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Staryberry posted:It depends what source you use. Looking at GDP per hours worked, France is not as productive as the US (67.32 vs. 59.24) but France is more productive than Germany, the UK, Japan, and South Korea (all countries that are generally thought of as hard working).
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Feb 28, 2014 21:31
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EN Bullshit posted:So I'm looking at a vacation property for $1650 in April and $1100 the two months after. $500 deposit. I seriously can't tell if E/N is a troll or not, but I mean, he would be way too perfect at it if he were. By the way I should mention he's been at his first job out of college for a grand total of about 5 months.
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Feb 28, 2014 21:57
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Laterbase posted:I live in the uk and I took all December off. How many holidays do you get in the land of the free? Just go look at the PTO thread....
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Feb 28, 2014 22:00
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Lowness 72 posted:Or you get cancer and die at 23 or 52. gently caress Or, more likely (unless you're filthy rich), inflation renders your once impressive nest egg inadequate for your intended lifestyle.
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Mar 1, 2014 00:12
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Cockmaster posted:Or, more likely (unless you're filthy rich), inflation renders your once impressive nest egg inadequate for your intended lifestyle. Well you don't keep it in cash, you invest it, which beats inflation much of the time. Graph is log scale so we do have a ways to reach the inflation adjusted peaks in the last twenty years, but the trend is still clear:  I believe if you were to withdraw at most 4% of your wealth each year, there is no period in recorded US history where you would have run out of money invested in SPY. Obviously investing the day before the crash of 29 would have a greatly different outcome than investing the day after, but you wouldn't just run out of money. That means you can retire as soon as you save 25x as much as you spend each year, and you can increase that buffer if you are worried. Sorry for the continued derail, I will drop this now, feel free to get a last word in. Tuyop said what I should have said anyway, listen to him.
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Mar 1, 2014 00:49
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Laterbase posted:I live in the uk and I took all December off. How many holidays do you get in the land of the free? There's no legal mandate for your employer to provide any vacation what so ever. A few cities have begun to mandate 5 days of paid sick leave (Seattle, San Fran, and I think the state of Connecticut.) On retirement vs work vs fun - We've decided to max our 401ks and other options - bought a house that only takes 8% per month - take a few small trips per year and a big cool one every few years. We have fun but we don't go out and buy ridic poo poo. We'll probably retire early but not like at 40. More like 50. I think experiences while you are young are worth more than stuff or being old with a bunch of money. silicone thrills fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Mar 1, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 06:52
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Tigntink posted:I think experiences while you are young are worth more than stuff or being old with a bunch of money. I definitely agree with this. In my opinion you may as well do things that you really want to do while you can. For instance my girlfriend and I went on a trip to Europe June 2012 (when we were 19/20) and spent $25k between us. Realistically, that could have been the start for a deposit on a house or just a great emergency fund etc etc, but sometimes you have to.. just do it. I don't mean spend $25k on a holiday (which I admit was ridiculous, but we did pay all cash for it), but if you want to go on a trip/do something, sometimes you have to go for it, otherwise you'll never end up doing it. Realistically speaking it's unlikely we will ever make a trip that big again for another 20-40years, making it almost a once in a lifetime event.
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Mar 1, 2014 07:20
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My sister graduated in 2005. She quickly found a job that wasn't paying much, but since she was living at home with our parents everything was fine. Fast forward to 2007. She  meets this guy on the internet who lives in an entirely different country, goes to visit him for a week, and based on that week decides to move in with him. In a different country. With no job or financial security whatsoever. Did I mention the guy was still in college at the time?Long story short: my sister has been jumping from job to job since 2007. Her boyfriend graduated in early 2009, and didn't start looking for a job until 2012, since "I graduated from a good college, all the companies will line up to hire me, just you wait  ".He finally finds a job in late 2013, and the first thing he does? Buy a car, since taking public transit to and from his workplace is "beneath him". Basically they are living paycheck to paycheck, have exactly zero savings, and if my parents hadn't been supporting them (to the tune of at least ten thousand euros per year since 2007) they would be in debt up to their ears. And now they're looking to buy an apartment, to save on rent. My parents basically said, "Ok, we'll pay for the apartment, but it's going to be in our name." Of course, my sister's boyfriend doesn't agree with that at all, because he wants to live in his own house (nevermind they're renting right now), and if the apartment is my parents' he cannot, say, sell it down the way to buy a better one in his name. Goddamnit. I love my sister, but I wish she'd notice what he's been doing and sever already.
