The only problem was money. Having separated from my wife of 21 years, who had physical custody of our sons, I was handing over $4,000 a month in alimony and child-support payments.
Holy crap. $120k/yr is $10k a month and almost half of it was going to alimony and child-support. Does his ex-wife even work? Want to work?
I am not condoning is purchase of a house.. he should have realized, particularly with his background, that the tax deduction on interest will not give him very much particularly considering that he is already getting tax deductions on the alimony he is paying. In addition, his SocSec/Medicare taxes will still be taken out weighted relative to his income of 120k.
“Don’t worry,” Bob reassured me, saying what almost everybody else in real estate was saying at that moment. “The value of your house will be higher in five years. You’ll be able to refinance.”
Several people fell for this red herring.. even some people that I know. Refinance to what? A greater debt load than you already have.. and that you are already having problems with?
I had a bad feeling about what the A.T.M. would reveal about my balance, but I was shocked when I looked at the receipt: $196. We were broke.
..
“How the hell could we have run through so much money so quickly?” I asked her accusingly.
Umm.. he is in finance and he doesn’t even track his own expenses, cash burn rate?? He waits for the ATM slip to tell him his balance?
She thought it wasn’t worth agonizing over nickels and dimes. I was almost exactly the opposite. My answer to any money squeeze was to stop spending. I would skip lunch at work to save $7. If I arrived at the Metro just before the end of rush hour, I would wait for five minutes to save 50 cents on the fare.
.. and he waited for the ATM to tell him what his balance would look like??? Something is not quite right with his statements.. or this story. I am not going to keep putting excerpts from this point on in the article.. but if you read it, you might start wondering if this article is true. Not tracking your balance and running against the overdraft protection for a person who works in finance? Who warned about what was going on with Greenspan/Bernanke? .. I think some literary license was taken.
