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You could cut each one of those Sierra Nevadas 50/50 with water and half your alcohol spending.
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Sep 18, 2013 19:41
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If it doesn't come in a plastic jug with a handle, it's too expensive 
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Sep 18, 2013 20:20
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Volmarias posted:Was this gas station in Mexico? When I was in California (I'm not American) in July I bought a 12 pack of Bear Republic Racer 5 for $11 at a Safeway and my head just about exploded.
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Sep 19, 2013 00:30
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Necronomiconomist posted:You could cut each one of those Sierra Nevadas 50/50 with water and half your alcohol spending. I hope this is sarcasm and it just whooshed right over my head.
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Sep 19, 2013 14:53
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Necronomiconomist posted:You could cut each one of those Sierra Nevadas 50/50 with water and half your alcohol spending. I had to check your math, but you're right.
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Sep 19, 2013 15:24
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Shadowhand00 posted:This was on the YNAB Blog but I thought it was totally appropriate for this thread: The author of this blog post throws over $700 of his family's money to the Mormon church every month (http://www.youneedabudget.com/blog/2013/check-out-my-shiny-new-budget-is-it-too-tight/) so I can't exactly consider him a paragon of financial intelligence either.
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Sep 21, 2013 21:35
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To be fair, at least that 700 bucks a month isn't all wasted money. His kids will get a nearly free education at BYU if they so choose
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Sep 21, 2013 21:49
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otter space posted:The author of this blog post throws over $700 of his family's money to the Mormon church every month (http://www.youneedabudget.com/blog/2013/check-out-my-shiny-new-budget-is-it-too-tight/) so I can't exactly consider him a paragon of financial intelligence either. That $700 a month may seem incredibly wasteful to non-religious people like me(and I would be happier to see it go to a proper charity), but he's clearly able to afford it.
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Sep 21, 2013 21:58
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^^^Edit: Ya beat me! And you added up the numbers. otter space posted:The author of this blog post throws over $700 of his family's money to the Mormon church every month (http://www.youneedabudget.com/blog/2013/check-out-my-shiny-new-budget-is-it-too-tight/) so I can't exactly consider him a paragon of financial intelligence either. Tithing is pretty important in religious communities. I grew up with 10% to the church and 10% to other charities because we are stewards of the wealth God gives us. The comments there have a discussion about whether it's a good financial decision. Disclaimer: My family doesn't donate 10% to church or charity but we do other things. But it's not clear from the post that his family actually has $7000 per month consistently so there's that... They do have small budgets for gifts and only a small "betterment" category that might be used for vacations or something so they know they have to offset somewhere.
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Sep 21, 2013 22:03
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Tesla Insanely Coil posted:^^^Edit: Ya beat me! And you added up the numbers. Betterment is an investment service, not just a cutesily-named category (which is what I thought it was too.) The tithing thing I don't get; especially for the people who are also in crippling amounts of debt. Render unto Caesar etc. You can tithe later.
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Sep 22, 2013 23:11
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The mormon church is 'great' because they at least are honest enough to have their charity work tithed as an extra giving. As for bad with money I know a guy who spent all his inheritance (his father passed away) across his 5 years at university. This may not seem too bad at first but his inheritance was over 15 million dollars. Highlights include the $23,000 weekend spent at strip bars, the 50,000(ish?) BMW that literally rusted away in his driveway because it was never driven and flying himself and 7 friends to Vegas (from NZ, buisness class) to see a concert on a whim. No idea what that cost but must have been over 30K easy. He basically frittered it away across the years and nobody realised it was a limited supply deal until it was way too late.
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Sep 27, 2013 14:41
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Saros posted:The mormon church is 'great' because they at least are honest enough to have their charity work tithed as an extra giving. If I died, and left someone that much money that they pissed away like that, I'd come back and haunt them.
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Sep 27, 2013 15:18
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I can never understand the whole winning lottery/inheritance and then blowing it all immediately. There was a tv show that focused on lottery winners who did that. These people are rarely wealthy prior to the influx of money, and then they blow it all. You'd think that being relatively poor to begin, you would be even more careful of how you spend all that money.
