Depends where you live. I am nowhere near a billion, but together my wife and I have a mid 6-figure income, and we’re in a LCOL area. I haven’t worried about money in over a decade, almost 2. If I lived in a wealthy coastal city, I would have to worry about money a lot.

is rent actually that bad in the US?

Short answer: Not really, but sometimes.

Much longer answer:

<rant>

You can’t take the USA as a whole. There are studio apartments near me for $600/mo, and you can get a 3 bedroom for $1200 easily. You can scrape by on minimum wage here (it won’t be fun, but you’ll survive). If you get one of the “good” jobs, like at the Amazon warehouse, you’re living large on that $20/hr. Even better if you have a partner who also works. I know a couple who both work full time at the Amazon warehouse and they don’t have any kids, so they’re DINKs, and their rent is less than 1/6th of their gross income.

But I’m in a very low cost of living area. My friend who lives in a wealthy coastal city pays $5400/mo for her 3 bedroom with a beautiful view of the San Fransisco bay. The cost of living varies wildly by location.

My sister-in-law wanted to move closer to my wife and I, so she could see her niblings more often. I gave her a check for $10,000, and took her to a foreclosure auction. She now has a two bedroom house, with a nice (but not huge) backyard, and she left that auction with enough money in her pocket to renovate her new house a bit. No mortgage, she owns it outright.

I bought my huge house, sitting on acres of land in 2009, right after the crash. So it’s not a typical result just to be clear, but I paid $40k, and spent another $20k fixing it up before we moved in. $60k, all told, to fully own a house and a ton of land. I have a creek running through my back yard, and I can stand there and fish whenever I want. I’ve got woods on my property, great for hunting. My property/school taxes come to under $1200/yr total, so my “rent” is about $90/mo. Between my wife and I, we made $560k last year, so we’re in the bracket where we don’t worry about money at all. Our essential bills come to about $30k/yr, the rest gets saved/invested, with a bit going to fun stuff.

You can’t do that where I grew up. Condos (basically an apartment you own instead of rent) in my home town go for literally millions of dollars. The cheapest place I could find doing a quick Zillow search was $499k. The good places go for 4-5 million bucks. And holy shit, the taxes are high.

The USA isn’t so much a country, as much as it is 50 smaller countries in a trenchcoat. You know how annoying it is when someone says “Do Europeans really do [thing]?!?!?” without mentioning the country? That’s basically the same situation as asking “Is the USA really like [thing]?” without mentioning the state.

Some of us grow/hunt/raise most of our food. I harvested and butchered two pigs yesterday. That a lot of almost free pork. Some of us shop at Erewhon, where a single imported Japanese strawberry can cost you $20. They have $100 melons. They sell a half gallon (roughly 2 liters) of water for $26. I get my water from a well, and it’s basically free.

The coasts may as well be a different world entirely than the flyover states. I moved to a flyover state because I knew that my life goals were incompatible with living in a coastal city.

</rant>

We also don’t know when this quote came out.

We actually do, the answer is “never”. It’s from a satire site called Clickhole. She never said this.

The USA was founded on genocide and built by slavery. Please, for the love of truth, stop with the hyperbole.

I made some about a year ago, just for the nostalgia. It was so salty that I sincerely could not finish my plate. Two bites in, and that shit went in the trash. Normally if I have food I’m not gonna finish, I toss it to the pigs, or into the compost pile. But this was so bad I didn’t feel right feeding it to literal pigs. And with that much salt, it might never decompose.

The only place in the USA where you can still get a McPizza is the “Epic McD’s” in Orlando Florida.

I’m personally a huge fan of Werner, I order from them every month. I’ve got some of their jerky chew in my lip right now. They also sell some very interesting candies, like Chamoy gummy bears/worms/rings and some amazing salt water taffy. The Cucharitas (Mexican tamarind based candy) are absolutely delicious. They’re a small-ish family owned business, operating in Oregon since 1994. Takes about a week for shipping, but that’s not too bad.

If you’re looking for something really dry, People’s Choice Beef Jerky is the driest jerky I’ve ever had. Just make sure to order the “Old Fashioned” and not the “Classic” if you want the super dry stuff. Their Carne Seca is pretty good too, I like the limon con chile flavor. They also try out new flavors/products all the time, if you like variety. Right now, their Test Kitchen is selling a Nashville Hot flavor, and that stuff is damn good. They had a really nice Gochujang flavor, but it’s been sold out for weeks.

Since none of the other people who replied directly to you bothered reading the article, I’ll give you the actual answer instead of just spouting doomerslop:

Addressing these concerns, University of Washington News assistant director Jackson Holtz clarified that a single family’s decision to opt out would actually exclude their entire classroom from the research. Ultimately, Holtz stated that this initial outreach was designed to gauge parent sentiment on AI, and based on the early negative feedback received, the university has entirely terminated the study and is notifying all participating sites.

They canceled the entire program because so many parents opted out. It’s a nothingburger, with extra nothing.

I eat at least 2 blood oranges a day, sometimes 5 or even 6. They taste so damn good, and they’re relatively cheap ($1.49/lb). I literally always have at least 4 pounds on hand, but I just restocked, so I’ve got 12 pounds at the moment. Sometimes, in the summer, I buy extra so I can juice them. Then I mix the juice with pomegranate juice, and pour the mix over ice in a kala namak rimmed glass. Vodka optional.

