The economy is fine! We just have… money dysmorphia. /s

The gaslighting is at warp speed now.

  • homura1650@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Are we still complaining about Starbucks? Let’s call it $7 for a coffee. That comes to about $2555 a year. Sounds like a lot of money.

    Say I wanted to buy a house. The median home price in the start of 2020 was $329000. End of 2023, it was $417,700 (down from its peak). An increase of $88,700. Assuming a down payment of 20%, your median down payment went up buy $17,740. Almost 7 years worth of Starbucks. In just 3 years.

    But wait. Interest rates also changed. Assuming the same %20 down payment, your principle increased by $70,960. The 30 year mortgage over that time went up from around %3.72 to %6.66. An increase of about %2.9. The increased interest on the increased principle is about $2,057; so I guess your Starbucks habbit would cover that.

    Of course, that is a strange metric. You pay the full %6.66 on the increased principle. The %2.9 is the additional interest you pay on the original principle. So your annual interest payments went up by $12,358 just for delaying your purchase by 3 years. If you cut off your 4.8 starbucks coffees a day addiction, you’ll be able to afford this increase.

    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS

    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MORTGAGE30US

    • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Hey, you do you. If $2555 isn’t a lot of money to you then you’re in the 0.1% of people. Most of us aren’t in a privlidged position like that so being able to cut down in repeating small expenses like that is going to have a massive effect on our personal finances. 2.5k is about what I earn in a month. I like coffee too but not so much that I’d be willing to work for a month to pay for it. That amount of money covers my groceries for 4 months. Seems like better value for my money.