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Sep 27, 2013 15:25
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Giving that much amount at once is a recipe for disaster. I know an old coworker who was well off had an inheritance that payed out when he turned 30 years old. Mind you we were young and clearly he was not driven as much as a fresh grads usually are. Also he talked about his pay day at 30 years old all the time. If I Was lucky enough to be giving my kids a large amount, I would do it in stages.
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Sep 27, 2013 15:26
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My boyfriend's parents won about 2 million (after lawyer fees and so on) in a settlement and managed to lose it all in like three years. They "invested" a quarter of it in a business his dad, dad's brother and their friend bought. All of that was lost when the dad decided to leave the company due to some shady dealings on the brother's part - he totally broke whatever contract they had and his dad never tried to get his money back. They also bought a much larger house in a nicer part of town, got new cars, and his mom quit her job to stay at home. She'd previously had a higher paying job than his dad, who of course had quit his job to work for this company that wasn't making profits yet. Oh, and her kids were 16 and 20 something at the time  . Between all that and "loaning" money to family and friends they are now solidly lower-middle class and live in a trailer in the desert.
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Sep 27, 2013 15:45
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johnny sack posted:I can never understand the whole winning lottery/inheritance and then blowing it all immediately. There was a tv show that focused on lottery winners who did that. These people are rarely wealthy prior to the influx of money, and then they blow it all. You'd think that being relatively poor to begin, you would be even more careful of how you spend all that money. Poor people are poor because they spend all they have*; rich people stay rich because they spend less than they have. The two behaviors are not compatible. *Making abstraction here of socio-economic issues and LF stuff.
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Sep 27, 2013 16:08
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Saros posted:The mormon church is 'great' because they at least are honest enough to have their charity work tithed as an extra giving. You dont' take 7 friends to Vegas and spend $30,000. That's easily a $100,000 trip.
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Sep 27, 2013 16:11
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johnny sack posted:I can never understand the whole winning lottery/inheritance and then blowing it all immediately. There was a tv show that focused on lottery winners who did that. These people are rarely wealthy prior to the influx of money, and then they blow it all. You'd think that being relatively poor to begin, you would be even more careful of how you spend all that money. Tons of studies have been done on this. Most popular one would be the marshmallow experiment. Mostly they summarize into "Poors had the concept of delayed gratification driven out of them from an early age": they learn early on that when they want something expensive and try to save for it, they end up nickel and dimed out of their savings long before they save enough to get the big-ticket item. As a simplified example: if they want a $500 TV, and have $50 left over each month after expenses, it would take 10 incident-free months to save up the money. Any parking ticket, speeding ticket, unexpected illness, car repair, or home repair (just to name a few possibilities) essentially wipes out all the saving they managed to do. When this sort of thing happens to you at an early age and continues throughout your life..."save your money, budget for expenses" to them is saying "You know that thing you do where your money disappears and you end up with nothing to show for it? Yeah you want to do that with this huge chunk of money the likes of which you've never seen before and will never see again". Instead of motivating them to improve their budget so they save, say, $100 a month (which cuts the saving time in half and doubles the amount of incidents required to eliminate said savings, thereby making it 4x less likely they won't end up with their item), it motivates them to spend that $50 they are saving somewhere else as "It'll just get pissed away, I'd rather spend it on something that makes me happy" When they come into a windfall they buy that frivolous stuff they always wanted because they honestly don't trust the concept of "Pay down debts and the amount of money you can spend on frivolous stuff will increase" because it's never worked for them. StupidSexyMothman fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Sep 27, 2013 |
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Sep 27, 2013 16:17
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I saw an advert today for a "$105 alternative to boot camp". First, I was astonished that someone would pay $105 for a gym-type membership and then I realized that they were using $105 because it was CHEAPER. Is this why people don't save for retirement?
