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

[JSH]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

As an aside, my dad as the only income in the family never made more than $35k in a year working at Safeway. That was about 15 years ago. I had an excellent childhood despite a relatively lean upbringing. He never got food stamps despite qualifying for them. Back in the day, there was a certain amount of pride in being self-sufficient to the degree possible. What little of that value that existed then has long since eroded away. We see corporate fat cats getting bailed out and then give up trying to live honorably.

I've never understood this logic. It doesn't make anymore sense to me than refusing to send your kids to public school, not checking the box for the standard deduction on your income taxes, or refusing to file for Social Security. It is just choosing to pay more in taxes due to pride.

My brother did something similar when he was laid off (because he very foolishly gave his boss 4 months notice he was going to quit). My brother refused to file for unemployment because he didn't need "government money". Of course unemployment is funded by a roughly 1% tax on every dollar he made in his life. But when it was time to get a little bit of that money back he was too prideful to take the money because it came in the form of a government check. He went without health insurance instead.

Had a friend in Alabama that refused to buy a BCBS medical insurance policy on the ACA exchange and collect the subsidy. Instead he paid full price for the same policy outside of the exchange and then complained to everyone that would listen that insurance was too expensive.

[freebeard]

Buy a school bus and you're under the thumb of the DMV. Get a sailboat and it's the Coast Guard.

Public schools are 'free' because little proto-citizens are a product.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by JSH

I've never understood this logic. It doesn't make anymore sense to me than refusing to send your kids to public school, not checking the box for the standard deduction on your income taxes, or refusing to file for Social Security. It is just choosing to pay more in taxes due to pride.

My brother did something similar when he was laid off (because he very foolishly gave his boss 4 months notice he was going to quit). My brother refused to file for unemployment because he didn't need "government money". Of course unemployment is funded by a roughly 1% tax on every dollar he made in his life. But when it was time to get a little bit of that money back he was too prideful to take the money because it came in the form of a government check. He went without health insurance instead.

Had a friend in Alabama that refused to buy a BCBS medical insurance policy on the ACA exchange and collect the subsidy. Instead he paid full price for the same policy outside of the exchange and then complained to everyone that would listen that insurance was too expensive.

The point is well made, but food stamps are more conspicuous and subjects people like me to make value judgements against people like the Russian gal I watched at Safeway the other day not care how much Coke she was getting for her food stamps, and then proceed to the scratch-off machine.

There's a certain discipline by trying not to be on the government dole that may not be economically wise, but perhaps spiritually significant. We don't believe in spiritual health though, because it's a material world and nothing matters.

I admit it's fairly arbitrary, but I too went through the process of qualifying for food stamps when I got out of prison, and then never took them because I didn't need it to eat. It's very tempting to focus on injustice and view oneself as a victim, but it was important to reframe as a conqueror of circumstance, not a victim of it. Denying some handouts likely was important in my trajectory.

[Piotrsko]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Buy a school bus and you're under the thumb of the DMV. Get a sailboat and it's the Coast Guard..

Not outside territorial limits, but gawd help you against pirates

[Xist]

It is about time that something does. The pandemic was our one opportunity, but the government propped up Bernie, and the price spiral continued.

I recently told a friend that home values didn't look like they would ever slow down, but stopped and remember everyone saying that in 2006.

I am sure that we will have a crash eventually, but will that be harder the longer it takes?

I was watching videos in my other browser again. I had everything set up to continue making sign language flashcards and didn't want to mess with it or the inertia of probably hundreds of tabs open in at least 10 browser windows.

I can stop whenever I want!

I haven't signed into YouTube in my secondary browser and Meet Kevin still found me with yet another vague title and reaction face.

This is better, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t16F3th48Q

Long story short:

1. Raleigh, NC

Raleigh (including areas like Cary) has also been a major home building market. But things have really ramped into high gear over the last year. In the last 6 months home builders have permitted 6,600 single-family homes while active inventory levels are a mere 1,100. This means that Raleigh could be facing a 600% increase in inventory if all of the homes under construction hit the market.

He provides sources and information in the description, but people also claim "Eleventy billion people died from the vaccine, according to the CDC!"
Is Reventure Consulting drawing bad conclusions from the data? Is he making up numbers?

Does he have a point?

I cannot figure out how long it takes, on average, for a construction company to complete a house once it draws permits, but I am positive that it is vastly longer than how long the average house spends on the market--"a record-low of just 15 days."

So, if they sell 1,100 houses every 15 days in Raleigh, that is 26,400, and another 6,600 will merely be 25% more.

Unless I am looking at this wrong.

This indicates there is a great deal of homebuilding, but I always hear that it cannot keep up with demand:

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/...ilding-market/

I will try to catch up with the 35 messages after work.

