Overheard at Work

[deadlymonkey]

Something I found out today at work, so it counts, right?

Another team in my department was supposed to have a new person start this week. Orientation Monday, then first day in the department Tuesday. He wasn't here yesterday. Today, I found out why. Monday, he emailed HR and said that he wasn't taking the job, and was going to stay with his current company. He'd accepted the job offer 2-3 weeks ago.

He's blacklisted with HR - will never even get an interview here again.

I experienced something similar to this as a grad student.  The department was interviewing for  new tenure track position and was interviewing different candidates.  As part of the process they invited the few finalists to the campus o give lectures, a general one for the undergraduates and a much more technical lecture for grad students.  As part of the process, the chair asked the grad students for input based on whom we would like to learn from.  In the end they offered the position to someone who appeared to enthusiastically want the job and did a great job interviewing.  Turns out at the last moment he turned it down because he just wanted an offer from prestigious university X to use for negotiating a position at university Y where he really wanted to work. 

That is ok and all I guess, but kind of a dick move since they had to start the whole recruiting process over again.

[mm1970]

So I realized that my salad/ veggies/ fruit/ protein lunches are closer to $5, compares to my beans-and-rice lunches of $1.50.

But hey, I'm less chubby!

I usually toss a few pounds of frozen chicken breasts in the slow cooker with two hot sauces and turn it on low for 9 hours, shred and put in a container. My lunches consist of nuking a portion of the chicken and eating it with a quick salad. The salad is extremely simple, usually just a mix of greens (spinach, kale, romaine, ect). It costs maybe $2 per lunch.

Most of the cost comes in with the produce box,  $40 a week.  I just calculated the cost per item (approx) and that's the biggest cost.  There's also protein (often eggs), sunflower seeds, and often a bit of cheese.  It's a very nice salad.

But my "lunch" cost also includes 2 snacks - cottage cheese ($0.72), fresh fruit ($1), plus more fresh vegetables with nuts or hummus.

[MgoSam]

So I realized that my salad/ veggies/ fruit/ protein lunches are closer to $5, compares to my beans-and-rice lunches of $1.50.

But hey, I'm less chubby!

I usually toss a few pounds of frozen chicken breasts in the slow cooker with two hot sauces and turn it on low for 9 hours, shred and put in a container. My lunches consist of nuking a portion of the chicken and eating it with a quick salad. The salad is extremely simple, usually just a mix of greens (spinach, kale, romaine, ect). It costs maybe $2 per lunch.

Most of the cost comes in with the produce box,  $40 a week.  I just calculated the cost per item (approx) and that's the biggest cost.  There's also protein (often eggs), sunflower seeds, and often a bit of cheese.  It's a very nice salad.

But my "lunch" cost also includes 2 snacks - cottage cheese ($0.72), fresh fruit ($1), plus more fresh vegetables with nuts or hummus.

Fair enough, and your lunches sound tastier than mine. I recognize that my lunches are boring, but they are working for me and they are easy for me to sustain.

[Slee_stack]

Fruit is also the expensive part of my lunch.  About $1 for (1) apple and (1) banana.  Overall cost is usually just under $2.  I usually have a half PB sandwich (no jelly, too sweet), some chips, almonds/raisins and the fruit.

I go out to lunch about once a quarter and then usually only if its required (and then its paid for).   I prefer to take quick lunches and leave a smidgen earlier.

[bb11]

Coworker who is constantly spending lavishly on himself while making fun of me (not in a cruel way) for being frugal; in his mid-30's with very little saved despite making near $100k for years:

"I promise you in 10 years you'll have outgrown your frugality."

We both makes jokes about each other's spending, so it's not a comment I get mad at. We've talked about finances a decent amount and he knows my strategy. What is amazing to me is that he truly thinks his way is right, and that frugality is just some remnant of my youthful naivete that I will mature out of into a good consumer.

I'm amazed.  He knows your strategy--does he disagree that mathematically it is INEVITABLE that you will be ready to retire way before he is?  If so, what does he mean by "his way is right"?  Does he mean that spending is more virtuous than being frugal, because it drives the economy or something?  Does he think that it's objectively true that happiness comes from spending, and you're just delusional about being happy with low spending but some day you'll realize that and start spending more and become truly happy?  (But you'll still be way ahead of him in savings!)
As I said, I'm amazed.

I think it's a combination of denial (he will sometimes say "I wish I could have a more frugal mindset, but I just don't") and thinking that spending more truly does make you happier.

[mustachepungoeshere]

Talking funerals with a colleague.

A local cemetery charges $30,000 for a tomb within a particular mausoleum.

They also have a $2000 option for burial in the lawn cemetery and a small plaque.

Co-worker, whose mother has already bought 16 places for the family in another mausoleum, said, "Oh that's good that they have somewhere for families with no money."

(These prices exclude actual funeral expenses, e.g. coffin.)

[TheGrimSqueaker]

Talking funerals with a colleague.

A local cemetery charges $30,000 for a tomb within a particular mausoleum.

They also have a $2000 option for burial in the lawn cemetery and a small plaque.

Co-worker, whose mother has already bought 16 places for the family in another mausoleum, said, "Oh that's good that they have somewhere for families with no money."

(These prices exclude actual funeral expenses, e.g. coffin.)

It never ceases to amaze me when people volunteer to be a future century's museum exhibit.

ETA: I wonder how many of our current museum exhibits weren't really wealthy, influential rulers so much as people with more money or wampum than sense.

[KodeBlue]

$1400/mo for a car payment?! Holy crap. that's more than my mortgage, which at ~1300 is I think on the high side compared to most here!

Yeah, just for a car payment. The level of craziness is out of this world.