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Mar 1, 2014 12:09
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Mikl posted:Goddamnit. I love my sister, but I wish she'd notice what he's been doing and sever already. I said something remarkably similar to this about a friend of mine a few years back. When we were about 16-17 she started dating this 24 year old guy. She stopped talking to me for a few weeks after 17 year old me pointed out that a 24 year old guy wanting to date highschool girls is creepy as gently caress and to find somebody her own age. Well, she ended up staying with him in the end and it became a bit of a sore point in our relationship, although I did agree to be a bridesmaid at their wedding a few years after our argument. This only came out after they broke up, and this guy was a broken manchild for myriad other reasons, but my friends breaking point was about 6 months before the wedding. Her condition for marrying him was that he'd have a job or be studying (even a Certificate I in floral arrangement) at least 6 months before they got hitched and she found out that he hadn't been looking for jobs and that he had no intention of ever getting a job or studying. They were together for five years and he had not once had a job.  I'm honestly not sure how he managed that, it's pretty hard to cheat welfare here in Australia. You have to submit evidence that you've applied for ten jobs a week every fortnight to get your payments. froglet fucked around with this message at 14:01 on Mar 1, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 12:53
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froglet posted:This only came out after they broke up, and this guy was a broken manchild for myriad other reasons, but my friends breaking point was about 6 months before the wedding. (...) So wait, she reached her breaking point and then stayed with him a few more years?
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Mar 1, 2014 13:42
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FrozenVent posted:So wait, she reached her breaking point and then stayed with him a few more years? Nah, they announced they were going to get married and she asked me to be a bridesmaid, then dumped him a few weeks after we'd done the dress fittings. Edit: this reminds me of another hilarious detail - she used all the money she got back from deposits for the venue, rings, etc to have a massive party to celebrate after kicking him out. froglet fucked around with this message at 14:03 on Mar 1, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 14:00
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Mikl posted:~Massive dick~ This sort of (at least the "parents buying apartment" bit) made me think of my girlfriends friend. This is a girl who apparently grew up thinking that she was poor and that she lived through hardship, yet in reality she's gotten loads of poo poo (like a $600 massage pass) from her mom because she sucks with money. She thinks it's fair (almost an obligation) that her boyfriends parents buys them an apartment in the most expensive city in the country. Last I heard she is looking into getting a dog, despite the boyfriend being allergic. If she isn't up over her ears in debt once the mom decides she can't afford to subsidize her anymore, I'll eat my hat. Oh, and the boyfriend is one of those "I don't need to find a job, the companies will line up to hire me.  " kinda person that Mikl mentioned. Which is odd, because not only did he not go to a very noteworthy school, he didn't even study something ("Industrial Design") that is even remotely easy to get a job with.
