That’s good to hear. I’ll see if I can get my hands one of those condos. Thanks for the tip.

Marty... are you referring Dean's condo:  ".... sold our house, and bought a low maintenance condo...  ."?   [Askin' for a friend.  ]

Fwiw, we also live quite frugally; manage the day-to-day stuff okay ... 'cept for a couple of days each spring.... when the government tells us we owe them a whack of income tax [on money that we already paid income tax on when we earned it].  

No. Only joking life is pretty tough here too.

I have a gripe with my city leaders. Without getting into politics, let me say that every year our taxes go up: city, county, school, etc. Our house is appraised by someone each year and the value always goes up even though our neighborhood is old and going down. Fortunately, I do get some relief in taxes because of old age and homesteaded house, but for those younger folk, their taxes are much higher than mine.

Now we're having to look at putting a data center in our area. The cost of electricity and water we fee; will skyrocket but the ciy fathers see dollar signs. We're already in a drought area and don't need any huge business draining our water supply.

Okay. My rant is over.

Yes. I’m 66 and renting I had a big collision with the ground in 2012 (skydiving) that left me crippled, lost the use of my left leg. Now I drive a school bus just pay the essentials and make banjos and fiddles when I can. Some of the jams I attend give me a beer, so I have 2 or 3 beers a month and enjoy them immensely. Before you start feeling sorry for me I own a house back home in Australia that’s worth a fair bit and it’s rented out. The money it earns only pays for its upkeep but I’m happy to own it. I’m too old to find employment back home and I can’t bring myself to sell it because capital gains tax takes almost a third of it. So I just tipping away driving the kids to school, tinkering with banjos, going to jams and having my couple of beers a month. No television, no radio in the bus so I don’t care what’s going on in the world.

quote:

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Originally posted by 1935tb-11

i know this sounds like the GET OFF MY LAWN ! ,,, guy but .
i,,,,, like many of you get to the end of the month and ask "where in the H#%L did all the money go ?
so last nite i sat down and figured where it does go and how it works out.
i came to the fact that it cost 63 dollars a day for me to stay home and look after her mom.... while she works...
thats lights,, cable and internet,, property taxes,, home insurance,,, cell phone,, groceries,, car insurance .
no doctor bills, no eating out,, no gas,, no vacation "what is that ,we ain't had one since 2020" ,, clothing,, shoes,, no vehicle or home maintenance,, and unexpected stuff.
$63.00 bucks a day to stay at home,, i have a small home and we don't live extravagant .
it is really depressing,,,, i did save some for retirement ,,,sorta... but 2019 medical wiped out 90% of that.
sad part is there are many in the same boat.... and in our county they are trying the very best to tax the elderly out of the homes so thet can tear them down and built more condos... i see it all over the county.
i guess we ain't dying fast enough for them...

ok ok i am done now at least i feel better !!!!!

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I haven't done that yet and am kind of afraid to, as I don't really want to hear the results.  This I know ..... our house is way too big, but my wife loves it and does not want to move.  She does not have to take care of our 7 acres, about half of which is grass that has to be mowed.  Her solution ........ hire someone to do it ......$$$$$.  I'll do it as long as I can.  I still work, but I think so many people think I am retired, jobs do not come my way as much as they used to.  That's OK.  I still work enough to supplement my "retirement" income.  Presently, my RMD (Required Minimum Distribution), combined with my Social Security, provide enough on a month by month basis to cover all of our ordinary expenses, but things like a new dishwasher a couple of weeks ago, and a new microwave, new LED lights in our great room, etc. are hard to plan for.  I don't know how much you would have to have saved up to feel entirely secure, and even then I am not sure you would ever feel comfortable.  I guess that's life!

Actually..$63 bucks is cheap...

We are going backwards here...
But still have. ...a decent situation

Bleedin $ ..to everywhere... :0[

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Originally posted by Owen

Marty... are you referring Dean's condo:  ".... sold our house, and bought a low maintenance condo...  ."?   [Askin' for a friend.  ]

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We love our little condo. There's no one interested in our old people junk, so we downsized A LOT, basically moving life's necessities. Dispite the new modern patio no step senior home complexes costing nearly 3 times more, we decided to use our house money, and pay cash for an older condo, well below our means. Our cars are over 20 years old, we watch antenna TV, and I don't even have a smart phone. We've never used door dash, or uber or whatever else crazy stuff there is these days. I think being a baby boomer is a super power in this crazy modern world. 

Got a good deal on a rental house that mostly paid for itself over twenty years Also bought some tech stocks and let them ride. After my wife died, I sold everything. I can live comfortably on my retirement and have a nice nest egg for large, unplanned expenses. Expect that’ll mostly go to my niece and her family, who are my only relatives. We were anle to do that becaise my dad , who was a business professor, did well enough in California real estate to gift each of his three children with a house or land. That freed up the money for our investments.

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Originally posted by STUD figmo Al

Actually..$63 bucks is cheap...

