NL - Apologize to Monica

@mhoran_psprep Yep, that seems most likely.

Somehow I ended up with an odd number of reputation points added. You'd think if they were simply doubling the value of upvotes on questions that I'd have a multiple of 5 reputation points added.

I'm glad to hear that. I've spend some time reflecting the last few weeks. I've felt less engaged with this site for the past year or so. I'm still considering whether I should take a break for a while or try to do more. I don't know what the answer will be, but knowing that you're not getting pounded on the moderation makes me feel less guilty if I do take a break.

@JoeTaxpayer how is the moderation load on this site?

Congrats to BrenBarn on the new highest upvoted answer on the site.

I finally posted an answer to my old subdivision question. money.stackexchange.com/questions/80046/…

irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rp-17-58.pdf

@JoeTaxpayer I think the Gift tax exclusion increase was due to inflation rather than legislation. I won't judge any bitterness to the changes that are due to legislation.

Gift tax exclusion increased to $15,000 in 2018.

@jserv, several years ago I worked for a company with a stock purchase plan. I participated because they gave me a 15% discount. I always sold it as soon as I was allowed because I don't like to have that much exposure to a single stock.

So let's turn back to your statement above about trying to find a sufficiently tiny apartment in or near any city where jobs are available. Supply will appear to meet demand. If there are no tiny apartments, that is only because people do not want them. They have their priorities confused.

Implicit in my comments about locality of wages is the idea that people can migrate for better opportunities. We already see plenty of evidence that people are moving to lower cost of living states. I don't depend on any city for my job. I happen to live close to my aging parents because I want my children to know their grandparents while they are alive. If there was any question about whether I could properly feed and house my children, I would certainly consider migrating elsewhere.

@Magisch click through to JoeTaxpayer's "#Fightfor15" entry above. You'll see my comments about wages in their locality.

@Magisch our standard of living is higher than ever, please expand on the term "properly" that you used to qualify your previous statement. Feeding and housing people can be done quite cheaply, however westerners seem to think that we need far more square footage than our parents or their parents did (tiny house movement notwithstanding). This expectations mismatch is one of the most fundamental topics of personal finance.

MBHunter also has high rep and a long affiliation with Money.SE

@user8469759 This room is not terribly active. If you want to chat, post your comment and check back later (probably much later).

Aug 12 in that slide deck seems particularly disingenuous, anything that the current congress does can be undone by a future congress. That is the only uncertainty that I can see. That uncertainty always exists when planning for the future.

I think we could phase the deduction out over time. Maybe phase in some caps on the mortgage interest deduction. Congress isn't known for patience, but if they cared about getting rid of it and doing it right, it would be a multiple decade process. That's if you cared about the shock on prices. If you thought the market could bear it, you could phase out the deduction on new purchases immediately and grandfather the deduction on existing mortgages for gradual phase out.

(I might be one of the votes to close)

I would ask the question on the site, but I think it would be voted off-topic.

On the subject of tax reform in the US. Should the mortgage interest deduction be untouchable?

I'm abstaining from a duplicate close vote because I have the gold badge mod privilege. I'm inclined to think this is a duplicate, but I'm willing to listen to counter-arguments before I shut down a HNQ.

@R.. My answer was posted a few hours before your comment. I don't know why you think that money that benefits our literal children (heirs) or our figurative children (philanthropy) is useless. Does every dollar have to benefit the person who earned it? Why do you even care that people are "hoarding" money? That money was invested in a company that was creating jobs even when it was being hoarded (unless these old people are stuffing all the money in their mattresses it is still benefiting you indirectly. Even if it benefits no one, it's none of your business what they do with their money.

money.stackexchange.com/questions/1666/…

No, the credit application was required only in the case of a partial deposit. If you write a check for the entire amount, the dealership can make a call to your bank to verify funds.

Personal checks are generally limited only by how much money you have available in your checking account. You can write a check for any value. If the money is there to cover it, the bank will clear it eventually. If the money is not there to clear it, you may have some hefty fees (and perhaps even criminal liability depending on the size of the check) when it bounces.

Why would you not write a personal check?

