Shaky Economy

[SciFiJim]

I have been selling off toys and guns I don't use to pay off bills. I promised my wife we would replace her car once the cc was payed off. At nearly 300k miles its coming up on needing a lot more replaced than not. I am also selling stuff to start my own business in an industry that is growing in leaps and bounds. I don't want to do manual labor the rest of my life. So in talking to the wife I let her know that If I can get it running like I hope to the house is getting paid off first. I will work my day job and work the business until I can no longer do both. By that time I should be making plenty to stay home and pay off bills.

Your plan sounds like a good one. What kind of business are you starting?

[otter5555]

been totally debt free for decades. no credit cards. no nothing. pay taxes, insurance and a few staples.

[fatelk]

credit used wisely can be a good thing

This is true. My folks have always been in the "debt is bad" camp: "The borrower is the servant of the lender". I was surprised a few years back when my dad started borrowing and borrowing, leveraging every last drop of equity he could to borrow every cent he could to buy more farmland. I thought he had gone nuts, way over his head in debt.

I have to give credit where credit is due. He definitely saw something I did not. The value of midwestern farmland has doubled, tripled, and then some since then. They are doing very, very well now.

I don't know about where you live, but allowing only 3X our salary for a house is pretty much unattainable in this part of California.

True, for us too. It must be regional to some degree. Our first house was about 3x, but four kids later it was way too small. We had to move for work and the house we just bought here is closer to 4x, but it sure is nice to have some room again. The 20% down part would not have been possible for us either. That's an awful lot of money here. Having gone through several years of un- and under-employment before getting back to a good solid job, we were doing really good to come up with 10%.

Felix, I really don't mean to denigrate your advice at all. Our circumstances were different, but it actually is great advice and a darn good formula for staying ahead financially. It's sad to see so many people, young people especially, who can't seem to figure out how to get ahead with a little discipline and self-control.

Other than mortgage, we have been living debt free for years. It really is a great feeling. My wife didn't know what it was like to not have a car payment. The last new (used) car we saved up and payed cash. It was nice.

I would add that you can't save too much, too early.

Man, that is so true. Someone once told me that it's not how much you make so much as how much you save, and that most people are just broke at different levels.

I wish I had started saving more, earlier.

[Blammer]

debt free here except for leveraging debt to better my financial position, see fatelk's comment.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I've been Debtfree/morgagefree for 12 years.
Bought a used Gun (S&W mod 10) yesterday...also found some primers for $32 per 1k, bought a sleeve of 5K, also found some bulk 22LR (winchester 222), limited to one qty:222 pak for $14). All paid with credit card for the 1% cash back at cabela's and will be paid off at teh end of the month, like every month ever...I've used CC for decades and NEVER have paid them a penny in interest.

[OeldeWolf]

I am not debt free, have the mortgage, the card is down to 500, hope it is paid off in a few months. The medical bills are about $3k, though. But now that I have medi-cal, I will start paying them down as soon as the card is paid off. With kalifornistan now registering long arms, even for those of us with an FFL-03, am not buying much in the way of firearms, instead working on those I already have.

They are doing a minor modification on my home loan, going to save about $70 there/mo, which will mostly go to paying off the card and medical bills. But the local enabler (I like that term), just got in a nearly new Lyman Great Plains flinter in .50, which is sorely tempting me, from sustainability standpoints... And I am definitely short on pistols.

This summer I need to repaint the house, and work on the front yard. Try and bring its value up to what I owe on it. thinking ahead towards leaving the state, for somewhere more firearms friendly.

[TXGunNut]

I don't make much but thanks to keeping housing, transportation and interest costs down I get to have toys many folks "can't" afford. I'm working hard on retirement investments so that I can retire when I want to, not work til I can't. That's what it's all about, right?

[Moondawg]

Putting a new Ruger Mark III Hunter on the credit card this week. Who knows how long we will be able to buy guns, and a decent popular 22 pistol is like money in the bank.

[searcher4851]

Not me.

[MT Gianni]

Shaky Economy? My 401K earned over 20% last year. I may buy another 5K of primers but don't plan on going nuts about it.

[blademasterii]

Your plan sounds like a good one. What kind of business are you starting?

I am opening up an online ecig store. I will carry only good quality hardware and liquid, not that knock off gas station junk. It is a growing industry and I have the help of someone already in the business giving me his sources and contacts. It is an on the books legitimately licensed business.

[Harter66]

Well ,I'm not a selfish pig ,but.......

I owe about $600 to medical ,1200 in property taxes, I do owe $83k on the house but the contract is actually making payments on my folks loan on 25ac in Ar on 34k.

My GF owes 6k on a truck .

We have 3 cards w/about 2k available but w/ zero balances.

I lived the first 20yr of adulthood on cash, no cards and only a checking account to pay bills out of town, used $500 beaters drive them 2-3 yr or till the 1st major failure and trade them off for the next 1. I ran the last 3 over 100k and traded 1 of those off still running. Its hard to live 100% debt free and keep it 100% that way.I have 2 of my 3 drivers right now w/$100 problems and can't fix either 1 until the parts show up for both. I'm layed off again , I worked 22 weeks last yr. The 3 401k's just showed me earnings for the last 10 yr of -60%, so that's just 39k pissed away.

If I don't find some LRP pretty soon though I'll be down to LPM primers for rifles and some SRP for the 222..........oh well that's why I bought the extra Unique 6 yr ago......

[nvbirdman]

My last debt was my home loan, and I paid that off ten years ago.

[dtknowles]

i have never had any debt . nor have i ever had a credit card
i lived in a cheap apartment saving my money up until i was 26 , bought a chunk of dirt and lived in a camper for 3 years while i built my small house .

i have lived under the if i dont have the cash i dont need it philosophy my entire life .

unfortunatly i was wrong .... now because i have never had any credit .. i can not get it if i need it .

credit used wisely can be a good thing

I graduated from collage with $1500 of debt, lived with a coworker until I could save the deposit on an apartment of my own. Borrowed money at an appliance store to buy a TV. Paid both those debts before I bought a used car with $5000 of debt. Paid that off before I bought my first house sold that house to buy the one I am in now. Paid this house off a few years ago. I have paid credit card interest maybe two months out of 30 years. Have earned more is cash back than I paid in credit card interest many times over. Biggest decision that made things a lot easier was not buying too much house. Banks would have lent me three times what I borrowed and the real estate agent was sad we would only look at such and such houses.

Tim

[osteodoc08]

Mortgage, car loans, ex wife.....nope. I dont think I'll be debt free for at least 15 years.

I WONT finance guns, ammo, etc. Now that I can use my debit card online, I dont use a CC at all.