Another spinoff: Who else started off with "zero"

[DopeyDame]

I think you are viewing it a few years ahead of when I am viewing the question from. Starting off to me is upon high school graduation. That is when it becomes your decision. You can go to college, pay for college, parents pay for college, or scholarships, or you can become an electrician apprentice. Important part is, the starting out to me is when you begin to make decisions for yourself which is upon high school graduation.

Thus, you didn't have a great education, good job offer to be starting out greater than zero. Those came after starting out.

Huh. I guess I see what you're saying, but still think it's really important to recognize the non-zero many (not all!) of us have.
Upon high school graduation, I was happy and healthy and had multiple college offers. Yes, it was my choice to take out loans to go to an expensive college, but even having that as an option put me ahead of the vast majority of people.
That's hugely different from kids who graduate from high school and don't even know how to go about applying to colleges, or barely managed to get an education in high school, or didn't have families that they knew would ensure they survived if needed.

 

[StacyStrong]

Huh. I guess I see what you're saying, but still think it's really important to recognize the non-zero many (not all!) of us have.
Upon high school graduation, I was happy and healthy and had multiple college offers. Yes, it was my choice to take out loans to go to an expensive college, but even having that as an option put me ahead of the vast majority of people.
That's hugely different from kids who graduate from high school and don't even know how to go about applying to colleges, or barely managed to get an education in high school, or didn't have families that they knew would ensure they survived if needed.

I personally viewed this question solely from a monetary perspective. I would never ever claim I wasn’t privileged (be it through my upbringing, social class, skin color, education system, etc) or had no support system in place. I looked at this question as “when I entered adulthood, did I have any kind of monetary support given to me that I did not work for, like an inheritance, down payment, large financial gift, or help with bills.”

Personally, I did have this kind of help, but I know many did not.

But, I also don’t think anyone saying “zero” would claim that their good health or support system meant “zero.” A lot of people don’t have either of those, so in that way, yes, I’m sure a lot of people saying they started with “zero” had more than someone else, especially those who had to help support their families while minors.

 

[DisneyHardin]

Full scholarship and mom paid room and board, that is not starting at zero.

I guess I didn't really consider my "adult life" starting until after college.

 

[DisneyHardin]

To be fair, scholarships are often merit based and should be considered as working for money the same way a job would.

It was merit based.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I guess I didn't really consider my "adult life" starting until after college.

That probably adds to the various ways one can answer.

I consider the beginning of my adult life to be when I graduated high school (kinda before if I was being honest though). I know multiple people who started college and didn't finish at least 2 of them did it because work got in the way of education and another well she just didn't end up having the full motivation to stick with college. And other friends that never went to college. They all were adults in my mind though.

I totally get where you're coming from though.

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. My family was very poor...as in I did not have "new" clothes until I earned enough babysitting to buy them. Tons of hand me downs and my mother sewed some things for us. Did not get one dime from family for college. Had loans, grants and scholarships, all of which we paid back.

Me too. Grew up poor with no financial help, in fact I was expected to help support the household so I could never get ahead to put money into savings. I tried to be careful with my college spending but I graduated 15 years ago with $30,000 in loans. I still owe maybe $3,000 on my college loans (I only look at the amount once a year when I print out my form to declare the interest on my taxes), my monthly loan payment is only about $180/month, I know lots of people much worse off than that. My ex-husband kept the retirement accounts so I'm back to zero now and it's scary. Everything in my life reset to zero when I left my husband, except for the debt I will get a modest pension from the state educator's pension fund which will supplement my social security, but I'm expecting my later years to be extremely lean. There's just no money to put into savings right now.

 

[mrodgers]

I guess I didn't really consider my "adult life" starting until after college.

Kind of goes both ways. You start your adult life when you become independent. If you graduate and work to pay for college, that's dependent on you and you're starting at zero. If you have help, then the independency starts after you've finished school, so you're not starting at zero, you're starting with a college degree.

Just how I am looking at it, not that either way one gets through college is wrong. If you count starting as after college, not everyone goes to college and not having a degree doesn't mean that is a lesser way to go as well.

To take the thoughts from Steven Crowder, it's important in any discussion that the terms are defines, which this topic shows because there are some that are saying they started at zero because they had scholarships and view the start as after college, or they are starting negative because of loans, or they start at zero because they graduated high school and didn't go the college route. All completely different starting points being discussed as the same.

 

[DisneyHardin]

It's funny how everything on the Disboards turns into a competition. Strangely, this thread has turned into a competition of who was the poorest.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

It's funny how everything on the Disboards turns into a competition. Strangely, this thread has turned into a competition of who was the poorest.

Yes, and I never intended to split hairs, such as whether a scholarship counts towards "zero" or not. Main question was whether there was significant help from family or not, and whether or how that influenced your subsequent "wealth". This was a spinoff of the 401K thread where there was arguing about money, and I wondered about whether that gave some a significant boost at the beginning, that's all!

 

[RamblingMad]

It's funny how everything on the Disboards turns into a competition. Strangely, this thread has turned into a competition of who was the poorest.

Weird.

I think what you ideally want is the highest pay with the lowest cost of living. It’s what you have left over at the end of the day. In this specific thread, it’s what is left over after loan payments and cost of living. That’s the number to compare, not the salary or loan amount or rent/mortgage amount.