How do people not save a ton of money?

Bad Wigins wrote:

cash talks wrote:

They'll marry you to get their hands on that kind of cash.

only if you agree to move out of your parent's house, and then that money starts draining away

A few years later they realize you have no ambition, dump you and keep half of whatever's left, and tax your remaining half for child support. Not good!

Strong incel vibes from this -- it's all starting to make sense.

We have 3 cars due to all of the drivers in the household. One is owned, one has payments, and one is leased. We always have one leased vehicle which we use for every short drive. We monitor the miles on the leased vehicle so that we return it with precisely the miles allotted. Car dealers make money on 95% of leases. Some are over on mileage which the lessee pays for at the end and some are under which the lessee overpaid for at the front. The other 5% can do well to lease. I never pay for service on leased vehicles or my newer vehicles. I utilize an auto credit card to accumulate points. My current lease is $167 on a $26k car.

Richer than most wrote:

We have 3 cars due to all of the drivers in the household. One is owned, one has payments, and one is leased. We always have one leased vehicle which we use for every short drive. We monitor the miles on the leased vehicle so that we return it with precisely the miles allotted. Car dealers make money on 95% of leases. Some are over on mileage which the lessee pays for at the end and some are under which the lessee overpaid for at the front. The other 5% can do well to lease. I never pay for service on leased vehicles or my newer vehicles. I utilize an auto credit card to accumulate points. My current lease is $167 on a $26k car.

We lease one car and have payments on another we bought. Prefer the lease after we’ve dealt with repairs on the bought one. Car payments and mortgage + prop tax sink us. We have $800/month car payments and mortgage is $2400 but the kicker is our property tax is merged into the monthly payment and it’s $1300 a month in property tax. So our housing payment is $3700/mo. The taxes are brutal. Kids public schools are pretty good but frankly could probably have just as good of schools and half the tax somewhere else. Expensive housing and high property tax is a double whammy.

You say that there's not much left after taxes, yet you spend full tuition at two expensive private colleges. In other words, you have 120k or more left over every year, maybe more, but you're throwing it away for private college tuition.

My 2 pieces of unsolicited advice to all the 20 somethings out there:

1. Save at least 10 cents on every dollar your make. It's really not that hard and time is on your side. You will thank me when you're 50 and have a nice nest- egg;

2. All males - don't get married before you're 30.

Hmm!

You can do what you want regarding living where and how you want. All families are different.

However, my issue is with one thing only:

How adjusted is the child going to be when he or she barely knows his or her always working parents and is essentially raised by grandma?

The government wants most people broke AKA living paycheck to paycheck and also taking out loans/mortgages.

Tatar wrote:

jamin wrote:

But society couldn't sustain if everybody did this because we need 2.1 kids per every male/female pair.

The cost of housing (and life in general) is rising and will keep rising. Either be rich enough to buy, or give 50%+ of your income to a landlord. As a consequence, many more young people are being forced to delay moving out and starting a family. Many will only be lucky enough to have everything sorted in time to have one child.

That’s better than getting in big debt. Maybe it’s not what people envisioned as ideal living, but it’s not like life is so great about having a big house, 2 cars and 3 kids. Especially if you’re in debt up to your eyeballs living like that or not saving at all and growing your net worth.

melo seeds wrote:

Richer than most wrote:

My wife and I are 50. Our net worth is $3M even though we never made more than $150k in a year. We have 3 in college that have no loans. You are terrible at saving.

You are terrible at living. I understand having savings for a rainy day but what is the point in accumulating a bunch of money that you never intend to spend?

But now that $3M will continue to grow and be $6M eventually. Even more.

I dunno. I think having that security and financial freedom is great. I would rather save more and not stress about having to work more and have the freedom to move anywhere or quit your job anytime.

Richer than most wrote:

My wife and I are 50. Our net worth is $3M even though we never made more than $150k in a year. We have 3 in college that have no loans. You are terrible at saving.

You then got REALLY lucky. Your combined salary for the last 20 years is only 3 million and yet you somehow have all of that saved?

You can call it luck but many wealthier people chose not to do it. Everything has come from hard work and discipline. The market has appreciated by 1000% in 30 years and 300% in 20 years. We always maximized matching in 401k and put a bunch in Roth IRAs. all in high risk funds. It was not hard. We also bought some stocks and mutual funds which have done very well. Those investments proved to be a mixed blessing because they were used against us when highly selective schools provided financial aid offers.

Richer than most wrote:

You can call it luck but many wealthier people chose not to do it. Everything has come from hard work and discipline. The market has appreciated by 1000% in 30 years and 300% in 20 years. We always maximized matching in 401k and put a bunch in Roth IRAs. all in high risk funds. It was not hard. We also bought some stocks and mutual funds which have done very well. Those investments proved to be a mixed blessing because they were used against us when highly selective schools provided financial aid offers.

Yea, not lucky at all. Smart investing and being disciplined for long term got you there.

chillllin369 wrote:

Really is great being able to live like this and save $6k/month. Don’t know why more people don’t just do this...

"I save as much per month as the median household makes per month. Why doesn't everyone do it?"

Most people are spending addicts. They'll spend tens of thousands of dollars on the dumbest sh!t imaginable then convince themselves they're better than people who don't do that. Expensive cars with worthless features, $3k handbags that are exactly the same as $300 handbags but with a different logo, clothes,shoes,jewelery,coats they never wear, expensive furniture that's the same qualify and has the same utility as cheap furniture, filling their house with random crap in general, flying to a popular tourist traps to take the same exact pictures 100 million other people have taken, renting in the trendy part of town so you can eat Ethiopian food once every 4 months and live near a museam you never visit, etc...

If you see how ridiculous that is and don't want to participate then you're a cheapsake who's not really "living".

Harambe wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

only if you agree to move out of your parent's house, and then that money starts draining away

A few years later they realize you have no ambition, dump you and keep half of whatever's left, and tax your remaining half for child support. Not good!

Strong incel vibes from this -- it's all starting to make sense.

Are you a flaming lib, or just young?

Richer than most wrote:

You can call it luck but many wealthier people chose not to do it. Everything has come from hard work and discipline. The market has appreciated by 1000% in 30 years and 300% in 20 years. We always maximized matching in 401k and put a bunch in Roth IRAs. all in high risk funds. It was not hard. We also bought some stocks and mutual funds which have done very well. Those investments proved to be a mixed blessing because they were used against us when highly selective schools provided financial aid offers.

If the majority of the public followed your path as to frugality and investment risk, how much wealth do you think you would have now?

If you look at credit rates paid for home as investment, people do "save" a lot.

Why is so little saved as cash .. it appears that cash is somehow too hot to handle for most.

Anyhow, once you go the way of credit leash, space for cash savings becames scarce

chillin369 wrote:

No car and moved back home with my parents at age 28. Have 165k and then another 45k in 401k/HSA.

How do people not save a ton? Do they really spend that much?

As a grown man, who when he was 18 was told to start paying rent, and encouraged to move out shortly after HS, listening to the OP makes me roll my eyes. Run back to mommy and daddy at 28? Yes you saved money. But, imagine if you are a well-adjusted female listening to you. She might like the $$, but knows she would be getting a child. Not a man.

What are you saving for? Spend the money while you can enjoy it! All the people in this thread boasting about how much they've made on their investments and how much they're saving have spent too much time working that they've not really enjoyed life much. Who cares if you can buy a gold-plated rocking chair with all the accessories when you're 80 years old? And, no, your annual week long 'vacation' at the all-exclusive is not enjoying life.