Re: Living beyond your means

[Dowding]

75% would terrify me. 25% on mortgage payments is more than enough for me.

[Eagler]

.....has become the norm
as soon as the housing issue settles down, the credit card meltdown will begin - difference being i don't think they sold that pile of debt overseas like they did the shakey mortages

[wrongwayric]

Habitat for humanity says it's great. They been buying houses left and right to house the poor. So.......they are buying houses to house the ones that bought 200k homes and now can rent the houses they've bought for less than market value. I've been kind of sort of watching this and it's really funny and sad at the same time.
People were living on the edge and thinking that there house was there future investment, and that it could only make them more money than what they paid for it. Sadly the bubble has burst and a lot of people are now getting forced to face reality.
The old saying holds true "Don't put all your eggs in one basket".

[Ripsnort]

75% would terrify me. 25% on mortgage payments is more than enough for me.

Ours used to be 25%, but job promotions, and raises has lowered it to 16% of our total income, thankfully. Kids are damned expensive!

[FiLtH]

    We have been spoiled. Years ago people lived in the same house their parents did, took care of their parents until they died, had children do the same for them. Now everyone wants the McMansion and 4 kids and have them all go to college, have the big weddings, and retire at 40. Its fantasy for most of us.

    BBBB mentioned alot of social jobs in his post. They WILL be paid, and through our taxes. If the taxes arent there they are out of a job. Crap happens to everyone, and ya the economy isnt so hot for alot of people right now. It certainly affects people who chose to do a $2000 mortage and chose to have kids.

   Me...Im self employed and chose to not have children, chose a small cape with a low mortage,and live
very modestly. Ya theres times when I wish Id bought a bigger house, drove a nicer car, went on expensive vacations, but there times like these when Im glad I did what I did.

[Getback]

    We have been spoiled. Years ago people lived in the same house their parents did, took care of their parents until they died, had children do the same for them. Now everyone wants the McMansion and 4 kids and have them all go to college, have the big weddings, and retire at 40. Its fantasy for most of us.

    BBBB mentioned alot of social jobs in his post. They WILL be paid, and through our taxes. If the taxes arent there they are out of a job. Crap happens to everyone, and ya the economy isnt so hot for alot of people right now. It certainly affects people who chose to do a $2000 mortage and chose to have kids.

   Me...Im self employed and chose to not have children, chose a small cape with a low mortage,and live
very modestly. Ya theres times when I wish Id bought a bigger house, drove a nicer car, went on expensive vacations, but there times like these when Im glad I did what I did.

Ditto Your Filthiness. My Mortgage payment is $260 per month. I did have 3 kids and they all went to college on Scholarships. Thank Goodness. Frankly I could afford a lot more home but this 900 sq ft house does the job quite well. My short term goal is to buy a cabin by a lake that's under foreclosure and keep those payments quite low too. The funny thing is I didn't want this house, I had to take it in order to get a my divorce finalized and to save my good credit. So someone was looking out for me.

[AWMac]

I just wanna wash my hands of everything and go to a nursing home before I'm to old to have fun.

[WWhiskey]

I think you need to step back and look at the bigger picture. It is easy to Monday morning QB about someone else life. Estimates put gas prices alone at the six dollar a gallon mark by the end of the year. My wife has to drive nearly 50 miles round trip to work five days a week. She gets about 380 miles out of the 10 gallon tank in her car and it cost over 40 dollars to fill it up as it is right now. She has to fill up about once a week, which means on average we spend about 160 dollars a month to keep gas in her car alone.

 There are a lot of people out there right now living pay check to pay check, not because they make poor financial decisions, but because the economy is really bad right now. Social workers, teachers, police officers, fire fighters, EMT's do not make that much money. Yet their jobs are required to be filled in order for us to continue to function as a society.

 My wife makes under 30K a year. She could just barley make it on her own. She would be one of the ones living pay check to pay check. More than a few of her fellow teachers do live pay check to pay check and it only takes one bad day to screw up their world completely and they would be sleeping in their car as well.

