Cost of Living Breakdown

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by whswhs

$300 sounds incredibly cheap to me. Half my monthly rent is $450, and utilities are on top of that. And that's in a shared apartment.

But this is very history-dependent. A lot of estimates I've seen suggest that in preindustrial societies, around 75% of economic output from a typical family goes to food.

Bill Stoddard

It sounds cheap with rent. The whole calculation seems to depend heavily whether having an apartment is supposed to mean exclusively a rented apartment. (Which it sure may - I'm not a native speaker. But I find the definitions on the web to be not as precise as stated in this thread. And I also wonder about Damman's post.)

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

It sounds cheap with rent. The whole calculation seems to depend heavily whether having an apartment is supposed to mean exclusively a rented apartment.

It's supposed to mean either a rented apartment, or mortgage payments on an owned (but not paid off) condo; either will be similar in magnitude. Cost of living does not grant you ownership of a house. That's why I have house rules; cost of living is simply too low at higher tech levels, too high at lower.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's supposed to mean either a rented apartment, or mortgage payments on an owned (but not paid off) condo; either will be similar in magnitude. Cost of living does not grant you ownership of a house.

Yep. Same with a car; it's either leased, you're still paying it off, or it costs an awful lot in maintenance/insurance/etc. Or it's part of the 80% of your starting wealth devoted to assets, if it's really cheap (or if you're really wealthy).

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's supposed to mean either a rented apartment, or mortgage payments on an owned (but not paid off) condo; either will be similar in magnitude. Cost of living does not grant you ownership of a house. That's why I have house rules; cost of living is simply too low at higher tech levels, too high at lower.

1. Saying that Status 0 gives you a non-owned apartment only seems to put too many people I know at Status 1 or 2, which wouldn't make sense since (a) they definitely don't get a positive Reaction Modifier from their lifestyle, (b) they don't have as cool other CoL stuff and (c) they wouldn't be able to afford Status 1 or 2 CoL given their jobs; in fact, not owning an apartment causes a person to have a higher CoL.
2. Your link leads to RoF house rules. But I found the old CoL HRs too (1 click, ofc).
3. 10% of Starting Wealth for month of CoL (in your HRs) means a Wealthy TL9 person (SW=$150,000) pays a whopping [30] for a mere $3,000 of discretionary income per month. At this rate, instead having Independent Income [10] and Average Wealth [0] gives you a discretionary income of $3,600 per month. Spend the remaining [20] on Signature Gear or something!
   Really, Wealth costs were clearly picked with the assumption that DiscretionaryIncome = 10% of Starting Wealth after subtracting the CoL of a Status equal to your Wealth level. So you get more DI if you save on Status. (Though I haven't seen this pattern myself back in the day.)

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

[list=1][*]Saying that Status 0 gives you a non-owned apartment only seems to put too many people I know at Status 1 or 2

No, they're status 0 with extra assets or independent income (depending how easily they can sell the apartment).

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

[*]10% of Starting Wealth for month of CoL (in your HRs) means a Wealthy TL9 person (SW=$150,000) pays a whopping [30] for a mere $3,000 of discretionary income per month.

I change income rules as well as CoL rules.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Saying that Status 0 gives you a non-owned apartment only seems to put too many people I know at Status 1 or 2, which wouldn't make sense since (a) they definitely don't get a positive Reaction Modifier from their lifestyle, (b) they don't have as cool other CoL stuff and (c) they wouldn't be able to afford Status 1 or 2 CoL given their jobs; in fact, not owning an apartment causes a person to have a higher CoL.

Here in the US, owning your home does give a (small) reaction modifier, namely in that people see you as being moderately well-off and perhaps a bit more mature and responsible than someone who rents an apartment or has a heavily-mortgaged house. While GURPS does strive to be universal, I think a lot of it ends up with a distinct American bias - mostly because the authors are primarily from the US/Canada. I think the example from the book is pretty clearly meant to represent what CoL would get you in a typical US city - depending on country, in some cities Status 0 CoL might get you a small shared apartment and a moped (or a metro pass), while in others Status 0 gets you a house with no mortgage and a decent car.

EDIT: And I should note that you're right about the whole renting vs owning thing - while repairs and maintenance aren't cheap, you can get by on far less income if you actually own a place than if you rent or are on a mortgage. GURPS apparently assumes that you'll be taking the money you save by not having to pay rent/mortgage and spending it on other things (raising a family, upgrading your entertainment center, having better health insurance, etc) appropriate for your Status.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anthony

No, they're status 0 with extra assets or independent income (depending how easily they can sell the apartment).

Pretty much. If you rent an apartment for $800 a month (that's a damned cheap apartment in San Diego, by the way), that's part of your cost of living. (Most sources I've seen claim that if you spend over one-third of your cost of living on rent you're spending too much; that implies $2400 cost of living. Split between two people that's $1200 each, which is Status 1. Maybe the simplest way to deal with that is to say that living in a desirable city like San Diego makes you Comfortable as default Status.)

If you own the apartment outright, you don't have to pay rent (let's skip over property taxes and insurance for a first approximation). You don't get any money from the apartment, but it frees up $800. So it effectively adds $800 to your disposible income, and counts as Independent Income sufficient to pay $800 a month. (For Comfortable Wealth of $40,000 that would be II 20.)

If you own the apartment through a mortgage, then you have to pay the bank every month. That's Debt. You will have Debt at a magnitude roughly equal to your Independent Income. At that point, you might as well just treat the mortgage payment as cost of living and not try to track II or Debt.

Bill Stoddard

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Anthony

No, they're status 0 with extra assets or independent income (depending how easily they can sell the apartment).

This seems to pretty much negate the whole ability to get stuff normal for a settled lifestyle without painstakingly itemising it, which is meant to be worth much more than the 80% of Starting Wealth until TL9 or so.

Oh, also: since the whole point of setting aside 80% of Wealth is to own this settled stuff, there's really no incentive to spend 80% on settle stuff if you're gonna rent stuff anyway.

Originally Posted by Anthony

I change income rules as well as CoL rules.

Hmm. Missed that. Thanks. So a TL9 Wealthy [30] would have $9,000 Discretionary Income instead of $15,000 (Status 2) or $17,400 (Status 0 CoL). Still kinda nerf of Wealth, which is already somewhat dubious in terms of income.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

This seems to pretty much negate the whole ability to get stuff normal for a settled lifestyle without painstakingly itemising it, which is meant to be worth much more than the 80% of Starting Wealth until TL9 or so.

Saying that someone owns a house or a condo (the usual American word for an owned apartment) is hardly the same as submitting a detailed list of all the stuff they have.

Bill Stoddard

[Langy]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

This seems to pretty much negate the whole ability to get stuff normal for a settled lifestyle without painstakingly itemising it, which is meant to be worth much more than the 80% of Starting Wealth until TL9 or so.

For the most part, that 80% of starting wealth just pays for clothes, vehicles, food, appliances, computers, and everything else inside the house. It does not pay for the actual house itself.

Note that Kromm listed the cash value of stuff granted by status as 50xCoL. This is $30,000 at Status 0 and TL8. That's nowhere near enough to own an apartment or a house! It's enough to own a car (that's about 50% right there for a relatively cheap one), a decent computer ($1000), and appliances and furniture ($5000), clothes, and a few other things.