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Old 02-01-2018, 07:40 AM
 
Location: Elsewhere
88,119 posts, read 83,961,306 times
Reputation: 114402

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rakin View Post
We keep letting the poor from south of the border stream into the US.

For this reason all the statistics on "The Poor" are pure BS.
Heard this guy Jeffery Saut from Raymond James speak the other day. While I don't invest and most of it went over my head, it was still interesting.

One of the things he said was that manufacturing in Mexico is picking up, the products are of good quality, and he foresees more and more products coming into the US from south of the border rather than from the other side of the planet.

The other thing he said that I found sadly amusing was that he travels the world over, and everywhere he goes, he sees McDonald's and KFC, so he invests in "diabetes stocks".
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Old 02-01-2018, 08:02 AM
 
Location: Elsewhere
88,119 posts, read 83,961,306 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mathjak107 View Post
1/2 the country never has any savings at any point in their lives . the sun still rises and life goes on . been this way for a long long time . but like you said , every day people dredge up how bad the masses are doing articles and skewed studies and polls .

meh , better ways to spend your time than reading this junk. most would be better off digging up articles telling them how to do better themselves than trying to figure out what everyone has or does not have .
As I mentioned, a lot of it comes down to basic skills that many people don't have. When I see some of the snoots on here sneering down at people who don't manage money the way THEY do, it sounds just like a mechanic sneering at people who don't understand how an engine works or techies slurring "users" for not knowing how to fix a computer problem.

You don't know these things unless someone teaches you. I was broke most of my adult life mainly because of a bad marriage, but I also really had no idea how money management worked once I got rid of my husband and paid off the debt he'd accumulated for me. I learned relatively late in life, in my 40s, how to live on a budget.

I love my mother. She's 89 years old and still beats me at Scrabble, but she dropped the ball when I was a kid and she could have taken a moment to teach me about saving. She herself was extremely frugal, a Depression kid, and in spite of not having finished high school, she was the one who handled the family finances and paid off my parents' 30-year mortgage in 13 years, and she managed my dad's salary to put a good meal on the table every night for ten people.

I got an allowance of 50 cents a week if I did my chores, and I remember figuring out that if I saved 25 cents of it ever week for a year, I would have the princely sum of $13 at the end of the year. Excited, I told my mother about this discovery, and her response was "Oh, you aren't going to save anything. You'll just spend it on candy and junk." This was the old-fashioned "Dutch praise" method of raising a kid--don't let them get hopes up, don't let them get a big head, squash any aspiration like a bug. It's the way she was raised, and she didn't know any differently at that time.

I can remember feeling deflated and thinking, "I guess I won't bother to try to save it, then, since Mom doesn't think I can."

Of course, I can't continue to blame my mother for my poor choices when I grew up, but I really didn't see any use in saving. When I started working as an adult, I spent money going out, I bought the clothes I wanted, etc. It seemed to me that other people who bought homes of their own had gotten the down-payment money from somewhere in a lump sum--an inheritance, a lawsuit, a gift from a wealthy relative. I could not see how it might be possible to SAVE that large a sum of money.

My young adult daughter came to me and asked me about how to budget her money so she can get by on the stipend from her assistantship while she works on her PhD (and gets a bit of help each month from both her dad and me). I was happy to help her budget. She's doing well with what she has, knows exactly what her expenses are, and knows if she will have the money for an occasional movie or pizza that month, or not.

There are skills to managing money that some people don't have. For me, learning to track every expense was just as much a revelation and key to making changes as is tracking everything I eat in My Fitness Pal. I saw how a couple of dollars here and a couple there emptied my wallet sneakily just as too many cheese and crackers piled on calories a little at a time. If something as simple as that is taught to a child early, it could make a difference in their life.
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Old 02-01-2018, 08:10 AM
 
Location: Metro Detroit
1,786 posts, read 2,646,247 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by freemkt View Post
You have totally lost me. Where did you get THAT idea? Section 8 housing is very hard to get. In my area, the waiting list is closed 99.5 percent of the time. About every five years, when the "expected wait time" gets down to 12 months, a lottery is announced a couple months in advance (to allow word of mouth to get around the 'hood).

There is a one-week window for people to sign up for this lottery, which selects some number (3,000 last time) households to be added to the waiting list (about 8,000 applied last time).

"Winners" get on the waiting list and can expect to wait up to five years for a voucher. Then they have to go through the formal application process, and if approved, they have something like 90 days to find a landlord willing to accept their voucher. If they can't find a willing landlord in 90 days, the voucher expires and is issued to the next person on the waiting list.

All lottery "losers" must wait another five years for the next Section 8 lottery.

