OT: How do you truly beat these inflation/sky-rocketing costs?
- Thread starter OG Goat Holder
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Now you're gonna screw around and outlive your retirement savings **
That’s one way to look at it but she’s at a place where she wanted to downsize to get a lower payment to free up some money to help with other bills (my mother in law lives with her and is not in good health.).
My neighbor makes less than me and his wife makes less than my wife. we have one son and they have 2 small children. They just bought their house and It was listed for almost 100K more than we paid for ours for the same size house and they have a smaller yard. They drive 2023 and 2022 vehicles and ours are both paid off. I don't understand how they can do it.
Interesting take. His fiscal policy was based on tax cuts spurring business investment. They didn't. They failed by their own theory of success. Now, it did spur stock buybacks and stock gains. So, kudos?
The problem there is we don't give foreign aid as charity. It's bribes, to achieve desired ends. Those desired ends still exist when our economy turns south.
I'm really worried about what is going to happen in the next few years. Socialism is coming for us. Sure, we'll fight against it now, but the first time social security checks bounce, people will crawl through a mile of broken glass to vote for the first person who promises to bring them back.
Some tough choices are going to have to be made, and we don't have the will to make them.
Some tough choices are going to have to be made, and we don't have the will to make them.
The problem is taxpayers pay for the aid but the "desired ends" are rarely for the benefit of the taxpayers.
Geez now ya'll done got Boom Boom involved.
Trump nor Biden nor Kamala nor your rich uncle Elroy is going to do a damned thing to fix this stuff. To me, it's outside factors and a lot of it is bad behavior by the populace, which also means it's not going to change. So, you just have to survive.
Only Republicans say this. Because they want to sidestep the obvious problems in their own Party. Dems want Trump nowhere near power, period. We will gladly risk a loss in 2024 to ensure that.
Part of the problem too is cyclical. I am a partner in a small service business. Costs go up across the board, give employees raises because their costs are up, therefore, we have to raise prices annually. It's that way in any business. If you expect a raise, expect costs to rise. They may not be proportionate, however.
I'm thinking that their eyeballs are about 2 feet under water.
This is what I mean when I say fearlessness of debt. Now it could that at least one of them has some wealthy parents and they think they can "run out the clock" until the old folks kick the bucket.
Yeah, it's mostly to subsidize corporate profits. Just like tax cuts. The irony is the same people that hate the former, love the latter. Same end!
From the beach no less!
But yes, the general path is nearly set in stone. Corporate profits first, whatever is left over to the plebes. Culture was BS to distract them. The 2 Party system will never leave this path, they have no reason to.
That's what the retirement/money manager for our company seems to think. He said no way Uncle Joe lets the inflation stay where it is and risk that being a re-election hurdle. Yet, Uncle Joe was on the UAW picket lines today telling them how great they are and to hang in there. IF they get anywhere near a 40% raise and a 32 hr work week like they want we'll go back to super high auto prices which will have all kinds of trickle down
Most people don't chart out their finances early in their careers. If you do, stuff like this is just an annoyance.
I think this started with doctors and lawyers who lived their early lives in debt, because they expected to make much more income soon enough. That attitude spread to other workers who do not share that income path. Those people spend too much, and there's the problem.
i got my first HELOC before my oldest went to State. It was a hedge against unknown cashflow needs and at the time I had way too much equity in my home
Agreed on that. I generally made pretty good choices, with a few dumb ones. But it certainly appears now that I simply do not make enough money to keep up with things. And things seem badly overpriced as well, which is more frustrating. Even if I made more money, I don't want to pay for these things.
How is having too much equity a bad thing?
I understand the cash flow thing. I would normally say, "hey why not just save some cash", but, as evidenced by this thread, I'm finding that harder and harder to do.
I guess the answer is more income. I'm seriously looking into a second job at the moment.
If you put fourth a candidate that wasn't Biden or Harris, they would win a landslide.
Having hardheaded politicians sure runs on both sides of the isle.
I've been living the FIRE life for several years now. It really does open your eyes to just how much us typical Americans waste on things we don't need or could get cheaper. I haven't really noticed these price increases, outside of meat, cars, and a desired new home. I recently got a new car that I finally could get at MSRP, when they wanted $8 over it 6 months ago. So that appears to be getting back towards normal. My current list of overpriced crap is most whiskey, washers and dryers, homes, cable (absolutely don't miss it), and restaurants ($100 last night for family when I would have preferred take out pizza for $25). Yet most of the country pays top dollar for these things on the reg,among many others.
