r/antiwork • u/Maybeiliketheabuse • 2h ago
No one should fear financial ruin just because life happens
[removed] — view removed post
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u/uber_poutine Fully automated luxury gay space communism 2h ago
"I can fill up without checking my balance first" kinda money
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u/Blackpaw8825 1h ago
It took making 6 figures before I felt like I could just "do whatever" in normal day to day life without needing a 6 month forecast on how it would impact me.
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u/Johnny_B_GOODBOI 39m ago
Same, with a big caveat: My partner and I don't have kids. I think if we had kids, our current combined income would drop us out of the "we don't have to worry about everyday life happening" and directly into "WHY DID YOU THROW AWAY THAT $0.50 COUPON???" territory.
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u/DotesMagee 26m ago
This is us. We are not rich but we are rich in mental health. I dont worry about anything at this point other than a medical emergency. No kids and own a home. Early 30s.
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u/Xarkkal 2h ago
I want "I can go get my painful tooth problem fixed" money.
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u/Blackpaw8825 1h ago
I just did that a week ago.
I had a coverage issue because my employer screwed up my paperwork, so I went in, self paid, and left 2 hours later with a tooth that's not in 3 pieces. It should get covered by time the real crown shows up, once the insurance problem is sorted, but for today I've got all my teeth and waaaay less pain.
The amount of privilege I am aware I have to show up for an emergency dentist visit, drop $700, no longer be suffering, and have it cost my life nothing besides working late every night last week to catch up on the day I mostly missed.
I kinda hate it because all the things like that, the common little storms that I get though simply because we make like 8x the median income in our county is just one lay off away from deciding if I really need to have molars on both sides of mouth or not.
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u/ScottyWestside 1h ago
8x?!?! That’s like half a million a year!!!! Bro, I make $40k. Can you buy my Christmas presents for the kids or something?
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u/Blackpaw8825 1h ago
Yeah I should've stopped and mathed it. I'm not too far off unfortunately.
Median here is $43,700. We make about $170k
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u/BonkeyDongos 1h ago
So what are you doing with that privilege? It’s great you’re acknowledging it. I know you’re not a billionaire. But are you using the extra time/energy you have to fight for people in your community to get the same ease you’ve worked hard to get? I really hope this doesn’t come off as passive aggressive, I just don’t want people to feel apathetic once they’ve positioned themselves and their family in a good place.
I am not so lucky to have that much money. I had to drop $800 on a root canal (even with my insurance) and have had so much trouble trying to get in for an extraction I’ve basically given up. I have to ration the gas in my tank to make sure I can go to both the grocery store and my job. And I try to do my best to help others. I volunteer at a food bank, I go to city council meetings and speak about local issues, I knock doors for politicians that support universal healthcare. I say this not to toot my own horn, but hopefully to inspire action in others. I am so glad you have a comfortable life right now. I hope nothing threatens that. But I hope you’re fighting for people like me too.
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u/beforeitcloy 2h ago
The thing is nothing is wrong with having “fly the whole family first class” money. It’s totally okay to be that kind of rich.
What we need to eliminate is “I can afford to fly private because the employees of the company I invested in can’t afford a vacation at all” money.
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u/LetmeSeeyourSquanch 1h ago
Also the " I can own a private jet, 2 private yachts, a private island and 5 homes while still hoarding billions" kind of money.
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u/Mr_robasaurus 1h ago edited 53m ago
I dont even care if they have all of that if they pay a fair share of taxes, they can play leaderboards with their remaining money just the same.
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u/bulk_logic 48m ago
Billionaires produce more c02 in a couple of hours than an average person does in their entire lifetime, primarily from private jets and yachts. We're more stringent on people passing smog on their daily drivers than we are on the ultra wealthy polluting massively in mere minutes. Even if they were to pay their fair share, they are still poisoning the world to great magnitudes.
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u/atatassault47 🏳️⚧️ Leftist 1h ago
Coughtaylorswiftcough
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u/greg19735 48m ago
yeah anyone with multiple yachts. Like even Gabe Newell.
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u/LordVerlion 19m ago
Gabe is honestly someone who should be looked at separately. Simply because he's pretty much the only rich person I can think of that made his money in a mostly morally correct way. He didn't make his money by paying his employees dimes or committing fraud. If you can make 'multiple yacht' money this way, you're fine in my book. I haven't looked into his tax situation though so I'm not sure if him or Steam have paid their fair share of taxes or avoided it like all the other rich people/companies.
