The price is right!

[♪alt13]

my parents said the same exact thing. Once they got out of debt, they were half-incontinent and well-past the time when they could take an awesome vacation that didn't involve sipping Mai Tais on some fake beach somewhere. They made plenty of money, were conservative-smart with it, and sorta lost the game.

Did they? How you doin?

 

[b_line]

When I got a big raise, I used it to get out of debt. Now I have zero debt. I'm going to build a house though, so I'll have more debt.

Getting out of debt was awesome. Awesome things order in my life goes like this:
1. Getting married
2. Having kids
3. Pay off debt

I highly recommend all three

 

[♪alt13]

When I got a big raise, I used it to get out of debt. Now I have zero debt. I'm going to build a house though, so I'll have more debt.

Getting out of debt was awesome. Awesome things order in my life goes like this:
1. Getting married
2. Having kids
3. Pay off debt

I highly recommend all three

Did the 1st 2 working on the last

You should add experimenting with controlled substances and having a threesome with strangers to that list.

 

[NAOS]

Did they?

That's what I said. Would you like to tip me off about something?

How you doin?

In what sense do you mean?

 

[♪alt13]

That's what I said. Would you like to tip me off about something?



In what sense do you mean?

I'm not trying to offend. Perhaps your patents did lose. I'm just saying that maybe they didn't get to the frosting but they did a damn fine job on the cake. Maybe they ducked that up too, I don't know.

 

[♪alt13]

That's what I said. Would you like to tip me off about something?



In what sense do you mean?

I'm not trying to offend. Perhaps your patents did lose. I'm just saying that maybe they didn't get to the frosting but they did a damn fine job on the cake. Maybe they screwed that up too, I don't know.

 

[NAOS]

I'm not trying to offend. Perhaps your patents did lose. I'm just saying that maybe they didn't get to the frosting but they did a damn fine job on the cake. Maybe they ducked that up too, I don't know.

I'm not offended. And, for the record, I said they "sorta" lost. They'll be as comfortable as possible and taken care of (even if that means relying on state programs to some degree). I'm sure it's nice for them to feel the degree of control over their senior years that they think they have.

But here's some more context. My step-dad has been a career-long wage laborer (who was raised by a career-long wage laborer...). He likely had a pretty poor imagination entering the job market as a college drop out (partied too hard to keep pace), but he definitely never pursued anything like intellectual curiosity through his career path. His motivation has always been to have nice things and to maintain them (i.e. control them) to an exacting degree. (Example: in their first year of marriage he fought assiduously with my mother over which direction the toilet paper roll should be put on.) He's always been super credulous. He had what I think is fair to call an embarrassing religious conversion in his 40s and is currently thumping his chest for Trump. (In a similar vein, he's the kind of guy who will lie simply because it's the faster way to dispatch people for whom he doesn't 'have the time'; convenience lies with a heavy veneer of bluster; in other words, it's more important how you present information than the content of the information itself). After he took retirement from his longest-tenured job and had a few free months, he got hooked on junky TV. I'm talking several hours a day; it became a thing.

My mom has better excuses for things. But she did live for 20 years in the dark shadow of her disgrace vis-a-vis Mormonism before (finally?) undergoing the aforementioned religious conversion (this is the kind of Born Again thing that convinces its followers that they possess the absolute truth). She's gone further and further into that hivemind over the past 20 years. She's now almost incapable of a conversation that feels challenging and doesn't somehow cycle back to 'biblical truths'. It's like a nervous hum until that happens.

I was around when they met, dated, and got married. Things could have turned out otherwise. Their conservative views on money (the point that started this spiel) is a mirror for the gutless way they've pursued most things. Money has been their master. We'll do things when....... Money and debt issues are immediately rendered in moral terms. And the incontinence thing wasn't a joke. Now that they have a bit more time on their hands their horizons are limited by the fact that one of them has to piss or **** like all the time. They bought a new truck and a trailer so that on road trips they not only had a comfortable queen-sized bed but so they could pull over and use the bathroom at any time.

 

[♪alt13]

I'm not offended. And, for the record, I said they "sorta" lost. They'll be as comfortable as possible and taken care of (even if that means relying on state programs to some degree). I'm sure it's nice for them to feel the degree of control over their senior years that they think they have.

