I don't reallllly want to get into an argument with you, but here goes anyway. Nowhere did you say that this is a single person... but I'll go with you on that.
Going to keep this short, because I realise we are arguing over trivial things. True, I didn't say single person, but I was basing it on the assumption of single person, low income and young (so they are still living with parents and thus low expenses). Be pretty sad actually to be say, 35 years old and still earning 35K net. They obviously did not study hard enough or is just plain lazy. I have no sympathy for people who complain about low wages and unaffordability when they mucked around in high school or spent more than they earned in their youth years. Also, you'd expect dual income to save more (if they tried).
Yes I do - I missed that detail.
I just wrote that for kicks, haha.
So you expect to rent somewhere "cheap" but not have a car. How does one get to work? Not everywhere has reasonable public transport. And not everyone has parents who can continue to put them up for their adult life.
For argument sakes (as I assumed living with parents), you can get share houses for $90 in places like Preston (just one example). No problems with transport there.
Not massive. That's about $14 a day! Not unreasonable, I would think.
Ok, I admit your right on this one. $14 per day is reasonable although arguably, you can go lower than this if you wanted to. Can get free food at the Salvo's for example. But that is getting pretty desperate.
Gas, water, electricity, telephone. Some of us like to wash and be warm/cool. So what do you suggest is "right"?
I know people who live in share houses pay about $350-400 on utilities per quarter. Add mobile phone which is $30 per month and that takes you to less than $500. Probably not a big difference to your $600 but every little bit counts. Of course, living at home, you don't have to pay any of this (maybe just the mobile phone).
It's people like that that stuff up everyone else! I don't want you coming to work with the flu and breathing all over me and passing on your germs.
Don't underestimate Op shop clothes. There are people out there buying these clothes, touching them up a bit and then reselling them like 'designer clothes'.
Going to work the day after breaking your leg sounds pretty irresponsible.
Not when you come from an Asian family and money means everything. You also get no annual or sick leave working in $10 per hour factories so no work = no pay. Can make a lot of difference on tight households.
OK, I'll put my (let's round it up) $6000 pa into ING and get about $300pa!! And if my wage increases at, say, 5% (very generous), then it goes up by about $1700pa. So I might cut 12 months off my savings time.
You are about right based on your assumptions. However, living with parents, cutting the expenses would assist savings drastically.
No you didn't. You just spouted "that's too high", "you can cut down there" without any numbers or reasonable suggestions.
$35K net - $15K annual expenses (equates to just under $300 per week) = $20K. Remember, no rent, pretty much no utilities expenses and other perks I ain't mentioning and pretty easy to save a deposit of $40K (in 2 years, not to mention investing the $20K saved for the 1st year)