Almost 3 times my mortgage payment! Yikes. Next time you talk this person find something out for me...does stupid hurt?

[NykkiC]

I work at an organisation currently going through a major restructure looking to reduce overheads by $100mil+ due to declines in the mining industry among other things. I was discussing property and first homes with a colleague who works in a Health and Safety role and is married to an operator who works on a remote site (both with said company undergoing massive cuts).

"We're looking for a 3+ bedroom house, with two bathrooms and a double garage - our budget is $800,000 but we'd prefer to not go over $750,000".

Wowsers batman! Holy debt in a time of uncertainty. Eggs in one basket much? And we're not talking San Francisco, or New York or anywhere that potentially can justify epic house prices - we're talking Brisbane, Australia.

Its ok though - they plan to own it for at least 5 years before upgrading.

Gosh, its like you don't know that we're Australians and its therefore compulsory to spend crazy amounts of money on a stand alone home with more bedrooms than we will ever need. We also have no option except to buy in a few highly spread out cities that aren't optimised for public transport. And if you can't afford it, then you can take the advice of the new Ambassador to the United States: get a better job.

[mustachepungoeshere]

$1400/mo for a car payment?! Holy crap. that's more than my mortgage, which at ~1300 is I think on the high side compared to most here!

Yeah, just for a car payment. The level of craziness is out of this world.

Almost 3 times my mortgage payment! Yikes. Next time you talk this person find something out for me...does stupid hurt?

Ask this guy (courtesy of r/cars on Reddit).

He bought a 2010 GT-R with 66,000 miles and a dodgy history, and paid $55k on 75 month financing.

It's ok, though:

I had a good amount of equity in my 370z so buying this car wasn't the stupidest decision I've ever made.

https://m.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/4o3qda/i_picked_up_what_i_thought_was_a_dream_yesterday/?utm_source=mweb_redirect&compact=true

[ShoulderThingThatGoesUp]

"We're looking for a 3+ bedroom house, with two bathrooms and a double garage - our budget is $800,000 but we'd prefer to not go over $750,000".

That costs $750,000? Are Australian dollars worth very little or something?

--checks exchange rate--

Nope, that's still insane. Equivalent to $550,000 US. My goodness.

[katstache92]

Coworker: Hey do you know anything about XYZ Company for refinancing?  They sent me something in the mail that says they have a 3.29% rate for a 20 year.  So I could cut off 6 years of my mortgage and not have to pay anything more each month
Me: No, I haven't heard of them.  What are their closing costs?
Coworker: No idea, is that important?
Me: Yes, it can be 2-3 grand.  If you go with Local Bank A or Local Bank B they do not require title insurance so the closing costs are much less.  I refinanced last year for $324.
Coworker: Huh, maybe? Oh look, Local Bank A's rate for a 15 year is even less than XYZ Company.

5 minutes later.

Coworker: Hey, can you run some refinance numbers for me?
Other Guy: Sure, just send me your info.
Coworker: Thanks, XYZ Company says they have this great rate, but I don't know if it's legit.
Other Guy: Those rates are never that low, I'm always wary when I see a rate that low.  It can't be true.
Coworker: Hmm, it's still probably worth looking into.  What did you do about closing costs when you refinanced?
Other Guy: Oh, closing costs aren't important, they don't matter when you're running the numbers.
Coworker: Do you just roll them into the loan?
Other Guy: Yeah, it's like 5 bucks a month, nothing to worry about.

*Head to desk and repeat*

[JLee]

"We're looking for a 3+ bedroom house, with two bathrooms and a double garage - our budget is $800,000 but we'd prefer to not go over $750,000".

That costs $750,000? Are Australian dollars worth very little or something?

--checks exchange rate--

Nope, that's still insane. Equivalent to $550,000 US. My goodness.

Check out housing costs in California, NYC, etc...hell, even northern NJ. That's not unusual at all.

[With This Herring]

Speaking of mortgages...

I went with a friend to a first-time homebuyers' class, as she was thinking of purchasing soon.  The class was run by a pair of realtors.  The younger realtor describes different kinds of mortgages and mentions that you can get some with only a 3% downpayment!  As the realtor is about to move onto the next topic...

Friend: *raises hand*  "I've heard about amortization of mortgages, but I don't really know what it's about.  Can you explain it?"
Realtor: "Well, it's like this.  The first payment you make is going to be mostly interest with a little bit of principal, and the next payment will be a little more principal..." *writes out the first year of a sample mortgage amortization on the board*  "...so it looks like this.  However, if you pay this month AND next month's payments at the same time, you can just cross this right off..." *crosses off next month's payment* "...and you save on interest."
Friend: "Why is there so little principal in the first few payments?"
Realtor: "That's the way the bank sets it up."

After this baffling explanation, I quietly told my friend that I would explain it to her after we got out of the class.  My friend is quite bright, so when I told her that the interest is just based on the principal balance and the monthly payment is just calculated to make the loan last a certain amount of time, she caught right on.  However, the explanation the realtor gave makes me think that the realtor really didn't understand how it works at all.  It seems like a lot of people have the idea that the earlier payments are mostly interest because the bank is run by jerks trying to wring as much out of you as they can before the loan is paid off.

[deadlymonkey]

Talking funerals with a colleague.

A local cemetery charges $30,000 for a tomb within a particular mausoleum.

They also have a $2000 option for burial in the lawn cemetery and a small plaque.

Co-worker, whose mother has already bought 16 places for the family in another mausoleum, said, "Oh that's good that they have somewhere for families with no money."

(These prices exclude actual funeral expenses, e.g. coffin.)

