That “maintain cars and house” is a big one. Ther…
Jeff Roberts - Sep 2, 2006
That “maintain cars and house” is a big one. There’s always something falling apart. Not only are you left with squat financially, your time gets frittered away fighting back moth and rust.
There’s a lot of truth in it. Esp. with the outrageous cost of not just health insurance but health costs (Sidebar: I went to the doctor for an exam today and spent $80. $30 copay and two prescriptions at $25 each. And that’s WITH insurance?? at least I got a laugh when my doctor, after I told him my company had switched us to Humana, said, “Sorry about your luck.”).
However, I have to say I think we do it to ourselves a little bit. Is cable TV really a necessity at $50/month? Or cellphones at $70 or more a month? I have many friends whose kids have expensive cellphones. Is that necessary? I think there’s probably some room there where we could save if we really wanted to.
Hey, no flaming allowed here, right? :)
While in curmudgeon mode I should have admitted that I have most of that junk myself. I’m just saying THEORETICALLY you could do without it and save a few bucks… :)
Oh … I meant to curmudge on putting 2 kids thru college, too. At the risk of inflaming people, I don’t think it makes sense to go into debt to send your kids to college. Admittedly, so far I’ve been able to avoid it but the 1st one had heaps ‘o scholarships and the 2nd one flunked out, making it somewhat (for now) easily avoidable. The rule of thumb I’ve heard and subscribe to is, pay for a third of your kids’ college, let them earn a third as they go, and let them borrow the remaining third and pay it back when they’re making big bucks (they’re going to make big bucks, right?).
Yeah, most people h… HarryC - Sep 4, 2006
LOL @ “Curmudgeon Mode”
Yeah, most people have lots of levers to pull for reducing expenses. Going through Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace stuff taught us all about that.
Most of my (age group) peers think I’m nuts. And most of them don’t have a pot to pee in, as Mountain Folk like to say :-)
Frustrates me, though–I bought 2 cars I didn’t need, and wasted lots of time renting and buying gadget after gadget.
I got a pretty good start on saving and investing, but got very lax when I discovered autocross.