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What's probably just as infuriating to some is that I notice as my wife and I get older and get higher and higher incomes and assets it becomes increasingly eas
by comrade1 12y ago
What's probably just as infuriating to some is that I notice as my wife and I get older and get higher and higher incomes and assets it becomes increasingly easy to spend less money.
As an example, we just bought the company car my wife gets that we'd been driving for free for the last couple of years. We bought it at about 50% of the new value, an significantly discounted from the used price.
There's also things like deferred compensation, pension payments, etc that make it easier and easier for people with money to spend less and save more.
And related to the story, we never buy anything on credit. Not even the car we just bought. It's cash or bank transfer, or if we do pay by credit card for something it's paid each month. We keep our credit card limits quite low though.
- ominous_prime 12y agoYes. It's amazingly expensive to be poor. I have the luxury of using credit cards solely for net30 financing. Car loan -- maybe if I'm fairly certain my investment account will return more than the loan APR. Without that cushion of liquidity, it's all too easy to slip into a cycle of needing credit to stay afloat. Saving small amounts doesn't feel useful, so you don't do it; and small charges don't feel like they will hurt you, so you rack them up. It's a societal problem as much as a educational one. I have no idea where we go from here, but I wonder if social systems like basic income would help alleviate the problem.
- ryan-c 12y agoThere's also the fact that, at least in the US, you can get credit cards that will pay you to use them if you have good credit.