Has anyone [in the U.S.] received your stimulus check? How are you going to spend it?

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Xist

Book I: I Don't Know How Good I Got it.
One of them even runs!

If I recall correctly you took one of your cars apart over a year ago to replace the head gasket and haven't finished putting it back together. It says something that you can afford to wait a year to fix your car. It means it is an extra car not needed for daily transportation. Some might call it a hobby car.

Originally Posted by Xist

It is an office. I only go out there to work, not to play video games or watch anything. I am unsure what qualifies as a man cave. I just want drywall, insulation, and a proper door.

Again, you share your house with 2 people and you have your own room yet you a building a dedicated space to get away from them. On a global scale you can start complaining about lack of personal space when you are sharing 1 room with 4-6 people

My colleges in Japan were super jealous of the 90 sq ft apartment the company rented for US employees when they were in Japan for multiple months

Originally Posted by Xist

So, if Mom retired to Costa Rica she could have money beyond dreams of avarice?

Well a middle class income is $750 a month in the city and about $500 in smaller towns. If she is getting near an average Social Security check she would be doing well down there. And she has a house to sell / buy one there so no rent in CR. Pura Vida

Originally Posted by Xist

We couldn't afford to visit her! What are the employment opportunities down there?

Well the example wasn't specifically related to you. It was just an example of how being born in a wealthy country gives options not available to people in poorer countries. An example of what even a small retirement in the USA can buy in other corners of the globe.

Maybe you couldn't afford to visit but I bet you could stay with her. Legal employment opportunities are zero on a Pensionado visa. To qualify you need $1,000 a month income in Social Security or a pension. It is for retirees not expats looking for work. But hey, you are teleworking today and they have good internet.

[Xist]

I do not know if I mentioned putting my Civic back together. I think that I did because I did the valve lash twice and it still seemed wrong. I think the issue was that everyone said to do it on a cold engine, but one place said that a cold engine will only meet specifications when cold. I finally paid Crazy J $90 to do it. I drove several miles through town, laughing almost the entire time, and then I started taking apart the dash to replace the heater core.

I did not mention that. I had a far worse time finding good instructions than usual. I think that I had five different guides, including the FSM, and all of them told me to pull parts that weren't necessary, while skipping important steps. I have all of the fasteners in ziplock bags with papers saying where everything goes. I was going to see what fasteners and cables I never needed to mess with, take pictures and notes of the reassembly, and use that to post a how-to.

However, that was several weeks ago, and I got busy setting up an office and trying to schedule sessions.

I really should finish that soon.

I share my bedroom. My brother keeps things in there for some reason and Mom is always putting things in there that aren't mine or at least don't belong there. We still have Dad's old treadmill and two bookcases full of his books. I do not want the treadmill, unless I can tighten the belt, it slips when I try to jog, but I like having Dad's old books.

I would love to hear my boss explain that he had a teletherapist in a third-world country--no, we didn't outsource, he is an expat earning the full wage.

A quick Google search shows many people saying how to tighten a treadmill belt.

Have a great night!

[Ecky]

My wife talks about moving somewhere cheaper to live pretty frequently. She had sticker shock when she moved to Vermont - her siblings bought houses in Michigan for ~$70-120,000, whereas our house was pretty bottom-of-the-market in Vermont at ~200k. I like to point out that most of the entry level jobs that pay $16-18 an hour here are paying $12 an hour there, and that although living expenses are a larger percentage of our total expenses here, when I cross-shopped similar houses and jobs and tallied everything up, we end up with significantly more in the bank every month by living somewhere with higher wages.

If anything, I'd like to go somewhere even more expensive, with higher wages, as it's easy enough to keep one's living expenses down.

Maybe retire to somewhere cheap, but they typically aren't the places to live while you're earning.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Ecky

Maybe retire to somewhere cheap, but they typically aren't the places to live while you're earning.

Yes, and no. Retiring someplace cheaper is simple. Wages don't matter because you aren't working and selling a $500K house to buy a $150K house frees up cash for a lot more productive investments.

Working someplace cheaper and saving is more complicated.

Where my parents live in Michigan you would want to be in a healthcare field to make better than average wage in a low cost area.

My wife and I are engineers and moving from Tennessee to Alabama came with salary increases to cover increased housing costs but not to compensate from going from 10 minute commutes to 45 minutes and 1 hr 20 minutes (one way). If we wanted to keep 10 -20 minutes commutes our housing costs would have doubled to tripled.

Moving from Birmingham, AL to Portland, OR didn't come with raises to cover the increased living and housing costs. Housing more than doubled but our salaries increased 15%.

Another big key to banking money money is taxes. Both TN and AL have regressive tax policies centering on a sales tax so they tax low earners higher than high earners. Not good if you are working class but it makes it easier to save for high earners. Oregon has a pretty progressive tax policy mostly based on income taxes so the move from Alabama to Oregon means the tax man takes a bigger bite. (Of course those higher taxes also come with a lot of benefits too) Personally I don't mind paying more taxes because I fundamentally believe that taxing the poor at higher rates than the wealthy is wrong.

