General Discussion

Let me explain. If you took our general situation, wages vs. expenses, we'd be a fair bit worse. 5% increase in income since 2019, and expenses have just been spiraling in places. Not just groceries. Things like insurance. Our home owner's insurance just went "WTF?!" in recent years. Auto. Health, etc. Utilities are flyin upwards. Gotta love that PG&E. Lot of things sapped at our base income.

However! How-ev-er. We're not struggling. We're towards the higher end of middle class? I don't know where we land, because the numbers are a lot different in the Bay Area of California. But we've been fairly comfortable DINKS.

On paper, there are some things. Our home value increased 30% since 2019. Great for us! Not for anyone else, but great for us! Because we actually are home owners. And more or less fuck you if you didn't buy pre-pandemic. We're also insulated from the PG&E shitshow. All our friends are complaining - can't wait until the summer to watch this one - but we're fine. Why? Because we threw $20,000 at solar. Because we had $20,000 to throw at solar. We're about to be a lot better, because I went back to school and will make significantly more once I'm done. That's not an economy thing, though. That's a personal initiative thing. I'm bustin my ass to do this.

Because we already had money, we're insulated from a lot of the problems. But if it was a straight up income vs. costs, no we'd not be doing better. The increase in various costs would be awful if our income was the sole metric.

And I think DU is showing this a bit. Much older demographic. I've been calling it "Got mine!" better.

It's a K-shape. If you're good, there are things like stocks and property that keep you good. If you're paycheck to paycheck, cost increases in various areas can eat you away.

My friends who were already good are still good. My friends who were dog paddling to make it are dog paddling just a little bit harder these days.