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but the minimum wage doesn't need to be increased...
wages should receive regular COLAs.
In some states the minimum wage is indexed and goes up with inflation. My observation is that it puts a real cap on job growth at the low end and encourages illegal employment.
Only if the companies profits go up by the cost of living. Hard for a company to give a COLA if their relative profits don't go up at least accordingly. Thats the problem with stagflation. Profits go down and cost go up for everyone including the company. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Profits CAN go down...since those profits are usually divided among the shareholders and executive officers of the company.
Awww, I hope you don't really mean this. This would have been such a boring thread if it was just a series of one word replies.
FWIW, I don't think people were trying to be disrespectful. Quite the contrary. I was taught that if you are going to answer "no" to a question you need to also give a detailed explanation of the answer, complete with examples. The only time you would simply say "no" would be if a question was so ridiculous it did not deserve a full answer. By explaining their points of view, people were showing respect for your question.
It's funny how often threads don't take root in the direction the OP imagines. It can be frustrating when some of the points you make in the original post aren't discussed. But I hope that despite this you are glad you started the thread. I know I am.
This thread gave many of us a chance to say things that wouldn't ordinarily come up. And even though we went off on tangents I found a lot of wisdom and practical advice tucked away in those tangents. There was a lot to chew on in this thread, and I felt like I got to know several of the regular posters much better.
Our readers will draw varying conclusion about whether or not retirement will become impossible... but as a result of this thread one important lesson was demonstrated (IMO).
Awwww Normie...I didn't mean to say that anyone should not be able to fully express an opinion. That part of the discussion was about the appropriateness of a response. And of course I read all of them and enjoy the diversity regardless of my personal opinions.
And no, I'm not sorry at all that I started the thread. As I said before we all have our stories. There's 4 billion+(oops check that up to 6.5 billion now...geeez my bad) people on the planet and each one probably has a different assortment of opinions. Style of writing and use of words can often cause misunderstandings among respondents. To find out all of a person's thoughts and beliefs on even the most mundane of subjects is always challenging at best....the political debates are a fine example of that. The greatest respect that can be given to anyone at anytime is..of course...to listen to them. Listening, after all....is learning. Usually I'm more of a listener and humorist lol....That blue book plus sized reply I wrote was totally out of character....It was, however, born of conviction...not malice
Style of writing and use of words can often cause misunderstandings among respondents. To find out all of a person's thoughts and beliefs on even the most mundane of subjects is always challenging at best....the political debates are a fine example of that.
This is so true! I have a very hard time writing my thoughts so that they convey the right tone. 40+ years in my profession have given me a writing style that is verbose and stiff, to say the least. I guess this is one advantage younger people have. You express yourself in text messages all the time, you have a better feel for it.
[quote=GregoryS;3372276]
Quote:
Originally Posted by normie
The greatest respect that can be given to anyone at anytime is..of course...to listen to them. Listening, after all....is learning. Usually I'm more of a listener and humorist lol....That blue book plus sized reply I wrote was totally out of character....It was, however, born of conviction...not malice
Nicely stated. BTW I really liked your "blue book" reply (LOL, I like that description). But I guess that marks me as an older person. I hear that brevity is preferred these days. Maybe it's a result of information overload? Who knows, but I am going to try to be trendier and make my replies shorter. There is a lot to be said for editing.
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Nicely stated. BTW I really liked your "blue book" reply (LOL, I like that description). But I guess that marks me as an older person. I hear that brevity is preferred these days. Who knows, but I am going to try to be trendier and make my replies shorter. There is a lot to be said for editing.
That's okay, normie. I'm one, too. (we need a greying smilie)
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People may not recall what you said to them, but they will always remember how you made them feel .
See, I think it's important to go back to the original point of this thread, that essentially blames one's inability to retire on the current economic climate.
Good times and bad times have alternated back and forth since the beginning of time. And people have always managed to retire. What's more, in today's era of ubiquitous prosperity and financial instruments galore, it's even more absurd than ever to argue this point.
This thread boils down to two basic groups: Those who have been willing to make tough decisions to retire and those who haven't. Yes, everybody who has lived on their own for more than twenty years have suffered reverses. Some of you have had illnesses or lost jobs. But almost everybody has lost a job at one time or another. My wife and I lost our livelihoods on the same day when we were forced to close our business.
