The Money Mustache Community
Around the Internet => Antimustachian Wall of Shame and Comedy => Topic started by: aperture on June 08, 2018, 07:52:11 AM
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At a team meeting, a co-worker was passing around photos on his phone of his new home. It is a 4000 sq. foot house that he and his DW just purchased in a fairly high-cost of living suburb. He then went on to express sticker shock at the price of washer/dryers, but explained that he had gotten a good deal on a set during the Memorial Day sales. He was sorry he did not use his credit card to just go ahead and fill the house with furniture because the sales were all so good that weekend. He shrugged off my suggestion that he check out estate sales for washer dryers because they routinely go for $50 to $150 no matter how old they are.
This is the same co-worker that revealed he has $500K in student loan debt. He is a high earner, but he will be digging out of this series of unfortunate choices for easily the next 30 years.
Makes me want to vomit.
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I don't understand how people don't register the huge mortgage or student loans as an issue but can react to different things such as the washer/dryer.
What is the 500k student loan for? Medical, law or private post-graduate degree?
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In what part of Colorado do you live? I'm trying to figure out if this house cost $500,000 or $1,200,000.
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I don't understand how people don't register the huge mortgage or student loans as an issue but can react to different things such as the washer/dryer.
What is the 500k student loan for? Medical, law or private post-graduate degree?
I think it has to do with viewing education and houses as investments. That, and not many people brag about their laundry machines.
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How many kids do they have. If they have 10 kids then, just maybe, I can see the utility of a house that big. Otherwise no.
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I don't understand how people don't register the huge mortgage or student loans as an issue but can react to different things such as the washer/dryer.
What is the 500k student loan for? Medical, law or private post-graduate degree?
I think it has to do with viewing education and houses as investments. That, and not many people brag about their laundry machines.
Also just tradition and expectations. When I first got out of school, I was distraught the one month that I thought I might have to *gasp* carry a balance on my CC for a month. Yet a year later I had no qualms about buying a new car with financing. Even my dad, who grew up in the Depression, thought it was the natural thing to do.
The difference was that I/we saw a revolving credit balance as bad/unsustainable, but regarded car and home loans as normal and maybe even inevitable parts of modern adult life. How could anyone afford a home or a new car (which of course is what a young man with a good career job buys) without a loan? Etc.
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Personally I have been surprised at my ability to not pay attention to and not really care about this big mortgage balance that we take on, the two times we have done it. Perhaps it is easily rationalized away as another monthly bill that gets paid automatically. Perhaps knowing that our investments can cover the balance make it seem okay. I suspect it is a monthly cash flow thing that really decides whether it feels scary or not. If I were pinching pennies and going without to make my mortgage payment I’d probably feel differently.
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I've lived in a four bedroom duplex (with just my child) for about over five years. The rent (which includes water, heat, laundry, and hydro) is 14% of my gross income. I've looked at homes in my area, the lowest adjusted-COL area in Canada, and I struggle imagining paying so much more. In other words, I'm sincerely baffled at how people can carry large mortgages and large student loans (relative to their income).