1st Gen. Lunch Table - General Discussion

Indeed. The only reason I'm broke right now is because I had a friend in a bad situation and I couldn't sit by and do nothing. I'm at no risk of not being able to cover everything, and I can still have fun, but I'm a lot tighter to the margin than I like.

 

Good one on ya for taking care of others.

My initial comment stems from family who felt they needed a new vehicle (sometimes two) every year / were stuck in the "trade up" mindset. I also have buddies who went and got themselves a job on a rig, purchased a 100k truck after their first check cleared, then left the field after 6 months and were royally fawked. Sucks to see, and again, good for you to take care of someone else close. Not many people are willing to do that anymore, let alone able to.

 

Worst thing I hate are gym payments.

They won’t let you pay a full year and they generally want a direct debit from your bank account.

So in order to satisfy their needs I opened a checking account with only enough cash to pay off a full year. Rollover from savings purposely denied.

 

We have a mortgage, a few grand left on The Woman's car and a loan for the new couches we just bought. The only reason I took a loan for the couches was because it's no payments, no interest for 6 months. I took the money I would have paid for the couches and dumped it into an investment that will return 4%. May as well put a few dollars my pocket if someone will loan me money for free. If there's one thing I've learned from my wealthy friends and relatives it's that you can make debt and loans work for you. If you can borrow money for less than you would earn with the same amount in an investment, it makes sense to borrow. This is assuming though that you have the rest of your finances in order.

My take home pay at my new job is a little more than double what it was at the old gig. Lifestyle creep would be extremely easy. That new truck? Yeah, I can afford it. Same for the boat, the ATV, the 2 weeks at a fishing lodge etc. We're determined to prevent that from happening though. Instead of running out and buying new toys, we've basically kept the budget based on my old job's income. This allows for more savings and investments. We are starting to buy a few things we've wanted and our discretionary income has come up significantly but we're keeping it sensible and saving to pay cash for larger toys in the future rather than financing them.

 

I know it doesn't have the best equipment, but I'm happy at planet fitness. $11/month, no contract. I've been going there for 4 years.

 

Truck was hand me down from pops. I put some money in it to get it back up to snuff because it was still choogling along, but felt it deserved love. It had never left me stranded unless I did some foolish malarkey that caused it to leave me stranded. (Poured a quart of oil on the alternator due to wind... projector headlights....)

I learned to drive in my truck. I had every single one of my "firsts" in this truck or because of it. It deserved love as it had shown me love.

The Corolla? I paid cash for it, and have spent a small amount doing routine/preventative maintenance work.

I have a big gurlllll card, but that's my only debt.

I have gotten a loan of $5k before for an Ex girlfriend. I bought a rebuilt title 2014 chevy Cruz because she really liked it, and wanted it. So I obliged, and took on the debt. We split up 5 month later. She was the type to fight tooth and nail in court.

I paid the loan off, and went to the courthouse to have the lien removed from the title. I removed my name from the insurance, and then removed my name from the title of the car. I wanted out, and away as quickly as possible. I didn't give a single shit how much money it cost. I knew court costs would be more than that anyways. She was the fighting type. I gave her the car because it was quicker, and cheaper to have my name cleared legally.

I've made some dumb ass mistakes in my life, and always will probably. I've learned a lot since I moved out, and then back in. I am very fortunate, at times I forget how lucky I am.

I feel like I'm on a good plan/path now. Established, and working to improve my standing at almost all times. I don't 100% understand financing, but I can do 4th grade math. Even if it does take me a few minutes...

I don't understand investing at all. That gamestop thing that happened. I just watched it without much clue what was going on. I can understand, and glean little pieces of I formation from context clues, but as a whole I just knew that people were getting money from buying, and selling stocks. I knew people were losing money because they were betting that games gamestop stock would crash or go bankrupt or something, but I was pretty clueless at the time

 

I didn't either initially and I still don't know a ton but with enough research I'm comfortable now. You're a smart guy and I'm confident you could figure it out if you put the effort in. You are young enough that if you started investing now and stashed away at least 10% of your income you could be a wealthy man when you are ready to stop working.

