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Good quality expensive shoes are cool. lovely fashion shoes are not. It's easier being a man in this regard - stylish shoes are more likely to be better quality. Women can have stylish shoes that cost $300 and are made of paper mache.
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Apr 1, 2015 16:05
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I added a warning to the original link so everyone has a heads up on the article.Radbot posted:Good quality expensive shoes are cool. lovely fashion shoes are not. Yea when I read that I was thinking what about Oxfords for work? A cheap pair of Oxfords suck and hurt to wear.
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Apr 1, 2015 16:10
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Rick Rickshaw posted:I liked that article aside from the "real men have financial freedom, girls have expensive shoes" part. But I just thought he meant "men who act like little girls" - not actually demeaning women Presuming that this is not some kind of ironic joke, I think you have profoundly misunderstood something about feminism.
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Apr 1, 2015 16:41
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http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/04/01/impossible-dream/ Everybody knows you never go full bootstraps. It's astoundingly dumb that he wants a scientific analysis for structuring retirement programs, and then blames low savings rates on a lack of "spirit". Spirits are not testable or measurable. What's the spiritual difference of the German volk's 10% savings rate, and America's 5%? (Cue: some real vulgar, stereotype-based sociology). Seriously, have some curiously about how economics actually works. Banks don't hire spirit analysts to predict what the demand for cash, bonds, and equities will be. "Because the problem is not a shortage of money – it’s a shortage of spirit. A lack of desire and fire in our bellies to embrace hardship and challenge, to get the most out of ourselves, rather than designing a lifestyle that allows us to exert ourselves the least." Honestly, I'm enjoying my 70% savings rate, but this is like the clock that chimed 13 times - so wrong, you question whether it's ever been right.
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Apr 1, 2015 17:56
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Alhireth-Hotep posted:Presuming that this is not some kind of ironic joke, I think you have profoundly misunderstood something about feminism. My point was children often do silly things that don't persist into adulthood, which can be fair game for mockery when they do, even if bordering on the edge of gender issues. I still wouldn't have said it, but because I agreed with so much of that article I wanted to believe that was the writer's intentions. Until it became clear he's an MRA jackass. Mofabio posted:http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/04/01/impossible-dream/ At the risk of sounding like an MMM apologist, I don't think his approach to this article is entirely wrong. Perhaps his mistake was to combine macro-level and micro-level economics into one article. His request to review retirement programs is at the macro level. His desire to inspire people by claiming we need to have a more spirited approach to our lives is at the micro level. Inspiring me to embrace hardship by riding my bike in all kinds of weather has certainly improved my own micro-level economics. Rick Rickshaw fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Apr 1, 2015 |
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Apr 1, 2015 18:08
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Vahakyla posted:If you click anywhere on the site, it offers an advertisement about a "free 9-step dating guide". Beauty (women) and resources (men) are the qualities that define what people search for on dating sites (what we say we want vs what people actually want) http://freakonomics.com/2014/02/06/what-you-dont-know-about-online-dating-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/ digs into some of the research I am going by memory here, but income was the most sought after trait in a man, and beauty was the most sought after quality in a woman. Oddly enough intellect (degree) did not matter at all, except that it correlated to income. found the transcript quote:OYER: Just to give you one statistic that comes from the OKCupid blog, and I’m quoting here, “A hot woman receives roughly four times the messages an average-looking woman gets and 25 times as many as an ugly one.” And then there’s this interesting superstar effect where the very hottest 5 percent of men get twice as many emails as men who are just below that, who are more like the 10th percentile, amount the 10th percentile most attractive, but not among the very top 5 percent. Women are in general a little bit more attracted to lawyers, doctors, men in the military and firefighters, which I’d always heard was a stereotype, but apparently it turns out to be at least a little bit true. Business, Finance, and Careers: Filled with Desirable Men
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Apr 1, 2015 18:36