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Mar 1, 2014 23:37
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Oh man I've got a great one for this thread. So one of my wife's friends is absolutely horrible with money. She is a 24 year old bartender who wants to be a professional chef. She dropped out of high school because she got kicked off the cheer-leading squad for truancy. Since then she has not gotten her GED, and has had a few different bartending jobs. She actually managed to work for John Tesar for a week(as a bartender) before quitting. Even better, she had the opportunity to go work for Dean Fearing but gave it up because her manager convinced her that there was no future in that, and that she needed to break into the "punk rock food truck scene" and that he was going to hook her up with a real chef! Well he didn't and she missed out on that opportunity. She has spent the last few months waiting on a job at a restaurant that just opened, but she's never actually applied. She just used to bug the owner when he came in to drink at her bar, and he said he'd find a place for her. Well my wife and I told her to actually go in and apply, and the response we got was "I'm trying everything I can, you don't know what it's like to open a restaurant, he's very busy!" Ok. Well they've been open for a month now and she still doesn't have a job there but has deluded herself into thinking that they will hire her once they "Sort out the kinks." Jesus. On to the money issues. She has absolutely no savings but makes a decent living(Somewhere in the neighborhood of $30-$40k/yr). She also has debt. She went out and got a Target credit card, bought a bunch of stuff on it, and then never made a payment. So I don't even know the status of that any more, she may have started paying it or maybe it went to collections. She has an older Honda(Accord? I dunno) that her dad bought her, on the condition that she pay him for it in monthly installments. Well as you can guess, she never made a payment, and has since stopped talking to her dad because he is always being a "hardass" and "bugging" her about the money. Well I should say she hasn't completely stopped contact, she went to jail on a warrant for unpaid tickets 2 years ago and called her dad to bail her out. Well he did and now she complains that he is always asking for that money as well. Oh yeah, she also broke her foot back in November because she drunkenly tried to ride her coworkers boke(without permission) and fell, and guess who footed the bill for that hospital trip? Yeah. Back to the Honda, she hates it. There's nothing actually wrong with it, aside from cosmetic damage that she did while driving drunk. So she went online and filled out a loan application? I don't know what she did, I think she actually just clicked on one of the sponsored links that appear when you search "Car loan" on google, because the next day she called my wife asking if a 5 year loan at 18% was a good idea(Someone had called her and offered her that loan). So anyways, she's been "saving" for a month or so, trying to get a down payment, and hasn't actually saved anything. I can't wait to see how this chapter turns out. She's been dying to go to New Orleans for a few years now, and still hasn't made the trip....It's like an 8 hour drive. She and her ex-boyfriend even managed to get(He bought them for her as a birthday present) a few hotel rooms around NOLA for a 3 day trip they were going to take last year, but she never actually saved anything, and they didn't go. My wife and I managed to go this last December and it was awesome, and she was very upset. Still can't manage to save the money to do it though, she just complains about how hard life is. My wife talks to her about saving money sometimes(She regularly spends $200-300/week on clothes) but she just says things like "You don't understaaaaand, you don't have expensive taste like I dooooooo..." and other insulting stuff. So on to the best part: She hasn't paid taxes in like 5 years. My wife just offhandedly mentioned it a few weeks ago and my jaw dropped. At first I thought she was just missing out on her refund, but I talked to a friend of mine who works as a bartender at a similar location, and they told me they owe about $3000 every year in taxes. Well now this girl is hosed. I don't know how much money she actually makes, but assuming she only owes even $2000 a year, I plugged that number into a penalty/IRS calculator and she will owe somewhere around $10000. Wow! And she's about to buy a car. Also, she regularly misses payment on utilities bills for a month or two at a time because she can't budget for it, and doesn't have the time to do it. I'm also gonna include another little section on her character: She has cheated on the past 3 boyfriends she has had, one of whom was my best man. Her most recent ex and her split up last week because he cheated on her(He slept with his ex after they had "broken up" after a fight a month ago), even though she has cheated on him 3 separate times. She said something along the lines of: "I just can't get over the fact that you did that, and I can't trust you any more." She and her boyfriend from last year bought a dog together(against my wife's advice) and she can not take care of it. She takes the dog out at 6 or 7, goes to work, comes home at 4 am, and then sleeps till 4, and repeats the process over again(It's crated like 18 hours a day). That's assuming that she doesn't go to her BF's house and spend the night with him, before coming home to let the dog out to pee. It's disgusting and I've talked to my wife about calling the SPCA, but I doubt that they would do anything after knocking on the door, because the dog would be out of it's crate and she would deny it of course. That's all I can think of for now, but there is plenty more and I'll add it as I think of it. Big_Gulps_Huh fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Mar 2, 2014 |
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Mar 2, 2014 01:51
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I work for a doctor's office in the billing department. I recently spoke with a patient who wanted a payment plan for her surgery balance, which is nothing new...except she hadn't scheduled the surgery yet, but wanted to have it in early April. She wanted me to give her a complete estimate of what she would owe after the insurance paid so she could decide if she wanted to have the surgery and if it was cheap enough*, she wanted to start paying part of it every two weeks before she even had the surgery. I told her that based on her insurance, she'd pay $800 at most, but probably less, and that I wasn't going to collect money for a surgery that wasn't even scheduled, so she should just put it aside and save it until then. She told me that she couldn't do that because she would spend it. Geez, lady, even if you can't save up, if you can pay biweekly before the drat surgery then surely you can pay biweekly afterwards as well! *I hear this a lot, and it's kind of baffling because these are all people with cataracts who are having surgery to save their eyesight, and they all have insurance so they most they'd pay is like $1000.
