:ohsnap1::ohsnap1:

That reminded me of when I worked in the grocery store : the price would go up 50 cents / 2 weeks later the new stock would be printed WOW 50 cents OFF!:icon18:

My wife laughed at me because I ate a big giant scoop of that peanut butter before we took it back for a refund!

closing credit cards in the states is bad for you. They rate you based on the percentage of balance owed to credit limits, so if you owe 1000 on a 2000 limit card and 0 on another 2000 limit card, they look at it as only a 25% utilization, which will yield a higher credit score than a 50% utilization.

Actually, after visiting Japan 2 years ago, I bought this first thing when I got home. I pamper myself now!

Probably shouldn't be in the money saving thread though, as it wasn't cheap!

http://www.getflushd.com/images/uploads/IMG_54642.JPG

http://bidetking.com/media/images/toto-features.png

You want to save money? Do not get married! Your wife will spend more $$$ than you will ever earn.

Depends on whom you marry.

Don't Mod Your ~Z~

So now you always have a clean tushie. Does it get behind your ball too?

everything is negotiable.

never accept the first 3 "no" answers.

My father who is very successful always said.

1. Ask politely
2. Ask the same thing in a stern but still a friendly way
3. Demand what you want within reason

Just saved 8.5k off my friends nissan navara doing the above :)

I get paid biweekly.

First cheque bills/car loan/living expenses/saving/mod fund.

Second cheque bills/car loan/ insurance/ savings

Nah. Marry a woman who makes >= $ than you!

Sweet Cheeses!

If they sold these in Canada, I'd never leave my bathroom... :rofl2:

There's at least a few booths selling them at every home show.

PAy cash or have special account for "toys" I have $30K in my Car toy account. Had an 05 and 08 Vette and a Miata in the past three years. Now looking sniffing around Zs.

How I developed that account was my fathers rule. Take a loan out on your first car for no more that 36 months. After its paid off KEEP paying the money into a special account. Keep the car for another three years and the account will grow to a cash and carry account. Before you know it you will have a chunk of cash. When one is paying cash for something, they seem to give it much more thought than when one is decideing how much they can afford a month.

BTW I never bought a new car . EVERY car one sees on the street is a Used car.

The largest raise anyone will get is the raise at 40 years old when their 15 year note is paid off on the mortgage. That is a huge tax free raise. But again KEEP making the payments to yourself another 15 in perpetuity in investments....Retire early if you want...

:iagree:
Learned the same thing from my parents back in the 60s and lived by it ever since!
I've even bought cars for cash & made payments back to myself.:icon17:

I follow the Dave Ramsey plan - no debt except for your house on a (max) 15 year loan. No credit cards - cash (or debit card) for everything.

I know a lot of posters said 'But I get X% cash back!' Well, the problem with that is that every study shows you spend more money using a credit card vs. a debit card. So to get your couple hundred dollars at the end of the year, it's probably cost you thousands. And as Dave says, he's never had a millionaire tell him 'Wow! Getting that cash back is what made me a millionaire!'.

Another thing that came up in here was 0% financing then investing the cash you would have paid. That works until it stops working. Let's say you did that on a zero down car. Two months later, the economy tanks, the market crashes, your investment is worth 50% of what it once was, and you lose your job. Oh - and you're upside down $5K in your car already. You can't make the payments or sell the car. Trying to arbitrage 0% / investing doesn't factor in risk. If you don't believe there is any risk, you should go borrow as much money as you can on your house, your cars - whatever - and put it into the market.

A year ago, my GF and I were doing ok - no problem making payments, went on vacations, went out all the time. But we had huge payments - mostly the cars. Doing the debt snowball, we're down to just one payment and paying it off @ $5K / mo. When we're done in a couple of months, you know where that $5K goes? In my pocket! So let's say I want a new(er) car. I can now save $20K in 4 months, add that to my paid off car, and have $45K for something new. And still no payments. We're already planning a vacation to Costa Rica for New Year's. Know how long we have to save up for it? One week. Because our only payment will be our house ($800 on a 15 year fixed).

I've sort of become a Dave Ramsey evangelist. When you understand what debt does to you, it all makes sense. Did you know that debt is the most heavily marketed product? Why? That's how car dealers, furniture stores, banks and so many others make their money. My banker has 3 Porsches. My debt paid for those. I understand that now.

You're right to a point. You absolutely can arbitrage the difference assuming the interest rate you're trying to beat is low enough. Hell, you can get a bank CD that'll beat a 0.9% car loan. :rofl2: Now if you're paying 6%, you're absolutely right, it's too much risk to try and beat that.

The one thing you left out of that scenario where everything goes to **** is your savings. If you don't have six months to a year's worth of an emergency fund sitting in cash you have no business trying to be slick and make a couple of bucks by investing what you would have put down on a car.

Buying a house is awesome and all but its very expensive. You will want things for the house (decoration, furniture, nice gadgets, upgrades, etc) and repairs are expensive as well.

