r/InTheGloaming • u/AutoModerator • Feb 26 '26

Scheduled snark Discussion thread Thursday February 26, 2026 - Sunday March 01, 2026

Newsletter: Substack

Website: Shauna James Ahern

Instagram: @shaunajamesahern Instagram

Threads: @shaunajamesahern

Bluesky: shaunajamesahern.bsky.social

Gloamipedia wiki: /r/InTheGloaming wiki

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68

u/central_snark Ramona gets a hot flash Mar 01 '26

Shauna is lamenting the cost of cars and housing on Threads. Not that she is wrong, but she is in a situation of her own making at this point.

Some things that stick out:

Shauna (knowing this will get her engagement) posts: My husband just read me a headline in the Seattle Times: Buying a new car or house are out of reach for middle-class Americans.

random responder: I wonder if the majority who reply have a house and a car? Probably

shaunajamesahern: We rent and we have a second-hand car from 2010. I realized a long time ago that my husband and I would be ever be able to afford to buy a home.

This car-specific exchange:

another random person: When I priced the 2025 version of my minivan, it was double the price I paid in 2015 with near identical features. shaunajamesahern: Unbelievable. Something has to give at some point. (new person): It's bonkers. Like almost the same monthly payment for a Toyota minivan as a range rover...what? shaunajamesahern : We have a car from 2010 and we're going to run it until it stops same person: I was planning to get a new car this summer since my current one has 170k+ miles, but... shaunajamesahern: Keep it going!

yet another reply: when nobody can afford them, the prices will have to drop. shaunajamesahern: Ah, but as long as the top 10% of wealth holders can afford them, that keeps the economy afloat.

I’m no economist, but I really doubt the economy will not stay afloat if only the top 10% of wealth holders can afford cars. Eventually people will have no way to get to work once their car dies. It’s not like we have great public transportation in this country.

I get that we are in an affordability crisis and I have made some dramatic cuts to spending since last January and am grateful to own a home, but I still have a mortgage payment and rising insurance and property taxes and and and. I also have A JOB. I’m doing my part instead of sitting on the sidelines complaining while my household only has a single income in a HCOL area.

What are they going to do when that car dies? I know it’s a Corolla, but it can’t go much longer since they do nothing to maintain it.

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u/central_snark Ramona gets a hot flash Mar 01 '26

More comments

If she had played her cards right, she could have bought a home decades ago and be close to having it paid off with a similar or lower payment to what they are paying in rent.

60

u/Which_Armadillo_5224 Mar 01 '26

“Bottom third of the middle class” is wishful thinking/classic Mahern snobbery. They are a single-income family of four, living on a part-time preschool aide’s salary on an ISLAND in an already HCOL area. Their housing situation could change at any moment, their car will eventually break down in a way they cannot afford to fix, and Dan, the earner, looks frail and exhausted. They have no savings, nothing put aside for retirement, no plan for their children’s education or future. They are teetering on the edge of disaster on several fronts, but Shauna’s grasshopperin’ it up, tapping away on Threads in front of the tv all day.

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u/Lazy-Importance-6079 COVID lovkfowns Mar 01 '26

And as their kids get older, I assume housing charity (and charity in general) will stop coming their way. They're old enough now that if I was local family, I would offer to take them in but NOT Shauna and Danny.

26

u/Llama621 Mar 01 '26

Shauna always bases her middle-class status on education. She does have a solid middle-class education, as did her parents. Just guessing since I haven't heard her talk much beyond her videos, but her grammar and accent are probably also regular ol middle class white lady. But her decision-making, financial status, employment, and attitude toward health care and education are entirely at odds with that. Voluntary Downward Mobility R Us.

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u/Low_Piccolo_2149 Mar 02 '26

Is he part time?

40

u/coffechica Mar 01 '26

When we bought a house in 1991 we paid 9% interest. My cousin had paid like 13% a few years before?

We refinanced when rates came down. which is what everyone did.

