Potentially the longest thread in history...

[PP Mguire]

I know someone on a six figure salary living a very comfortable life who deliberately goes to the local supermarket at the time they re-stock the discount section for food that is expiring the same day. So I wouldn't worry about it...

Just because you have money doesn't mean you need to spend it.

 

[Yami]

Yeah I always swing by the reduced sections at Sainsbury's

 

[Yami]

Just because you have money doesn't mean you need to spend it.

Oof, that's advice I could've done with in my early 20's. And probably now, really.

 

[PP Mguire]

Oof, that's advice I could've done with in my early 20's. And probably now, really.

It's advice I've been giving to people even older than myself finally getting their lives on the right track so don't feel bad. Last weekend we had Hailey's birthday party and some of the missus family was over. We were all standing in the kitchen after they got a tour and the two of us were complaining about this rental. They were like what do you mean this place is big! We both said at the same time not as big as my old house. None of them cared to visit in our early days so they never saw the house I bought. I told them the house I sold was 2600sqft and this one is only 1500sqft. Same bedrooms and bathrooms but over 1,000sqft of extra room for everybody with a much better layout. So we are used to the extra space and now with another one on the way it's gonna get tight in here.

Her cousin looked at me shocked and said wait, sold? So you bought a house? How old are you? I said 32. She said when did you buy it? I said at 28. She said dude, how much was it? I said at closing grand total was 255k and some change that we got down from retail of 270k. It was a brand new house completed Feb of 2017, I purchased in March and moved in in April. They all looked at me and said HOW (mind you her aunt is almost 50 living in an apartment)? I was like well, I got a decent pay rate with a new position and the first thing I did was invest in my future. I was 2 signatures away from purchasing a 2017 Mustang GT Performance Package at the Ford dealership when I last minute decided I wanted to invest in my housing plan. The key is when I first started making good money I was putting back. Sure, I splurged here and there but it wasn't much. I'd take a small portion of my return and use it as play money or pay off debt then put the rest back. I didn't require useless things like Prada glasses (dig at her cousin) and yea I got some computer parts but I paid them over time mostly. My best friend did the same thing and he barely turned 30 last year. He bought a 180k house in the same neighborhood and ol dude rocks a Tesla Model 3 and a full Tesla solar panel system as well (Which he just paid off after a year of ownership).

I said the key is, just because you have money doesn't mean you need to spend it. Need to set priorities on what you want and make a spending plan. You also need to worry about your credit. You can't just put off something just because you don't want to pay it off. People with multiple kids get very large returns but you always see them with new cars they can't afford later instead of putting it in savings for a down payment. You always see single moms posting 500 bucks worth of shoes, hair, nails, and an expensive meal somewhere then complain they're broke a month or two later. Can't be doing that.

 

[kmanmx]

Im all for saving but what annoys me is when people get real judgemental about what you spend your money on. Everyone has different priorities and things they are will to spend money on and things they save money on. Me personally I don't really care about clothes or vacations so I spend very little on that. I easily spend under $250 a year on clothes. I own one pair of walking boots and one pair of day to day shoes and that's it. I couldn't really care less about travelling or going on vacation so I hardly ever do it. I go to france skiing/snowboarding once every 3 years or so which costs me about $700. But I spend a lot on my PC and anything related to that. Monitors etc. Just annoys me a bit, i've had people balk at the fact I bought a 3080 and then 10 seconds later told me how they had this awesome two week vacation in NYC that cost them $10k.

I spent a lot this past year but saved quite a lot too. Been using an automatic investment app and put down $8000 in the past 12 months. Conidering the fact I bought a PS5, 3080 and OLED TV this year im pretty happy with that. With my new job I should be able to put down closer to $15000 a year.

 

[Joe C]

I don't know what you folks have in the U.K. but as long as you can put some finances away for the future (think retirement) you'll be o.k. I had a 401K from where I worked and Mrs. C (Brenda) has a pension retirement. Although Brenda is retired she still wants to work until she can get full Social Security in 3 more years, that equates to about a extra $7,000. a year. Currently we are looking at getting a travel trailer this year possibly and going out west to see the country, yellow stone...ect. Two years ago we did go to the Grand Canyon, we rented a house and that worked out very well but today we have two very big dogs, and we'll need some thing like a travel trailer for us to travel with the dogs and possibly grand kids too, most places will not take dogs weighing over 100 lbs for rentals or motels.
Edit:
Saylor our first dog is two years old now and is 111 lbs, Libby our little "puppy" is 8 months old and weighs in at 95 lbs. She is already a couple inches taller than Saylor... so she is going to be a very big girl when she grows up

 

[kmanmx]

Pretty much every company here offers pension schemes. The best pensions are generally via the government in the civil service. They used to be even better between 10 or 20 years ago, they had "final salary" pension schemes on so on. So you could have a perfectly normal office job with the government and come away with a pension twice as valuable as people with pretty good jobs in the private sector now. But they phased them out as they're too expensive, and private companies are slowly making their pensions worse and worse too.

Generally the better the company you work for, and the higher ranking your role is, the better your pension scheme will be. But 90% are not great. You're doing well if you end up with a pension paying out more than $30,000 a year. My dad spent his entire career earning 2 to 3x the average wage at a large famous company but he is having to come to terms with the fact he will have to live a pretty basic & humble lifestyle when he retires in a few years.

 

[Joe C]

Pretty much every company here offers pension schemes. The best pensions are generally via the government in the civil service. They used to be even better between 10 or 20 years ago, they had "final salary" pension schemes on so on. So you could have a perfectly normal office job with the government and come away with a pension twice as valuable as people with pretty good jobs in the private sector now. But they phased them out as they're too expensive, and private companies are slowly making their pensions worse and worse too.

Generally the better the company you work for, and the higher ranking your role is, the better your pension scheme will be. But 90% are not great. You're doing well if you end up with a pension paying out more than $30,000 a year. My dad spent his entire career earning 2 to 3x the average wage at a large famous company but he is having to come to terms with the fact he will have to live a pretty basic & humble lifestyle when he retires in a few years.

Same thing here in the U.S.
When Brenda started her career back in the 1980's when school teachers did have a pension, but today teachers do not get any pension... they have to go with a 401K. and that all depends on the stock market.
I did have a pension at one time too, but it was with USS Steel (USS Steel owned the company I worked for in the 80's) , and that turned into a 401K after Marathon Oil bought us out.

 

[strollin]

I've always been relatively good with money. I started working when I was 16 years old for $1.35/hr, saved virtually all that I got paid back then and bought my 1st car for cash before I turned 17. In the army, I got paid $268/month as a private and managed to save at least $75/month out of that. I bought my first house when I was 24 for $67K and sold it 3 years later for $121K.

My wife and I are fortunate that we both collect pensions as well as social security checks every month.

We also both had 401ks that we paid into, the bad thing is that the 401k program didn't come about until we were in our 30's so we got shorted about 10 years in our ability to contribute to them. We still managed to save a large chunk of cash for retirement.

I can't say that we are wealthy, but we are comfortable in our retirement with no money worries since our income is greater than our expenses.

 

[Joe C]

yea... back then you could get a nice used car for $200.