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Some questions about lifestyle in USA - based on movies :-)

L

lauriandres

Well-Known Member
I am bored :) and I have some random questions, that i had discussed with my co-worker.

1. Is it really possible, that an Al Bundy kind of guy can afford a private house while a programmer from Die Hard 4 lives in a s***hole? At least in Estonia - those IT guys who are SKILLED, have no problems purchasing apartments like that https://www.ttp.ee/sales-info/padriku-apartments/ . I think in Estonia shoe salesmen/saleswomen have a quite low salary (500 EUR which includes somewhat free healthcare provided by the government). I have heard from friends that a good Oracle admin can earn something like 20000 USD per month in NYC ...

2. Doesnt apartments and houses in USA have a reinforced doors a la like https://www.lukukeskus.ee/collection/uksed?gclid=CIeGhNDukcgCFYPacgod3jkGbg Again, based on the impression that i got by watching movies - most of the main doors are very thin and made of a cartboard etc. In Estonia almost all apartments have steel reinforced doors with good locks - either Assa or Abloy. So the breakin either by bad guys or police is quite difficult.

3. What should be the minimum salary to enjoy similar lifestyle like the persons in Sex & City TV series?
 
Calling One Love..

Although OL lives in NZ he is best equipped to address your American TV show... issues.
 
lauriandres said:
I am bored :) and I have some random questions, that i had discussed with my co-worker.

1. Is it really possible, that an Al Bundy kind of guy can afford a private house while a programmer from Die Hard 4 lives in a s***hole? At least in Estonia - those IT guys who are SKILLED, have no problems purchasing apartments like that https://www.ttp.ee/sales-info/padriku-apartments/ . I think in Estonia shoe salesmen/saleswomen have a quite low salary (500 EUR which includes somewhat free healthcare provided by the government). I have heard from friends that a good Oracle admin can earn something like 20000 USD per month in NYC ...

2. Doesnt apartments and houses in USA have a reinforced doors a la like https://www.lukukeskus.ee/collection/uksed?gclid=CIeGhNDukcgCFYPacgod3jkGbg Again, based on the impression that i got by watching movies - most of the main doors are very thin and made of a cartboard etc. In Estonia almost all apartments have steel reinforced doors with good locks - either Assa or Abloy. So the breakin either by bad guys or police is quite difficult.

3. What should be the minimum salary to enjoy similar lifestyle like the persons in Sex & City TV series?
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1. Die Hard 4 sucked and they try to make IT guys look like dark loners/losers all the time so ignore the stereotype. Not sure if your salary for Oracle admins in NYC is accurate or not.
2. Sure, a lot of apartment doors are stronger built, perhaps reinforced steel. Front doors on homes sometimes are similarly strongly built, sometimes not as much. It depends.
3.I never watched the show because I'm straight but I know the vibe to it and I imagine the apartments they always had them living in were ridiculously looking and sized based on their respective salaries. so was their lifestyle. so all that said, probably about 350K+.
 
Cunning Linguist said:
1. Die Hard 4 sucked and they try to make IT guys look like dark loners/losers all the time so ignore the stereotype. Not sure if your salary for Oracle admins in NYC is accurate or not.
2. Sure, a lot of apartment doors are stronger built, perhaps reinforced steel. Front doors on homes sometimes are similarly strongly built, sometimes not as much. It depends.
3.I never watched the show because I'm straight but I know the vibe to it and I imagine the apartments they always had them living in were ridiculously looking and sized based on their respective salaries. so was their lifestyle. so all that said, probably about 350K+.
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OK, based on movies and The Cops TV Series - it seems that a lot of the main doors in US are made of thin plastics etc? Some have even two doors, a transparent plastic door and a normal door. Maybe because the weather is different than in Estonia.

Yeah, Die Hard 4 sucked. Only good thing was that the bad guys were not typical level 1 cannon fodder but had almost the same skills and endurance as Bruce Willis. I wonder, why Cyrill Rafaelli has not had more roles.
I am straight, but sometimes watched Sex&City :). 350K+ - is that per year? If yes then it seems kind of low for living in NYC. I would have thought that a minimum salary to need is something like 5000-10000 USD per month if you want to live in 60 m3 apartment, have dinner in the restaurant like 5 times per week etc.
 
