I read here every night and don't reply on much but when I read this I have too. We was at one time sending out every month on bills over 2500.00 a month not including gas or food. This was about 18-20 years ago. We had credit cards , loan payments and so on. We got tired of it - working yourself in the ground for your bills. So we sat down and in 5 years got rid of everything but the house payment, 2 years after that it was paid off. You have to set down and get every thing on paper and see what needs to go first -we cut a 1000.00 off the first year. Ours was credit cards, if you have to put it on a credit card and you can't pay cash you don't need it. Then loans again can't pay cash- you can't afford it, this includes everything but a house. Food we have no less than a year at all times - garden we can or freeze around 3-400 quart or pint containers every year, money we have a years worth for bills and our bills now is less than 400.00 a month- that includes all insurances and food when needed. Water we keep about 3 month and rotate them every 6 months. Heat - you should have at least 3 ways to heat your home. We have - wood [ 5 years ahead] as the main heat, then nat. gas , electric heaters, propane heaters and kerosene heater. Someone said some are a paycheck away from being bankrupt- I read some where a couple weeks ago that 60% of the people do not have 500.00 saved. It takes a while to get everything paid off but it is a good feeling when you can put money back every month as we do and have for a few years now.
It sounds like you have figured out how to get there Tigeroak. First I paid off the cars, then the house, then started paying cash for everything. That is tough to do at first but it all adds up. I can remember thinking that I could live 12% better with no additional money if I just got rid of my consumer credit balances. Then it was the house that was still costing me 8.5%, hey it was the 80s and that was a good rate. Instead of paying the house directly I bought CDs that expired when my 10 years loan balloon would come due because the CDs were paying more than that 8.5%. In about a 2 week period I cashed in several thousand dollars of CDs and when my loan was renewed it was much smaller and at a far better interest rate because it was so small and I was "credit worthy". Before that loan expired it was paid off. All of my regular bills now are food, taxes and utilities. Everything else is pretty much optional but I do treat my maintenance costs like oil changes, bar oil, gas, 2-stroke oil as required expenses.
Great Thread. Food, water, generator ( electric start for wife ) , fuel, lead (and things to throw it ) seeds and land to grow them in.... all those things we have covered Cash on hand .... some but not as much as I would like. Several payed for vehicles, but still paying on the house and one truck for a few more years. My wood stacks are not 3 years ahead, but I'm working on it...... what is the wood stack worth.... use the handy little calc in resources and see what a cord of your stack is worth compared to LP or electric heat. Many on this forum are very "wood wealthy"
Way to go, tigeroak! So many people fall into the credit card trap! All we see every day in media and everywhere else is , you need it , or, you deserve it, or , just sign here. I couldn't believe how many car companies advertised at Christmas that you need a new car for a Christmas gift. And worse yet people must buy them or the companies wouldn't run the ads!
Owl, when I say I have a year of money for living expenses, very little of that is anywhere but in a bank. The day I have $500 to worry about at home or in my pockets is rare.
And I'm just the opposite. After seeing what went on in Greece a few years ago I decided to keep more money locked up at home. On top of that, banks are paying 1% or less on savings accounts. So if I have $10,000 in the bank, they're going to bless me with $100 at the end of the year as a way to thank me for allowing them to use my money. Even $5000 CD's are only around 1.5%, and that's if you don't touch it for 2-3 years. I don't think so.
Same here we never keep more than enough to cover what bills we have. Wife gets her ss deposited in the bank, then she sees what we need for the month to pay bills - then the rest comes home. My ss and retardment checks ALL come home and locked up in different places. NEVER trust a bank, as UncleJoe said look what happened in Greece and it can and just might happen here soon. People are so far in debt now that it is in the trillions this does not included houses, this can not go on for long.
Great thread. It's been a scary world since '08. We still have houses around here that have been foreclosed on and not even been put on the market by the bank for years now. Glad ours is paid for.
They can't put them on the market. Let's say it was a $500k mortgage. Even with the minor recovery in housing prices, they may only be able to get $350k for it. As long as it's on their books at $500k they can show a larger balance sheet. If they start selling off all those houses for what the market will bear right now, they're in deep trouble. Better to sit on it and retain the higher figure. It makes them look solvent.
There is a company that advertises here, "Don't settle for the car you can afford, get the car you really want"!
