I Have Money and I'm Spending It, Darn It

Um, still pretty neutral. I am hearing from some that there is worse to come but for me it's business as usual for now.

 

No, but I am curious what a 'profitable' quarter at citibank means. Was the bailout larger than the losses ? I do think that at least one lesson this past year should teach us is that a corporate earnings statement should be taken with a grain of salt.

 

I am spending as normal. Years ago when my father found out they were closing the store he worked at he went out and bought a new car so he would have a nice car to go job hunting in. So maybe it is just how I was raised

 

Obviously you know something that I don't know. Why would you pay off the balance with zero percent interest?

 

The bike is a no-brainer. Putting off exercise has no good returns...and spring is on it's way.

The computer is a double-edged sword. (More time on Prius Chat vs. biking?)

 

I Have Money and My Wife is Spending It, Darn It

 

My spending is normal, I think it is way too early to consider the economy normal. We have had a small blip on the indices, that's all. Although it IS a good time to buy stocks.

 

Did they say they made a profit, or was the loss merely less than previously anticipated? My understanding is that the market has been going up, not because the indices are good, but because they are not as bad as everyone expected them to be.

This may or may not be a good time to buy stocks. It all depends on whether the market is going to head back up, or turn back down and maybe hit 4,000.

I am pessimistic about the economy. "They" seem to be saying the depression (which they keep calling a recession) will last another year at least. However, I invested for present income, and I am still getting enough income to continue spending more or less as I have been doing. I don't buy a lot of "stuff," but I travel a lot, and I have not cut back on my travel plans. Next month: scuba diving from a live-aboard dive boat (the Nekton Pilot) in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

 

we dont have money (other than the usual emergency bank balance) available, most is tied to timed investments like bonds, but we spend it anyway.

just did a water resort for $200 a day... going to Disneyland in September(travel is DIRT CHEAP RIGHT NOW, so BOOK BOOK BOOK!!) for about 40% of what it would have cost last year

going to visit homeland (Okinawa) next spring, now that will cost a bundle, but plane tickets are less than 1/3rd of what my family paid for same trip back in 1990's

so if you had been planning on a trip, book it now, you will probably never see prices like this again

 

i bought a new laptop because the old one was having serious issues. we're buying some new clothes for DH for use in his internship. this is above and beyond the usual, but still spending only when needed.

 

well as far as purchases go. bought a new camera for $800 this week.

bought corner sectional in Jan for $1050

new LCD for bedroom, that was cheap, like $350

got summary for ONE credit card albeit, it is the one that we use for basic bills, but for cable and cellphones we paid over $5,000 last year!! bummer... depressed now after seeing that

 

My oldest is headed off to college, so we are in savings mode. We will pay for as much of it as we can, with her contributing as much as she can....

With that said, we are doing OK for now and I have to remind myself that cutting back too drastically on discretionary spending has ripple effects. I don't want my hairdresser to go out of business because everyone stops coming in, for example.

At Christmas we all donated to charity instead of exchanging gifts among the adults, but my oldest sister works in retail and said that if everybody did that she would lose her job.

So I am trying to find a balance.

 

New hard wood floors - $ 10,000+
New kitchen granite countertops and backsplash $ 10,000+
New travertine stone floors kitchen $ 2,000
New 58" plasma HDTV $ 2,500 (sweet)
New sectional and ez-chair $ 3,000+

Planned within next 1-3 months

Pavers for the patio $4-5,000
AR-15 assault rifle $ 1,000+
One trip to Vegas
One trip to Cancun
Sept. trip to Singapore

Yeah we're still spending but we saved for awhile to do all that spending. In fact when the GDP goes up I think we'll own a % of it! LOL!

Wildkow

p.s. Wife just pulled the grill and the cover over the bumper on the Highlander off . . . $ 1,000+ there goes the AR-15.

 

I recently bought a ticket to New Zealand that's almost half the price of the ticket I originally purchased last year. That's including all taxes and fees and it wasn't even the lowest fare I could've gotten.

 

For those who have cash and aren't afraid to part with it, there are some excellent deals around.

 

I just pieced together a new bicycle starting in January of this year. I got most of the parts for 50% off and still shelled out more than 2500 for the bike. Now I'm just waiting for the frame and fork to arrive from the bulk buy.
This will be my 3rd bicycle and cross racing bike as I have a road racer and a commuter already.

 

By and large, the Christmas buying orgy involves buying stuff for others that nobody would ever buy or want for themselves. We produce useless garbage and buy it because the consumer-based capitalist economy requires that people have jobs. But this spiral of producing and buying useless garbage is depleting resources that the next generation will need merely to survive.

It is for this reason that I do not participate. (I do the charitable gift-contribution thing instead.) We need to re-direct our production from useless garbage to needed infrastructure, and use the bloated retail sector as a labor pool for that infrastructure construction.

There's no worry that Americans are going to go overboard on saving. We save less than any industrial nation on the planet. In fact, I think our savings rate is negative, or was until the economy collapsed last year. And that's part of the problem: Since Americans do not save, we are dependent on the Chinese for investment, and they don't like us.

Unfortunately, all those cheap air fares are in coach class. My stiff old bones cannot endure coach class. I fly coach on short flights when there's no other option, but if I cannot afford business class, I stay home. My first trip to Spain was in coach, and I was miserable. I think it took me 3 days to recover.