Random thoughts thread

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and because I need to continue to not look at work stuff for several more minutes, here is a picture of the lot in question. This is to the west (front of house would face east). I'm standing basically on the lot line, our lot would be the left portion of the picture. The big oak tree is basically the back of the lot. The land further to the west of that is currently farmed and in no plans to be developed for at least 10-15 years, and probably longer.

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I'm a couple days behind because I can't keep up with all the posts in this thread(how are several of you still employed). But from the looks of it you have a lot to think about.

ba dum ching
 
Since I don't have kids I have no idea what any of this means

I had to Google that first sentence. It's that opening line of the Lion King that the dude yells.

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So all this baby talk reminds me my sister-in-law is pregnant with Boy #4, due mid September. She homeschools the two oldest. (Who will be 11 and 8 when the baby is born, youngest will be 3 1/2)

How is she going to swing that? Start school a month late? Ugh. I'm glad I don't have to figure out those logistics.
 
So all this baby talk reminds me my sister-in-law is pregnant with Boy #4, due mid September. She homeschools the two oldest. (Who will be 11 and 8 when the baby is born, youngest will be 3 1/2)

How is she going to swing that? Start school a month late? Ugh. I'm glad I don't have to figure out those logistics.


My friend was homeschooling two when the third was born. She said it was pretty easy to catch up until the youngest got mobile and wanted 'in' on it causing distractions.

8 & 11 can be mostly self directed according to another friend. In retrospect, I'm glad they're not pressuring me about school thoughts yet. I know more homeschoolers than public schoolers....
 
How can so many people afford to build houses and still live a fun life?

We make a decent amount of money and I'm afraid to look at anything more than 175k. Maybe I am just too conservative.
 
How can so many people afford to build houses and still live a fun life?

We make a decent amount of money and I'm afraid to look at anything more than 175k. Maybe I am just too conservative.
We are in the same boat. My assumptions have always been rich parents who paid for college and/or loads of credit card debt.
 
We are in the same boat. My assumptions have always been rich parents who paid for college and/or loads of credit card debt.


for us we just save a lot and have good jobs in in-demand industries. Parents paid 10% of my college bill (but I didn't get "paid" for my 35-40 hour weeks on the farm from 12-18), husband's parents paid about 20% of his, which he is expected to at least partially pay back at some point. But that allowed him to not take on loans so it's all interest free.

But then I see people on FB talking about buying homes when I know for a fact they were on government aid a couple years ago. I don't know what those people are thinking.

No one would call either of our set of parents rich, though technically my parents' assets are substantial. But they weren't going to sell farmland for me to go to college.
 
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for us we just save a lot and have good jobs in in-demand industries. Parents paid 10% of my college bill (but I didn't get "paid" for my 35-40 hour weeks on the farm from 12-18), husband's parents paid about 20% of his, which he is expected to at least partially pay back at some point. But that allowed him to not take on loans so it's all interest free.

What percentage do you save and can you quantify "good job".
 
What percentage do you save and can you quantify "good job".

it's in my earlier post. Right now we save just below 60% of our take-home. Less if we take a vacation beyond something that's just a weekend hotel type trip. Husband is in computer engineering/software development, I am in agricultural research.
 
How can so many people afford to build houses and still live a fun life?

We make a decent amount of money and I'm afraid to look at anything more than 175k. Maybe I am just too conservative.

We are in the same boat. My assumptions have always been rich parents who paid for college and/or loads of credit card debt.


I guess it depends on your definition of a 'fun life'. I graduated from college with 20-something grand in student loans, worked for 9 months, was unemployed for 9 months, under-employed (for my degree and student loan debt) for a year and a half (translation...pretty much broke for 3 years after college), but 10 years later, with 2 kids and a wife that works part time, we still have plenty of money to do what we want, no debt but the house, and we have a nice, but not mansion house.

Those first 9 months I was working, I bought whatever I wanted and wasn't saving very much at all. My time unemployed and underemployed made me realize the 'things' that I thought I wanted weren't making me as happy as I thought they would, and my financial situation was only tenable because I hadn't bought a car on credit (but I had been looking), and I only had an apartment payment and me to feed. I started cooking because it was the only hobby I could afford, but now it's a favorite hobby of mine, and I find it fun to do.

Likewise, neither my wife or I are huge travellers. We went to Playa Del Carmen for our honeymoon, and a few driving trips out west and to the UP of Michigan, because I'd rather be in a national park with breathtaking scenery than on a beach sweating my butt off.

So, I guess if buying every gadget that comes out and going on multi-thousand vacations several times a year is how you define 'fun', yeah, you might have to choose between home investing and that, but personally, I never feel like I am denying myself because of finances. There are times, due to the kids and our work schedules, that I don't have TIME to do things I'd like to do (homebrewing is a big one), but I never feel limited by finances.

Final caveat: because of my financial situation when I finally got out of the under-employed boat, there were times where I was in that boat, but the effort spent working on correcting that, and the lessons learned in the impacts of my choices have paid off to where at 38, I'm doing pretty well.
 
I guess it depends on your definition of a 'fun life'. I graduated from college with 20-something grand in student loans, worked for 9 months, was unemployed for 9 months, under-employed (for my degree and student loan debt) for a year and a half (translation...pretty much broke for 3 years after college), but 10 years later, with 2 kids and a wife that works part time, we still have plenty of money to do what we want, no debt but the house, and we have a nice, but not mansion house.

Those first 9 months I was working, I bought whatever I wanted and wasn't saving very much at all. My time unemployed and underemployed made me realize the 'things' that I thought I wanted weren't making me as happy as I thought they would, and my financial situation was only tenable because I hadn't bought a car on credit (but I had been looking), and I only had an apartment payment and me to feed. I started cooking because it was the only hobby I could afford, but now it's a favorite hobby of mine, and I find it fun to do.

Likewise, neither my wife or I are huge travellers. We went to Playa Del Carmen for our honeymoon, and a few driving trips out west and to the UP of Michigan, because I'd rather be in a national park with breathtaking scenery than on a beach sweating my butt off.

So, I guess if buying every gadget that comes out and going on multi-thousand vacations several times a year is how you define 'fun', yeah, you might have to choose between home investing and that, but personally, I never feel like I am denying myself because of finances. There are times, due to the kids and our work schedules, that I don't have TIME to do things I'd like to do (homebrewing is a big one), but I never feel limited by finances.

Final caveat: because of my financial situation when I finally got out of the under-employed boat, there were times where I was in that boat, but the effort spent working on correcting that, and the lessons learned in the impacts of my choices have paid off to where at 38, I'm doing pretty well.


yeah, we don't really have expensive hobbies, DH coupons and times sales for groceries, buy (quality!) clothes on sale, always bring lunch from home - we just never really left the broke college student lifestyle. I was our only income for about six months and we still pretty much live that way except now we don't have my student loans so it feels like we have more money and we just save the rest. Do we go out to nice restaurants now and then and shop at better clothing stores? Yes. We do like to travel, but it's all planned in advance and saved for. Though with the house stuff, we haven't done anything in a year and probably won't do anything big for another year +. Our life probably isn't very fun to most people because we don't go out and do a ton of stuff - we're very much homebodies. So like you said, if you like gadgets and fancy cars, you will have to give on something else.
 
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