controversial opinion: money & finances edition

[Anonymous]

I don’t drink and I don’t smoke. 10 bucks on coffee a day is well worth it for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who makes $200k plus and is "scraping by" has poor judgment.

+1

+1000

There is this bizarre mentality where on one hand a person “struggles” on 200k, but at the same time that person believes that minimum wage or blue collar worker would do fine if s/he were just more responsible with their income. Or where you would never send a child to a particular school because of the poor education, but think a graduate of that same low performing school would have been fine if s/he had just studied more.

Cognitive dissonance

[Anonymous]

If you constantly travel for work & chase a bigger paycheck at the expense of losing time with your kids, I don't respect you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, liking our current insurance system! You are definitely one of maybe ten people in the whole country!

Oh I can do this one.

The way Americans do healthcare is better for the sickest people who want to proceed with expensive treatments to fight for their lives and so, to my mind, the best way.

Can you explain further? Genuinely curious.

American healthcare is so expensive because we spend so much money on people who are likely to die anyway. The UK’s NHS just won’t pay if the expense is high and the expected extra years of life are low.

Yes but Americans would not have it any other way when it is them or a family member that is sick. This is the true reason that healthcare costs in America will never be reigned in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People (other than business owners) who lease cars like to waste money

Not really. Or at all.

People who buy new cars outright pay the lease too. Only for them it's called depreciation and comes out of their net worth instead of their income. Leasers pay the depreciation too and have the benefit of tens of thousands of dollars being tied up in a depreciating, non productive asset.

There are a lot of people, here especially who really have no clue about finance (you included)

Your math falls apart once I own the vehicle outright and you're still paying for a car you'll never own.

Hint: your asset has lost half of it's value and will continue to lose value until its only value is as scrap metal. Not paying it as a lease so all right though

Agree, the monthly difference in payment between lease and buying can be invested (presumably you are smart enough to get zero Interest financing and not pay in cash), and maintenance costs can be significant after year three.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who is not a moron knows that if you can pay in cash you do. A house, a car, whatever.

Those who argue otherwise are still trying to make it rich. Those who have know otherwise.

o

Is this a joke? Because the person who doesn’t pay in cash definitely is not a moron, particularly with respect to housing. In fact, it is moronic not to take advantage of the mortgage deduction. Otherwise, any time the cost of financing is less than investment returns, it is foolish to pay cash.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People (other than business owners) who lease cars like to waste money

Not really. Or at all.

People who buy new cars outright pay the lease too. Only for them it's called depreciation and comes out of their net worth instead of their income. Leasers pay the depreciation too and have the benefit of tens of thousands of dollars being tied up in a depreciating, non productive asset.

There are a lot of people, here especially who really have no clue about finance (you included)

Your math falls apart once I own the vehicle outright and you're still paying for a car you'll never own.

Hint: your asset has lost half of it's value and will continue to lose value until its only value is as scrap metal. Not paying it as a lease so all right though

Agree, the monthly difference in payment between lease and buying can be invested (presumably you are smart enough to get zero Interest financing and not pay in cash), and maintenance costs can be significant after year three.

I have no dog in this fight but this is simply not true. We have a 5 year old car and a 7 year old car. The 5 year old car has had nothing but routine maintenance. Same with the 7 year old car + new tires.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People (other than business owners) who lease cars like to waste money

Not really. Or at all.

People who buy new cars outright pay the lease too. Only for them it's called depreciation and comes out of their net worth instead of their income. Leasers pay the depreciation too and have the benefit of tens of thousands of dollars being tied up in a depreciating, non productive asset.

There are a lot of people, here especially who really have no clue about finance (you included)

Your math falls apart once I own the vehicle outright and you're still paying for a car you'll never own.

Hint: your asset has lost half of it's value and will continue to lose value until its only value is as scrap metal. Not paying it as a lease so all right though

Agree, the monthly difference in payment between lease and buying can be invested (presumably you are smart enough to get zero Interest financing and not pay in cash), and maintenance costs can be significant after year three.

I have no dog in this fight but this is simply not true. We have a 5 year old car and a 7 year old car. The 5 year old car has had nothing but routine maintenance. Same with the 7 year old car + new tires.

Still have original brakes? Tires alone are $1000 and need to be replaced every four years if not sooner, unless you drive on bald tires. Never had a car that didn’t require $1000 or more a year in upkeep starting in year 4. Even routine maintenance becomes mine expensive as things like batteries and brake pads need to be replaced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People (other than business owners) who lease cars like to waste money

Not really. Or at all.

