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cowofwar posted:Ugh. I'm not saying that paying off debt as soon as possible is being bad with money.
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Aug 27, 2013 07:28
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cowofwar posted:With a conservative 3% return on your capital and a 0.99% interest rate on the loan you are pocketing the 2% difference which, on a $30,000 car, would be more than the $1500 cash back. I agree with avoiding simplistic statements lionizing or demonizing credit, but risk aversion doesn't seem to factor into your rubric. 3% return may be conservative in a historical perspective, but 5-year returns almost across the board were negative (some in double digits) just a few years back. For many folks, guaranteed 0.99% return is worthwhile. E: My former neighbors would loudly complain about their money issues and how they had to liquidate their 401k, all while amassing hoarder-levels of junk and multiple cars. The wife lost her job and was too good for entry-level work, so she spent all day calling into radio shows and trying to win stuff (that they had to pay taxes on). Engineer Lenk fucked around with this message at 11:16 on Aug 27, 2013 |
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Aug 27, 2013 11:06
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Assuming a $200,000 mortgage with 4% interest, paid monthly. Standard 30 year repayment plan, total of $343,739.01 paid. 6 year repayment plan, total of $225,290.64 paid. Interest saved: $118,448.38
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Aug 27, 2013 13:22
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I once read a post where someone outlined the relative costs of paying off a mortgage in different time periods without taking into account inflation, opportunity cost, or the time value of money in general. It's like they were saying that paying $1000 today is the same as paying $1000 in 20 years. For a real contribution, most people I work with seem to be fairly frugal, but there's this woman who gets $50 haircuts every week and is always changing her hairstyle. I guess there are worse habits.
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Aug 27, 2013 14:30
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Cicero posted:This thread is for stories, if we want to debate what it means to be bad with money maybe the newbie thread or FI thread would be better for it.
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Aug 27, 2013 15:33
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Bad with money: My boss and his wife make $150k/year (and this is in a low cost of living area) or more and they never have money. He has multiple loans against his 403b and probably a HELOC. They're in their early-mid 50s and cannot be bothered to save any money. What's more frustrating for me is that in typical boss fashion, he was just in the right place at the right time, promoted on up and now basically all he does is run payroll. The employees under him are all pretty autonomous and he makes way more than all of us through sheer luck. In the last few years they've gone through about 5 brand new cars. One car they had for a month before they decided they hated it, and traded it back in. After that, the wife really liked my boss' new car, so she started driving that (she travels A LOT, probably 1000+ miles a month in work travel) and then they bought ANOTHER new car for him. Another car was totaled in there somewhere and they had to replace it. The wife travels so much and gets ~$.50/mile compensation, but can't be bothered to submit her expense forms. So her hubby has to get on her case quarterly to get her to do them, which ends up being thousands of dollars that she just claims is "too much work". They have two adopted sons, one is in college and seems to be reasonably ok. The other is a 16 year old hoodlum who dropped out of school because "the teachers were mean". They're terrible with discipline and can't fathom not buying expensive poo poo for them, even replacing their expensive poo poo when the hoodlum throws a tantrum and breaks something.
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Aug 27, 2013 16:16
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One of my coworkers is about 60 and absolutely hates her job. However, she can't quit because she and her husband just bought a new 4-bedroom, 3 story house for half a million. I asked why they needed such a huge place for just the two of them, but she's worried about them being cramped (even in that huge place!) and eats at restaurants twice a day because her kitchen is "too cramped" to cook in. I have a vague idea of what she makes and what her husband makes, and she should be able to quit the job she hats and retire early, but she'd rather have the big house and be miserable, I guess.
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Aug 27, 2013 17:10
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dreesemonkey posted:The wife travels so much and gets ~$.50/mile compensation, but can't be bothered to submit her expense forms. So her hubby has to get on her case quarterly to get her to do them, which ends up being thousands of dollars that she just claims is "too much work". I am amazed at the number of coworkers who find it 'too much work' to check their credit card statements when they come in. It literally takes less than 10mins to determine whether all the hundreds/thousands of pounds you are going to be charged are all legitimate and yet they cannot be bothered.