There are probably MILLIONS of people who SHOULD be getting Section 8 rent assistance but, as I said, it's very difficult to get.
This sounded like some sort of twisted sci-fi dystopian story, but it's not - this is just life for people in poverty and lacking the means (or sometimes will) to escape.
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Old 02-01-2018, 08:11 AM
 
105,888 posts, read 107,840,851 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801 View Post
As I mentioned, a lot of it comes down to basic skills that many people don't have. When I see some of the snoots on here sneering down at people who don't manage money the way THEY do, it sounds just like a mechanic sneering at people who don't understand how an engine works or techies slurring "users" for not knowing how to fix a computer problem.

.
you have to want to learn what you don't know .

i still teach in my field one day a week and i tell all the newbees the same thing .

no one ever takes you by the hand here and says okay now we are going to teach you this or that unless it is only for the position you fill .

if you want to move up the ranks you need a plan , you can't drift or wait for things to come to you -they won't .. you need to make sure YOU FIND a way to get on the path you want to go on and make it happen .

you do it by reading books and training material on the next level . you do it by making sure that others in power to move you up know you are learning . you want to get on the radar so it is you that is the most eligible person out of your peers to fill that next level slot .

i was a drummer , i knew drumming , i had no clue about anything financial. but i also grew up in a nyc housing project and i knew i was never going to raise my family in one .

so i knew i had to learn what i didn't know , i forced myself .

people have no problem learning things they want to learn . they know more about their car ,refrigerator and sports than anything really important like their own financial well being

Last edited by mathjak107; 02-01-2018 at 08:46 AM..
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Old 02-01-2018, 08:40 AM
 
Location: Elsewhere
88,119 posts, read 83,961,306 times
Reputation: 114402
Quote:
Originally Posted by mathjak107 View Post
you have to want to learn what you don't know .

i still teach in my field one day a week and i tell all the newbees the same thing .

no one ever takes you by the hand here and says okay no we are going to teach you this or that unless it is only for the position you fill .

if you want to move up the ranks you need a plan , you can't drift or wait for things to come to you -they won't .. you need to make sure YOU FIND a way to get on the path you want to go on and make it happen .

you do it by reading books and training material on the next level . you do it by making sure that others in power to move you up know you are learning . you want to get on the radar so it is you that is the most eligible person out of your peers to fill that next level slot .

i was a drummer , i knew drumming , i had no clue about anything financial. but i also grew up in a nyc housing project and i knew i was never going to raise my family in one .

so i knew i had to learn what i didn't know , i forced myself .

people have no problem learning things they want to learn . they know more about their car ,refrigerator and sports than anything really important like their own financial well being
I agree. I learned a lot of things I was never taught by teaching myself or learning on my own. I built a decent career without a college degree by learning things above my pay grade and then being in the right place with the right knowledge at the right time when it came to promotions, and it became my financial salvation, because I have a sufficient public pension to live on.

I grew up at a time and in a family wherein it was simply expected that my life would be spent at home, taking care of children and a husband who would be supporting me. In the meantime, I had to get a job and pay board to my parents if I still lived home. As laughable as that sounds now, there was no question in my family of going to college. My father went because he was disabled in the war and went on the GI bill afterward, but before that, he was an electrician, a path that my older brother followed. My mother had to drop out of high school to take care of a mentally and physically disabled sister. I remember kids in high school talking about taking SATs, and I didn't know what SATs were, but I knew they didn't apply to me because they had something to do with college. I was going to get married and have kids.

I was clueless about the existence of alcoholism or compulsive gambling and what it could do to one's financial situation. Or one's marriage.

I think there's also a lot of emotional baggage attached to finance sometimes that people don't want to deal with. When I finally got rid of my husband and faced the fact that it was up to me alone to raise my child and give her the best life I could, one of the first things I did was take a huge deep breath and write down every single debt I owed, write down my income, and figure out how I was going to support us and pay off those tens of thousands of dollars that being married had cost me. It was emotionally draining at first, but I did it and I kept doing it. Once I got past the initial pain of reality, it was easier.
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Old 02-01-2018, 08:52 AM
 
24,006 posts, read 10,358,940 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by freemkt View Post
"The Rent Eats First" is a reference to a slogan used by some minimum wage protesters.

Dave Ramsey says food should come first, then utilities, then rent or mortgage. He also recommends 38% of a household budget for shelter. (He's basing all of this on NET income, using the average American who is an employee and who never sees in his paycheck the taxes withheld.)
If you do not know how to read a paycheck - ask HR to explain it to you.
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Old 02-01-2018, 09:16 AM
 
1,915 posts, read 1,469,728 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801 View Post
That's funny about the celery, because I was just thinking the same thing the other day. I needed a little bit of celery, not a whole big thing that's just going to rot in the fridge. Same with carrots. WTF does a single person do with a BAG of carrots.

