an interesting way out of financial entrapment! But often simple medical care is less expensive than major--think about treating blood pressure vs. stroke. But you know that.

 

Personally I do not think that electricity is a luxury. It is true that many families conserve electricity for the sake of their pocket books or for environmental reasons--nothing wrong with that. But I would never suggest to a struggling family that they give up electricity to crawl out of their financial holes.

 

Minnie, how you equate struggles to "blah, blah excuses" may be painful to some of our fellow posters. A little empathy may be needed here.

This is so true.

I would be better off financially if I kick my two grown kids out. They contribute around here in many ways, but one reason they are living here is because it is by far cheaper for THEM. So making my one household temporarily better off and creating one or two that aren't doesn't seem like a sound social plan to me. Given the struggles many people have being without family to count on, I don't think it is a cost savings. Btdt and I won't purposely inflict that on my kids just to make my finances better.

I could eat cheaper and for most of our lives we did. But it wasn't really cheaper. Do you know what a diabetic has to take more of every time he eats cheap usually carb heavy foods? Insulin. Insulin is not cheap. It is def not cheaper than a nutritious lower carb meal.

I could turn off the electricity. And CPS would be at my door.

 

It's a ridiculous thing to suggest that Americans have to live like people in third world countries if they want to not be financially enslaved. For that matter, in third world countries that theory sure doesn't seem to be working in their favor at all.

 

If the solution to being poor was to just do without, it would have gone away with the dodo bird already.

[Arcadia]

Do people not move because it's simply too expensive to move?

 

If housing is that high, EVERYTHING is high, gas, food, it's nuts. .

When we wanted to move, companies are hiring local as they don't want to pay relocation costs if there is a local hire. Also hubby is in tech as are most of my neighbors. Plenty of tech employers within a 10mile radius. For example Intel, Oracle and Cisco are walkable and some people walk home for lunch. One of the tech company's shuttle stop at my condo's entrance.

 

25 miles radius of where I am is equally pricy or worse. I can't drive so we can't have hubby in a long commute job unless we stay walking distance to medical and dental.

 

While housing is high (but lower than San Francisco), food and gas is not that bad. The gas stations at certain zip codes are higher so we just remember which are the cheapest gas stations on the way home. Local seasonal food is affordable.

 

Moving would mean limiting employment possibilities unfortunately unless hubby change line of work.

 

ETA:

House prices last year overshot the price we bought in 2006. This year, home prices are worse.

[Arcadia]

BTW, I read somewhere that outside of the US, having a clothes dryer isn't ne essarily the norm. The mind boggles, lol. .

Here the hot sunshine in Calfornia is enough to dry the line dry clothes. People hang clothes on clothes lines in patios and backyards.

[creekland]

Couldn't take the month off to go to the Bahamas, because of DH's employment situation...

 

It's definitely a bonus that hubby owns his own business (can make the rules) and that he can do the bulk of his work from his computer so anywhere there is good internet access works.  I just need to hunt around to find affordable.  I'm willing to do that.  

 

When he worked for someone else, taking a month off to work out of office would never be an option.  Part of why I don't go full time (now that we're empty nesting) is because I'd have to give up the flexibility of our travels.  I'm not willing to do that.  More money and/or a "more rewarding" career are not good trade offs (to me) for giving up our travels.

[LucyStoner]

People survive on low incomes in HCOL areas using a mix of ingenuity and if they are lucky, infrastructure designed to help them (good bus system, moderate, mixed and low income housing, charitable and government programs). The median income in my area is much higher than the national median and we are at 1/2 of that or less.

 

For us, getting by on one PT income in a HCOL area means we have few monthly bills and we "downsized" from a skinny small townhouse to an apartment designed to be affordable for families with modest incomes (no direct subsidy). My husband bikes to work (10+ miles a day). We had to do that to meet the needs of our child with autism because me working FT wasn't gonna hack it.

 

One advantage of growing up very poor is that I don't consider living like this to be deprivation or to be especially hard for us. I feel fortunate for what we do have (health insurance, reliable transportation, apartment in nice area, stable home life for our kids, camping vacations, amazing hiking trails in our county etc) rather than poor for what we don't have (pricey vacations, house with a yard, new cars). There's a lot to be said for comparing your wealth to those with less rather than those with more.

