226 vs 226

It was a not-so-happy meal.

An enraged McDonald's customer says the fast food franchise is no longer affordable for ordinary Americans, calling the company's contemporary prices "crazy."

"So, I get there's a labor shortage, I get there's wage increases and a number of other things," Idaho man Christopher Olive began in a viral TikTok clip, which has recently resurfaced.

"But $16? $16 for a burger, a large fry and a drink? It's just crazy!" the flabbergasted content creator complained, panning to his itemized receipt from a McDonald's restaurant in the city of Post Falls.

The video was original posted on social media last December, but has now gone viral again after McDonald's recently reported an increase in revenue directly influenced by a "strategic" hike in menu prices.

In the comments section of of Olive's, viewers voiced their frustration with the price of the fast food.

"It's officially not convenient or affordable anymore," one moaned.

"Companies know they can get these prices now so they'll never go back," a second commiserated, saying the glory days of cheap fast food were over.

However, others left comments in defense of McDonald's, telling Olive he ordered a premium burger and could have secured a different meal for a lower price.

“Bro ordered the most expensive meal they have and acted surprised,” one defender declared.

"You sound like those boomers that complained about 5 dollar popcorn," another sniped.

However, Olive isn't the only one to go viral about the cost of McDonald's meals.

In March, a Connecticut content creator voiced his outrage for the $16.89 Big Mac combo meal at the fast food joint in a viral clip.

"Ya'll remember them stimulus checks they gave out? Thought you was getting away with that stimulus money huh?" he quipped. "They want it back."

And furious TikTokers aren't the only ones pressed about pricing. A viral Reddit thread asking, "what is no longer worth it because of how expensive it has become?" shed light on consumer's displeasure with fast food costs.

Redditors decried that the chain eateries have “gotten ridiculously expensive” as of late, with some users claiming that a McDonald's meal would run customers as much as a sit-down establishment.

Gone are the days where hungry patrons could snag a hearty breakfast of two Egg McMuffins for $3, recalled one person, or when the dollar menu was packed with items available for just $1.

“We have $285,000 of debt... How did this happen?”

Nigerian man, Lucas, appears with his American wife, Trinity, on Ramit Sethi's podcast to fix their finances. He describes himself as an entrepreneur. Basically instead of working a normal job like a normal person he has decided to follow some get rich ideas from TikTok. This has put his family deep in the hole. He is your typical cluelessly confident neighbor who just thinks the problem is all a matter of finding the right scheme. His wife appears to be much more sane but is also probably r-slurred for staying with this guy

Highlights (Btw it's not all quotes I'm just trying to make it more readable)

"How do you build wealth in America? "

• Lucas and his wife are in marriage counseling in part because they think totally differently about money and can't seem to get on the same page at all (Read: He's a delusional r-slur and she's a doormat)

• First scheme was to open credit cards, and let other people use them for a fee. Something happened where he had to close the card so he decided to just not pay the balance left on it Ramit pointed out how risky that was but the guy didn't really care

Neighbor is a big picture thinker, good at coming up with ideas, risk taker, street smart and savvy, just not good at follow through...

• Next scheme was real estate investment, and he had hired a property manager to look over the rental. Well the rental ended up having major problems that prevented it from being rented out, which the property manager never told him about. I think he was actually a friends uncle or something too lol

At one point they start talking about whole life insurance, which Ramit hates. Lucas bought it because he heard some scheme where you can treat it like a bank from TikTok Actually Ramit starts to say that people get fooled by these schemes, and then the neighbor proceeds to explain to Ramit how it all works and is great

• Lucas explains that when he first started learning more about finances, he read David Ramsey and Robert Kiyosaki. And he decided to go with the Robert Kiyosaki model of wealth creation

Ramit talks to this guy about risk and risk tolerance, but he just says he doesn't mind risk at all and would rather go big or go home

At one point when they start going over the numbers, his wife starts crying because she didn't know how bad things were because he won't tell her

• At another point after discussing the debt and job situation and all, the neighbor is like "Yea so I would like to have 3 million 3 years from now "

At the end they are going over the budget, and their numbers for income make no sense and their fixed costs are way high. Ramit is trying to explain that this is bad and the neighbor is just like "Well if I need money for my family I'll just do whatever to get it "

• The entire time the neighbor is defensive, delusional, and egotistical

And here is my favorite part: This fricking r-slur has a Chemical Engineering degree and was in the middle of a PhD when he decided to drop out and be an "entrepreneur". He claimed he ditched engineering because "He would only make 50-75k" yet he got into engineering because they make good money My theory is that he's a hack who cheated all through undergrad, and then couldn't fake it in PhD so he left. But if that's not true, he literally could have just worked at his engineering career for a while, sock away money and use that to start investing... Like yea maybe You can't build wealth in America because you're an idiot

Justin, 37, Arizona

I'm not even going to try coming up with a total debts or anything. This guy is insane.