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Sep 27, 2013 16:20
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johnny sack posted:I can never understand the whole winning lottery/inheritance and then blowing it all immediately. This is my big fear, honestly. I didn't inherit millions, but still way more than any 24 year old deserves to have at that stage in life. I already "blew" a huge chunk of change to buy a house with cash (we were house-shopping before the unexpected death anyway), gifted the life insurance check to other family (I was the only legal heir), and when you still have more sitting in several accounts across random financial institutions that you can't keep track of, it's hard not to say, "Well, my car is getting pretty old and I've never owned one that wasn't 8+ years old..." or, "Gosh that's a really good deal on a hot tub..." (I did not give in to these things) Not to mention the family politics of turning down an immediate family member's pleading request for a loan when they've helped you out in the past. (I did give in to this one, but in the interest of sanity I'm considering it a gift and will simply consider it a happy resolution if it gets paid back, because shortly after that they were laid off. Murphy's law, man.) I've been reading BFC for a long time so I know the "correct" things to do with the money, or at least have seen the warning stories of what NOT to do, but when it's actually in hand it's hard to shoo away the thoughts. And there are a lot of thoughts.
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Sep 27, 2013 16:46
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oldskool posted:Tons of studies have been done on this. Most popular one would be the marshmallow experiment. Mostly they summarize into "Poors had the concept of delayed gratification driven out of them from an early age": they learn early on that when they want something expensive and try to save for it, they end up nickel and dimed out of their savings long before they save enough to get the big-ticket item. Yea, this is interesting. Very unfortunate that it's the way it works. I can see it happening to people I know, as well. Not that I know people who've come into big sums of money, but rather my mother raised my sister and I, and she was very poor. We never had extra money for anything. I've managed to understand not to blow what money I have, my sister is much worse about it. Those who I keep in contract with from the neighborhood where I grew up, for the most part, still make poor financial decisions. I will be sure to teach my kids how not to blow money.
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Sep 27, 2013 16:59
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drat Bananas posted:This is my big fear, honestly. I didn't inherit millions, but still way more than any 24 year old deserves to have at that stage in life. I already "blew" a huge chunk of change to buy a house with cash (we were house-shopping before the unexpected death anyway), gifted the life insurance check to other family (I was the only legal heir), and when you still have more sitting in several accounts across random financial institutions that you can't keep track of, it's hard not to say, "Well, my car is getting pretty old and I've never owned one that wasn't 8+ years old..." or, "Gosh that's a really good deal on a hot tub..." (I did not give in to these things) Not to mention the family politics of turning down an immediate family member's pleading request for a loan when they've helped you out in the past. (I did give in to this one, but in the interest of sanity I'm considering it a gift and will simply consider it a happy resolution if it gets paid back, because shortly after that they were laid off. Murphy's law, man.) The good news is that owning a lot of stuff is a pain in the rear end - once you learn that it's probably the best limiter on spending lots of money that there is.
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Sep 27, 2013 17:13
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I think a lot of it has to do with lack of financial education as well. The only classes in high school that did anything with finance/budget/investment were AP classes (after the tests in May). So really the only students benefiting are college bound. The majority of high school graduates are (trying) to enter the work force at a severe disadvantage due to lack of financial literacy. Most college grads are dumb as heck about finance as well. Edit: Basically, my generation (24 here) is hosed. Gorman Thomas fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Sep 27, 2013 |
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Sep 27, 2013 17:17
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THE RED MENACE posted:Most college grads are dumb as heck about finance as well. Seriously. I think I mentioned earlier my friend who got dragged to a Primerica presentation and started spouting their bullshit.  At 1%, it'll take 72 years for your money to double! Why the gently caress would you place long term investments at 1%? ... ... Well yeah you don't, that's why you want a primerica mutual fund, which the banks don't want you to know about because... You know banks offer mutual funds too, right?Seriously. College grad, 70K + a year, did not know the difference between an RSRP and a mutual fund. Far as she was concerned the two were one and the same.