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Aug 27, 2013 17:34
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dreesemonkey posted:The wife travels so much and gets ~$.50/mile compensation, but can't be bothered to submit her expense forms. So her hubby has to get on her case quarterly to get her to do them, which ends up being thousands of dollars that she just claims is "too much work". I have a friend/old coworker like that. We had a travel job and got all our meals reimbursed. Eating out every single meal every single day for a week can get expensive so obviously hanging onto those receipts was a good idea. I ended up just keeping her receipts for her because we'd show up at the end of the week and I'd have $150 worth of receipts for reimbursement and she'd have managed to lose all but 2 or 3 receipts and she'd get like $40 back. And it's not like she had the money or it didn't matter to her. We made like $9.50 an hour. Every week was an epic freakout while we scoured the hotel room and the work vehicles for misplaced receipts.
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Aug 27, 2013 18:16
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Here's a story about my boss. He's the kind of guy who needs to get the newest phone every 3-4 months, likes plucking on a guitar every now and then, so he has to spend $1,700 on one (but it was on sale, so it's okay), plus more for a custom case. He's a chef, so he upgrades his knives every couple of months to the tune of $700-$1,000 every few months and so on and so on. He and his girlfriend broke up last year but they ended up living together for about 4-6 months while they got their finances in order since neither of them could afford to live on their own. Eventually he got a consolidation loan, found a room in a house with 2 roommates for about $650 and seemed pretty excited about getting his poo poo together. Later on, he asked me if I'd rather save money and live with roommates or spend more to live on my own. I told him I'd rather have my own place if I could afford it, but I'd live with roommates if I needed to save money. He traded places with someone else and now rents a 1 bedroom apartment for about $1,200, which is average for our city, but still $550 or so that could be going towards debt. About 6 weeks ago, he got a promotion and I'm assuming a raise. He now runs two properties, but spends most of his time at the other property which needs the most help. A few weeks ago, he came by to visit and show off his brand new Mustang. Some of the guys were pretty excited and impressed while the rest of us just kinda shook our heads.
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Aug 27, 2013 18:24
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Rockzilla posted:He's a chef, so he upgrades his knives every couple of months to the tune of $700-$1,000 every few months and so on and so on. I just read this entire thread and this thing baffles me more than many things in it. What the hell kind of knives need to be upgraded every few months? Is he going from cutco to wustof to shun? What's after that? lasers? Does he not know you can sharpen knives and they're as good as new? When I was working back of house the chef had a steel that was nearly smooth, and he was adamant that it had another year left in it. A twenty dollar steel. He was a magnificent chef and did most of his work with a cheap as dirt knife (he had a Shun but used it to chop dope).
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Aug 28, 2013 03:49
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Rockzilla posted:Here's a story about my boss. He's the kind of guy who needs to get the newest phone every 3-4 months, likes plucking on a guitar every now and then, so he has to spend $1,700 on one (but it was on sale, so it's okay), plus more for a custom case. He's a chef, so he upgrades his knives every couple of months to the tune of $700-$1,000 every few months and so on and so on. How do you spend $1,700 on a phone? The most expensive iPhone Apple sells is $850.
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Aug 28, 2013 04:02
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Konstantin posted:How do you spend $1,700 on a phone? The most expensive iPhone Apple sells is $850. $1700 guitar, the price for the phone is unspecified.
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Aug 28, 2013 04:08
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olylifter posted:I just read this entire thread and this thing baffles me more than many things in it. Nah, he just gets bored with his knives really quickly. He takes care of them, but as soon as he finds something newer and cooler he sells or barters off his old ones.
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Aug 28, 2013 04:55
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Rockzilla posted:Nah, he just gets bored with his knives really quickly. He takes care of them, but as soon as he finds something newer and cooler he sells or barters off his old ones. I almost don't want to know how its possible to get bored of a knife. I understand that there are levels of craftsmanship at work here in high quality knives, but what would a new knife do differently? Anyway, while out to lunch with some coworkers, we saw the wife of the person I mentioned earlier, and it looks like they traded down their giant lifted F-250 King Ranch for a slightly smaller F-150 that was still lifted, and had the exhaust running through stacks like an 18-wheeler. I really hope he got his poo poo in line, but I doubt it. Even oil money can't fix stupid.