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Mar 2, 2014 04:00
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HelloIAmYourHeart posted:I work for a doctor's office in the billing department. I recently spoke with a patient who wanted a payment plan for her surgery balance, which is nothing new...except she hadn't scheduled the surgery yet, but wanted to have it in early April. She wanted me to give her a complete estimate of what she would owe after the insurance paid so she could decide if she wanted to have the surgery and if it was cheap enough*, she wanted to start paying part of it every two weeks before she even had the surgery. I told her that based on her insurance, she'd pay $800 at most, but probably less, and that I wasn't going to collect money for a surgery that wasn't even scheduled, so she should just put it aside and save it until then. She told me that she couldn't do that because she would spend it. Geez, lady, even if you can't save up, if you can pay biweekly before the drat surgery then surely you can pay biweekly afterwards as well! That's not being bad with money. It's knowing your weaknesses and working around them. She's setting aside money before an event, and she's putting it somewhere untouchable.
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Mar 2, 2014 12:48
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Bloody Queef posted:That's not being bad with money. It's knowing your weaknesses and working around them. She's setting aside money before an event, and she's putting it somewhere untouchable. Not being able keep yourself from spending money is being bad with money.
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Mar 2, 2014 14:25
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While that's true, they are going out of their way to take measures to mitigate that; that's pretty commendable in my book. At least they realize they have a problem, unlike most of the people discussed in this thread.
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Mar 2, 2014 14:39
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Bloody Queef posted:That's not being bad with money. It's knowing your weaknesses and working around them. She's setting aside money before an event, and she's putting it somewhere untouchable. If you're so lacking in self control that maintaining the least of emergency funds would be unfeasible, you should be seeking help immediately, not just living your whole life within your limitations.
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Mar 2, 2014 15:09
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Cockmaster posted:If you're so lacking in self control that maintaining the least of emergency funds would be unfeasible, you should be seeking help immediately, not just living your whole life within your limitations. Yeah, being bad with money is not a disability, it's a skill.
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Mar 2, 2014 16:09
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HelloIAmYourHeart posted:I work for a doctor's office in the billing department. I recently spoke with a patient who wanted a payment plan for her surgery balance, which is nothing new...except she hadn't scheduled the surgery yet, but wanted to have it in early April. She wanted me to give her a complete estimate of what she would owe after the insurance paid so she could decide if she wanted to have the surgery and if it was cheap enough*, she wanted to start paying part of it every two weeks before she even had the surgery. I told her that based on her insurance, she'd pay $800 at most, but probably less, and that I wasn't going to collect money for a surgery that wasn't even scheduled, so she should just put it aside and save it until then. She told me that she couldn't do that because she would spend it. Geez, lady, even if you can't save up, if you can pay biweekly before the drat surgery then surely you can pay biweekly afterwards as well!