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Rick Rickshaw posted:At the risk of sounding like an MMM apologist, I don't think his approach to this article is entirely wrong. Yeah, I think that's pretty much right. MMM had an effect on my "spirit", showing me there wasn't an upper bound to savings. I like his line that early retirement is the biggest luxury purchase you can ever make. That stuck with me. Changed my spirit, as far as I can tell. But you really can't observe spiritual changes in other people. They're hard to even observe in yourself, much less talk about. Until we have sci-fi perfect brain mapping, the idea that we aren't saving enough due to lack of spirit is not a testable hypothesis. The fact he's comfortable using this shaky empirical ground to confidently dismiss other routes to retirement beside his own is, uh, real dumb. Like, reality's really loving difficult to figure out. Doubly so for human societies. There are actual scholars of pension programs who spend their lives studying them, across countries and businesses. The world would probably be a happier, more free place if more people did like us and MMM, but he isn't doing his cause any favors with an untestable, unworkable, spirituality-based analysis. edit: For instance, it wouldn't be economically impossible to lower the national retirement age by upping FICA deductions - just politically. The SSA's OASI overhead is 0.4% and falling, which is Vanguard territory. If he really believes early retirement makes you happier and more free, why not call for something like that, instead of a spiritual awakening? I know this is my second "ughhh MMM" post but gently caress I wish he wasn't just some savings-and-blogging idiot savant Mofabio fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Apr 1, 2015 |
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Apr 1, 2015 18:49
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MMM should go talk to NOW or NAACP and explain to them that they earn less because they have less spirit than white men, those complainypants.
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Apr 1, 2015 19:05
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When you write a thousand+ blog posts, a few of them are going to be bad and/or wrong. I believe he discusses things in the comments of the posts (ew comments)... maybe try posting your thoughts there? It would be interesting to see if he addresses your criticisms.
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Apr 1, 2015 20:31
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khysanth posted:When you write a thousand+ blog posts, a few of them are going to be bad and/or wrong. I believe he discusses things in the comments of the posts (ew comments)... maybe try posting your thoughts there? It would be interesting to see if he addresses your criticisms. I'm not really interested in getting dogpiled by a bunch of diehard Mustachians, but I'll consider that in the future.
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Apr 1, 2015 21:07
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MMM post that has you guys all a-buzz posted:Apr 1, 2015 Hmmmmm...
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Apr 1, 2015 21:45
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They're talking about the real article that follows the brief (and labeled) April Fools article.
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Apr 1, 2015 21:46
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My wife and I keep separate accounts, try our best to split everything evenly, and we "run the numbers" together once a quarter to see where we're at and plan where we're going. This quarter's review revealed something interesting: We now have more money in our accounts (savings, checking, investments, etc) than is owed on our mortgage. Sure, we can't just liquidate our investments and blow our emergency funds to kill the mortgage right now, but we are much, much closer to it than we had thought. We're going to sit down and see if we can come up with a plan to really push our savings over the summer and fall to have enough of a "cushion" to feel safe sending a pile of money to Chase and be done with debt entirely.
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Apr 8, 2015 21:22
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A lot of people talk about a mortgage being a 30yr inflation hedge, and stocks outperforming on average, but I am so right there with you. If I weren't trashing retirement I'd absolutely use savings and taxable investments to eliminate my house payment. Then I'd sell that fucker and move into a townhouse/condo and refund part of the investment accounts because oh god why do I own a 4 bedroom house?
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Apr 8, 2015 21:45
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Part of my brain thinks that holding on to investments will prove a better financial decision long-term, but a big part just screams "YOU'RE IN DEBT GET OUT OF DEBT GET OUT OF DEBT" whenever I see the mortgage balance. I'd definitely have much more peace of mind being out from under a bank.
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Apr 8, 2015 21:53
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My mortgage better be scared, because after my tax-sheltered accounts are maxed, I'm coming for it. Hard, fast, and there won't be a safeword.
