[UCGal]

If he’d been astute – he would have declared bk before the laws changed a while back… Student loan debt used to be dischargable.

And there’s a lesson to learn from this for astute piggs…. Don’t cosign student loans with your kids. They can and DO garnish your social security when you’re retired if your kids default on the loans. I’m not saying don’t help you kids in college… But there are ways to do it that won’t involve eating cat food in retirement because you’re not getting the soc sec. you expected.

[UCGal]

flu is right. You’re extending the loan. And the new loan is slightly less – because you’ve paid some (not much) principal down.

A better way to approach it is to refinance when you have a significant drop in rates (like your first and 2nd refi). Then make the SAME payment… so you shorten the length of the loan.

That’s what we did a few years ago – kept our payments the same, despite the new lower “minimum” payment… We knew we were able to make these payments. The extra amount is applied directly to principal.

We like seeing the principal go down so much, we increased our payments more. We’re now looking at paying our house off completely in less than 2 years. I’m loving the idea that I’m close to being able to write a check for the balance on the mortgage at any time. (I’d do it now, but it would wipe out my emergency funds.)

[UCGal]

My employer puts San Diego workers on the “national” pay scale and workers in the bay area (including SF, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, etc.) on a geographical offset.
That offset is 17% higher in pay.

My company is cheap. So 17% is the bare minimum they can get away with. Salaries are higher in the bay area… At least at tech companies. (Even admins and shipping clerks have a 17% pay differential at my company though.)

As to the shared bathroom thing. Hubster is one of 6 kids – so 8 people in his row house growing up. 1 bathroom. Do the math. He figured out the shower hot water valve thing when his youngest brother started taking 45 minute showers… 15 minutes in he’d start slowly turning the valve in the basement. Brother never caught on – just thought he’d run out of hot water. This is basic survival in a house with a lot of people.

[UCGal]

We just had our open enrollment. For the first time in many years there was NO increase. It had been running 10-15% increases for the past several years.

[UCGal]

We are told how concerned our politicians are about the debt and deficit.
– the fiscal “cliff”, unaltered, reduces both significantly.

So folks talking about the dire nature of the debt/deficit should be FOR the fiscal “cliff”.

If you care about your children and grandchildren, you should care about burdening them with debt. Even if it means adjusting revenues to well below Reagan levels – back to Clinton levels.

We hear how Social Security is broke… yet they cut the employee contributions by 2% to stimulate the economy. We need to stop that. How do you fix Social Security while simultaneously cutting the revenue to pay for it? Obviously the goal is to eliminate it – but no one will say so. Raise the SS deductions back to their previous levels – and raise the annual income threshold. Do the COLA fix to reduce the increase to SS each year. That’s a good start.

Folks – this is math. You can’t fix the budget with just cuts. You can’t fix the budget with just taxes. The sequestration (fiscal cliff) combines both. I say lets go over that cliff… Yes, I personally will pay more taxes and yes, I personally will see services I enjoy cut. But it’s not nearly as dire as kicking the can forever.

[UCGal]

I hate shopping so there is not enough money in the world to make me go out on black Friday.

I’ll be home with a bunch of 9 year olds getting them ready for the FLL regionals. Robotics is funner than bf crowds.

[UCGal]

I’m in Schwab index funds… so super low costs.

[UCGal]

I’m mostly mutual funds. But I’ve given up trying to time the market. I set my asset allocation and rebalance when it gets out of wack. I follow the bogleheads lazy portfolio and it’s been better than when I tried to time individual stocks…. and lower cost.

[UCGal]

[quote=ucodegen]What I find interesting is that last night, with only 29% of the vote count.. 30 was losing, 32 was winning, and 39 was losing. While we can declare who won the electoral college on 29% of the vote, the additional 71% of vote completely reversed the status on these propositions. Around 22:25, the secretary of state stopped updating their website. Either there is a very significantly different demographic that got added in, or something is hinky.[/quote]

The look specifically at reporting counties, and precincts, registration ratios in those areas.

City of San Fran votes very differently than the Central Valley for example.

Same was true on the presidential election last night – they were calling states based on what the party registration was for the areas still not reporting.

