this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2024
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A Boring Dystopia

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[–] [email protected] 87 points 3 months ago (3 children)

But there is a bright side! Maybe retirement kind of stinks?

What fucking take is that? No. No, man. Shit no, man! First chance I don't have to work for someone else I'll take it. I have things I want to do instead of work.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's Business Insider. They are very pro-capitalist.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

They are very anti-human too

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

They already said pro capitalism, don't need to repeat

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 months ago

Who ever wrote that could box Iron Mike Tyson and not suffer cognitive decline.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

My retirement plan is to kick off before I have to retire.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

Hopefully at work so they have to pay out to the bereaved

[–] [email protected] 51 points 3 months ago (3 children)

That seems about right, I'm an elder millennial and the only reason I own a home is because I was able to take out a VA loan back in 2009. If I had to put 20% down, even back then, it would have never happened. These days you're talking down payments of $100,000 which is ludicrous.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 3 months ago

Older millennial here. Been saving since I started my career in 2008. Purchased in 2020. The only reason I was able to was because my girlfriend received a 10 year retroactive compensation for being paid less than her make colleagues and her employer offered compensation. The amount was incredible. It was like winning a fairly good amount in a lottery.

That's the only reason we were able to buy. Luck.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Just as an FYI, most first time homebuyers don't have to put down 20%. Talk to a professional and discover what your options are. There's tons of assistance programs for first time home buyers that varies from state to state.

I know housing is insane, but a starter home to get your foot in the door may not be out of reach.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 3 months ago (2 children)

5% down loans come with all sorts of strings attached, typically requiring private mortgage insurance that can add hundreds to your monthly payment. Add to that the increased interest on the additional principle, and the cost of a low-money-down mortgage can be two or three times as expensive.

Being poor ain't cheap.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I live in Cali, one of the HCOL areas that people bitch about. My first home was 400k in 2019 at age 24. My wife and I made a little over 100k combined and the first time homebuyer program in Cali made it so that we could buy whatever home we wanted as long as it passed inspection. The state kicked in the 20k down and we just covered closing costs. We refinanced a year later and dissolved any state loans. The state gave us a loan that had 0% interest and only required that we simply pay it back or it dissolved after 20 years. Being poor isn’t cheap, but a lot of expensive states actually have help. You pay taxes in those states for a reason, use it. There was no increased interest, PMI is minuscule by comparison, my mortgage is still hundreds under friends apartment rent and I have 4 times the bedrooms, double the bathrooms and actual land.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

My first home was 400k in 2019

That's not a HCOL area, unless you're talking about a 2 bed, 1 bath condo in a shitty school district.

And most states won't give you $20k and 0% loans unless it's a farm or VA loan.

Lastly, mortgage rates were 4% in 2019. Today, it's 7.5%. Getting 0% over twenty years is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but just the difference between rates then and rates now is almost $1,000 a month.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Honestly this dude’s story sounds a little too good to be true…0%? Really?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Yeah, that doesn’t exist. Sounds like his parents gave him money.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

But not all do. Mine didn't.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Elder millennial, conditionally 100% with the VA. Bought in 2016 and with an increase recently to pay it off at 50 my payment is ~$630. I'm not going anywhere.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I bought a run down, 900 sqft "starter home" in 2018, with the original plan of doing repairs and selling to upgrade in several years.

Now? -- fuck that. I've fixed it up and I'm going to live here until I die.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Hell yeah dude. I need to get to patching mine up but my ex was shitty about getting things done and now I've got a whole damn complex about doing anything myself. Lmfao

[–] [email protected] 38 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

Yeah, no fuckin shit. I've been incredibly fortunate and started saving for retirement at 22 (not because I could afford it, it's mandatory when you work for the government) and I'm almost 40 and still only have about $220k saved. I'm miles ahead of most of my friends, and miles behind where I'd actually need to be to retire at 65. I realized a few years ago that my options are to work until I die or retire when I'm ready and off myself when I'm out of money. Option 2 is a lot more appealing - at least I'll get to enjoy myself for a few years instead of none.

I've given up on the idea of owning a home. That's just plain never gonna happen on a single income.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Morbid as it is, I've told my entire family that I fully intend to seek assisted suicide when I'm old. I've watched enough family members become decrepit and just live with constant pain for years, and then the mental decline, the Alzheimer's, the dementia. Fuck all that noise, when I'm ready and feel fulfilled with my life, I'm out of this bitch

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Oh yeah dementia is a hard no for me. My dad had glioblastoma and it was like cancer and dementia combined. Watching him made me even more positive that I'd rather jump off a cliff than live like that. Every day was confusing and scary and he became really volatile, but he turned down assisted suicide when he was still lucid, so there was nothing we could do. If I'm ever in that position, give me the drugs, I'm done.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Woooo, FERS (assuming US). Scary part is if you started 20 years ago you were paying LESS into it. It's 4.4% now.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

Nah, I've only worked at the city/state/county levels, never federal. I think they've all been in the neighborhood of 8-10% from both me and my employer, it's just that I've made shit money for most of my career because I wanted to help people and those jobs pay like crap. I also lost about 50k the last time the market went in the shitter and I've spent the last few years just making up for that.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I started saving at 19, opened an awesome account for retirement as best was told after joining the army.

Almost the entirety of it was wiped out after the banking collapse. All those “proprietary investment funds” failed, was left with maybe 5k.

Then we had 2009-2012, we all worked minimum wage in our 30’s. Millennials mostly have nothing to retire on.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The government should've bailed regular people out, not the banks.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Yep. Still waiting for that all to trickle down. We got absolutely. Nothing for all our tax dollars wasted on banks.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 3 months ago

What fucking plans

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

A year and a half ago I was able to buy a home, I had been saving up for the down payment and finally was able to make it happen. I've been house poor since then. I can't wait until I'm finally able to feel comfortable with my finances again. In the meantime, I'm getting very comfortable with eating a lot of rice.

Fortunately, the girlfriend and her daughter are moving in soon. So that'll help a bit as she'll be taking over some of the utilities. And the house has appreciated almost 15% in that time as well.

I've been able to put away some away for retirement too. If all goes well when that time finally comes, I'll have the mortgage paid off and will be able to live with relatively low expenses. My current mortgages interest rate is 6.875%, which over 30 years has me paying pretty much as much in interest as the house. But if interest goes down I can refinance and each % point lower I can get is about $200 a month. I really, really hope that it ends up back at 3% again. Maybe then I'll be able to put some in savings again.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

yeah I think I'll probably just die once my animals and my parents are gone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Back to the work mines!