Frustrations.. With Money [Rant]

[Jamie]

[Jamie]

We are all very familiar with the woes money, or the lack thereof, brings us. How many of us on this forum alone have had to sell off prized posessions out of necessity? I sold off a good portion of my collection that I hold so dearly and cling to as my only ties to the past to fund a move that put me into a deeper financial hole. Thus, I have to sell off more things that I love in order to make ends meet.

The equation to happiness isn’t Love=Happiness, It isn’t Money=Happiness, it’s Expenses<Income=Happiness. Am I right? Even if you were dirt poor and lived in a one bedroom shack with your family, if you had just one golden candlestick of enjoyment and could call it your own, without any proverbial wolves at your door demanding you to sell it or they’ll take it away- you would be able to find happiness.

Anyway, what I want to know is, short of selling off all the material posessions and scraping by purely on necessity alone, how do you make do? How does one keep things they love balanced with that which is necessary to sustain living?

[Heather]

Well, I’m no expert in this area but it seems that you are limited in choices. I guess the only advice I can offer you is to do what you know you need to do to get by in this tough time and eventually when you get out of it you’ll be able to recover and enjoy the things you gave up in order to get by. Brighter skies are ahead you could say and the most beautiful flower blooms through adversity and such. I don’t know if any of this helps but remember that we’re here 🙂 I have no money to give and help you out with but I’m a good listener. Good luck with the move and I’ll pray for you.

[Mimi]

A thought — is it feasible to supplement your income with additional work, or to borrow money temporarily?

You might be able to avoid this situation in the future by doing better financial planning. Here are some posts from an old thread that might be helpful for you:

mimitrek wrote:

CherylKaufman wrote:

mimitrek wrote:

Thanks! 😀 I think its best to have a balance — save some money but spend some too. After all, if you can’t spend any of the money to make your life better, then there’s no point to having it, right?

I think the most important thing about saving money is to have a plan and to stick to it as much as possible…and start investing your money as early as possible, even if you can only invest a little at a time. I’m definitely no expert when it comes to money, but I’m always glad to give my input…and I can tell you some of the things NOT to do just because I’ve already made more than my share of mistakes! 😆

Ooooh, message me! I need to figure out this whole saving thing. It comes so naturally for my brother and so poorly for me. Then again, my house is decorated and his looks like a monestary. But still, savings- can you give me little pointers and examples Mimi- especially what NOT to do?
Sure! Definitely email me if you want to discuss this in more detail, but I thought I’d just post some things here in case some other people are interested. I’d love to be able to help other people not make the mistakes that I did. So here are some major things that I can think of:

1) Start investing money as soon as possible! The best thing is to use your money to make more money for you. Even if you can only invest a little at a time, if you do it on a regular basis, it really adds up. The investments you choose depend a lot of your situation, how much risk you want to take, and what your investment timeframe is. For example, mutual funds are good if you don’t know a lot about stocks and want to invest for the longer term, and CD’s are good if you might need the money in the near future and don’t want to put it at risk. Of course, no matter what investment you choose, the key thing is that you should always stick to your plan, both in terms of putting money in and taking money out.

2) Invest in your 401k and other similar things as soon as possible and max out the contributions if at all possible. Don’t ever touch this money unless its a dire emergency. And since you have a kid, if you haven’t already, you should look into educational IRA’s and stuff like that to see if there are other ways to shelter your money from taxes.

3) Take advantage of any kind of stock purchase plans, etc. that your company offers. For example, if your company lets you purchase stock at a 15% discount every quarter — then even if you don’t want to keep the stock for the long term, buy it and sell it right away so you can pocket the 15% profit!

4) Make full use of any kind of benefit plans that your company offers, like the health care reimbursement plan, child care reimbursement plan, using the eye care coverage to get 50% off of eyeglass frames, etc.

5) If you’re planning to stay in the area for some time, buy a house as soon as possible. Rent money is gone once its spent, but mortgage money goes toward paying off your house. Plus, you can get tax deductions on the mortgage interest and property tax, which significantly reduces the amount that you’re actually paying.

6) Set aside a certain amount for fun stuff and be disciplined about not exceeding it. If you happen to get extra money unexpectedly, then save it rather than spending it (unless there’s something that you’re really dying to have — in which case it might be justified 🙂 ). But the general rule is: save money whenever possible.

7) For large purchases, always shop around and check the consumer research info (Consumer Reports, cnet.com, etc.) to make sure that you’re getting the best deal you can — and that you’re getting the best product available for that price range. Being well informed as much as possible is always good, especially if you need to negotiate on the price. And in selecting a product, don’t pay for features that you don’t need — for example, if you’re only planning to use a laptop for running Microsoft Office applications, don’t get a state-of-the-art laptop that would only make a difference when running the latest games.

