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Interesting. That all makes sense. I will admit that I don't think too deeply about the subject of finances although I frequent BFC more than almost any other sub-forum. It's definitely a good source of information for someone like me who knows next to nothing. Definitely gives me things to think about!
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Nov 20, 2013 21:28
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Orange_Lazarus posted:Yeah, the best rich people are the ones that get rich, blow all of their money/give it to charity and die penniless. I'm not being sarcastic at all. Despite what my avatar suggests I don't dislike all rich people, just the ones that have been passing down wealth and collecting dividend checks for generations. I'm sorry but your kids/my kids should have to earn their living like everyone else. At least this guy probably makes his kids do actual work. Dying penniless is a good goal. You'll have spent exactly how much you've earned! I kind of disagree with the "passing down wealth" thing. My husband's great-grandfather got in on the cattle and oil business in the early 1900s, bought a couple thousand acres, and the business has supported every generation since, including us (sort of, my husband is an hourly employee). Some members of the family work very hard to keep the ranch running, including my husband who will likely be the ranch manager in the future. But other members of the family have never had a job and just hang out and collect money from the cattle/oil leases and that's totally cool with everyone because the people with the skills and desire to run the ranch are the ones that do it, and everyone else just gets in the way. It's not like anyone is rich because there's not THAT much money involved, but for the people in the family that want to live a simple life in the country and not work a 9-5, more power to them. Why should I get upset that my mother-in-law spends her time looking for fossils, making art, and watching her grand-daughters instead of working, and my father-in-law just reads books and picks a banjo all day? I think it's awesome. The entire property is in a trust so it can't be sold, and each of the immediate family members has an equal share. There's no stocks or shareholders or dividends, it's just profits from a family owned and operated business and I bet if my husband's great-grandfather could see it now, he would be very pleased that his legacy helps so many of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and that they've kept it in the family and kept it profitable for 100 years. Forgot to mention: My husband and I are not in on the "free money" action. The only money we currently get from the ranch is his hourly wage and free rent on our tiny house. Also the above paragraph is a gross oversimplification of how the ranch operates and how profits are shared. razz fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Nov 27, 2013 |
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Nov 27, 2013 18:29
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Let's say you have an amount of heroin that's worth $50 and someone who has no cash really wants the heroin. They will be pretty likely to trade you the heroin for some item that is worth FAR more than $50 because that's the nature of drugs/addiction.
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Dec 1, 2013 03:15
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Yeah but it's drugs, and the story is referring to addict behavior. Yes you can buy a pizza and make a profit off it by dividing it up and delling it for more. But then you have people who are just buying pizza and if they can't afford it they just won't buy it. It's not the same as someone trading more valuable items for drugs because they feel like they NEED the drugs because they are addicted. Your friends might have a pizza craving but they aren't going to trade you their car stereo for a slice.
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Dec 1, 2013 04:23
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One toke is equal to one slice of pizza.
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Dec 1, 2013 20:33
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I've actually always wondered how high you could get off a dollar of weed. I'd say you could get at least one decent high for a dollar but having never bought or sold drugs I can't really say. And I think the drug conversion ratio might be higher for Doritos than for Pizza but I could be wrong. I'm sure it depends on the brand of pizza and the toppings. It seems like Doritos are worth a lot on the stoner black market though.
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Dec 1, 2013 22:12
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What's depressing about it? It's not depressing, it's dumb. How could they sell their house (that they got at an extremely discounted cost if it was a HFH house) before they got approved for a mortgage then somehow "lose" 80K? I bet they're those type of people that seem to always have "bad luck" when in reality they just make bad decisions.
razz fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Dec 2, 2013 |
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Dec 2, 2013 17:02
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I have much more empathy for others than most people I talk to. I think we should make the minimum wage $15+, improve working conditions, have mandated paid time off like EVERY other first world country, have free access to health care and education for all citizens including free college, what have you. I'm not against paying higher taxes for the common good, and basically all of that "socialist" talk, yes I fully believe that every human on earth, especially in this self-proclaimed "Greatest Country on Earth" should have a high standard of living because I have great empathy for all human beings. And I still think it's pathetic that a family squandered away $80K while living in a house they got for a drastically reduced price from a charity. There is no trap there. Are their housing traps that people fall into when they get underwater on their mortgages or whatnot? Absolutely, and that system needs reformed. Did the people in the above story fall into that trap? No they did not, they made bad decisions. All the help and money in the world won't get people like them out of poverty.