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Aug 28, 2013 06:14
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This is the general feeling for people in the Bay Area who do not have a valuable stock option to fall back on or are not a VP/Director-level type of person: http://blog.louisgray.com/2013/08/dinks-vs-sitkoms-and-other-family.html quote:Still others try to ignore the oppressive costs of ownership and enter into the "sounds funny but isn't really funny" reality of what's known as a SITKOM. As it was explained to me by a coworker, that's where you have a Single Income, Two or Three Kids, with an Outrageous Mortgage. That's a sitcom with a laugh track, but it's at you. You can work yourself crazy and never see those kids, you can have an equity event that makes your living comfortable, or you can leave, essentially. Those are your options.
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Aug 28, 2013 06:25
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Shadowhand00 posted:This is the general feeling for people in the Bay Area who do not have a valuable stock option to fall back on or are not a VP/Director-level type of person: I live in the East Bay and am finishing grad school in a low to mid range paying field. I will likely never break 100k a year in my field, and will feel lucky to break 80k. I expect to be hired on next summer at around 50k a year. I've lived in this city on and off since I was in elementary school, and my mother once owned a house down the street. I will likely never be able to own a house in this city where I grew up  For content, that house down the street my mom used to own? She lost it to loan sharks for approximately 150k in 2006. It sold for 560k in 2012. On the plus side, the legal battle it stirred up meant she got to live rent and mortgage free as a squatter for almost four years. Another story that occurred to me recently; I have a close friend from high school who is getting married in November. A wonderful man with a wonderful fiancee. They have guardianship of their two nephews and his much younger sister at the ripe age of 25. They bought a house in the Central Valley for pennies and live a pretty nice life. Neither went to college and both work full time, one for around $20 an hour, and the other for around $12. They aren't able to save because of the burden of a fourteen year old, eleven year old, and ten year old, but they aren't starving and as far as I know they have no debt besides a modest car payment. Why do they have custody of these children? Because his aunt, a wonderful woman, passed away a few years ago. This saint of a lady took in all the children his messed up redneck family failed to raise. She formally adopted his middle sister after her mother passed away, and informally adopted my friend and his other two sisters. She raised his nephews from an older sister as well. After she passed away, they were kind of hosed. The house they lived in was rented, so they had to move. His aunt had no cash in the bank to leave them, only a small pension that went to the one adopted daughter. The expense of raising what we estimated to be around twelve children over the course of three decades drained her finances so much she had no assets whatsoever. He ended up renting my father's house for $250 a month for a year so they could get by. The dumb with money part? His deadbeat relatives raised TEN THOUSAND dollars for her funeral through begging at churches, holding car washes, and begging donations from all the wonderful people this woman touched in her life. Did they give it to her orphaned children? Help them relocate, get schooling, or otherwise cope with their loss? (The church donated the funeral services and his aunts union benefits paid for her cremation) No. They blew $5k on food and balloons for her funeral, and another $3k on flowers, and $2k on "paying themselves back for the expenses of the carwash". My friend was speechless, but he's a great guy who didn't expect a handout, and many of the people who gave to his relatives also reached out to him and helped him and the girls out anyway  He's starting to take night classes at community college again, and my wedding present to them is a "line of credit" at the community college book store.
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Aug 28, 2013 06:59
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CitizenKain posted:I almost don't want to know how its possible to get bored of a knife. I understand that there are levels of craftsmanship at work here in high quality knives, but what would a new knife do differently? Nothing. The dude is another tuyop. Spending money makes him feel good. When you get that thrill from buying stuff you can justify for work, you don't feel as guilty.
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Aug 28, 2013 07:17
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Trilineatus posted:
What does this mean? Did she borrow money from the mob and they took her house as payment???
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Aug 28, 2013 15:05
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Just met a guy who applied for an apartment. I checked his credit history and there is no way he can afford this place, as he makes less than $30k a year and has other obligations on his credit report. For example, I saw his multiple late car payments, probably for the shiny Lexus SUV he rolled up in. I make multiple times what this guy does, but I still drive a 2006 Accord with a scratched up front bumper. To be blunt, I come from a privileged background, and it never once occurred to me to do anything with my money other than invest it. I treat myself to nice things, but the people who spend money to let others know they have it, are always the ones with the worst credit reports.
