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That's the trick. I started with IRA's back when I was 25. Every year both myself and my wife put in the max. For years we put other funds into simple CD's. Back in those days the interest rate was acceptable so I didn't lose much. but a good friend who was knowledgeable in financial areas showed me a great mutual funding source. As he was a multimillionaire I took his advice. A good balanced portfolio is the way to go.
A percentage went into those areas and grew at a steady rate. Yes there were some down years but unless one panicked and got out when things went bad you didn't lose much.
But I see many of my younger employees making a decent wage spending every dime on expensive toys and having a great time. Living a comfortable life is great. No one expects EVERY penny to go into savings. But when they NEED the expensive car, every new toy off the line and a bunch of vacations at the expense of a savings plan they will find it bite3s them in the ass in later years.
this is a funny common misconception though. younger people pay off their credit card balance at a much higher rate than middle-aged and older folks. and younger people also have higher savings rates than most middle aged and baby boomers. yet the younger people are labeled as the spendthrifts who want every new toy. maybe you're employees are that way...but it's not the norm
My sis loves talking about her house and her savings but she overlooks the fact she gets food stamps,SSI for her children,and the EIC,and free school lunch.
It actually brings her income up there with mine.(the net range)
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How can someone making that kind of money be collecting food stamps? Something is wrong here! No wonder we are 14 trillion in debt!
The op could have been written by me.
The only difference is I have 3 kids,my monthly income is 5000 a month. No savings either,no 401k.
$1,500 mortgage(4 bedroom) have you looked into refinancing?
$175 car insurance. not bad, hoping that's for 2 cars though, or you should shop around
$350 car note
$110(internet and home phone) this sounds expensive to me. your cable, internet, and phone is close to $100 more expensive than what i get with a triple play deal and all premium channels.
$150(satellite dish network) see above comment
$800 (groceries) not surprising with 3 kids, but there's huge opportunities with coupons to reduce this, but it requires a lot of time
$120(cell phone bill)
$20(gym membership)
$230(credit cards,student loans) use any savings from other ideas to pay these down and eliminate this.
$420 gas and tolls(soon to go up by 50 dollars a month)
$40(school lunches)
Debt isn't drowning me,nor greed. I drive a cheap korean made car and my home is 1500 square feet.
Don't know where to move to and feel safe. The housing prices in the nice parts of northern NJ are outrageous,and I will not move to Camden or Newark.
I guess there aren't alternatives.
I did try to move out of state,but since nursing wages aren't universal I would have been making only $45,000 in Nc,which would have made Nc unaffordable.(and it was)
Only thing came from the move was the kiddies qualified for free lunch.
The NJ Transit train ticket is $299 a month. PATH is $60 a month (40 trips). Parking at the train station is $360 a year, so that's another $30 a month. Total $389 per month, $4668 per year just to get to the job in the first place. And that's post-tax money.
Not counting gas, which is minimal because my train station isn't quite three miles away from home, but it's something.
My car's a 2001. Had to put about $900 into it over the past few months, but it's still better than a car payment. I have 106K miles on the car, but I've got to keep that sucker running.
cant you get $120/month pretax towards train plus $230/month pretax towards parking? or maybe it's either/or and not both.
Yes I know about the cell phone but working night shift I absolutely need some form of entertainment,or I start drifting into sleep.
I just realized I'm locked into a lot of contracts.
T mobile(two years)
Dish (two years)
Comcast(one year,but now the double play is over. My bill was 60 for phone and internet but once the year was up it jumped to 110 dollars.)
1 cell phone plan is costing you $120/month, or is that a family plan? that's obscenely expensive, especially for t-mobile. whats the termination fee for dish? why not call comcast and ask if you could get a triple-play deal? i bet it would be around $100-$125/month, cancel your dish, pay the fee, which will probably be about 2 months' cost of dish...and then enjoy the savings.
We did something similar. Save, save, save. You really never know what the future will bring, and if there are no devastating emergencies, you will have a wonderful retirement.
We, at first, when we were young, bought a low cost house, fixed it up and sold it. We kept doing this, trading up and were finally buying houses paying cash, no mortgage. Our last house was a two family with the family paying for our 'rent' and the upkeep expenses. After that we saved more - lucky us, investing during those good Clinton years. We had no children.
We lived in safe town, but less expensive blue collar.
I think if people cannot save, they are living above their means. In our society you are your own public safety net. I put myself through college, but I was lucky again because it was not long into my working career that I got a job with a company that paid much of it.
so a company put you through college, and you helped?
she's been told this ad nauseum, and the response is something like "i guess i'll have to grocery shop in PA" or "i guess i'll have to move to the ghetto".
$14,000 to the feds, $4,300 to the state of N.J.
$1,400 medicare tax.
$3,600 SS tax.
Sorry,I forgot not to include my pre tax health insurance in the total.
But the total is still incorrect because this year I will owe the feds $3,500.
So its about $27,000.
But in any event,I'm am in no way using this to justify my spending habits.
I could ***** all day about the amount of taxes I pay but that won't help me to curtail my spending habits.
After all,taxes and death are the only certain things in life.
your federal and state taxes sound too high too. are you deducting your mortgage interest and taxes? claiming 3 dependents? child tax credit? 13,300 should be right around the base fed taxes on 97 k single with3 kids not deducting anything.
I don't mind how many channels I get--I watch three or four hours of TV a week usually. I like Jeopardy on Channel 7, and right now there's a newer show on Channel 2 (Person of Interest) that I've gotten hooked on. The only cable channel I'd miss somewhat is one that has all the true crime stories on it, but I could live without it. I watch it until I realize that all the shows are reruns and then wait a couple of months until they get new ones.
I don't know if Comcast offers basic cable as cheap as you say, though. I'll have to check. Right now phone/Internet/"limited basic" cable on Comcast is costing me $137 a month. I got the triple play thing when I first moved in, but now the price has gone up. No premium channels. Part of the reason I even had that much TV was because my daughter was with me, although she's at college most of the year, and there were certain channels she liked. However, she's been in China since August, coming home next week and returning to her real college, and so she hasn't watched ANY television in four months because they don't have TVs in the dorms in Chengdu. I think that broke her of the "need" to have certain channels.
Don't need the landline phone, either.
Comcast does have a basic cable plan that's affordable, but finding a link for you is almost impossible...must be a big secret. You have to go into Comcast and plug in your address to get the cost of the Limited Basic Cable plan for your area. Comcast Limited Basic Cable - Comcast Cable TV Internet Phone Limited
Central Jersey is $14.95 and Toms River is $10.25 for Limited Basic.
Limited Basic package includes:
Local broadcast stations (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS, etc.)
Local government channels
Education channels
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