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u/EnvironmentalCare900 59m ago
When people tell me they have a good job, or work for a good company I now in 2026 ask them if they can afford to put their kids in private school, if they can also afford 2 vacations a year, I want to know if they have enough saving that they can afford to quit their job and take 6 months to find a new one if their current employer starts mistreating or taking advantage of their employees?
I quickly realize that most people’s idea of a good employer is them not getting in trouble for taking an extra five minutes at lunch…
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u/Shadowraiden 49m ago
its this. its the fact they are draining the wealth from everyone else.
they can be rich aslong as everybody else isnt literally living in utter poverty because they drained money constantly out of the economy
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u/halcyonforeveragain 41m ago
What's funny is flying private is only 2x the cost of flying a family of 5. When a trip estimate came back at $5000 for airfare, I thought I'd see what the cost to charter a flight was.
It was under $10,000. Still a ton of money but not nearly as crazy as I expected to go from economy to a private flight.
Now if I can just get the stupid charter service to stop spamming me years later because I looked up prices once.
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u/PsychologyNew8033 2h ago
This is exactly right. I want enough money to not have to worry about money.
I don’t need a new car every couple of years, don’t need to have the newest electronics, etc.
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u/stronkulance 1h ago
Not that long ago, I didn’t get extreme anxiety at the end of the month looking at my account and knowing what bills I had to pay. That is no longer the case.
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u/NiceRat123 2h ago
Literally had a 90 year old investment banker tell me that ALL 2 story houses should have an elevator. That way later in life they dont have to sell their house or modify it. I lost some faith in humanity that day
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u/Svyatoy_Medved 2h ago
Yeah, I’m not sure about that. Moving to a rambler when you get older isn’t that bad. Let a new family have the big family house, downsize once the kids move out. That’s consistent with anti-capitalist anti-consumption ideology.
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u/eoz 1h ago
all fun and games until you realise you have to spend a bunch of money maintaining it
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u/NiceRat123 1h ago
See my other reply. And yeah the guy that put in an elevator thing went slow as crap. What happened was cutting through the floors and drywall created a ton of dust that clogged up the vacuum system so it ran very slowly. Cant imagine dropping that kind of coin and basically wondering if the unit would just stop between floors
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u/WankPuffin 54m ago
I'm surprised that vacuum works at all. Most people don't know that you need a special filter in a vacuum to handle drywall dust, even in a shopvac. The dust is so fine that it gets right through a regular filter and into all the mechanics/motors.
Source: Me, I am a contractor that hasn't killed a shopvac but know many that have.
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u/AlphonseLoeher 39m ago
It's nice to see investment bankers concerned about accessibility and advocating for the disabled. Boo on you for "losing faith in humanity". Ableism is not a joke.
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u/wuuuuutaaaang 36m ago
it's actually a fiar point and it's illustrative of something depressing. We're skipping a bathroom reno because we need to leave room to add an elevator if we sell the house. basically leaving a useless closet intact instead of adding a shower. why are we doing that?
Because old people want houses with elevators and they are the ones with the big money. Gotta target the geriatric audience. Two houses in our neighborhood got scraped and both new builds have elevators.
Would be nice for our dog if we had one
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u/NiceRat123 32m ago
His elderly wife also told me that they dont agree with student loans and that back in their day they didn't have them and they did work study if they ccouldn't afford the tuition (which was about 5k for 4 years)
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u/wuuuuutaaaang 21m ago
NYT had an article on student loans where the thesis was basically "college is overpriced because of student loans" and it made me mad. it's like saying housing is expensive because mortgages exist. like yeah kind of? but people still need housing?
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u/Optimal-Cat-8117 2h ago
They did have a point though
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u/NiceRat123 2h ago edited 1h ago
Maybe. But also know someone that put an elevator in their home. It was like the bank teller tube style vacuum system one. Cost.... $100,000.00
EDIT: Here is a link on reddit for a pneumatic vacuum elevator (from 4 years ago). And this dude had a FOUR story home not a 2 story
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u/TheReverendCard 1h ago
Easy to fund if you rent out the 3 empty bedrooms.
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u/TheReverendCard 1h ago
Especially since home wheelchair lifts can be installed for under 5K if you already have the space. Sucks to be you when it requires a remodel to fit it, though.
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u/deadboltwolf 1h ago
I've been saying this for years.
