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There's a book there, perhaps you can write it and become a millionaire.
Not sure what casseroles have to do with waiting for an inheritance. Are casseroles a secret of longevity?
1) The fastest way to turn $1 million into five bucks is by writing a book. Trust me. I've written a few. Authors are the original starving artists.
2) That's funny. I wondered that myself. That cream-of-mushroom soup recipe the poster mentioned doesn't sound pleasant to me. Eating that stuff every day would shave a few decades off my life.
"Live within your means" as a phrase and as a popular figure of speech, would seem to be self-evident and obvious, at least on the surface. Simply put, it might represent not spending what you don't have. However -- and this is a big "but" -- it can also get incredibly frustrating to have people automatically parroting this phrase, for several reasons. First, the "means" with which one lives has gone down, not up, over the past 30+ years, with wages not being fairly-adjusted to inflation. What this means on a practical level, is that with the varying levels of inflation and deflation of the dollar over the past few decades, people's standards of living have gone down, not up. It was much easier to "live within one's means" in 1950, 1960, and 1970, than it was was say from 1980 - present. Houses that could once be bought decades ago on a single-income family salary for $25,000 may now, in 2015, cost as much as $750,000+, in certain residential areas. This is an extreme example where it is obvious that the financial industry has "moved the goal posts" of what living within one's means represents today in 2015, vs. what it used to mean.
While observing some degree of "living within one's means" would actually seem prudent and even wise, it almost sounds like some people may take it to drastic extremes, where it is used as a justification for endorsing the gradual (and involuntary) reduction of people's living standards, over time. While also serving as an apologist of sorts to the well-off, well-to-do, and the wealthy. Keeping in mind that it is much, much easier to live within one's means, so to speak, if one is already well-off in the first place.
I find that statement quite hypocritical really!
In a society that values consumerism, that statement does not belong. Children receive credit card applications as early as 17! That's wrong and it encourages the exact opposite because not all parent are teaching financial responsibility.
Those who live paycheck to paycheck have NO CHOICE BUT to live within their means! DOH!
My son, who is five, received a survey sent by Disney World to "STUDY" HIS SHOPPING HABITS! OMG!!!!
He doesn't own a wallet yet...nor does he shop by himself, or is allowed to make "shopping decisions"! Unreal.....
"Wages" have not been adjusted for inflation in Florida! FYI.
This is what you get when people "in the ghetto" buy flat screen TVs and giant wheels instead of essentials. I live within my means and now I'm rich.
Funny you should mention that. My neighbor (who gets a massive subsidy from Section 8 to pay his rent) has been telling the landlord (my old neighbor) that he can't make his little portion of the rent payments. And then last week, his 60" 4G super-dooper television was delivered.
BTW, this was his SECOND 60" TV.
I don't get it. WTH is wrong with people? Have they no shame?
Funny you should mention that. My neighbor (who gets a massive subsidy from Section 8 to pay his rent) has been telling the landlord (my old neighbor) that he can't make his little portion of the rent payments. And then last week, his 60" 4G super-dooper television was delivered.
BTW, this was his SECOND 60" TV.
I don't get it. WTH is wrong with people? Have they no shame?
Not "what's wrong with the people", it;s what's wrong with the system! Too many loopholes, too many abused liberties, too many laws, too many opportunities for scumbags to take advantage of this system The system opened itself up for this, and low lives will always take advantage of it.
You could say: "What's wrong with the people living in America allowing this kind of garbage to happen in the first place"! Having "laws" but not enforcing them is counterintuitive!
I "lived within my means" while being a single parent raising 2 kids. We always had a nice place to live and my kids lacked nothing, why you might ask. My housing was priority ( nice area) food, gas , insurance, kids needs ( not wants) and then myself ( though made sure I had the proper clothes for work).
In addition we never qualified for food stamps or assisantce, and am forever grateful , it made me better myself.
We always upgraded through the years if you will. While living up in Nebraska in an old house ( miss mosh) is where I learned take care of what you have ( make the best) decorate the best you can to make it nice and you will get better one day, sure enough it has always worked.
Prioritizing ones means is important , make your coffee at home, bring your lunch to work before you know it life gets better.
Working hard to be the best in whatever it is you do, standing out above everyone else. But as cb73 puts it , sometimes easier to complain . Easier in the short term , not the long term.
If you don't like you situation you and only you have the power to change it , I did.
For me moving closer to work, if i was compring current market rate to current market rate is a 2x multiple in housing costs for an equivalent place. 3-4x morethan my current rent to today's market rate. Math doesn't work. Even factoring in my car costs.
Not uncommon for people with families or living with no roommates. For singles with roommates, driving to work almost never makes financial sense.
My exwife and I divorced in large part to a disagreement on the concept of frugality and lifestyle sense of entitlement. She needed our combined income in order to finance a lifestyle befitting her idea of a college educated couple (the archetypical lifestyle aspiration of the median household that's too expensive for the actual median income household) while I insisted on living a lifestyle based on one income, treating much of the second one as savings for tomorrow.
All that said, I must say I empathize with much of the majority mentality that my exwife embodies as a demographic. The idea of sacrificing your youthful wants and discretions is not a endemically recoverable condition like many of the well off on here like to proffer. This is to say, I don't want to hang-glide over the hills of Rio at 75; I presume to do those things at 35. Therefore, there is a perishable, time sensitive nature to delayed gratification that might just prove insurmountable. Combine that with the fact our admitted inflation-driven lowering in purchasing power puts the median ever so closer to the cost of living line, and there really isn't much incentive to further undershoot one's discretionary expenditures for savings in infirmity.
So for a lot of people like my exwife, retirement will be a combination of luck in attempting to find a benefactor husband before her infirm days, and otherwise plainly accepting a social security retirement at that time. That choice allows her, in theory, to live as fully as she can TODAY, within her relative economic dispossession. I'm not saying it's smart math-wise, but there's something to be said about there being more to life than attaining a wad of money to cover subsistence in infirmity or insulting everybody by proffering ludicrous opportunity costs such as delaying proverbial hangliding over Rio until the age of 60. When you're pushed against the income level where sitting on your rear nets a similar subsistence line, you're gonna get forced to make either/or choices. For median income america, living for today and saving for tomorrow are mutually exclusive and whoever preaches different is simply well off. Not everybody can be well off, which is why I don't necessarily begrudge people who live for today.
Hang gliding is of course an unusual thing in that it is, in fact, much more difficult to do when older. This still doesn't explain why people want instant gratification when it comes to (for example) housing.
Plenty of places in this country where you could rent your own nice place for $500/mo and if you aren't a freak you'll be able to get a job that pays >$1200/mo no problem.
I agree, but this is a semi-smug answer.
WELL THEN JUST LEAVE! is a lot easier said over the internet for free than it is done in practice for a person who has lived someplace, built a life for themselves, has family, connections, friends... and this is without the massively complicating factor of wife and kids, their lives, etc. There DOES come a point when you just have to say "damn, I've been priced out of this area given my wage scale" but WELL JUST MOVE! is a cheap answer, easier said than done and easier for some people with less attachments than others.
There's a book there, perhaps you can write it and become a millionaire.
Not sure what casseroles have to do with waiting for an inheritance. Are casseroles a secret of longevity?
No, it means that the frugal habits I learned from my parents have allowed me to build my own resources. I'm well off, even though I haven't inherited anything I didn't earn, save and invest myself. Of course, I have been fortunate enough to have a true life partner in my wife. Between the two of us we have done well.
BTW, the secret to longevity is in picking the right grandparents. Mine all lived into their 90s, even before modern medicine. I had a grandfather who was born in 1863 who didn't die until 1961.
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