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Apr 8, 2015 21:59
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Inverse Icarus posted:Part of my brain thinks that holding on to investments will prove a better financial decision long-term, but a big part just screams "YOU'RE IN DEBT GET OUT OF DEBT GET OUT OF DEBT" whenever I see the mortgage balance. But, if you have a positive, liquid net worth with an outstanding mortgage balance, you aren't really "under a bank" because you could just pay your mortgage off if your circumstances required you to do so, right? If you have one of the recent variety of <4% mortgages, the cheapest long term debt in history more or less which is further sweetened by a major tax break, paying it down as a young, wage-earning, risk tolerant investor is a mistake. Having some mix of liquid assets with a higher historical return is way better than having less cheap, tax advantaged mortgage debt unless you're like about to stop working, very risk intolerant, and want to retire your monthly living expenses.
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Apr 9, 2015 00:16
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The balance of investments and mortgage has consumed a lot of my financial thinking for the past month. While I'm nowhere near having enough to pay off the entire mortgage I've been eliminating significant parts of it while still investing. When I first got the mortage last year my original plan was to pay it down as rapidly as possible. I think what I'll do during refinancing is just change my fixed rates to 15 year mortgages to cut down the total interest paid, or possibly one 15 year and one 30 year. It depends on my cash flow at the time. If I put everything into paying off the mortage it just seems like it would be a gamble.
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Apr 9, 2015 00:30
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It's important to remember that the interest rate will hike largely due to the same factors that will make your investments crash in value, not to mention that the property your mortgage is linked to will likely fall as well. That you can pay off your mortgage in a low-rate environment by liquidating doesn't mean you'll be able to do the same in a high-rate environment. Getting rid of it now (or a large part of it) might have a worse return long-term but what you're essentially doing now is gambling on that the low-rate environment will last for a long time. On the flip-side you'll be safe from the biggest risk-factor of financial bubbles forever if you get rid of your mortgage.
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Apr 9, 2015 06:31
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Xoidanor posted:It's important to remember that the interest rate will hike largely due to the same factors that will make your investments crash in value, not to mention that the property your mortgage is linked to will likely fall as well. That you can pay off your mortgage in a low-rate environment by liquidating doesn't mean you'll be able to do the same in a high-rate environment. Getting rid of it now (or a large part of it) might have a worse return long-term but what you're essentially doing now is gambling on that the low-rate environment will last for a long time. On the flip-side you'll be safe from the biggest risk-factor of financial bubbles forever if you get rid of your mortgage. I'm not in the US/EU low rate environment. I'm in the 5-7% environment. Paying off more has a larger impact rather than hoping investment returns will exceed or be only slightly worse than the mortgage rate. Increased principal repayment makes a large difference here due to the higher interest rates. I'm not really that fussed about budgeting but I did look at where my last month's expenses went. I'm living surprisingly cheap and the quick spreadsheet I put together makes my fixed rate mortgage payments a big chunk of my total expenses. Accordingly my monthly savings are huge at the moment. What I'm currently thinking is that I'll just invest for the next year until my first fixed rate mortgage comes up. All I plan on doing is refinancing to reduce the length of the mortgage. If I have any significant profits from investing I would just treat it as a rebalancing to liquidate some of the investments, or just hold if it's not the right time. I think the best I can do is hedge against the possible outcomes.
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Apr 9, 2015 07:55
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Devian666 posted:I'm not in the US/EU low rate environment. I'm in the 5-7% environment. Paying off more has a larger impact rather than hoping investment returns will exceed or be only slightly worse than the mortgage rate. Increased principal repayment makes a large difference here due to the higher interest rates. Oh poo poo, then it's a no-brainer, pay it off. Leveraging your debt to invest doesn't really make sense when you have an interest rate of above 3% since you'll be struggling to beat rate+inflation+taxes without whatever your local currency is (assuming its not dollars or euroes) playing in your favour. You'll be taking a lot of risk for chance of meagre gains.
