I'm actually doin pretty well

[erik]

I'll post my little bio over here since I don't wanna derail joseph's thread any further.

My reason for posting was mostly that I feel guilty that I'm not nearly as bad off as so many folks here. My only trouble is one that is shared with everybody else in the country to some degree, and I'm pretty well prepared for it.

We actually waited until we were ready to have kids. I'm pretty good at financial planning and had a fair understanding of where/when I would be ready to afford kids without stressing about the money. I know that worrying about money can cause a lot of undue stress upon a marriage and I didn't want that so I swore to not have kids until I estimated that we could manage it.

So I now have got a fair bit saved up, paid off a fair chunk of our mortgage (25% done after 3 years, could knock out another 10% right now but we're thinking of investing a bunch once the market bottoms out), paid off the cars, and have been investing in our IRA's... though have been watching that money thin out, but we're young enough that it will recover a barring total and complete financial meltdown where we go to a barter system.

We would have started on kids sooner, but it was just me supporting both of us for a couple years where I had initially calculated plans based upon my wife having an equal or greater income to my own rather than almost none at all. I wanted my wife to work at least a little bit to give us some comfort zone in order to pay off those above items.

In a bit over 4 years my ARM mortgage will turn into one of those monstrous loans that have ridonkulous interest rates, but my plan is to sell the house a year or two before that, and it will be mostly paid off as well at that point (under my old 2 income plan it would have been entirely paid off, but oh well). If it came down to it, I could probably refinance via getting a loan from my family and pay them back with proper interest. At least I can offer some hope to folks that not every subprime/ARM loan that was made was a total piece of crap that can't or won't be repaid. We talked with a couple loan officers who encouraged us to get a house up to 50% more costly and with a shorter duration until the crazy-go-fucked interest rate kicked in, but we played it safe and our subprime mortgage actually is a boon to our personal finances instead of a death sentence.

I just have to resist the temptation to gamble on the markets right now since it's so damned tempting to sell things short. It could be so easy to make a lot of money right now, but the volatility is insane and it's too scary for a rational person to try it.

[Koumei]

I just have to resist the temptation to gamble on the markets right now since it's so damned tempting to sell things short. It could be so easy to make a lot of money right now, but the volatility is insane and it's too scary for a rational person to try it.

Don't worry, just be as greedy as you can, and if it fails, Bush will bail you out!

[PhoneLobster]

Hey just because I posted my health adventures on the health adventures thread doesn't mean I'm not doing pretty OK over all.

I'm self employed in a business sufficiently successful to be still functional and even growing while much of its industry has been in decline and failure ever since it's foundation.

I work and live in beautiful surrounds and enjoy my own personal world class collection of rare and exotic plants AND the other world class collections of rare and exotic plants belonging to my family members. (That is enjoy aesthetically, that needs pointing out. People always get idea's when you tell them you grow plants for a living, even when you say "No, special rare plants!")

My medical problems are mostly under control and very probably not life threatening. My sister's health appears to be improving, my parents health is not really worse than can be expected for their age, my families apparent inherited dispositions are nothing especially unusual.

As to being single, at my age, in a government declared girl drought region. Well, I blame it in part on being the price of my own life choices. Like neither drinking or smoking or worshipping space zombies called Jeeeeebus, and being informed passionate and educated, and just plain different. Also I'm probably not even five feet tall, decidedly hirsute and swarthy by complexion. I know the statistics, in those and many other fields decided by my genetics, upbringing, education and sheer stubbornness I rank last in the "getting any" ratings. I can deal with it. And I get the consolation prize of being highly charismatic due to resulting learned social behaviour.

And after all that if worst comes to worst with the new great depression I'm basically a farmer living on a productive farm that already has various food sources if you know how to harvest them and can convert from flowers to food for the rest of it at pretty much the drop of a hat.