I prefer the scattering of ashes, much cheaper.  Although I don't know if my family will approve a Viking funeral with longboat and flaming arrow.

[mm1970]

$1400/mo for a car payment?! Holy crap. that's more than my mortgage, which at ~1300 is I think on the high side compared to most here!

Yeah, just for a car payment. The level of craziness is out of this world.

Almost 3 times my mortgage payment! Yikes. Next time you talk this person find something out for me...does stupid hurt?

I'd kill for either mortgage payment.  Our first one was 3x that.

[Digital Dogma]

I work at an organisation currently going through a major restructure looking to reduce overheads by $100mil+ due to declines in the mining industry among other things. I was discussing property and first homes with a colleague who works in a Health and Safety role and is married to an operator who works on a remote site (both with said company undergoing massive cuts).

"We're looking for a 3+ bedroom house, with two bathrooms and a double garage - our budget is $800,000 but we'd prefer to not go over $750,000".

Wowsers batman! Holy debt in a time of uncertainty. Eggs in one basket much? And we're not talking San Francisco, or New York or anywhere that potentially can justify epic house prices - we're talking Brisbane, Australia.

Its ok though - they plan to own it for at least 5 years before upgrading.

Ugh this reminds me of an example used in our ethics training which states its most ethical to be impartial when you have knowledge that two individuals in this situation have their job on the chopping block. I got that one wrong, according to my employer.

[Warlord1986]

Talking funerals with a colleague.

A local cemetery charges $30,000 for a tomb within a particular mausoleum.

They also have a $2000 option for burial in the lawn cemetery and a small plaque.

Co-worker, whose mother has already bought 16 places for the family in another mausoleum, said, "Oh that's good that they have somewhere for families with no money."

(These prices exclude actual funeral expenses, e.g. coffin.)

Holy cow. My parents told me to cremate them, then scatter the ashes over a mountain somewhere cool.
Personally, I like DeadlyMonkey's idea. It sounds suitable for a warlord.

[Papa Mustache]

Yesterday, a financial advisor came to talk to us about diversifying and mutual or index funds and whatnot. She started out her demonstration talking about inflation. I didn't notice the charts she had in the pamphlet showing ... I guess "typical"? ... prices for things in 1934, 1980, and 2015.

So she goes "for instance, how much did you pay for your first car?"

Me: "$1800"

Financial advisor looks over, sees that I'm a 20-something, not a 60-something, throwing out that number, and goes "I don't have anywhere to go with that."

The chart had 30-something thousand as a price of a car in 2015. Whaaaaat. I've bought a brand new car before too. It was like $15,000 after the extended warranty and everything.

Our premarital counseling required us to meet with a financial counselor (a parishioner looking for easy leads- it felt really slimy!)

He asked what our dream cars were, I said a Prius, my husband said a Boxster.
Then when we went back a week later he tells me "I didn't have data on what the Prius cost, so I assumed $50k"

Um, we got married in 2004. The internet existed. Try asking Jeeves or whatever we did then rather than coming up with an INSANE number for that car.  I was so annoyed I tuned out everything else. 


(Also- I later decided a Prius was too expensive, even though I'm spendypants as far as MMM goes with cars. I paid $18k, cash of course, for my Elantra Limited).

Always fun when your pre-marital counselor goes on to have a personal meltdown a few years later. In other words they did not live by the very words they were preaching.

We went to counseling just to humor the extended family. DW and I were more thoughtful about getting married and staying happily married than the people around us. ;)

[nanu]

I work at an organisation currently going through a major restructure looking to reduce overheads by $100mil+ due to declines in the mining industry among other things. I was discussing property and first homes with a colleague who works in a Health and Safety role and is married to an operator who works on a remote site (both with said company undergoing massive cuts).

"We're looking for a 3+ bedroom house, with two bathrooms and a double garage - our budget is $800,000 but we'd prefer to not go over $750,000".

Wowsers batman! Holy debt in a time of uncertainty. Eggs in one basket much? And we're not talking San Francisco, or New York or anywhere that potentially can justify epic house prices - we're talking Brisbane, Australia.

Its ok though - they plan to own it for at least 5 years before upgrading.

Ugh this reminds me of an example used in our ethics training which states its most ethical to be impartial when you have knowledge that two individuals in this situation have their job on the chopping block. I got that one wrong, according to my employer.

I think employers should really replace "ethics training" with "how-to-behave-in-a-way-such-that-we-won't-get-sued training".

[MgoSam]

Talking funerals with a colleague.

A local cemetery charges $30,000 for a tomb within a particular mausoleum.

They also have a $2000 option for burial in the lawn cemetery and a small plaque.

Co-worker, whose mother has already bought 16 places for the family in another mausoleum, said, "Oh that's good that they have somewhere for families with no money."

(These prices exclude actual funeral expenses, e.g. coffin.)

Holy cow. My parents told me to cremate them, then scatter the ashes over a mountain somewhere cool.
Personally, I like DeadlyMonkey's idea. It sounds suitable for a warlord.

I like this. Honestly, I"m dead. Maybe it will be ok for people to have a good service in remembrance of me, but afterwards I really don't care if they feed my corpse to Brick Top's pigs.

[fattest_foot]

Coworker: Hmm, it's still probably worth looking into.  What did you do about closing costs when you refinanced?
Other Guy: Oh, closing costs aren't important, they don't matter when you're running the numbers.
Coworker: Do you just roll them into the loan?
Other Guy: Yeah, it's like 5 bucks a month, nothing to worry about.

*Head to desk and repeat*

Stories like that make me want to come up with a stupidly simple way to make a ridiculous amount of money. The person(s) who came up with monthly payments (however many decades, centuries, or millennia that was) was a genius.