But here's some more context. My step-dad has been a career-long wage laborer (who was raised by a career-long wage laborer...). He likely had a pretty poor imagination entering the job market as a college drop out (partied too hard to keep pace), but he definitely never pursued anything like intellectual curiosity through his career path. His motivation has always been to have nice things and to maintain them (i.e. control them) to an exacting degree. (Example: in their first year of marriage he fought assiduously with my mother over which direction the toilet paper roll should be put on.) He's always been super credulous. He had what I think is fair to call an embarrassing religious conversion in his 40s and is currently thumping his chest for Trump. (In a similar vein, he's the kind of guy who will lie simply because it's the faster way to dispatch people for whom he doesn't 'have the time'; convenience lies with a heavy veneer of bluster; in other words, it's more important how you present information than the content of the information itself). After he took retirement from his longest-tenured job and had a few free months, he got hooked on junky TV. I'm talking several hours a day; it became a thing.

My mom has better excuses for things. But she did live for 20 years in the dark shadow of her disgrace vis-a-vis Mormonism before (finally?) undergoing the aforementioned religious conversion (this is the kind of Born Again thing that convinces its followers that they possess the absolute truth). She's gone further and further into that hivemind over the past 20 years. She's now almost incapable of a conversation that feels challenging and doesn't somehow cycle back to 'biblical truths'. It's like a nervous hum until that happens.

I was around when they met, dated, and got married. Things could have turned out otherwise. Their conservative views on money (the point that started this spiel) is a mirror for the gutless way they've pursued most things. Money has been their master. We'll do things when....... Money and debt issues are immediately rendered in moral terms. And the incontinence thing wasn't a joke. Now that they have a bit more time on their hands their horizons are limited by the fact that one of them has to piss or **** like all the time. They bought a new truck and a trailer so that on road trips they not only had a comfortable queen-sized bed but so they could pull over and use the bathroom at any time.

The way I see it money becomes your master when you go into debt not when you pay it off. I really don't like living and working on behalf of the bank. My wife for one reason or another seems to really like having a car payment. I can't stand it. Sure I'd like a brand new truck but the debt just isn't worth it. Hopefully I'll be debt-free in my forties not so that I'll have more money rather so I don't need it as much.
I do to some degree see money in moral terms. Any debt that I acquire late in my life would have to be for some asset that either made me money or made the payment itself. I do feel an obligation to leave my kids something other than debt. I feel I have an obligation to them to better their lives. I don't think they have an obligation to fork over cash to dispose of my corpse.

 

[b_line]

The way I see it money becomes your master when you go into debt not when you pay it off. I really don't like living and working on behalf of the bank. My wife for one reason or another seems to really like having a car payment. I can't stand it. Sure I'd like a brand new truck but the debt just isn't worth it. Hopefully I'll be debt-free in my forties not so that I'll have more money rather so I don't need it as much.
I do to some degree see money in moral terms. Any debt that I acquire late in my life would have to be for some asset that either made me money or made the payment itself. I do feel an obligation to leave my kids something other than debt. I feel I have an obligation to them to better their lives. I don't think they have an obligation to fork over cash to dispose of my corpse.

I follow the same thought that you should pay off debt so you can make less money, or at least need less money. I absolutely love having no car payment.

 

[fishonjazz]

I follow the same thought that you should pay off debt so you can make less money, or at least need less money. I absolutely love having no car payment.

I don't make much money at all and don't have much money but I have always lived debt free cause I just don't spend more than I have. It's simple really.

I actually recently did something way out of the ordinary for me and bought a brand new siverado (only had 5 miles on it). But even then I put $21000 down (I got 15000 on my xterra trade in. It was paid off) so I only borrowed about 17000. Then I have been paying at least 1000 per month every month since then (this month I get a yearly work bonus and tax returns so I'm paying 4000 on it in march) and so now I only owe 9000. I bought the truck at the end of october.

I'm going to sell my pop up trailer for 5000 and put that money on the truck too.

I figure I will have my truck paid off around August and it will only have about 5000 miles on it.
I only bought the truck cause I knew I was going to be getting a lot of overtime for the next 6 months or so.

My wife's car is pretty new too and it's paid off.

My mortgage is really low and affordable and I have about 130,000 dollars in equity on it. (Only owe about 120,000 dollars on the house. )

No credit card bills. No other debt whatsoever.

And again, I don't make much money (about 50,000 per year) and my wife doesn't work or make any money. We are just smart about how we spend the little money we do have.

