"100% of people who do not save money do not have any!"--Dave Ramsey

[Xist]

Originally Posted by JSH

How is your retirement account looking? If you are 40 today $13,600 invested in an S&P 500 index fund should be worth $230,619 when you turn 67 and are at full retirement age. That is significant to me.

(That is calculated at 10.53% which is the average annual return for Vanguard’s VFINX founded in 1976)

I have $3,736.06 in retirement!

I had $6,000 in 2012 and my parents convinced me to cash it in to buy that house. My sister and her husband have also done that.

It would have been fine if I got that townhouse, but I didn't. I went from $6,000 in retirement and no house to $0 in retirement and no house.

Originally Posted by JSH

If you invested $13,600 back when you were 20 that would have turned into $1,877,285 without contributing another dime. The beauty of compounding interest. The longer you wait the harder it is.

Why does everyone insist that I am waiting for something? I worked three jobs before I graduated the first time and I was just trying to make ends meet. My car would break down or something, I never had any savings because I always put everything that I could spare towards my credit card, and then I paid tons of interest.

I was heading towards bankruptcy and\or homelessness when I joined the Army.

My first car was a $2,500 Honda. Where did I go wrong? I had two different mechanics look at it! I kept renting a room somewhere until I had too many bad roommates in a row. I think that I paid $450 a month for a one-bedroom, while I had paid $300 to rent a room, but then I moved in with roommates again.

I have never taken vacations. I went to Disneyland with my sister and her family a few times, but she bought my ticket.

Nobody owes me anything. Life doesn't owe me anything. Everyone is supposed to receive a stimulus check, so I want that, but as I keep saying, I just want the opportunity to work full-time.

I heard back from the company that bought the clinic that offered me a job in 2017. They do not have any SLPA openings. Do I want to work as a caregiver?

Helping out one old person is a thankless job, I want to compound this?!

I would need to work 60 hours a week to make as much as I do working thirty or less!

I e-mailed two agencies in the valley and another staffing agency reached out to me.

[Ecky]

I have no doubts you work hard. There's just clearly a non-favorable ratio of income to expenses, and from the sounds of it you have the education and experience such that you wouldn't struggle like you seem to be, were your circumstances different. I'd say you're one of my favorite internet strangers to read about and I have some concern for your wellbeing.

[Xist]

Well, time to wake up and do something more than dream of my mansions above. Apparently my brother wants to order lunch and Mom said "Okay, just give me a minute, I will get dressed and take you."

I immediately ordered a family meal on my phone.

I uh, I don't do many things immediately.

Well, I apologize Brother for making you wait while I write a message. After lunch I think that I will do some speech therapy with my favorite non-client.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Xist

I have $3,736.06 in retirement!
It would have been fine if I got that townhouse, but I didn't. I went from $6,000 in retirement and no house to $0 in retirement and no house.

This isn't a complete story because it doesn't explain how it cost $6,000 to not buy something.

Why does everyone insist that I am waiting for something?

If "everyone" believes something different than you, there's a chance that everyone is wrong and you're the only right one. Those odds aren't good. This comment is general, because you didn't specify what it is you think everyone is accusing you of waiting for.

Tangentially, you often tell stories about interactions with others where you behaved perfectly rationally, and then the other person had a completely irrational response. Maybe we all have those experiences and simply don't discuss them often, or perhaps you have those experiences more often that others.

Where did I go wrong?

Where your expenses consistently exceeded your income, or merely broke even.

I just want the opportunity to work full-time.

False. You want plenty of other things. You simply value some of those other things more than working full-time. As long as your requirement for working full time must fit within your other wants or perceived needs, achieving that goal will be made more difficult.

Helping out one old person is a thankless job, I want to compound this?!

Only you can answer this. In my view, any sort of low pay care job requires a certain type of personality that can handle the tough job and be satisfied despite the low pay. It's probably best for younger people who are new to the workforce, since the pay is entry wages, and eventually people need career type paychecks, especially if they want to have a family of their own.

My wife was working for $10/hr in Portland at a memory care facility when I met her. After 2 years of that, she worked for 2 years as a medical scribe making $10/hr because it fulfilled application requirements for a medicine program. Then she got into that program.

I would need to work 60 hours a week to make as much as I do working thirty or less!

Why view the entire universe as containing only 2 options; keep the current job, or accept a specific other one that pays terrible?