 

ETA- I will admit that this being a choice and a short term sacrifice for a long term educational goal does make it more amenable.

[Murphy101]

I've heard it from people who are so far in debt that they see no way out so they just kept spending on credit until they declared bankruptcy.

 

Not on the boards, IRL.

Well I've seen that too. And frankly, sometimes they are right. If you make 50k and you have 40k of debt. IF you ever pay it off, it won't be before you pay a mortgage off.

 

The real problem is they should have never been able to get that far in debt on that income or that they accrued the debt when they were making a LOT more money and have no prospects for those income figures again.

 

Every time someone turns around and NEEDS something, the first second and third responses aren't help. They are to get some debt. Furnance breaks down in winter. Debt. Er for sickness. Debt. Car repair. Debt. Cheap daycare crapped out and need to switch the next day so you don't lose your job. Debt. And let's keep in mind 1/2ish of people do not have what many of us have. A spouse to help out. And many don't have family to help either, due to geography if not other issues.

 

I don't think there will be major change in this problem until we stop the debt solution mentality.

But people making a lot off these people's suffering aren't going to willingly let that happen.

[Mergath]

There are so many who can take a below average income and live a very happy, comfortable life as well as so many who can be strapped with debt and living paycheck to paycheck with a top 1% income. I am the former while DH is the latter. Knowing that, I made sure we were financially separated before and after marriage. It did not help as he still managed to get me in debt without my knowledge.

 

But, there is almost always a way to live cheaper than one does if one is willing to go to extremes in order to build a nest egg. One can give up the 3 room apartment for a dilapidated trailer, for example. One can give up New York for a trailer park in rural Tennessee. One can give up electricity, phone service, medical care, and many other needs if one REALLY wants to do anything and everything to get out of financial entrapment. It is just that most of us have no desire to do that, and, therefore, balance financial entrapment with what we want our lifestyles to include. To justify our financial entrapment we console ourselves with excuses like I could never leave my family, my job requires my internet service, and other blah, blah, blah excuses. In reality, these excuses are just the benefits of staying in financial entrapment.

 

So when I read articles defining and classifying income, I do not give it much thought. Show me instead articles about what kind of families live below their means and how they do it. Now you're talking.

 

Don't take this the wrong way, but... are you insane?

 

You do realize there are people who will die without medical care, right?  And people who live in northern climates and would literally freeze to death without electricity?

 

Health care and heat aren't luxuries that people can give up if they want to get ahead.

 

Ffs.

[creekland]

I would agree more kiddos is more expensive but I suspect. It nearly the difference folks think.

 

It's not so much the difference in day to day living at home if one adjusts.  It's the difference when one starts to want to travel, add extras that cost $$, ends up with OOP medical/dental/vision expenses, and, pending situation, college.

 

Flying just hubby and I here to the Bahamas (and back) cost us $800.  Flying all five of us out here would be $2000 AND there'd have been no room in this 2 bedroom, 2 bath condo for them plus my mom, so sharing that cost wouldn't be happening.  There's only one of our month long trips that we took with the boys that involved flying and condos and that one was a HUGE splurge (Hawaii).  The rest were road trips with our tent, backpacks, and National Park pass.  We actually did 2 months on one of those and added my nephew for one month of the trip and it cost far less than Hawaii did.

 

Heading to the movies with 2 of us cost $12 (matinee).  Heading there with 5 costs $30.

 

It all adds up.

 

ps  I don't regret having our three kids at all!  I'd do it all over again easily.  But the number of children one has definitely factors into the budget and what one can do with the same $$ of income.

[AimeeM]

The other issue I have heard here from families in this range is there are less options for college too until your child is an academic super star. Makes too much to qualify for grants and financial aid. But not nearly enough to pay for many private colleges outright.

Yes. 

We've been accused of pushing our children too hard academically. Sorry, kiddo - mom and dad's income will only hurt you on your student grant applications, so you need an academic scholarship, buddy. Lol. Our eldest wants a career that will require a college education. I can tell you now that we are *still* paying on Engineer Dude DH's student loans from his master's program - the cost has only went up from that time (as far as what college costs).

