1st Gen. Lunch Table - General Discussion

Can you give some simple details for this? I’d like to make sure mine are set up to make whatever decision they see best for their future

 

Same here. I want to be able to quit my corporate job and go work at a brewery or do something else I like. Maybe work at the local baseball stadium during those months.

 

My dad is doing formal 529 and plans 70k per grandkid. Yeah, kinda ridiculous but my sis will happily take that for her 3 I'm sure.
I'm not doing formal 529's, instead my plan was company equity for college bills. But we already have more than that in cash now due to selling the investment property and some inheritance from my wife's mom.
The problem with 529's is all the rules. It seems reasonably likely that my oldest will be a non-standard path.
So, yes and no. My wife also wants them to pay their way through school b/c she had to.

 

I mean, doing what @empty_lord is doing right now as part of retirement sounds kinda fun to me. At least long enough to learn a bit. Not sure I'd survive in a fast paced cutthroat mechanic environment but it'd be damn fun to try.
Also I had some remote interest in new vehicle sales as the non-sleazy guy who actually knows specs. I'm sure I'd be a loser but it might be fun to experience that one for a bit too. No ragrats right?

 

Average intelligence at best. I'm not even smart enough to fix my brakes.

 

529s seem to be the go to, but I didn't like the rules either. I just kept dumping money into deferred compensation. But I'm fortunate to have a really good plan.

 

An alternate to 529s could be a Roth IRA. Obviously you'd want to talk to a financial person about it and there's contribution limits.

However there are multiple ways to take money out without penalty, including college tuition.

 

Elon Musk is made out to be the bad guy because he's rich on paper. The entire "he doesn't pay taxes" thing is BS. The guy's wealth is in his company ownership. If he doesn't sell that stock, he shouldn't have to pay taxes. It would be a clown world if he did. That stock could go to zero tomorrow and he would have nothing and would have paid taxes for that nothing. It's unrealized gains. I think our overlords like to cause racial tension and blame the wealthy to keep us looking the other direction. Meanwhile the real problem is their mismanagement of our money (taxes we pay). Think of all the jobs, and the products he creates. Think of all the wealth he has created for those that own his stock(The only way the little guy can participate). I don't own Tesla stock or an electric car for the record.

 

529's are legit and the rules are not as bad as you think. They also continue to broaden the allowed use. Many well to do's are now dumping money into 529's for estate planning purposes/tax advantages, with no intent on using it for education.

 

Meh, I'm just gonna live in Italy until I hit 65 and can collect medical benefits and SS in addition to my pension and 401k. I may have to join a Hilux forum though if I'm living in Europe.

 

Elon creates Jack s. His employees do the work. He tweets and smokes weed and dates musicians.

 

Good advice, the only draw to 529 is that it's state tax deductible and roth isn't

 

Oh yeah, all true. And I know my GTI would smoke him. I won't condone street racing here but on either a quarter mile or a high speed run he wouldn't have a chance.

Yup, I used to waste money in similar ways until I got serious with my wife. She's so fawking cheap about some things but then she has bank stashed away as a result. I learned to do without a lot of things from her.

 

Speaking of wasting money. Wife and I are heading to Jackson Hole in July, thank jeebus we've got a boatload of Marriott points.

Staying here, on the dates we're there is $980/night
https://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/jacak-the-cloudveil-autograph-collection/

We're pretty excited. It'll be our first trip 'out west' to just vacation. Planning on spending a couple days exploring Grand Teton and Yellowstone. Then we're flying down to Denver for a few days to visit some family.

 

Only $104 for me.

FYI...Family rate only since my sister works for them and its only one night for that rate.

 

First drive with fox up front. Rear still poo though. Kinda Baja style nose high. Front feels smooth, can’t wait to have the arse end done.

 

My line of work is indeed not easy. Lol

 

Sounds like I need to start smoking weed and tweeting, could be a billionaire!!!

 

I found it amusing that 4 days now when it's $400/night was 420k points, and is exactly the same amount of points as July when it's $980.

 

@FrenchToasty basically this advice ^^ is what I'd say. Any good financial advisor can guide you on that. If you're over 30, you really should have one already. (just IMHO)

General overview. We basically setup ours when the kids were 3 and 1, respectively, and told the grandparents for each birthday, Christmas, etc. for each gift they give the kids, they need to put 50% as much as the total cost into their 529. They haven't cleared elementary yet and they already have enough to pay about 2 years of in-state college tuition, should they choose to go that route.

EDIT: I should add on this, my FIL made a mint on Tesla after the split, and gave the kids a healthy bonus to their 529. Don't want to set unrealistic expectations here. Without that, they'd only be able to pay off about 5 semesters @ in-state college ... or almost a full ride of community college.

However, if we wanted to use that money for K-12 that opened up recently also. As @txagg mentioned, they seem to keep changing this and finding more flexible ways to use towards education, nearly all the changes I've seen so far favor the better. It's not limited to college, it's good for trade school and lots of other stuff, it pays for more than just the cost of school, "education expenses".

Were you an SPG guy also, and got rolled over into Bonvoy? Or just w/Bonvoy? I got rolled over and was pretty sour about it, I was able to fly us all over w/SPG. But I recently booked a week-long trip in Miami, two rooms at the JW Marriot Marquis and I'm paying $75 for the whole thing. Free flight down on companion tickets and miles. Still don't love the Bonvoy card, but ....

 

Yup SPG was definitely a better program. We basically put everything on either her Bonvoy card or my Delta Platinum so the points and miles rack up pretty quick. I don't think we've taken a trip in the last 5 years without at least a portion of it being 'free'.

 

Ditto. Work was handing out the green biz cards back in '02, and they paid the yearly on it so I got rid of all the other cards then put everything possible on it. Paid off at the end of each month which kept me on financial point like I never had been before. At one point Amazon let you make purchases with the points, so I stopped with rolling over into 2x/3x miles.

When work folded those, I went to SPG, one year I think I got 4x miles cashing in 3 years of purchases? Totally nuts. We don't often stay in hotels, we're more cabin and tent types. But after the Miami thing, I can see future trips without the kids. Four Seasons in Guanacaste, CR is looking miiiighty tempting right now.

 

If I remember those fox shocks are front res? Are they selectable? I have 12" 2.0 fox res selectable in the rear, so very nice. The 0-10 is a big difference. I'm at 0 until I have a reason to increase it. You might have dual selection - I can't remember. Great choice IMO. I have King no res up front, no regrets there.

 

So the amount of lift could affect the brake rotors running on the dust shields? It’s for sure something on the wheel, definitely metal on metal.

 

Whoops, sorry, wrong thread.

 

I missed something - but the brake shields aren't affected by lift. but they could be banged in. lift truck, pull wheel, spin rotor, If they are in contact, bend them with your hands

 

I think I'm high as well, but if the brake shields are in contact with the rotors, they are easy to bend. I didn't realize Dave wasn't trying to post in this thread, so I was thrown.

 

Yeah, that's what Jason told me. So I have to remove the wheel to do it right? I tried in my friend's driveway with a screwdriver but didn't seem like I made it better, think I actually made it worse.

I posted the symptom in a different thread, sorry to confuse, metal on metal sound rubbing while wheel in motion, less noise at speed.