We are going backwards here...
But still have. ...a decent situation

Bleedin $ ..to everywhere... :0[

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it ain't cheap to me  fig !! 

BTW i forgot to include life insurance and termite service....  that's another 6 dollars a day....  so just say 70 bucks a day to stay home........

we will probably move to a townhouse or something when her mom passes and she retires....  i hate too though,,  this is all that's left of the old farm thats been in our family since 1886............  everyone else has sold out.... but don't have any blood kin to pass it on to my brother is happy where he is and my stepson doesn't want to live up here .

quote:

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Originally posted by 1935tb-11

quote:

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Originally posted by STUD figmo Al

Actually..$63 bucks is cheap...

We are going backwards here...
But still have. ...a decent situation

Bleedin $ ..to everywhere... :0[

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it ain't cheap to me  fig !! 

BTW i forgot to include life insurance and termite service....  that's another 6 dollars a day....  so just say 70 bucks a day to stay home........

we will probably move to a townhouse or something when her mom passes and she retires....  i hate too though,,  this is all that's left of the old farm thats been in our family since 1886............  everyone else has sold out.... but don't have any blood kin to pass it on to my brother is happy where he is and my stepson doesn't want to live up here .

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I hear you loud n clear..n feel yer pain Bud....

But a single room apt round here..I goin 2 k or better a month...

I figure it's cheaper in the long run to stay in my home. It's paid for and in pretty good shape. I don't want to move. I'm to old to go through packing, sorting and moving. Besides, this house has so many memories of Dave and the kids that I can't imagine selling it.

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Originally posted by Texasbanjo

Now we're having to look at putting a data center in our area. The cost of electricity and water we fee; will skyrocket but the ciy fathers see dollar signs. We're already in a drought area and don't need any huge business draining our water supply.

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Not getting into politics, they not only use huge amounts of water, they also raise the temperature for many, many miles around. And that's not to mention they're part of an increasing corporate surveillance state. Accumulating data for ... what? I hope you can fight it.

As rants go, that's a pretty good one.

When I was house hunting a few years ago I'd always look at property taxes on a home I might be considering. I saw a troubling pattern of homes in poor areas being taxed at far higher rates than folks in some of the ritziest areas of town. More accurately, the appraisal values of some of the old mill houses was way off the charts while some of the mega mansions were appraised at crazy low levels. Hmmm.

got my home owners insurance bill yesterday..
went up another 210 bucks over last years 500 dollar increase.
they got my home valued at 100 grand over tax value .
we got to do something or cancel the insurance.
i been 40 years with this same company and not 1 claim the whole time.
according to them it would cost 270 dollars a square foot to rebuild this house....... ain't no way... 150 k on contents ? i ain't had that much in contents in my whole 40 years of being here.
they are all crooks just as bad as local tax bases.

That's my experience too. The house I sold two years ago had homeowner's coverage about 1.5x-ish the market value of the home. And my contents, the same as you, they put around $150k. I told them if you took everything I owned and put it it one pile it might add up to $25k. They didn't care. They go by some black-box formula that somehow applies no matter what and alway$ $eem$ to work out for them. And the house amount was explained away that they had to insure for replacement value. Be damned what market value is. If you dig a little deeper a lot of these companies build in restrictions, such as they pay that amount only if you rebuild exactly the same thing in the same spot. If you move on (say your house burnt down and you want to move on) they don't honor the "rebuild" value, that goes out the window. They win the bet.

quote:

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Originally posted by banjoy

That's my experience too. The house I sold two years ago had homeowner's coverage about 1.5x-ish the market value of the home. And my contents, the same as you, they put around $150k. I told them if you took everything I owned and put it it one pile it might add up to $25k. They didn't care. They go by some black-box formula that somehow applies no matter what and alway$ $eem$ to work out for them. And the house amount was explained away that they had to insure for replacement value. Be damned what market value is. If you dig a little deeper a lot of these companies build in restrictions, such as they pay that amount only if you rebuild exactly the same thing in the same spot. If you move on (say your house burnt down and you want to move on) they don't honor the "rebuild" value, that goes out the window. They win the bet.

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its a racket just like playing the slots....  house is gonna  win every time.

i think i am going  to get a contractor  out here to give me a quote on how much to rebuild this place from the ground up,,, no well or septic ,, i already have that. and  just see what he says......  then take it to the insurance company and get them to  justify what they have done.....

I asked the all-knowing Google and artificial intelligence (?) came up with: https://www.google.com/search?q=average+sq.+ft.+cost+to+build+an+average+house+in+north+carolina%3F&rlz=1C1CHBF_enCA1116CA1116&oq=average+sq.+ft.+cost+to+build+an+average+house+in+north+carolina%3F&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRiPAjIHCAIQIRiPAtIBCjMxNDg4ajBqMTWoAgiwAgHxBememWgIlNkl&sourceid=chrome&source=chrome.rb&ie=UTF-8

I think the rool uv thum used to be that your yearly income should be 10% of the cost of our house.