Things your anti-Mustachian friends say

[ysette9]

Her parents are 65 years old and would like to retire, but can't because they do not have enough money. Maybe part of the problem is that they have 3 car payments? They have a 2015 Dodge diesel truck ($55,000), 2018 Honda Pilot ($30,000) and 2020 Jeep Rubicon ($40,000).

We have 3 rental properties ($38,400 + $6,600 repairs), ($37,000 + $13,000 repairs), and ($33,000 + $12,000) repairs for about the same amount of money.   

Which, incidentally, would pay for those three car payments forever if that's how I wanted to allocate those profits...

Those are mind-blowing my cheap properties to my eyes. Where are they?

[The_Big_H]

My in-laws are really starting to piss me off. Over the past 6-12 months they have been giving my wife (their daughter) a really hard sell to buy a new car because her car is more than 10 years old. She has a 2007 Honda CRV with 150,000 miles. She bought it new in 2008 and has taken really good care of it. My wife stuck up for herself and has simply said multiple times, "I don't want a car payment" 

Her parents are 65 years old and would like to retire, but can't because they do not have enough money. Maybe part of the problem is that they have 3 car payments? They have a 2015 Dodge diesel truck ($55,000), 2018 Honda Pilot ($30,000) and 2020 Jeep Rubicon ($40,000). Working has been really hard on their health over the past 2 years. They work at a grocery store as a stocking manager and check-out clerk.

Father in law works 48 hours/week. Mother in law works 40 hours/week. They both get 4 weeks of paid vacation, so their total hours/week average around 81 hours/week. Their combined annual income is probably around 90,000/year.

We make around the same amount (90,000/year), but we work half as much because we value our health and time and not new cars. I average 25 hours/week of work and my wife averages 15 hours/week. This is 40 hours/week total combined.

I really do not care how they live their life. I strongly believe in, "To each their own." However, I am dumbfounded that they feel the need to tell us how to live our lives and their path is the better way. In my opinion, their life sucks.

I feel like "to each their own" goes out the window when people try to tell you how to live your life. A witty retort like "we don't want a car payment because we don't want to still be working when we're 65 with no end in sight" may not be effective, but it sure would feel good to say.

That's my general feeling.  I don't need to tell my in-laws they are terrible with money... Until they start trying to give us money advice.
"Lets see, y'alls net worth is negative, ours is in the 6 figures, the advice needs to go the opposite way its currently going"
or
"Taking money advice from you is like taking weight loss advice from Paula Dean"

Some parents don't realize that they lead by ANTI-example (as in, do the exact opposite of my life choices"

[availablelight]

I'm sorry that cooking in your newly remodeled kitchen and hanging out with your family is so miserable.

Best quote ever.  I live in a HCOL area and hear constant complaints about how hard it is to be at home.  From people in luxury 4000 sq ft houses on 5 acres.  You're home with the family you supposedly love!  With every amenity known to man!

Yes. If you are this miserable when your distractions are stripped away from the luxurious life you've created, maybe it's time to take a close look at your life and make some changes.

A lot of MMMers are hardcore introverts so quarantine is a gift to them.

But a lot of other people, like me, are extroverts and thrive on interaction with lots of people, so quarantine feels extremely restrictive and suffocating. It has nothing to do with “luxuries” unless you consider human interaction a luxury.

@Chris22 , I don't know if you've seen the other posts where this is discussed, but the INTJ type (under Myers-Briggs) is by far the modal type for MMM forum participants.

One of the rare situations in which we're the majority.

I almost feel like exploiting or dominating somebody now. But that would require effort, so I won't.

I've noticed that in several forums I've been on over the years.  I don't know if this is because those forums are about things where there are more INTJs (plausible for personal finance and some of the other things), or because internet forums in general have more INTJs.  (This wouldn't be the case for, say, mainstream social media sites that everyone and their grandmother is on by now.)

[Smokystache]

I recently had dinner with an old friend. She says that her family can't afford college for the kids, its just too expensive. 5 minutes later talking about putting 2 of her kids on travel sports teams. "But it's only $3000 per year each. They could probably get a college scholarship." I asked how much it would be all in. She didn't even calculate all the money to be spent on gas, hotels, food etc.

My parents fell for this scheme with my younger sister, who played travel soccer. After spending thousands of dollars and every weekend on soccer, the scholarships that my sister actually landed didn't even cover that much, and they had to take out loans for the rest of her tuition. They would have been better off saving throughout the years and cutting a check for college. Selling people on the scholarship idea really gets a lot of them hooked.

The misconceptions about college sports scholarships are staggering - The vast majority of college athletes aren't getting a scholarship for playing their sport. I was a professor for 15 years at a Division III school - which means we literally can't give sports scholarships - it's not allowed. But as a private college, we gave some type of academic scholarship to 98% of the students enrolled. But many (most?) of the college athletes at my school earnestly believed that they had a "sports" scholarship. This was especially true with football players.