I don't want to be rich. I don't want to be wealthy. I don't want to live in a gated community or own a yacht or spend my days golfing.
I just want to be able to pay my bills without tears welling up in my eyes. I want to be able to check my bank account without having a panic attack. I want to know what it's like to not live paycheck to paycheck.
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u/chrysanthemumasterac 1h ago
Right now I have ‘ask the cashier if you can put some stuff back’ money
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u/rosephoenix19 1h ago
I want to be able to buy groceries for me and my kids and also fill up my tank without overdrafting my account.
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u/sheikhyerbouti Come and see the violence inherent in the system! 1h ago
The only reason why I'm able to afford a house, save, and go on vacations is because my wife and I are DINKs.
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u/Harknights 1h ago
Rich people don't understand that tweet in any way. Most of them don't have to deal with any of those things, so they just don't understand at all.
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u/lynxtosg03 53m ago
Time to start electing people that support UBI and ranked choice voting. Without ranked choice voting we will never see significant change in our lifetime.
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u/HiCookieJack 50m ago
or for taxing the super wealthy
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u/lynxtosg03 47m ago
You're assuming the tax dollars go to you. We can try to get people to rollback tax codes to the early 70's but I would rather we prioritize where that money should be directed.
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u/PM_me_cats_pls_ty 34m ago
Agreed, the less money the rich have the easier things get. It’s all one circlejerk.
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u/ladymouserat 2h ago
We should be wanting to put our family in first class AND still be able to pay all the bills on time
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u/LongLiveStaceyKing 1h ago
Do not mistake how terribly oppressed the working class is to the point where being able to afford a disaster in life is the end of our demands rather than the very beginnings of them.
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u/ThatsSoWitty 1h ago
Every time in my life I've finally hit a financial milestone of making good money with a job, inflation hits or another recession hits and I'm right back where I started. I'm just tired of credit cards, debt, and having every paycheck go to other people. My kids are fed and clothed and I should be proud of that but man, it's exhausting enough working full time and raising three kids that if your job is to run the economy, you should be able to fucking do it without making everyone else miserable or it's time for you to go
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u/WhatFreshHello 1h ago edited 55m ago
Nah, I still want “fly the whole family first class money”.
Anyone who flew coach a few decades ago has had the equivalent of today’s first-class experience. Air travel has been enshittified to such a degree that at some point “cattle class” entered the lexicon
In the US today, running the gauntlet of long lines and hostile security theater only to be crammed into a broken-down shitbox is little more than a wildly expensive humiliation ritual.
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u/FaithlessnessBorn266 1h ago
This is why capitalism is inherently evil. This fact cannot ever change as it's baked into the rules.
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u/SaltManagement42 58m ago
Don't forget the part where the alternative to replacing the washer, or paying the dentist bill when you first notice a problem would generally be things like paying more money overall (per load) to use the laundromat, or waiting until the dentist visit is an emergency with a much larger bill.
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u/therallystache Anarcho-Communist 32m ago
Where I live, this feeling starts around $140k a year. The folks making $30/hr here aren't even thinking about the dentist bill, because they just aren't even going. They're choosing between gas and food.
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u/Legitimate_Bank_6573 22m ago
This post makes me feel poor :(
I can't afford a washer.
I haven't been able to afford a dentist in years.
I pay rent...
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u/Defspace 1h ago
All valid points, but I don't think he understands the joy a golden toilet in a billionaire's second yacht brings.
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u/tegresaomos 2h ago
That’s right!
Folks really only want to barely get by, not vacations.
They just want to maintain, not prosper.
Abused, not treated fairly.
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u/Svyatoy_Medved 2h ago
I think you’re being a little uncharitable. You can read the above as saying “when something shitty happens, you should be able to afford replacing it without really sacrificing much.” If MY washer broke, I’d be able to replace it, but that would be my fun-stuff budget for the month. If telling someone the washer broke ended with “and then I replaced it,” I would imagine I’d have enough money to go on a weekend trip when I feel like it, even if I still can’t fly first-class to beach week.
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u/drunkshinobi 1h ago
I don't think that what we want is money at all. Money is just the thing they make us collect to get what we want. You all say you want enough to not worry about having it. What if instead of money we all just showed up to work to be part of a society? To feel useful? If we got rid of all the useless jobs that do nothing but make society jump through hoops to prove they earned the right to survive, we could feel productive at work. If you do work that is meaningful instead you will feel better about yourself and the world you live in. If we just worked to provide for everyone maybe everyone wouldn't be so antisocial. Trying to compete with each other for everything and hoarding as much as they can. While hoping their political representatives hurt the right people.
