FINANCES (A Place For Discussion)
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simon, some of us have credit cards, or good jobs, or like me… gotta sell (legal...haha) things in order to keep my iron heart addiction going. i have a shoe collection (last time i counted was 600+) that i'm trying to get rid of in order to pay for my iron hearts... and maybe a wedding and a harley too
We hereby grant you the honorific title of Ironheart Imelda!
Till
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@shubharamani:
Peterock1, sometimes "good jobs" aren't enough. People with "good, well-paying jobs" wisely have other sizeable obligations – like mortgages and property taxes. To be able to afford all the Iron Heart your heart desires without thinking twice about it -- you must be RICH. Not middle class, not upper middle class -- but better than that. Simon626, you gotta be realistic.
I don't agree with this. For approximately $3000 you can buy almost everything Iron Heart comes out with each year (not including special items like silver chains). People with middle class incomes (somewhere around $50,000) easily spend an equivalent amount on their hobbies and interests (sports, vacations, etc).
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Haha yeah I kinda felt weird spending 675 bucks on the IH bracelet but fuck it… Pics soon, lads and alsses!..
I guess you're glad the Euro is so strong at the moment.
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Well, the Euro is falling (or rather the dollar rising). It was at 1.44 only weeks ago and is now at 1.37.
$3000 per year for a hobby is probably normal in the income bracket DrPat mentioned. The question is whether IH clothing can be said to be a hobby. For some that is certainly true. For others it would be simply included in clothing budget. If we see it this way, I doubt a lot of Americans spend $3000 on clothing per year. Or if they do it doesn't show!
Till
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IronHeart is really all about quality and durability for me.
I'll save up and pass on the "Mall" clothing for better made products.
Plus, it feels better to pay for items in cash. I have envelopes at home where
I stash my money (I will not tell you where I live)…and each envelope will have something
scribbled on it. Everynow and then, I slip in some dollar bills until I have enough for the purchase.
My latest envelope had "Jungle Cloth" scribbled across it in bold letters.
Of course, I have recycled envelopes for IH and Aldens.Tfar = you're hilarious with "IronHeart Imelda"...
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@shubharamani:
Peterock1, sometimes "good jobs" aren't enough. People with "good, well-paying jobs" wisely have other sizeable obligations – like mortgages and property taxes. To be able to afford all the Iron Heart your heart desires without thinking twice about it -- you must be RICH. Not middle class, not upper middle class -- but better than that. Simon626, you gotta be realistic.
I don't agree with this. For approximately $3000 you can buy almost everything Iron Heart comes out with each year (not including special items like silver chains). People with middle class incomes (somewhere around $50,000) easily spend an equivalent amount on their hobbies and interests (sports, vacations, etc).
But let me add DrPat…your discretionary spending money depends A LOT on the place you call home. The SF Bay Area is one of the most expensive places in the world to live. No, it's not London, Paris or Tokyo...but it's up there. We pay a price to live here...every bit worth it, but we do pay a steep price.
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This thread is a place for all things financial. Discuss why people spend so much $MONEY$ on certain goods, cost of living in different places, how to save money to buy wanted items, stories of odd things you have done to obtain things you desire, etc…
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Thanks. Just trying to save the integrity of other threads as well as create a space for new thoughts. And maybe someone could merge some of the previous discussion to this thread?
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But let me add DrPat…your discretionary spending money depends A LOT on the place you call home. The SF Bay Area is one of the most expensive places in the world to live. No, it's not London, Paris or Tokyo...but it's up there. We pay a price to live here...every bit worth it, but we do pay a steep price.
But income level generally reflects the regional cost of living. I'm sure the average salary in SF is higher than many other places.
I live in Geneva. It was ranked the 4th most expensive city in the world last year. And I get paid in US dollars. With the current exchange rate, it's not a good combination.
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I live in the VERY EXPENSIVE Bay Area, Oakland (Lake Merritt neighborhood) to be exact – because it's fucking amazing. The Sunday just passed says it all....70 degree F sunny blue skies in early February. Plus, people, attitudes, vibes are totally cool here...
I'm also highly employable elsewhere -- in a state with a much lower cost of living (Texas comes to mind). I would likely earn about the same salary, but my fixed costs -- say if I lived in Austin or Dallas -- would be less than half of what they are now. A new life in Texas would enable me to spend insane amounts of money on clothes -- but would I do it ? Never !
Not in a million years.
Life as an Oakland-er (San Francisco-er, Berkeley-er) is nothing short of grand !
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But income level generally reflects the regional cost of living. I'm sure the average salary in SF is higher than many other places.
I live in Geneva. It was ranked the 4th most expensive city in the world last year. And I get paid in US dollars. With the current exchange rate, it's not a good combination.
As a software engineer, I earn about 10% more in The Bay Area than I would in Texas. But trust me, The Bay Area's cost of living is double that of Texas !
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One thing that gets my goat is this: I work for the government, so I get a base GS level pay…so let's say I make 50k a year...on top of that, I would get a locality pay, which is a percentage of my salary for my cost of living...what Shub said is correct, and the locality pay in TX is much lower than the one for NY...but the kicker is that ALL of NY gets the same locality pay...so regardless if I live in NYC (where I live) or Buffalo, the pay is the same...and the cost of living in Buffalo is CHEAP...
The last time I was in Buffalo, we ate two buckets of wings and drank ten pitchers of Labatts for less than $200...
I miss Buffalo...
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Simon, dude, you are truly adorable ! You just don't realize how YOUNG you are. When I read your posts, I just crack up….and I know you're being earnest and gut-wrenchingly honest when you pour your heart out to us (I totally love and appreciate your open-ness BTW). All I can say is...you are young. Life forces us to grow, mature, get our shit together...life is ruthlessly cruel in that way. And trust me, son...hang in there -- the same will happen to you -- one day, you will wake up...and just realize things. The reason you don't "get things" now...is because you're immature (I don't mean it negatively). I was immature as hell when I was your age, 18. But I would say, smokes or not -- you have more appreciation for/respect for money than I had at your age. At least you understand that money doesn't grow on trees...there's a check and balance thing going on. From ages 18-22, I didn't have that understanding really because I was away at undergraduate college (not working, studying -- paid for by Mom). When I graduated at age 22.5 -- handling money which I earned from my job -- was a shock to me. It took a long time for me to realize indeed that "money doesn't grow on trees". At age 45, I've come a l-oooooong way obviously.