Personal Life/Career

• "I'm in logistics and I sell stuff online" timestamp

  • "What are you sellin online?"

    • "Whatever makes profit"

  • "Logistics" is door dashing/roadie full time

    • various gig work things

    • Minimum $1200 a week (sounds like pre-expenses?)

    • 7000-8000 a month for holiday season

  • 127'000 gross income last year

• Lives out of his car?

  • "I've settled into this lifestyle and I don't like it

  • living a nomad life for the last 3 years "sort of by choice"

• Regional Manager for a marketing firm but laid off December 2018

  • Since then he has been "focusing on [his] logistics"

• "I focus on my kids and myself"

  • 17 and 14

  • Kids are with their mom full time

  • Sees them often?

• Relationship failing sent him spiralling for 8 years?

• Was reselling full time on Amazon and bringing in money?

  • Live-in girlfriend wanted him to go back to a job

  • He caved to the pressure, got regional manager job at a marketing firm

  • 300k from Amazon reselling, salary for manager not mentioned

    • Later mentions the salary is $83'000

• Owned condo, bought 2009, rented it out when he moved in with his girlfriend?

  • Complicated situation where he rented out the condo to his ex who had the kids

  • $36'000 remaining on the condo somehow prevented him from renting elsewhere?

  • Signed over the condo to the ex and her new boyfriend? Basically gave it away, they took over the loan

    • "That was one of my first bad decisions"

• Got burnout last year, started going to the casino frequently

  • "was winning a lot of money" but was sending all back in

• Hasn't paid his taxes in two years

  • Filed in 2020 but the agi was all wrong?

• Moved to stay with his uncle in California for fresh start

  • Got in an accident?

  • "I was out of commission for a week"

  • Uncle is a gambler and they would go to casinos together?

  • Accident caused a fallout between them?

• Had a Mazda CX-5 but the belt broke and he drove 50 miles without the belt

  • "Catastrophic engine issues"

  • Could cover the repairs $3000

  • Then it broke down again afterwards with some new issue allegedly?

• Got a Nissan Sentra after the second issue with the CX-5 in August 2021 timestamp

  • renting his vehicle at $475 but that price includes any issues with it?

  • Averages 9000 miles a month in the car

• Has been thinking about going back to a regular job but thinks the transition would be difficult

• His job hunting timestamp

  • Applied to one recently but got rejected post-interview

Financials

• Had a car repo'd timestamp

  • Was providing a vehicle as a part of child support but couldn't pay that as well as his own when he lost the marketing job?

• Lives in Hotels when he has his kids? Usually weekends?

• Doesn't miss his monthly payments but does carry balances on some of his cards?

• Car rental details timestamp

  • 161 dollars overdue because he incurred a cleaning fee on the last one

  • 28 day cycle, has been doing it for a year

  • $350 a week on the bottom end

  • $484 a week on his current one

  • "On the bright side it's a tax write-off"

    • He hasn't paid taxes in years

• "I think I was hacked" timestamp

  • Some stuff on his report that he doesn't know anything about

  • He reported them?

  • Lost his wallet last year and never got physical cards becuase he has no physical address?

  • He did not cancel the cards he lost

  • 2 student loans and an auto loan from Miami Florida

    • Hasn't locked his credit?

      • He says he didn't think of it

• 7 things in collections

  • Can account for 4 of them but doesn't know about the other 3 timestamp

• Tried to deal with the student loans timestamp

  • Called University of Phoenix they told him to come in with his photo ID

  • Arizona has digital ID so he wasn't driving illegally despite not having a drivers license?

• Got an iPhone timestamp

  • One's business one's personal

• Further car explanations timestamp

  • Once the one car got repo'd he stopped making payments and he'd spray painted the car during a mental episode so it wasn't worth as much

    • Got sold 6 months ago?

  • Goes on for a while? Sounds like he had a melty over customer service chads and made terrible decisions? I didn't follow this

• Checking Account? timestamp

  • Just goes on forever, amazing.

Spending Pie chart timestamp

this is still one of the wildest graphs I've seen in recent times

why women and men go to college and what they expect to get out of college may have very little overlap, which explains (to the first order) a lot of differences in attendance, use, etc pic.twitter.com/QpWUvmULem

— Simon Sarris (@simonsarris) November 2, 2023

This article has to be ruffling feathers in the people of low income community.