Basic analysis if you have the data.

[UCGal]

[quote=Ren]So I never actually said “if prop 30 passes, we’re leaving the state,” because that would be overly dramatic and silly. There’s a lot holding us here and 30 by itself wouldn’t do it. However, now that it has passed, it’s enough of a push in that direction that we’re putting feelers out. If I wanted a very small town with low crime and good schools, where in WA would I look?[/quote]
I lived in Bellingham, WA for several years and still have friends there.

It’s a college town with more businesses now than there were when I lived there. (When I worked/lived there, there was only one employer for enginerds… now there are many.)

My best friend’s hubby teaches science at the high school there – good reputation for the school system in the city, less so for the unincorporated parts of Whatcom county.

[UCGal]

[quote=AN][quote=UCGal][quote=ctr70]
There is no way paying a little extra sales tax is equivalent to paying 10.3% state income tax on say $350k AGI! For someone who makes $350k a year that is $35k+ out the door to the mental midgets in Sacramento that you wouldn’t have to pay in WA State! I’m a frugal guy and I don’t buy a lot of shit so sales tax wouldn’t affect me much. I would save huge by moving my business to WA State.[/quote]

I don’t think that’s how it works. The higher rate is tiered. So you pay the same taxes as always on your first $250k of AGI. Then a higher rate on the amount ABOVE $250k.

I could be wrong – but that’s how I read it.[/quote]
CA income tax is very progressive. By the time you hit $47k, you’re already paying 9.3%. So, although it might not be $35k+, it should definitely be $30k+.[/quote]
I agree – but the *delta* with this new law is not as big as implied.

As you state – Folks were already paying 9.3% on income above $49k for a single person and $98k for a 2 income household…

Now there are new tiers that start at $200k single, and $250k married. It doesn’t change the tax rates on income at the lower tiers. That’s my point.

You can scream about the new tax rate – but don’t suggest it applies to the income below the new tiers. Because it doesn’t.

Even high income professionals will pay the same rate on the bulk of their income.

[UCGal]

[quote=Blogstar]Genies out of bottles don’t give a shit about who is a diplomat and who isn’t. Our system can not successfully deal with all the shit. Get over it. People died people lie all the time…it’s war. There is nothing worth hanging the Commander-in-Chief for on this particular detail.[/quote]
ITA.

[UCGal]

[quote=ctr70]
There is no way paying a little extra sales tax is equivalent to paying 10.3% state income tax on say $350k AGI! For someone who makes $350k a year that is $35k+ out the door to the mental midgets in Sacramento that you wouldn’t have to pay in WA State! I’m a frugal guy and I don’t buy a lot of shit so sales tax wouldn’t affect me much. I would save huge by moving my business to WA State.[/quote]

I don’t think that’s how it works. The higher rate is tiered. So you pay the same taxes as always on your first $250k of AGI. Then a higher rate on the amount ABOVE $250k.

I could be wrong – but that’s how I read it.

[UCGal]

[quote=ocrenter]The minority vote for Obama is quite impressive!

Blacks at 93%, Hispanics at 71%, and Asians at 73%.

The black vote is not much of a surprise, neither is the Hispanics given they are more working class, they are traditionally Dem, and they were under direct assault by the far right rhetoric. But the dramatic loss of the Asian vote, which is predominately upper-middle class is worth noting.

Remember, Asians use to be much more Republican leaning, with a mere 31% vote for Clinton and 55% for Bush Sr. How in the world did the GOP turn that completely around to 26% Romney and 73% Obama? Something for the GOP to think about.[/quote]
I think hispanics had more to do with Romney’s “self deportation”, being against the Dream Act, and surrounding himself with the architects of AZ’s anti-immigration laws.

I know Republican hispanics who voted against Romney because they felt he was anti hispanic.

[UCGal]

[quote=flu][quote=svelte]Enjoy the day piggs. Finally this horse race is over…one way or the other.

Now we can get back to discussing wine, women, and maybe once in a while housing.[/quote]

cars damnit…cars…[/quote]
And don’t forget Zombies.
Maybe Zombie politicians driving in high end cars to look at investment properties to drink wine in….

[Author]

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