 

[NAOS]

The way I see it money becomes your master when you go into debt not when you pay it off. I really don't like living and working on behalf of the bank. My wife for one reason or another seems to really like having a car payment. I can't stand it. Sure I'd like a brand new truck but the debt just isn't worth it. Hopefully I'll be debt-free in my forties not so that I'll have more money rather so I don't need it as much.
I do to some degree see money in moral terms. Any debt that I acquire late in my life would have to be for some asset that either made me money or made the payment itself. I do feel an obligation to leave my kids something other than debt. I feel I have an obligation to them to better their lives. I don't think they have an obligation to fork over cash to dispose of my corpse.

I'm not promoting reckless spending or indebtedness for the sake of whimsy. Nor am I claiming that money is or should be completely uncoupled from morality. But there's something wise about leveraging debt without some baloney moral hangup; the false equivalency between monetary and moral debt is one of the great vices of our time. It's rubbish. I shared the example of my parents in order to highlight that being conservative-smart with money isn't the golden path -- even though we are taught that those are the most estimable worldly values.

Money can be your master if you're in the red and it can be your master if you're in the black. I'm weary/wary of debt, but if I'm offered an experience that I find particularly valuable, or an amazing deal on music equipment that I've been wanting and know that it'll keep that project evolving, etc., etc. (i.e. **** to keep me learning at the pace of learning, not at the pace that money will allow me to evolve), then I'll go into a bit of debt to keep things moving. I don't allow myself to moan about that kind of spending, even if I go beyond the spendable slush fund that I allow myself.

This all happens in the context of saving money. My own personal money-religion is saving a set amount of money every week, no matter the circumstances. If I don't do it this way, then my Saving Gene switches off. I'll tote a thousand or so in credit card debt if I have to, but that money gets saved. It's the only way things work for me.

But yeah, I haven't had a car payment in over 10 years. That's rubbish. Banks can kiss my ***. If things progress like I see them, then I'll leave my kids (when I have them (soon, btw)) plenty of assets.

 

[DutchJazzer]

Or maybe better, what income is right?

Ok so my boss and I had this conversation recently. We are both making enough money to be in a, let's just say higher tax bracket. And we discussed at what income level or what kind of raise would we need to feel like we were actually able to live a different life-style. He said he would need to be in the 300k range or higher to really take a step-change in lifestyle, or where he would feel it more than just buying extra stuff or using credit cards a little less. For example he recently took his entire family to Cancun and flew them all first class, and he is not what I would consider rich. My thoughts were more along the line of percentages. If my income went up by 50% I would feel it for sure, as most would, but it would realistically be more the difference between driving better cars and having nicer things more than like retiring early or hiring a live-in maid or something.

So what do you think? I have included both percentage increases to income and income groupings and you can choose more than one, but I have kept it anonymous in hopes people will answer somewhat truthfully. How much more money would you need to really have it affect your lifestyle?


To clarify, choose from the following:

You would need X to feel it in your lifestyle:

any up to 50% raise in income
50 % to double current income
2X to triple current income
4-5X current income
more than 5X current income

or in real dollars

increase your income to one of these brackets to really feel a change in your standard of living:

up to 100k
100k to 200k
200k to 300k
300k to 500k
more than 500k


I chose 2x to triple my current income is what I would need to really feel it in my day to day life more than just buying more or nicer things.

how about let the market decide

these deciding factos count.

the supply and demand of workers. and then the productive worth of the worker.

supply demand is first. then comes prodcutive value. by productive value(don't know if the right English word) i mean:

a guy flipping burgers and hour might flip 200 burgers(just a number i picked), those 200 burgers give you revenue of lets say 5 dollars a pop so one guy gives u a revenue of 1000 dollar. (simplified of course).
but lets say a burger joint with 10 people(also cashiers etc) give you a revenue of 10.000 dollar. so their combined salary should be somewhere between 0 and X( x being 10.000 minus operating cost and profit!)

now lets say we have a oil platform run by 10 people(yes just random numbers) but those 10 people give you a revenue of 100.000 dollar per hours. lets face it that's just reality oil drilling platform gives you more revenue than burger joint. so those people salary will be higher someweher between 0 and y(y being 10.000 minus operating cost and profit)


also that's why NBA players get paid so much, they give you more revenue.

the supply demand part is tricky i mean if their are 3000 people wanting the job and there are only 10 places. they are outbidding themselves! so production value does not come into play!

so we should promote production and business. if you have production, people get paid according to their production value. if their is a lack of work, then burger joints are straight outta luck because they cant outbid certain fields, so then burger joint become what they are meant to be. part-time jobs for students and low skilled workers while getting a education on doing skilled work.

so screw your poll

so even though i like to vote on this poll there is no real option!

people will call me crazy and idiotic. maybe they are just close minded or my English is BAD!