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by JSH

Moving from Birmingham, AL to Portland, OR didn't come with raises to cover the increased living and housing costs. Housing more than doubled but our salaries increased 15%.

If I read this right, what you're saying is that the salary increase was from what was effectively a promotion and not just from taking a similar job in a higher-pay area.

Even so, you transferred from AL or OR, and I'd wager that even though your housing costs doubled, you're likely putting more in the bank every month.

Certainly not all more expensive areas pay enough better than all less expensive areas, but I find it's generally the case that you pay more to live in places you can earn more. And, that it usually pays off if you can earn those salaries.

[redpoint5]

My original plan to quickly accumulate cash was to find any job in Manhattan and live in a van down by the river.

I accomplished the part where you live in a van down by the river, but never did land a job in a very high rent city. PDX is probably considered medium high when compared to Manhattan or SFO.

[Xist]

I have not found an SLPA job in California that pays as well my agency does in Phoenix, but Arizona pays significantly better the more rural your area is. In theory my clients are further away, but I am not dealing with traffic, accidents, and ridiculous heat.

If I maintained thirty clients a week I would earn over $100,000 a year, but right now I can only see six, while a lady started working in the area and had over twenty clients almost immediately with another agency [that pays significantly better].

I am checking again. Not only are most of the California salaries lower than my agency pays, they are lower than I see other agencies advertising in Phoenix, until this: $45,150 - $58,050 a year.

It is a clinic. Those almost always pay better.

Maricopa Public Schools is offering $58,500. Last year it was more like $48,000, but they are far enough away that I wouldn't say they are in the valley.

None of the SLPA listings for California paid great.

I wish that there were some way of properly filtering that.

While it seems that SLPAs are paid worse, SLPs definitely seem better paid.

I learned to pull up each employer instead of wading through an overwhelming number of ads. It only shows fifteen employers advertising up to 149 times each.

I found my school job by searching all Indeed listings in my area going 90 days back, but I still do not see a better job.

I searched for "Full-time" and looked at the employers. All that I found is that the two charter schools for which I work are both looking for full-time teachers. I sure hope that would pay better!

I could ask to be a full-time teacher and teach while I obtain my credentials.

Curiously, someone in Show Low wants someone to drive his four Ford pickups, and help the owner document that repairs done out-of-town were incorrect.

It says $20 an hour.

Craigslist does not show anything for "Speech" or "SLPA."

[Xist]

Someone advertised for a remodeler on Craigslist. They want someone with experience, all of their own tools, a truck, and enclosed trailer.

I would love to learn, but I do not have any of that!

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Ecky

If I read this right, what you're saying is that the salary increase was from what was effectively a promotion and not just from taking a similar job in a higher-pay area.

Even so, you transferred from AL or OR, and I'd wager that even though your housing costs doubled, you're likely putting more in the bank every month.

Certainly not all more expensive areas pay enough better than all less expensive areas, but I find it's generally the case that you pay more to live in places you can earn more. And, that it usually pays off if you can earn those salaries.

Both of us moved laterally into similar level jobs. Those similar jobs pay about 15% more here than they did in Alabama.

We are saving a little bit more in dollars today but less as a percentage. There is also 7 years of inflation to factor in.

Mortgage in Alabama: $750 per month on a 1500 sq ft house (3 bed / 2 bath) with 2 car garage and 200 square foot attached workshop with HVAC

Mortgage in Oregon: $1325 per month on a 1000 sq ft house (3 bed / 1 bath) with 2 car garage. Needs all the T1-11 siding replaced and we had to replace the HVAC when we bought it.


The last year in Alabama the breakdown was:
29% Living Expenses
18% Taxes
53% Savings

2019 in Oregon was:
31% Living expenses
22% Taxes
47% Savings

I'm not complaining, we are still doing great but we would likely reach retirement goals quicker if we would have stayed in Alabama. However we are much happier in Oregon.

[redpoint5]

My wife's friend was stuck in a rut where she was extremely well paid for working about 1/3rd time. Hard to give up high hourly pay and low hours to barely increase pay by working many more hours elsewhere.

That said, generally pay increases come about by changing places of employment, not through 3% annual raises at the same old job. When you have a job, you approach the bargaining table with nothing to lose. They can accept the terms you make, or you can continue on with the current job.

Regarding my wife's friend, she made enough money and still never had any. I don't know where it went because she had nothing to show for it. My wife was working full-time for $10/hr in Portland and still slowly accumulating wealth, whereas her friend was working 1/3rd time for twice the income and couldn't deal with any unforeseen money problem at all.

I'll say that if a single, reasonably healthy person in the US is making more than $20k per year, there's little reason why they shouldn't be able to build up some financial resiliency. It's an indication that the appropriate sacrifices aren't being made.