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When I see old people working as store greeters and realize I don't have to do that.
Agree, BUT -- just as a reminder -- some old people do that because they WANT to do that, not because they need to.
I work as a part-time wine consultant in a large liquor store, and I am sure that some people feel sorry for me when they see me, a 66-year-old woman, lifting 40-pound cases of wine, but I love my job -- and deposit my checks only about every two months or so after four or five of them accumulate. It is, as I've said before, like being paid to do a hobby I enjoy.
When my other half (OH) and i got together 20 years ago, I was about to be homeless AGAIN, when my landlord doubled my rent, and it was a dump, I tell you. Drafty old little "cottage" that had once been a shed his father turned into a rental unit in the 40s.
My OH was just out of bankruptcy.
My OH had a car that had no heat. I had one that overheated, so had to run the heater to draw off heat. Even on sunny hot 90°days. I also had to dump a quart of steering fluid in it frequently and a quart of oil every week.
We did mot have 2 nickles to rub together, literally. All we had was my OH s small trailer home.
Now, 20 years later, we own a house that is half paid for in 4 years ( we only put10% down), have 2 paid for cars and savings and some retirement. Its not much, and even though i collect SSDI, i can still work very part time when I'm able, when im at work and people are spending half their income on rent higher than our mortgage, and have a car payment on top, meanwhile its easy enough to met out mortgage payment easily even when I'm not working.
We,also live in a very nice respectable and safe neighborhood. True, we have one of the smaller "starter homes, and the house next door is twice the size of ours on a lot twice as big, but we are "privileged " because we are in such a neighborhood. I know the areas some of my coworkers live, let's just say not the best the city has to offer, ( in fact the worst)and they pay more in rent than our mortgage.
So even though we do struggle at times, i feel blessed. We feel blessed.
And when i can, we give to charity.
So, yes compared to some of my peers right now, we are doing quite well.
Best to those here who are not as affluent as the others here.
I totally agree, all the money in the world won't make up for poor health.
I am in reasonably good health for my age and that alone makes me a billionaire. I can walk one mile in 17 minutes, my mind is still strong and at 71 I am still healthy enough to do a full time job not because I have to but because I want to.
Best thing is knowing that if I want to retire today I can.
When I do retire our total gross retirement income will be right at $4,050 which is after all medical and life insurance premiums has been made. Next year I will drop one life insurance premium bringing out total up to $4,220. As our income is exempt from federal and state taxes that's nearly equivalent to a job that brings home $1,000/week which to me is a good quality of life.
I'm due to close on a condo this week. I'm buying at around 40% of what I was preapproved for. I'm not home much during the warmer months, have a lot of other hobbies, and finally found a remodeled townhome with garage for below $100k. I don't need a huge or expensive home. It has a lot of stairs, but that's fine by me, and I have a large garage for storage, 2BR/2BA, with a "loft" with a skylight on the top level. It's a good layout for what I want and do.
A high school buddy of mine posted a pic on Facebook of his kid and others bicycling behind my unit tonight. I sent him a message that we're going to be neighbors. He replied and we started talking.
He splits the mortgage on the ~$90k-$100k condo with his mom and girlfriend, and he says they barely make the bills. He runs a couple of pawn shops locally. He has a son that's 11-12, and a girlfriend as well. All together, they're struggling to keep the place paid for and all the other bills paid. The girlfriend has some fairly significant medical issues. He admitted he makes around $25k.
I couldn't believe that. $25k is a $12/hr job. He runs and manages multiple pawn shops. I told the guy he could make better at the local Citi debt collection call center, and at any number of jobs. He says he likes the pawn shop because it's flexible around what his kid does.
This dude is really barely scraping by. He has no slack in his life, and likely no luxuries. Compared to him, I'm doing incredibly well. Compared to most of the people on this board, I'm dirt poor.
In sum, I'm doing better than the vast majority of my peers. Did you, and when did you realize you did better than those of a similar background?
A long, long time ago. For many years I've made a point of never mentioning my income to anyone. When a friend of the family, who was left well off by her deceased father and a hefty divorce settlement, looked around the home I'd bought on my own a year after my divorce and said "You must have done well in your divorce". I laughed and said I'd been left without a pot to p*ss in. "How can you afford this?" she asked. All I said was that I had a good job. She couldn't imagine me, as a single 30-something woman, being able to afford a new, nicely furnished 4 bedroom home, without having taken a ton of money from a man. That's how she ran her life, after all.
Last edited by TheShadow; 09-09-2019 at 06:58 AM..
