[an]

[quote=spdrun]Looks like the green (rotten?) slice of the pie can be cut by about half. Wish we could return to the sensible Carter-era attitudes about the military.[/quote]
As many democrats loves to crow about government spending is what gave us the internet. That government spending was military spending.

[an]

I don’t know all the areas in France, but looking the maps for those houses, they look like they’re out in the country side. I was expecting Paris or something similar at Inland Empire pricing. How much is property tax in France?

Maui’s beaches are nice, but hardly what I’d call the best beaches in the world. I’d rate Bora Bora, Moorea, Tahiti, Fiji, Maldives, etc heads and shoulders above Maui.

[an]

It said it’s BOM, so someone did try to buy it but the deal fell through. Did you have your agent contact the listing agent to see if there’s any offers on it yet? For a non-upgraded house of that size in that area, I would say it’s priced slightly above market, which might be why it’s not flying off the market. If they priced it at $350-375k instead of $385-400k, then I don’t they’d have problem finding a buyer. But since it seems to be a regular sale, the seller can wait.

[an]

Looks like the agent made a mistake. They raised the price by $100k now.

[an]

[quote=livinincali]AGNC got hit hard by resistance today. Gaped up to overhead resistance and got sold pretty hard. Definitely could be a case of the bounce is over, but we’ll see. It’s days like these in stocks that make it hard to time a bounce. How much do you let it pull back before you decide to sell.[/quote]4 days after hitting this resistance, it’s up another 2%. So, I guess the resistance wasn’t that strong, since it was up everyday since. It’s up ~9% from it’s recent month bottom on 11/14, but it’s still down ~2.5% from a month earlier. It’s down ~7% in the last 3 months and down ~1.5% in the last 6 months. But it’s up almost 13% YTD.

Also, it seems like CEL is back with a vengeance. Should have bought back in when it hit mid 8s.

[an]

[quote=spdrun]Also, look at TOTAL tax burden, not just income tax. Property taxes in TX are often much higher than CA.[/quote]Percentage wise, yes. But $ wise, not really. You have to account for the fact that housing is A LOT cheaper.

paramount, you’re not the only one. I know a couple of people who are currently pondering/looking into the possibility of moving to TX after the election.

[an]

[quote=CA renter]I keep telling people (other friends with families) about your food budget to see if I’m way off when it comes to grocery shopping, but ~90% of them spend as much or more than we do on groceries.[/quote]Do these friends of yours have similar diet as you? Are any of them Asian eating solely Asian food? Also, portion size makes a difference too. When we go out, me and my wife would share an appetizer, entree, and dessert and we both would be full. So, maybe we’re just eat 1/2 as much as your typical American.
[quote=CA renter]Still, your posts do get me thinking, and I often think of you when I’m cooking and shopping. We’ve tried to cut back a bit on the milk consumption (usually about 4-6 gallons of hormone-free milk/week — incredibly expensive!) because you had mentioned only drinking water in your house.[/quote]
Yes, dairy products are expensive. We only have milk because of our young kids. Before we had kids, we don’t drink milk (just water) because my wife is lactose intolerant. We don’t eat too much cheese either (those are expensive too). Even with 2 little kids that consumes a lot of milk, we only go through 1 gallon/week.

[an]

[quote=CA renter]That 5 lbs. of fruit wouldn’t be the only produce item for families who eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. For us (family of 5), we can go through three packages of berries in just one meal — and that’s just dessert. We often eat around 3-6 oranges and/or apples (usually a combo) just for lunch, alone. An average salad for our family consists of a head of lettuce, a tomato, half an onion, a few sticks of celery, 1 bell pepper, and (maybe) a cucumber…and that’s just the *salad* for one meal.

My husband catches most of our fish, so he says it’s “free.” Of course, if you count all the costs for fishing, it probably comes in at $50/lb. (or more), but that’s a whole ‘nother issue.

If you buy organic/hormone-free eggs, they’re closer to ~$5.00/dz., and our family can easily eat 10 eggs in one sitting.

Seriously, AN, if you’re living on a budget that is anywhere close to what you claim, you’re very much in the minority, IMHO. That’s not a put-down, BTW, I wish we could do it; but our diet is very protein and produce-heavy, and there’s no way we could do it on your budget. I think the fact that you use rice all the time (just basing this on your posts) is what helps you stay within budget.[/quote]
You’re spending more on food by choice. That’s the luxury you afforded yourself. I never said you can’t spend more for food. Many people do. All I said is, if you really wanted to, you can have many healthy home cook meals with a budget that falls under the $4.44/person/day.

You’re right, I’m in the minority. After all, Asians are the minority in this country. However, I’m not a minority among Asians. If anything, compare to other Asians, I bet I can do a lot better. That might also be why you’re seeing Asian supermarkets always super full. Just look at H-Mart, Zion, and 99 Ranch’s parking lots. Maybe Asian in general cook more and the Asian diet have rice/noodle at the center of every meal. You’ll rarely see an average Asian meal without rice or noodle.

So, bottom line is, if you can’t do it, that’s your personal choice. Not because it’s not doable. BTW, stuff like organic eggs is a luxury. Regular 18-count carton of eggs goes for $2.50 at Vons right now. So, if you’re willing to pay over 2x more than regular eggs, don’t complain that you can’t possible come under budget. You can’t come under budget if you spend like that. Also, 10 eggs/family/sitting, if you just buy regular eggs, you just feed 5 people for $1.39 worth of eggs. 2 eggs per person is not unreasonable. That’s only $0.27/person. So, if I use my diet, that 2 eggs + rice + veggie + 1 apple, I’d be full. All for probably around $1-2.

