Independent living difficulties: NT trait?

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I've been thinking about this quite a bit, mostly thanks to the fact that my sister (who is most likely NT) has a lot of stuff stored at my mom's apartment.

Back when I was at Job Corps, one of the classes I was required to attend was a class on transitioning from Job Corps to living on my own. This is a universal requirement for all students. One of the major aspects of that class was budgetting, which a lot of people apparently can't do. Doing things like cutting out a daily coffee at Starbucks in order to save about $100 a month is apparently beyond most people.

For me, though, that seems like a pretty obvious thing. (Edit: Cutting out unnecessary expenses was one of the first things I learned about personal budgetting)

As far as how my sister factors in?

She had been reading a book called "Nickel and Dimed." Basically, the book was about how terrible life is for people working at places like Wal-Mart and how impossible it is to get by for those people. I argued that I had worked at Wal-Mart and I had managed to have savings, even though I lived in an apartment that was $150/week (as opposed to, say, $400/month, where my sister lived) and only worked there for about two months. I took issue with the fact that I had lived that, but she was telling me how my life was like. She was very upset by this and stormed out, saying that she had lived that, too.

My problem is this, though: She was over at my mother's apartment a couple of weeks before that because she was dropping off boxes of stuff, which she was unloading from her car (there's a bus system that she refuses to take). These boxes of stuff had things like pictures, but they also had a lot of things like useless knick-knacks or clothes that she never wears. She also dropped off her bike (a rather expensive one, by the looks of it) and her TV (fairly good). Moreover, I lived with her for a while, and I know for a fact that the foods she was eating were not like the foods that people eat (or the drinks people drink) on a budget.

All these thoughts got me thinking about independent living difficulties. People talk about how they're an autistic trait, but from my experience, many people (especially in America) have no understanding of how to live on their own. This includes NTs. It's partially issues budgetting, saving, paying bills, and whatnot, but it's also just doing things that they need to do every day (like chores). It seems to me people look at high functioning autistics that have some difficulty with independent living and then say, "Oh, that must be an autistic trait!"

Does anyone else here know NTs that have some sort of independent living difficulties? They spend frivolously and complain about a lack of money? They regularly put off chores that need to be done? They have difficulty paying bills on time?

I know plenty, no matter what they have it's mainly part of a lifestyle to spend more then you can afford to spend.

Material replacement for the unanswered emotional needs .

I have a NT brother who does not know how to save money, as soon as he gets money he will spend it.

The parents have noticed I save all my money , bad part is they ask to borrow money from me all the time to pay bills and other things.

You know, this post got me thinking about Japan. I love Japan because pretty much any argument based on common knowledge can be destroyed by including statistics from Japan. Japan is weird.

Anyways, Japan's educational system is such that high school is not compulsory. Parents (or the students) have to pay for high school. But as of 2005, 94% of students completing middle school went to high school.

I really wish we had those kinds of numbers for something so simple as community college enrollment, which the US government will essentially pay for in some cases (one year of community college, and I actually ended up with about $2,000 left over... look up FAFSA), and in other cases mostly pay for.

Edit: The reason why we don't is that, even though community college is pretty darn cheap (about $300-$400 for a 3 credit class at a nearby community college, and that's including school supplies, and NOT including the amount the government pays for), people just don't cut out that cup of coffee every day. Think about it: Instead of a cup of coffee every day from Starbucks, these people could be getting in 12 credits per year. Five years, and that's a 2 year Computer Science degree. Other, more useful degrees (2 years of CompSci really won't get you work), would take less time.

Independent living difficulties are not specifically an autistic trait, but many autistic people have executive dysfunction, which complicates every single thing you mentioned as being necessary for independent living.

I would be cautious about generalizing one's experiences to everyone else.

There is a difference in drive for school if you are obligated to do so or choose to do so. I am not even talking about the differences in culture, job prospects, economy, social security, etc. that are the modifiers on this comparison.