So hell I KNOW there are people out there who have it easier than me, hell I know there are people out there to whom my level of difficulties in life or the kinds of experiences I've been through would seem like insurmountable hell on earth because they've never known a moment of real pain difficulty or misfortune in their entire spoilt lives.

But there aren't altogether THAT many of them, and I wouldn't really want to be one. Most of them tend to be unsympathetic pricks.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

My father is essentially set for life. Here is his strategy:

Get a house/condo. Own it. 10 year mortgage. Whatever. Own it. Soon.
Get another house/condo. Rent the first or second. Get other people to essentially buy it for you. 10 year mortgage. The good news is that you should only be paying taxes/repairs while these people pay the mortgage. Save your 'house payment' part of the budget for something (retirement, investment, kids college, whatever).

You have to figure that this is 20-30 years out now. You have:
A place to live, assuming that you can pay the taxes.
A source of income.

You are now set. Housing prices will fluctuate, taxes will fluctuate, whatever. But you have no house payment, shouldn't have a car payment, and a source of income that is likely to be almost completely discretionary, and a huge savings amount (enough to buy another house or so). If you have contributed to your 401K/retirement, that is an added bonus.

My father has 2 properties that are rented out, one of which is paid off, and lives in a third. He still works (he is only 50), so still has that income. He lives on the beach, makes 40K in work, 20K in housing, and has no expenses (save for food and taxes).

Anywho, the idea of selling a house that you have substancially paid off makes me cringe. Is refinancing that bad?

[erik]

Anywho, the idea of selling a house that you have substancially paid off makes me cringe. Is refinancing that bad?

In my case, my current house is more of a starter home, and will be a bit too small to raise kids in for my taste. So I'll want to sell it and basically apply what I get towards a more substantial house such that I'll have that paid off in a jiffy as well and only have a very light mortgage until that time.

I do know some folks who have done the whole rental property thing. If you get lucky with renters it can be nice, but I wouldn't want the headache of having to maintain multiple homes (there's always *something* that needs fixed), and possibly put up with irritating renters from hell. I'm pleased with my current plan of simply keeping debt to an absolute minimum, and growing what money remains afterwards. I actually don't make that much money, I just don't spend that much either.

Glad to hear that things are mostly goin a'right for ya Lobster. I do think that people who live with and overcome hardships tend to be more interesting and worthwhile folks to know. My wife and I each have had our own significant health issues. I'm just hoping our kids won't have to deal with what we did, and instead their hardship can be dealing with us.

[Josh_Kablack]

I just have to resist the temptation to gamble on the markets right now since it's so damned tempting to sell things short. It could be so easy to make a lot of money right now, but the volatility is insane and it's too scary for a rational person to try it

The keyword there is GAMBLE. As in, don't bet what you cannot afford to lose on a bad bet.

If you truly are doing well, I strongly suggest taking a tiny fraction of your savings/investments and make what you think is a good play - volatility can cut both ways, and while the risks are big, the potential profit is also big.

If paying down that mortgage is more pressing, then just keep right on ignoring the market volatility and stay focused on your plan.

[erik]

I just have to resist the temptation to gamble on the markets right now since it's so damned tempting to sell things short. It could be so easy to make a lot of money right now, but the volatility is insane and it's too scary for a rational person to try it

The keyword there is GAMBLE. As in, don't bet what you cannot afford to lose on a bad bet.

Heh, the trouble with short selling is that there is technically no limit to how much you can lose. You can lose many many times what you put up when you sell short and it goes bad (i.e. the stock goes up rather than going down). With everything dropping the way it is, it seems like easy money, but there is so much volatility in the market that things could swing either way in the short term.

So I'm just gonna do the sensical thing and let the market bottom out, watch the volatility index and when that tapers off a bit. After things go up for a bit, then I can buy a bunch of still-undervalued stocks as long term investments, or call options with dates out as far as I can get (my dad was pushing me to get into some options set for January 2011, but I think if I wait longer I can still get better prices).