Debt Free

[Oz22]

I remember reading an article that showed that in the lead up to the Great Depression personal debt levels reached historical highs. Everyone was buying the expensive newfangled "Wireless sets" for their homes, new cars, all manner of personal stuff, all on credit. There was a big housing price boom too and rural land had gone up a lot, many farmers bought a "town" house to stay in when coming to town. It was the boom years, the roaring Twenties. When the credit bubble collapsed after the stock market collapse everyone was hopelessly broke, even formerly wealthy people, no one had any money was the term often quoted. After the Depression and war things slowly came back but people avoided debt like the plague. A home sure, but that was it! And they worked hard and scrimped to pay it off as soon as possible, to get out from under.

All that changed around 1980 with the invention of credit cards and other personal lines of credit. And today? Looks just like an extended version of the 1930's to me...

 

[Red05]

Survivable takes on a whole new meaning when you’re up against it.
Do what it takes, legally. Your greater than God attitude doesn’t help. The greater good will prevail.

 

[KPJ132716]

What’s a walk out basement?

That's for when you leave the wife..I might be wrong... you know ESL

 

[LC4CARL]

I don’t understand the mania for burying kids in school loans.

 

[WuzzaCBXRider]

I don’t understand the mania for burying kids in school loans.

Kids? Young adults apply for student loans knowing full well that they’re expected to repay them at some point. Who’s burying them?

 

[Oz22]

I don’t understand the mania for burying kids in school loans.

I knew a 20yo girl who put $10k on a credit card to get a bigger set of boobs. Nothing wrong with the old ones, just wanted to follow the fashion I guess. In the local bakery/coffee shop bread is $4.40 a loaf, I buy two at a time and on the counter under a glass cover is an almond studded croissant, $8.80. $6 for a cup of coffee. Ok, once a week or whatever if you really need to socialize that way, but that's a new set of the best tires on your bike every year, so don't complain about the cost of tires or that you can't afford a decent bike or the best suspension upgrades on it.

It's not these spends are bad in and of themselves it's just that they become fads and young people who probably shouldn't waste their money there get caught up in it. Peer pressure etc.

 

[WuzzaCBXRider]

I knew a 20yo girl who put $10k on a credit card to get a bigger set of boobs. Nothing wrong with the old ones, just wanted to follow the fashion I guess. In the local bakery/coffee shop bread is $4.40 a loaf, I buy two at a time and on the counter under a glass cover is an almond studded croissant, $8.80. $6 for a cup of coffee. Ok, once a week or whatever if you really need to socialize that way, but that's a new set of the best tires on your bike every year, so don't complain about the cost of tires or that you can't afford a decent bike or the best suspension upgrades on it.

It's not these spends are bad in and of themselves it's just that they become fads and young people who probably shouldn't waste their money there get caught up in it. Peer pressure etc.

Isn’t that special…and has nothing to do with school loans…

 

[OldBusaGuy]

I’m going to go against the grain here and say you should use your equity to acquire more property.
Take out a mortgage and buy a property to rent or to AirBNB. Use your asset, don’t just sit on all that equity.
Rental properties are a great way to reduce your taxable income and the mortgage interest is a tax write off.
Keep building up your stable of rentals until you get to a point where you don’t have to work anymore.

I did that and now have several homes and am debt free. I had to buy the first one, but tenants have bought the rest of them. And I'm not saying that it's free money either. I earn it by keeping the properties up and dealing with tenant issues, but I've been at it for over 35 years now and it's not all bad. I got started young as one of my uncles sort of mentored me.