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Dec 2, 2013 18:48
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FrozenVent posted:That's what makes it depressing. Yes it is and I agree but in cases like that it's not some societal issue where we need to be better to our fellow man, it's an issue with the individual(s) and their lack of personal accountability. I can't feel too sorry for people like that. Do I feel badly for the kids? Absolutely, they're just collateral damage and their whole lives will be shaped by their parents poor decisions. Do I feel bad for the parents who lived in a reduced-price charity house then somehow "lost" more money than I make in 5 years? No I do not.
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Dec 2, 2013 18:54
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Yeah but you guys have that super-fast internet though, that should make up for it!
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Dec 2, 2013 21:25
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I believe you both chose to gloss over where I saidrazz posted:I have much more empathy for others than most people I talk to. I think we should make the minimum wage $15+, improve working conditions, have mandated paid time off like EVERY other first world country, have free access to health care and education for all citizens including free college, what have you. I'm not against paying higher taxes for the common good, and basically all of that "socialist" talk, yes I fully believe that every human on earth, especially in this self-proclaimed "Greatest Country on Earth" should have a high standard of living because I have great empathy for all human beings. Where did anyone say they should just get on the internet and learn financial skills? Where did anyone say they "deserve to be screwed"? The most negative thing I said about those people was "I don't feel sorry for them". I do feel badly for the kids, which I also said in one of my previous posts. Like, what do you expect society to do? Just keep shoving charity money at these people? Should we do that with everyone who makes bad financial decisions? When do you stop and say "Alright hold on we've already given these people tons of help maybe we should try something different?" Again, where does PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY come into this? In your scenario, it doesn't. Where do you draw the line between "we need to help this person" and "this person needs to learn some humility and personal responsibility"? I'd say you can draw that line after they sold a house they got through a charity and blew through 80K with supposedly nothing to show for it. You can't help people who refuse to help themselves. razz fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 00:07
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tiananman posted:I had a friend do that. Her dad bought a 3 bedroom in an okay neighborhood when she got into medical school. She used the basement as a 4th bedroom and 3 of her med-school friends rented it from him. He fixed it up and sold it after they moved out. I'm thinking it was much cheaper for her and her dad than if they rented an apartment somewhere on campus. I got in on a situation like this. My good friends' parents bought her a 2-bedroom house to live in while she did her undergrad. I ended up moving there after she graduated and I started grad school. It was pretty sweet for me (I got cheap rent and great landlords) but there's no way they made money. If they're lucky they broke even. The very first day I moved in, there was some plumbing issues and I saw the bill and it was over $600. They also replaced half of the windows in the house and actually tore down the entire front of the house and replaced it with brick because the windows were so bad that water got in and basically rotted the front of the house away from the inside. They also tried to remodel the bathroom but are old retired people with zero skills so after half a year, they gave up and hired a professional who did it in 3 days. But my rent was about $150/month cheaper than all my friends, in a great location too. They ended up selling the house after I moved out this spring. It sold within 3 days so who knows, maybe they did come out ahead. Their daughter, though, it definitely bad with money. She was always broke when we were undergrads even though she wasn't paying rent and had a job. She works on fishing boats now and has bought 2 new cars since she started there. Her job offers her about 3 months of the year to actually use her vehicle because, you know, she lives ON A BOAT. She bought one SUV and then sold it because she never used it because she lived on a boat. Then she bought another one that she still can't use because she still lives on a boat. It sits at her parents house 2,000 miles from where she works.
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Dec 16, 2013 20:24
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Trilineatus posted:The best thing I ever did for my budget was get food stamps and limiting myself to eating what I could purchase with them. I learned how to cook well on $200 a month for myself that way, and it held over when I no longer had food stamps. I ate SO GOOD when I was on food stamps. I got $167 a month and I think I was spending < $125/month before. Suddenly, I could splurge for a red bell pepper instead of only buying green. I could buy Hamburger Helper instead of Panburger Partner (don't try it, seriously don't ever try it, just spend the extra 50 cents). I remember buying a wedge of parmesan cheese that was like 6 bucks and thinking "there's no way I would have ever bought this before".