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Aug 28, 2013 17:35
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tiananman posted:What does this mean? Did she borrow money from the mob and they took her house as payment??? She was a drug addict and she sold the title of her house to one of those scam companies that advertises all over the ghetto with "WE BUY HOUSES IN CASH" My dad is a lawyer, and since he had a vested interest in the house (bought before they split but they were never married) he made it his personal mission to gently caress that company over. We only recouped another $70k, but he estimates he cost them around 1.2 million in legal fees over five years. EDIT: Also, once they had her title, they sold it to Fannie Mae, and the the judgment my dad had going on with the original company stalled Fannie Mae in evicting my mother for YEARS. They finally actually paid her $5k to vacate in 2010, four years after she'd "sold" the house. Also, she blew that $150k almost immediately. She got it in 2005 or 2006, and we lived without electricity from late 2006 onward. I still occasionally get phone calls from accounts she opened in my name. She's clean now though, and lives in another state
Mocking Bird fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Aug 28, 2013 |
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Aug 28, 2013 20:50
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particle409 posted:Just met a guy who applied for an apartment. I checked his credit history and there is no way he can afford this place, as he makes less than $30k a year and has other obligations on his credit report. For example, I saw his multiple late car payments, probably for the shiny Lexus SUV he rolled up in. I make multiple times what this guy does, but I still drive a 2006 Accord with a scratched up front bumper. To be blunt, I come from a privileged background, and it never once occurred to me to do anything with my money other than invest it. I treat myself to nice things, but the people who spend money to let others know they have it, are always the ones with the worst credit reports. I had a family member accuse me of being vain and stupid for renting and apartment in "a complex for people who want to pretend to be rich." I rented the tiniest 1 bedroom apartment in a nice complex in a very safe part of town. For what I was spending, I could have gotten another 400 square feet in a crappy part of town. I had a friend that did just that, and had his car windows smashed in three times in a year and had terrible neighbors. This individual who was sassing me about my apartment bought a 60 year old house in a really run-down part of town. The cops are on their street every day, and there has been at least one homicide within 50 yards of her house less than a month after move-in. They've had tools and aluminum siding stolen out of their yard. They've had strangers wander into their house. They gutted the house to do renovations, ran out of money, and now 80% of the indoor space looks like a meth house. To think, instead of living in a shoebox in a nice neighborhood I could have been living in Murdertown instead!
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Aug 28, 2013 22:17
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canyoneer posted:I had a family member accuse me of being vain and stupid for renting and apartment in "a complex for people who want to pretend to be rich." I rented the tiniest 1 bedroom apartment in a nice complex in a very safe part of town. For what I was spending, I could have gotten another 400 square feet in a crappy part of town. I had a friend that did just that, and had his car windows smashed in three times in a year and had terrible neighbors. I see this poo poo all the time as well in real estate. Landlords want to pinch pennies all over the place. It's like changing the oil in your car. You can save $30 every three months by not doing it! That's like $120 a year! I had a building inspected for a buyer which had a leak in the basement. The owner knew about it but didn't want to pay $600 to have it fixed. It leaked all over the basement joists (they are the wood beams that hold up floors), which started to sag. This was right under the stairwell, so the stairs are all lopsided going four floors up. Nobody is buying the property because it's way overpriced, considering all the work that needs to be done to fix the structural damage. I'm thinking maybe $25k to get the stairs done if you can just jack them up from the basement and add lolly columns. If not, maybe $150k. edit: Also, your tenants won't be able to get to their apartments if the stairs need to be completely redone. Reminded me, I just went to a building today where the owner is too cheap to put in a temperature controller on his radiator system. The Jamaican man living on the top floor (and the other tenants) told me it's boiling hot in the winter, too hot to sleep he told me. The owner of this building is saving a one-time cost of less than $1k, and probably spending an extra $2-3k annually on heating oil. particle409 fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Aug 28, 2013 |
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Aug 28, 2013 23:50
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particle409 posted:The owner of this building is saving a one-time cost of less than $1k, and probably spending an extra $2-3k annually on heating oil. I've seen similar stupidity, but keep in mind that most of these kinds of expenses are tax deductible. It's true that the landlord could save money down the road, but they might like having that big heating oil deduction to mask their income for them. And then they don't have to deal with the time (not just money) it costs them dealing with contractors - some of whom may be duty bound to report a structure if it's a hazard. Also, some landlords are content to rent a space until it practically falls down by itself. Then they can bulldoze it and sell the clean property to developers - whereas it would be practically impossible to sell a dilapidated structure. I personally witnessed a rental property management company do this in one of my old apartments in college. The reason they couldn't just knock the structure over themselves is because it was a historical building. So they just let time, water and college students do the demo for them until the whole row was condemned.