A town legislator told me that the banks don't even take title of a foreclosed home because they don't want to maintain it. One home down the end of my street was so ransacked after foreclosure that they leveled it. They put up a new modular in its place and sold it, becoming the most expensive home sold in our development. Go figure?
42 years ago I found the girl of my dreams. She could cook somewhat had a great job but best of all she knew how to run a family budget. House paid off. Check Children's college paid. Check Cars free and clear. Check Boat free and clear. Check Over one years bills in budget. Check ( think she may be up to two now) 3-4 years wood heat. Check Over two years salary set aside. Check No credit card bills at all. But we do charge everything. Then pay bill at the months end after using their money. We sold our first home seven years ago for $280,000.00 and bought 23 acres for $300,000.00. We sold off two 2 1/2 acre house lots for $155,000.00 each to pay for the new home and here we are debt free with 18+ acres of our own. There are many things you can do to get out from under debt. We did away with cable tv years ago. At $200.00 a month that's $2400.00 a year. Think what you could do with that? We have a naturalist coming this spring to walk our land and show us all the plants that you can eat and that have other uses in everyday life. We already have chickens, and harvest wildlife off the land for food.
No kids, no mortgage, no debt, Worked in Corporate America IT for 45 yrs. Was laid off 2 Octobers ago. My wife worked in Corporate America for 35 yrs, then switched to the pubic sector long enough to earn a small pension and 50% health insurance. She's retired and collecting SS. I hope to collect SS spousal benefits in a couple of yrs. We both maxed out 401ks and IRAs, since their inception. Everything gets charged, and paid off fully when the bill comes in. Small house ~1750 sq ft. Plenty big for the two of us - low maintenance, easy to heat. Very pleased with our financial advisor as we watch investments grow over the years. If we are able to leave a nickel to each of our nieces and nephews when the Good Lord calls us home, then it's been a good ride.
As with all decisions in life, you get to choose what your priorities are. It may be to "spoil yourself" or it may be to spend responsibly and have something left for saving/investing. I worked with lots of guys that would spend a week in Hawaii every year but had nothing to show for a year of work except a few memories and some pictures. They also went out and traded houses every few years because "they could afford it". I worked at the same wage scale but am living in a house I bought in 1978 that is paid off and have never been to HI. Instead I made memories and took pictures closer to home most years and did invest and save a lot more. I have never held back on buying something I thought that I needed but most years I spend more on savings than on cars and such. I have been to Europe on my own dime twice now and while there I rented a car and drove all over France, southern Germany, western Austria, Belgium, Switzerland and I even drove through Luxembourg and Lichtenstein. It did not set me back as much as spending a week in HI would have but I got a lot of memories from people with very different cultures to my own. By driving around Europe I experienced road side stands where my french was challenged but I was walked through a place that specialized in pears and everything you could do with a pear by the lady in charge of the place. Part of the fun was that she spoke not a word of english so we did more than try to BS each other. I saw the Bayeux tapistry with a tourist interpretation tape playing in my ear. I spent a day on Le Mont St Michel walking the ancient streets of that place. In Switzerland I spent a day at the Jungfraujoch and walked the ice sculpture area that was carved out of the glacier at the top of the mountain. You don't need to live like a hermit to save money but it helps if you are willing to delay spending until you can do it without going into debt.
In BC Canada the government announced that they will supply down payment funds on houses up to $750,000 to first time home buyers to a maximum of around $35,000 or 2.5% of the normal 5% required down payment for insured mortgages. The borrowed money will then be registered as a second mortgage on title and be interest free for 5 years and then will be considered as a loan at the current mortgage rate at the time. They did this to help the buyers in Vancouver BC get into the market but it is a policy for the entire province. In my region what you would pay 1.5 million for in Vancouver you can buy here for around $220,000. Its to bad because it will just increase real estate values in the second most expensive region in the world and will make more people get further in debt which ultimately leads to more default mortgages. Im a realtor in BC and I dont like this and plan on telling young folks what I think of this new government initiative. People can do what they want as its not my place to tell them what to do but I dont mind passing on a bit of my opinion in hopes it might help young people save a bit more before jumping in.
I know you were joking but it's french Mortgage... Mort or life and gage or debt... meaning a debt for life.... just the sort of stuff I find interesting