Nobody's door is made of plastic, programmers make good money, and DH4 is an incredibly stupid movie.
 
I tried living the sex and the city life. Problem was I didn't live in a city and no one wanted to have sex with me. Might be the name.....
 
Cost of living can be dramatically different depending on where you're at. NYC, the San Francisco Bay Area are very expensive places to live. I don't know what the IT guy in the movie really did but there are relatively low paying IT jobs and there are high paying IT jobs.

I don't think Al Bundy would be able to afford a single family home on a shoe salesman's wage, especially not with a stay at home wife. That's a job that would be very close to minimum wage.

It isn't uncommon in the U.S. to have a screen door in front of your front door. It's so that you can essentially have the door open without letting bugs in. My front door and my door to the garage is a steel door. Some people have wood doors, I don't know anyone who has a plastic front door. Interior doors are often cheap and made out of thin corrugated boards. I suppose some people might use those doors as their front door.
 
The problem with the front doors is the casing. They are essentially nothing more than 1/4" or 1/2" ply wood. That doesn't stand up to a cop with a sledge hammer. The door itself is good.
 
lauriandres said:
I am bored :) and I have some random questions, that i had discussed with my co-worker.

1. Is it really possible, that an Al Bundy kind of guy can afford a private house while a programmer from Die Hard 4 lives in a s***hole? At least in Estonia - those IT guys who are SKILLED, have no problems purchasing apartments like that https://www.ttp.ee/sales-info/padriku-apartments/ . I think in Estonia shoe salesmen/saleswomen have a quite low salary (500 EUR which includes somewhat free healthcare provided by the government). I have heard from friends that a good Oracle admin can earn something like 20000 USD per month in NYC ...

2. Doesnt apartments and houses in USA have a reinforced doors a la like https://www.lukukeskus.ee/collection/uksed?gclid=CIeGhNDukcgCFYPacgod3jkGbg Again, based on the impression that i got by watching movies - most of the main doors are very thin and made of a cartboard etc. In Estonia almost all apartments have steel reinforced doors with good locks - either Assa or Abloy. So the breakin either by bad guys or police is quite difficult.

3. What should be the minimum salary to enjoy similar lifestyle like the persons in Sex & City TV series?
Click to expand...
It's very perceptive of you to judge life in America based entirely on movies and TV shows. Some people might try to tell you that media tends to focus on the extreme, or even that movies sometimes fake things and use complex special effects in order to make the world of their story seem more dramatic, but don't believe them.
 
lauriandres said:
OK, based on movies and The Cops TV Series - it seems that a lot of the main doors in US are made of thin plastics etc? Some have even two doors, a transparent plastic door and a normal door. Maybe because the weather is different than in Estonia.

Yeah, Die Hard 4 sucked. Only good thing was that the bad guys were not typical level 1 cannon fodder but had almost the same skills and endurance as Bruce Willis. I wonder, why Cyrill Rafaelli has not had more roles.
I am straight, but sometimes watched Sex&City :). 350K+ - is that per year? If yes then it seems kind of low for living in NYC. I would have thought that a minimum salary to need is something like 5000-10000 USD per month if you want to live in 60 m3 apartment, have dinner in the restaurant like 5 times per week etc.
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Low? You said 5-10K a month which is no more than $120,000 a year. That's peanuts in NYC and with the size of the apartments they probably had or the size the guys who they dated had, plus their choice of clothing and accessories, plus the restaurants they went to, plus all the extra ******** probably calls for a good $350,000 salary. Give or take. Maybe it's more like $250,000, I don't know. But without seeing the show, I bet you they had sick digs and spent, spent, spent...so I erred on the higher side.
 
$350,000 per year puts you in the top 1 or 2% in the world as far as earnings go. The sexy city ladies probably would have to make like at least $200k to afford their lifestyle. Not a valid representation at all.

I have a plastic door. I made it out of Legos and solidified it with the kragle. Will Ferrell helped me. And morgan freeman was the oracle that provided the visionary plan.