Really, it’s not that hard for us to stay under our budget I just described for food. I know people who spend even less. We’re hardly the frugal ones in our circle of friends/family. The type of food/diet makes a huge difference in how much you spend though. Along with portion size. So, if you have the desire to lower your food bill, think outside the box.

[an]

[quote=flu][quote=earlyretirement]Man what a circus atmosphere. I went today and it was crazy busy. That Applebee’s has resorted to hiring a security guard and he was literally chasing away anyone that was parking there for H-Mart. He was asking each person if they were going into Applebee’s and if not, he said he was going to call a tow truck to tow them away.

It was very difficult finding a parking space.

I’ve never been to an H-Mart before. Interesting. If you like Korean food then it’s a must visit. They have a cafe inside with Korean food to buy or take out and the line was jam packed with people.

They have a pretty good fruit department and prices are cheap. As someone else mentioned, big Pineapples were only 99 cents each! People were grabbing crates and crates of them. I saw a lady literally take out 35 pineapples. I’m not sure how they can sell them so cheap. I guess it might be a loss leader to get people into the store.

Good addition to the area. Interestingly enough there is some French cafe bakery inside the store. I don’t know if it was any good or not but there was a long line.

I grabbed lots of fruits and picked up 5 pineapples. Plus some marinated meat (beef and chicken).[/quote]

That’s pretty much how’s it’s gonna be for a long time… IT’s like that at Zion and Ranch 99.[/quote]
Agree, which is why Zion is moving to a much bigger place with a lot bigger parking lot.

[an]

[quote=UCGal]The problem with buying veggies in bulk is it limits you to one specific veggie. I think any family of 4 would be hard pressed to eat 10 lbs of cabbage in a week – even with cabbage intensive dishes of corned beef and cabbage.

I just checked the add – 3 heads of red leaf lettuce for 99c is good. It’s a better price than costco.

You talk about someone eating 5 lbs of oranges in a day – that’s unrealistic… for one thing it’s not nutritionally complete – And would eat up too big of your $4.44/day. But 5lbs of oranges for a family, for a week… that’s reasonable.

I’ve been meaning to check out zionmarket and this new market you mention… I think that’s how I’ll spend my “black friday” shopping.[/quote]
You’re right, it’s limited to a specific veggie each week but there’s always something on sale every week. So, if you adjust your meals to only what’s on sale, you can spend much less in food. When you want to live under a specific budget, you don’t have the luxury of eating whatever. There are many different dishes you can make with cabbage. Example would be stir fry meat with cabbage and boiled cabbage for soup and veggie. Then you can dipped the boiled cabbage in fish sauce and eat with rice as well. That’s our meal sometimes.

Of course I was being facetious about the 5 lbs of oranges in a day, but if you have a family of 4, 5 lb of oranges should be enough for you for a week. So, a week’s worth of fruit is $1-5, which is $0.2-1/day on top of the cost of your other meals.

[an]

I don’t like veggies or fruits, so I didn’t add it. But if you’re into fruits and veggies, here ya go: http://zionmarket.com/sale/store1.htm
5lb of oranges for $0.99.
5lb of melogold for $0.99
2lb of persimmon for $0.99
5lb of raddish for $0.99
3 bunches of lettuce for $0.99
10lb of cabbages for $0.99

So, how much veggies and fruits do you eat? more than 5lb of oranges/da and 10lb of cabbages a day? Currently, H-Mart have 1 pineapple for $0.99.

[an]

Yes, days like today that make it hard to time the bounce. That’s because right now, it’s right in the middle of the bollinger bands. So, it can swing either way. But two (biz) days ago, we were well below the band: http://www.stockconsultant.com/consultnow/basicplus.cgi?&symbol=AGNC. And we saw a huge bounce. I don’t know where we’ll go from here.

[an]

CEL is up 4% today and AGNC is up another .5% today.

[an]

[quote=flu]No. I was talking about a 20 year term…That puts me at 50ish.

I felt for me, that was sufficient because my goal was house paid off, 10+ rentals replacing my current w2 income, kid undergrad college paid off via 529 or something similar…

AN, I think I also wrote “20 year term” on my post… Must be that old age finally catching up to you :)[/quote]
I reread your post just to make sure it’s not my old age… and yes, I’m not old yet. You didn’t mention 20 years, at least not in the post where you mentioned the price difference. I understand where you’re coming from and that sounds like a safe and sound estimate. I was assuming 30 years because that’s what I have.

[an]

[quote=teaboy][quote=AN] There’s no way you can get $1m for $400-500 now. You can’t even get $1M policy for $400-500 3-4 years ago. There must have been a big price increase 5-6 years ago, right after you got it.[/quote]

Um, did anyone read my post above, on the 15th?

It went something like this…
[quote=teaboy] MM, I just got $1M life insurance for similar reasons to what flu wrote. Costs were:
$1,000,000- 15 year term-$300.00 Annual
$1,000,000- 20 year term-$440.00 Annual
$1,000,000- 25 year term-$730.00 Annual
$1,000,000- 30 year term-$790.00 Annual
I wasted quite a bit of time getting individual quotes before I found quickquote.com which gave instant online quotes from multiple providers.[/quote]

Btw. I’m 34 & reasonably healthy.
tb[/quote]
I was talking about a 30 years term. My bad in assuming flu’s talking about 30 years term.

[Author]

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