Where People Spend the Most and Least on Rent in America
I live in Irvine, CA, and per the article we are the sixth most expensive for a renter. I live with my parents and three sisters and we do pay $1950 for a two bedroom apartment, three dollars off the actual median.<p>Though what I find hard to believe is how my family does it. I attend a local community college close by, and have been doing so for the past four years after high school. Every year I fill out the FASFA (a Free Application for Student Aid limited to only six years), and I usually ask my parents for their tax record of the past year which gives me a look at our overall income.<p>My parents for the last four years combined have made roughly an average of $31,000&#x2F;yr. I&#x27;ve never asked them why we initially didn&#x27;t move to a cheaper state when we migrated from Mexico, but I assume they enjoy the quality of life here. Though I&#x27;m skeptical on whether the trade offs are worth it. We give up most of our life for work, so we may have a few hours off in the week and the weekend. And the the latter applies to my mother, older sister, and I, it does not apply to my father who works the entire week as a gardener with his own workers and clients and only gets a few hours each week (more now since it gets dark earlier with autumn&#x2F;winter daylight savings).<p>Though above all, I find it odd that we give our only life (?) to living for rent, food, and necessities. Which is not to say work is bad, after all, work I think has three functions: “to give a man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his egocentredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence.” But otherwise, I still believe there ought to be a healthier and more natural approach to modern day work and life balance.<p>The quote above is from E.F. Shumacher’s Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered. A book I have come to admire and tend to revisit from time to time.