[redpoint5]

Home prices are sticky, so they aren't likely to "crash" nationwide. They might be stagnant for a while, but I don't expect prices to decline in many markets.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by JSH

You didn't move to someplace with more reasonable housing costs. People used to move to opportunity - not so much anymore. Go West young man (or in this case too many people went West to your town so it may be time to go back East)

If push comes to shove, I've thought about going to several areas away from here and applying for both a job and rent. The place that gets back to me with the best deal wins.

I just don't know what areas to look at.

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Lots of factors. Corrupt politics usually is to blame for housing shortages with restrictive zoning laws, or disincentives to build such as "rent control".

Ironically, the ones who are moving out are workers. This town used to be booming with construction workers, for an example. Now people have to hire companies from hundreds of miles away to come in and do the work. And those comapanies have to put their workers in campers because the hotels are full of people who's rent skyrocketed and don't want to leave the area.

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Those seasonal workers that get much more work during some periods will be making crazy overtime when it's busy. Most will spend every penny they make immediately, and then suffer during the lean times. Unfortunately that's the consequence of not being good at controlling consumer behavior. I lucked out in that my spending habits would not change regardless of getting paid weekly, or once a year in a lump sum. In fact, I only ever look at my income, expenses, and balance once a year when I do taxes. No budget required when you live well below your means.

I lived in my car for 2 years when I was young, which gave me a big headstart on accumulating a downpayment on my first house, which I purchased and then rented out 3 of the rooms. I did this on a $17/hr wage. At the very end of my last job, I was making $25/hr. I had saved so well that I paid cash when I got married, paid off my wife's debt (student loans and CC), put her through a medical program paying in cash, and bought another house.

When I was young, I made $3 an hour at one of my first jobs and $5.25 at the next. Nearly double!

When I moved here and worked in construction everyone including myself did it as self employed. There are no big companies here and people don't get paid 1.5 times for overtime. Even now I'm still self employed because until recently being employed capped you at about $20 an hour (knowing people who had 20 or even 30 years at their jobs).

Sometimes I'd end up with construction jobs that were easy and I could get a quick check. Others would turn into nightmares and I'd have to work way more than 8 hours a day for two or three months with no income until the job was done, even during the busy times. But although we made it work back then by living below our means, I do find it so much easier for me to support my family with a steady paycheck.

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Those that spent every penny they had when they were young are at a disadvantage when they finally begin to raise a family. Those that amassed a large amount of college debt and earned a worthless degree area also at a huge disadvantage.

I'm just glad we never got into debt. Most young people nowadays start out with their neck 10ft under debt. They do this in three phases. Number one, college debt.

Second, marriage. Not only are people spending a lot on extravagant weddings, but when then they get married and everything becomes an excuse that "my spouose needs this." They "need" a big house, the "need" a new car and "need" to eat out at least once or twice a week. And everything goes on a credit card. This is diffent than when they were single and could live in a closet with no car and eat canned beans for every meal.

Then they have kids and everything becomes an excuse that "the kids need it." The thing that killed on friend of mine financially was trying to pay for health insurance for all his family. Health insurance here is extremely expensive. He just never sat down and did the math. We're talking $1,500 per month with a nearly $20,000 deductible. He'd have to have an accident that's over $38,000 before the insurance started helping. With no health issues, he's now deep in debt for trying to have insurance for his wife and kido even though they have no health issues or preexisting conditions.

Originally Posted by redpoint5

$25/hr is an excellent wage, especially for someone without a degree. It's not an extravagant amount to raise a family on a single wage, but doable.

As an aside, my dad as the only income in the family never made more than $35k in a year working at Safeway. That was about 15 years ago. I had an excellent childhood despite a relatively lean upbringing. He never got food stamps despite qualifying for them. Back in the day, there was a certain amount of pride in being self-sufficient to the degree possible. What little of that value that existed then has long since eroded away. We see corporate fat cats getting bailed out and then give up trying to live honorably.

What I wish I knew is if I could make $15, $20, $25 or more in a place with more affordable housing. It allways seems that wages and housing go together. What I do for work may get me just $10 an hour somewhere else. So even if the housing is half the price it is here, the wages could be even less.

Doing some math, because my Dad never made much money either. The $7 an hour he made back in 1990 is about $15 an hour when adjusted for inflation. (Single income. Mom did not work) But the house mortgage he got at that time was $175 per month, or just under $400 per month when ajusted for inflation.

Where can I make $15 an hour and have a mortgage for $400?

[freebeard]

MAC address - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › MAC_address
A media access control address (MAC address) is a unique identifier assigned to a network interface controller (NIC) for use as a network address in communications within a network segment.This use is common in most IEEE 802 networking technologies, including Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.Within the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) network model, MAC addresses are used in the medium access ...

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

Not outside territorial limits, but gawd help you against pirates.

My semisubmergible geopolymer/basalt Fortress of Solitude shall eat pirate ships for lunch. Various navies not so much.

[redpoint5]

The first thing that came to my mind was to be a better pirate than the pirates.

[freebeard]

Breach beneath them and snap their keel. Yaaaaar!