this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2024
339 points (98.3% liked)

News

23423 readers
4501 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

A teacher who launched a GoFundMe to help him afford a place to live has put a spotlight on teacher salaries as the new school year begins.

Bill Atkinson, a fourth grade teacher in Austin, Texas, said he began living in his car this summer when his previous living situation fell through and he could not afford rent on his $54,000 annual salary.

"No matter how much I borrowed or scraped, there was no catching up, because I just did not make enough to cover rent -- because I was so used to living paycheck to paycheck, I didn't have anything in savings to try to cover rent for a couple months," he told "Good Morning America." "So I tried to get a place, [but I] was having a hard time finding a place I could afford on my own."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (38 children)

Austin is an expensive place. The town I live in has a similar problem, where in order to live here the teachers need a spouse who can afford it. Otherwise they need to live in a neighboring town. Fortunately you don't have to go too far to find something more affordable, but ideally they'd be able to live in the community where they teach.

I always support professionals making more money. $4500/month before taxes is not a lot for a HCOL area.

That being said, if you know your salary you should be making a budget. There are people who make $25,000/yr. with financial problems, and there are people who make $300,000/yr. with financial problems.

This gentleman says he has bad credit which is a big factor into why he can't get an apartment, so saying he can't afford it is a bit misleading. He even said he has applied for apartments that he can afford. To me the question is how did he get into this situation? Taking on too much debt might be a cause, or just a snowball effect of too many bad financial decisions. Having to repay a grant sounds like it might have been avoidable, but I really don't know how the grant system works.

Either way, if you're in this situation, please make a budget before it gets to this point.

Now getting back on topic, lets pay teachers more!

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (9 children)

I always support professionals making more money.

As a teacher, I couldn't give a toss about whether I'm seen as a member of a profession or not. I support people who do important work in a place - cleaning, maintaining, driving public transport, delivering food and other items - to be able to live reasonably near their place of work.

Everyone should have a decent life, no matter what their job, and no matter whether they are deemed to be professional or not.

 

Either way, if you're in this situation, please make a budget before it gets to this point.

It's hard for all Americans to budget when so many are forced to live paycheck to paycheck in an economic system which profits off the exploitation caused by forced inequality. A quick check gives me results of 65-78% of Americans reporting that they live like this. And yes, you could tell me about some people you know who successfully manage to live in X city on Y income. That's great. But that isn't an answer, because other people are doing it.

Some people have survived being shot in the head. When I come across people who have been shot in the head, I don't say "be more like those people who survived". I call an ambulance.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (8 children)

I'm trying to understand your point about not being able to budget when living paycheck to paycheck. This is when a budget is most important.

I'm sorry that I called teachers professionals. I didn't know it touched a nerve.

[–] qisope 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

because when every bit of your monthly income is already taken up by necessities, any unexpected expense and this budget means nothing. so a surprise expense and you end up falling behind on rent, but there's no available money next month to catch up unless you don't eat, and unfortunately next month will have some other unexpected expense - maybe your car breaks down because it's a piece of junk, but it was all you could afford. and so it spirals. the budget only matters if you have some discretion in how you spend.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

If you have the ability, a tool like YNAB (You Need A Budget) might help.

Here’s a link to the setup video showing the app and its contents. It’s an hour long, but I think it does a really great job of covering the concepts and hitting on what you’re talking about here.

https://youtu.be/wdGhrEKkxsM

I have no affiliation with them except having been a customer for ~10 years now, but it’s done wonders for us. Check it out!

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (33 replies)