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With a 1% rental vacancy rate, I can rent the house out in heartbeat. It would probably rent for double the mortgage. The slumlord duplex units down the road nearby rent for $900 - and my house compared to that has privacy, a yard and a garage. When I was remodeling it, I turned away at least one person every day who came and asked me if I was fixing it up in order to rent it out & they wanted an application.
After I save some money I actually want to try to buy other properties & get into the landlord business based on this experience.
Repair, maintenance, and taxes are baked into rental rates.
Is this a great country or what?
I'm paying two-thirds of the mortgage to rent a room.
To rent a room would be minimum $350 in crappy areas living in a manufactured home or mobile home up to about $650 to share a house in one of the nice areas.
For $650 I get a my own house with a .25 lot, so I think I'm getting a pretty good deal.
But I had good credit, a steady job that would be hard for me to lose and veteran status for a no down-payment VA loan. Not everyone has that.
For $500 I get a room in an 8-person house. Is this a great country or what?
Yes, because coming up with a couple thousand dollars to cover first months' rent, rental deposit, electric deposit, water deposit and renting a truck to move all of your stuff is so affordable for someone who can barely afford groceries.
Sell the car before it breaks down...
Sell some of the stuff instead of moving it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkmax
Also, what about older people or people with disabilities who really probably shouldn't be working but have to because, well, they have no money?
Well, this is why minimum wage is something you only take temporarily. The point is to work your way up, and be able to save for retirement so this doesn't happen.
When you can afford the middle-class lifestyle, then go for it. As long as you wait until you can afford it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkmax
Just because you are able to walk to work doesn't mean that it's the solution for everyone.
If one is single, it should be doable if you don't have too much stuff. If you do, sell some of it.
If you're trying to support a family....then the question is why you had kids you cannot afford.
Disabled is another issue entirely. It is worrisome that SSDI benefits are poised to go below poverty level soon. Probably cutbacks because so many people abuse the system that they create fiscal strain that the SSA has trouble with.
you arent supposed to say that these days. you are supposed to think that everyone's choices in life are just as good as anyone else's.
Yes, I know. But even some people on the left are (finally) admitting we can't close the income/wealth gaps if we don't reduce the out of wedlock birth rate. The more honest ones like Isabel Sawhill, even admit conservatives like Dan Quayle were right on this issue all along.
I even remember thinking as a kid how it was crazy for anyone to have a kid all by themselves and think they could do a good job being a parent. Um, you only have so much time in one day to work and raise your kid(s). The logistics just don't work.
Its funny that people are willing to wait 40 years for delayed gratification. America can sell its citizens anything.
This is a dumb statement. My delayed gratification benefits me in the HERE AND NOW because:
--I have the cash to stock up on things that I'd regularly buy when they are on sale.
--I have the peace of mind knowing I won't be out on the street in a month or two if I lose my job.
--I know I can skip saving for retirement for a few years, or maybe even more than a few years, if necessary, and I'll still probably be ok for retirement as long as I don't dip into it early.
The benefits of saving begin with the first dollar you save and they steadily get larger over time.
Well it's not like people don't try, but the cost of living has a tendency to skyrocket through the roof in many places.
Some people try. But a lot of people don't.
A lot of people's financial problems stem from poor lifestyle design such as:
--Having a kid out of wedlock.
--Buying too much house/rent costs too high as a % of income
--Buying too much car
--Too much student loan debt (Yes, I get that it can't be avoided for many...but more than a few borrow more than they really need and/or could have attended a cheaper college)
--Divorce (often the result of spending too much on houses/cars)
Then what people do is they try to get semi-serious about it after they've created the mess but it doesn't work.
It's your *wants* that are the problem. It functions just like a drug addiction. You want something, you are briefly satiated when you get it, and then you are off to wanting the next thing. Having more money does not solve the underlying addiction. It's true that having more money will generally make you happier up to a point, but that is mostly because we tend to judge ourselves relative to other people. That's another thing that is good to let go of.
What do you really *need*? Food, water, insulation from extreme heat and cold. That's it. Everything else should be seriously questioned, to see if it's worth the trouble it takes to obtain and deal with it, and if there are ways to reduce the cost if possible.
Maybe try meditating. Once you learn how to be happy sitting quietly in a room alone, it gives a good perspective on all the other stuff.
All of this is spot on and I couldn't rep you again.
And speaking of meditation, here is a link to a good meditation site:
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.
Interesting example for many reasons.
1. This is a perfect example of how TV and advertising make people want stuff they didn't even know they wanted or even existed.
2. It's completely possible to be happy without hang gliding over Rio.
3. Ironically, the people of Brazil and other Latin American countries seem to know how to be happy without all the extra nonsense. I'm not glamorizing poverty here, but Latin Americans are much more sensible about the limited happiness consumerism brings compared to Americans.
If everyone practiced perfect self control after basic needs are met, the global economy would be much smaller.
And yet, the world would be much richer, despite the "smaller" economy in monetary terms.
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