During good market periods, some retirees have had their principal double while following that rule, so they could have enjoyed their retirement even more than they did. :/

Okay, the quick answer is 30 years, but the long answer is that you have to adjust if there are big down years at the beginning of your retirement.

Your question is a separate question that would be a fine standalone question for this site. What is the 4% retirement rule how long should your money last if you follow it?

@TylerH I plan to delete that comment now. I am not going to waste effort answering a question only to have that comment deleted by a moderator

Preparation is very important, but beyond that people need to believe it is possible before they will even try. All I aim to do in my answer is let people know that it's worth trying to save and even small amounts add up over decades.

Whatever your circumstances though, in the US, there's upward mobility for anyone determined to find it. Even for my cousin who never finished high-school. Her daughter did graduate high-school, but is an assistant manager at a fast food place. Hopefully she'll decide to do some more school since that's an option.

She lived in a rented room and did the best she could with government assistance. Her baby has since moved out of the house, while my daughter is just starting school. I don't pretend that my choices about what to spend money on are as hard as hers. I give her far more respect for what she has accomplished. My point has been and always will be that it is possible. If anything, look back at my answer and note that I said it's quite easy for someone in the middle class. There's no excuse for them.

@iheanyi Lol, lucky she didn't have quadruplets... Since twins are only about 3% likely and triplets/quadruplets are 1 in 800, you're saying she wasn't incredibly unlucky, so that lucky. Some of her circumstances were of her own choosing. She ran away from home with a guy she met while working in a chocolate factory. They lived in awful circumstances and he only stayed for about a year before he abandoned her. Yes, she had a baby when she was 17 and she wasn't in the same state as her family.

In your sample budget, you mention $350 for food. Based on what? I have gotten by for years on $350/month for food with a family of 3. I eat out a few times each month and I'm not subsisting on rice and beans the other days.

What you don't seem to get, no matter how many ways that I say it, is that a "poor person" is every bit as capable of making choices about how to spend a limited amount of money. The OP makes less than 1/3 of the amount that we're talking about here, but because he comes from a country with a lower standard/cost of living, it is much easier for him to live with that amount of money.

I also have a coworker who only saves the minimum 6% for his 401(k) because he is making only $175k per year, but he assumes private school tuition for his children is also a necessity. I'm not changing the discussion at all. I know that it's easier for a middle class person to see through the logical errors that my coworker makes about necessities.

@iheanyi Your assertion that it is not feasible for a poor person to save makes a lot of assumptions about what a poor person's budget must look like based on what you think are the essential elements of a budget.

@iheanyi Of course it doesn't change the cost of housing insurance or food. The difficult part of scarce resources is choosing how to allocate them. She may not be able to change the cost of anything, but she doesn't have to. She can choose what to spend the money on, which is where the word you ignored from my last comment, sacrifice comes in. Making difficult choices isn't luck.

@Andy Investing is saving. Read my answer and then read Ben Miller's answer since I referred to something he wrote when I edited my answer to reflect the higher returns possible.

@iheanyi My point is that luck has absolutely nothing to do with it. She is goal-oriented and willing to sacrifice to meet those goals. Also, she's not my sister; she's my cousin.

@iheanyi Your take is irrelevant. You know nothing about her circumstances, expenses, etc. Maybe you should quit trying to put people in boxes and open your mind to the idea that determined people find ways to think outside the box and do great things.

I didn't say 14% of her income the whole time, it has actually been only 10%, but she also started when she was 18 (an additional 7 years on someone who only started saving at 25) yes, she had assistance with WIC and Medicaid, etc. The circumstances varied from younger to older, but now her daughter is out of the house, an assistant manager at Chick-Fil-A. She definitely did leave home and she definitely did save more of her income than you apparently think possible. Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.

@iheanyi tell that to my cousin who got pregnant in high school, still works at Walmart, but has been saving small amounts monthly for twenty years now.

@MikeHaskel I'm sure they have a few discussions about wealth distribution on Politics.SE

@MikeHaskel there are a few academic models you could choose to define middle class in the US. I think you'll see that my number fits comfortably in all of those models