This. I hate my job but tell me some other way I can make $300k (I'm basically doing management consulting). I'm 38 with 3 kids and my wife doesn't earn an income (she homeschools the kids). I suck it up so they're well provided for.
300k is nearly 6 times the median US income, and even the median US income is double that of high-quality-of-life places like Germany. Literally most of the planet has happy families with significantly less money than that.
It's facile of me to diagnose your life over the internet but I often think of the deathbed quote:
"I wish I had earned more money and spent less time with my family" -- no one ever
I think that deathbed quote is more about people who had reasonably successful life and had family. I doubt that 100s of millions in 3rd world dying in penury with no family to talk of would make similar statements. Perhaps their statements would be so pedestrian as not to be noted down.
I dated a Columbian girl (an illegal actually) before I met my wife. I remember one day she slapped me across the face and with tears of anger made it clear how stupid I was. My mistake? Uttering the bullshit platitude: "better to be poor and happy than rich and miserable". She said, "you don't know what poor is, we couldn't even afford a toothbrush. We weren't happy we were miserable. How dare you."
That's just evidence that wages are low. Seriously. If I make 6 times the median, we have a problem in this country. I don't know how you buy groceries for a family and pay for healthcare on 50k / yr.
You say "a problem in this country", but my point is that even the <=50k that literally half the US households make is itself a lot of money compared to the 25k earned in a "rich" country like Germany, and other countries are even poorer.
Universal healthcare in Germany likely helps offset the cost to some extent, but in the US those who even have healthcare usually get it through their employer. Really, it's more just a different expectation about what a reasonable life is.
I always think of how complex a television is, with thousands of little tiny components that had to be mined from the earth and forged and assembled and soldered (likely involving some child labor that we'd all prefer not to think about) and how many hundreds of people were involved. And then how it's just assumed in the US that it's reasonable to be able afford one of these in exchange for doing something simple like working a cash register at a bank for a few weeks, or how your quality of life somehow requires having multiple televisions etc.
You literally can't afford food and you are on hacker news? You can afford a computer, your own web site, ... I mean I suppose if you value technology above eating then I suppose technically you can't afford food after you spend your money elsewhere, but the full picture doesn't seem quite as bad as you originally painted it.
I used to type that post a 2013 MacMini, sort of smuggled in the country, that belongs to my startup (not me personally).
The startup ran out of money, and I took the MacMini with me, so I could continue working.
The MacMini is also currently using a damaged HDD, that S.M.A.R.T. keeps telling me should be replaced and is already critical, because I can't afford actually replacing the HDD.
I was kicked out of the apartment I was living, and now I live with my parents, my parents own a store, and by law, all sales must have a tax form filled online, thus internet is a hard requeriment to have a store, I am using that internet connection.
The maintenance of my websites, cost for me in total, about half a month of food.
Currently my source of food is mostly debt (ie: me, my parents, and other extended family members are taking loans to pay basic stuff).
It is not like getting rid of my computer, would help me, my choosen profession, the unprofitable one, is to be a programmer, so I need it to work anyway.
So, it is not a question of valuing technology above eating, it is that I already have technology because of my work, and getting rid of it won't make food sprout on my plate.
Even if I managed to sell all my belongings, I would still be unable to buy food anyway (my net worth is negative, even if I sold every single object I own, somehow for their "new" non-depreciated value, even my glasses, I would still not pay all my debts).
You want my bank account screenshot too? I can tell you how much it has (positive 37.71 BRL, overdraft is disabled)
I honestly doesn't understand why people think I am coming up with lies, I didn't asked for anything, I just shared an anecdote, I am not begging, not trying to guilt-trip people, I was only sharing personal information, the fact that I made a mistake when I decided to follow my passion (programming), when people advised me to instead take a safer profession (construction worker for example) instead.
It is a guideline, and like every guideline, there are exceptions. If your interests and strengths are comic reading, you are not likely to get a job making money in that direction. However if you really enjoy teaching but think accountants would make more money - rather do teaching. You will earn less money, but you will be way happier and more fulfilled.