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Aug 29, 2013 12:32
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My husband's cousin never wears a pair of socks more than once. He puts on a new pair every time, and throws the dirty ones away. He actually told us this. He also refuses to eat leftovers because apparently eating microwaved food will kill you.
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Aug 29, 2013 15:12
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razz posted:My husband's cousin never wears a pair of socks more than once. He puts on a new pair every time, and throws the dirty ones away.  What? Does he have some sort of a bulk-buy deal from a wholesaler? Does he do the same for underwear or t-shirts? Are microwave meals like the kind you buy in the refrigerated section of the store okay? What about tinned soup or baked beans? This intrigues me far more than it should. 
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Aug 29, 2013 15:31
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froglet posted:
Yeah I think this is more a case of someone who has some kind of mental illness, not necessarily a bad with money thing. Unless they're going broke buying new socks.
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Aug 29, 2013 15:33
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Reading this thread makes me think I might be bad with money as well. I'm 28 and single, and even though I have a good income of around 100k, I have almost nothing to show for it. I have less than 15k in the bank and this is maybe enough to qualify as an emergency fund, but not much else. I don't really try to save much money; instead I opt for a very high standard of living. I pay over $2500/month in rent to live in a really fancy apartment in the nicest neighborhood in Chicago, I have a nice car, and I spend quite a bit on entertainment, restaurants, vacations, etc. I have excellent credit and no debts, so all of this spending is not necessarily out of my means, but it still feels kind of irresponsible. I've justified this behavior the past few years by telling myself that I don't really feel any urgency to save up to buy a house, as this is the only thing I'd need to save up a considerable sum for, right? I am saving for retirement through my 401k and pension, so that's covered, but otherwise I spend most of my income and save very little. If I downgraded my lifestyle significantly I could theoretically bank over $2500/month as opposed to the <$1000/month I save now, but I am kind of a spoiled baby and enjoy my current living standard too much. Am I being retarded? I feel like if I really wanted to buy a house, I could focus on saving for a year or two to build up a down payment. But literally every homeowner I know around my age is unhappy they bought and wishes they hadn't, and reading the horror stories in the Home Buying Megathread over the years has dissuaded me big time.
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Aug 29, 2013 15:39
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tiananman posted:Yeah I think this is more a case of someone who has some kind of mental illness, not necessarily a bad with money thing.
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Aug 29, 2013 15:58
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The point is to save money so you don't have to work any more if you don't want to. This is regardless of whether you intend to actually continue working - being able to say "gently caress you" to your boss and walk away is a powerful relief. In this sense, lowering your standard of living helps you twofold because you save more money, and your money saved lasts longer once you retire because you don't spend as much each year. I know my own version of the sock guy. He wears each pair for like a week before tossing them though.
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Aug 29, 2013 16:11
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Thesoro posted:To be fair, a sock-a-day habit is substantially cheaper than a pack-a-day habit, and we don't look at smoking as a weirdo habit.