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Apr 9, 2015 08:21
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All of this can be calculated out. Which for a decision of this financial magnitude I recommend. Work out varients for realistic investment returns including compounding and taxes vs similar changes in mortgage interest (unless its a fixed for life of debt type deal). Also remember money not going into mortgage can be invested. Then you can see in currency terms what the likely differences are and can make a better judgement about what your paying for an inflationary hedge and decide if you think thats worth it. Math(s) > all.
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Apr 9, 2015 09:42
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Xoidanor posted:Oh poo poo, then it's a no-brainer, pay it off. Leveraging your debt to invest doesn't really make sense when you have an interest rate of above 3% since you'll be struggling to beat rate+inflation+taxes without whatever your local currency is (assuming its not dollars or euroes) playing in your favour. You'll be taking a lot of risk for chance of meagre gains. We have strong gains in the stock market and very strong gains in the property market. We may even have about a year of deflation on the cards. There are potential investment gains exceeding the interest rate, but that's not certain and could easily perform below the interest rate as you noted. In saying all of that the leveraged gain in house value in the past year is about 25% on capital invested. I do have a portion of the mortgage in revolving credit but that's mostly paid off, a year ahead of what I planned with the mortgage broker. I suspect my fixed terms will be too expensive to break at the moment but I might check with my broker and see what he thinks. Cast_No_Shadow posted:All of this can be calculated out. Which for a decision of this financial magnitude I recommend. Work out varients for realistic investment returns including compounding and taxes vs similar changes in mortgage interest (unless its a fixed for life of debt type deal). I have run a number of calculations which indicate that some of the investments are likely to be good. I'll need to set up a simulation with a number of scenarios for side by side comparison, and to evaluate the real risk. Although at this point the amount I've put into P2P lending counters the interest on the revolving credit account (which I will get a tax refund on a portion of the interest anyway). Even my accountant agrees that some leveraging is a risk worth taking on the returns I've been getting (not that accountants should be trusted for investment advice). Devian666 fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Apr 9, 2015 |
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Apr 9, 2015 09:53
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I get that exact same "oh god debt debt debt pay it off" urge towards my mortgage every so often and have to talk myself down by looking at the returns of my investments over the last year. Even the bond indexes do slightly better (last I checked) than my low U.S. mortgage rate. That still never stops me from adding $48.88 to my mortgage payment to bring it up to a round number. Feels good, man. Gonna chop a year or two off the end $48.88 at a time.
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Apr 9, 2015 18:05
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I'm glad I'm not alone in this. I could pay off my mortgage, but it's at 2.75% and is only about 750 a month at this point. I probably have too much liquid cash and should be investing some of it...
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Apr 9, 2015 18:42
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In the future I'll probably try to pay down mortgages as fast as possible, just because the more above-water a mortgage is, the more liquid your moving ability is if anything happens. I got stuck living somewhere I didn't want to live for five years and I'm never letting that happen again.
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Apr 9, 2015 18:53
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Inverse Icarus posted:My wife and I keep separate accounts, try our best to split everything evenly, and we "run the numbers" together once a quarter to see where we're at and plan where we're going.
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Apr 9, 2015 19:02
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I'd say that student loans are an exception though since they're usually* the best non asset-backed credit you'll ever get. Although I have to admit, I'm biased as gently caress here since I've made huge capital gains by investing parts of my student loan. The rate for last year was 1% ( ) and since the central rate has been lowered several times since December it will get even better this year. It deserves to be mentioned that having at least a couple of months cold hard cash on-hand should always take priority over paying off low-interest debt. If accounting has taught me anything it's that it's never a bad idea to have cash on hand. *If you're not American
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Apr 9, 2015 19:21
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One of the other things I want to achieve is having more investment assets that generate a cash flow. Cash flow being better than needing to liquidate assets to extract cash out in the future. Which I put some priority on that as my house doesn't generate revenue despite costing me interest.