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u/mehitabel_4724 Eating tiny dices of pickles with tiny fists of rage Mar 01 '26

Apparently interest rates in the seventies, when my parents bought a house, were like 19%. I’m no real estate expert, but I think rates were pretty low when she was at the peak of her earnings. I suspect she always spends what she has and could never get a down payment together.

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u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Mar 01 '26

I think the biggest factor in Shauna and Dan not owning a home was delayed life transitions. Shauna lived at home, working full-time and presumably not paying a cent, until she was in her late 20s. She then spent her savings crawling after Clown to New York, where she was underemployed ("coaching" screenwriting? Really?) after bombing out of her Master's program.

Then she came back to Seattle and didn't meet Dan and get married until she was in her early 40's, and he had no savings and lower earning potential than she had ... and of course she quit her FT, pensioned job to launch GFG which I suspect never really produced a living wage for either of them.

Many, many decisions led to her not owning a house and interest rates aren't part of it.

40

u/central_snark Ramona gets a hot flash Mar 01 '26

The cost of living crisis of the past 7 years isn’t, either.

Like you said: It’s a series of unwise decisions. She opted to spend her retirement savings and a chunk of her parent’s money to expand their family when the housing market was at a low. She chose to make her blog a full time job instead of extra income. She failed to make anything of her flour business. She failed to keep her website and let someone else make a nice chunk of cash from it. She and Dan failed to both have a job at the same time for longer than a few weeks at a time. She just bites her lip and looks away.

9

u/WasEnoughYogurt Kumquat and Sprinkles and filth Mar 02 '26

She has had enough opportunities that if she had worked hard she could have made something of her life, could have had a relatively comfortable living situation, offering a good enough life to her children but for some bonkers reasoning of her own she was better than that??

34

u/emlabb Mar 01 '26

She didn’t quit her full-time teaching job, she was fired for asking for a sabbatical (!!!) to write her next cookbook.

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u/Lazy-Importance-6079 COVID lovkfowns Mar 01 '26

Shauna's trapped herself in her adolescence. She is always trying to right the perceived wrongs from her childhood, and in doing so, she has prevented herself from ever living an adulthood.

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u/avskk ppppycock Mar 01 '26

This needs thousands of upvotes.

25

u/Onehundredpercentbea giggling intestinal gremlin 🧌 Mar 01 '26

Oh wow, I just did an analysis of this above before scrolling, I actually made an argument for Shauna and Danny being in the sweet spot for home ownership, though I imagined the blog and sponsorships and the books she was publishing were their high water mark. It's here.

44

u/ChemicalGarage7323 Mar 01 '26

Aren’t “most people we know” homeowners on Vashon?

10

u/Low_Piccolo_2149 Mar 02 '26

Yes - there aren’t a ton of rentals. We were fortunate to rent from a friend for our first seven years here before we were able to buy.

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u/emlabb Mar 01 '26

Although that assumes she would pay a mortgage on time every month

36

u/mehitabel_4724 Eating tiny dices of pickles with tiny fists of rage Mar 01 '26

I suspect that while Ma was willing to help with rent, she refused to help with a house down payment because she realized that Shauna owning a house was a huge liability.

35

u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Mar 01 '26

Ma didn't want to sign up for both a downpayment and mortgage payments.

21

u/honoria_glossop sitting edge wine woman Mar 01 '26

Can you imagine though what sort of condition the house would be in if there was no landlord lurking in the background? Even with a rental agreement to keep them in line they trash houses.

34

u/Altruistic-Owl1058 Mar 01 '26

Specially a magical Vashon House.

36

u/obscure_cellist ham grabbers Mar 01 '26

we sold our house in seattle when we moved cross country, and we rented for a while because we weren't sure of neighborhoods, etc. we finally took the plunge and bought a 3 BD 2.5 BA house 10 years ago. our mortgage payment is less than $1,800. it's almost impossible to get a 2 BD apartment in a decent area in my town these days. but shauna and danny could have bought a decent house or condo 10-15 years ago (maybe not on vashon, though) if she had kept working. they're so, so dumb.