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Aug 29, 2013 16:18
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tiananman posted:Yeah I think this is more a case of someone who has some kind of mental illness, not necessarily a bad with money thing. The leftovers thing is a bit odd but not entirely unheard of, and I've met people who toss/donate clothing for really trivial reasons, so it's not completely out there. Thing is, even if he was spending just $1 on a pair of socks a day that's still a reasonable amount of money. Rexfumado posted:Reading this thread makes me think I might be bad with money as well. I'm 28 and single, and even though I have a good income of around 100k, I have almost nothing to show for it. I have less than 15k in the bank and this is maybe enough to qualify as an emergency fund, but not much else. I don't really try to save much money; instead I opt for a very high standard of living. I pay over $2500/month in rent to live in a really fancy apartment in the nicest neighborhood in Chicago, I have a nice car, and I spend quite a bit on entertainment, restaurants, vacations, etc. I have excellent credit and no debts, so all of this spending is not necessarily out of my means, but it still feels kind of irresponsible. Considering you appear to have been earning around six figures for a few years and yet have nothing to show for it I would lean towards that you are being a bit dumb with money (but obviously not too dumb considering you have retirement savings and no debt). Don't get me wrong - there's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to live in a nice part of town, dining out or going on holiday, but there is a lot to be said for the peace of mind gained from knowing that should you lose your job or if you need to suddenly relocate, you won't have to worry too much about money. In your situation you probably don't even need to make any significant changes to your lifestyle to spend less money. froglet fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Aug 29, 2013 |
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Aug 29, 2013 16:23
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I think the best thing I picked up from Mr. Money Mustache's blog is the idea that it's okay to spend money, but you need to be honest about the true costs of the spending. He pushes against the (obviously stereotypical example) of a Starbuck's drink every day as the present value of that small trickle of money now is much higher than most people realize. I figure, if you look at the lost value of spending money on that coffee instead of investing it or other uses, and still decide to go ahead and do it at least it's an informed decision. Very few people would be content living life as a self-imposed pauper. You make a decent wage and if you are able to provide a lifestyle you like while providing enough savings to provide for the future I figure you might as well go hog wild. That said, there is always some low hanging fruit to save money on and you may be able to find a better use for it. The idea being something as simple as bringing a bag lunch a couple times of week can turn into a vacation every couple years. Or something to that effect. If you decide going out for lunch is better than the vacation, why not do it instead though?
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Aug 29, 2013 16:40
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I hope someone can convince the sock guy to donate his socks to a homeless shelter or something. froglet posted:The leftovers thing is a bit odd but not entirely unheard of, and I've met people who toss/donate clothing for really trivial reasons, so it's not completely out there. I would say the most important thing for him to do is to have an emergency fund of 6 months. If he has that, and doesn't care about walking away, it doesn't really matter. Does having a 50k car make you that much happier than a 30k or 20k car? Short story time: I knew a guy who would literally spend 10 bucks every 3 days or so on radiator fluid, because had a leak in one of his hoses. He would use duct tape to tape up the hole, and I guess that would only hold with 200+ degree heat for a couple days before it would all drain out. I even offered to go with him to autozone to get the part and do it in the parking lot. TLG James fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Aug 29, 2013 |
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Aug 29, 2013 16:45
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froglet posted:
I think he just east fast food every meal, I have no idea, he is kind of a man-child. His mother and a series of wives (he's working on number 3) have always "taken care" of him. I don't think he even knows how to cook. He probably doesn't even know how to grocery shop. His mom is a hardcore conservative christian conspiracy theorist republican crazy so I'm sure that's where he got the "microwaves are sent from the government to kill you" idea from, or whatever it is that he believes. Thesoro posted:To be fair, a sock-a-day habit is substantially cheaper than a pack-a-day habit, and we don't look at smoking as a weirdo habit. Don't worry, he's also a smoker  Oh and he's 39. razz fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Aug 29, 2013 |
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Aug 29, 2013 16:58
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Rexfumado posted:Reading this thread makes me think I might be bad with money as well. I'm 28 and single, and even though I have a good income of around 100k, I have almost nothing to show for it. I have less than 15k in the bank and this is maybe enough to qualify as an emergency fund, but not much else. This is called "being 28." You're absolutely fine.Over the next two years you should bump up your emergency fund slowly. The real concern about making good money when you're young is that things can change suddenly and the money might stop coming in someday. If you do hit a rough patch, having a full year's worth of expenses put aside will make your life so much simpler. You won't be sweating bullets trying to pay the rent while you figure out your next move. A fat savings account is the best insurance policy.