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Apr 9, 2015 21:27
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I kinda like the rent-while-working path to FI. Relocating to new areas as a homeowner based on the evolving optimization factors of hip neighborhood, biking distance to job, good schools, low age of consent, friendly neighbors, hiking trails, proximity to grandchildren, peace and solitude gets expensive. Also I'm in the Bay Area and fuckkkkk buying a house here, the place 2 doors down is going for 900x my rent-controlled rent (read: 900/12 = 75 dumb years to break even). Fast fact: your FI dick length conversion factor is (savings rate % / 10%) * inches. Someone did a study. Mofabio fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Apr 10, 2015 |
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Apr 10, 2015 02:11
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Mofabio posted:low age of consent  The road to FI is paved with statutory rape accusations.
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Apr 10, 2015 03:29
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Inept posted:
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Apr 10, 2015 03:32
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Mofabio posted:Fast fact: your FI dick length conversion factor is (savings rate % / 10%) * inches. Someone did a study. *thinks* yep, banking $20G and bragging about 4.2" dicks, sounds about right
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Apr 10, 2015 03:35
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Mofabio posted:low age of consent Mofabio posted:proximity to grandchildren
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Apr 10, 2015 03:47
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I still haven't convinced myself whether it would be incredibly baller or incredibly stupid to buy a house with straight cash money. Not today with these dumb low rates for sure. Bring back the 70's. 10% mortgages! 
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Apr 10, 2015 03:55
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Inept posted:
Wow, judge much dude? Middle school dances are the cheapest clubs around. That's a frugal tip, on the house.
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Apr 10, 2015 09:12
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Mofabio posted:Wow, judge much dude? Middle school dances are the cheapest clubs around. That's a frugal tip, on the house. You save a ton when your date gets to order off the kid's menu
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Apr 10, 2015 09:15
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Yay, I'm now 100% finanacially independant  Also, can homeless people open bank accounts? I've never been to jail/criminal history. I have no mail box/address and working on getting my sim card. Thanks. p.s. Don't ask me about my family. I'm 23.
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Apr 10, 2015 14:58
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Any domicile is a means to cover your perpetually recurring liability against exposure (literally dying from cold), theft, and other risks. Let's call these domestic liabilities. Some domiciles also confer quality of life benefits. Renting means you have to pay a recurring fee to cover domestic liabilities; owning with a mortgage is very similar save that some portion of your recurring fee is gradually establishing unfettered liquidation value of the mortgaged asset. Owning a house free and clear ties up a bunch of money in it, exerting an opportunity cost on you, while removing most of the recurring expenses related to covering your domestic liabilities. The point is any formulation which does not include the recurring domestic liabilities is not properly coming up with an expected value for a course of action, e.g.: If I pay down the mortgage at the minimum payment every month and take what post-taxable income I have to put into equities, even if the net liquidity of the equities swells to a current value greater than the remaining principal of the mortgage I'm still not necessarily in a great position. That account's value has substantial risk and it might liquidate tomorrow at 40%, 20% or 10% of its value today. If I instead take that money and put it into low risk or risk free bonds, I can have good confidence that the value won't evaporate overnight, but I have significant liquidity risk, especially if rates rise significantly and I can't even recoup the full principal. And except in cases of securing a mortgage during a period of falling interest rates, you probably will never hold low risk bonds with interest at or greater than the interest owed on the mortgage. A paid down mortgage on a home you can tolerate to survive in gives you a long term hedge against domestic liability with recurring costs amounting mainly to property taxes and homeowners insurance. It's a pretty good place to be as far as gaining robustness to the unpredictability of the future; and provided you continue to earn monthly income, frees the majority of that to be invested in a variety of vehicles which can hopefully get you out of needing to work for a regular income in the future.
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Apr 10, 2015 15:45
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Mofabio posted:Fast fact: your FI dick length conversion factor is (savings rate % / 10%) * inches. Someone did a study. Well, now I know why I have to keep taking out loans to save more... 
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Apr 10, 2015 19:08
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