People who buy new cars outright pay the lease too. Only for them it's called depreciation and comes out of their net worth instead of their income. Leasers pay the depreciation too and have the benefit of tens of thousands of dollars being tied up in a depreciating, non productive asset.

There are a lot of people, here especially who really have no clue about finance (you included)

Your math falls apart once I own the vehicle outright and you're still paying for a car you'll never own.

Hint: your asset has lost half of it's value and will continue to lose value until its only value is as scrap metal. Not paying it as a lease so all right though

Agree, the monthly difference in payment between lease and buying can be invested (presumably you are smart enough to get zero Interest financing and not pay in cash), and maintenance costs can be significant after year three.

I have no dog in this fight but this is simply not true. We have a 5 year old car and a 7 year old car. The 5 year old car has had nothing but routine maintenance. Same with the 7 year old car + new tires.

Still have original brakes? Tires alone are $1000 and need to be replaced every four years if not sooner, unless you drive on bald tires. Never had a car that didn’t require $1000 or more a year in upkeep starting in year 4. Even routine maintenance becomes mine expensive as things like batteries and brake pads need to be replaced.

$1000 a year is much cheaper than getting a new car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Investing in bonds for the last 10 years, with interest rates close to zero, was plain stupid.

It remains stupid today.

This is both unquestionably true and not even remotely controversial.

I have enough in bond fund to supplement my rental income for 10 years without having to touch my stock investment...I consider this "insurance" for not having to sell stocks during a down turn when I'm retired.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People (other than business owners) who lease cars like to waste money

Not really. Or at all.

People who buy new cars outright pay the lease too. Only for them it's called depreciation and comes out of their net worth instead of their income. Leasers pay the depreciation too and have the benefit of tens of thousands of dollars being tied up in a depreciating, non productive asset.

There are a lot of people, here especially who really have no clue about finance (you included)

Your math falls apart once I own the vehicle outright and you're still paying for a car you'll never own.

Hint: your asset has lost half of it's value and will continue to lose value until its only value is as scrap metal. Not paying it as a lease so all right though

Agree, the monthly difference in payment between lease and buying can be invested (presumably you are smart enough to get zero Interest financing and not pay in cash), and maintenance costs can be significant after year three.

I have no dog in this fight but this is simply not true. We have a 5 year old car and a 7 year old car. The 5 year old car has had nothing but routine maintenance. Same with the 7 year old car + new tires.

Still have original brakes? Tires alone are $1000 and need to be replaced every four years if not sooner, unless you drive on bald tires. Never had a car that didn’t require $1000 or more a year in upkeep starting in year 4. Even routine maintenance becomes mine expensive as things like batteries and brake pads need to be replaced.

You buy terrible cars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People (other than business owners) who lease cars like to waste money

Not really. Or at all.

People who buy new cars outright pay the lease too. Only for them it's called depreciation and comes out of their net worth instead of their income. Leasers pay the depreciation too and have the benefit of tens of thousands of dollars being tied up in a depreciating, non productive asset.

There are a lot of people, here especially who really have no clue about finance (you included)

Your math falls apart once I own the vehicle outright and you're still paying for a car you'll never own.

Hint: your asset has lost half of it's value and will continue to lose value until its only value is as scrap metal. Not paying it as a lease so all right though

Agree, the monthly difference in payment between lease and buying can be invested (presumably you are smart enough to get zero Interest financing and not pay in cash), and maintenance costs can be significant after year three.

I have no dog in this fight but this is simply not true. We have a 5 year old car and a 7 year old car. The 5 year old car has had nothing but routine maintenance. Same with the 7 year old car + new tires.

Still have original brakes? Tires alone are $1000 and need to be replaced every four years if not sooner, unless you drive on bald tires. Never had a car that didn’t require $1000 or more a year in upkeep starting in year 4. Even routine maintenance becomes mine expensive as things like batteries and brake pads need to be replaced.

Yes, on both cars. Tires were $400. Both original batteries. You need to buy better cars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm working until I'm 70+ .

I'm going to have to work until I drop dead. It's not really a choice, just ... how my life has shaken out.

Me too. I don't think about it, it just is.

[Anonymous]

For the car people: not everyone is driving 1000 miles a day. The last two cars I had I kept for 10 years and both had 50K miles when I got rid of them (I wanted something new) and I spent very little on maintaining them over those decades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the car people: not everyone is driving 1000 miles a day. The last two cars I had I kept for 10 years and both had 50K miles when I got rid of them (I wanted something new) and I spent very little on maintaining them over those decades.

You realize that cars aren’t commodities right? A 10 year old car is much different than a brand new one. And a 120k car is a lot different than a 20k one.