<p>“While I agree with this statement it does not take away from insomniatics point which is a very strong one. People are not accountable these days for what they do…have babies, take out loans they can’t afford, the list goes on and on. And why is that? Because they have the government to bail them out. Don’t for one minute think there are not some members of our society that have more kids just to INCREASE their free hand outs.”</p>
<p>DING DING DING. WE HAVE A WINNER! lol!</p>
<p>Thank you “Rated PG” for understanding my views.</p>
<p>Your expenses ARE greater than your means, insomniatic, it’s just that someone ELSE is picking up those expenses, paying for them. It appears these expenses don’t even register with you! You’re still sucking at the parental teat. Your parents cover the cost of housing you, feeding you, insuring you.</p>
<p>You aren’t supporting yourself; someone else is. Start paying your own way.</p>
<p>"Your expenses ARE greater than your means, insomniatic, it’s just that someone ELSE is picking up those expenses, paying for them. It appears these expenses don’t even register with you! You’re still sucking at the parental teat. Your parents cover the cost of housing you, feeding you, insuring you.</p>
<p>You aren’t supporting yourself; someone else is. Start paying your own way."</p>
<p>You don’t make any sense. Those aren’t my expenses right now. When I graduate from college, then the expenses will come into effect.</p>
<p>First you go one way, then you go another. I never said I was supporting myslef 100%. My parents pay for my college expenses, housing, and food. I am sure I am not the only person on here that is in my situation.</p>
<p>“Bank of America is currently offering a 5.59% rate on new car loans.”</p>
<p>Bank Rate Monitor has a 5/1 ARM at 5.58%.</p>
<p>“The point is that OP’s blanket judgments about the value of
frugality/no debt is not necessarily the most beneficial to our
economy, nor each person’s circumstances.”</p>
<p>It’s the macro vs micro thing again. Of course we have a runaway
train instead of builing something sustainable. We didn’t have to
have a paper-based economy but that’s the way that it played out.</p>
<p>Yes, your parents pay. DING DING DING, WE HAVE A WINNER, as you put it.</p>
<p>Your existence isn’t free-of-charge. Your parents are paying your way; you are not. So to say that you are “living within your means” isn’t accurate. You might not overspend your allowance (how could you, after all?), but you aren’t covering all the expenses that come with your living. You are NOT living within your means. In fact, it’s not even clear that you have real “means.”</p>
<p>I guess the problem is that for every scenario where a person “could be condemned/judged” or whatever for their apparent “choice”, I know of someone that gives me pause.</p>
<p>For example, the young woman with too many kids. Here’s a story that will seem pretty unreal. </p>
<p>When I was 20, my friend and I hung out at her aunt’s house. The aunt was divorced, and had a bunch of kids, including a very beautiful 13 year old daughter named Holly. This woman was on welfare because she couldn’t read and probably passed as ■■■■■■■■, but she seemed to work the system very well. Holly’s father was not in the picture because when Holly and her brother were sent for a visit one time when she was 9, the father raped Holly and beat her brother in the head viciously enough to cause retardation.</p>
<p>Anyhow, the aunt/mother had a boyfriend, and this boyfriend brought his male friends around. One day, we were advised that Holly was pregnant. It was by one of the 20+ year old men. Holly was encouraged to have the baby, and her mother collected more welfare for the baby. At 13, Holly still couldn’t read or write. At about age 16, another guy came around and impregnated Holly, all under the mother’s roof. This time, Holly moved out with the guy. </p>
<p>By age 19, Holly had her 3rd child, her inner organs were starting to hang out, and she had contracted herpes from the father of one of her children. She went and got training to be a nurse’s aid while the father of her youngest two sat around doing nothing. </p>
<p>I knew this girl when she was an innocent young child, saw her give birth at 14, and again as a 19 year old woman who already looked 40. I have a hard time seeing where there was “choice” here when she was socialized and encouraged to do what she did, while young and vulnerable to her mother and those men. When does Holly get to choose, when her life was already chosen as a young girl?</p>
<p>"Yes, your parents pay. DING DING DING, WE HAVE A WINNER, as you put it.</p>
<p>Your existence isn’t free-of-charge. Your parents are paying your way; you are not. So to say that you are “living within your means” isn’t accurate. You might not overspend your allowance (how could you, after all?), but you aren’t covering all the expenses that come with your living. You are NOT living within your means. In fact, it’s not even clear that you have real “means.”</p>
<p>I never said my parents don’t pay right now. </p>
<p>I don’t get an allowance. Don’t know where you got that assumption. You are still missing the point. Those expenses aren’t mine right now. So again, yes I am living within my means.</p>
<p>Insomniatic, regarding the point of the other poster about you living beyond your means. Unless your parents are divorced and there is a decree providing for college after age 21, your parents have no legally enforceable obligation at age 21 to house you, feed you, or pay for college. If they pulled all of that tommorrow, you’d immediately be destitute.</p>
<p>The bills for your food, shelter, clothing, college, etc… are technically your bills. The fact that you’ve convinced someone else to assume them for you, or even if someone (your parents) have agreed to assume them gratis, they remain your bills, payable by you at any moment if your parents revoke their payment. This would not be the case if you were a minor, but you are not.</p>
<p>Come back when you are self-supporting, when you have a mortgage, when you have been laid off because your company was bought out, when you have been struck by an illness, then you can lecture parents about living within their means.
Lots of people could live a bit more frugally to be sure, but when your job disappears, clipping coupons will not make up the lost income. When you are struck by an expensive illness, or your child is born with some serious problem, saving on the $7 movie ticket will not help.<br>
And if you are a tenant who has been conscientiously paying rent to a landlord who got in over his head and the apartment building has been foreclosed, clipping coupons will only help a tiny bit.</p>
<p>it is well described in the “abbreviations” thread. Let me see if I can explain it without actually doing it.
first you type the word quote inside . Then you type in the information you want to be in the quote box and then you end it with
[/quote]
. There should be no spaces between the quote s and the text to be quoted.</p>
<p>The first time I tried to explain it, it put the info in a quote box. Sorry.</p>
<p>I would be far from destitute. I have enough money saved up so I can get on my feet.</p>
<p>I never convinced anybody to pay for my bills. My parents chose to pay for the local unievrsity which is $5,000 per year. If I would have got out of state, the bill would have on my shoulders.</p>
<p>It is all about opportunity cost. It wouldn’t have been worth the extra $30,000+ dollars.</p>
<p>Yes, your parents pay; you don’t. That’s what parents do for their children, because their children don’t have the means to afford their living expenses on their own. Once children are grown, they have the opportunity to take on adult responsibilities, and that means paying for their keep. </p>
<p>You haven’t reached that point yet. You have posted about wanting to take time off from school and travel, but are afraid to tell your parents this because, according to you, they will say that if you have the money to travel, you have the money to pay rent, and you (surprise!) don’t want to pay rent. You want to (guess what?) live beyond your means – travel when you don’t really have the money to do so. Your choices are shirking an adult responsibility (paying rent) to spend the money on travel, travel that you couldn’t afford if you were actually paying your way; or paying rent, thereby having to forgo travel.</p>
<p>As marite said, come back when you’re self-supporting.</p>
<p>My car broke down, so I was debating if it would be beneficial to sell that car and buy a used car. I decided to just pay for the repairs, so I didn’t have to take out the loan.</p>