Yeah, about once a year your house will kick you right in the wallet. :rofl2:

But it's not like housing is an optional thing - if you don't buy, you have to rent. For a few bucks more you can have a house of your own. Buying a house can be more expensive while you're making payments, but you have an asset when you get done (and a "free" place to stay). When you rent, you end up with nothing; if you're lucky, you get your deposit back.

As with a car, house maintenance and repairs are a lot cheaper if you don't let things go. Deferred maintenance is always more expensive. Fix things at the first sign of trouble.

Make sure you have enough money saved up to cover the deductible on your homeowner's policy. I spend a little extra for a low deductible and extended coverage - might cost me a few bucks that I could use better elsewhere, but I sleep better at night.


Save as much as you can. When you spend, spend to save in the long run. Treat yourself every now and then, but NEVER sacrifice financial stability for a little fun.

Plus, the home can appreciate and mortgage interest is deductible.

And if you've got an old house, budget an extra 100% of the job cost for when you get halfway into the job and find another three broken things. Ask me how I know. :rofl2:

ALWAYS expect to spend double your budget on repairs/renovations. It never fails.

I keep learning that lesson over and over. My house is 100 years old. Nothing goes according to plan.

Mine is only 20. But it's a shitty builder home with every corner possible cut and low quality materials. Everything I touch has to be completely rebuilt :shakes head:

Tell me about it. Just spent $40,000 on a kitchen remodel job.

I'm in the middle of a home mod right now and have already spent my budget and I am only about half way there lol!

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My parents' kitchen remodel included installing an I-beam in the ceiling because they discovered the structure supporting bathroom above was not sufficient :eekdance:

You're right on track! :tup: :icon17: :wtf2:

Yup, and my car is not happy about it at all! :eek:

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:rofl2: I know what you mean about blossoming project budgets.

Sometimes it's cheaper, in the long run, to pay a pro to do the job - they have the knowledge/experience to assess the job, the proper tools to get the job finished quickly, and, if the job is not something you are good at, the repairs will be done better and last a lot longer. I'll do my own electrical (I was an industrial electrician) but get a plumber to do any big plumbing jobs (I'm not a plumber; I have a hard time getting water to flow downhill).

:iagree:

But it doesn't matter whether you or the contractor tear open a wall and find $5K worth of unexpected repairs. The budget is shot right there, and then it happens two more times :shakes head:

Stay off car forums, they tend to make you want to purchase more car parts!

On a serious note, live within your means or below it if at all possible.

Thought of another one: Don't go overboard when buying gifts. If you have to impress someone with the price of a gift, you don't need that person in your life. And vice versa. ;)

If you buy me something for my birthday, I'd much rather have something cheap but personal (eg, a $2 trinket to go on my keychain that will remind me of you/us). Large amounts of cash will always be graciously accepted but not necessary to keep me as a friend.

We spend money we don't have, on things we can't afford, to impress people we don't like.

And I'll have to admit that I was somewhat that way. I could afford the payments. I thought that was ok.

I was friends with Tim Durham, and man, I thought he had it all together. The house, the hundred cars, the yacht. I thought 'this dude is making it'. Then the economy collapsed. Turns out everything was purchased with debt. So he started 'borrowing' from one of his businesses, got caught, and is in federal prison for the rest of his life. He literally was on CNBC's Super Rich one year, and on American Greed a couple years later.

We removed the wall between the kitchen and dinner room. We had to put a beam up because the wall was load bearing.

Good credit, you can get mortgages and auto loans for 3% interest, which is like free money because inflation is at least 3%. On a mortgage, your effective payment goes down by the inflation rate - assuming your income at least keeps up with inflation - over 10 years your effective payment is much lower than it started at. Keep your cash invested in equities instead of paying cash for a car or a mortgage - house prices typically grow at about the inflation rate, stocks do better.

That all sounds great - but you're not factoring in risk. And the market may average 11% or so, but look at 2008 when it was down 40%.

And I've been on both sides of it in real estate. Use to be a big believer in Kiyosaki & OPM.

Banks, brokers & others that make their money by lending us money have convinced us all that OPM is smart. But if you look at real numbers, it rarely works - or works for very long. They never talk about real world numbers - just what happens in a perfect scenario. I've done a lot of stupid stuff in my life, thinking I was sophisticated. Finally realized that the truly wealthy people don't do 'sophisticated' investing. Pay cash, keep it simple and use your income to build wealth. Again, going back to my buddy Tim, his estimated net worth was $200 million when he was on Super Rich. Know what it really was when everything was liquidated? -$50 million. He was poorer than you & me!

I acquired an odd lot of Northern Natural Gas stock worth less than $1000 in the late 1970s. Put it in dividend re-investment and pretty much forgot about it. The stock would rise and split, NNG merged with other companies and eventually became Enron, and I ended up with about $25K worth of stock. Paying for Daughter's college wasn't going to be very difficult at all. Yeah, right. I was prepared if the stock were to take a fairly big hit, but not for when it hit zero. Luckily, I had other investments and Daughter got scholarships/internships/&c, so it wasn't a disaster; but things got pretty tight a few times.

Not trying to scare anyone away from the stock market, just be aware that you can lose everything so don't keep all your eggs in one basket.

set ur goal get a job to match