But we bounced back. What's more, we were buttressed by our accumulated savings. We saved money by always putting money into savings first, not last. For there's never enough money left over, no matter how much you make.
In short, we made decisions that allowed us to enjoy financial stability. It's not something that happened overnight. It meant long years of doing without.
1) We never took on a mortgage that was more than one-fourth of either one of our take home pay. That meant we always lived in one of the smaller homes in the neighborhood and really waited before renovating anything. Heck, we drywalled our basement ourselves. We framed it, had a contractor friend check our work, paid an electrician to run wire, then learned how to drywall. Instead of writing a $15,000 check to a contractor, we were out $3,500.
Another note, every house we bought was underpriced for the market. We didn't buy a house simply because we were in love with it (same rule applies to cars, by the way). We bought our houses based on how much we could increase their value. Our first house was in a marginal neighborhood, had been neglected, but had lots of character. We bought it on a shoestring for $80K, put lots of elbow grease and sweat into the place, and sold it for $275,000 12 years later. That was a nearly 10% return per year. We then plowed the money into another undervalued home in a good neighborhood with great schools. Recently, after undergoing a lot of home improvement projects, we had the home reappraised to get a better mortgage rate, and the home value has jumped 28% in two years in a down real estate market. So we have built up $300,000 in equity on our home, just by virtue of being somewhat shrewd on what we bought and not paying a contractor to do anything we could do ourselves at nights and on weekends.
2) We drive cars until the wheels fall off.
3) Enjoy your daily cup from Starbucks before strolling into the office? That's $3.50 a day. $17.50 a month. $875 a year. Eat lunch out every day? That's somewhere around $1,600 a year, if you throw in a soda or an extra snack. So those two expenses alone cost you $2,475 annually. Imagine what would happen if you plow that money into investments or savings. Do that for 20 years, with a 6% return on your money, and you have $103,000.
4) Own shelfloads of books? You realize that the library lets you read them for free. And they have videos, too. Those are small things, really, but it's the attitude that matters. Do you really need to have the latest and greatest of anything? Of course not.
5) Are you checking prices at the grocery store? I mean really looking at prices? Best move we ever made was invest in a used freezer and a membership to Sam's. We can buy an entire month's worth of food for a family of five for $500.
6) Without fail, we have good life, home, car, and health insurance. For our health insurance, we have a catastrophic coverage rider. For our car, we have a $1,000 deductible. But we are covered if the worst happens.
So do yourself a big, fat, hairy favor and pick up a copy of Money Magazine at the library and read it religiously. Pick up a copy of Consumer Reports, too. You'll learn amazing ways to shave hundreds of dollars off your monthly expenses, money that you can be socking back for a rainy day.
Or you can sit there and whine.
I wish you were my dad. It's all about choices in life. I am sure that you are frugal, but this doesn't tell your whole life story. I get your point (BTW, great advices), you can't complain about your retirement because there is a way if you want it. Its a matter of priority as some pple said. I think that some pple missed your point, but I did not. I don't think that you meant any maliciousness.
I stayed at home and raised my children in a place where jobs weren't easily available and there was no child care. I worked free-lance at home for low wages while I raised the children. Then, when they were in school, I went to work full-time for woman's wages, lower than men's, and have worked full-time since. My children are all successful. I am not, and I will not be able to retire because I cannot afford to retire. I did what was promoted for women at the time by the church and Republican party, and I will die in poverty as a result.
Basically no one told you to first get married and then have kids. Many opted to go to college;get work experience then have children. Many actaully then went back to work and finished their careers or are doing so. Its all a choices that people make. Your real problem is the problem of so many;only having low wage skills unfortunely. I know alot of stay at home mothers but their husbands career really determined that they had that luxury.
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) people on the planet and each one probably has a different assortment of opinions. Style of writing and use of words can often cause misunderstandings among respondents. To find out all of a person's thoughts and beliefs on even the most mundane of subjects is always challenging at best....the political debates are a fine example of that. The greatest respect that can be given to anyone at anytime is..of course...to listen to them. Listening, after all....is learning. Usually I'm more of a listener and humorist lol....That blue book plus sized reply I wrote was totally out of character.
...It was, however, born of conviction...not malice
