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[Mongrel]

So apparently students think that owing other people money is a good thing?

This just in: University students are more retarded than even my horrible cynicism would predict.

[François]

You know, sometimes I feel a little down because of my finances, but debt certainly isn't counted among my problems. I was competing with five other potential tenants for my new apartment, and it turns out I was the only one who didn't owe money anywhere.

Living like a monk sure has its perks!

[Classic]

Something they don't tell you about tonsure: you can sunburn your scalp.

[Friday]

Most of my female friends are just entering that "28" point of their lives where they realize that the forty fucking billion dollars they spent between ages 16-27 on frivolous crap using their credit cards has to actually be paid back.

[Joxam]

This is why I consider the fact that I'm 26 with no debt, a house and a car to pretty much be the pay off from the 10 years I spent busting my ass to take care of my family.

[Friday]

Good on you, Jox.

The fact that some of my 28 year old female friends now have babies and no job to go with their mountain of credit debt basically ensures they will be living in poverty and despair for the rest of their fucking lives. I'd feel sorry for them, except I was constantly warning them to not have babies/stop using credit cards all throughout their lives, so.

And really, I haven't done such a bang up job with my life that I can be looking down on anyone's choices.

Can we make it a new law that people under the age of 25 are not allowed to use credit cards so they don't permanently ruin their lives before their lives actually start?

[Classic]

That would make powerful people less powerful.

[Thad]

It would be instructive to separate student loan debt from credit card debt.  (And, really, frivolous credit card debt from I-just-lost-my-job-and-my-bills-are-due credit card debt.)  An education is one of the few things that it's worth going into debt for (within limits, of course).

The fact that I've gotten this far without ever carrying a credit card balance -- well, I'm not going to lie, part of it IS because of my own talent and discipline.  But part of it is luck.  If I hadn't had a family to help me through school, I'd be paying off student loans just like everybody else.  And if I were living alone, I wouldn't have been able to afford even a one-bedroom apartment during the five months I was unemployed.

So yeah, in this economy even the most fiscally responsible person can wind up in debt, given the right (wrong) set of circumstances.  Course, the most fiscally responsible person won't consider it fucking empowering.

[Brentai]

Not that I'm agreeing with these lemmings, but I do have to say this: having lived for years with my credit cards at near max and then paying them off*, I feel fairly confident that I could do it again if necessary.  Being in the gutter is the easiest way to get over one's fear of being in the gutter.


* Right before I turned 28.

[Joxam]

My 'life lesson' pretty much everyone should learn is that being poor for about 10 years before you have money is pretty much the best way to insure you never wind up in that situation again... unless you're stupid and you just buy a car with spinners when you get money or something low rent like that... God people are stupid.

[Royal☭]

I'll make sure you to be born into a casino-owning tribe in the future, Joxam.

[Joxam]

I'm going to agree with you. I'm sorry for the insensitive nature of what I said. I didn't mean for it to come off like it did. Saying something as stupid as 'people should be poor to learn how to use money' is stupid and I'm sorry I even said it. Basically, what I now know I meant was that people need to learn how to properly value money, and to an even greater extent, debt.

I'm sorry if I came off as insensitive, and I know the average person can't plan their life for a specific day when everything will be better like I could. There isn't a day goes by I don't feel guilt because of it.

[Thad]

There's rather a good bit in Harpo's autobiography where he relates losing all his money in the market crash and then meeting a rich casino owner who, after spending an evening being pranked by him, loaned him enough money to let him get back on his feet.

Harpo relates meeting the man decades later and asking him why he'd gone out on a limb for him.  The man responded that firstly, since he was in the business of taking risks, he made a habit of testing his own judgement in money matters in order to make sure it stayed good, but that the reason he'd bet on Harpo was that he'd seen he could have fun without spending money.

Anyhow.  While I think lean times have helped me stay disciplined when I get disposable income, it doesn't work that way for everybody; people who suddenly come into money often spend it quickly.