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u/TheReverendCard 1h ago
The measure of societal/economic success shouldn't be numbers in a bank account. It should be living without want.
By that measure, most of the rich are impoverished.
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u/NameLips 1h ago
Raises hand.
That's not supposed to feel like wealth. That's supposed to feel like middle class. It's supposed to be attainable by anybody who studies and works hard.
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u/Thare187 59m ago
I'm a husband with two children. Up until about 2020 we were floating by. By a stroke of luck my business took off and we've nearly tripled our income since then. I'm not wealthy, but we're comfortable and have money left over at the end of the month that I can dump into a retirement investment. I've been on both sides of this post and the feeling that knowing that my wife's recent $450 doctor bill isn't going to stop us from eating or doing something nice with the kids is really the most stress reducing relief I've ever felt. My biggest fear is that it goes away somehow.
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u/____DEADPOOL_______ Life doesn't have to be this way. 56m ago
This is how I feel living in Australia.
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u/No_Vegetable7280 56m ago
People want to survive comfortably, for their time, labor, and taxes paid.
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u/Drexel_Spivy 56m ago
Lower class pressuring the middle class to fight the upper class would help.
Problem with our society as a whole is how many people are just numb to the massive inequality. When the street is full of bodies is not personal failing its the system not living up to its part of the bargain any longer.
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u/tom_friday_ 53m ago
A year ago I walked into a bookstore, looked at different things, couldnt afford 1 book.
A few months ago I went to the same store, saw a couple of books I liked, bought them. I didn't have to check my account first. It felt incredible.
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u/treedecor 46m ago
I've been saying this for years and always get called an entitled freedom hating commie for it lol
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u/DetroitsGoingToWin 44m ago
I want in-ground pool heater running in a Michigan October money.
I want going to a concert Wednesday night and sleeping in Thursday without a care money.
I want sign my kids up for travel sports money.
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u/humanist-misanthrope 38m ago
For me, being rich was when my wife said I could start buying cut up fruit at the store. After 20+ years together we had finally reached personal and professional levels that I could pay the premium for cut up cantaloupe. That was genuinely a monumental moment for me.
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u/ExcitementMassive607 33m ago
You don't want to fly the whole family first class, but you CAN. That should be the kind of choice people should have. Being able to afford to have something go wrong is called just about surviving. Gratitude is important, but accepting that standard of living as good enough isn't good. Money make you happy and we should all have enough CHOICE about how we spend what we earn
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u/xSTSxZerglingOne 24m ago
That's also near the point where money and happiness diverge. The middle class is an awesome thing when it exists.
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u/National-Agent-2293 17m ago
Daughter had to go to residential treatment. $60,000 in uncovered medical expenses (we have insurance, I guess just not the 'save your daughters life' type of insurance) we should have just let it gone to collections and ruined our life early. Instead we put it on credit and home equity loan, and ruined our life slowly. We will eventually get out from it but we just need absolutely nothing else to occur for about another 4 years.
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u/flamingfiretrucks 17m ago
Comparing replacing a necessary home appliance and paying for necessary medical care to flying first class is an insane take.
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u/ImTooSaxy 16m ago
I just saw that inexplicably, Timeshares are selling now more than ever. Fucking Timeshares. If poor people had more money they would just blow it on dumb shit like Timeshares.
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u/Shoddy_Background_48 1h ago
They want "the washer is broken, and i want it repaired, not 'replaced' for $2k" money
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u/TrueAkagami 1h ago
Umm.....tf? I want "fly the family first class" money. How disconnected is this a-hole?
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u/MiserableSkill4 1h ago
How disconnected are you?
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u/TrueAkagami 1h ago
My point is I don't just want to barely survive. Having just enough money to take care of the bare minimum. I want to be able to take my family on nice vacations while being able to take care of things around the house.
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u/AdministrativeWin583 1h ago
Then I am not most people. I want multimillion dollar ocean front property paid in cash money. I want fuck first.class, gas up the jet money. I want name a hospital wing after me money.
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u/cpolito87 2h ago
I had a heart attack in August 2025. I spent 4 days in the hospital.I am still paying medical bills for it. I had "good" insurance at the time.