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Mar 2, 2014 16:35
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HelloIAmYourHeart posted:*I hear this a lot, and it's kind of baffling because these are all people with cataracts who are having surgery to save their eyesight, and they all have insurance so they most they'd pay is like $1000. How exactly are people supposed to know that? From the perspective of the consumer, medical costs are wildly unpredictable. I go to a doctor's office even for something which I KNOW is minor, I have no idea if it's going to be 50 bucks or 500 bucks. I don't know if my insurance will pay for some of it, all of it, or none of it, regardless of what I THINK the rules are. For something like cataract surgery, not knowing anything about it going in, I'd be wondering if my eyesight was going to cost me my house. I realize the insurance part of that is mostly out of your office's hands, and depending on what other offices you work with, some of your own pricing might not be entirely within your control; but is there really anything stopping doctors from being more up front about pricing on things that really are as predictable as what you're describing? Hell, I walk into a hospital or clinic in China, and there's a big price menu on the wall for common procedures. Of course, the prices here aren't utterly terrifying...maybe that's a reason not to do it in the US. story: The family down the road when I was a kid had a son who was mildly retarded (still is). After high school, he was taking cooking classes at the community college, despite having some really seriously goony eating habits himself. He had a job, doing what I don't remember. He was living with his parents while working and going to school. He was supposed to pay his tuition bill when he got his paycheck. This didn't happen, as he had for months been spending all his money on a stripper, whom he was convinced loved him. He had a picture of her, which my brother said had visible lip prints on it. He got dropped from his classes when he didn't pay his tuition. His father then demanded he control his son's paychecks. VideoTapir fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Mar 2, 2014 |
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Mar 2, 2014 16:47
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Sounds like the US healthcare system is bad with money  e. That story about the stripper and mentally handicapped guy is pretty  and sounds more predatory than bad with money. Every once in a while in a place I used to live some temporary mall kiosk would pop up pressuring old people and the retarded into buying hundreds of dollars of cosmetics or some poo poo, I don't think most people's first instinct is to blame the target.Unless I'm totally underestimating his functionality then I'll be the idiot today 
Guest2553 fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Mar 2, 2014 |
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Mar 2, 2014 18:33
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^^^^^^^^^ Yes, the US Healthcare system is totally bad with money but it should be getting better. VideoTapir posted:How exactly are people supposed to know that? From the perspective of the consumer, medical costs are wildly unpredictable...is there really anything stopping doctors from being more up front about pricing on things that really are as predictable as what you're describing? We tell them! I am being upfront. I'm not just telling these patients "lol I dunno." An answer of "no more than $800" is a pretty good answer for someone who hasn't even scheduled the surgery yet. Once they decided that yes, they'd like to have the surgery, I will contact their insurance and get an actual exact dollar amount and inform the patient a few days before the surgery so they can set up a payment plan or back out or whatever. Our office also contacts insurances before patients have any type of appointment so they know if there will be an additional cost for any testing, etc. Medical costs should start to become more transparent over the next few years, since most of the plans in the Affordable Care Act are high coinsurance/high deductible, and consumers are going to want to know more of their out of pocket costs up front. It'll be pretty interesting.
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Mar 2, 2014 18:36
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I remember an article posted in this thread about how some people with low incomes quickly spend all their money because they feel like if they don't it will be taken away from them. Either by the taxman or by whatever else... Anyone remember that?
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Mar 2, 2014 20:19
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Strong Sauce posted:I remember an article posted in this thread about how some people with low incomes quickly spend all their money because they feel like if they don't it will be taken away from them. Either by the taxman or by whatever else... Anyone remember that? Was it this? http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-habits-you-develop-growing-up-poor/
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Mar 2, 2014 20:25
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HoogieChooChoo posted:Oh man I've got a great one for this thread. Why are you friends with such a horrible person? She's not just bad with money, she sounds like an awful human.
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Mar 2, 2014 20:40
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I don't know man, but I'd like to clarify and say that I'm not friends with her, any more than occasionally seeing her at the bar and stuff. And my wife hadn't really considered her a good friend in a few years...
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Mar 2, 2014 21:23
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Is she hot?
