Dave Ramsey

[seedubs1]

Seriously.....For my first house, we qualified for something like a $400k house. WTF. Nope. I guess we could have afforded that if we lived on plastic lawn furniture and cardboard boxes in the house, didn't invest in retirement, only ate ramen, and never did anything or any traveling. Just because a bank will qualify you for a **** ton of money on a mortgage definitely does not mean you should buy a house anywhere close to that expensive.

Travel is the last "luxury" I'd give up.

Under-buying on our house vs what "they" say you can afford on a given salary has been a great play for us.

 

[yeahbaby]

Pfft. Single income with four kids. Two in college next year.

Starting this Saturday the wife and I will be empty nesters!

 

[HoughMade]

Starting this Saturday the wife and I will be empty nesters!

Good for you! I don't think my wife is ready for that....I may be.

 

[Hohn]

Maybe try your "spendthrift" buddy's way for a bit and see if it works for you? You can always go back to the way it was before.

Yeah, I wish I could. I suspect I'll end up feeling the same, only with less money. People who medicate with spending usually find it to be poor medicine.

The CFO wouldn't take kindly to some budget busting.

 

[Hohn]

Travel is the last "luxury" I'd give up.

Under-buying on our house vs what "they" say you can afford on a given salary has been a great play for us.

I know you are correct from hard experience. We had a nice downpayment and used it to buy a bigger house rather than a paid-for-er house.

 

[Route 45]

This is something that gives me pause about Dave's approach. In Dave's world, everybody gets to go on to living dreams and being debt free and life is wonderful.

But what if you are working so hard to get debt free that you are killing yourself? Are you willing to skip funerals and such to save money? To skimp on gifts to family that mean a lot to them? To cut off your charitable giving?

My best friend is a spendthrift-- substantial two-earner household income and a modest house. He wants a new gun or guitar or amp or anything-- he buys it. Why? Because it makes him happy. He lives for the moment. He does a lot of fun things.

I'm sort of the opposite. I have a decent income also for just being me. But after paying down the mortgage, medical expenses, charitable contributions (we are some of those crazy evangelicals that believe in substantial monthly donation), and all that stuff, there's very little left. I can't just spend a couple hundred dollars that's unplanned without a near budget crisis.

The irony is this: I'm pretty miserable. There is very little to anything fun I get to do, and it's a couple weekends a year a most in which I got said spendthrift's house to enjoy his toys.

Now my health is declining.

By the time I'm in Dave's promised land, I won't be able to do anything but watch my paid-for TV and wish I had actually DONE something with my life while I was still mobile. What good does it do you to FINALLY have the money to travel the world when you can't do it because your arthritic knees can't handle all the walking on that trip? You finally have the money to take the kids on a good vacation and make some memories, but the kids are grown now and it's too late.

So yeah, right now I guess you could say I'm "living like no one else." But what if later I never get to do the other "live like no one else?"

I am just about like your friend. I've got a good income. I don't overdo it, but if I want to go out and finance a new sports car tomorrow, and the payments fit within my budget, I couldn't give a rat's ass what Dave Ramsey thinks about it.

Life is for living. I have no intention of living in a hovel and eating Ramen noodles for 30 years only to realize in old age that I didn't really enjoy my life.

Whoever dies with the biggest number in his bank account still dies. Rich or poor, miserable is no way to go through life.

 

[eldirector]

Misery, or happiness, has little to nothing to do with money.

Just sayin'.

 

[Route 45]

Misery, or happiness, has little to nothing to do with money.

Just sayin'.

That's mostly true.

Then again, it's hard not to smile when you are on a Jet Ski.

 

[eldirector]

 

[ruger1800]

Will be in debt till the day I die, thanks to the great state of indiana property tax, federal tax, gas tax, tax tax tax

 

[Trigger Time]

Because they are under the hood

 

[seedubs1]

Studies show that on average, optimum income level for a single family is around $70k a year. At that level, they’re not stretched for money and don’t have debt issues, and the corresponding jobs that pay $70k (again on average.....there’s some ****ty $70k jobs out there) are not past the point of being too stressful. Go up in salary, and happiness is on average negatively affected by job stress. Go down in money and happiness is negatively affected by money issues. $70k is the sweet spot on average.

