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On How Joe Berkowitz Does Money
oh man, i have such a huge internet crush on joe berkowitz.
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On New York is Expensive, But Not As Expensive As Before
Yeah, I always get confused about how Tokyo and Osaka could possibly be on this list. I lived for a year in a VERY central area of Tokyo (one station away from Shinjuku) and paid $700 a month for a room in a classy guesthouse (which is like a really huge communal house--I think mine had 10-12 people in it). You could definitely get a room a lot cheaper than that--I was paying for location + cleanliness (the place paid for a cleaner for common areas.) And I strongly suspect real estate in Osaka is dirt cheap compared to Tokyo. When I lived there it was in a dorm in the suburbs, but things certainly seemed cheaper than Tokyo. As a chronically poor person, I would way rather live in Tokyo than New York, just based on what I've read in this very blog about trying to get apartments there. Plus Tokyo is one of the safest cities in the world, so you can pretty much take all the money-shortcuts you need to without worrying about being anything.
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On Middle Class in the City
@cryptolect what kind of crazy math is that?? Back in my salad days I made around $30k a year and my takehome was around $2,500 ... now I live on a juuust above minimum-wage grad student stipend and I still make nearly $1500 a month (I'd make that much if I didn't have to pay for health care.)
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On Betting on Love, Leveling Up and Leaving Atlanta (Part II)
@Patrick Yeah, I kind of have mixed feelings about this post. It's great to have dreams and think about living in new places, and it is sometimes true that you do just have to get out of a place--living in an old logging town in rural Oregon, say, with the 9% unemployment that we cherish in the Pacific Northwest, is probably not going to work out for anyone. But Atlanta? I find it hard to believe any big city can be *that* bad. And I do say this having felt many of these same things myself. If there's any advice I would give my 23 year old self, it would be: "Wherever you go, you take yourself with you." Also, you really don't need $10,000 to move to a new city in the US, for goodness sake! You're 23, you have your health (well, I presume)--my mother had moved to another COUNTRY and traveled nonstop for 6 months by the time she was 23, and she didn't wait to save up a pile of money. This is the time in your life to just DO stuff.
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On Reasons to Work (Too?) Hard
I lived in Japan for 2 years, working at a Japanese high school. I also spent a year tutoring Japanese businessmen in Tokyo. I can tell you that I personally met men who worked 12 hour days, 7 days a week, and put themselves in the hospital over it. I can also tell you that even though my colleagues at said school spent long hours at the school and gave up much of their independence (you were required to notify the school if you spent more than 2 days out of the prefecture) they didn't actually get all that much done. Incompetence and laziness was just as rampant as at any company I ever worked at in the States. We were forced to stay at work 8 hours a day during the summer vacation--even though there was absolutely nothing to do, since the kids were out of school. Most of my co-workers spent the time sleeping at their desks, reading the paper, and smoking in the school garden. The Japanese work ethic is incredibly inefficient and it's one of the reasons the economy is in the toilet. Don't even get me started on the culture of non-stop construction and public works projects in the countryside, which I believe is the direct consequence of this culture--you have to look like you're working, but nothing ever actually gets done.
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On Grad School Fools
As someone in grad school, the idea that it "stands for hope" is literally insane. What hope do people in grad school have? A minimum wage job with too many responsibilities, a virtually non-existent job market, and an expensive degree that will most likely never result in greater earning power than the associate's degrees my parents have. My friends and I went to grad school despite knowing all that, because it means getting to do something we love. Grad school has never been a way to escape the responsibilities of the real world. Does the author think my rent is magically paid and I no longer receive paychecks or have to report to a boss? That has never been the case for grad school.
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On Monday Check-In
Friday: coffee and biscotti at my favorite coffee shop ($5), a gorgeous green dress & a summery top from second-hand store ($37), dinner with the dude ($15), too many drinks at birthday party ($0, dude paid) Saturday: hungover pancakes ($0, dude paid), lots of necessary lady things at Target ($39.90), coffee ($3), party at friend's house for an autism fundraiser ($10 donation) Sunday: Groceries at Trader Joe's ($58.03), sparkling wine for get-together that night ($13) Total: 180.93 This is my first Monday check-in and I didn't estimate beforehand, but I wanted a good excuse to add it all up, and wow... it was quite a lot. Guess that's why we all do this! Still, I had a good time with friends and a very busy social weekend.