Where are your statistics?
Hi Charles.
While I agree with the basic premise of your article, that it is better to be frugal, I take issue with how you frame the subject. You talk about spending without ever mentioning income, which is a prerequisite to spending. An analogy would be to discuss the melting of the polar ice caps without discussing global warming.
I grew up poor. My mother had to work 2 jobs just to be able to put a roof over our head and food in our belly. And if she was too sick to work we’d have to go without food here and there. Because we were illegal immigrants at the time, we didn’t dare ask for government assistance. My brother and I both started working at the age of 14 getting paid under the table to help my mom out.
We weren’t in some third world country, we were smack dab in the middle of the United States, aka Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It is nearly impossible for a single parent making $30k a year to work 50% less or cut their spending by 50%, as you suggest.
You might say that this example is anecdotal. So let’s take statistical averages into account. The median personal income in the US is $30k. A full 50% of individuals living in the United States right now make less than $30k, a group which includes my late mother, and me for the first 15 years of my working life.
Having experienced this personally, I question how much you’ve personally suffered. What financial struggles have you experienced? Your post has an air of privilege to it, meaning only a person speaking from a position of privilege can dole out advice that others should cut their spending by 50% to be happier.
When you say choose 2 people at random, then say they are making $40k a year, then you didn’t really choose them randomly did you?
Happiness is Lack of Suffering
When I said it takes $75k a year, I didn’t pull that number out of thin air (as you clearly did with all of your numbers). That number is a result of a study which explored the relationship between income and happiness. It’s not that it takes $75k a year to make someone happy, it’s that at that level of income, suffering is no longer an issue. You no longer have to worry about basic human needs for you and your loved ones.
Because it’s not just personal suffering that you must take into account. It is the suffering of immediate family as well. If I make $40k a year without health insurance and someone in my family gets cancer, I’m in no position to help them. Their life expectancy is shortened due to lack of resources to get proper treatment. Again, this is from personal experience with the caveat that they did in fact have health insurance and were able to afford proper treatment.
Statistical Averages
What bothers me the most about this whole thing is your response to me. In your post all of your evidence is anecdotal, with no actual data to back up your claim. Giving up your car, drinking coffee instead of lattes, all of this can only be done if you are at minimum in the top half of all US earners (meaning you make more than $30k).
The only thing resembling data is at the end of your post, which says:
Frugality is a “philosopher’s stone”. We can cut spending by upwards of 50% to free up huge amounts of resources in the form of money and time. You can then take this money and time and reinvest it in things that really matter.
The average American works 2000 hours a year. Cut work hours by 50%, and that’s an extra 1000 hours a year.
Again, only someone speaking from a position of privilege can tell the average American to work 1,000 hours less per year. You could argue that you are not speaking to the average American, that your intended audience is those making enough ($75k) to be able to cut their spending in half, and I would agree. That was the whole point of my comment.
In fact, your argument wouldn’t even work with the income example you provide, someone making $40k a year (much higher than the median American income). That person, if they work 2k hours, makes roughly $20 an hour. They cut their work in half and their income is less than $20k putting them near the poverty line if they have children. It breaks down even further when you consider that the median worldwide personal income is less than $10k.
So what exactly is your point about statistical averages? If you’re going to make some nonchalant statement about statistics and averages, at least back it up with data. Your comment comes off condescending, as if I’m the one pulling numbers out of thin air and you’re the one using studies and census data as evidence, when the opposite is true.