 

[LogGrad98]

how about let the market decide

these deciding factos count.

the supply and demand of workers. and then the productive worth of the worker.

supply demand is first. then comes prodcutive value. by productive value(don't know if the right English word) i mean:

a guy flipping burgers and hour might flip 200 burgers(just a number i picked), those 200 burgers give you revenue of lets say 5 dollars a pop so one guy gives u a revenue of 1000 dollar. (simplified of course).
but lets say a burger joint with 10 people(also cashiers etc) give you a revenue of 10.000 dollar. so their combined salary should be somewhere between 0 and X( x being 10.000 minus operating cost and profit!)

now lets say we have a oil platform run by 10 people(yes just random numbers) but those 10 people give you a revenue of 100.000 dollar per hours. lets face it that's just reality oil drilling platform gives you more revenue than burger joint. so those people salary will be higher someweher between 0 and y(y being 10.000 minus operating cost and profit)


also that's why NBA players get paid so much, they give you more revenue.

the supply demand part is tricky i mean if their are 3000 people wanting the job and there are only 10 places. they are outbidding themselves! so production value does not come into play!

so we should promote production and business. if you have production, people get paid according to their production value. if their is a lack of work, then burger joints are straight outta luck because they cant outbid certain fields, so then burger joint become what they are meant to be. part-time jobs for students and low skilled workers while getting a education on doing skilled work.

so screw your poll

so even though i like to vote on this poll there is no real option!

people will call me crazy and idiotic. maybe they are just close minded or my English is BAD!

I think you misunderstood the poll.

 

[DutchJazzer]

I think you misunderstood the poll.

you are right! sorry about that, sometimes i am just a retard por according to some i am always a retard.

sorry bout that, i just kinda am sick of this "minimum wage" stuff, and i saw this as an opportunity to go on my rant about salary!


please consider my previous message as unwritten, lets save it for the inevitable minimum wage and wage gap thread that is coming in the future!

 

[JAZZGASM]

I don't make much money at all and don't have much money but I have always lived debt free cause I just don't spend more than I have. It's simple really.

I actually recently did something way out of the ordinary for me and bought a brand new siverado (only had 5 miles on it). But even then I put $21000 down (I got 15000 on my xterra trade in. It was paid off) so I only borrowed about 17000. Then I have been paying at least 1000 per month every month since then (this month I get a yearly work bonus and tax returns so I'm paying 4000 on it in march) and so now I only owe 9000. I bought the truck at the end of october.

I'm going to sell my pop up trailer for 5000 and put that money on the truck too.

I figure I will have my truck paid off around August and it will only have about 5000 miles on it.
I only bought the truck cause I knew I was going to be getting a lot of overtime for the next 6 months or so.

My wife's car is pretty new too and it's paid off.

My mortgage is really low and affordable and I have about 130,000 dollars in equity on it. (Only owe about 120,000 dollars on the house. )

No credit card bills. No other debt whatsoever.

And again, I don't make much money (about 50,000 per year) and my wife doesn't work or make any money. We are just smart about how we spend the little money we do have.

But are you investing too? If not, consider financing more low interest debt so you can invest more heavily.

Investing early and often is the best way to secure a good retirement.

 

[DutchJazzer]

But are you investing too? If not, consider financing more low interest debt so you can invest more heavily.

Investing early and often is the best way to secure a good retirement.

maybe invest in some land, then jsut farm the **** out of it. then as retirement you can sit on your porch and harvest fruits

 

[NAOS]

But are you investing too? If not, consider financing more low interest debt so you can invest more heavily.

Investing early and often is the best way to secure a good retirement.

^straight-forward words that relate to what I was saying. If you aren't comfortable leveraging debt in smart ways -- because it's debt -- then you are getting dominated by moral views of money.

Paying off a truck (a declining asset) with, what, a 3% rate these days VS investing that liquidity in appreciating assets. You decide.

 

[b_line]

I just started investing in a Roth ira for the first time. I'm kind of obsessed. I should have been investing sooner, but I couldn't stand being in debt.

 

[JAZZGASM]

I just started investing in a Roth ira for the first time. I'm kind of obsessed. I should have been investing sooner, but I couldn't stand being in debt.

I invested in a David Lee Roth and lost everything.

 

[Revolution 9]

About 35-40% more to really feel it.