I think people should talk about money more. With real numbers. It seems to me that the social rule against talking about money mainly benefits people who have... a very high X, where Income = X*(value delivered).
There are probably peopleA out there who couldn't deal with anyoneB having even slightly more than theyA do, even if those other peopleB work harder and/or have more obligations to meet, but I think those peopleA are actually not all that common and you probably wouldn't want to be having a conversation with themA anyway.
As for the actual topic of your post: a lot hinges on how much you actually have to spend on rent. I've been told that you shouldn't spend more than about 30% of your budget on rent. The obvious corollary is that whatever your rent is, you should expect to need about 3 times that much income overall in order to meet your other expenses. I'm not sure how reliably true this is.
Oh, and for the historical record: wow, what year was that curriculum written? I first started renting in 1985, and the least I ever paid was $200/month for a seedy semi-legal apartment with a shared bathroom (complete with hoarder to keep it free of toiletries at all times).
tangentially
There are probably peopleA out there who couldn't deal with anyoneB having even slightly more than theyA do, even if those other peopleB work harder and/or have more obligations to meet, but I think those peopleA are actually not all that common and you probably wouldn't want to be having a conversation with themA anyway.
As for the actual topic of your post: a lot hinges on how much you actually have to spend on rent. I've been told that you shouldn't spend more than about 30% of your budget on rent. The obvious corollary is that whatever your rent is, you should expect to need about 3 times that much income overall in order to meet your other expenses. I'm not sure how reliably true this is.
Oh, and for the historical record: wow, what year was that curriculum written? I first started renting in 1985, and the least I ever paid was $200/month for a seedy semi-legal apartment with a shared bathroom (complete with hoarder to keep it free of toiletries at all times).