Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Feelin' Gloomy
I keep hearing about these green shoots, but I don't see any. My biz certainly isn't seeing those shoots. I read that disability claims have risen 20% the past year and I have a hard time believing that many people have suddenly become disabled. Sounds to me like there are a whole lot of people who can't find a job and are desperate to get some money flowing in. With all of the Wall Street shenanigans and bailouts from Washington I can't criticize those moderate and low-income Americans who want to cheat the system. My moral compass is still working fine but for our leaders (both political and business) their compass has been broken.
If I didn't have children I wouldn't be stressed. Those of you with young kids know what I am talking about. The responsibility for our children raises the stress to an entirely different level. For us, failure is not an option. Even though I have prepared for this as best I can (and if you're a regular visitor to my blog you likely have as well), I still fret that IT IS NOT ENOUGH.
Perhaps I am a chicken little. My car is 10 years old and I want (not need) a new one. I still don't have a 42" HDTV. Maybe it's time to quit being a cheap crank who obsesses about financial bubbles and enjoy life. Spend a little. Maybe spend a lot... and put it on my credit card. My house is almost paid off and that's money just sitting there, waiting to be liberated.
I have been thinking about retirement in a couple of decades. I have no way of knowing where I'll be relationship-wise and what kind of financial shape I'll be in. I find myself pondering this and more often than not it appeals to me. I want to go the mobile route by choice, although I think that many of us will be forced to go the immobile route, with a trailer parked in one spot permanently. How far can a retiree with no savings stretch $1500/mo?
Canada in the summer, south Texas in the winter. Not tied down to a house or condo, free to leave anytime and travel anywhere within North America. Yes, that would be fine.
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12 comments:
IF your house and car are paiid for, you can live pretty cheaply. in ht e20 years he lived after my grandmother died, my Granddad, whose income was about $28k per year, managed to put nearly $150k in the bank. He bought everything he wanted, gave money to charity, etc. He lived in a small town in South Texas, which helped some in terms of expenses. He bought new cars every 10 years, but wasn't extravagant. In these times, it's better to be careful.
Lou Minatti has jumped the shark.. by saying he wants to live in a van down by the river, Serin-style. :-)
But seriously, I find that the longer I live without the new car or the 2000" TV, the less I need them. I think you should quit obsessing about bubbles. Don't ignore the tsunami, just get upland out of reach of it and whistle as you continue to enjoy your walk. No need to spend big.
It is somewhat surreal to see the new cars, houses, and TVs among my peers with similar or smaller incomes. Oh, well. Nothing says you have to go along with the crowd, or that the crowd really enjoys what it's doing. For now, it's a great time to be in cash and to live unpretentiously.
I have enough money to spend like an idiot and play the keep up with the Joneses game but I don't. I like to sleep well at night. However, here and there it is good to reward yourself with a job well done. I just bought myself a small flat panel for $300 at Costco - my wife was shocked as she knows I hardly ever buy anything for myself that isn't bike or fitness related.
You can have that motor home gig; I dream of being a snowbird - AZ in the winter, Michigan in the summer.
One winter I bought a 25' sailboat on ebay for $1,500, a outboard for 4 and various stuff for another 5 hundred. I sailed it down that summer down the coast, taking my time, fishing. I read books, fished, walked the towns. About once a week I'd pull into a marina and get a good hot shower and go out for cheeseburgers and beer and a hangover.
When I got to south Florida, I put the boat back on ebay and sold it for about what I had into it.
You can get beater 25's for almost free now. People are dumping their toys.
I'm sniffing around for something in the low 30 foot range. With stand up room, a shower, oven, diesel. They are out there all day long for under 5k. I'm just holding off as the prices are still crashing.
I can cook, bartend, carpentry, plumb. I don't gamble, do drugs and always figure it's not my job, it's the owners job and we both need happy customers.
So, I figure this year I'll pick up a nice, neglected, fixer upper and be on the coast until the hereditary coronary does comes for me.
Hi Doug,
I think you should quit obsessing about bubbles.
I think you are right. It will be difficult to break myself from this addiction, though.
That's a pretty sweet life, Paul. You have it figured out.
I was doing some traveling in Mexico in the mid-90's and met this old hippy surfer. He had a converted school bus, front 25% camper, back 75% storage. He would collect used tires in Northern California and follow the waves south to Mexico where he would sell the tires. He would than buy Mexican furniture and art and follow the waves back north the next season and sell the furniture to the gringos in San Fran. He had been doing this for years but at the time he thought he had maybe 1-2 trips left. I guess the state of California was implimenting a new tax on old tires that made it unprofitable for him.
Love the boat idea, would come in handy for the Zombie invasion.
Socialism is about equality...so just accept that you will give your children the same futue as someone in India...except theirs will be better educated in the basic 3Rs..."change we can believe in"....learn to love your car because you should not have it as your contribution to save Mother Earth from carbon...look for a green job within walking distance from your next communal.
Almost all of my older relatives have managed quite well using the old-school method: Save a little, pay off the house well before you retire, grow a big veggie garden, and don't squander your savings on adult kids who should take care of their own problems. Some even scok away most of their social security checks in the bank every month.
Stay away from high property tax states, and stay away from the coast. The problem is that some of these places that look affordable (like central Louisiana if you can stand the climate) can seem pretty isolated once you're living there as an outsider.
It probably helps even more to have friends and family with the same modest, frugal attitude, instead of hanging out with the retired golf-and-travel crowd where you'll find yourself spending as much or more in retirement than you did working.
So most of the advice comes down to this...
Having listened to my coworkers, you might do OK on $15K. How do you feel about curry every day?
@Michael Ryan, I was sure that your link was going to be this video instead.
Mexico is a great place for U.S. expats (better for Canadians)
Buy their national plan (IMSS) for catastrophic coverage (about $300/year), pay out of pocket for normal doctor visits.
Come back to the U.S. for major scheduled stuff like a transplant (on Medicare's dime)
I moved my mom down to Guad. for better long-term care than I could get anywhere here locally.
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