BAILOUT: Yes or No?

[Spino]

I live entirely debt-free, and not because I make millions per year. It's a lifestyle thing, trying to consistently live below your means. I can't be the only American who pays his cards down to zero every month, can I?

You're not... The planets must be in alignment because aside from computer games that's another thing we have in common. Since I paid off my modest student loan in my mid 20s I have been debt free ever since and I also am the furthest thing from a millionaire. Furthermore the only time I have ever carried a balance on my credit card is when I forget to pay on time (I can be quite absent minded about such things). As far as our generation is concerned we are truly rare birds. For all my talk of the evils of Baby Boomers the fiscal irresponsibility of our fellow Gen-X'ers postively puts them to shame.

I'm one of those rare Gen-X'ers who buys most of their food at the supermarket and cooks it at home. I rarely buy anything unless it's on sale, coupled with a rebate or for some reason is selling at an unusually low price. I also refrain from indulging in money draining frivolities like binge drinking at the local pub every Friday & Saturday, gambling or paying for snazzy tech I admire but would admittedly never use, etc. I chalk it up to being raised in no small part by my grandparents, members of the Depression era generation who turned coupon clipping and thriftiness into an art form. Being raised in a Greek household played its part as well... seriously, we rival Jews and Scots for our ability to squeeze the life out of an innocent penny.

I've squirreled away so much cash over the last 20 years that my mattress looks like it's about to give birth to a bank... Interesting that with the looming financial collapse my friends (who live paycheck to paycheck) who previously chastized me for my cheapness have toned down the sermons about 'not being able to take it with you' or 'living in the moment'.

[Koga No Goshi]

You're not... The planets must be in alignment because aside from computer games that's another thing we have in common.

Me too. I got raped by the 18% interest rates using a credit card here and there in college, and getting in trouble. (I was not out buying luxury dinners and electronics with it, I was buying stuff like books and little daily things when I didn't have time to take the bus to the bank for cash.) Since then I live off-debt, my one credit card gets zeroed every month.

I'm one of those rare Gen-X'ers who buys most of their food at the supermarket and cooks it at home.

This part is off topic Spino but this made me really curious. I know this depends a lot on where you live, and everything. But for me, I never found myself, at least for one person, saving any significant amount of money grocery shopping as opposed to eating out. Especially when you take waste/loss/food going back before you eat it into account. I mean, if you go to some bulk membership place, yeah, you save money, but a single person usually can't store or eat all that before it's bad. I tried the buy and cook as a single person, and I just never saw any real savings. I mean you go and spend $7-9 for enough chicken for two meals, (or $20~ for a bigger bag I barely had freezer room for and would get frostbitten halfway through). Now, when money was tight I did live on mac & cheese, pancake mix (creative applications) and top ramen. You can live very cheaply that way, practically like a day laborer. But, you get black circles under your eyes and you're tired and hungry all the time. (I was totally broke my last five or six months of college, as soon as paycheck would come in, it would be gone for necessities.)

I've squirreled away so much cash over the last 20 years that my mattress looks like it's about to give birth to a bank... Interesting that with the looming financial collapse my friends (who live paycheck to paycheck) who previously chastized me for my cheapness have toned down the sermons about 'not being able to take it with you' or 'living in the moment'.

Another way you and I are alike. I have been teased and made fun of for years, called "Scrooge McDuck", because I always cash about half my paycheck and keep it out of the bank. That does mean, that I have an obscene amount of cash money hidden. People made fun, and made fun, and made fun. And now they're not anymore, in fact, now they're saying financial "planners" are telling people to keep about 25% of their money in cash, take it out of CD's, stocks, investments, and keep some on hand in case your bank is locked down for a week while the Feds take it over. No one's making fun of me anymore. :) But I've always had Cassandra syndrome, I haven't trusted the U.S. financial systems in years and I've been saying that I don't see how it can possibly stay stable the way it's running, and everyone called me an alarmist and ignored me for years.

[Spino]

Me too. I got raped by the 18% interest rates using a credit card here and there in college, and getting in trouble. (I was not out buying luxury dinners and electronics with it, I was buying stuff like books and little daily things when I didn't have time to take the bus to the bank for cash.) Since then I live off-debt, my one credit card gets zeroed every month.