[unsinkable]

Well I've seen that too. And frankly, sometimes they are right. If you make 50k and you have 40k of debt. IF you ever pay it off, it won't be before you pay a mortgage off.

 

The real problem is they should have never been able to get that far in debt on that income or that they accrued the debt when they were making a LOT more money and have no prospects for those income figures again.

 

Every time someone turns around and NEEDS something, the first second and third responses aren't help. They are to get some debt. Furnance breaks down in winter. Debt. Er for sickness. Debt. Car repair. Debt. Cheap daycare crapped out and need to switch the next day so you don't lose your job. Debt. And let's keep in mind 1/2ish of people do not have what many of us have. A spouse to help out. And many don't have family to help either, due to geography if not other issues.

 

I don't think there will be major change in this problem until we stop the debt solution mentality.

But people making a lot off these people's suffering aren't going to willingly let that happen.

Last line: payday loans. The amount of money payday loan companies make is sickening.

[QueenCat]

Are these even relevant any more?  This is prior to the housing crash.

 

eta. They are interesting. I just think that they're probably not very accurate.

 

What it demonstrates is how to breakdown percentages........... The middle class is NOT 80% of the people, no matter when you do it.

[Lang Syne Boardie]

Don't take this the wrong way, but... are you insane?

 

You do realize there are people who will die without medical care, right?  And people who live in northern climates and would literally freeze to death without electricity?

 

Health care and heat aren't luxuries that people can give up if they want to get ahead.

 

Ffs.

 

:iagree:

 

It ain't even hypothetical. We have very serious anthropological researchers* running studies on this for us right now, in real time and in livid color, in rural Appalachia and on the streets of our cities. They continue to prove what the civilized/industrialized world has known for several hundred years:

 

When people are so poor that they must live in dilapidated shacks, AND they lack access to heat, medical care, good nutrition, and the like, all manner of evil follows. Ignorance, disease, and suffering are always hard on the heels of serious deprivation.

 

Duh.

 

*Otherwise known as poor folks, trailer trash, rednecks, homeless -- oh, we have lots of pretty words for these people who are obviously not going without enough to get ahead financially. I mean, they've got the right idea, but they need to go farther with it....'and reduce the surplus population,' whispers Ebenezer Scrooge....

[Upward Journey]

What it demonstrates is how to breakdown percentages........... The middle class is NOT 80% of the people, no matter when you do it.

 

 

Too, true :)

[Χά�ων]

There are so many who can take a below average income and live a very happy, comfortable life as well as so many who can be strapped with debt and living paycheck to paycheck with a top 1% income. I am the former while DH is the latter. Knowing that, I made sure we were financially separated before and after marriage. It did not help as he still managed to get me in debt without my knowledge.

 

But, there is almost always a way to live cheaper than one does if one is willing to go to extremes in order to build a nest egg. One can give up the 3 room apartment for a dilapidated trailer, for example. One can give up New York for a trailer park in rural Tennessee. One can give up electricity, phone service, medical care, and many other needs if one REALLY wants to do anything and everything to get out of financial entrapment. It is just that most of us have no desire to do that, and, therefore, balance financial entrapment with what we want our lifestyles to include. To justify our financial entrapment we console ourselves with excuses like I could never leave my family, my job requires my internet service, and other blah, blah, blah excuses. In reality, these excuses are just the benefits of staying in financial entrapment.

 

So when I read articles defining and classifying income, I do not give it much thought. Show me instead articles about what kind of families live below their means and how they do it. Now you're talking.

Without medical care my son would be dead. Without a phone I would have to drive a rather long way to find a pay phone, more than 30 miles each way, to call his doctors or refill his script. I guess I could walk or ride a bike. Except that is against state law to do on the major highways and, frankly, a death wish.

 

Give up medical care? Not a chance in hell.

[Laura Corin]

BTW, I read sonewhere that outside of the US, having a clothes dryer isn't ne essarily the norm. The mind boggles, lol. I know it is supposedly hard on clothes, and not environmental, but I love my dryer.

