Yet another cause is lack of financial literacy. We aren’t taught how to budget and save. Some may be taught by their parents but many don’t get that. Schools certainly won’t teach financial literacy. That would hurt consumer spending and that wouldn’t be good for short term corporate profits and continued economic growth so it won’t be in our curriculums.

I realize I have no idea how financially literate or illiterate the average person is.

When I was planning on moving out, I opened a spreadsheet on my computer. Maybe that's already a leap beyond what the typical person would do?

I made a row for each expense I thought I'd have, rounded up to create some headroom. Plus a row for 'Other' with a sizable number to account for stuff I hadn't thought of. Summed that up.

Made another row with my gross pay. Looked up about how much I'd keep after taxes. About 70%. Calculate that value on another row. Divide that by 12. That's monthly net take home.

Compared that number to the number from the first section. If I'm not taking home more than my expenses, that's a problem.

What is everyone else doing? No one taught me that. It just seemed like how I'd add up my expenses and compare to my income. It's not perfect, but it helped me see what kind of rent was way out of reach.