re: How much money do you put in savings every paycheck?

quote:

---

Some of my monthly savings are actually spending accounts.

---

So some of your monthly savings are actually bills? Like the $215 (which I presume is a car payment) for your sons graduation gift. Or the payment of your annual taxes.

This is similar to how I manage my savings, I allocate blocks to certain known expenses, as well as future known expenses. That is why budgeting has been such a refresher to my approach with financial management. Atleast I can utilize old spending data to provide predictions for how much needs to be set aside for what is up ahead.

quote:

---

You save 6+ grand a month for retirment and you take the Houston bus system?

Dafuq?

---

Mandatory retirement at age 57, so I have to save more ambitiously than most even if I plan to start a 2nd career later.

It's a commuter bus
.
Holds me and about 50 others. It's an hour commute from a suburb about 30 miles outside downtown Houston. Some recline and sleep. Others like myself will either read, work, or listen to music until the bus starts dropping off people downtown.

With discounts (pre-tax money and 1 free commute for every 10), it comes out to about $5.80 per day. It would take me about two gallons of gas daily to drive a personal vehicle. That already exceeds the bus expense without even tabulating the parking cost, vehicle maintenance, and whatever the extra insurance rate would be for the "mileage from home to work" calculation they do.

The other non-monetary benefits of taking the commuter bus is I get time for personal reading. Currently reading Nassim Taleb's newest.

quote:

---

paycheck?

---

Is it bad that I have no idea when I get paid anymore?

quote:

---

Holds me and about 50 others. It's an hour commute from a suburb about 30 miles outside downtown Houston. Some recline and sleep. Others like myself will either read, work, or listen to music until the bus starts dropping off people downtown.

With discounts (pre-tax money and 1 free commute for every 10), it comes out to about $5.80 per day. It would take me about two gallons of gas daily to drive a personal vehicle. That already exceeds the bus expense without even tabulating the parking cost, vehicle maintenance, and whatever the extra insurance rate would be for the "mileage from home to work" calculation they do.

---

Sounds like motherfricking hell to me....it's why I live in the Heights.

What the hell do you do that requires you to retire at 57?

quote:

---

With discounts (pre-tax money and 1 free commute for every 10), it comes out to about $5.80 per day. It would take me about two gallons of gas daily to drive a personal vehicle. That already exceeds the bus expense without even tabulating the parking cost, vehicle maintenance, and whatever the extra insurance rate would be for the "mileage from home to work" calculation they do.

---

You don't enjoy activity based costing at all do you?

quote:

---

I've just seen the dregs of society that hang around the bus stops in downtown (when I'm brave enough to vanture outside of the tunnels for lunch) and I imagined the bus to be filled with those types.

That actually doesn't sound bad at all. How late do those buses run? That might actually make the suburbs of Houston more appealing to me.

---

There are zombies that roam and are drawn to some bus stops, but they are mostly harmless. My standard line is, "I'm sorry, but I don't carry cash". The dregs will mainly loiter in front of convenience stores. Each commuter bus has a designated stop every couple of blocks, so you can always be selective about your peer group.

The suburb I live in has riders who mostly wear neckties, and read from their Kindles/iPads. In fact, I'm posting from an iPad on the commuter bus at this moment. The passengers are mostly silent and always dignified. Do you know that moment on an airplane when the door to the cabin is opened and its time to exit the plane where passengers throughout the plane immediately stand in the aisle to be one of the first ones off and few if any courteously offer others in front of them a place in line? That NEVER happens on this bus. It is orderly as hell at the final destination, with riders only rising from their seats when passengers in front of them have exited their seats to walk down the aisle. It would be a break of etiquette to rise from the back of the bus and walk to the front in order to exit before others.

I only venture into the tunnels occasionally for lunch, and as a means of getting to my bus stop when it rains. I find the tunnels too crowded and full of slow moving people. I feel more efficient and aware as a surface dweller. Speaking of rain and busses, there are some building lobbies where riders can wait without being exposed to the elements. Rain also keeps the zombies away.

I can't speak for all the routes, but the one I take runs till 10pm. After 6:00 pm, the pickup times start to get spaced out until there's an hour wait between pickups, but that gives you time to grab a beer before the ride home.

quote:

---

it's a federal law enforcement job. I guess that explains my comfort level walking amongst "the dregs".

---

So you are par kof that racketeering organization they call our federal government.