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

-JFK

My mother-in-law is not long for this world. I’ve known this woman since I was 14. She took care of me when my own mother kicked me out for dating a Mexican girl (my now-wife). She opened her home to me. She made dinner for me more times than I can count (and taught me to cook). She bought my clothes through most of High School. She taught me to drive. She taught me how to use a bank account. She was there for me when my father died, and then she was there for me again when my mom died. She showed me what a good parent is like. She’s the kindest person I’ve ever known. I’ve never heard her say anything bad about anyone. This woman doesn’t have a hateful bone in her body. She has no evil in her heart. I’ve spent the past 37 years holding her up as a role model for my own life.

When my wife and I had an unplanned baby at age 19, she stepped up and helped any time we needed it. She never made us feel guilty. She never guilt tripped us. She gave us nothing but love, and help. If my own mom knew I had a half Mexican baby, she’d be furious. But my MiL never judged me for being white.

She even moved to a different state (NJ–>PA) with us when we decided to relocate to my realize my dream of buying a restaurant. She lives in a MiL suite above my garage, rent free. She still insists on cooking for the family sometimes. I’m at work right now, and she’s smoking some goat for our tacos tonight. I won’t get home for about 5.5hrs, and I bet she’s going to have my tacos ready when I walk in the door.

But age is age, we all get old, and eventually we die. That time is coming for her soon. She’ll be lucky to see another full year. I’m going to miss her terribly. I can (and do) dump ridiculous amounts of money into her care, and it’s worth it. But it isn’t going to be much longer until the doctors tell me there’s nothing they can do. I am dreading that day.

I can’t unload this on my wife, it wouldn’t be fair. She can see the writing on the wall. And she is going to be hurting much more than I am when push comes to shove. I’m going to be the “strong” one, and support her. But Jesus fucking Christ, I am going to miss my MiL so much.

Paragraph 1) It gets very hot here.

Paragraph 2) Even in the winter, we just turn the heat on.

Paragraph 3) I shit a lot.

In short, your teacher was an idiot.

“It’s Swedish for blue shark.”

It’s really not complicated.

The climate is colder in North America

It’s gonna be 81f (27c) where I live today, and it’s not even summer yet. At the peak of summer, we regularly get temperatures over 100f (~38c). We’ve even seen 111f (43.8c) in my state, and I don’t live in the hottest state, not by a long shot. Your teacher was incredibly ignorant.

It does get really cold here in the winter, but thankfully humans have developed these things called heaters, so it’s not cold indoors. I go from my heated house, to my heated garage, get into my car (which also has heat), and drive to my heated workplace, or the heated supermarket. Then I do the same trip in reverse. I’m only exposed to the extreme cold for 2-3 minutes the whole trip.

As far as shitting, I have IBS-D. I’d be so fucking happy if I could manage to only shit once a day. On bad days, I’m on the toilet 10-12 times.

I work 3 days, not four, but I want to chime in. I work 11am-11pm on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. 36 hours a week. It’s pretty sweet. Mondays, I sleep a bit extra, and generally chill with my family and pets. Monday is my recovery day. It’s also the only day my wife smokes weed, so I get high with her every Monday night. Tuesdays are for shopping/mealprep. I take my neighbor to the supermarket with me for Double Coupon day, and in exchange, I get to use her senior discount since I just pay her the money and she “buys” my groceries. Then I make big batches of food so that my family can just grab a pre-portioned container and toss it in the nuker as needed. Wednesdays are for appointments, errands, and any other adulting I need to do. I also do most of my heavy gardening work on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Thursdays I generally go to an event in the Public Square during good weather, and then a free concert at the casino at night. If the weather is bad, I watch some shows, movies, old school football games, or do some gaming. Then comes Friday, so I’m off to work again, bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to face the work week.

I think the lead poisoning was not confined to Flint.

We burned leaded gasoline for over 4 decades. The air was laced with lead.

Talking strictly about lead exposure from water pipes, the problem is much more widespread than most people know/understand. The article I’m linking below has an interactive map of all known areas with lead pipes.

https://www.nrdc.org/resources/lead-pipes-are-widespread-and-used-every-state

I bet small amounts on NFL games when the season is active. $10-$20 a week.

I go to the casino a couple times a year with a set amount of money (usually $500), and if I lose that money, I leave.

I’m glad it’s legal. Some folks get addicted, and that sucks, but the same can be said about booze, prescription drugs, and even food. We don’t need a nanny state banning things because some people go overboard.

I use Facebook to communicate with my family, since that’s where our group chat is. I don’t use my real name on there, but rather [MiddleName] [Grandmother’sMaidenName], and my profile pic is a cat. Sometimes I post pics of particularly good meals I made, so they come up in the “memories” feed and remind me to cook them again.

I follow a lot of chefs on Instagram, mainly for inspiration and to find new recipes.

That’s the extent of my traditional social media use.

The discount grocery places near me are incredible. They recently had eggs for 50 cents a dozen. They currently have 10lb cases of knockoff brand Steak-Umms for $37, meanwhile in the normal grocery store a 27 ounce “value pack” is $11. If you’re a snacky kind of person, they sell a 50 count variety pack of Wise brand chips for $5, while at Walmart the 40 count box of store brand chips is $16. 12oz packs of bacon are only $1.99, while the Walmart is charging $7. Shopping there feels like using a cheat code.

The only downside is that you never know what you’re gonna find there. You can’t go in with a list and expect to check all the items off. I like to go in with my list, and low expectations. Then anything I can’t get there, I go to the normal grocery store.

I volunteer at a food pantry and a soup kitchen, and neither of them does any means testing at all. No paperwork, no questions other than the food pantry asking how many people are in your family so they know how many boxes to give you. Each box is ~30lbs of food. We give out rice, beans, canned veg, canned meat, and in the summer, some fresh fruit and veg grown on some land the church owns. We used to give out a lot of potatoes, but then the guy we were getting them from decided that selling them to the pig farm was a better idea then giving them to humans in need.