I think my ability to delay gratification is as important as my modest tastes and mathematical ability in helping me live within my means.  But it does bear noting again that I've had some pretty good luck besides.

I guess luck is subjective; I'm sure I'd be a richer man if I'd been born five years earlier and had gotten a CS degree at the beginning of the dotcom bubble instead of the end.  But there's a huge damn section of the human population that has a much worse standard of living than I do, so I stand by my assessment that I'm lucky.

[Mongrel]

I have little doubt that I spend more than I ought to, but one of the things that has really made the difference between "not the greatest fiscal discipline" and "individual human equivalent of Greece" is that I learned long ago not to buy things I'm just not going to use.

I mean, I'll buy junk, but it's all things I'm actually going to do. Like when folks tell me to grab something on Steam because it's cheap, I don't. Even though it's a great value, I know I'm probably never going to get around to play whatever the game of the day is, so I just don't buy it. That's why I never have any posts in the "games I gotta get around to playing" thread.

I try to extend that to everything, just not buying things I'm not going to use. I mean, that seems obvious, but in an age where everything is so heavily advertised and where microtransactions and sales where the price is lowered enough to make not buying seem "foolish" (Steam sales and the like), impulse buying has gotten easier and easier. I mean I know people who now spend like $75 a month on $1 apps. There's no WAY they're using even a tenth of those. This is also the biggest reason I don't own a car. Of course I've lost potential jobs over not owning a car, but never one I was upset to pass on.

As a result, probably my biggest unwise regular expenditure is food (it's too say to rationalize "eating well") and maintenance costs. I'm at an age where not a month goes by that I don't have to replace something or buy something for the apartment (parts for one bike or another, furniture or the like, clothes, etc.). Even when it's way overdue (my motorbike helmet was so banged up and worn out that last year the instructor refused to let me use it), I still feel like "hey I could have used this old item just a bit longer...". Sometimes (like the motorbike helmet), that's silly thinking, but sometimes it's not.

The real problem is that my income is adequate to survive, but is in no way adequate to improve my lot. Even if I lived like a monk and trashed all discretionary spending, I would save a few grand per year at most. A few grand is certainly nothing to sneeze at, but if I want to save for school, start a business, or do ANYTHING meaningful, I would need to be making at least twenty-five percent more than I do now. 

[R^2]

hey guys what's up in this thread personal finance huh that's cool

[Aintaer]

Can we make it a new law that people under the age of 25 are not allowed to use credit cards so they don't permanently ruin their lives before their lives actually start?

But then somebody who understands responsibility, be they personal or financial, could not build up a credit history from the moment they are legally entitled and responsible.
In my circle of Asian friends, the joke is that out of college, you stop comparing grades and start comparing credit scores.

[Friday]

Can we make it a new law that people under the age of 25 are not allowed to use credit cards so they don't permanently ruin their lives before their lives actually start?

But then somebody who understands responsibility, be they personal or financial, could not build up a credit history from the moment they are legally entitled and responsible.
In my circle of Asian friends, the joke is that out of college, you stop comparing grades and start comparing credit scores.

asians aren't people

[Lottel]

Can we make it a new law that people under the age of 25 are not allowed to use credit cards so they don't permanently ruin their lives before their lives actually start?

But then somebody who understands responsibility, be they personal or financial, could not build up a credit history from the moment they are legally entitled and responsible.
In my circle of Asian friends, the joke is that out of college, you stop comparing grades and start comparing credit scores.

"Comparing credit scores" is an odd way of saying "Compete in SC2"

[Thad]

But then somebody who understands responsibility, be they personal or financial, could not build up a credit history from the moment they are legally entitled and responsible.

Right.  Good luck even renting a one-bedroom apartment if you don't have a credit history.

[MarsDragon]

I managed to do it! But I had a previous person I had been renting with vouch for me, and an offer letter for steady employment. Now I have a credit card I only use for my cell phone bill just in case.