[MgoSam]

Coworker: Hmm, it's still probably worth looking into.  What did you do about closing costs when you refinanced?
Other Guy: Oh, closing costs aren't important, they don't matter when you're running the numbers.
Coworker: Do you just roll them into the loan?
Other Guy: Yeah, it's like 5 bucks a month, nothing to worry about.

*Head to desk and repeat*

Stories like that make me want to come up with a stupidly simple way to make a ridiculous amount of money. The person(s) who came up with monthly payments (however many decades, centuries, or millennia that was) was a genius.

Absolutely! When I was buying my house, we were a few thousand off on price and a buddy of mine texted to see how things were going. When I told him, he was confused because it would only add like $15/month. I think that was the moment he realized that I was good with money because from thereon he would ask me questions about finances and saving as he's about to get married in two months and is starting to worry about managing his money. Him and his fiance have dramatically cut back on dining out and other things.

[Mac_MacGyver]

Driving home from work yesterday I stopped at a 7-11 to check if a particular movie was in stock at the Redbox. At one of the gas pumps were two young men, about 25 years of age each asking if anyone had any change as they were out of gas and had no money. The car they were driving you ask? A brand new BMW 535 with the 30 day tags still on it. 

[bb11]

"We're looking for a 3+ bedroom house, with two bathrooms and a double garage - our budget is $800,000 but we'd prefer to not go over $750,000".

That costs $750,000? Are Australian dollars worth very little or something?

--checks exchange rate--

Nope, that's still insane. Equivalent to $550,000 US. My goodness.

Check out housing costs in California, NYC, etc...hell, even northern NJ. That's not unusual at all.

+1

The median home price in San Jose, CA is now about $900k (source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/san-joses-median-home-price-hits-900000-2015-05-11). This is not some small suburb but a city with over 1 million people in it. $550k? Sounds cheap! ;)

[TallFrodo]

Something I found out today at work, so it counts, right?

Another team in my department was supposed to have a new person start this week. Orientation Monday, then first day in the department Tuesday. He wasn't here yesterday. Today, I found out why. Monday, he emailed HR and said that he wasn't taking the job, and was going to stay with his current company. He'd accepted the job offer 2-3 weeks ago.

He's blacklisted with HR - will never even get an interview here again.

I experienced something similar to this as a grad student.  The department was interviewing for  new tenure track position and was interviewing different candidates.  As part of the process they invited the few finalists to the campus o give lectures, a general one for the undergraduates and a much more technical lecture for grad students.  As part of the process, the chair asked the grad students for input based on whom we would like to learn from.  In the end they offered the position to someone who appeared to enthusiastically want the job and did a great job interviewing.  Turns out at the last moment he turned it down because he just wanted an offer from prestigious university X to use for negotiating a position at university Y where he really wanted to work. 

That is ok and all I guess, but kind of a dick move since they had to start the whole recruiting process over again.

I did this to get my current job. After applying for every IT job in my town every week for months and not landing a single interview (depressing, I assure you), I widened my search to "anywhere in Australia other than a capital city." Within two weeks I had interviewed for and signed a contract for a role that knocked my pay up $12k and had more responsibilities but was throwing up all sorts of red flags and was in a town over 1000km away. That same week I had my first ever local interview which I also nailed but they were slower getting back to me. When I mentioned that I was already sitting on a signed job offer and had given my four weeks notice the local company agreed to match the higher amount (at the upper end of their pay scale) to get me to stay. The new job was a better match for what I wanted, wouldn't need moving costs or a raise in my cost of living so I took it. As soon as the ink was dry I emailed my former-next-employer stating that I was formally giving my two weeks notice to THEM as per clause X of the contract and apologizing profusely for the inconvenience due to my "personal circumstances". The response I got was "LOL see you round the traps" (did I mention the red flags?).

Either way, I used my lunch break to drop about $100 to have a bouquet of edible chocolate flowers delivered to their office with a Sorry card. The hiring manager got back to me to say thanks and that it wasn't necessary but in terms of networking I figure I'll be "the weirdo who sent flowers" now rather than "that guy who left them in the lurch for a position".


I've been working through this thread for weeks so now that I'm at the end I can finally contribute my own tales of coworker insanity. Sorry for the text dump, I've had to wade through 279 pages to share this and I guess it got to me.

My colleague at work used to make much bigger money in America and now we are very open talking in talking money. But while I'm living off every second paycheque, he's supporting 3 kids and a full-time-study-wife who is admittedly going through health problems but can't seem to delay gratification. She is a wonderful lady, a great cook and they have similar hobbies, humour and all those other things I don't ask about at work. The problem is that anything financial, she has a very unhealthy financial outlook probably partially due to not being in the workforce for 15 years. Here's a few of the shockers:

• Mrs Colleague had a bingle / fender bender in the car park. That night while Mr Colleague is sorting out a fix (only a minor dent) she breaks down and tells him she "doesn't feel safe" in that car anymore and they "need" a new one. He points out that that isn't happening with their credit card debt, that a bigger car will just make parking even harder, that safety isn't the issue at <10km like this and that eventually gets her to agree. I find out about all this the next day when he gets a call during the day from his bank: "Mr Colleague! We're just getting back to you about your enquiry earlier today about a car loan!". He made no such call. After presumably a night full of heated discussion, I found out she had done so under both their names to prove that they COULD afford it just to prove him wrong on the first point of the argument. Apparently no intention to actually buy a car but that's the sort of thing that would have me filing charges.
• After the above heated discussions, Mrs Colleague turned over a new leaf. She was cutting costs, eating out less and buying cheaper groceries and within a month they had paid off one of the $5000 credit cards. Mr Colleague was beaming and talked about how he left the card open as an emergency fund because he knew they had dental bills coming up for the kids. Weeks pass with no juicy gossip. The month of the dental work comes, "So you're going to put it on the emergency fund card?" "No, it's full."
• Mrs Colleague's parents come through with a $5k loan (Emergency outpatient care, as I now know it) to make sure the work gets done (they aren't a fan of Mr Colleague so it has to go to her personal account). Mrs Colleague gets to the day of the procedure and only has $3k of it left.
• Mr Colleague has to leave work early to sign the financing form on this dental work. Mrs Colleague insists that the money will come out of her account so instead of being a cosigner or guarantor he winds up being a second contact person? Other issues crop up in the intervening weeks but eventually he starts getting harassing calls about a late payment on her account. Apparently she has been consistently forgetting to send the money until they call but now she's ignoring their calls.  Nope. She just failed to pay her mobile bill for the past however many days so now they've restricted her number.
• On the mobile front, he pays for the oldest kid's phone and the second one is begging Mum for a tablet for her birthday. Being an IT guy, he agrees, figuring he can pick up a decent WIFI $99-$200 android tablet out of this week's paycheque and starts comparing options online. Mrs Colleague already has it under control though - she calls up their phone company and gets him a "free" shitty tablet and bonus data to his plan for just $30 more per month for the next two years. He shrugs this one off because the eldest was already maxing out the shared data and costing him more than the $30/mo in excess data which this boost would prevent. He did pull the sim out of the tablet though.
• His Dad (who doesn't like Mrs Colleague, it's a strange relationship) tried to send him $1000USD online just to help out and he rejected it. He takes a weird route to work because his left indicator hasn't worked for months but I think if he came up with the money to replace that all of a sudden then every other cent would be poured into "necessities" that weren't necessary until the money was in the account.
• And one of the first stories I got from him last: After I'd known him for a few weeks "How much does a fucking trampoline cost?", "I dunno, like $200? (WRONG)". He shows me a text from Mrs Colleague, completely out of the blue, with no discussion, with no nagging from the kids, with no birthdays or other presents to justify it "Just bought the kids a trampoline. Can you put it together when you get home? :)". Apparently it was huge, cost $700 new, and the kids barely touched it after the first few days. What makes it better is that every couple weeks people try to dump their trampolines on the facebook BuySwapSell pages. Every time one comes up and it's another "$200 ready for pickup", "$150 with spare mat", "$50 due to some rust in legs", or best of all "Free if you disassemble", I forward him the link and he takes it in good cheer.
• I almost forgot, with all of the above - he pays someone to mow his lawn.

He's a great guy, though he clearly has money issues of his own considering he once held a 6 figure job with multiple unannounced $20k+ bonuses and now has a negative net worth. He'll talk FI with me and read any blogs but openly admits that for him with his family it's just a fun thought experiment and never really makes the big changes himself. I try to temper the juicy tales that I hear with the fact that I'm only hearing HIS side of the story but considering the two leading causes of divorce, I hope the sex is good.

[LennStar]

Driving home from work yesterday I stopped at a 7-11 to check if a particular movie was in stock at the Redbox. At one of the gas pumps were two young men, about 25 years of age each asking if anyone had any change as they were out of gas and had no money. The car they were driving you ask? A brand new BMW 535 with the 30 day tags still on it.

After looking that up... Did you offer them to switch cars?
Yours bursting full with gas for theirs empty?
Sell and repeat. Nice profit for you.

[TOgirl]

Today...from a different colleague...

Her: my husband is looking at a new car!!!
Me: what happened to the 2014 hybrid one he has? (financed it new)
Her: well, he wants the 2016 now because it is a new design....not hybrid though...so gas costs will go up.
Me: oh! well that would suck. Is he going to sell the 2014?
Her: no, trade it in...
Me: Oh! well if it's paid off, he would probably get more for it selling it.
Her: oh, no...we still have 4 years of payments on it...but the salesman said that after everything works out, that the monthly payment for the new car will be the same...
Me: ummmm....yeah.....but for several more years and you'll really be paying for 2 cars (unpaid part of 2014, all of 2016)
Her: well no, because they'll credit us a bit for the trade in
Me: hmmm...well at least YOUR car (2011 SUV, bought new) is paid off!! so I guess that's good!
Her: Oh, no....mine still has payments for 2 more years...but I'd rather have car payments on newer cars so I don't have to worry about maintenance and repair costs...I know exactly how much I have to pay each month

The best part of this to me, is that they only bought the 2014 because their previous vehicle, a 2008 (which was only 'paid off' because they rolled it into their mortgage) needed new tires and a repair :(

[Kitsune]

Today...from a different colleague...

Her: my husband is looking at a new car!!!
Me: what happened to the 2014 hybrid one he has? (financed it new)
Her: well, he wants the 2016 now because it is a new design....not hybrid though...so gas costs will go up.
Me: oh! well that would suck. Is he going to sell the 2014?
Her: no, trade it in...
Me: Oh! well if it's paid off, he would probably get more for it selling it.
Her: oh, no...we still have 4 years of payments on it...but the salesman said that after everything works out, that the monthly payment for the new car will be the same...
Me: ummmm....yeah.....but for several more years and you'll really be paying for 2 cars (unpaid part of 2014, all of 2016)
Her: well no, because they'll credit us a bit for the trade in
Me: hmmm...well at least YOUR car (2011 SUV, bought new) is paid off!! so I guess that's good!
Her: Oh, no....mine still has payments for 2 more years...but I'd rather have car payments on newer cars so I don't have to worry about maintenance and repair costs...I know exactly how much I have to pay each month

The best part of this to me, is that they only bought the 2014 because their previous vehicle, a 2008 (which was only 'paid off' because they rolled it into their mortgage) needed new tires and a repair :(

*weep*

Also, yes, I have to 'worry' about repair costs on our paid-off 2011 Honda Fit. When we bought it, new, the dealership quoted us about 400$/month in monthly payments (which we did for 2 years at 0% interest, and then promptly paid off the rest when the interest rate went up, like sensible people). So. I'm expecting MAYBE 2K of repairs needed in the next 2 years. Generous estimate (we live in the country, we drive a lot). That's the equivalent of 5 months worth of car payments. With the other 7600$ I'm NOT spending on car payments over that same 24 months, I'm gonna be putting money aside so that our next car is ALSO a cash buy where I "worry" about needing to spend less than 30% of the money I'd otherwise be guaranteed to spend.