This part is off topic Spino but this made me really curious. I know this depends a lot on where you live, and everything. But for me, I never found myself, at least for one person, saving any significant amount of money grocery shopping as opposed to eating out. Especially when you take waste/loss/food going back before you eat it into account. I mean, if you go to some bulk membership place, yeah, you save money, but a single person usually can't store or eat all that before it's bad. I tried the buy and cook as a single person, and I just never saw any real savings. I mean you go and spend $7-9 for enough chicken for two meals, (or $20~ for a bigger bag I barely had freezer room for and would get frostbitten halfway through). Now, when money was tight I did live on mac & cheese, pancake mix (creative applications) and top ramen. You can live very cheaply that way, practically like a day laborer. But, you get black circles under your eyes and you're tired and hungry all the time. (I was totally broke my last five or six months of college, as soon as paycheck would come in, it would be gone for necessities.)



Another way you and I are alike. I have been teased and made fun of for years, called "Scrooge McDuck", because I always cash about half my paycheck and keep it out of the bank. That does mean, that I have an obscene amount of cash money hidden. People made fun, and made fun, and made fun. And now they're not anymore, in fact, now they're saying financial "planners" are telling people to keep about 25% of their money in cash, take it out of CD's, stocks, investments, and keep some on hand in case your bank is locked down for a week while the Feds take it over. No one's making fun of me anymore. :) But I've always had Cassandra syndrome, I haven't trusted the U.S. financial systems in years and I've been saying that I don't see how it can possibly stay stable the way it's running, and everyone called me an alarmist and ignored me for years.

Checking out the store circulars for weekly deals works for me and I use the supermarket cards to accumulate points that I can cash in to get free food when they have special deals. A few packages of chicken breasts or whole legs, a few packages of vegetables, etc. I scoop up as much as my freezer can handle and stuff it in there for use over the course of the month. I'm not a foodie so even now that I can afford to indulge my palate I generally eat the same thing every other night. To break up the monotony and take a brief vacation from cooking I usually eat out or order out once during the weekends.

I was joking about hiding a ton of cash in my house. A mad money/rainy day fund hidden in the mattress is fine but keeping too much cash on hand is irresponsible in light of the interest (however small) it could be earning in a bank (hopefully a reliable one). I have a nice chunk of change tied up in Roth IRA's with a few high cap/low risk mutual funds with stellar track records but the bulk of my assets are liquid and are in CDs or high return savings accounts in banks that are not in danger of going belly up.

[Koga No Goshi]

I was joking about hiding a ton of cash in my house. A mad money/rainy day fund hidden in the mattress is fine but keeping too much cash on hand is irresponsible in light of the interest (however small) it could be earning in a bank (hopefully a reliable one). I have a nice chunk of change tied up in Roth IRA's with a few high cap/low risk mutual funds with stellar track records but the bulk of my assets are liquid and are in CDs or high return savings accounts in banks that are not in danger of going belly up.

You're one of the people making fun of me! Stop it, stop it! ;)

I don't make a ton of money. And the cash I keep around does have a turnover where I use some of it for out of pocket expenses. So we're not talking about 600,000 in my mattress. Savings account interest though is a joke, to me. And CD's, well, I'm young enough that I don't like tying up my money for 6-24 months in an untouchable place. I like to keep my options open. I have less money (marginally) than someone with the same income as me who put it all in CD's or savings, but, I don't panic or stay up at night worrying what will happen if my bank crashes. It won't affect me for awhile, cash wise.

[Lemur]

Checking out the store circulars for weekly deals works for me and I use the supermarket cards to accumulate points that I can cash in to get free food when they have special deals. A few packages of chicken breasts or whole legs, a few packages of vegetables, etc. I scoop up as much as my freezer can handle and stuff it in there for use over the course of the month.

I cheated -- I married a professional chef. And we grow a lot of our veggies and fruit in our yard, so we get fresh stuff about eight months of the year for the cost of seed.

We bought a second freezer and have been harvesting/vacuum packing/freezing as much stuff as we can. Trying to stretch it out so that we're eating our own produce 12 months of the year.