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Marksideofthedoon t1_j9pjy8g wrote

Reply to comment by Anxious_Original_766 in [Discussion] How to start seeing the results you want. by Disciplineking

Okay, then you tell me what it means.
I see nothing extreme about what I said at all, and since there's only two sides to the concept, I don't see how it could be taken any other way.
You either have less expenses than you have income, or you have more expenses than you have income.
The phrase speaks absolutely nothing about how far beneath or how far beyond your means you are living. You are simply injecting additional meaning where there is none from my point of view.
I genuinely do not see any other way to interpret the phrase.

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Anxious_Original_766 t1_j9pq6rb wrote

Firstly, I disagree w/ you. It's not either or. At a macro level, sure you either are within your means or not. However, my point is that "within your means" comes at varying degrees. That is a spectrum. You can either use 50 percentage of your income to support your lifestyle or 1%. That is a huge difference. If someone bringing in 100,000 a year says they live within their means. I do not think it is a bad bet that they mean they are spending 30% to 40% of their income to support themselves as opposed to 10%. I would argue it is in fact far more likely to be the higher figures than the lower. You don't need to be an economist to make that assumption across a generalized population - it's just common sense.

All this is to say, that when you hear the "live within your means" most people are going to picture a more moderate portion of their income going to their life cost as opposed to the bare minimum. So like I was saying, language is going to be interpreted by people as not so literal most of the times ( unless youre a robot)

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Marksideofthedoon t1_j9prrim wrote

what people picture and what the PHRASE means are two different things. You are creating a strawman argument for zero purpose other than to dig your heels in and be right.
We are not debating what people THINK. We are debating what the phrase MEANS.

Since you are intent on arguing a non-point to no clear end, I refuse to keep entertaining your obtuse interpretation of something that you've already conceded. Good day.

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Good_Confection_3365 t1_j9tv633 wrote

You're clearly taking his lifestyle as some sort of personal attack.

He is living within his means. Living within your means might look different to you and that's ok.

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