 Keep those things in mind next time you judge someone you don't know.

i spend over $500 a day in fuel to do my job and at the end of the year she has made more than i have made in net profit for the last two years! and my expenes for the year equal almost 80% of my income,
 so it is very tough for me too not spend money  on things i dont need,like a nicer place to live, or  a fancy new tv!
i applaud you for being frugal in your efforts to survive and yes it is tough, but in reality only because of the price of fuel,
food is higher because of the price of fuel, as with most all goods transported by truck, as the truckers must pass the expence of higher fuel on, in order to survive!

 the banks and landlords lowered there income requirements in order to fill there houses, for the same reason, to keep from going broke, at the expence of those who could not afford the new, nice, pricey places that they could not keep for long, because a house that is making money even for a little while is better than one that make's no money at all, in there eyes!

 is it right ?
 no,,, but it is a result of overbuilding, these people where not homeless before they moved into places they could not afford! but temptation set in, and off they went into places they could not afford! hopeing that they would get a better job, or just assuming they could pay for them.
 the banks and landlords are partly to blame for the problem ,
 by lowering there income levels or credit standards, and should not be bailed out by the gov.
 because they new better!
 still it tugs at our heart strings , we feel like someone was cheated,
and we were, all of us, by those who thought they new better how we should live!
cleaner air was the reasaon for less refineries!
dont drill any more wells because it hurts the envirment!
but someone forgot that those refineries would be built,, out of this country, sending dollars all over the world, everywhere but here, where we need the money the most!
our oil sits untaped while we pay three times what it is really worth!
 they also forgot that those refineries built outside of this country, would not be under the guidence of the e.p.a. so the polution is greater than if they were here!
 and know one has an answer,,, exept ourselves, we must live within our means, the gov. cannot save us,and we will destroy it if we try too make it save us from ourselves!( not that we would miss it)



  i dont mean this as a personal attack,  everyone is suffering form high fuel prices and failed morgages i just wanted to show, in my opinion what i think is the root of our trouble's!

[Wingnutt]

My biggest gripe is people who choose (yes is a choice these days) to have children when there is no way in hell they can afford them.

[SIK1]

My biggest gripe is people who choose (yes is a choice these days) to have children when there is no way in hell they can afford them.

Well how the heck are you going to get your welfare check if you don't have children?

[Wingnutt]

Well how the heck are you going to get your welfare check if you don't have children?

oh yea, many seem to think, more kids = more money.. 

instead of..

1000 / 1

1200 / 2

1400 / 3

1600 / 4

.etc etc..

of course, if they paid attention in math, they probably wouldn't be on welfare.


latched on the government tit like a rabid pitbull on the mail man.

[Wolfala]

My biggest gripe is people who choose (yes is a choice these days) to have children when there is no way in hell they can afford them.

I gave a homeless woman up in Hayward a foot long subway sandwich today. Ya know why? One day, I might be down on my luck. Don't compare in here - because all suffering is just that.

[Wingnutt]

I gave a homeless woman up in Hayward a foot long subway sandwich today. Ya know why? One day, I might be down on my luck. Don't compare in here - because all suffering is just that.

yea, but when said suffering is self imposed..  its hard to be so nice..


bet ya wouldent have given her a Quiznos sandwich..

hmm, hmm, hmmm...  toasty.

[FiLtH]

5
















5 dollah
























5 dollah foot loooooooooooooooooong

[FrodeMk3]

do you guys know what the actual percentage of homes in foreclosure is?   this "huge" amount?

I don't know what country BBB lives in but here in kalifornia.. the burden for police and fire is about 70-80% of the entire city budget for most cities..  they are making a bunch.. the teachers are probly the highest part time workers in the world given their skill levels.

lazs

Lasz, don't forget though, that no matter what the tax burden is, It's paid in large part by property taxes by homeowners' inside any given municipality. City councils' weren't up in arms about runaway speculation in the housing market, because...well, they were giving themselves' raises, and beemers, and cell phones, with that tax money that came in on all of these new, overpriced, housing developements. And now, rather than take a pay cut themselves, they wanna cut the wages' of people who actually work for a living(Teachers, Policemen, Firemen, Sanitation workers, etc.) Since all of these houses' that they projected were gonna be sold and filled with potential taxpayers...aren't.