 

I work in construction in Scotland, and by law new houses have to have an outside or inside drying area to hang up clothes.  The 2006 legislation (there might be newer rules too) reads:

 

3.11 Every building must be designed and constructed in such a way that– (a) the size of any apartment or kitchen will ensure the welfare and convenience of all occupants and visitors; and (b) an accessible space is provided to allow for the safe, convenient and sustainable drying of washing. 

 

I didn't grow up with a tumble dryer (we were solidly middle class).  In 2010, about 55% of households in the UK had one.  Often there is nowhere to put one - the housing stock is old and often small - but they also cost money to buy and run.

[Lisbeth]

Here the hot sunshine in Calfornia is enough to dry the line dry clothes. People hang clothes on clothes lines in patios and backyards.

 

Clotheslines are outlawed where I live.  :glare:

[Lang Syne Boardie]

I work in construction in Scotland, and by law new houses have to have an outside or inside drying area to hang up clothes.  The 2006 legislation (there might be newer rules too) reads:

 

3.11 Every building must be designed and constructed in such a way that– (a) the size of any apartment or kitchen will ensure the welfare and convenience of all occupants and visitors; and (b) an accessible space is provided to allow for the safe, convenient and sustainable drying of washing. 

 

I didn't grow up with a tumble dryer (we were solidly middle class).  In 2010, about 55% of households in the UK had one.  Often there is nowhere to put one - the housing stock is old and often small - but they also cost money to buy and run.

 

That is good. I see outdoor clothes drying as a human need and I find it extremely bizarre that people will submit to housing association rules forbidding it.

 

[SKL]

:iagree:

 

It ain't even hypothetical. We have very serious anthropological researchers* running studies on this for us right now, in real time and in livid color, in rural Appalachia and on the streets of our cities. They continue to prove what the civilized/industrialized world has known for several hundred years:

 

When people are so poor that they must live in dilapidated shacks, AND they lack access to heat, medical care, good nutrition, and the like, all manner of evil follows. Ignorance, disease, and suffering are always hard on the heels of serious deprivation.

 

Duh.

 

*Otherwise known as poor folks, trailer trash, rednecks, homeless -- oh, we have lots of pretty words for these people who are obviously not going without enough to get ahead financially. I mean, they've got the right idea, but they need to go farther with it....'and reduce the surplus population,' whispers Ebenezer Scrooge....

 

I think she was just trying to make the point that while some people can move from lower to middle class if they do xyz, moving to upper class is a much different proposition.  Impossible for almost everyone.

 

Many many people have moved from working class to middle class by cutting some combination of what she listed.  I don't think she was trying to say everyone in the working class should try doing without all of them and see what it gets them.  I also think she was doing a bit of hyperbole to make her point.

 

[SparklyUnicorn]

There are so many who can take a below average income and live a very happy, comfortable life as well as so many who can be strapped with debt and living paycheck to paycheck with a top 1% income. I am the former while DH is the latter. Knowing that, I made sure we were financially separated before and after marriage. It did not help as he still managed to get me in debt without my knowledge.

 

But, there is almost always a way to live cheaper than one does if one is willing to go to extremes in order to build a nest egg. One can give up the 3 room apartment for a dilapidated trailer, for example. One can give up New York for a trailer park in rural Tennessee. One can give up electricity, phone service, medical care, and many other needs if one REALLY wants to do anything and everything to get out of financial entrapment. It is just that most of us have no desire to do that, and, therefore, balance financial entrapment with what we want our lifestyles to include. To justify our financial entrapment we console ourselves with excuses like I could never leave my family, my job requires my internet service, and other blah, blah, blah excuses. In reality, these excuses are just the benefits of staying in financial entrapment.

 

So when I read articles defining and classifying income, I do not give it much thought. Show me instead articles about what kind of families live below their means and how they do it. Now you're talking.

 

How does one make money living in a rural trailer park in Tennessee?  And how does one survive winter?  Or ya know....CPS?

 

These are some pretty crazy claims.  And have you been to NY?  Which parts?  Nothing particularly outrageous about living in most parts of NY. 