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Sep 27, 2013 17:22
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oldskool posted:Tons of studies have been done on this. Most popular one would be the marshmallow experiment. Mostly they summarize into "Poors had the concept of delayed gratification driven out of them from an early age": they learn early on that when they want something expensive and try to save for it, they end up nickel and dimed out of their savings long before they save enough to get the big-ticket item. My cousin owns a pawn shop, so he has a good collection of stories. But my favorite is this: A man walks into the pawn shop and pawns a brand new set of speakers still in the box. Of course, my cousin immediately thinks this is stolen, so he does an extra thorough check. The man produces a receipt with THAT SAME DAY'S DATE, proves his identity, and somehow produces enough evidence to overcome my cousin's suspicions. So my cousin has to ask, "Why are you pawning these brand new speakers?" The man answers, "I already pawned you my stereo. I need the money I spent on those speakers to pay my bills. But I know if I pawn the speakers and the stereo together, when I eventually pay them off then I'll actually have my whole stereo together."
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Sep 27, 2013 17:37
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johnny sack posted:I can never understand the whole winning lottery/inheritance and then blowing it all immediately. There was a tv show that focused on lottery winners who did that. These people are rarely wealthy prior to the influx of money, and then they blow it all. You'd think that being relatively poor to begin, you would be even more careful of how you spend all that money. When people are conditioned for decades to live paycheck to paycheck and to spend money if they have it, it becomes a very hard habit to break. Many people who consider themselves frugal are only so because they have no choice. When given the choice, they spend it. To avoid this these individuals need financial education (the knowledge) and a quick introduction to habit formation and human behavior (how to apply the knowledge). The simplest thing most institutions try to do is push written expressions of budgets on people. And that's fine, but it is much like telling someone to diet by eating this and this and this without ever explaining to them why they are doing it. Habit formation and the ability to control your daily routines is actually one of the areas where a majority of well-functioning people struggle. Plenty of people hang on to one or two vices (smoking, excessive drinking, unhealthy eating, porn, etc.) with a variety of excuses: "work hard play hard"; "I need to have some fun in my life"; "nobody is perfect" etc. etc.. It may never come apparent that the inability not to go have a smoke at lunch is equivalent to a homeless guy's inability not to go buy a 40 when he gets three bucks. I'm starting to rant, so I'll stop there.
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Sep 27, 2013 17:40
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No Wave posted:Consolidate the money into one account, ideally linked to mint (you can do this with Vanguard). You need to see those actual numbers staring you in the face, all the time, or else you won't be able to understand the impact of your expenditures. Hah, I got my poo poo together on Mint a couple months ago, so they are staring me in the face.  There haven't been many expenditures, mostly I just lumped together the sale of the deceased's person's house with smaller liquid accounts and used that to buy the house I mentioned in my post, with the remainder in an easy-access emergency fund. The biggest accounts, inherited IRAs/401k, haven't been touched yet. I probably should combine them, but I need to research the "right" way to do that to minimize whatever kinds of fees or tax consequences I'd be facing, first.
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Sep 27, 2013 17:40
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drat Bananas posted:Hah, I got my poo poo together on Mint a couple months ago, so they are staring me in the face. Call Vanguard, they've done this sort of thing an awful lot. I've done something similar this year.
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Sep 27, 2013 18:07
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No Wave posted:Taxes are low right now. I mean how much are you getting paid per hour that getting your inherited financials straightened isn't your best $/hour expenditure of time right now? quote:Call Vanguard, they've done this sort of thing an awful lot. I've done something similar this year.
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Sep 27, 2013 19:26
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oldskool posted:When they come into a windfall they buy that frivolous stuff they always wanted because they honestly don't trust the concept of "Pay down debts and the amount of money you can spend on frivolous stuff will increase" because it's never worked for them. I've touched on this a bit earlier on in the thread, but the marshmallow experiment is often oversimplified as 'poor people can't delay gratification which explains why they're poor'. This routine by Chris Rock explains it quite well about the difference between being rich and being wealthy. Speaking of Lotto winners, Michael Carroll is probably one of the more memorable winners. He won £9,736,131 on the National Lottery in 2002 and styled himself as 'King of the Chavs' (I suppose the best translation for "chav" would be redneck, bogan or ned?). He proceeded to buy a massive house in a posh area and use it for various anti-social purposes such as racing cars, substance abuse and prostitutes. As of present he's effectively broke and is back on unemployment benefits.
