281–290 of 327 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A dollar tomorrow is worth less than it is today
Your local bank or credit union will trade your dollar today for more than a dollar tomorrow!
My spouse and I have been talking about this quite a bit lately. Even with two incomes from tech employment we are watching our budget since it feels like everything is extra expensive lately. The income gains we’ve made have only allowed us to maintain versus climb to the next level of lifestyle. It makes me wonder where we will start falling behind. Obviously we are fortunate to not live on credit cards and have ou…
I bet wherever you are living you have a household income in the top 20% locally. I bet you’re spending a lot more on “something” than the median wage earner in your metro area.
As a parent with kids, I really don't know how folks are getting by with the prices of everything. I know folks who keep eating out, buying new vehicles, and even building new houses and I'm left scratching my head wondering how they afford all of this. I'm not saving nearly as much as I was years ago and I think my "lifestyle" has decreased post COVID (few vacations, eating out is a treat, gifts are for birthdays/ho…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The wage-price spiral is a myth. The cause of inflation is, as usual, the government running the printing press and printing "free" money. Then, the pesky Law of Supply and Demand devalues the extra money, which we call "inflation".
I didn't say anything about the wage price spiral. One category that has had above-average inflation is food away from home. That's mostly driven by wages of the workers , not wages of the clientele. The pesky law you mention is indeed the issue. Not enough people are willing to work in restaurants, and/or not enough people are willing to modify their habits to avoid eating in restaurants when the prices increase. Wh…
It's only a debate for people who haven't looked at the history of money and inflation. Inflation is always the result of an increase in the supply of money relative to the value of goods and services in the economy. It happens when there are gold rushes, silver rushes, and running the government printing press.
Our current inflation happened soon after a massive increase in deficit spending.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This can be a misleading statistic. A lot of people use credit cards as a substitute for cash, and pay off the balance every month. This is accounted as "debt" but in a practical sense it is not. Me, I use the credit card as a 6 week interest-free loan, plus getting the cash back discount.
Do you do anything with the funds during those 6 weeks?
Occasionally the CC company will send me an offer of a loan for very low interest for a year. I run the numbers, and if it looks good, I'll take the loan and invest the money, and pay it back at the end of the term.
The CC company, of course, is hoping I'll miss payments so they can charge me 30% interest. I disappoint them.
Being aware of the time value of money is essential for managing your finances in your own best interest.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is accurate. Once the unit price is calculated with the temporarily higher input price, they are not going to reduce the unit price for as long as possible, even if input prices go down. And what's worse? The FED does not want negative CPI. They want slowly rising CPI. A negative CPI is deflation, something they want to absolutely avoid. They don't want prices to go down. They only want them to rise up slower. W…
It’s a pretty easy problem to solve, just have wages increase automatically on an annual basis in line with changes to the CPI. That would be in addition to any raises due to good job performance or a promotion. Or even on a monthly basis during periods of high inflation. Obviously, companies avoid this simple solution because they make money on the delay between raising the price of the product they sell and when th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you do anything with the funds during those 6 weeks?
I invest it. Occasionally the CC company will send me an offer of a loan for very low interest for a year. I run the numbers, and if it looks good, I'll take the loan and invest the money, and pay it back at the end of the term. The CC company, of course, is hoping I'll miss payments so they can charge me 30% interest. I disappoint them. Being aware of the time value of money is essential for managing your finances i…
How do you keep that from negatively impacting your credit rating?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a home daycare. She has 5 kids that she watches, and only one infant. I think that might be the maximum she's allowed - certainly only one infant. The infant price is more expensive as well. Keep in mind that daycare centers themselves need to profit, so going "direct" would be cheaper.
Yes, so that is a different product than the previous poster’s $2.5k per month daycare. If workers are hard to find in your rural area, a comparable daycare might not be too far from $2.5k per month.
Also, no windows. They built it in an old mall. I couldn't get past those two things.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I bet wherever you are living you have a household income in the top 20% locally. I bet you’re spending a lot more on “something” than the median wage earner in your metro area.
Interesting assumptions. In our case you are incorrect. We really don’t ‘spend a lot more’ on anything. Our house was purchased in 2020 under what the bank would fund us for. We are already priced out of our own neighborhood. We have one car paid off and another will be paid off this fall. Our last real vacation was in 2018 and we don’t have kids or pricey hobbies. However we have observed the cost of everyday goods…
And then not to mention there are probably literally millions of enterprise devs living in major cities across the country making much less than you are probably making in cheaper places that are living a good middle class lifestyle with 2.1 kids in the burbs, going on vacations and not struggling.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nitrogen fill on the tires. Complete bullshit. It's a marketing company
For people who checking air in tires is not a habit, nitrogen will keep them full a bit longer. A bit scammy as sold, sure, but cars are optimized for minimal maintanice these days. For the unaware, common atmospheric air is like 80% nitrogen already.