Here is what I did at around age 26 and what I would recommend.

• Open an account with Fidelity or one of the other big name companies
• Open a Roth IRA. This is a retirement account you contribute to after tax. Meaning whatever you contribute is already money you've been taxed on so when you go to retire you won't pay more taxes. Your 401K is pre-tax so when you retire you will have to pay taxes on it. Probably a lot more than our current tax rate.
• Set up monthly contributions of whatever you can afford. The investment company will help you pick funds so you don't have to do this alone.
• Increase this amount every time you get a raise.
• Or skip all that advice and just put as much into your 401k as you can. That's still more than most people.

https://www.investopedia.com/retirement/roth-vs-traditional-ira-which-is-right-for-you/

 

@bmf4069 and @FrenchToasty and anyone else. Do you think it's worth going to a tankless water heater? We need to replace our traditional heater. I'm getting quotes around $1,800 for a traditional tank heater or $3,500 for a tankless system. I know there are a lot of benefits to a tankless system and I anticipate we'll be in this house a long time.

 

Do you have hard water?

 

Ew 1800 for a traditional?!?!
If you can swing it, hell yeah get a tankless.
You just need to make sure you service the tankless 2x a year(flush with chem thru the exchanger)
But 3500 is pricey too!

 

We have a tankless. I'll never go back to a tank heater, the "unlimited" hot water is fantastic. We descale it once a year which is about an hour of work or so. No big deal.

 

I don't think so.

Everything is expensive right now. At our last house our water heater died and I bought one at HD, and paid a plumber $200 to install it. But from what I'm reading the tanks they sell aren't the same quality as what the plumbers get. Both companies said they go with Rheem professional series.

Dude the first tankless quote I got was $6,100. He claimed the main gas line near my furnace wasn't big enough and he would have to run a new one from the opposite side of the house. The 2nd guy said that was b.s.

 

They used to be horribly inefficient, but have come a long ways. I'd go for it.

 

You can go to the plumbing supply house and pick one up yourself.

 

So the guys here use Bradford white for the tank heaters.
And there are certain brands of tankless that require a larger gas supply, and ones like Navian don’t need a bigger gas supply

 

Poll: how much is your truck payment?

1: I'm smart, I own a 1st gen and don't have one.
2: I'm dumb and pay too much.

 

Everyone here knows what “own’s a third gen” really means.

 

Yea, you know what it means. No need to make it weird, hopefully someday another first gen will find you.

 

No shit.

 

You really haven’t lived until you work around the hum of an open energized circuit.

 

Been there, and done that. 10kw microwave generators that are water cooled sprung a leak one day... they sent me...

 

Or until you hear the gas main at a natural gas fired generating station.

 

I've heard our 4 inch gas main... does that count?

 

I also am a Bradford White man but have used Rheem when forced to. Anything beats GE or fawking Whirlpoop.

@FirstGenVol send me some pics of your water heater setup. Water heaters last minimum 10 years, I think if your plumbing is in fair shape you could do this yourself and only have to buy a heater and water/gas supply lines. You've done far harder things to your truck.

I haven't looked into thankless recently but last time I looked you need a big vent for the flue and might need to size up the gas line from meter to heater. In my opinion the benefit doesn't pay for itself long term.

$1800 is rape, maybe. On my shadiest of days I wouldn't charge more than 1500 California dollars and that includes new shut off valves and earthquake straps. Find a plumbing supply near you and buy what you need there. Hardest part is lifting the old one out of the way, new ones are lighter (no mineral buildup in them).

 

Does anyone know what a Ron Swanson drill press is?

I bought one a few years ago from an old delta collector. It was in pieces when I got it(lesson learned). It turns out it had one mismatched table casting. It stopped the project and killed the momentum. Then I found a buffalo drill press in IN(my reasonable dream machine) I never really tried very hard to get The part. It has sat in my way for about 2 years. It is absolutely ridiculous. I finally posted it for sale today. A weight has been lifted. Pictures on request.



A restored delta 18

A restored buffalo 18