tryan
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2005
- Messages
- 2,605
... yeah, keeping up with the gadgets is futile. DW wants to join Napster ($15/mo) so the my 4th grader can load up his MP3 ... and,oh, she'ld be getting one too. HELP!
Right, Art.. I hope I didn't hijack your thread but I fear the monthly costs we CAN't avoid.. taxes.. basic utilities.. that are outpacing the semi-optional conveniences like internet and cell phone.
From my perspective, the "monthly payment" will bring down the economy. Think about it....
cable bill
internet bill
satellite radio
cell phone bill
day care
car lease
credit card interest
I'm sure I've forgotten quite a few, but consider it. All these things are small monthly expenses that add up to things we'll never own. We talk about the savings of our parents or grandparents and wonder why they were able to do it on such small incomes? They bought things, paid them off, then needed much less income to survive in retirement. What is going to have to happen to save the economy from a surefire broke economy in our senior years? You may think it won't affect you because you've saved, but we can already see the government's involvement with bailing out people. Is Rome about to burn? Even though you've saved, will you be paying for your neighbors retirement?
cable bill
internet bill
satellite radio
cell phone bill
day care
car lease
credit card interest
I'd get worried about prop. taxes, too.
Even though values (and thus assessments) should be falling.. I've seen people reporting that (for example) some cities have decided to up assessed values of the underlying land to make up for declines in value of the actual bldg.. Many have already gone from a proportional assessment (like 70%) to 100%.. and some are raising the mil rate into the 20s and 30s!
Well obviously all here are much smarter than the average American, however, no one has addressed how to handle your neighbor's debt. I read yesterday about the need to raise social security deductions in order to avoid the future shortfall. So, while you all are paying your bills and avoiding those "monthlies", there is little you can do to avoid rising taxes which will affect you in the future.
now that we have homestead portability (assuming it passes judicial muster), i've sketched out an insane market timing "plan". seems we will have two years to declare new homestead once selling out from our existing exemption. so since i want to travel long-term anyway, i'm considering selling now, traveling for two years, then buying a downsize, utilizing my save-our-home tax exemption which i'll be harvesting from all these years in my current house. .
R Wood...the only questionable thing that I can see you have is condo fees. Talk about something that can rise and eat you alive! My father bought his condo for cash, but pays quite a bit more than the condo would have cost him to finance in condo and association dues.
That's interesting ! I thought we could only use our homestead portability once . As soon as the market picks up I going to use mine to buy a house a little further from the water .
If you almost never use it, with T-Mobile you can get prepaid cellular for $10 per year after an initial $100 investment in loading the phone with prepaid minutes. Just sayin'.cell phone bill - $100 per year for prepaid, emergencies only, company smartphone won't be needed in ER
The biggest "pay it a little at a time so the sucker won't see how much he's paying": Federal income taxes. We should dump withholding and we'd all write a check for the amount due. I don't think anything would do more to increase popular pressure to decrease govt spending.
The biggest "pay it a little at a time so the sucker won't see how much he's paying": Federal income taxes. We should dump withholding and we'd all write a check for the amount due. I don't think anything would do more to increase popular pressure to decrease govt spending.
If you almost never use it, with T-Mobile you can get prepaid cellular for $10 per year after an initial $100 investment in loading the phone with prepaid minutes. Just sayin'.
From my perspective, the "monthly payment" will bring down the economy. Think about it....
cable bill
internet bill
satellite radio
cell phone bill
day care
car lease
credit card interest
?
I'd get worried about prop. taxes, too.
Even though values (and thus assessments) should be falling.. I've seen people reporting that (for example) some cities have decided to up assessed values of the underlying land to make up for declines in value of the actual bldg.. Many have already gone from a proportional assessment (like 70%) to 100%.. and some are raising the mil rate into the 20s and 30s!
Sis in an avg. suburban CT house is paying $8k or so: almost $700 month.
Longer-term residents complain their taxes are higher than their mortgage.
AND rates are scheduled to increase a further 6.6% this year!!!
Even w/o further increases.. over the time she plans to stay in the house, she'll have paid more than half-again its value in Prop. tax.
From my perspective, the "monthly payment" will bring down the economy. Think about it....
cable bill
internet bill
satellite radio
cell phone bill
day care
car lease
credit card interest
A lot of folks never really look at their pay stub and think about how much they are actually paying. If we had to write a check every month, and more people actually paid income tax, people might start asking their congressperson "What are you spending my money on?"
When I first read your post I thought you were being facetious. Now I not so sure. When did those items become "needs"?
That's interesting ! I thought we could only use our homestead portability once . As soon as the market picks up I going to use mine to buy a house a little further from the water .
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]The "Save Our Homes" (SOH) Amendment in Florida’s Constitution was intended to prevent homeowners from being taxed out of their homes due to rapidly rising real estate values. It met that goal, but caused many other problems along the way.
That is why Florida voters adopted a "portability" constitutional amendment in January 2008 to allow eligible homesteaded owners to move savings from one property to the next. Homesteaded owners may now move their Save Our Homes (SOH) benefit -- up to $500,000 -- from one homesteaded property to the next within Florida. To be eligible to move these SOH savings, the new Homestead must be purchased within two years of the abandonment of Homestead at the previously Homesteaded property. Owners of Homesteaded properties sold in 2007 will be eligible to move their SOH savings to a newly purchased property so long as it is Homesteaded by January 1, 2009. Portability applies to both upsizing and downsizing in value, based upon specified formulas. Portability may be used an unlimited amount of times and may be used for moves to anywhere within Florida.