[Laura Corin]

That is good. I see outdoor clothes drying as a human need and I find it extremely bizarre that people will submit to housing association rules forbidding it.

 

 

The irony of compulsory drying areas in Scotland's climate and HOA bans on it where my in-laws lived in Texas is not lost on me....

 

I think that the rise in tumble dryer ownership in the UK tracks the increase in two-income families.  My mother (who didn't work outside the home) would check the weather forecast every evening to see if the next day might be a good drying day with 'drought' in the air.  She didn't have an automatic washing machine either (did I mention we were solidly middle class?) so washing was a palaver.  

 

It's not so easy to manage in an iffy climate if you only have two days for the wash because you go out to work full time.

[SKL]

Speaking of clothesline laws reminds me of the song "we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue ... no place to hang out the washin' ..."

 

I don't recall my mom ever hanging out the washing, but maybe she did when I was very young.  (We were poor / working class and had a washer/dryer in our house as far back as I can remember.  I assume my parents bought it used.)

 

I don't hang out the washing.  :)  I would if I had to, but it would be kind of interesting in the winter ....

[Lang Syne Boardie]

I think she was just trying to make the point that while some people can move from lower to middle class if they do xyz, moving to upper class is a much different proposition.  Impossible for almost everyone.

 

Many many people have moved from working class to middle class by cutting some combination of what she listed.  I don't think she was trying to say everyone in the working class should try doing without all of them and see what it gets them.  I also think she was doing a bit of hyperbole to make her point.

 

 

I'm just going on what the poster actually said, which Mergath quoted, instead of trying to read her mind and intentions in spite of the words. If she meant something entirely different from what she said I'm happy to listen to her explanation.

 

Especially concerning the bit about unwillingness to leave family behind or forego a paying job that requires internet service being excuses.

[SparklyUnicorn]

That is good. I see outdoor clothes drying as a human need and I find it extremely bizarre that people will submit to housing association rules forbidding it.

 

 

I think it's bizarre too.  And it's an environmental waste.

 

Although I do not hang my stuff out.  I do have reasonable excuses though.

[SKL]

I do know one family that lived in a shack without electricity or running water (my SIL's family of origin, which originally had 15 kids).  However, I would not classify them as being upwardly mobile.  :P

[SparklyUnicorn]

That would not even be possible in some parts of the country.  It was minus 10 yesterday.  We'd be dead without electricity.  We aren't exactly set up like the Eskimo...ya know?

 

But I mean what is the suggestion here?  That those with modest incomes are doing it wrong?  They could have extra money in the bank if they'd stop buying electricity and moved into a cardboard box? 

[SparklyUnicorn]

Poor and poverty are two different things. My older relatives lived in pine shacks and did just fine. It wasnt so long ago that a painted shack was a luxury. My gps had 1 light bulb in their unpainted pine house, with an outhouse. They were happy to have that electric run a well pump. They lived to see this century start...but they never moved off their homestead or out of that pine house. They were a bit trapped..couldnt make enough selling produce to pay property taxes, but could produce enough food to stay healthy and live to their late 80s. Gmas cooking would now be called 'artisan'. And the food they produced 'organic'. But they were quite happy not to have a dirt floor....and I did have a classmate in college in the 80s whose parent lived in a home with dirt floors. I would not begrudge anyone their lifestyle choice...but I would like to see the cost of electric decrease so that its affordable for all. The US could do a lot better with what it has.

 

Well not to mention it's getting harder to be creative with making money.  I can't make up a bunch of sandwiches and then go sell them to people.  My kid can't even have a lemonade stand.  There are so many regulations and rules that a person can't do simple tasks to earn some extra money without breaking the law. 

[Lang Syne Boardie]

Heigh ho, my folks were from the soil up to God, too, like 99% of the nation (in other words, we all know the story), but a dilapidated trailer with government cheese and no heat or health care in Appalachia 2015 is not that. Ditto for the ghetto.

[regentrude]

BTW, I read sonewhere that outside of the US, having a clothes dryer isn't ne essarily the norm. The mind boggles, lol. I know it is supposedly hard on clothes, and not environmental, but I love my dryer.