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Dec 16, 2013 23:41
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Knyteguy posted:This reminds me of my ex-girlfriend. One time we got in an argument, so she impulse shopped for $3,200!!! in clothes at Express (I saw the receipt). Her reasoning was that her father would pay for it. He made pretty good money as a lead air traffic controller but still. She was also 26, living at home, and making minimum wage as a hair stylist! She ended up marrying the son of a walnut farmer, but I'm sure she'll bankrupt the poor guy eventually. That's pretty hilarious. My college ex-boyfriend got literally everything paid for by his dad. Not only did his dad pay his rent and utility bills, but he also direct deposited $600 into my ex's checking account every pay period, which is to say twice a month. His reasoning was that his son needed to focus on his golf career and being on the golf team so he didn't have time for a part-time job while in school. He was a good golfer and all but not the star of the team or anything like that. As soon as he graduated, he got a factory job making ~40K a year. First thing he did was buy a brand new Ford F-150 extended cab super crew whatever the most expensive truck is, which cost somewhere around $45K. He also bought a brand-new Harley. I honestly think he bought them before he even got his first paycheck. Then the factory shut down and he got laid off! Haha. We were in the process of breaking up around that time so I'm not sure if he had to sell the vehicles or what. My guess is his dad just gave him money. Sometimes I wonder what he's up to, but not really, because I can pretty much guess. Oh and I just remembered this part, his dad had a BAD temper. Like, crazy bad anger-management type poo poo. His dad just happened to be my dad's direct boss so of course I got to hear about it from multiple angles. He had been the boss at this plant for maybe 5-6 years and made a lot of money obviously, and he actually was so horrible to his employees that he got fired about a year and a half ago. I mean, it has to be pretty bad when a guy that high up gets fired for being a dick. He was the plant manager for the biggest employer in my hometown. Not sure what he's doing now either. Basically I dodged a multi-generational "bad with money" bullet.
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Dec 17, 2013 20:55
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CitizenKain posted:I think anyone who used Netflix's disc service ended up doing that at some point. I rented a movie and didn't have time to watch it for awhile, so I ended up paying 3 months of subscription to sit on a movie. Not even sure I ever watched it before sending it back. Yeah I've done that too. The good thing about Netflix is there's no contract, so you can cancel your monthly service at any time and just re-subscribe instantly if you start wanting to rent movies again.
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Dec 31, 2013 00:01
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I guess some people really just don't care about money. If she has money she'll spend it but if not, no big deal. Being poor is fine too. It's probably not the worst attitude to have especially when you read about other lotto winner stories who end up divorced, depressed, ostracized by their friends/family or even killing themselves when they realize the money's gone. quote:“And that was time for fun to stop and to just go back to life,” she says. Tirabassi is happier today, she says, adding life has more purpose now than when she was shopping. According to the article she put some of the money in a trust for her kids, so at least there's that. And she gave huge amounts of the money to friends and other family who then disappeared from her life. I don't really know how to feel about this story. Good for her for keeping her head up. razz fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Jan 4, 2014 |
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Jan 4, 2014 00:09
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Jeffrey posted:To be fair there is a large class of people who are complacent and could probably better themselves by actively looking for new jobs, with an expected value of much higher than 1 latte per day or whatever. That doesn't make it sound, universal advice and you still shouldn't buy a latte every day but finding a new job isn't a bad idea if one is at all underpaid for their field. Seriously, there are so many people out there that are underpaid, they know they're underpaid, and they just deal with it or don't care or are just comfortable in their job and fear change. Take my mom for example. She works full time and makes about $15,000 per year. She's worked for the same district for pretty much her entire working life. 2 years ago she got a job offer from her old boss to do exactly what she does now at a different district for (literally) three times the salary. Doing the exact same job. And she turned it down because she "didn't want to have to commute to work". The new job was 10 miles from her house. Her current job is about 3 miles away.
