Posted on 04/17/2009 6:21:04 PM PDT by FromLori
Well....I’ll bet you’re a saver....and knowing Washington as I do....you probably live on the West side where prices rose greatly in the past 10 years....Bellevue? Seattle?
I did taxes from 1981 through 1990. In that time, I saw both extremes, families living and prospering on half the income I made (along with lots of determination and hard work), and people with six-figure incomes who didn't have squat to show for it.
I would imagine that there is not an income that could not be outspent, if one were truly determined to do so.
I'm the same way. I've always saved enough so that I had enough non-IRA money that I could go 12 to 18 months without income.
This report doesn't give enough info to figure out just how this family came to live paycheck to paycheck, but it's not hard to imagine.
My boss’s accountant gave him the advice to pare everything down to the bare minimum. We are a very small company but several people got let go. It is weird because all of us are working our butts off because we are short-handed but not knowing what the future holds it’s mostly about staying afloat and not losing money. We have seen some improvement since the winter though. My main fear right now is Obama taking some things to the point of no return, or dangerously mucking up foreign policy and our national defense. I think I am much more afraid for our Republic than for me personally.
Owning a pharmacy is also an eye opener! So many people will buy designer clothes for their teenagers before they pay for their necessities! They drive the most expensive cars, take trips they obviously can't afford, live in the most prestigious neighborhoods, etc.
There is never a weekend they don't go SHOPPING and brag about it. Their children are all in dance classes, piano clases, soccer clubs and have memberships to the 'health club'. They get a NEW car by the age of sixteen if not before. It's shocking how much money they spend (but can't pay their bills)!
We never had to dip into our 401 k, but it was very tight when my twin daughters were born. We weren’t planning on having twins, and then they both almost died. We spent over $150/mo just on diapers for 3 kids (they had an older brother), and they twins needed this special formula that cost something like $400/mo.
Then when they were 2, they both needed speech therapy and the insurance wouldn’t pay for it. We paid $200/week on 2 hours of speech therapy for each kid.
My husband’s job is iffy right now, but we now have plenty of savings. If he did loose it, the worst that would happen would be that we would have to sell our house. We live in California and have a huge mortgage. If we sold our house, we could move to a much cheaper area and live on our savings for a long time.
Another example of someone paying off their house and not having any liquid assets. Equity has no rate of return, is not very liquid and is not always safe. No thanks.
Instead of paying off the last $100,000 you could have put it into a safe investment fund and have had 200,000 in about 12 years with a guarantee of no loss of principle.
Instead you paid off the mortgage and when you need money the most, the bank won't loan it to you.
That mortgage executive is letting you set up personal arbitrage. If you take out a mortgage for 6% and are in a 33.3% tax bracket, the real cost of the loan is 4% because of the tax dedcution. Then you could have had it in a fund making 8.27% tax free over the last 25 years.
In taking your payment away from that evil executive, you out-smarted yourself.
But hey, don't listen to some guy on the internet. have fun.
Homework assignment www.usretirementrevolution.com
Doesn’t it just absolutely blow you away to see how others live? A tax accountant really gets to see the true picture of people’s lives, I’m sure you and I could pick up the average tax return with Schedule A, and know more about most people than even their families (not living with them) know!
The subject of why a nation voted in Obama has enough psychological study to last a lifetime, but one thing I believe is true. With this much “pride of authorship” nothing less than a clear personal crisis tied to this man’s policies will be enough to cause someone to say “You know, I was wrong”. This is what occurs when one isn’t allied with principle (and we haven’t been that “collectively” either, not recently...MAYBE that will change). I’m not writing about the casual voter, but rather the cheerleader, banner waving type.
You know what amazes me? The number of cars I see around Salem with Obama bumperstickers still on them.....I always have to look at the drivers....trying to “profile” I guess...LOL.
Isn’t profiling a bad thing? Wasn’t dissent supposed to be good? Take those two sentiments and apply them to the liberal’s “take” on the tea party protests. Evaluate the DHS report next. Many nasty historical events were facilitated because individuals rode an emotional wave. We say “How could THAT have happened?” as many times as we say “It can’t happen here”.
Not talking about this guy in particular, but even if you have savings, eventually they’ll run out. If you have a year’s worth of savings, after a year without income the savings will be gone, even if you don’t have unexpected expenses (major car repairs, property tax hike, health issue, etc.) So it’s easy to look at people who are having financial problems and sneer that they should have been better prepared. There are times when nothing is sufficient and you’re just postponing the inevitable.
especially if you live in a fairly expensive part of the country (which you likely do if you’re making a lot of money). I work with a guy whose *property taxes* are $2500 a month, not even talking about his mortgage. He probably makes like $200k/yr max.
I make over 100k/yr, and still live in a tiny apartment in NY just because it is so freakin’ expensive here.
People from other parts of the US can't understand or believe that, and they laugh when you tell them that $100K a year buys a very middle-class existence there. But it's true.
Yet let's say that by a miracle you somehow saved half of your income each month. If you lost your job, you would still only be able to live for for a year without finding work again.
And when your expenses are so high (food, housing, and New York's ubiquitous taxes on everything) you really can't save half, or even a quarter. There just isn't anything left at the end of the paycheck to save when Michael Bloomberg and David Patterson are robbing you of every spare nickel.
I must be doing the 'profile' thing too because when I see a car with an OBAMA sticker still on it I immediately think 'HOW STUPID CAN YOU GET'?!
Without an exception, so far, the car is always DIRTY. Many of them have been in wrecks and not fixed yet. I could probably follow them to their government subsidized housing too, if I wanted to take a chance with my life.
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