 

In Germany, I don't know anybody who has a dryer. Electricity is very expensive, apartments are small so you'd have no space - people dry clothes on a clothesline or rack.

 

I use the dryer only on wet winter days or when I need to have an item immediately and can't wait for a few hours (like, only winter coat gotten muddy, stuff like this)

 

[regentrude]

I don't hang out the washing.  :)  I would if I had to, but it would be kind of interesting in the winter ....

 

only if you get a  lot of wet snow and don't have a covered place to hang.

Winters can be very dry, so clothes freeze on the line while drying, but dry they do.

You could also move the clothes rack indoors ;-)

 

[BlsdMama]

Don't take this the wrong way, but... are you insane?

 

You do realize there are people who will die without medical care, right?  And people who live in northern climates and would literally freeze to death without electricity?

 

Health care and heat aren't luxuries that people can give up if they want to get ahead.

 

Ffs.

 

 

And have all their children removed for neglect in this day and age.

[LucyStoner]

Not only is the internet needed for a lot of jobs, it is super important for education these days. My son does at least two subjects at a time entirely with online resources. My own career advancement plan (to get my CPA) is also web based. The library gives two hours a day. We easily use more than that.

 

People with low incomes in population centers can get good internet for very little money. Comcast and other companies offer Internet Essentials and similar programs as part of a public private agreement/settlement to reduce the digital divide.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Oh and to boot, the local schools here require not only a physical exam upon entering but also a vision exam and a dental exam.  Your child cannot enter school without that.  And only the very poor get assistance with that.  This is just one of many examples of things one cannot opt to not do because they want to spend less money. 

[SparklyUnicorn]

Not only is the internet needed for a lot of jobs, it is super important for education these days. My son does at least two subjects at a time entirely with online resources. My own career advancement plan (to get my CPA) is also web based. The library gives two hours a day. We easily use more than that.

 

People with low incomes in population centers can get good internet for very little money. Comcast and other companies offer Internet Essentials and similar programs as part of a public private agreement/settlement to reduce the digital divide.

 

Huh..never heard of that.  I don't think they offer that here. 

[BlsdMama]

Well not to mention it's getting harder to be creative with making money.  I can't make up a bunch of sandwiches and then go sell them to people.  My kid can't even have a lemonade stand.  There are so many regulations and rules that a person can't do simple tasks to earn some extra money without breaking the law. 

 

OT, but this is interesting from different parts of the country.  One of things we thought was SO neat about the PNW was that in Oregon you could start a home based business as a restaurant.  Great at grilling?  Okay, throw up picnic tables and grill.  You still had inspections but you could do it.  You cannot here.  This is so true.

[SparklyUnicorn]

In Germany, I don't know anybody who has a dryer. Electricity is very expensive, apartments are small so you'd have no space - people dry clothes on a clothesline or rack.

 

I use the dryer only on wet winter days or when I need to have an item immediately and can't wait for a few hours (like, only winter coat gotten muddy, stuff like this)

 

 

Everyone in my husband's family has a dryer.

 

They do hang out when possible, but yep they all have a dryer. 

[BlsdMama]

Not only is the internet needed for a lot of jobs, it is super important for education these days. My son does at least two subjects at a time entirely with online resources. My own career advancement plan (to get my CPA) is also web based. The library gives two hours a day. We easily use more than that.

 

People with low incomes in population centers can get good internet for very little money. Comcast and other companies offer Internet Essentials and similar programs as part of a public private agreement/settlement to reduce the digital divide.

 

LOL, I can't even get "good" internet where I live with good money. ;)  I have to use a data package on my phone.  Now, granted, THAT is a luxury.  But there is insanely limited streaming at our house even for Khan.

[SparklyUnicorn]

LOL, I can't even get "good" internet where I live with good money. ;)  I have to use a data package on my phone.  Now, granted, THAT is a luxury.  But there is insanely limited streaming at our house even for Khan.

 

I live under a rock with this.  Maybe about an hour from here, there is no broadband or cable Internet.  Just dial up.  Dial up is useless!

[LucyStoner]

Huh..never heard of that. I don't think they offer that here.

