Someone making $25k per year as a single person? After deductions, they should be under $2500 in federal tax. That's $1875 a month gross. When I was about that, I rented a place for about $200 (don't be above rooming with someone or renting a room in someone else's apartment), and made sure it was convenient to shops and work. No car, and with a roomate, that often doesn't mean no transport for the odd times you need a car. $10 a day for food - $300 a month. So $500 a month in room and board. $0 on health care (yes, that takes luck, when you have nothing, you depend on luck some). So with $1375 a month in disposable income, you could save. My first "home" was $80k. That takes $16k down, or about 2 years of tough saving. After that, I made over $1000 a month in appreciation. Get in when you can, where you can, and trade up. My experience is land appreciates, buildings don't. So don't buy condos or such if you can avoid it. And be willing to move to follow work and housing. Right now, there are places with insanely low housing (and not just Detroit).

Of course, it's easier for me, I was in the top 10% of earned income earners in the US, and moved out, to a place with higher cost of living, and higher pay. I managed to pay off my last US house, and it's rented out for a tidy profit, and I own two homes here (both with mortgage), sucking a large chink of cash, but appreciating at about $150,000 per year at the moment. Yes, I'm making more as a land owner than working. But you have to get on the ladder to climb it. And until I had my first place, I lived pretty frugally.

You don't rent for that. You buy, as much as you can. 30 years, you'll at least be rent free. And in that 30 years, the land will appreciate. I've made more owning my home than working, and I make more than average.

I've heard that a lot, but I put in 15k per year in a 401k (the max) even when I didn't make much more than 15k. Prospects are a result of location and skills. You should have changed what you could. I have multiple times, and always for the better.

If they smoked.

When they pick the "bad guys" to go for, get hit, and keep going back for more (and having children in that abusive environment).

The OP set a context, and his reply was well within that context.

A bigot is a person who sees someone laying in the mud as says "they are dirty". For all the bigot knows, they are trying out a new plastic spray that covers a person in an impenetrable field of clean. Or, the more likely explanation of "they are dirty" may be right, but you have to make the correct person feel bad for being correct to feel better about the existence of dirty people.

It is an option for everyone. Just get a job that lets you work without physical exertion. Even an laborer can do it, laborers need skilled supervisors.

I'm not sure you are the best person to take such advice from. If it worked, why haven't you tried it? If you have tried it, it obviously didn't take.

That will help me stop pointing out your bad statistics?

Is it still irrational to pay more for it if it works better?

A number don't like it, especially dealers. The base unit is a $50 piece of junk, the $500 option cost them $100, and the $5000 option cost them under $1000. $4000 extra profit per car is a nice thing.

Yeah, but if you are unemplyed, rob a bank to make up the difference. The best thing is, proceeds from robery are tax free, as the bank never files the 1099 under the right SSN.

A touring golf pro making $1,000,000 a year is scraping by. Paying 20-50% of that to fees and support staff, 25% on travel, and much of the remainder on training, they take home almost nothing. Same with some of the entertainers. I find it funny that so many people measure "wealth" by income. They are related, but certainly not the same thing. Wealth is power. Income provides an opportunity to generate and store wealth, but certainly isn't a guarantee. See Bobby Brown and Willie Nelson, and so many others. Made more in a year than most do in a life, and still went bankrupt. You have to store it and invest it to be wealthy. But the 1% is usually measured in income. But the wealth divide is much greater, and the core problem. But taxing wealth will never work. It's only ever tried with real estate, and even there is problematic.

What, are you a goldbug? "hard assets" include real estate. The only thing with actual value everywhere, and everywhere in history. Beats gold most of the time, and, so long as there's any government at all, won't ever be worthless. Stocks are also "hard assets" as much (or more) than people who buy gold in a remote vault. For all you know, they sold the same bar 10 times. And keeping it under your matress isn't very secure.

I'd want $5,000,000. I have 15-20 years until retirement. I'm on track. Are you?

I'd re-define "millionaire" (as in the rich with no money cares rich) to be people with unearned income greater than a million a year. That's the level of comfort people think of for millionaire. The millionaire next door type (I know quite a few) don't live that well. A tiny 2-bedroom house, raising one child, one new car every 10-20 years. Saving most of their disposable income. Having just enough so that when their health fails, they can go into a nice home, rather than the worst ones (and there's quite a difference). Maybe leaving a little for their child. Of course, the one I'm thinking of managed to put their child through medical school, paying her whole way, so she got her inheritance early. Each generation better off than the one before. Not like my father who left us nothing. Well, piles of bills that will never be paid. But my plans never counted on that anyway.

Not all issues are negative. Relatives die, leaving you things and such. I've had a similar plan, and am still on track to retire at 55 with $5,000,000+ in net worth. 15 years into the plan, and still nothing that set it off track. That includes a few layoffs, some major medical issues, no accidents.

It's simple. It just takes a plan, and some self control. Why aren't you a millionaire?

And what about Australia and NZ? And since many of the people came from England, is England ready to accept all white NZ, OZ, and USA peoples back? How much Native American does one need to have to claim US ownership?