Maybe. But I'm not so sure. All those so called swing voters and "not Republicans" would find a reason to not vote for any Dem like they always do. Especially the Olds if it's someone young. AAs like Biden for some reason. Many other ways Biden threaded the needle that other Dems probably couldn't.
Outside of COVID and Great Recession, year over year inflation has hovered between 2% and 4% for the vast majority of the past 3 decades. So yes, getting back under 4% is somewhat of a return to normalcy even though there are still various global factors that are keeping it from going lower. Bottom line is that it won’t get back under 3% without substantial job losses and/or a recession.
The Fed’s 2% target is thus not so achievable, so it seems they are hellbent on inducing such a recession themselves with current interest rates. The odd thing is that it seems particularly aimed at housing. But instead of making the problem with affordable housing better, they are actually making it worse. Just about every seller in the housing market wouldn’t be one if they didn’t also become a buyer, and they are digging their heels in on not selling more and more as rates continue to climb.
Trump got elected because the Dems had a bad candidate in Hilary and Trump was an unknown without a lot of baggage at the time. Biden got elected because as Trump became known and turned off millions with his idiocy (namely his twitter account and big mouth) and lack of self control while Biden played "rope a dope" from his basement and let Trump self destruct. If these two old fools are the candidates God only knows what will be the deciding factor
I had someone recently at work who talked a lot and didn’t have much good advice. I was complaining about truck prices and she said go ahead and buy it. Just spend that money because you’ll get a raise anyways. That is apparently a common thought process for some in America.
A lot of folks have forgotten this. Trump got elected not because he was a great politician. He was running against the Antichrist for many people. I remember being just as surprised as the reporters on CNN. That is back when you could sit and listen to them. It was back before they became THE 24-seven Anti-Trump all-day, all-the-time crusader.
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I’ve mentioned in passing for quite a few months that I was keeping my eyes and ears open for opportunities outside PERS since I was eligible for state retirement.
That’s changed. I accepted a position outside of and retired from PERS this summer.
The pay when including my retirement benefits is better than what I had earned previously.
I feel renewed. I’d said that there were times I felt trapped before I qualified for retirement. Being retirement eligible was freeing.
I like my new environment a lot so I want to do what I can to keep my new cow-orkers ($1) happy because I see what inflation and prices are looking like too.
That’s changed. I accepted a position outside of and retired from PERS this summer.
The pay when including my retirement benefits is better than what I had earned previously.
I feel renewed. I’d said that there were times I felt trapped before I qualified for retirement. Being retirement eligible was freeing.
I like my new environment a lot so I want to do what I can to keep my new cow-orkers ($1) happy because I see what inflation and prices are looking like too.
That’s correct. Very few people could afford to even buy their own home from themselves right now, if it required getting a new mortgage.
I have 18 years left on a 20 year mortgage. If I refinanced to a 30 year on the current balance, my payment would go UP about $250 per month with the best available rate. Add 12 years of payments, and yet still have a higher monthly payment. Its bonkers.
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I got lucky and refinanced at rock bottom. You'd have to drag me out of this house and mortgage. If there's anything I want added or changed, I'm saving and making it happen with cash or sweat equity. I assume most folks mid career with an home/kids are in the same boat. Works for me. Fortunate to be in that situation.
Similar situation here. The housing market craziness with rock bottom rates followed shortly by the highest rates in a quarter century has put the entire country in the same golden handcuffs that California homeowners found themselves in in the 70’s and 80’s. Buy a home and watch its value and surrounding values increase at a rate well beyond the rate of increase in your annual income. Before you know it, you are either stuck exactly where you are, or have to move hundreds or thousands of miles away to trade up or even just make a lateral move.
Thank You!!!!! Carter’s consumerism speech was panned 45 years ago, but it holds true today. The American populace is so hung Ho on fixing things, but when you tell them it’s up to them to fix it, they ain’t hearing it. It was true for toilet paper shortages, for manufacturing and buying American goods, and running up debt to buy crap we probably don’t need to buy. I can’t claim no guilt either, aside from the TP I’ve had issues doing both of the other two
Yeah, I'm in the process of building a house. No way you fit all that in 1,350 sq ft. Hell, my rental is 1,400 sq ft and it sucks.
Are their names Walter and Skyler White?
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