submitted 20 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
 

Do you think it's essential to keep a solid buffer between you and disaster or did you sacrifice that to the gods of "living life to the fullest right here and now"? Or mayhaps you're struggling to keep a boat afloat as it is and going cheaper isn't really an option for you as you are already at the timit of cheapness for your specific situation and saving seems like an unachievable goal, becauase everything goes to surviving?

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[–] 4 points 20 hours ago* (13 children)

I live right at my means. My food and clothes aren't expensive, but they're not trash. I spend enough on food that it's not just fortified sugar and plastic, and my clothes will take my abuse without looking bad, but i gave up on building a large reserve of funds. The world has tanked us all too many times for a savings to be worth anything. The price of everything has inflated much faster than any of the bullshit indexes report, stocks are rigged and can be wiped out at any point. I've had my IRA decimated three times by things completely out of my control. But my posessions are still mine. And they're value adjusts for inflation. I developed an eye for antique glass, tools, furniture, and art. I learned to refurbish things. I learned to predict decor styles early enough to hunt for valuable closeouts and pricing errors.

Every time a "once in a lifetime" event happens, I sell things I fixed or stocked up on. A rusty handplane at an antique store might run me 12 bucks and look like a knickknack off the wall at an applebees. But since I know what I'm looking for, I can spend 2 hours bringing it back to life and it's worth $150 to a woodworker. I needed some tile for a bathroom. The stuff I liked is 15$ per foot. Unless I buy a whole pallet, then it's 2$ per foot, and I had 65 extra boxes to sell on FB for half the price of home depot, and I sold out in 2 days.

An irresponsible idea, but true none the less: If the value of money keeps going down, so does the value of debt. 15 years ago, 5000$ in debt might as well have been a million to me. Now, it's a few month pay off. And if I didn't just waste the money on useless trash, the items I gained from the 5k will garner several times that amount if I suddenly lose my job.

Playing that game several times gets you a hell of a credit score, too, so you can ramp up returns. I put myself 70k in credit card debt buying materials and tools to build my house. At 20-30% Apr, that 70k would never be paid off. But houses are valuable, so I had the house appraised (270k, fuck yeah), and took a fixed rate mortgage out to pay off the cards. Now the interest rate is 4%, and 70k is significantly less than the value of the house, so it can't be taken away from me if I'm suddenly bankrupt.

And a funny thing in this bullshit capitalism game, paying off a shitload of debt AND taking a mortgage shoots a credit rating even higher.

I ranted for so long here I think I missed the initial point of the prompt.

tldr: no.

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  • [+] [S] -8 points 19 hours ago* (10 children)

    Ok, IRA is a strictly amercan thing (I guess) sooo... Not to be rude or anything, but you're doing a couple of things wrong here. Im afraid Its not that the capitalism game is rigged, its just that you are bad at playing it. Stocks beat inflation by ~5-7%/year if you use them right (which is putting money YOU WONT NEED in another 10+ years in there EACH MONTH and not even lookimg at it for the bare minimum of ~10y).

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  • [–] 1 point 4 hours ago (4 children)

    Ok, IRA is a strictly amercan thing (I guess)

    The cooler version is strictly an Irish thing.

    Im afraid Its not that the capitalism game is rigged,

    It is.

    its just that you are bad at playing it.

    It can also be that, but it's volatile enough that no strategy is really optimal and even the better strategies can leave you in the hole.

    (which is putting money YOU WONT NEED in another 10+ years in there EACH MONTH and not even lookimg at it for the bare minimum of ~10y).

    Some people don't have money that they don't need each month. Most people don't have a guarantee that they won't need the money for 10 years. Remember, we're talking about the US. The social safety net here is made of cobwebs. That $10k you put away over the last three years might suddenly be $8k that makes the difference between staying afloat and losing your housing.

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  • [–] [S] -1 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

    I think for the most part this is not because they can't but becauae they choose to live up or higher than their means 💁

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  • [–] 3 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

    Yeah, poor people choose to be poor. They love it. /s

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  • [–] [S] -2 points 3 hours ago (1 child)

    Basically, if you presume freedom of will and peraonal responsibility are a thing then it is significantly more likely that there is a possibility for a person to lift themselves out of poverty one way or another and they choose not to act upon it (rather than strictly corcumstances that make it impossible to do so). That is not to mention that the wast majority of the people are simply bad with money. Like they would take out a loan on a new iphone when they can eaaily get a cheap paidoff android/a used iphone or they would buy a car that is way above whet they can comfortably afford

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  • [–] 3 points 2 hours ago

    Basically, if you presume freedom of will and peraonal responsibility are a thing then it is significantly more likely that there is a possibility for a person to lift themselves out of poverty one way or another and they choose not to act upon it (rather than strictly corcumstances that make it impossible to do so).

    That doesn't follow. You can have lots of bad options and the freedom to choose between them.

    That is not to mention that the wast majority of the people are simply bad with money. Like they would take out a loan on a new iphone when they can eaaily get a cheap paidoff android/a used iphone or they would buy a car that is way above whet they can comfortably afford

    Do you have any data that suggests that this is in fact the vast majority of people? There are certainly people who do this, but there are also people who choose a newer car because they can't afford the uncertainty of potential maintenance problems with an old one, for example. The newer car costs more on average, but it's more consistent. When you don't have savings to smooth out the bumps, you could lose a lot if a problem happens at a particularly inconvenient time.

    A phone is such a negligible expense compared to a car that I don't think it really needs addressing. Even a maxed-oit iPhone Duo is $100/month or so. That's less than most people spend on gas alone.

    And that's ignoring people who get locked into payments on things that they could afford when they bought them, but no longer can. Job loss or medical expenses can wipe out your savings in a hurry.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 hours ago (4 children)

    Do you really post these questions just to judge and yell at people in the comments?

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  • [–] [S] -4 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

    How's pointing out miatakes a yell? Its an advice and a share of wisdom

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  • [–] 5 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

    What do you think ALL CAPS communicates?

    You're all over these Ask Lemmy communities posting bait and being judgmental as fuck and telling people their projects are going to fail and yelling at others for how they handle their money.

    Is this some sort of therapy for you? Do you feel better when you cut others down and make them feel stupid for how they live their lives?

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  • [+] [S] -6 points 20 hours ago (1 child)

    Pre-read-full comment:

    that its not just sugar and plastic

    Damn are you an american? Cos it sure as hell does sound like an almost exclusively american thing to have junk food be cheaper than normal fruits/veggies/potatoes/meat/fish, lol 🤣

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