Tuesday, September 18, 2018

budget creep


BUDGET CREEP
We are all familiar with budget creep.  Every time you make more money, you add new items to your budget that then somehow become necessities rather than the luxuries they started out as.  Granted, this really hasn’t been a Thing for the last decade.  Between losing jobs to minorities, losing hours to ObamaCare, or losing homes to tripled property tax and now living out of a van by the river, there is rarely such as a thing as making MORE money anymore.  It is all about making less. 
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And that is where budget creep gets folks in trouble.  They cemented those new luxuries into necessities decades ago and can’t remember how to live without them.  One example that keeps coming to my mind was actually from my father.  My whole life I rarely saw him lose his cool.  He was stoic and uncomplaining.  You could go twenty years in between outbursts.  So it surprised the hell out of me when he lost his crap over the heater in the winter.  Stepmom was talking about turning down the heat, and he came up with something ridiculous about “I’m not going to sit around the living room in a down jacket.  You keep the temperature up and I don’t care how much it cost”.
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Remember, here was a guy that wouldn’t complain about wives raping him financially or old bosses blackballing him from an industry, and he wasn’t going to stay uncomfortable in his own house.  I didn’t blame him, what with still no pot to piss in after sixty years of working ( step mom keeps him alive to keep his retirement at 100%.  Once he kicks it, it goes to 50% to her.  I love the women, but she makes Jews look like college freshmen on spring break ).  The least he could have was a little heat to stay comfortable.  Plus, you know, Old People Cold is at 90 degrees.  Having said that, he was a bit spoiled.
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Growing up in southern California, then living in slightly less warm climes in an era of well affordable utilities, to him a house had to be shirtsleeve sitting comfortable.  That was a form of luxuries seen as necessities.  Don’t get me wrong, a man works for zero compensation his whole life ( other than the “pleasure” of seeing each new wife Less Miserable because he worked for their sole benefit.  I don’t know what it is about California women.  They have got to be the most miserable bitches on the planet ), he deserves one of the few luxuries he insists on.  It is just used illustratively. 
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You know how everything is all fun and games until someone loses an eye?  Well, budget creep is all fun and games during times of increased salary, isn’t it?  When the thing goes the other way, pandemonium reigns.  People go absolutely bat crap crazy, judging their very worth by their appearance of the ability to waste money on frivolous luxuries.  And they buy their own bullspit.  I’m tired, I deserve to go out and eat.  My mom got to not cook about twice a year on her birthday and Mother’s Day ( unless she was buying ).  But nowadays people eat out half of their food budget? 
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The NOL’s kid doesn’t work, but she has the new truck that has a payment I’ve never even seen on rent, and the husband has the paid-for beater.  And yet, HE was the one who insisted on that.  That truck with unaffordable payment is his validation of being a good provider.  Dude, your wife doesn’t miss any meals.  I think you provide just fine.  Not that you can tell people anything like this.  Necessities, or at least as necessary to them, are doubling in price and wages are stagnant, but wages still got up to nosebleed levels ( from my perspective ) and folks just kept buying all those luxuries turned necessities. 
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When did medical insurance become a necessity?  We all remember a time when only the upper middle class had a job that provided medical benefits.  The rest of the folks passed on it since it was 20% of your pay.  Now that it is double that, suddenly folks think it is necessary?  And that was BEFORE ObammyCare.  The Illegal Muslim just forced people into the system as it was set to implode from over pricing, yet folks had begun to think of it as vital and as fundamental as oxygen prior to that.  I mean, sure, I understand all the Boomers were retiring and the culture change was from the Most Selfish Generation thinking that any lifespan under ninety was an affront to God, but I still can’t accept that mass hallucination.
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Once you are crapping yourself and taking twenty-three pills a day to keep yourself alive, isn’t it time to perhaps think of calling BS on living way past your prime, in pain and embarrassment?  Laughs on you bitches, ‘cause Death Panels really are a thing ( you Go!, Hockey Mom ).  You’ll go gently into that opiate clouded night unless you have someone that can keep you out of the clutches of the medical industry.  I guess I should stop there on THAT subject.
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Whenever I bring up not owning a car, 99% of you look at me like I’ve started to grow a dingus out of my forehead.  Yes, I understand one day I’ll get hit by some little bastard just like you that worships the automobile, and then you all can have the last laugh, but until then not hallucinating that a car is a necessity allows me to live on nearly no income.  While still prepping.  Sure, very small amounts of prepping, along with very few book purchases, but I was also running out of room for both anyway ( and that is with three RV’s for storage, plus a basement ).  Less money means I can finally enjoy my life and my time rather than parcel it out to a corporation. 
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Negative Budget Creep is actually not as difficult as most people believe.  And, heck, it is actually fun because it is antisocial.  Men envy you your freedom and women want to have your baby ( you need to be a starving artist for this to apply-poverty only works as an aphrodisiac when coupled to an alpha male creative.  Then the gals don’t need you as the provider because he is one she is cuckolding on for you ).   If you don’t have at least a quarter of your monthly pay as savings, you are doing things wrong.  And to get there, you are relying on positive feedback.  Budget creep upwards is easy because you never deviate away from All Money In, All Money Out.  And yet, budget creep down is just as easy because everything you eliminate as a bill is money in your pocket.  You just think it is hard because you refuse to acknowledge necessities as luxuries.
( .Y. )
( today's related link https://amzn.to/2QntMyc )
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note: This is a free book, but not my usual daily picks.  I love this series and the author notified me the first book is free for several days. "Traveler" by John S Wilson  https://amzn.to/2MBCZj8
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note: bicycle tips.  Can't afford a new wheel when spokes start snapping?  True the wheel ( video here ) and you'll avoid more spokes breaking.  Want to cheaply patch a tube, with no fuss?  Superglue and a piece of paper ( video here )
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15 comments:

