DISQUS

Steve, why don't you just cook more food for dinner and brown bag it for the next day? It will be cheap and healthy :-D

:-P sometimes it feels like I live in another world! ;-)

Mike,
I should have made myself clearer; in Quebec, over the weekend, if you get in a clinic 20 minutes after it opened in the morning, it's too late; they will not take you. You are lucky when you wait 4 hours!

In fact, I waited 1 hours before they call me to open my file. Then another 1h30 before I see the nurse. Then another 1h30 before I see the doctor. Why do I have to see the nurse if she tells me what I have but can't give me the damn pumps...

Being the father of 2 young kids, I have to go to clinics for several things. I usually come 30 minutes to 1 hour before the clinic opened and wait outside in line in order to wait 1h30 to 2hours instead.

I'm not saying I have a solution, but this is definitely ridiculous. Just think how it's gonna l0ok like in 10-15 years when all the babyboomers will literally stay in the hospital's corridors and play cards for days before they see a doctor.

Steve, we do have free health care where I live (Quebec, Canada). Trust me, it's a real pain! It may be a worst option, but there is a strong movement to create private health care services in my province as the free system is too slow.

I recently waited 4 hours to get pumps for my cough. The clinic opened at 8AM and I was there at 8:05. If you go to the hospital, you will more likely wait 12 hours, unless you are missing a leg or you have an knife stuck in your stomach ;-)

When everything is free, people waste the resource. Human being are too stupid to be responsible if there is no direct consequences.

Another example is that we don't pay much for electricity and we are not charged on water. So people are heating their house like there is no tomorrow and simply open the windows when it's too warm. Over summer time, plenty of people wash their driveway with their water hose.

I prefer being responsible and save for retirement than looking at people wasting all our resources. We are already wasting enough of them ;-)

It is true that you can argue forever about what should be included in your net worth or not. However, if you stick to the same calculation years after years, it could be a great help in order to design a financial plan.

Your net worth progress is an indicator (not the only one) of your financial health. If it's stable or decreasing, then you should take a closer look at your investment portfolio or your budget.

You also have to determine why your net worth is increasing. if the house pricing is going up in your area or if you made a major capital gain for one year, you might not be doing so well in reality.

Here are more thoughts about including your property or not in your net worth : link.


(Note from Brip Blap: the URL was too long for the comment format, so I HTMLed it. Still directs to same post).

I don't know how it is in the States, but in Canada, I only learned "typing" and I did sport at school. For everything else, I had to learn it by myself (personal finance and speaking being rougher to learn by your own!)

Interesting comparison... Did you play with your number to find out what would be the result if Fred was starting at 35K? or 40K? I don't know about the states, but starting at 35-40K is definitely not impossible in Canada after getting a bachelor degree. I personally started at 30K and by the end of the very same year I was making 42K.

With the cost of living, I highly doubt that Paul will be able to save 10% of his income. Chances are that he will borrow 10% of his yearly income every five years to keep up with his lifestyle ;-)

I don't think Paul would finish with any close to 1M$ since I hardly know people that are able to save with $9/hour starting salary.

The main reason is because the fixed expenses (such as rent) will be more likely to be the same amount in term of dollar for Fred and Paul but will be a lot more different percentage wise. As an example, a $500 rent a month on a $27,000 year salary is 22% of Fred's before tax income. The same rent on a $18,616 (40hrs @ $8.95) is 32% of Paul's before tax income.

If you add up food, transportation and utility bills (they should be the same for both of them), my bet is that Paul will be left with nothing but debts at the end of the year ;-)

Hey Steve, does it still work when you are frustrated?
I might want to try this technique one day :-0
Thx !

News are a waste of time because of what is reported by the media in general. I noticed that when the TV or newspaper are covering a topic that I am well aware and they always tend to prove their point and influence the population towards their own vision.

Therefore, news are as good as your neighbor's opinion. Except that it will be presented in a professional manner ;-)

Hey Brip Blap,
I think it is a really good idea to look at your family ability or inability to save money. We could learn a lot about how to manage money and many other stuffs from our past. Unfortunately, humans in general do not look back often enough!

I have 2 major regrets: #1 I should have use student loans to into the market (I finished school without any debts so I could had earn a good 5-6% on money, interest free, for 3 years). The #2 is my biggest regret: I paid an agent to sell my house. It cost me 10K to realize that all he was doing is the secretary work (scheduling visits and filling out paperwork). A lot of money for so little work!

I did a huge clean up before I left for vacation. I just got back this week and it feels great. I'm not lost as I used to be nor spending minutes to find stuff that is "somewhere" on my desk!

thx for the mention!

BripBlap,
I must agree that 500K net worth not that much if you live in NY but still, you are better off with 500K in your pocket than working minimum wages in the same city ;-). My point was that I really wonder how you can manage to build a strong net worth if you are stuck at 25K/year. Even if you don't spend much, it is just not enough to become wealthy. You'll need to do something else in order to increase your income.

Lora, I prefer using the equity in my house to do something else (like investing) with it. So if my house grow in value by 100K, I can go to the bank, borrow that 100K for the best rate possible and make much more money with it. This is why your house should be included in your net worth.

Frank, I guess it depends on where you live and what is your definition of being rich. Let's say your rent is $600 a month (for a very small apartment in a major city), you pay $150/month for power and another $100 for cable/internet/phone/cel phone (you can't obviously have all of them for $100 so you'll have to make a choice). You are left with $1,233 a month (assuming a 25K salary).

Out of that amount, you have to take out groceries, entertainment, taxes, gas(or bus pass), clothe and several other expenses. While you may not be starving, you will not become rich by living below your means.

My definition of being rich is to have a net worth over 500K (real estate should not be the bulk of your net worth) and an income that allow you to make all your payments and still save money. I don't think you can ever achieve this financial level by making 25K a year.

I'm not sure about the Vegan/Vegetarian thing. In fact, the biggest part of my groceries is always vegetables and fruits. If I would have to compensate for meat, I would have to eat much more of those. Am I really going to save money? Or feel healthier? I am in a better shape than most vegetarians I know. I think humans a made to eat everything. It is just a matter of balancing your meals. A good workout will clean up everything anyway ;-)

I remember when it happened, I was in a business school and everybody was more concerned about the stock market reaction than anything else. I felt like I was one of the few thinking about these poor victims and their family. I agree with Plonkee, there is definitely more important things than money!

There are several ways to borrow money and make money out of it. At the very least, buying a house is a great way to improve your personal situation and, technically, you house will increase in value overtime.

Borrow money to learn is always a great way to improve your wealth. You can get a promotion or invest better from a better education.

One last thing, you can also borrow money to invest in the market to to create a company. While being more risky than my other examples, there are several people who become rich by leveraging.

If you are making 25K and you don't spend more than you earn, you won't eat much and probably will never be rich anyway ;-)