8 ) If you’re using a credit card, never spend more than you can pay off that same month unless its unavoidable, so that you never have to pay the exorbitant finanace charges. If you already have credit card debt, pay it off as soon as possible and/or look for ways to get a lower rate. If you have a house, one good way to reduce the rate is to roll the credit card debt into the mortgage when you refinance. Credit card companies also often offer deals where if you move your existing balance to them, you don’t have to pay any interest for some period of time — those might be helpful too.

9) Take advantage of any deals that stores are offering. A lot of times you can buy stuff and wait 1 year interest free before you have to pay for it. So you essentially get free use of the money for a year (that money could be collecting interest in a CD). This kind of deal really helps if you’re making big purchases (I actually made use of a deal like this when I was buying a bed, washing machine, dryer, etc. — so I essentially got a free 4K loan for 1 year 🙂 ).

10) In everyday life — look for ways to cut down on waste and stock up on stuff when its on sale.

Hmm…I think that’s all I can think of right now. Hopefully I didn’t bore people too much…he he…

By the way, I’ve always been really disciplined about saving, but I didn’t take advantage of company benefits early on, and I didn’t invest my money right from the start, which can make a huge difference. I really think its a good idea to invest as soon as possible.

mimitrek wrote:

WolfenMachine wrote:

I very badly want to buy stocks….but neither I nor any of my family does that so they know nothing about it. 3-4 years ago I did stock project in school and we got to “buy” stocks with “$10,000” and it was SO much fun, and my teacher showed us some website where it was really easy to check up on the stats of our stocks each day. I think I ended up somewhat ahead if not sucessful.

Your family sounds like mine in terms of not knowing anything about stocks! But its great that you’ve already started learning about stocks while you’re still only 20. I confess that I still don’t know much about stocks, so I’m mostly investing in mutual funds. But there are a lot of good books out there that teach you about investing in stocks — you should probably check on Amazon for that.

I have found a couple of books about personal finance that I really liked. They teach a lot of important concepts about investing and other things, and I think these are great to read if you want to get the basics about personal finance. I wish so much that I had known about books like these when I was your age — I’d definitely be a lot better off financially now if I had read them then! Anyway, here they are:

http://www.amazon.com/Truth-About-Money-3rd/dp/0060566582/sr=8-2/qid=1157596001/ref=pd_bbs_2/104-3748955-0390302?ie=UTF8&s=books
http://www.amazon.com/Personal-Finance-Dummies-Eric-Tyson/dp/0470038322/sr=1-2/qid=1157596042/ref=pd_bbs_2/104-3748955-0390302?ie=UTF8&s=books

[Skigod377]

I just sell some Windstones when I need money and buy them back when I can. It sucks, but I know there will be new stuff to buy. I Need to take care of my family first, so the first things to go are the dragons. 😕 I tend to buy in bunches, then all my money is gone, then I need to sell. Try going a month withought buying anything frivolous and you may catch up on finanances. It sucks watching all the new stuff pass you by, but there will be more! In the end, family and friends are what is important. Not stuff.

[Jennifer]

Mimi has some great advice.

In the past when I was in a bad way and needing money (for things like food and rent), I had nothing of value to sell. It was not due to poor financial planning but a minimum wage job and supporting two people on that income is not easy. The worst part is that I had no idea I was elligible for things like food stamps! I was lucky enough to have a good friend who fronted me some money until I could pay him back. I lived several years like that. Most of the time, if we are patient enough, good will come about. It took about 5 years for my life to go from pretty miserable to good. The friend that sent me money (which I did indeed pay back) now seems to be my husband.. 😆

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[Mimi]

Nambroth wrote:

Mimi has some great advice.

Thanks! 😀

Nambroth wrote:

In the past when I was in a bad way and needing money (for things like food and rent), I had nothing of value to sell. It was not due to poor financial planning but a minimum wage job and supporting two people on that income is not easy. The worst part is that I had no idea I was elligible for things like food stamps! I was lucky enough to have a good friend who fronted me some money until I could pay him back. I lived several years like that. Most of the time, if we are patient enough, good will come about. It took about 5 years for my life to go from pretty miserable to good. The friend that sent me money (which I did indeed pay back) now seems to be my husband.. 😆

What a great story! I love happy endings. 😀

I’d think it’d be difficult to support 1 person on minimum wage, let alone two. 😯 I know there are all kinds of politics involved, but I really think that the minimum wage should be a lot higher than it is. At a minimum, the government should’ve at least been raising it over the years to keep pace with inflation. 😕

[Alyssa]

I find myself still struggling and I have found that maybe it is time I get a second job.

[Author]

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