Posted on 02/24/2011 9:55:30 PM PST by BenLurkin
Establish smart spending habits. Live like you're poor. How do you do that? Drive your cars into the ground, don't eat out very much, avoid expensive and potentially unhealthy processed foods, buy food in bulk, buy just enough clothes to fit your needs, and use public transportation. ... Use credit cards only as a convenience to avoid carrying cash; limit your credit card spending so that you can easily pay off the balance each month. Make every dollar count with your spending, so you can free up money to invest in the future.
Get healthy. One of the best things you can do for your retirement years is to establish lifelong, healthy, eating and exercise habits. Doing so won't increase your spending, but it will go a long way to preventing the depletion of your financial resources in your retirement years due to high bills for medical and long-term care expenses.
Save at least 10 percent of your pay for your retirement. This includes any match you might get from your employer. For example, suppose your employer matches dollar for dollar on the first four percent of pay for your contributions. In this case, you'll need to save six percent of your pay — four percent to get the four percent match, plus two percent to get up to 10 percent. Save this amount for 30 or more years, and you'll most likely get in the ballpark of having accumulated enough money for retirement. If you've got the time or patience, it would be better to use an online retirement planning calculator to get a more accurate estimate your savings needs. Invest your retirement savings in a good target date fund, unless you have the time and skill to learn about investing and constantly monitor your investments.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Yeah, I was being a real nit-picker......sorry.
I just don’t see how too many are going to survive if they keep wanting it all, right NOW. When I discovered Sam’s Club and bulk buying, I realized that if you’re smart, you can save money on rent and buy regular quantities while living in a nice neough room/board, and whne you move into an apartment with expensive rent, you can save money on food by buying bulk quantities. It’s a matter of successfully balancing things out. I’m at a nice enough room/board and I pay under four hundred dollars and month that includes internet connection, and I am saving more than enough for food from normal grocery stores. The rules are no drinking, smoking, loud music after eight pm, and no pets of course. I have a cozy room of my own and a small portable heater heats it perfectly.
I think that for young adults, room/board places will be perfect homes since they will sort of be like living with thier parents, only not. Their own room to eat in, they do the dishes they use, move in and out freely, but after a certain hour they have to quiet down. It’s just minus the parents. That’s the best part. Plus rent is dirt cheap and they don’t have to maintain a whole place, just their room and the kitchen. If someone acts up, they get evicted.
I think your views are a bit too extreme. To me, I see America becoming a lot more like a country where people will learn actual trades and work with their hands, one being a main career and the other a sideline in to bring extra money. Things will be more stratified socially, but along the lines of professional occupation rather than social standing via birth. Poeple will be more inclined to be involved with someone they meet at work and who comes from a similar owrk background rather than just social class they were born into.
Twenty-something is a bit late. Ideally what you need to do is spend the parent-supported years of 15-20 working your backside off and socking every penny away in an IRA. The parents need to have the foresight to live in an area where the school district allows juniors and seniors to fulfil their HS graduation requirements with community college courses, allowing you to graduate high school with a free Associates degree.
This sort of sounds like Thomas Jefferson's vision for America, but like Franklin he was a honest to God polymath who benefited from a Classical education and therefore became skilled at a great many things along with all the inspirations of the Age of Invention.
Anyway, I hope that your vision turns out that way. It would be sad if it came to be that the most popular sideline career turned out to be pot growing.
I agree with you partly (obviously). I’ll eat steak while I can chew it, drive a nice car if I care about it (I don’t) while I can still see, travel while I still have some energy.
Also about “retirement,” I agree, I plan to work productively, whether for money or as a volunteer, as long as I am capable. Which may be to my last day. I am all for taking breaks but I don’t want a life of indolence.
I disagree with you about inheritance, though. I think it depends upon your kids and how they were raised and how they turned out. If I had some sort of turkey kid that was sitting around waiting for me to die, they wouldn’t get anything.
However, inheritance is an important biblical concept and I at this point have a high regard for my children. I want to leave them a grubsteak, if I can, so they go forth and have dominion. A chunk of one-time money can be critical for major investments or positioning. I have it for a catastrophic need; if I don’t use it and die, I want them to have it and would die happy knowing I left them with something. I don’t see that as making them parasites.
In a perfect world, my parents would live a long, happy life and be able to spend every bit of money they earned on themselves.
It’ll have to. With all the techie jobs going overseas and the increse of useless degrees and cost of college, plus those fed up with the rat race and dealing wiht asinine management, there will be a LOT of smaller independent businesses operating and in a way where you can be your own boss. As for drugs, well, who knows. I mean, at what point do you just want to give up completely and leave and operate out of your own home? A lot of people move overseas for that very reason. College degrees don’t get you the job all the time and employers now want to know if you can do the job, not just how much schooling you have. It would be better upfront that the employers sees what they need ot see on the resume.
Did you ever read the book, “The Obsolete Employee”? It’s telling about how new business mentalities are at work.
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