Sign me up for that kind of worry.

[mm1970]

"We're looking for a 3+ bedroom house, with two bathrooms and a double garage - our budget is $800,000 but we'd prefer to not go over $750,000".

That costs $750,000? Are Australian dollars worth very little or something?

--checks exchange rate--

Nope, that's still insane. Equivalent to $550,000 US. My goodness.

Check out housing costs in California, NYC, etc...hell, even northern NJ. That's not unusual at all.

+1

The median home price in San Jose, CA is now about $900k (source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/san-joses-median-home-price-hits-900000-2015-05-11). This is not some small suburb but a city with over 1 million people in it. $550k? Sounds cheap! ;)

Shame just comparing prices and exchange rates makes no sense. Hard to earn US$ living in Brisbane. More useful is house price to median salary ratio.

San Jose: $900k:$95k 10:1 http://www.forbes.com/places/ca/san-jose/
Brisbane $800k: $80k (for Australia) 10:1

Equally insane. Even more insane amount of debt to take on.

Santa Barbara: $1.078M: $63,758 - 17:1

Ugh

[dragoncar]

"We're looking for a 3+ bedroom house, with two bathrooms and a double garage - our budget is $800,000 but we'd prefer to not go over $750,000".

That costs $750,000? Are Australian dollars worth very little or something?

--checks exchange rate--

Nope, that's still insane. Equivalent to $550,000 US. My goodness.

Check out housing costs in California, NYC, etc...hell, even northern NJ. That's not unusual at all.

+1

The median home price in San Jose, CA is now about $900k (source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/san-joses-median-home-price-hits-900000-2015-05-11). This is not some small suburb but a city with over 1 million people in it. $550k? Sounds cheap! ;)

Shame just comparing prices and exchange rates makes no sense. Hard to earn US$ living in Brisbane. More useful is house price to median salary ratio.

San Jose: $900k:$95k 10:1 http://www.forbes.com/places/ca/san-jose/
Brisbane $800k: $80k (for Australia) 10:1

Equally insane. Even more insane amount of debt to take on.

Santa Barbara: $1.078M: $63,758 - 17:1

Ugh

I don't know if those ratios are really relevant because the fact is nobody is buying a house just based on 10x their regular salary.  More likely:

(1) it's purchased by an investor and rented out (at a low cap rate -- you can argue whether that's a good investment, but it's not the same level as buying a home worth 10x your salary)

(2) it's purchased by someone who has non-salary monies such as (a) IPO lottery winnings (b) inheritance (c) retired so their income is small but the house is already paid off.

(3) they don't earn their money in that location (e.g., Santa Barbara I'm sure has a bunch of second/vacation homes owned by rich people who earn money in metropolitan areas).  Plus, college students bring the median income way down.

[chesebert]

Coworker: Hmm, it's still probably worth looking into.  What did you do about closing costs when you refinanced?
Other Guy: Oh, closing costs aren't important, they don't matter when you're running the numbers.
Coworker: Do you just roll them into the loan?
Other Guy: Yeah, it's like 5 bucks a month, nothing to worry about.

*Head to desk and repeat*

Stories like that make me want to come up with a stupidly simple way to make a ridiculous amount of money. The person(s) who came up with monthly payments (however many decades, centuries, or millennia that was) was a genius.

IMHO,the person that turned the concept of monthly payment into "investment"/"saving" was the bigger genius.

[MoonShadow]

I almost forgot, with all of the above - he pays someone to mow his lawn.

Hey now!  I pay a service to mow my lawn too!  But that is because it would take me 3+ years to pay for a large enough lawn mower to manage my 2.2 acre of grassland in about an hour.  So, am I doing it wrong?

[RyanAtTanagra]

I almost forgot, with all of the above - he pays someone to mow his lawn.

Hey now!  I pay a service to mow my lawn too!  But that is because it would take me 3+ years to pay for a large enough lawn mower to manage my 2.2 acre of grassland in about an hour.  So, am I doing it wrong?

Yes, replace the 2.2 acres of grass with something more useful, or just let it grow naturally ;-)  Huge lawns are a waste in multiple ways.

[dragoncar]

I almost forgot, with all of the above - he pays someone to mow his lawn.

Hey now!  I pay a service to mow my lawn too!  But that is because it would take me 3+ years to pay for a large enough lawn mower to manage my 2.2 acre of grassland in about an hour.  So, am I doing it wrong?

Yes, replace the 2.2 acres of grass with something more useful, or just let it grow naturally ;-)  Huge lawns are a waste in multiple ways.

Goats

[PDM]

"We're looking for a 3+ bedroom house, with two bathrooms and a double garage - our budget is $800,000 but we'd prefer to not go over $750,000".

That costs $750,000? Are Australian dollars worth very little or something?

--checks exchange rate--

Nope, that's still insane. Equivalent to $550,000 US. My goodness.