Some of this might be wrong

Summer, 27, Dallas TX

Personal Life:

• Flew in from Dallas, was worried about the Check Engine light on her car

• From Atalanta, wants to go back

• In Dallas because her boyfriend moved there and she's remote work so she went with him

• Has a kid with boyfriend

  • Kid is 3

• Boyfriend is making around 80k

• Started Therapy about a month ago

  • Says she has an emotional spending problem

Career:

• "I'm in Fintech"

• "Merchant Success Rep"

  • Point of contact, helps with onboarding and stuff

  • After benefits before bonuses 3518 a month hits account

  • Bonuses between 200-1000 a month before taxes

Financials

• Payday Loan 1 ("Possible Finance") timestamp

  • 260.30% interest rate

  • She didn't know the interest rate

  • Looks like it was an $80 loan? She paid 20 for this

  • Boyfriend paid to get there and went to some super tiny apartment at $1850 a month? 749 sq ft

    • Boyfriend covers majority of the rent

    • 3 bedroom townhouse in Atlanta

    • "Oh wait, oh no you're talking about that loan" timestamp

      • this is the smaller of the payday loans

  • "Why did you borrow $80 at 260 percent?!"

    • "I really don't know"

    • pause while she looks at the loan

    • "After moving I got really broke"

• Says she just paid this off

• Payday Loan 2: timestamp

  • $1693.75 => $1773.75

  • $80 in fees

    • She hadn't made payments towards it

  • 119 minimum payment

  • Has made a payment now, says she will pay it off by Thanksgiving

• Quicksilver (Card 1): timestamp

  • $493 => $510

  • $25 minimum payment

  • $29 transactions, $13 in interest

  • "I just ran out of money and I was like well I have my credit card"

  • Lot of eating out on here.

• Credit One (Card 2): timestamp

  • $317 => $366

  • $30 in payments

  • $30 in transactions

  • $41 in fees

  • $90 minimum payment, I think this means 2 missed payments?

    • Says she paid it but the payment didn't go through and got the fee waived?

  • 30% interest rate?

• Amazon (Card 3): timestamp

  • $1019 => $1022

  • $23 interest

  • $70 payments

  • $50 transactions

  • $141 in fees this year

    • "I do forget about this card sometimes"

    • "Why aren't you on autopay?"

      • "Oh my account would be overdrafted"

  • 35 minimum payment

  • "Vacation spending"

• "Wait are there payday loans that I don't have in this stack?" timestamp

  • There are

• Student Loans timestamp

  • Federal

  • Hasn't started payments, deferred

  • Payment is about $200 a month

• Stuff in collections timestamp

  • Portfolio Recovery $1332

  • PDQ Services Inc $880

  • Caine & Weiner $430

  • I C System $307

  • Southwest Credit Systems $268

  • I C System $258

  • National Credit Systems $110

  • Credit Collections Service $78

  • "Yeah, those are like really bad choices when I was younger, that's for sure"

  • $1332 is from back in 2015 fresh out of High School, might be dropped might not be

    • App says open for another 4 years 2 months.

    • She plans to try getting them all settled by January

• "Cash reserve manual payment" timestamp

  • wtf even is this?

  • "If you have a good amount of income comin in my bank will give you money on reserve and you can take it out"

    • "Wait wait wait, what does that mean?"

      • "So it's like a payday loan I guess"

  • Can borrow up to 750?

    • Currently has $750 borrowed

• "Earning" (another payday loan) $260: timestamp

  • Says she's paying it off completely tomorrow

• Lot of Zelle payments

• FloatMe Fund (Payday Loan that's already finished)

• Drake Concert, also the start of the payments timestamp

  • More than a thousand dollars

  • These payments are nuts :lets goooooo:

  • So much eating out

• Some legal fees for an issue with the lease

• Bought furniture for this new place

• $798 in Retirement

  • Started job in January

"I've never seen a statement like that timestamp

Pie Chart of her current spending timestamp

• Absolutely insane, 3.5% of her income is going to her debts

Budgeting Segment

• Grocery store argument timestamp

  • She wants Whole Foods? Didn't follow this convo

• She's paying 1200 on the kid? timestamp

  • All food organic?

• Her own budget at a minimum is 1'200 more than what she makes on a monthly basis

Damn this just called me all kinds of poor pic.twitter.com/MyJqRzkiIu

— Lance🇱🇨 (@Bornakang) October 30, 2023

This is what rich mentality looks like unlike the poors who be crying:

“They should ban him from their country.. And other countries too,” a user commented. “YouTube need to ban the clown. This is stupid,” said another. “People need to stop putting all these Youtubers and social media people on a pedestal. Just because they have millions of views doesn't mean anything about their character. Start reading books and studying history,” another person wrote.

