Student Loans and Investing/Retirement

I've seen people leverage themselves beyond sustainment. In my personal career I've made everything from 20k flying to 140k as a contractor. Now I'm south of that 140k mark again. If I would have bet that those paychecks would keep coming I would have went into a lot more debt than I have now. Planning for the worst and hoping for the best had worked just fine for me. No I'm not rich but if I lost my job tomorrow I would be just fine for a very long time. No I wouldn't have a new car every two years but I'd be just fine. I am ok with just fine.

If I wanted to squeeze every penny out of life I would be investing big and working a lot more hours. The jobs that I can make the most money with are overseas but I pick being home every night and having weekends off. That and I'm not that fond of being shot at. Of course then I could afford new cars, homes, and more debt. It would be such a blessing really. :rolleyes:
 
No one is claiming that you should work overseas to maximize the squeezing of pennies. We're just talking about maximizing the use of the money that you do make, whatever that amount is.
 
Make money by doing nothing. Have a friend lend you 10,000 at 3% interest, then lend it to someone else at 6% interest and keep the difference. Man, I picked the wrong career.
 
So back in 2012 my seizures were pretty bad. Two episodes of status epileticus, seizures that do not stop and are life threatening. The last on I was semi-comatose for three days. And after that I had a lot of parital seizure, which temporarily make you confused. So I could not work. They were happening multiple times a day. So I filed for disability. It's taken two and a half years. The judge was a bit slow. One he wanted me to get a neuropsychological exam because of my aprosotic speech, which like is caused by the Aspergers. So that prolonged it, and then he was getting sick. Anyway, I had a trust account given to me, and I used it to pay for my school--about 3k. Now I get about 15k with backpay. First

1. Replenish the trust account
2. Put some in savings
3. Invest some or put it in a 401k
4. Pay back a portion of my student loans, and the rest each month. I am not giving a boatload of my money to those avaricious monsters Sallie Mae. The interest has doubled on a 6k loan. Aristotle was right about usury.
5. Put even $25 dollars in savings a month. Obviously more is better, but even a little adds up and keeps the habit going.

The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of an modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.” -Politics
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But while on Aristotle it is important to remember there is the "golden mean". There is the vice of avarice and being prodigal (a spendthrift), and then the virtue of being liberal with your money, or frugal. To be greedy is worse because it is a more stubborn vice, while prodigality, being a perversion of liberality, can more easily be corrected. So pushing pennies, like the health cut of not enjoying the luxuries of good food, is petty greed. It makes life miserable. No one likes a tightwad. But not putting something in some sort of savings in each paycheck, assuming there is not a major crisis in your life, is rather imprudent. I agree with this therefore

brian434 said:
I've seen people leverage themselves beyond sustainment. In my personal career I've made everything from 20k flying to 140k as a contractor. Now I'm south of that 140k mark again. If I would have bet that those paychecks would keep coming I would have went into a lot more debt than I have now. Planning for the worst and hoping for the best had worked just fine for me. No I'm not rich but if I lost my job tomorrow I would be just fine for a very long time. No I wouldn't have a new car every two years but I'd be just fine. I am ok with just fine.

If I wanted to squeeze every penny out of life I would be investing big and working a lot more hours. The jobs that I can make the most money with are overseas but I pick being home every night and having weekends off. That and I'm not that fond of being shot at. Of course then I could afford new cars, homes, and more debt. It would be such a blessing really. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

And David Ramsay seems to lean towards what Aristotle is talking about in "Ethics". Greed, he says, is the vice of stubborn old men. Liberality, having a relation to the liberal (free) life, the noble life, which seeks rest above all else, is superior to excessive work to make bucks and pushing pennies. The best life is the one of the golden mean, where one works to be able to relax, not to pile up money.

Anyway, philosophy class dismissed. For your homework write an essay on why David Ramsay is an avaricious old man who is forming a sort of system of worship of money and himself. Spend wisely and live what the Italians call la dolce vita
 
wainscottbl said:
And David Ramsay seems to lean towards what Aristotle is talking about in "Ethics". Greed, he says, is the vice of stubborn old men. Liberality, having a relation to the liberal (free) life, the noble life, which seeks rest above all else, is superior to excessive work to make bucks and pushing pennies. The best life is the one of the golden mean, where one works to be able to relax, not to pile up money.

Anyway, philosophy class dismissed. For your homework write an essay on why David Ramsay is an avaricious old man who is forming a sort of system of worship of money and himself. Spend wisely and live what the Italians call la dolce vita
Click to expand...

To borrow a quote from @ZapBrannigan, did Dave buy his Citation with little white envelopes of cash?
 
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