Check out housing costs in California, NYC, etc...hell, even northern NJ. That's not unusual at all.

+1

The median home price in San Jose, CA is now about $900k (source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/san-joses-median-home-price-hits-900000-2015-05-11). This is not some small suburb but a city with over 1 million people in it. $550k? Sounds cheap! ;)

Shame just comparing prices and exchange rates makes no sense. Hard to earn US$ living in Brisbane. More useful is house price to median salary ratio.

San Jose: $900k:$95k 10:1 http://www.forbes.com/places/ca/san-jose/
Brisbane $800k: $80k (for Australia) 10:1

Equally insane. Even more insane amount of debt to take on.

Santa Barbara: $1.078M: $63,758 - 17:1

Ugh

I don't know if those ratios are really relevant because the fact is nobody is buying a house just based on 10x their regular salary.  More likely:

(1) it's purchased by an investor and rented out (at a low cap rate -- you can argue whether that's a good investment, but it's not the same level as buying a home worth 10x your salary)

(2) it's purchased by someone who has non-salary monies such as (a) IPO lottery winnings (b) inheritance (c) retired so their income is small but the house is already paid off.

(3) they don't earn their money in that location (e.g., Santa Barbara I'm sure has a bunch of second/vacation homes owned by rich people who earn money in metropolitan areas).  Plus, college students bring the median income way down.

Maybe not in San Jose, I'm not familiar with the market. But in Australia it is very much happening. First Home Buyers borrowing this magnitude. Sure investors have forced prices up but the young are encouraged to get these massive loans. Have a look at a few Aussie bank borrowing power calculators.

[horsepoor]

Here's a few of the shockers:

That sounds like a fucking exhausting way to live.

[dragoncar]

"We're looking for a 3+ bedroom house, with two bathrooms and a double garage - our budget is $800,000 but we'd prefer to not go over $750,000".

That costs $750,000? Are Australian dollars worth very little or something?

--checks exchange rate--

Nope, that's still insane. Equivalent to $550,000 US. My goodness.

Check out housing costs in California, NYC, etc...hell, even northern NJ. That's not unusual at all.

+1

The median home price in San Jose, CA is now about $900k (source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/san-joses-median-home-price-hits-900000-2015-05-11). This is not some small suburb but a city with over 1 million people in it. $550k? Sounds cheap! ;)

Shame just comparing prices and exchange rates makes no sense. Hard to earn US$ living in Brisbane. More useful is house price to median salary ratio.

San Jose: $900k:$95k 10:1 http://www.forbes.com/places/ca/san-jose/
Brisbane $800k: $80k (for Australia) 10:1

Equally insane. Even more insane amount of debt to take on.

Santa Barbara: $1.078M: $63,758 - 17:1

Ugh

I don't know if those ratios are really relevant because the fact is nobody is buying a house just based on 10x their regular salary.  More likely:

(1) it's purchased by an investor and rented out (at a low cap rate -- you can argue whether that's a good investment, but it's not the same level as buying a home worth 10x your salary)

(2) it's purchased by someone who has non-salary monies such as (a) IPO lottery winnings (b) inheritance (c) retired so their income is small but the house is already paid off.

(3) they don't earn their money in that location (e.g., Santa Barbara I'm sure has a bunch of second/vacation homes owned by rich people who earn money in metropolitan areas).  Plus, college students bring the median income way down.

Maybe not in San Jose, I'm not familiar with the market. But in Australia it is very much happening. First Home Buyers borrowing this magnitude. Sure investors have forced prices up but the young are encouraged to get these massive loans. Have a look at a few Aussie bank borrowing power calculators.

Interesting.. In the US with 20% down, and completely ignoring property tax and other debt, you'd need an interest rate of 2.1% to qualify for 10x your salary on a 30 year mortgage

[Goldielocks]

Sounds about right... need good credit scores, and not run into those "jumbo" loan increased rates...?

[dragoncar]

Sounds about right... need good credit scores, and not run into those "jumbo" loan increased rates...?

2.1 is impossible here.. You have those rates in Australia?

[PDM]

Nope. Lowest is around 4% but that is variable over the life of the loan.

[stylesjl]

First time contribution to the wall, I got a new co-worker whom I overheard discussing when she going to get paid for the first time (we normally get paid monthly at my work place). Anyway she then says "I've only got three dollars to my name and car with half a tank of petrol [gasoline]" and this was one week after she got the final pay check from her previous job!

She then proceeded to talk about a time where she blew something like $300 in a single weekend (she did acknowledge that was a waste of money though).

So an update on this same co-worker who today mentioned that she bought a TV, even had the box right beside her at work. She was making mention of the fact that  when she first tried to buy it that she couldn't afford to pay for it in full so she put in a deposit (which also explains why she was asking if I got paid, the pay came slightly later than she thought it would). After she finally got paid she then bought the TV outright. Good lord, I'm getting the impression that she'll be doing this every month, just running out of money right before the end of the month and anxiously awaiting the next pay day as a result. Guess I'll be back in another month telling you what she blew it all on next...

Well I thought I would have a story at the end of May but it turns out that mid-way through May I overheard my co-worker talk about how she was now on a budget and therefore had 'No Money' which I took to mean no money to spend on things out of the budget. Now here I was thinking that she had begun to take control of her tendency to run out of money before the end of the month (at my workplace we all get paid on the first business day of the calendar month) and I thought I wouldn't be back here with another story to tell about her but today this same co-worker now tells us that she ran out of money again (11 days left until payday) and that she couldn't stay at an event that one of her friends invited her to (Apparently her friend offered to help pay but my co-worker didn't want to owe her money, so I guess she is not living too far beyond her means). She mentioned nothing about a budget this time.

