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I also understand that very few people can save big...Most people have their money tied up in retirement plans or pensions... All well and good when they retie BUT not so good when they are trying to live in the present....
And the couple who had $1,000,000 at the end of 20 years would have had to put away a LARGE amount to begin with and then the interest on whatever they put the money in would have had to be constant and either increase each segment or at the least stay the same and not go lower thru out the 20 years....
Also getting another job or trying to bring one's self up job wise can be very difficult depending on a lot of things.. It is not just as easy as saying I need another job and poof you have one....
Back in 1995 Both my wife and I had federal jobs..I got transferred to California from Colorado.. Wife had no job but was on the books for 4 months IF a federal job came open...
So now we have moved to a higher living area, and our pay has been literally cut in half.... She did not get a job until 6 months later because of 2 things.. One there were no jobs where we moved for English only speaking people... If you were bilingual oh heck you could have your pick of jobs..... So no income at all..
Now we cut back and cut back but everything was still more expensive out here than back there..We went thru what savings we had to keep afloat....
So it isn'y just a matter of "getting" another job sometimes things keep you from it....
There are so many assumptions and presumptions in that question . . .
Why would you want to "save money?"
The function of money is to facilitate trade when barter is insufficient. Hoarding it (saving it) defeats the purpose.
If you "save it" in a bank which lends it out at usury, that, too, is questionable.
(Usury has been denounced for "only" 3500 years, and proscribed by all religions.)
Frankly, what circulates as current monies is a worthless note that continues to devalue, and thus is unsuitable for hoarding / saving. Worse, the tax bill increases despite the drop in buying power.
What you want are the things money can buy, when you no longer are productive and capable of making surplus usable goods and services to trade with others.
If you have a subsistence garden or small farm, you won't starve.
Owning a business, that another operates for you is one way to have cash flow when you can't work anymore.
Having rental properties is another.
Reducing or eliminating your tax bill is another great way to boost your standard of living.
Under the republican form, people with endowed rights are not subject to excise taxes. Only those who exercise government privileges are taxed. So establishing yourself outside of "voluntary" servitude and socialism should reduce your tax footprint significantly.
.. And the couple who had $1,000,000 at the end of 20 years would have had to put away a LARGE amount to begin with and then the interest on whatever they put the money in would have had to be constant and either increase each segment or at the least stay the same and not go lower thru out the 20 years....
Um, no. I did it without a "LARGE amount to begin with".
When we started building our portfolio, we started with $5,000 and even it was borrowed.
Quote:
... we have moved to a higher living area, and our pay has been literally cut in half.... She did not get a job until 6 months later because of 2 things.. One there were no jobs where we moved for English only speaking people... If you were bilingual oh heck you could have your pick of jobs..... So no income at all..
Now we cut back and cut back but everything was still more expensive out here than back there..We went thru what savings we had to keep afloat....
So it isn'y just a matter of "getting" another job sometimes things keep you from it....
Maybe moving to a higher COL area was your mistake?
Everytime that I was offered significantly higher wages, It was always for a job that would be located in a high COL city. I have relatives and friends who much seriously good incomes, they all live in cities of very high COL.
If you want to easily spend less to live, you need to live in a low COL area.
Everytime that I was offered significantly higher wages, It was always for a job that would be located in a high COL city. I have relatives and friends who much seriously good incomes, they all live in cities of very high COL.
If you want to easily spend less to live, you need to live in a low COL area.
Yep. But the math often does not pencil out for the high income job in the high cost area. For certain careers, you need to live in high cost areas, but most jobs/careers are fairly mundane and the higher pay for the mundane jobs (which is most of them) in the high cost areas typically doesn't make up for the higher cost of living--usually not even close.
Well if you have a mortgage, more than likely your house is going to appreciate over the years.
Food is pretty easy if you take the time to learn a few things. Have you seen the coupon queeens and kings on tv? These are people who get their groceries for free or practically nothing by learning how to coupon and refund. There are a growing number of people mastering this. I learned to stockpile starting with buy one get one free deals. Buying an extra bag of beans, using one and throwing one in the back of the cupboard for later use. I also started making practically everything from scratch bread, desserts, yogurt, salad dressings etc. I now have at least a years supply of food put away. Some people get food stamps and use food banks. Some people garden, raise chickens, rabbits etc.
I've known people who did their laundry in the bathtub. Used space heaters instead of using the furnace.
Watch some of the Alaska survivalist television programs. A number of these people operate with no or little money. Lots of people in the US start with practically nothing, millions pull themselves up over time. Think about it, almost no one has money when they first start out, yet the majority manage to climb to a middle class income. There are many ways people accomplish this by getting better jobs,second jobs, better education, moving, starting their own businesses etc.
Everytime that I was offered significantly higher wages, It was always for a job that would be located in a high COL city. I have relatives and friends who much seriously good incomes, they all live in cities of very high COL.
If you want to easily spend less to live, you need to live in a low COL area.
depends on the job . nyc pays 3x the national average in salary but on the low end that can be tough here .
on the other hand if you have a decent job living in high cost area can be a benefit down the road .
selling a 600k plus home that appreciates over the years even 3% is very different than a 150k home that appreciates 3% .
the higher wages also give you a higher ss check forever regardless of where you relocate to ..
transplants from the tristate area who relocate tend to do far better than the locals do in cheapsville who lived their all their lives .
I know when we had the house in PA .i could make do with about 1/3 less income buy pay was 1/2 my new york pay.
There are so many assumptions and presumptions in that question . . .
Why would you want to "save money?"
The function of money is to facilitate trade when barter is insufficient. Hoarding it (saving it) defeats the purpose.
If you "save it" in a bank which lends it out at usury, that, too, is questionable.
(Usury has been denounced for "only" 3500 years, and proscribed by all religions.)
Frankly, what circulates as current monies is a worthless note that continues to devalue, and thus is unsuitable for hoarding / saving. Worse, the tax bill increases despite the drop in buying power.
What you want are the things money can buy, when you no longer are productive and capable of making surplus usable goods and services to trade with others.
If you have a subsistence garden or small farm, you won't starve.
Owning a business, that another operates for you is one way to have cash flow when you can't work anymore.
Having rental properties is another.
Reducing or eliminating your tax bill is another great way to boost your standard of living.
Under the republican form, people with endowed rights are not subject to excise taxes. Only those who exercise government privileges are taxed. So establishing yourself outside of "voluntary" servitude and socialism should reduce your tax footprint significantly.
From personal experience, I would say that people who "don't have any" money necessarily prioritize the conservation of money (minimize expenses). Since rent is usually the elephant in the budgets of people who don't have any money, they often obsess about reducing their housing expenses. Typically, up front cash is required to move into lower-cost housing, and clearly these people need to "save money" in order to accomplish that.
Saving a million over your working life, according to the calculators I see, depend greatly on the annual rate of return on the money in savings. 6-10% returns and it's a relatively low amount, although not low enough that just any joe could do it easily.
2-4% return and the monthly amount becomes more prohibitive.
Everyone seems to use the 10% figure on the stock market's historical rate of return.
Let's assume a 7% annual ROI, which would require around $1000 a month. Saving $12k a year is not particularly easy. For a lot of people, that's half or more than half of their income.
To make $1000 a month "easy" to save and forget - I'd say it needs to be about 15% of net at most, so around $6000 a month net needs to be coming in, which translates to a gross household income of about $100,000 a year. That is approximately double the median household income.
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