“The same thing done by an Indian in a foreign country, he would probably get shot lol,” a user commented. “Don't come to India again until you want to follow our rules,” said another. “GOOD JOB! STEALING from the HARD WORKING people of India!” wrote a third. “Ok now just imagine the hate of this was an Indian in a western country,” opined another person.

Would be funny if he got arrested and had to pay 10x fines like he technically should have. Curse how wages are no longer so low we can post police at every gate

although i may never get to cross paths with him, it was an honor to share this earth with him 🫡

!birdposters !animalposters

He is paying 15k in monthly payments for these loans. He is making 200k yearly, but that's not enough fr

So I'm in horrible shape, but not dead (yet). I have approx $400,000 (yes $400k) in personal loan debt. I have had to borrow due to large medical bills and keeping my business afloat. Every 3 months or so, I have opened a new personal loan for about $40k, and now I have amassed about $400k in open non-secured loans with 3-5 year maturities. I now have approx $15K / per month in payments (on top of normal living expenses)... I have been using most of the new proceeds to pay the older loans. I'm on a huge treadmill of opening new loans to pay the old at this point. My credit is still great (like a 780), but I have started to get denied additional loans (maxed out).

How do I soft land this thing..... Do I reach out to creditors, seek a pause on payments while I figure out next steps?

I feel comfortable in speaking with companies about the stark reality of the situation, however, I feel if they may not take my request seriously.

I know the knee jerk reaction to this post is to laugh, but things were happening so fast (lost my wife to Cancer, tried to keep the business intack / alive ) - Borrowing was easy & fast.

I'm 52, Annual income +$200K, and really want to get this sorted. Is there a true honest company out there that can assist ? Bankruptcy is a last resort, as I now have a steady job and want to work things out.

No timestamps/summaries this time because I'm busy fixing dozens of problems I didn't cause

New engineer with a $68k salary at engineering job (pretty standard for new burger engineers) plus $12k from a bartending job

Where the heck are companies finding experienced engineers for $70k a year? Many companies would literally kill to get them.

who said anything about experienced?

do you think smart, experienced engineers work at bar kitchens as a second job and ask reddit for career advice on how to juggle their engineering job and their second kitchen job?

If you make 1000 a month bartending, how is it that you can't afford a car? Can't you get a used Honda Hyundai or something? You should be able to save the cash for a while to buy something??

As far as the engineering job, get your next certification and look for another job. Your manager isn't doing you any favors. You are likely underpaid. Get the next certificate and some additional experience for your resume and keep looking.

Yeah, paying off a car with a shitty interest rate is probably cheaper than sending all of that money to short term car rentals.

(OP) This is my thought process with this. My credit right now is at a 681, I don't think I'm going to get approved for anything without a co-signer until I can get that credit to 700+. Paying off my Apple Card would easily do that.

Dude, with a 681 credit score you can finance any car at a decent interest rate. 681 is not a bad score.

(OP) I was literally under the impression that you were through without a credit score of at least 700. This is new information to me, like seriously.

Today I was suppose to recieve my paycheck but only $37 appeared in my account, which is nearly $1,900 short. Contacted payroll and was informed that the rest of my paycheck was deposited into another account I do not recognize.

I am freaking out because I need these funds immediately.

I cannot fathom how this happened.

This has to be a foid.

Later...on...

I do have an app to access my time cards, view my vacation balances, request time off, etc. where I can in fact update my direct deposit info and lately I have been unable to sign in. How does it get resolved?

How do I function as an adult?

Airbnb operator says he's facing losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars because of B.C.'s new short-term rental laws

Steve Nguyen runs two Airbnb units in a downtown Victoria apartment building, including one decorated and paying homage to the television show "Friends." He says he's still reeling from the news he soon won't be able to operate it as a short-term rental – since he doesn't live there.

“This news is a huge, huge shock,” he said Tuesday. “The equity that I've worked so hard for in these units has vanished in a day.”

Nguyen says he makes enough by renting out his unit on Airbnb to cover its mortgage – even with interest rates spiking – but because the unit is so small (less than 400 square feet), it's not attractive for long-term rentals, and wouldn't fetch enough to cover his mortgage, which is more than $3,000 a month.

As a result, he says he's forced to sell the loft unit, but plans to list it for $150,000 less than he bought it for a year ago.