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Sep 27, 2013 19:46
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drat Bananas posted:I didn't come into the thread with the intent to spill personal details, but I'll compare my choice of what I'm focusing on to the common choice of paying off debt with the highest interest first versus paying off the smallest balance for the sense of victory/motivation. I'm doing the latter (focusing on health insurance problems, the legalities of changing my name, and some my-house-will-fall-down home repairs) but I still have these inheritance matters still on my immediate to-do list. When I opened my IRA with Vanguard, I called them up because I had a few questions. It was very easy to talk to an actual person (American, not a foreigner overseas) who was able to answer my questions. What I'm saying is, call them up. It probably won't take more than twenty minutes. Opening the account might take a bit longer, but at least calling them won't.
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Sep 27, 2013 19:51
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drat Bananas posted:Can they just open an inherited IRA account to transfer everything to, just like that? If there's anything I've learned about inherited IRAs, it's that you have to be very careful with what you do with the money or it will be considered income. My brain translated that as "Take out the RMDs to make the IRS happy, but otherwise don't touch." The only reason I'm bugging you on this is because I think you can benefit! If after talking to Vanguard, you decide not to do anything, no harm. But it's really much easier than you'd think.
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Sep 27, 2013 21:18
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johnny sack posted:When I opened my IRA with Vanguard, I called them up because I had a few questions. It was very easy to talk to an actual person (American, not a foreigner overseas) who was able to answer my questions. What I'm saying is, call them up. It probably won't take more than twenty minutes. Opening the account might take a bit longer, but at least calling them won't. No Wave posted:Sure - but no matter what, you're going to have to deal with it some day and a.) taxes are low now, and b.) even if you want to move slowly, you can minimize taxes by doing the withdrawals over a long period of time (in which case, better to get started early!). Getting it all together will also allow you to have more control over the distribution of your investments, which theoretically should increase the expected value of your return. Thanks goons, after an hour long phone call with Vanguard I've learned that I'm not subject to any new/different taxes as long as I do a direct inherited IRA to inherited IRA transfer, which I now have the forms to create a fresh one. I guess I thought that the only way to create an inherited IRA was to have a regular IRA with that institution and then die. Not so, apparently. If I have further questions I'll take it to the retirement thread, since I don't think I'm on par with the rest of the "bad with money" thread examples. At least I hope not. Edit: Clarify, it didn't take me an hour to learn the taxes thing, the guy was just a friggen pro about everything IRA and answered every tiny question I had about how it all works. Much better than the canned "You should consult a tax professional" I got from Ameriprise. vvv Pretty sure I followed her thread when it was active (can't find it now) but the thread didn't have much discussion that crossed over into my situation much. Damn Bananas fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Sep 27, 2013 |
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Sep 27, 2013 21:59
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Search for a thread by Aurora Borealis (?) in archives, she also had a large inheritance and it might be of interest to you.
