re: Is The Economy really bad?

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Greenbean lived paycheck to paycheck but somehow saved a ton for retirement

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He was ex-military and retired. (31 years)

He got him some of that sweet sweet Fedgov money.

And now lives in a state that doesn't tax his retirement

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Congrats on joining Penrod, HouseMom, N2cars, etc.

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I have no idea what any of this means

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The economy must be doing great if a bunch of people can be debating/bitching & moaning while on company time

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Underrated post of the day.

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Not everywhere is haughton buddy

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And the houses I showed were Baton Rouge, the location you were specifically talking about.

Haughton actually is a decent place to buy a starter home and growing

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they were in a flood plane

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That plane won't fly...

Plain, Mingo regrets the error

#NeverEdit

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Back in my day, you went to a store to buy your boots, at a price that when adjusted for inflation is actually quite a bit more expensive than today, and then you pulled yourself up by the straps.

These days kids are getting their boots delivered to their door! In a box!

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Post is comedy gold!

I'm no macro economist, but they seem to be working ok so far to me?

Sure, it really sucks dealing with if you work for a company who imports a lot of stuff, but that's kind of the point?

Just replying to the thread not Mingo specifically.

I have been reading the thread but as an early Gen Xer I tend to stay out of these because we tend to be the invisible generation in this spat.

I feel like a lot of the time the numbers are amorphous and don't make a clear point because of the lake of apples to apples, big data is hard to interpret in some ways but admit anecdotal evidence is flawed as well, but here goes.

I was thinking about if I was starting my career over at day 1 in my mid-20s again and realized I had a good handle on what I think are the three big numbers that shaped my initial and long term financial well-being, probably my mental well-being to a degree also. Each of these I know or can get pretty accurate hard numbers for.


1, Educational costs

In the early/mid 90s when I finished my 7 years of post-HS education, it had cost ~$131,000 for 7 years of tuition (only). If I had just finished that same education (same schools/same degrees) it would have cost $470,000 . This is not counting books, room and board and a lot of other costs on either side but particularly the cost of books has skyrocketed, without actually checking I think they have gone up much more percentage-wise than tuition.

So that's 3.5 times as much for education

2. Salary When I got out of school I started my job at $94,000 per year including bonus as a 1st year associate. I am at the same firm now and we hired this years 1st years at $202,000 with bonus. The benefits are not exactly the same but similar. The small differences mainly point to the ones in the 90s being better. It is close to a wash either way. There are tax implications and they were probaby slightly higher in the 90s but I don't think it would be very significant.

So salary for the same job brings in 2.15 times the money.

3. Home While money was not cheap then, our loan was about 1% lower than the average today it was also much easier to borrow then. Within 7 months of my wife and I starting new jobs just out of school we were moving into a home. The house was about 11 years old. It was 2400 sq ft, 4/3, brick, 2 story, on a cul de sac in a good neighborhood, good school district and on a little over 2 acres with gorgeous landscaping. We spent about $20k updating it we were all in for about $194,000. This was not a "starter" house, and we could easily have spent a lifetime there and raised a large family if we liked. The exact house has a Zillow estimate of $605,000 currently. Obviously I don't know what has gone on inside but the outside looks very similar now.

So the cost of the house has increased 3.12 times

We had functional cars at the time so we didn't buy new cars for 4 years. The total cost of those 2 new cars then was ~63k and the same models total totay are ~$135k. This is a place where the cars increased roughly inline with the increase in salary at my job and the cars are much more capable than they were in the 90s. I can't compare cost of ownership because I don't rememeber what I paid for insurance, maintenance etc then but I am betting all of them went up more than 2.15 times.


While this is a specific anecdote, I think it clearly shows how I personally would have been a lot worse off on just the big ticket items.

I think it is silly to argue I didn't have it better starting in the 90s than my analog today.

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Because that tier down house is still going to be making you money

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You don’t know that is true, and I would be VERY skeptical about it in today’s market with today’s rate. Your attitude is how a lot of people absolutely lost their arse in 2008. You’re using your personal experience in TOTALLY different market conditions to influence your decisions today.

You’re, in fact, a poster child of what we’re talking about. You used an incredibly low interest rate at prices that were less in real dollars to level up your home. Young people don’t have that opportunity today. Full stop