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People Outliving Their Means
bflynn1
Posts: 1,394
Just doing a lot of reading here and in various Facebook groups etc. and it seems like a lot of people are outliving their means. I see a lot of posts like "Hate to do this but had some bills come up and need to sell ______ (vinyl, posters, etc.) Why do people put themselves in these situations. I may get flamed for this but why do people continually put themselves in these situations?
If you can't afford it, don't buy it.
If you can't afford it, don't buy it.
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We were in a bad financial spot over ten years ago; had to sell some stuff to make our mortgage. Shit happens, no shame. I am happy to say that more than 13 years later - now - our credit scores are near perfect, and we only owe on my car (0% interest!) and what's left on our condo.
Your last line, agreed (if possible?).
Illness took all of that and i had to sell all of it . Not even a choice.
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this song is meant to be called i got shit,itshould be called i got shit tickets-hartford 06 -
However....it could be that they had some expenses pop up that were easier dealt with by selling some items that had gone up in value vs. hitting their bank accounts. Great for them, if so. That is what should happen with investments.
Apologies if I struck a nerve with anyone that read the OP. It's entirely possible that BIG unexpected expenses could come up at anytime that even a well funded emergency account couldn't cover.
I do see people throwing very large sums of money at PJ prints, memorabilia and am quite shocked still. I mean $100 for a pair of socks?
Y'all cray. Thank you for them but still y'all cray!
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(Although I still believe there are people spending a whacked amount of money on things w/o saving for their college tuition for the kids, life insurance policies, retirement, etc. Totally up to the individual -- taken in a much, much larger sense than the PJ Fan crowd, I believe this to be the truth.)
I spend too much on lots of things -- but I also take care of our priorities first. Before we took in the nephew and had the kid? Holy shit, I spent so much more than I do now on overall useless shit. (But, it was fun!)
And that debt just keeps getting higher. I think it's close to $250,000 now. I think I've taken out enough life insurance to cover it when I die, but that's the only way it will ever be paid off.
I could go on all day on this subject because I'm a simple country guy that doesn't spend money, but I will spare you all lol
I will say, people wasting money on new stuff when you can get good used stuff is a big pet peeve.
We have a pontoon boat and an RV and we take 4 weeklong vacations a year, so it's not like we don't have fun, but our camping vacations cost 250$ a week and our boat and RV have the combined age of a senior citizen lol
Student loans, mortgage, and an optometry practice.
We don't spend beyond our means, we actually spend/spent way less than our peer group. It's crazy to think that at 30 years old, if we spent like average we would have close to 800k in debt!
People tell me that I'm "building my equity." I worked on Wall Street for more than 10 years and still have no clue what that means, and it's pointless to try to explain it to me. So don't try. My eyes will glaze over two syllables into it.
(are you an optometrist rgambs? I don't think I knew that if you are)
I do not want to buy a typical Long Island house for 350,000K then have to update it and gut the walls down to the studs to fix the shoddy work that Merle and Anthony did back in the day for another 100-150K then my taxes would go up because I decided to make my house more economical/livable and get penalized for doing it, so instead of 12K a year I now have to pay 18K a year and with the new tax breaks/laws I can not write off the full amount so there goes more out of pocket expense...
Welcome to NY!
I do get to spend the money that I chose NOT to buy a house on concerts and experiences though.
There is definitely something to be said for renting. It's not just the interest on the mortgage, but you never have to pay all that money for maintenance and shit (not to mention all the time you save for the same reason). However, assuming the market does not crash, renting provides you with zero security in retirement, and that's kind of scary.... although in a lot of cases, the old folks who own their homes that went up so much in value now find that they can't even pay the property taxes that skyrocket with every annual assessment. It's terrible. I rent, and given the housing market I just described here, I am never going to own.... and I just have to pray that my pension, the Canada Pension Plan, old age security, and whatever my parents have left to leave me will keep a roof over my head when I'm old.
My sister bought a cute little house for 285K. Because of the light rail and Amazon building in the area her little house is worth 650K.
Her house doubled in 5 years time. That's just dumb.
I keep telling her to take the equity, bulldoze the house and build new with that equity then sell it for a million+. Take that money and go to the next up and comer and by you a bigger house.
For me, such a housing market is horrible just as a renter. There is the very real fear of being demovicted so developers can build condo towers where just a 1 bedroom unit goes for $800K. If that happens, I won't be able to find another rental that I can even come close to affording. The rental rates have skyrocketed right along with the housing prices. So yeah, if I lose the place I've rented for 17 years (so am therefore paying relatively low rent because it can only legally be increased by 2% plus inflation every year, and even that is just BRUTAL), I'm pretty much hooped. I'll have to eat rice and beans and never go out or buy anything new for the rest of the my life just to pay my rent.... Fuck I hate this place.
We sold our place in Brooklyn for $250K more than we paid for it--and we only lived in that co-op for three years! Stupid! And a place just sold in the building for nearly $375K more than we paid for ours!
And as for the "stay put" thing. No thanks! I'll move somewhere else and rent.
I hate my state commonwealth and paying taxes to a state government that has done everything it can to oppose the will of its voters. I hate my old-as-fuck house. I hate my dumb-as-fuck Masshole neighbors. I hate their giant white heads and their ugly white faces and their atrocious fucking accents.
It's getting to the point at which I don't give a fuck anymore if my family wants to come with me. If it leads to divorce. Fine.
I am mine. Goddamn it!
Plus, I'll probably get alimony.
Just my input I am not trying to upset anybody.
Our condo has quadrupled in value since purchased in 1991. We're not looking to move, but rent for a comparable property here is way beyond our mortgage, even with homeowner dues. It makes sense to stay put and see where life takes us. Cost of living in this part of LA is pretty high, but it can be doable.
FactoryMan, we're in just 700 sf, so even if we wanted to keep a bunch of shit around (which we don't), there's just no space. It's cleansing to clear out stuff just taking up space.
(we do need a new sofa though - damned cat claws!)