  1. People have been taught debt is good for so long that entire businesses have sprung up to meet the demand. If you want that fancy big screen TV, instead of saving up for it, you go down to the Rent A Center and have it delivered that afternoon. Nevermind the fact it ends up being four times as expensive, me and the brother in law have gone round several times about that. Being in debt is a bibical thing too, something about the debtors being a slave to the lender.

    You mentioned the kids pick up, when I worked at a junkyard, I could always tell when high school graduation was. Proud parents would buy their precious darlings a brand new Mustang or Camaro which the kid would wrap around the first convienent tree. Dunno why I thought that relevant here outside of the prevaling trend to make sure kids drive better cars than the parents do

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    1. It is relevant in that the expensive car was all about how the parent looks to others, rather than what the kid needs. And then the kid grows up buying at Rent-A-Center because he has to look good also. Al Gore doesn't approve, you spoiled little twats!

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  2. Being out of work all year now, I am practicing the negative budgetary creeping. It is a challenging helmet flush to stop doing and buying things not a necessity for sure. It is good reality based training for the collapse. I have not dined out or got fast food all year, don't miss it and feel healthier from my own better entre selections, proper cooking and sanitation practices, etc. Being socially isolated is a nice change too, makes hiding out during die off an easy peasy task then. Start practicing right now while it is easier without added on stress of collapsed society, civil unrest, die off, etc.

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    1. The only bad thing about downward budget creep is you cannot buy FLIR scopes.

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    2. Anon, once you get squared away living on less, you kinda wonder why you worked full time anyhow. The only dependant I have is me, so it is much easier. My plan right now is working full-time for about a year to get my preps right and then back to seasonal work. Eventually I will just go to side gigs once I get my tools built back up.

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    3. Working full time=mostly habit I think.

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    4. You guys are right. The stress on the body mentally and physically even from casual labor type work is not worth what the pay and benefits are. Time is my best asset not working. I am going to go galt and only work part time or these gig type jobs for half a year and drop back out. Punish the beast by not being a sucker and participating.

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    5. I look at it more as not going to miss an economy I barely participate in. I looked at the price of gas yesterday, not because I needed any, but just because I was curious and honestly didn't know.

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    6. There's a book called "Early Retirement Extreme". I'll save you chasing down the pdf online and sum it up for you

      * Save hard
      * Reduce all your expenses then reduce them again
      * Invest savings
      * When the returns equal your minimal living expenses you retire.

      When / if my current attempts at living the working class dream doesn't pan out I'll be another white man that the system won't be able to leach off of

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    7. "The only dependant I have is me, so it is much easier.”


      I’m in the same boat. And while I’m sure that some might see it as disadvantageous, I don’t think that any other lifestyle could ever work for me. Early on in my first job, I knew that a full time working gig could never be a situation that I could ever be happy with. But with a family (or even a serious relationship in most cases) there will be no such thing as casual employment. The only person that I can even think of that pulled this off, was that Long fellow of “How to Survive Without a Salary” fame. And even he admitted that his wife and kids would love nothing more than to put him to work so that they could have nicer things.

      I’m finally where I want to be, and have a very low key, part time, under the table gig. My final step is to downsize my possessions, and get out to my junk land while I still can.


      https://www.amazon.com/How-Survive-Without-Salary-Conserver/dp/1894622375

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    8. Here is a online source of similar subject:
      http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/
      Not sure I trust the returns for a secure return though.

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  3. I almost don't remember what debt was like. Just kidding. I remember...and it keeps me from going back.

    We were in Walmart and they had a 65" TV on display for about $600 and we stopped and were spellbound by the nature scenes that were looping. Wow. The camera went over a cliff and I almost lost my balance. Know what I mean? It was THAT clear. And of course I was standing right in front of it, which you never do, normally. Anyway, we have a 48" we got about 8 years ago and it works fine and we only watch it (DVD's) about an hour each day at suppertime, so why get a new one? Back in the old daze I'd be tempted to yank out that plastic and sit the old one out in the garage, then out to the curb. But I'm all growed up now and don't do stuff like that any more. :-)

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    1. What keeps me from buying a new TV? Not the price-they are super cheap if you don't max out the size. No, it is that damn Smart TV crap. Trying to program the thing to start working. I can barely tweak the one we have. Plus, whenever I get the urge anyway, I remind myself of all those years watching the 7 inch DC TV.

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