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The rich niche

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Re: The rich niche

#51

Post by judahmeek »

ahelwer wrote: post #15
throwaway22032 wrote: post #5

You can argue that this is a feedback loop, though. I can survive on minimum wage in the UK, therefore if I earn min wage + 1,000 (after tax), I can afford these subscriptions. The question is whether I prefer that over other things. I prioritised learning materials, computers, etc in my youth when I had a hilariously low budget and it paid dividends. The questions IMO are: 1) to what extent is the economy zero sum,…

Reading the news is, in my opinion, nearly diametrically opposed to investing in yourself. You will get a better understanding of current events (upon hearing of them from others, the best filter that money can't even buy) by reading history books exploring the past couple hundred years. The news is an entertainment product where personalities are constantly making statements or predictions that never pan out, and th…

I agree for the most part.

That said, it requires actually reading the news for someone to come to the same conclusion that you did through first hand experience, rather than just taking your word for it.

Re: The rich niche

#52

Post by ryandrake »

dwater wrote: post #26
sandworm101 wrote: post #6

I was recently a rep for the office's annual charity drive. At the end of it our office (west coast) was compared to offices in other parts of the country. While we had lots of one-time donations, literally nobody signed up for "workplace giving", to have money regularly taken off their paychecks. It is about fear an uncertainty. When people are stretched thin they will still give money when they can. But when is key…

This took a lot of my mental energy when I was a teacher. I didn't have any of my bills on autopay because I had to constantly manage when I would have enough money in my account to pay any given bill. Even now that I'm much more comfortable I only have about half of my bills set to autopay just in case, e.g., one bill comes due the day before my paycheck lands in my account.

I mean, doesn't everyone do this, even if they aren't living on a shoestring budget? I usually plan ahead about 1-2 months in advance: Pay my bills on the due date, keep track of when each pay check will come in and the expected amount, on days when the balance is expected to drop below zero, either 1. find some way to deposit some cash or 2. (if able) schedule a small transfer from my savings account to cover the difference. On days when the balance is more than what's needed for my next set of bills, schedule a small transfer into the savings account. Checking account never contains more than what's needed until your next paycheck.

Re: The rich niche

#53

Post by BizarroLand »

ryandrake wrote: post #52
dwater wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This took a lot of my mental energy when I was a teacher. I didn't have any of my bills on autopay because I had to constantly manage when I would have enough money in my account to pay any given bill. Even now that I'm much more comfortable I only have about half of my bills set to autopay just in case, e.g., one bill comes due the day before my paycheck lands in my account.

I mean, doesn't everyone do this, even if they aren't living on a shoestring budget? I usually plan ahead about 1-2 months in advance: Pay my bills on the due date, keep track of when each pay check will come in and the expected amount, on days when the balance is expected to drop below zero, either 1. find some way to deposit some cash or 2. (if able) schedule a small transfer from my savings account to cover the di…

I pay every possible bill on a 2% cash back credit card that is basically dedicated to that purpose. That way my bills can come out whenever and it is my job to pay off that card every month to avoid interest payments and in exchange for that convenience I get rewarded with 2% of my mandatory spending to be put back into my pocket, and it gives me flexibility should I need to dole out on an unexpected expense with cash.

Re: The rich niche

#54

Post by BizarroLand »

jseliger wrote: post #40
escapedmoose wrote: post #37

I’ve been a subscriber to the print edition of Wired for about 4 or 5 years now. Lately the ads and articles targeted at the absurdly-affluent have got on my nerves, and I don’t think I’ll renew again. I can’t say whether this is because the ads are now more pervasive, or because I’ve become more class-conscious over time. As a side note, does anyone find it ridiculous that a combined household income of $100k is sup…

Depends on where you are and who you are. Housing costs vary dramatically across the U.S.: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388 . In addition, most zoning regulations reduce the supply of housing and thus raise prices as demand go up. Someone who bought a place in California or New York or Boston 30 years ago may have seven figures in a primary asset and relatively low earnings.

I'm making $120k in Seattle and it seems like I'm no better off than my mom was making $35k as a nurse when I was a kid. Sure, that was 20 something years ago but its absurd how I make nearly 4x the money and it still doesn't go as far as it used to.

Annual vacations, family car, 3 bd house at an affordable price. Sure, we didn't have cable but we would get dvd rentals and broadcast TV worked pretty well. Now you are lucky to get 3 channels that work consistently even with an amplified antenna.

Re: The rich niche

#55

Post by escapedmoose »

BizarroLand wrote: post #54
jseliger wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on where you are and who you are. Housing costs vary dramatically across the U.S.: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388 . In addition, most zoning regulations reduce the supply of housing and thus raise prices as demand go up. Someone who bought a place in California or New York or Boston 30 years ago may have seven figures in a primary asset and relatively low earnings.

I'm making $120k in Seattle and it seems like I'm no better off than my mom was making $35k as a nurse when I was a kid. Sure, that was 20 something years ago but its absurd how I make nearly 4x the money and it still doesn't go as far as it used to. Annual vacations, family car, 3 bd house at an affordable price. Sure, we didn't have cable but we would get dvd rentals and broadcast TV worked pretty well. Now you are…

I feel the same way. My SO and I together bring in over 2x the median US household income in a below-average COL area outside a small city, no kids. We have a comfortable life: own our home, one modest vacation per year, and have some money left over each month to spend on hobbies. But damn, this doesn’t feel like “affluence” to me.