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Sep 27, 2013 22:03
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paperchaseguy posted:Search for a thread by Aurora Borealis (?) in archives, she also had a large inheritance and it might be of interest to you. The TL;DR of it is "Don't invest in your friend's dumb video games bar"
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Sep 27, 2013 22:29
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froglet posted:I've touched on this a bit earlier on in the thread, but the marshmallow experiment is often oversimplified as 'poor people can't delay gratification which explains why they're poor'. Boy do I love Chris Rock, I grew up listening to all of his stand-ups on repeat and could probably recite every word. I always liked this bit especially but as I've grown older I realized that life doesn't have to be the zero sum game as he describes it ("Only the white man can profit from pain."). First you have to consider what "wealth" really is, and wealth isn't money, which I think is the point he's trying to make. Poor people buy cars and jewelry when they receive a windfall, and wealthy people invest windfalls into assets that are intrinsically valuable and in turn create more wealth. But I disagree with Chris when he pretty much paints over all poor minorities as a doomed sub-class in America. Are you at a disadvantage starting out in life if you're born to parents who are financially inept and who barely own the clothes on their backs? Sure. Are you at a serious advantage starting out in life if you're born to parents who inherited tons of money, who own five properties and have a net worth in the millions? Sure. However, people born into poverty who choose to value their own educations and are ambitious enough can break out of poverty and rise above their surroundings. Just as people who are born into wealthy families of privilege can end up addicts or wastes of life. You don't have to hurt anyone or become a criminal, lie, cheat, or steal to break out of poverty. And being born into poverty is not a life sentence, at least not in the United States. There is literally no excuse for financial ignorance in this day and age, aside from apathy and laziness. Lightning Zwei fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Sep 28, 2013 |
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Sep 28, 2013 04:31
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And, you know, that lack of opportunity you talked about. Everyone in this country is born with a right to a free education, but isn't it a drat shame that not all education is equal (see: elementary school in Oakland vs San Francisco, or rural Kentucky vs Portland) and societal pressure and oppression outside of individual control (see: tracking, lack of special ed services) affect individual experiences of oppression and privilege as well. I personally think that every individual who succeeds from a disadvantaged background is extraordinary and does nothing to invalidate the struggle of those continuing their lives in socioeconomic and educational depression. But then again maybe the poors are lazy and the American dream lives. Edit: it's also interesting how often people seem to expect internet and technological literacy from people from severely impoverished backgrounds. Seriously, you can't learn to educate yourself online in 15 minute chunks at the library. Assuming your library has working computers that aren't so heavily walled you can actually do research. I've worked with full grown men and women without a functional idea of the internet or financial tools like online banking or online job applications. The world is leaving them behind and it's not their fault as individuals that their communities lack access. Mocking Bird fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Sep 28, 2013 |
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Sep 28, 2013 05:02
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Trilineatus posted:...But then again maybe the poors are lazy and the American dream lives. I was as good a liberal hippie as the rest of us here. Went to a liberal arts school where we discussed these institutional problems and how it's not their fault! The system! Then I worked offshore, followed by moving across the world. Offshore, you get people from Philippines/Malaysia/wherever that work twice as hard as the white people, they make an order of magnitude less money (literally), and are on a boat away from their families for 11 months out of the year. They have better attitudes than the European assholes on board that bitch about everything, but get equal time off and double salary plus hazard pay. It's all about some perspective... on this planet, if you want to work hard, you can. I have little sympathy for this "but the institution!" card. The American Dream is very much alive, you just aren't entitled to it. It requires a lot of hard work.
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Sep 28, 2013 06:48
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Switchback posted:I was as good a liberal hippie as the rest of us here. Went to a liberal arts school where we discussed these institutional problems and how it's not their fault! The system! Hard work doesn't pay six-figure medical bills, or pay you a sustainable wage even though you work two and a half full time jobs. Hard work is important, yes. But only when you're in a position where that work can help you. Also, people can succeed without doing any hard work at all. Luck plays a factor.
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Sep 28, 2013 07:24
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Lightning Zwei posted:Poor people buy cars and jewelry when they receive a windfall, and wealthy people invest windfalls into assets that are intrinsically valuable and in turn create more wealth. Yeah, that's the main point I took away from it. Also regarding your other comments, it's kinda hard for some kid in highschool to "choose to value their education" and "break out of poverty and rise above their surroundings" if their parents are struggling financially and getting a part time job would really help them put food on the table. It's hard to study when the only thing you can think about is food or if you're feeling stressed out because the electrical bill is overdue and you're not sure if the power will be on when you get home. After doing a bit of volunteer work and talking to people who work with the long-term unemployed or people living in poverty, the conclusion I've come to is that it's the sort of nebulous, multi-faceted problem that can't be fixed by just one thing.
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Sep 28, 2013 09:52
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