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Jan 22, 2014 17:30
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Maybe they can afford nice poo poo because they shop at thrift stores. Who knows! The other night my husband's aunt was over and we were talking about her coat. It's a full-length beaver fur coat. "Shaved beaver" to be exact which I think is pretty funny. Anyway a coat like that would probably cost upwards of $500. Apparently she pulled it out of a dumpster, took it to a tailor, and just had them replace the old beat-up liner with a new one. So you know, just because you have nice stuff doesn't mean you broke the bank to get it. Sometimes you just find cool stuff in the trash! My husband is literally bad with money. He found a 1914 D penny last week and I told him "do not clean that with anything". So he takes it home and cleans it with acid. Found out that a pristine 1914 D Penny can be worth upwards of $3,000 in good condition and even in extremely poor condition they're worth a couple hundred. Until you destroy them with acid. razz fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Jan 25, 2014 |
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Jan 25, 2014 22:11
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Lowness 72 posted:I found getting married actually increased our tax burden. drat marriage penalty. Haha same here, I lost money filing jointly with my husband. Looking at his W2s, at one job in 2013 he made a little over $4,000 and the amount of federal taxes taken out was something insanely low like $46. Another job he made ~$2,000 and the feds only took $26. So yeah obviously he owed some money. And obviously he is going to change his federal withholding for 2014 so this doesn't happen again. We still got a little money back from his other job and quite a bit back from my job so it's all good. It made me laugh because a friend posted something on Facebook about people only getting married for the tax breaks. Yeah, that's definitely why I got married  . My husband and I checked his credit report today and one of his "accounts in good standing" was a Target store card that was paid in full and closed May 2012, which was after we met. He has no idea what this card is or was and he has never had a Target card. Only thing we can think is, maybe an ex-girlfriend opened a store card in his name, made all the payments on time for a couple years, paid it off, then closed the account. Thanks for the credit score increase, I guess  .
razz fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Jan 26, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 18:43
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FrozenVent posted:I told him to swing by my place (we live in the same building) when he was done drinking at whatever place he's at. Why can't you just tell him you don't have any money? And ask him about the money he already owes you? Just because someone is family doesn't mean you have to give them money whenever they ask. Are you afraid he will be mad at you if you don't? If that's the case then he's a lovely person (family or not) and you shouldn't be supporting him anyway. You are terrible with money.
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Feb 1, 2014 16:41
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(To preempt the e/n, I know I could turn him down but I don't want to, and I'm going to require him to write a drat budget down before I loan him poo poo)
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Spermy Smurf posted:And you are a dick. You had to kick him out of your place because he didn't pay rent for 6 months. He hasn't paid anyone back any money he had borrowed in 2 years. He is currently at the bar drinking and waiting for you to give him money. ...and you're going to loan him money only if he "makes a budget". Haha. Good luck, I bet he'll change this time around, everyone giving him money all the time will definitely motivate him to be a responsible adult! Just keep giving him money, one day your good deeds will be rewarded.
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Feb 1, 2014 18:43
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Oh haha, yeah I guess so, didn't notice that. Two people who are bad with money in the same thread defending each other??? Crazy.
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Feb 1, 2014 18:51
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tuyop posted:In The Wire, when the ex-cop teacher gives the kid who has started doing drugs 300 bucks to either go sign up for his GED or buy more dope, was the teacher being bad with money? If the teacher had given the kid money repeatedly in the past and the kid bought dope with the money every time then yes.
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Feb 1, 2014 19:20
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Aerofallosov posted:I set my mail to forward before I'd left to study abroad, and the dude still gets my mail sometimes. :/ What in the world did I pay for? No idea what you paid for, considering the post office forwards your mail for free if you just fill out the form and turn it into them there. Or you can do it online for one dollar.
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Feb 8, 2014 23:24
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If you have debt that goes into collections and you ignore the collection notices and do not contact them in any way or admit that the debt is yours, and if you don't give a gently caress about your credit score, and if no one ever really comes after you for the money (so, no one tries to sue you) the debt will in fact "go away" eventually. But you will have a ruined credit score to show for it. My husband and I are dealing with this right now, from a $6,000 ER visit he had a few years back. I have talked to many, many people about this debt. No one is contacting us about this debt which went into collections years ago, and literally the only thing I have been told, from EVERYONE I have asked, is DO NOT DO ANYTHING WITH THIS DEBT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD LEAVE IT ALONE. So we're just waiting until 2017 until it "goes away". What's crazy is we have the money to pay it off now and I get the same answer - don't contact the collection agencies. Let it drop off your report. Don't pay them anything. I have been told that contacting the collection agencies to pay off the debt will open up a big can of worms. Right now no one is contacting us and haven't in 2+ years so there you go. I am not in any way advocating that people do this, and I'm sure circumstances are different for everyone (what kind of debt it is, what collection agency it goes to, how long its been, if they're trying to contact you, etc). I'm just saying, it can in fact "go away" but it is NOT the road you want to go down IF AT ALL POSSIBLE.
