Members kevinnem Posted January 8, 2006 Members Share Posted January 8, 2006 Well I can't really offer any advice on the details, I do find much can be learned from discussions. For me it was looking at where I want to me, and when. I know full well that I want to retire at some point, but hey I am 25 years old, so although that thought is in my head, it is only there cause everyone else is talking about retirement saveing and such, .. it is not a realitiy for me right now. SO what I did was I started thinking ahead to the next major "event" in my life. For me this is getting my prefessionial designation as a P.Eng. (professionial engineer). I asked myself, what situation do I want to be in financially, socially, ect. Then I started looking at the path to get there. I have 2 years. to get my P.Eng. I am concurrently working on some other certifications as well. I know full well that when I get those I will be getting paid alot more then I am right now. So it didn't make sense to kill myself for cash right now - made more sense to get my credentials as soon as I can. SO ANYWAY. I think maybe you could do this as well. Look at the next major event in your lifes. Maybe its graduation from a school, or a kids that will be going to school full time. What situation do you want to be in , where do you want to have the affairs of your life at when this happens. Once you have that milestone figured out, work backward to where you are, and look at how your going to take your life from here to there! Kev. Someone ANYone, EVERYONE! please share what the next major event in YOUR life is and where you hope to be. (don't worry about teh how to get there yet) Kev.- again.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted January 8, 2006 Author Members Share Posted January 8, 2006 Kev- I`m 32, married with two kids. I love my family. Every month paying bills is a major event in my life. No joking. I need cash now. It kills me knowing I cannot provide for them the way I would like to. I can`t wait 2 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Monkey Mouse Posted January 8, 2006 Members Share Posted January 8, 2006 I'm going to throw my 2 cents in about a few things here since I live in NJ and work in NYC. First of all, the housing market in the "hot areas" of the USA is a temporary thing - it will decline (eventually). So if you bought 10 years ago and have a low mortgage; you will be ahppy, if you boguth recently; you will understand what it means to overpay and have no other option to pay (and pray). The one thing that bothers me about housing is the fact that property taxes are escalating so high. With the large mortgages now, its a smaller % of your total housing bill, but once houses decline, it will get bigger % wise. Where I am in Northen NJ, the average property taxes are Over $6,000 a year - some towns average close to $9,000 for the same size home in another zip code. Second, the reason commodity prices are rising is simple - hedge funds are speculating becuase of the influx of cash becuase the "normal" markets like stocks and bonds yield so low now. So in reality, the hedge funds (which are not regulated nor need to report anything to the SEC or anyone else) have so much cash and leverage that they hit up oil to $60+ per barrel, gold to 25 year highs, and other commodities are sure to be hit in the near future. Since the entry fees to invest in a hedge fund have dropped by a factor of 5 (from $500K to $100K), there are a lot more fools gambling on big gains on their investment. Due to the nature of hedge funds, the bloodbath that will happen in the near future with any sort of meltdown will make the Nasdaq decline of 5 years ago look pretty darn good. Thrid, most people are followers - they do things to appease others, yet make bad financial mistakes that will haunt them for a long time (sometimes until they die). For example, I pay $865 a month rent where I live, a comparable condo (if you buy) would cost $325K and run about $28500/month for mortgage/taxes/maint. I'd say I get a good deal and at $325K, you will have to put down $65K to skip PMI, another $10K for closing fees/lawyer/moving, and at least $10K for other things (unless it is a new unit). So right away you are looing at a $85K drop on purchase and close to $30K a year for your bills, before heat, cable, phones, cars, going out..... you get the picture. As an additional thing, people follow others when it comes to lifestyle - expensive clothes (that are thrown away in 6 months when they go out of style), expansive cars, expensive furniture, jewelry, $50 haircuts..... You can quickly go from making a decent salary to being in debt if you follow that path. Unfortunately, for everyone that doesn't follow, there are 10 others that do. Does a family of 2 really need a 4,000sq ft home, of course not - but they strap themselves to do it anyway. Fourth - things in reality cost a lot more than you think. For instance, the average cost per mile of operating a car is $0.485 now. So if you drive 10,000 miles a year, you accumlate $4,850 in cost (more if you drive something expensive or a gas pig). I didn't even mention the premiums paid for bad driving records, or the interest on your car loan. So you could spend $7,000 a year and not even realize it. A good solution is to either buy a car that gets good mileage and/or one that has a high residual value... or you can buy a used certified vehicle 2 or 3 years old for a fraction of the new car price with a solid warranty. Fifth - when things go up, they must come down eventually. I was only 8 when the gas crisi of 1979 hit - people were expencting doom by 1980, so they all bought small {censored}boxes and drove less. Combined with the oil companies spending more for exploration and process improvements, gas was $1 a gallon in 1989, not $6 or $10. So expect commodities to come down by at least 50% once the hedge funds pulls out of them. Same thing will happen with housing that ran up too much on the coasts. So in essence, the only things to be concerned about in the long term are property taxes, college tuition (increasing at 5 to 6 percent a year), and your personal health. In the short run, anything goes, and while I wish I could help people, but at least 50% of a person's financial problems are self induced; most people ignore them until the bill collector is knocking at their door. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kevinnem Posted January 8, 2006 Members Share Posted January 8, 2006 both of those are good posts. I understand your problem man! But what I am saying is, your going ot kill your self over teh stress fo this situation. Your not dumb, I can tell from your posts, you are a thoughtfull, intelligent, and honest person. I think you feel you have a responciblity to provide the best life for your family as you can. I think your right on this. It's okay to realise that yoru in a bad money situation, IF it is something that you consider temperary. If you look at where your going in life (the bigger picture) and you ballance it all out and you can honestly say to your self that it si okay to be in this position right now, cause in 2 years I will be here, and in 5 years after that I Will be here........ect. What I worry about, and many in this theard are saying they are haveing problems with. Is that they are in a bad situation NOW and have no place to go from it. No direction. There is a old joke, can't remeber how it goes, but basically a store is looseing moeny on everything it selss, so the solution is to just sell more. If you think that your family is working itself in to a bad spot, then you have the responsibleity to go soemthing about it. talk to you soon! Kev. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members boosh Posted January 9, 2006 Members Share Posted January 9, 2006 Originally posted by Hanshananigan Hey Boosh, since Katrina did it's damage to New Orleans, etc, there are several TV movies coming out about how NYC, etc could be underwater in an instant. Since the Netherlands are kinda under sea level as well, has there been any recent movies about the Netherlands being wiped out by a tidal wave or something? In 1953 about 15% of our country got flooded and thousands of people died.We're allways fighting the water.No need for movies,....We all know what can happen and our parents made sure our whole country is secure and safe.Our engineers are all over the world to protect countries from what happened to us. They're in New Orleans right now to teach the locals how to sculp the country to make it safe. No one is worried here so making a movie about a flood would be pure science fiction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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