[Drifterrider]

Driving home from work yesterday I stopped at a 7-11 to check if a particular movie was in stock at the Redbox.

Did you know you can set up an account with Redbox (online) and reserve movies?

[boyerbt]

Just received an email about an upcoming lunch seminar and the message made me shudder to think about working that long:

"You will spend over 100,000 hours at work in your lifetime, so you may as well enjoy as many as them as possible!"

[boarder42]

Just received an email about an upcoming lunch seminar and the message made me shudder to think about working that long:

"You will spend over 100,000 hours at work in your lifetime, so you may as well enjoy as many as them as possible!"

i'll probalby spend 40k hours working in my life ... 31000 of which came after college in my career.

[BTDretire]

Coworker: Hmm, it's still probably worth looking into.  What did you do about closing costs when you refinanced?
Other Guy: Oh, closing costs aren't important, they don't matter when you're running the numbers.
Coworker: Do you just roll them into the loan?
Other Guy: Yeah, it's like 5 bucks a month, nothing to worry about.

*Head to desk and repeat*

Stories like that make me want to come up with a stupidly simple way to make a ridiculous amount of money. The person(s) who came up with monthly payments (however many decades, centuries, or millennia that was) was a genius.

  The real genius was the guy that came up with the minimum CC payment, It has kept people in debt for years,
 and kept money flowing to the CC companies.
 I think it was 60 minutes that did an in depth report him and that option.
Hmm,  looks like maybe it was PBS, Frontline, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/showscredit/
A Quote,
"I thought one of your tactical innovations was understanding that if you lowered the minimum payment, the "revolvers" -- those who didn't pay off their balance each month, particularly revolvers at a lower level -- were profitable.

I think what you have in mind is the reduction of minimum payments, which we did in California. They had been 5 percent. I was able to convince one of the major issuers to reduce it to 2 percent. And at the time, the interest rate was 1.5 percent a month, 18 percent a year. So they were reducing their balances, even if they made the minimum payment. But when you reduce the payment to two-fifths of what it was before, you can have a credit line that's five-halves as high, and the number of dollars to be paid per month as a minimum will stay the same. It's that number of dollars that determines whether the cardholder can pay. So by making possible higher credit lines, it gave the customer more flexibility, and of course the bank has a potentially much more profitable account."

[Reynold]

Sometimes cash/100% at front is cheaper, but many times, they push the financing so hard that it's actually worse for you if you want to pay in cash.  Go negotiate a deal on a car where they think you're financing at 0%, and then tell them at the last minute you want to pay cash, they'll try to renegotiate the deal because they want you in the financing, even at 0%.  They get kickbacks from the financing company to keep you financed, even at 0%.  Can't say I completely understand it, but I've witnessed it.

Interesting.   I had no idea that's how it could work.

In fact, last new car we bought, we were able to get a flat $500 off the cash price if we financed it at some really low rate I don't recall because we did so then paid it off after the first month.  We didn't save much as we'd expected, though, as we had to pay the state DMV to retitle it to us instead of the finance company, I don't know if we would bother to go through that effort again. 

It is definitely worth asking the dealership about, though. 

[BDWW]

Sometimes cash/100% at front is cheaper, but many times, they push the financing so hard that it's actually worse for you if you want to pay in cash.  Go negotiate a deal on a car where they think you're financing at 0%, and then tell them at the last minute you want to pay cash, they'll try to renegotiate the deal because they want you in the financing, even at 0%.  They get kickbacks from the financing company to keep you financed, even at 0%.  Can't say I completely understand it, but I've witnessed it.

Interesting.   I had no idea that's how it could work.

In fact, last new car we bought, we were able to get a flat $500 off the cash price if we financed it at some really low rate I don't recall because we did so then paid it off after the first month.  We didn't save much as we'd expected, though, as we had to pay the state DMV to retitle it to us instead of the finance company, I don't know if we would bother to go through that effort again. 

It is definitely worth asking the dealership about, though.

It was actually titled in their name?  Usually, there's just lien notice on the title itself, but it's still in your name. And although many do, it's not necessary to retitle when the lien is paid off. Just keep the lien release paperwork with the title, and you're good.

[Seppia]

Sounds about right... need good credit scores, and not run into those "jumbo" loan increased rates...?

2.1 is impossible here.. You have those rates in Australia?

In Europe (Italy) I just got quoted 2.24% today, fixed, for a small apartment worth less than 1 year of our household salary, putting 50% down, over 25 years.
I think I can get 1.98% if I go to 15 years.
These are absolute best case scenario situations, but almost anybody with a stable job putting 20% down can get a below 3% interest on a 25 years fixed mortgage.
We have the money to pay all cash, but a fixed rate this low is a great hedge against inflation.
Plus, vanguard's developed Europe etf is currently paying 3.5% dividends.
It makes no sense to pay cash today

[dragoncar]

Sounds about right... need good credit scores, and not run into those "jumbo" loan increased rates...?

2.1 is impossible here.. You have those rates in Australia?

In Europe (Italy) I just got quoted 2.24% today, fixed, for a small apartment worth less than 1 year of our household salary, putting 50% down, over 25 years.
I think I can get 1.98% if I go to 15 years.
These are absolute best case scenario situations, but almost anybody with a stable job putting 20% down can get a below 3% interest on a 25 years fixed mortgage.
We have the money to pay all cash, but a fixed rate this low is a great hedge against inflation.
Plus, vanguard's developed Europe etf is currently paying 3.5% dividends.
It makes no sense to pay cash today

yeah, I'm aware of the crazy rates in europe.  Are people buying homes worth 10x their incomes?