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Feb 16, 2014 16:47
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drat, when I was 15 my parents gave me a car too... their 9 year old Dodge Intrepid that I gave my mom $1,000 for. I thought I was hot poo poo, and I had the "nicest" car of all my friends in high school!
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Feb 16, 2014 19:01
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I love reddit's Personal Finance forum. It's a goldmine, all the time. If you want to get a good laugh check out the Legal Advice subreddit too.
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Feb 17, 2014 21:56
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handbanana125 posted:Last week Q bought each of his four siblings iPad minis, despite the fact that he bought 2 of them high-performance laptops back in December. Beginning of the month he bought himself a $1200 accordian, despite not knowing how to play. Each Monday I hear about him purchasing some new ridiculous gadget or making an extravagant purchase for his neighbors/friends. I wish I had a friend like this guy. How do I meet people like this?
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Feb 18, 2014 21:53
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Yeah, the people that left their money alone were fine during/after the market crash. The people that flipped out and took out their money are the ones who lost out big time.
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Feb 24, 2014 22:32
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Spermy Smurf posted:That's right. And coat hangers ring a bell too. And chocolates. I miss zaurg and cornholio and the good old days of BFC. Now we only have slomo who's just some punk kid who can't manage money. Boring. I need the people starting budget threads to have real problems and issues, otherwise I'm not entertained.
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Mar 8, 2014 05:25
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tuyop posted:I paid off >60k in debt (including my wife's) in three years and didn't even get goldmined. Yeah but you were aware of your situation and knew how to fix it, you were just having a little trouble getting there (along with getting somewhat sidetracked by basil). You weren't looking at your monthly expenses and seeing that your wife bought a $50 hanger and $400 worth of juice and asking the thread "Where is all our money going I just don't understand???". I love those kind of threads. The ones where the OP has absolutely no self-awareness or is so far in denial they really don't have any idea what's going on in their own life.
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Mar 8, 2014 16:36
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Rick Rickshaw posted:I posted a story like this a couple of pages ago (I think). It's amazing how people think they're not getting ripped off because their payment isn't changing. "It's a free upgrade!!" That's pretty much what my mom did. She just came home one day with a brand-new Camry. She did ask me if I wanted to buy her old one, in a "I think I might sell my Camry soon" sort of way. It was a nice offer and she was giving me a huge discount but I couldn't afford it (plus I like my current car). Then a couple days later, boom. $30,000 new car in the garage. Also my dad upgrades his motorcycle every time one of his friends does. I am moving to a new house with no washer and dryer. I told my mom and she said "Don't buy anything, we may be getting a new washer and dryer!". Less than 3 days later they bought a brand-new set, and now I have their old (as in 3 years old) set. I can't complain too much but drat mom. Literally any excuse to buy something new and they will do it. She told me that she had been meaning to get a new washing machine because one of the agitator arms broke off. I asked her how much that would cost to fix (because I'm now the one that has to pay for it) and she said you can get them for $20 bucks. So instead of fixing a $20 problem they just got a $1200 new set. At least their kids benefit  They're actually really good with money, their huge impulse purchases just freak me out.
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Mar 17, 2014 22:38
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canyoneer posted:Consider it as your parents giving you portions of your inheritance early Haha, no kidding! They actually threaten me with leaving me their house. It is full of stuff. So much stuff. Huge expensive stuff. And I'm such a minimalist. They know it would destroy me!
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Mar 17, 2014 23:01
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No Wave posted:Even better: I have that and it kicks rear end. Plus it comes apart and folds flat so when you move, it's not a giant pain in the rear end like a normal box spring. I also bought it because it's not squeaky at all. gently caress sleeping on anything made of wood.
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Mar 24, 2014 16:20
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