Re: The rich niche

#56

Post by mbg721 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #6

I was recently a rep for the office's annual charity drive. At the end of it our office (west coast) was compared to offices in other parts of the country. While we had lots of one-time donations, literally nobody signed up for "workplace giving", to have money regularly taken off their paychecks. It is about fear an uncertainty. When people are stretched thin they will still give money when they can. But when is key…

I'm not in any immediate danger of being overdrawn, and I still detest automatic billing in general. (I do it for one bill where there's a significant upcharge for not doing it and switching providers isn't easy.) If I'm spending or giving away my money, I want to sign a check or at least tap a button every time. It's insulting to me for a charity to say, "Here, giving what you want is a bother, let us just take care of it."

Re: The rich niche

#57

Post by nly »

sandworm101 wrote: post #6

I was recently a rep for the office's annual charity drive. At the end of it our office (west coast) was compared to offices in other parts of the country. While we had lots of one-time donations, literally nobody signed up for "workplace giving", to have money regularly taken off their paychecks. It is about fear an uncertainty. When people are stretched thin they will still give money when they can. But when is key…

I see a lot of people at my place of work giving from their gross income via salary sacrifice simply because they've maxed out their pension allowance and would rather see a charity get it than pay the government another penny in tax.

Once I reach that level of income I'd probably do the same, even if on a take-home basis I didn't feel "rich" due to high CoL.

Right now though, my primary concern is having a big enough pot in retirement, so my tax advantaged contributions go to pension (401k equivalent)

Re: The rich niche

#58

Post by asoneth »

sandworm101 wrote: post #6

I was recently a rep for the office's annual charity drive. At the end of it our office (west coast) was compared to offices in other parts of the country. While we had lots of one-time donations, literally nobody signed up for "workplace giving", to have money regularly taken off their paychecks. It is about fear an uncertainty. When people are stretched thin they will still give money when they can. But when is key…

I don't mind subscriptions as they're more valuable to the organizations I support than a similar dollar-value of one-time-gifts. Though I do get why people in precarious positions (e.g. low paid workers, founders, or many people in high cost-of-living areas) would prefer not to use them.

But the only reason I can imagine routing charitable giving through work is to take advantage of company matching. At a past company that did 100% dollar-for-dollar matching (up to something like ten thousand dollars) I was happy to shift as many of my donations as possible through work to direct more of the company's giving towards my preferred charities. At my current company that does 0% matching there's no reason for me to involve work in my charitable giving.

Re: The rich niche

#59

Post by liber8 »

brimble wrote: post #36
liber8 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen a credit card that did not allow you to schedule your payments. If you auto-pay everything with credit cards, then by default you are scheduling your payments. Same with mortgages. For the few things that don't accept cards (rent/water/gas/electric?) you could schedule payments whenever you want through your bank, though you'd likely be paying in advance rather than in arrears.

I've never paid bills from the CC side, but from the provider side. I don't even know how I'd tell my CC to automatically pay some entity on a set schedule. It's all pulled by the service providers, separately, on whatever schedule they decide (or choose to let me configure). I know I can do it with account-to-account transfers (so, electronic checks) from my checking account, but had no idea that was a thing for cre…

You don't need to tell your CC to pay some entity on a set schedule. I don't think my initial post was clear enough.

Credit cards are paid in arrears, usually with a 15 day grace period, so you are effectively getting a 15-30 day interest free loan on all purchases. When you set up a credit card, you can select any payment date you want. So, if I get a new AMEX, I can choose to have the bill due on the 1st, or 12th, or any day I want.

If I pay all my bills (i.e. Netflix, car insurance, etc.) with my AMEX, I know the AMEX bill is due every 12th (or whatever day of the month I choose). For any bill paid by the credit card (i.e. Netflix, car insurance, etc.), it doesn't matter what day of the month that particular bill gets charged to the AMEX. I only pay AMEX once a month, on the day I selected. So, by choosing what day my AMEX gets paid, I am effectively choosing which date I am required to pay all of the bills that got charged to my AMEX.

There are very few things that you can't pay by credit card. For those (i.e. mortgage, some utilities), you can schedule auto-payments on any day you want, through your bank.

Re: The rich niche

#60

Post by Dylan16807 »

ahelwer wrote: post #49
metabagel wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump's ties to the Russian government and intelligence services are far from a hoax. https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/513499-republicans-i... https://i.redd.it/nf1crtngi3iy.jpg

Look, I know there's negligible chance I'll be able to overcome your sunk cost of multiple years of attention and presumably many authored social media posts, but you really can just move on and nobody will actually care one way or the other. The 2016 election wasn't rigged, it's just a weird thing that happened and a handful of Russian people being paid to post poorly-made memes contributed very little to the outcom…

You should probably stop imagining that people you're talking to are saying the election was rigged.
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