My supermarket has a salad bar, and so when I wanted to make a small batch of soup, I got a few celery pieces and a few carrot pieces from the salad bar. Sure, costs a bit more for what you get that way, but it isn't as wasteful.

I think single people like myself just find it easier to spend the money to eat decently without a big fuss.

Before someone comes along shrieking that I should make a large batch of something and freeze it, NO. I don't have the space in the freezer, and at my age, I know the value of time. I am not wasting it in the kitchen chopping stuff and then having to clean.

Not saying to eat out all the time, because it's expensive and usually less healthy, but I try to keep food simple, and if that means I have to spend a dollar or two more buying pre-cut butternut squash instead of getting frustrated trying to cut through one and having a mess on the counter and losing the time that it takes besides, I will.

A family with kids might choose differently because the savings will be more, plus someone might enjoy preparing meals for their family.
My mom's a widow and does exactly the same thing. And she tells me, "just get it from the salad bar." I really probably should.

I freeze what I can, but I only have a normal sized refrigerator with a normal sized freezer. There is only so much I can do. So I know exactly where you are coming from too. I’m considering buying a deep freezer though. The question is where to put it. There is no room in the garage with the car(it’s a one car garage). And would I even eat all that food anyway (before it gets freezer burnt)?
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Old 02-01-2018, 09:37 AM
 
Location: Elsewhere
88,119 posts, read 83,961,306 times
Reputation: 114402
Quote:
Originally Posted by BellaLind View Post
My mom's a widow and does exactly the same thing. And she tells me, "just get it from the salad bar." I really probably should.

I freeze what I can, but I only have a normal sized refrigerator with a normal sized freezer. There is only so much I can do. So I know exactly where you are coming from too. I’m considering buying a deep freezer though. The question is where to put it. There is no room in the garage with the car(it’s a one car garage). And would I even eat all that food anyway (before it gets freezer burnt)?
I actually bought a smaller fridge and sent the one that was here when I bought the condo into the recycling program. First of all, it was a two-door side-by-side thing and very big, and it just didn't fit into the space in my galley-type kitchen. The freezer door hit the wall, and there were little shelves that stuck out that I had to reach over and around to get anything in and out. So now I have a smaller fridge with a smaller freezer, which is FINE for me.

I have a friend who constantly buys food because it's such a good sale, but she lives alone and then complains all the time that she has too much stuff in her freezer. The good part is that she then invites me over to eat it and cooks dinner. I bring wine. Works out for both of us.

We need much less than we think we do. Even just with what I have in the freezer and the cabinets, I could probably go for a month without having to shop if need be.
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Old 02-01-2018, 09:39 AM
 
24,512 posts, read 18,016,093 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BellaLind View Post
My mom's a widow and does exactly the same thing. And she tells me, "just get it from the salad bar." I really probably should.

I freeze what I can, but I only have a normal sized refrigerator with a normal sized freezer. There is only so much I can do. So I know exactly where you are coming from too. I’m considering buying a deep freezer though. The question is where to put it. There is no room in the garage with the car(it’s a one car garage). And would I even eat all that food anyway (before it gets freezer burnt)?
There is no one 'right way'. I was unemployed for 14 1/2 months in the Great Recession. I contracted my life to a paid-for townhouse condo at a ski resort. I had infinite time. It was 3 gallons of gas to go to the grocery store. I had a chest freezer in the basement and limited my grocery runs to once every 2 or 3 weeks. Most produce keeps that long. I cooked all my own food. Did my own baking. I ate really well and my food cost was very low.

I was also unemployed last year. For more than half of it, I was in a suburban place a couple miles from urban where I could grocery shop 3 or 4 times per week with minimal fuel cost. I didn't use a chest freezer because I didn't need to.
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Old 02-01-2018, 09:46 AM
 
Location: Phoenix
29,867 posts, read 18,704,050 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by santafe400 View Post
I'm not going to quote the sources, because we've all seen the articles in passing, but it's scary to think that something like 60% of American's practically have nothing at all in savings. I would bet that even fewer have money invested that they can one day live off of. I'm really worried that when the next "great recession" arrives things could get really ugly. It's scary to think that if you have as little as $500 stashed away in a savings account that you are probably doing better than half your peers.
Stupid people don't prepare for the down times. As we import more and more stupid uneducated people and our school systems fail us, the more broke people with no plan when things get bad we'll have. That's why it's a good idea to be well armed and have some food stuffed away like the Mormons do.
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