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Aug 29, 2013 17:31
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Thesoro posted:To be fair, a sock-a-day habit is substantially cheaper than a pack-a-day habit, and we don't look at smoking as a weirdo habit. My dad has a funny story about this when he would crab fish out of Dutch Harbor. They would get back from fishing and like all of the crabbers getting into town, pretty flush with cash. They would go into town and everything was amazingly expensive - you're talking a tiny fishing town on an island in the Aleutian islands where things started stupid expensive and then were jacked up to get as much out of the fishermen as possible. He looked at the prices for doing laundry at the only laundromat in town and realized it was cheaper to just throw away his whole wardrobe and buy new clothes when they got into town. Not really a 'bad with money' story, but the crazy economics required to make hot water, electricity, and soap more expensive than clothes? 
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Aug 29, 2013 18:13
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Rexfumado posted:Reading this thread makes me think I might be bad with money as well. I'm 28 and single, and even though I have a good income of around 100k, I have almost nothing to show for it. I have less than 15k in the bank and this is maybe enough to qualify as an emergency fund, but not much else. I don't really try to save much money; instead I opt for a very high standard of living. I pay over $2500/month in rent to live in a really fancy apartment in the nicest neighborhood in Chicago, I have a nice car, and I spend quite a bit on entertainment, restaurants, vacations, etc. I have excellent credit and no debts, so all of this spending is not necessarily out of my means, but it still feels kind of irresponsible. You don't have to buy a house (especially not in or near downtown Chicago). I bet donating to your cause of choice would make you feel less guilty about your money, though. Do you like animals? Humane Society. Opera? The Lyric. Abortions? Planned Parenthood. etc You should probably put away more money than you do, just in case. Like if you ever have kids, it'd be nice to save up in case they want to go to an expensive college. But you're not bad with money the same way an idiot whose outgo is higher than their income is bad with money.
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Aug 29, 2013 18:17
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froglet posted:How on earth do you spend all that money? Video game addiction? Personal training sessions several times a week? Private chef to cook all your meals for you? Buying rounds of drinks for your friends every weekend? Are you secretly a superhero and keep needing to replace your expensive tailored superhero costumes? It's really really easy to spend to your income, no matter what your income is. Rent alone is eating up 30k. And if he says he's saving for retirement and actually means he's maxing out his 401k and IRA then he actually is saving quite a bit. I dont save much of my monthly net income at all (I make less than him but I think I saved a similar amount when I made double what I make now), but technically I save at least 20% of my income because that's what gets taken out of my paycheck for my 401k. It'd still be fun to see a Mint breakdown. I bet an absurd amount goes just to restaurants and bars and boring stuff. But a nice car and some memories from amazing vacations is something to show for your money.
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Aug 29, 2013 18:24
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Rexfumado posted:Reading this thread makes me think I might be bad with money as well. I'm 28 and single, and even though I have a good income of around 100k, I have almost nothing to show for it. I have less than 15k in the bank and this is maybe enough to qualify as an emergency fund, but not much else. I don't really try to save much money; instead I opt for a very high standard of living. I pay over $2500/month in rent to live in a really fancy apartment in the nicest neighborhood in Chicago, I have a nice car, and I spend quite a bit on entertainment, restaurants, vacations, etc. I have excellent credit and no debts, so all of this spending is not necessarily out of my means, but it still feels kind of irresponsible. It seems like it would be really, really easy to get a cheaper apartment that would still be pretty nice and would be in a good neighborhood. I know Chicago is expensive, but it's got to be cheaper than NYC. And saving for a down payment is going to take time. Can you get a good house in a good neighborhood in Chicago for $250,000? Because I don't see how you can save up for a 20% down payment for anything more expensive than that in only 2 years. Well, actually I can see how--you'd have to move into a cheaper apartment. I don't think you're necessarily being bad with your money, but maybe you aren't being as good with it as you could be. If I were in your position (being single instead of married and supporting a spouse who is a full-time student in the most expensive city in the US) then I would downgrade my apartment and save a lot more for an eventual down payment. I would also make sure I'm maxing my Roth IRA and 401k. Uranium 235 fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Aug 29, 2013 |
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Aug 29, 2013 19:13
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