As their academic advisor, I felt it was important to correct them - because there might be times when quitting a sport and focusing on not failing out of college would be the wisest move. The coaches didn't want to emphasize that they received a general/academic scholarship simply because they met our admissions criteria - it felt great for the kid (and parents!) to be able to say "Son has a scholarship and he's going to play football at Xxxx College" - that makes it sound like, "Wow! He got a football scholarship!" - No, no he didn't.  He got the same scholarship that every other applicant with a XX ACT and X.xx GPA got. The proof is that he wouldn't lose the scholarship if he quit the team or got kicked off - but he would if his GPA dropped below X.xx (which is what typically happened because he spent more time thinking about sports than doing well in class).

[marty998]

Her parents are 65 years old and would like to retire, but can't because they do not have enough money. Maybe part of the problem is that they have 3 car payments? They have a 2015 Dodge diesel truck ($55,000), 2018 Honda Pilot ($30,000) and 2020 Jeep Rubicon ($40,000).

We have 3 rental properties ($38,400 + $6,600 repairs), ($37,000 + $13,000 repairs), and ($33,000 + $12,000) repairs for about the same amount of money.   

Which, incidentally, would pay for those three car payments forever if that's how I wanted to allocate those profits...

Those are mind-blowing my cheap properties to my eyes. Where are they?

Yeah you couldn't buy radioactively contaminated land for those rates here. Who would rent those properties when they could be bought outright so cheaply?

[BeautifulDay]

A friend was telling me that his sister was laid off from an airline job.  I think she’s worked for the airline for a very long time.  She received a severance package that sounds like it was in the $50k range plus unlimited free flights for life.

My friend said he told his sister she had better do something nice for herself with that money like a new car.

I’m thinking yes she should do something nice for herself like pay her bills till she finds a new job.

[rothwem]

Her parents are 65 years old and would like to retire, but can't because they do not have enough money. Maybe part of the problem is that they have 3 car payments? They have a 2015 Dodge diesel truck ($55,000), 2018 Honda Pilot ($30,000) and 2020 Jeep Rubicon ($40,000).

We have 3 rental properties ($38,400 + $6,600 repairs), ($37,000 + $13,000 repairs), and ($33,000 + $12,000) repairs for about the same amount of money.   

Which, incidentally, would pay for those three car payments forever if that's how I wanted to allocate those profits...

Those are mind-blowing my cheap properties to my eyes. Where are they?

Yeah you couldn't buy radioactively contaminated land for those rates here. Who would rent those properties when they could be bought outright so cheaply?

If I recall correctly, @SwordGuy is in Fayetteville, NC and there’s a large military population there that knows they’re going to be there for a temporary stay of 3-4 years max.

Those property prices are cheap even for Fayetteville, but not insane. Rural eastern NC is the definition of LCOL.

[SwordGuy]

Her parents are 65 years old and would like to retire, but can't because they do not have enough money. Maybe part of the problem is that they have 3 car payments? They have a 2015 Dodge diesel truck ($55,000), 2018 Honda Pilot ($30,000) and 2020 Jeep Rubicon ($40,000).

We have 3 rental properties ($38,400 + $6,600 repairs), ($37,000 + $13,000 repairs), and ($33,000 + $12,000) repairs for about the same amount of money.   

Which, incidentally, would pay for those three car payments forever if that's how I wanted to allocate those profits...

Those are mind-blowing my cheap properties to my eyes. Where are they?

Yeah you couldn't buy radioactively contaminated land for those rates here. Who would rent those properties when they could be bought outright so cheaply?

People who (a) don't have down payment money or (b) can't get a mortgage or (c) don't intend to stay in town that long or (d) don't want to deal with repairs or (e) are new to the area and want to rent for awhile.   Pretty much the same group of people who rent anywhere.

PS -- these are nice houses.    Root around in my MMM blog and you'll find photos of them after renovation.

[Just Joe]

I recently had dinner with an old friend. She says that her family can't afford college for the kids, its just too expensive. 5 minutes later talking about putting 2 of her kids on travel sports teams. "But it's only $3000 per year each. They could probably get a college scholarship." I asked how much it would be all in. She didn't even calculate all the money to be spent on gas, hotels, food etc.

My parents fell for this scheme with my younger sister, who played travel soccer. After spending thousands of dollars and every weekend on soccer, the scholarships that my sister actually landed didn't even cover that much, and they had to take out loans for the rest of her tuition. They would have been better off saving throughout the years and cutting a check for college. Selling people on the scholarship idea really gets a lot of them hooked.