Misery, or happiness, has little to nothing to do with money.

Just sayin'.

 

[rhino]

I have learned that when you are a party of one, it's a lot simpler and easier to stick to sound financial principles, avoid debt, spend money you don't have, save a substantial amount, etc.

Once you figure one or more additional person in the mix, unless they have a clone of your brain, it changes everything. I can't imagine how you guys who have kids balance everything. I can't imagine adding even one child to my life, much less several, and be able to provide a decent life for them.

Well, unless I win a big lottery.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Yeah, I wish I could. I suspect I'll end up feeling the same, only with less money. People who medicate with spending usually find it to be poor medicine.

The CFO wouldn't take kindly to some budget busting.

I don't know what you're in to, but there's lots of things we do that aren't particularly expensive and are a lot of fun. Hiking/swimming in the various state parks, canoe rentals, visiting the exotic animal rescues in Indiana (if you're miserable after petting a baby kangaroo, you need medicated), etc.

For travel, we put back a set amount each month, plus whatever is left from our tax return after buying license plates and auto insurance for the year, and that lets us travel abroad every 2 years or so. For other's budgets it could be more or less often, and not every trip has to be abroad...but it's fun. For us part of the fun is figuring out where we'd like to go, researching various destinations, comparison shopping for airfare, cruising AirBnB looking at condos/apartments to stay in, etc.

 

[seedubs1]

More info on exotic animal rescues please. I've heard there's an awesome big cat sanctuary around Terre Haute that I want to see. Are there others?

I know what you mean about cheap trips. None of my vacations end up being expensive because I like doing things that aren't expensive (I like wilderness). Going to Yosemite next week for back country hiking along the rim of the valley. Entire trip is only going to cost me $400-$500 for a full week. That includes gas, lodging, flights, food, rental car..... You can go and do some really really cool things on a shoe string budget.

I don't know what you're in to, but there's lots of things we do that aren't particularly expensive and are a lot of fun. Hiking/swimming in the various state parks, canoe rentals, visiting the exotic animal rescues in Indiana (if you're miserable after petting a baby kangaroo, you need medicated), etc.

For travel, we put back a set amount each month, plus whatever is left from our tax return after buying license plates and auto insurance for the year, and that lets us travel abroad every 2 years or so. For other's budgets it could be more or less often, and not every trip has to be abroad...but it's fun. For us part of the fun is figuring out where we'd like to go, researching various destinations, comparison shopping for airfare, cruising AirBnB looking at condos/apartments to stay in, etc.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

More info on exotic animal rescues please. I've heard there's an awesome big cat sanctuary around Terre Haute that I want to see. Are there others?

There's at least three.

https://www.wilstem.com near Paoli. This one can get expensive if you buy a lot of "encounters". We did the giraffe encounter and it was well worth it. We spent about $110 all day, and that included a lot of food to feed the various animals, but if you don't do an encounter it's much cheaper.

Exotic Feline Rescue Center We haven't went to this one yet.

Oh...well the other one is apparently closed now. Stapp Circle S Ranch out near the Honda plant was the other one. We went there when they had a baby tiger you could play with. It was still small enough you could play with it like a particularly large kitten. It would 'stalk' you, pounce on you, etc. but didn't have enough claw or tooth to do more than play yet.

 

[eldirector]

More Exotics:
Wolf Park

Black Pine
https://www.bpsanctuary.org

 

[Trigger Time]

https://www.zoo-opolisexoticpettingworld.com

 

[Trigger Time]

More Exotics:
Wolf Park

Black Pine
https://www.bpsanctuary.org

The wolf park is pretty cool. A lot of walking though

 

[JettaKnight]

Will be in debt till the day I die, thanks to the great state of indiana property tax, federal tax, gas tax, tax tax tax

Never have understood the "I am debt free other than my mortgage"......that debt is many times more than all total debt combined, in most cases and has cost you more in interest than all other debt combined. Fact is, we are never debt free. Always will owe someone...whether it's the light bill, taxes, cell phones, insurance. It is stacked against us. The system will insure you owe someone until death.

You two should get together... in an economics class.