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Mar 3, 2014 00:32
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Yeah I guess so
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Mar 3, 2014 01:16
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HelloIAmYourHeart posted:I work for a doctor's office in the billing department. I recently spoke with a patient who wanted a payment plan for her surgery balance, which is nothing new...except she hadn't scheduled the surgery yet, but wanted to have it in early April. She wanted me to give her a complete estimate of what she would owe after the insurance paid so she could decide if she wanted to have the surgery and if it was cheap enough*, she wanted to start paying part of it every two weeks before she even had the surgery. I told her that based on her insurance, she'd pay $800 at most, but probably less, and that I wasn't going to collect money for a surgery that wasn't even scheduled, so she should just put it aside and save it until then. She told me that she couldn't do that because she would spend it. Geez, lady, even if you can't save up, if you can pay biweekly before the drat surgery then surely you can pay biweekly afterwards as well! If they have an High Deductible Health Plan, they could have an HSA to put funds solely for health care into. I try to fund mine above what my employer puts in so that I know I always have enough in there to cover the $1250.00 per year deductible before ANY insurance kicks in, plus a bit of money for yearly dental/vision checkups. It's nice to just swipe the card for my prescriptions and doctor visits and not have to worry about factoring it in to the rest of my budget. Actually, since we're not going to single-payer anytime soon (which I would VASTLY prefer), I'd like to see them expanded so that anyone who wants one can have one and put in tax deductible money. Even if someone has a "Cadillac" health plan, the money would be there for dental/vision deductibles or coverage, or can just keep growing until something happens where it's needed. Someone like the person above would benefit just from having some money pulled from their paycheck every couple of weeks and stored where they would have to be either dumb/desperate to use it for non-healthcare related expenses.
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Mar 3, 2014 04:34
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They should just be able to use an FSA with a 'Cadillac' plan. Not sure on the limits and such though.
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Mar 3, 2014 04:50
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HSAs own the hell out of FSAs, though. It's kind of too bad they are limited only to HDHPs.
Guinness fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Mar 3, 2014 |
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Mar 3, 2014 04:55
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I have something like a $1200 deductible and we have the option of HSA, but it's a goddamned reimbursement account. So I put the money away...then I have to spend cash in order to be reimbursed with my own loving money. Jesus Christ I hate this poo poo, I cannot wait until we go single payer.
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Mar 3, 2014 07:54
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NancyPants posted:I have something like a $1200 deductible and we have the option of HSA, but it's a goddamned reimbursement account. So I put the money away...then I have to spend cash in order to be reimbursed with my own loving money. Jesus Christ I hate this poo poo, I cannot wait until we go single payer.
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Mar 3, 2014 08:24
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tuyop posted:Yeah, being bad with money is not a disability, it's a skill. I am bad with money, but really good at it!
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Mar 3, 2014 14:32
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Strong Sauce posted:Maybe the reason AMERICA is bad with money is because car companies release commercials like this telling you to keep working hard to buy their products. I think what bothers me most is that people (probably most) are actually heavily influenced by commercials in the first place. I mean yeah, I'm sure commercials have probably influenced my purchasing decisions in the past but I don't think they affect me as much as most people I know.
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Mar 3, 2014 15:34
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Orange_Lazarus posted:I think what bothers me most is that people (probably most) are actually heavily influenced by commercials in the first place. I mean yeah, I'm sure commercials have probably influenced my purchasing decisions in the past but I don't think they affect me as much as most people I know. Everyone thinks this.
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Mar 3, 2014 15:40
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VideoTapir posted:Everyone thinks this. I guess that's true. I would actually love to read studies on how commercials affect people. Also, I failed to mention I rarely ever see or hear commercials thanks to Adblock and cutting cable so it wasn't a fair comparison.
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Mar 3, 2014 15:45
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Yeah I don't think I am affected less than others per-commercial but I see a lot fewer of them than most people.
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Mar 3, 2014 15:49
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Still, commercials like that really hit a nerve with me and goes right for the whole American exceptionalism/consumerism angle so shamelessly. It's targeted at people bad with money. "I work hard so I deserve my $74K Cadillac, gently caress those euros and their holidays." I would much rather take an an entire month of vacation than blow that kind of money a car like that. However, I know no less than 5 people I work with that will disagree with me and have that caddy within a few months parked in their way too big houses next to their "boat puller" trucks.
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Mar 3, 2014 17:26
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