I heard a related story on a podcast recently (Stacking Benjamins).

Pre-teen son is supposed to try out for traveling soccer team. However, he stays the night with friends the night before, doesn't sleep, and is miserable the day of tryouts. Dad decides not to take him to tryouts because the kid doesn't want to go.

That evening, dad gets a message on the answering machine (paraphrasing): "Hey So-and-So, we really liked what we saw out of Jr. at the tryout today and wanted to offer him a spot on the team."

NIIIICE! Thanks for the chuckle this morn! I've known a few travel team families. Fun but very expensive they all reported. Yeah - fees, hotels, restaurant food, wear and tear on the family car plus gas, etc.

[Just Joe]

'Cause the old car will start breaking down just about the same time it is paid off dontcha know?

Yeah, pretty common logic among some people we know. Also, the folks that replace cars every two to three years for reasons. Always different reasons, but reasons. ;)

We keep cars forever (like 20 years forever) and I really like not having a payment. Sure, we'll have a few repairs but it never amounts to much because we DIY everything.

Even if you don't do much yourself (because you have two left hands, like me), some repairs are still way the fuck cheaper than buying a stupid new clown car all the time. Especially if we are talking about 6-8 year old cars.

This is very true. Or buy a reasonable used car of a brand that tends to be higher quality. I've spent <4k on a Honda van and about 6k on a Prius, for example, both of which are lasting me well despite being pretty old. I say this because sometimes I see this on the other end - i.e. people willing to spend 3K or so to fix a vehicle, when they could get a solid used one with much less miles than they had on the one they are fixing for not much more (and they have the money to spend, so it's not a matter of I just don't have 500 bucks more or whatever). It's always a trade off, but I think it comes down to people thinking that spending 4k or less means you have to get a piece of crap. Trying to get a car for 500 bucks, yeah, probably junk, but there's a huge range of cars that are affordable and will last. You don't have to buy a 2 year old used car for 15,000 or whatever.

This channel will make you cringe: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtfL5jCpMwc0DTBPpkNo6_w

Don't know what people do to their cars to let them get this bad. Makes me want gov't mandated basic safety checks and I hate rules...

[Just Joe]

A friend was telling me that his sister was laid off from an airline job.  I think she’s worked for the airline for a very long time.  She received a severance package that sounds like it was in the $50k range plus unlimited free flights for life.

My friend said he told his sister she had better do something nice for herself with that money like a new car.

I’m thinking yes she should do something nice for herself like pay her bills till she finds a new job.

CARS! I love all things shiny and mechanical too but cars are some people's downfalls. Heard about a couch surfer 20-something that bought themselves a new car recently. Can't afford rent but can afford a new car...

[Sugaree]

'Cause the old car will start breaking down just about the same time it is paid off dontcha know?

Yeah, pretty common logic among some people we know. Also, the folks that replace cars every two to three years for reasons. Always different reasons, but reasons. ;)

We keep cars forever (like 20 years forever) and I really like not having a payment. Sure, we'll have a few repairs but it never amounts to much because we DIY everything.

Even if you don't do much yourself (because you have two left hands, like me), some repairs are still way the fuck cheaper than buying a stupid new clown car all the time. Especially if we are talking about 6-8 year old cars.

This is very true. Or buy a reasonable used car of a brand that tends to be higher quality. I've spent <4k on a Honda van and about 6k on a Prius, for example, both of which are lasting me well despite being pretty old. I say this because sometimes I see this on the other end - i.e. people willing to spend 3K or so to fix a vehicle, when they could get a solid used one with much less miles than they had on the one they are fixing for not much more (and they have the money to spend, so it's not a matter of I just don't have 500 bucks more or whatever). It's always a trade off, but I think it comes down to people thinking that spending 4k or less means you have to get a piece of crap. Trying to get a car for 500 bucks, yeah, probably junk, but there's a huge range of cars that are affordable and will last. You don't have to buy a 2 year old used car for 15,000 or whatever.

This channel will make you cringe: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtfL5jCpMwc0DTBPpkNo6_w

Don't know what people do to their cars to let them get this bad. Makes me want gov't mandated basic safety checks and I hate rules...

I live in a state that doesn't have inspections.  I am less than 40  miles from a state that has inspections.  There are always deals to be had on cars that run fine, but can't pass the emissions test.

[TheGrimSqueaker]

The misconceptions about college sports scholarships are staggering - The vast majority of college athletes aren't getting a scholarship for playing their sport. I was a professor for 15 years at a Division III school - which means we literally can't give sports scholarships - it's not allowed. But as a private college, we gave some type of academic scholarship to 98% of the students enrolled. But many (most?) of the college athletes at my school earnestly believed that they had a "sports" scholarship. This was especially true with football players.

Concussion effects are real.