I'm skeptical of the methodology and explanation as presented in this article, but similar things have been observed in the academic literature.
The most famous one I can think of is the pre-FOMC announcement drift (https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff...). The authors observe that "80% of annual realized excess stock returns since 1994" are accounted for by the 24 hours of trading before an FOMC announcement. If we take this as evidence that the Fed "causes" most of the stock market's move (which we probably shouldn't), the effect is nothing new.
The only thing I got out of this was that the author needs to learn personal finance skills.
If she just got a roommate and sold her car, she could easily afford to eat and more. I can't imagine how one person who claims to spend a lot of time at work manages to rack up a $120 PG&E bill.
They claim they make $8.15/hr after taxes. That's around $16k/yr. I don't know how well they are budgeting, but I wouldn't want to try to live in the bay area on that salary. This letter might not have been a good idea, but I don't see how she had a decent job.
Yeah, I know. I wouldn't think of living without roommates in the bay area at her age.
It sounds like she moved to the bay area with a fantasy about what her life would be like, and some optimistic ideas about work, and she never stopped to do the math.
Hopefully she'll learn from this experience. Everyone has to learn the value of planning and thinking strategically at some point in time - for some it's 14, for others it's 40.
She totally needs roommates. It appears she has $221/mo after paying rent to go to everything else. That's financially suicidal. If she got just one roommate to share that $1245 apartment, she'd almost have the $600 she said she wanted.
If you can't afford mobility, privacy or comfort then you will have to go without or change your situation. It's a sensible and realistic suggestion and hardly dispassionate.
And while I can't speak for the above poster, many of us have gone without transport, heat, privacy, food and health care.
If you can't afford those things, you have to go without. Do you have another option? Like pulling money out of a magician's hat?
there's a lot of awful stuff in this thread. is it a any wonder that people go on to create yelps and amazons and treat their workers like shit with this huge compassion deficit. horrifying.
Most of the world goes without luxurious transportation (they walk, ride bikes, and use public transit).
They also have privacy by having their own room in a shared apartment.
I can assure you that if you are spending $120 because you turned on the heat, you are doing something incredibly wrong. I live here and it never gets that cold.
The most famous one I can think of is the pre-FOMC announcement drift (https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff...). The authors observe that "80% of annual realized excess stock returns since 1994" are accounted for by the 24 hours of trading before an FOMC announcement. If we take this as evidence that the Fed "causes" most of the stock market's move (which we probably shouldn't), the effect is nothing new.