My wife has a friend that is liberally minded, worked a low hour, higher pay job, has 2 undergrad degrees, student loan debt, and a mom that she feels obligated to help, only wants social work type jobs, has lots of stories of people having unreasonable interactions with her, only has dysfunctional romantic relationships, has nothing but bad luck, and interprets constructive criticism like a personal attack that was motivated by disgust. From what you've shared, you 2 seem very alike.

I don't know if you share a lot of personal stuff just to be heard, but there's a lot of engineering minded type folks on this forum, and if you don't want people analysing the stuff you share and presenting potential solutions, you're going to have to say that. What you won't get is people chalking every negative thing up to bad luck. Even if that was true, it wouldn't be useful. Those who are actual victims of circumstance aren't made better by identifying as a victim.

My sense is that identity as victim or conqueror is mostly hardwired into personality. Maybe a better description would be those who view their lives more as something that is largely passively observed, or those who see most situations as something largely within their control. Being over optimistic about what is within your control generally carries fewer negative consequences as being under optimistic.

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I don't know if you share a lot of personal stuff just to be heard, but there's a lot of engineering minded type folks on this forum, and if you don't want people analysing the stuff you share and presenting potential solutions, you're going to have to say that. What you won't get is people chalking every negative thing up to bad luck. Even if that was true, it wouldn't be useful. Those who are actual victims of circumstance aren't made better by identifying as a victim.

My sense is that identity as victim or conqueror is mostly hardwired into personality. Maybe a better description would be those who view their lives more as something that is largely passively observed, or those who see most situations as something largely within their control. Being over optimistic about what is within your control generally carries fewer negative consequences as being under optimistic.

Only very tangentially related, but I struggled for quite a while with a bad relationship, one abusive parent who had strings attached to me, one parent I liked very much who was seriously ill and required both financial and physical support, and living in an area with low wages.

In a very dark way, I was very fortunate to go through a divorce, to estrange one parent, to have the other die, and to have no more reason to stay in an area where I had little opportunity. There's something to be said for losing nearly everything one cares about.

[Xist]

Originally Posted by Ecky

There's something to be said for losing nearly everything one cares about.

Well, that is worse than all of my stories.

Wasn't "The Replacements" about a team that had nothing to lose?

One of the agencies in the valley responded. They asked if I wanted to change agencies or serve two masters.

Ha! The joke is on them!

This would be my third.

I am not eager to fire either of my supervisors, but I am sure that I would consider most superiors overbearing sooner or later.

The idea of having three at once is daunting.

[redpoint5]

I know that Xist cares about his family relationship, and I make no judgement about that. However, that comes at a cost to opportunity for personal advancement. It's perfectly reasonable to say one is happy with that trade-off, and that the stories shared are merely a way of socializing and not soliciting advice.

My parents have been taking care of my grandparents (now grandparent) for a decade or so. They will do things like pass on vacation because they don't know how to solve the problem of getting the Tuesday Sharis meal to them, or that would require bumping the Wednesday trip to the grocery store to Thursday. My parents aren't compensated at all (and I'm not saying they should be). They've passed on too much opportunity to experience their own life for the sake of not disrupting the routine of my grandparents though. BTW, my grandparents are very well off, so absolutely any need could simply be paid for.

Peterson said something that seems to be true. With children and the elderly, you don't do anything for them that they can do for themselves. What may be motivated by love simply generates dependency and a decline in ability.

Personally, I love being a spotter when someone is trying as hard as they can to lift their weight. They've taken on the largest load they can conceive, and I'm there for that last bit if they fall short. There's no use spotting someone who isn't lifting though.

EDIT: I'll add that the friend I described above is much loved by me despite our differing values and outlook on life. The thing we share in common is the confidence that we both intend well for others.

[Xist]

Mom said that my brother asked for a walk before I finished eating, but you need to know, I eat really slowly. I always have, although that changed completely in Basic. For better or worse, it changed back.

I read a time management book in high school that asked how much concentration I need to eat my sandwich.

I have tried multitasking. It results in me doing two things poorly, and usually one at a time, back and forth.

Am I the only one that chooses food based on how long it takes to chew?

I took my brother to get the mail and we walked around the block.

My client was a no-show, but I called and they showed up eventually.

[oil pan 4]

Your money is probably better off in real estate.

[Xist]

Than retirement?

Let's say that I save up $14,000 in the next year. I put 10% down on a manor, which I rent out for 26 years, and barely pay it off in that time.

Let's say that I barely break even.

If it keeps up with inflation for 2.6 decades at 3% it will be worth $301,922.78.