It's everywhere Comcast is and there are other similar offerings that I am less familiar with from other companies and such.

 

https://www.internetessentials.com

 

http://m.nymetroparents.com/article/Comcast-Now-Offers-Internet-Essentials-to-Low-Income-Families

 

The income cut off is the same for free and reduced lunch, which in the lower 48 is just over $44k annual income for a family of 4. http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2014-04788.pdf

 

It started in 2010 and 2011 IIRC.

[SKL]

In Germany, I don't know anybody who has a dryer. Electricity is very expensive, apartments are small so you'd have no space - people dry clothes on a clothesline or rack.

 

I use the dryer only on wet winter days or when I need to have an item immediately and can't wait for a few hours (like, only winter coat gotten muddy, stuff like this)

 

 

Wouldn't a drying rack take up at least as much space as a dryer?

 

I understand the electricity part though.

 

We really are spoiled here.

 

[LucyStoner]

LOL, I can't even get "good" internet where I live with good money. ;) I have to use a data package on my phone. Now, granted, THAT is a luxury. But there is insanely limited streaming at our house even for Khan.

That's why I said "in population centers". Living rural is a whole nother ball of wax. The infrastructure is way different.

[SparklyUnicorn]

It's everywhere Comcast is and there are other similar offerings that I am less familiar with from other companies and such.

 

https://www.internetessentials.com

 

http://m.nymetroparents.com/article/Comcast-Now-Offers-Internet-Essentials-to-Low-Income-Families

 

The income cut off is the same for free and reduced lunch, which in the lower 48 is just over $44k annual income for a family of 4. http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2014-04788.pdf

 

It started in 2010 and 2011 IIRC.

 

Ah...no Comcast here.  At least they do something decent.  I hate Comcast (we had them where we used to live in CT). 

 

I'm pretty sure we don't have anything like this here.  What we do have are several library branches in the city.  Their biggest expenditure is probably real estate (not books).  But they do it so they can have branches within walking distances of most people so they can have access to computers. 

[SKL]

Yes, they have free internet for low income areas here as well.  Brand new fiber optic underground cable etc. installed for the purpose.

[LucyStoner]

Wouldn't a drying rack take up at least as much space as a dryer?

 

I understand the electricity part though.

 

We really are spoiled here.

 

But a drying rack can be folded up and put away when not in use, or mounted high on a wall so that you walk under it. You have to shimmy around our drying racks in the hall or on the patio, but they aren't up and in use every waking hour either.

[Amira]

Drying racks definitely are way more flexible.  We've often used the space designated for a dryer for way more useful things than a machine that uses tons of electricity and does something that will happen without any electrical assistance. :)

[SparklyUnicorn]

I don't bother with racks either.  I have a couple of arguments for this.  The stuff comes out wrinkled.  Therefore I have to iron it.  That takes up energy anyway.  Does it take as much as a dryer?  Probably not, but I don't know what the difference would be.  And my second argument is I wash in cold.  Drying it helps kill germs.  The hot is not hot enough to kill germs and my washer does not heat the water.  Ironing probably kills germs.  But then see my first argument.

 

LOL

 

 

[SKL]

I like getting all my laundry washed, dried, and put away in a matter of hours (once every week or three).  And not having to iron.

 

Yep, I'm spoiled.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Me too.

 

I make no apologies for this.  I don't want to spend time on ironing.

 

 

[Amira]

I don't bother with racks either.  I have a couple of arguments for this.  The stuff comes out wrinkled.  Therefore I have to iron it.  That takes up energy anyway.  Does it take as much as a dryer?  Probably not, but I don't know what the difference would be.  And my second argument is I wash in cold.  Drying it helps kill germs.  The hot is not hot enough to kill germs and my washer does not heat the water.  Ironing probably kills germs.  But then see my first argument.

 

LOL

 

Meh.  I wash in cold, never iron, and only line dry.  Your excuses don't convince me.  ;)

[.Michelle.]

I have to do one load of laundry per day to stay on top of things, and that's with re-wearing pajamas, re-using towels, and getting a few days out of jeans.  I'll keep my dryer, thank you.