If you area shoe salesman at foot locker, you are not going to afford a single family home or support anyone other than yourself. If you are a shoe salesman at somewhere like Nordstrom, then you can make a decent living and have a fairly decent home. Maybe not enough to buy any fancy plastic doors, but definitely enough to buy a reinforced steel safety door on your mid-century bungalow.
 
First, i thought that putting :) in the subject eliminates that this thread must be taken 100% seriously :).
Gameface, i meant that kind of plastic (plexiglass or something like that)transparent door.
For comparison, during the soviet time, breakins to the apartments in big residential buildings were quite common, because the doors and locks were weak. However, around 1995 people started to replace the original doors with reinforced doors. Both the main door on main entrance of the big building and apartment door. With good locks.
CL, i made the miscalculation, 350000 USD per year is about 30000 per month; somehow i thought it is 3000 USD per month.
Thank you for the information.
 
b_line said:
$350,000 per year puts you in the top 1 or 2% in the world as far as earnings go. The sexy city ladies probably would have to make like at least $200k to afford their lifestyle. Not a valid representation at all.
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$200,000 isn't going THAT far in NYC. Trust me on this.
 
Gameface said:
I don't think Al Bundy would be able to afford a single family home on a shoe salesman's wage, especially not with a stay at home wife. That's a job that would be very close to minimum wage.
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A perfect representation of how times have changed. In the 70's and even 80's (when MWC first started) it was commonplace for working class people to own modest homes. Yeah, the one-salary, shoe-salesman thing was a bit of a stretch; but not too much to make it unbelievable.

Today it would be impossible
 
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candrew said:
A perfect representation of how times have changed. In the 70's and even 80's (when MWC first started) it was commonplace for working class people to own modest homes. Yeah, the one-salary, shoe-salesman thing was a bit of a stretch; but not too much to make it unbelievable.

Today it would be impossible
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However, is it really possible that the persons shown in the Training Day (where Denzel Washington is the bad guy) own that kind of houses in California? I would have thought that you need quite a big income to have house near LA, specially if you are related somehow to the gangs etc.
 
lauriandres said:
However, is it really possible that the persons shown in the Training Day (where Denzel Washington is the bad guy) own that kind of houses in California? I would have thought that you need quite a big income to have house near LA, specially if you are related somehow to the gangs etc.
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Never seen the movie, but gangs/criminals don't pay much in taxes so that gives them a big leg up for one thing. The criminal's 100 k income is worth a lot more than a professional's 100k. Plus gangs often times have the whole boarding house situation going on. Buy a decent sized pad, throw half the gang in there to help with bills.

Keep in mind that these real estate markets in the cities you're taking about are not your average markets being priced off local jobs, wages, supply, demand, etc. anymore. 2015 is a whole different world from Al Bundy America. They are totally distorted markets now. You've got land protections. Then you've got laundered foreign money from China/Russia, etc. floating about everywhere. Mexicans pooling money with multiple families to buy houses they couldn't normally afford. Hedge Funds like BlackRock buying everything up.....just because they can. Non functioning interest rate environmest. It's a fools game to be an average person looking for that first house in these places.
 
Duck Rodgers said:
Never seen the movie, but gangs/criminals don't pay much in taxes so that gives them a big leg up for one thing. The criminal's 100 k income is worth a lot more than a professional's 100k. Plus gangs often times have the whole boarding house situation going on. Buy a decent sized pad, throw half the gang in there to help with bills. A lot of gangs have been priced out in some ways though too. For instance, about an hour away from Los Angeles is a place called San Bernardino that's a gang ridden dump now, but it was supposedly nice back in the day. No doubt a lot of previous residents of Los Angeles hoods helped turn it that way.

Keep in mind that these real estate markets in the cities you're taking about are not your average markets being priced off local jobs, wages, supply, demand, etc. They are totally distorted markets. You've got land protections. Then you've got laundered money from China/Russia, etc. floating about everywhere. Mexicans pooling money with multiple family members to buy houses they couldn't normally afford. Hedge Funds like BlackRock buying everything up.....just because they can. Non functioning interest rate environment. It's a fools game to be an average person looking for that first house in these places.
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Lol that "professionals" pay taxes.
 
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