u/AggressivelyPurple

I have a Millennial friend who is about a decade younger than me. She's really well-educated, smart, and practical. However, both she and her husband seem hopeless when it comes to knowing the world works and how to protect themselves legally.

Two prime examples:

Scenario 1 - Husband broke his leg at work. It was the job's fault. I told them to get a personal injury attorney ASAP because the employer was probably going to try to avoid compensating him adequately. They said they didn't have money for lawyer (in spite of my telling them these types of lawyers work for a percentage of the successful claim.) They also wouldn't report the job for safety violations because he "really needed the work." He wound up getting only a week off (unpaid!!), his medical bills paid and $500 in workers comp. Eventually, he had to quit the job anyway because injuries kept happening.

Scenario 2 - They got a scam invoice for a $500 roof repair that never happened. Rather than ignoring it, they called the company, asked for picture proof of work, got the run around and now the company is taking them to small claims court. I'm like, did you at least ask for a copy of the signed contract? No. Did ask around to see how much it would cost to pay a lawyer for a strongly worded letter telling them to produce a contract or eff off? Have you reported them to your insurance company, the state licensing board, the police, CrimeStoppers, anyone? No, too overwhelmed, going to wait until after the court date. She's over here trying to collect evidence or something and I'm telling her there's a 99% chance they'll drop it before then.

Her ignorance of scams, corporate cheating and legal protections is baffling to me. Am I just a rabid dog of Gen-Xer? Or has the world just changed so much that it really isn't worth even going through the motions of putting up a fight for oneself anymore?

Eta: I'm being corrected that this is a people problem not a generation specific problem. Forgive me. And go fight for your rights.

I'll keep it brief.

My husband and I have to completely replace the small 10x12 covered front porch on our house. We've been quoted almost $12K for a porch on a house worth $160,000 (small town, rural area, 100 yr old home). We don't want to DIY it because the roof has to be propped during repairs and concrete piers poured (the current one is literally built on cinder blocks sitting on the ground). We're also opting for premium PVC over wood because we'd like this to be a one-and-done repair that looks good on our old house.

I have three questions:

1. Does this sound like a reasonable price for our location, materials, and porch size?
2. If not, what would you do to try and reduce costs?
3. Finally, while we have the cash to pay for this upfront, I'm wondering if there's value in trying to leverage a big expense like this into a travel credit card to get airline miles or fi there is some other way to make the money we're putting in do even more for us?