Originally Posted by Serious Conversation;56129790[B
A high school buddy of mine[/b] posted a pic on Facebook of his kid and others bicycling behind my unit tonight. I sent him a message that we're going to be neighbors. He replied and we started talking.
He splits the mortgage on the ~$90k-$100k condo with his mom and girlfriend, and he says they barely make the bills. He runs a couple of pawn shops locally. He has a son that's 11-12, and a girlfriend as well. All together, they're struggling to keep the place paid for and all the other bills paid. The girlfriend has some fairly significant medical issues. He admitted he makes around $25k.
I couldn't believe that. $25k is a $12/hr job. He runs and manages multiple pawn shops. I told the guy he could make better at the local Citi debt collection call center, and at any number of jobs. He says he likes the pawn shop because it's flexible around what his kid does.
This dude is really barely scraping by. He has no slack in his life, and likely no luxuries. Compared to him, I'm doing incredibly well. Compared to most of the people on this board, I'm dirt poor.
In sum, I'm doing better than the vast majority of my peers. Did you, and when did you realize you did better than those of a similar background?
So you contacted a person you knew 15 years ago in high school, who isn't close enough to you these days for you to even have mentioned to him previously that you signed a contract to purchase a condo in his neighborhood, and yet out of the blue he tells you his entire financial history, including his salary, who's paying his mortgage, how he's struggling to pay all his bills, etc.?
I hope we don't end up in a socialist country. "Wealth redistribution" means they take the money you've spent a lifetime saving and give it to people who've never lifted a finger; maybe even illegals.
I hope we don't end up in a socialist country. "Wealth redistribution" means they take the money you've spent a lifetime saving and give it to people who've never lifted a finger; maybe even illegals.
No, haven't you figured it out?
We are becoming a Lord/serf society, like a return to the grand old days of downtown abbey.
You will be the Lords, my OH and I will be the serfs.
....In sum, I'm doing better than the vast majority of my peers. Did you, and when did you realize you did better than those of a similar background?
I have lost track of my classmates in my hometown school who went on and completed college, which would my peers, I guess. I just checked a couple of sites that have info that is one to two years old. My median income would be the same as that for a few of the states starting at #30; mean income was way below the nice part of those charts. I am in touch with two post-college friends from my adult working years in NYC. Both are about a decade younger, and one is very well off and the other struggles to survive month to month from the sounds of it.
I have two pluses that put some adrenaline into my picture. For decades I have only had to support myself, and I emigrated from the U.S. to a country where the living expenses are much cheaper. And I made my move at a time when my U.S. dollars bought a huge amount of local currency. I invested part of it in a legal off-shore bank account in the Isle of Man. And I benefited from the change to the euro when it came. One of the first things I did was to purchase a small home - but as an off-shore corp., not an individual (I sold it at a decent profit as far as I was concerned). I moved to a non-euro country for awhile and my euro and dollars allowed me to live nicely. I was able to build a small house on a hill overlooking a beach and the sea and withing ten minute walk to the sea; I sold it after three years for a good profit. Went back to the previous country bought a horribly run-down penthouse condo apt. overlooking the sea fortunately, did a cheap and wacky renovation. Decided to move and figured I would have a horrible time selling it, and the English agent was dubious. The first viewer, a non-resident foreigner, said yes, but they would have to send for cash, etc. A local resident showed up, walked through and said,"I want it." She was a local with the cash in hand, so that was that. The condo I bought next was a steal, as a couple were breaking up and as I paid part of the price under the table, the price plunged. I have accumulated far more money since emigrating than I ever would have if I had stayed in the U.S.; but this has not been due to brains and planning, but massive amounts of luck, especially as I have never bought/built a residence with any consideration as to its worth in a resale, only to please myself.
I doubt that many, if any, of my American peers would ever wanted to make the move(s) I did. Nor would they have wanted to live in any of the residences that I bought or the little house I built...far too many off-beat (completely unacceptable) things about all of them compared to the U.S. - even though the house had a pool. I think I've done marvelously well, but I am also strongly inclined to believe I am comparing kumquats to apples when saying so.
On the non-financial side I have done just as well. I have been more content here, than any place since my original hometown when I was a kid. I expected that I would have lots of stress with such a big change, but despite this problem and that, the stress never came. And quite surprising I have never looked back with the slightest regret...it was like: Chop!!! Okay, your new life is down those stairs and turn left. I have the same feeling of being at ease, belonging, being surrounded by nice people. The physical descent into old age has been very physically painful, but as none of my problems are "my own fault," I don't flagellate myself about them. Probably more kumquats to apples in this aspect again.
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