Topic: How to save money. - page 181. (Read 345783 times)

The $8/h is my only example . so you mean that ? that wage for unskilled labour and for only in a part-time job or an a old person and all of your example are all about in north america and typically what is job for unskilled labour give me examples. Sorry for my example i got that in google minimum wage of america.

but if you only make $8/hour, you will qualify for just about every gvt assistance program under the sun.  Free healthcare, food benefits, maybe even free money (welfare).  I believe a study was done that showed the average person that receives gvt benefits like these gets 20k/ year worth of benefits.  So at $8/hr you might only make less than 20k, but will have an equivalent amount given to you for free.  Plus you will have no tax burden

The condition that I put is if the person is living in North America, or any developed nation for that matter.  Where I live, minimum wage is $11/hr and that is for unskilled labour.  That means that you work a job that doesn't really require any previous experience or training.  This would be a typical job for someone that is either in school and working part-time or an older person that does not have the requirements to get a skilled job, whether that be experience, formal education or learned trade.

I know people come from all sorts of different financial backgrounds, some being very poor and some being very wealthy.  Unfortunately the less fortunate need to work that much harder and smarter to make it.  In North America, you can get student loans to go to University or College, and graduate with a pile of debt, but likely be able to make a lot more money than a minimum wage job.

At $8/hour, that would be about $16,000 in annual income.  Where I live, that is not enough to live on your own.  My mortgage alone costs more than that, and that doesn't leave anything for food, utilities, communications, transportation, clothes, entertainment, etc.  So at $8/hour, savings is not my concern, income generation is.

So again, depends where you live and what the cost of living is.  I'm not trying to offend or insult anyone by saying "unskilled" but that is the term used for the type of job that earns minimum wage.

No, $8/h is not enough in USA. $8 might be a lot in your country (Philippines?), but in USA its really hard to live with $8/h.

How you can say that wage is for an unskilled people? Do you think they will get a job if they are unskilled?
And you said that if they need a big wage they will study, if they have enough money to study? Their wage are enough to live and make savings .

So there are a couple things to pay attention to.  One is income generation and the other is under-consumption (saving).  It would make sense for effort to be put into income generation primarily, and then towards savings. 

If someone is making 8 bucks an hour and living in North America, then the effort needs to go into generating more income.  That wage is for unskilled labour, so it would make sense to gain a skillset that pays more.  Don't fall into the trap of doing unskilled labour for life.  That type of job should be a steppingstone to something else.  If you are going to learn a trade, get a formal education, or learn a skillset that you can apply on your own, it will allow you to get out of that trap of labour/retail type jobs.

8 bucks an hour will just cover the absolutely essential monthly expenses.  It makes sense if you're young and working part-time while living at home with parents, but don't make a career out of a job like that.

Sir, all things are possible 8 bucks per hour? It is enough for a normal person . And you said that all of your savings will be destroyed by pne accident? No . Do you really read this thread? That your savings must 20% of your monthly salary? And its use in 2 different ways? First the 10% is for emergencies,  so you cant spent the other 10% wich must spend in your personal interest like business,investment, and etc. So how possible you can't save? If you do this strategies you can save every month. And like i said theres a choices , save or not so choose.

It's really not this easy. I like how you've suggested a financial plan, but someone who makes almost 8 bucks an hour can not afford multiple things on top of their daily bills. It's easy to make a financial plan if you make enough money to where you don't have your monthly budgets interfering with each other. For example, medical emergencies. At that type of salary, you're essentially one accident away from any financial savings for anything collapsing. Your car savings, or your house savings, can all be destroyed with the medical side of your life taking over it due to an insufficient "medical fund". Saving money is something everyone would love to do, but when you don't have a decent salary, it's next to impossible.

Threads like this really help put my life into perspective.

Yeah I didn't expect the recent rise of the USD either.  What country/city are you living in, if you don't mind me asking?

I don't have confidence in the dollar, similar to yourself, and haven't had confidence for a few years now, however the game goes on.  Banks fail and they're bailed out.  The debt ceiling is reached and then extended.  Interest rates stay low which creates asset bubbles and encourages speculation, and the game still goes on.  The poor depend on income and the wealthy depend on investments.  Incomes don't rise while investments do.  This is just my observation over the last few years, and I am okay putting a certain % of my equity into the market given the risk.

The market as a whole has definitely beat the inflation rate historically (but I know inflation numbers can be measured in weird ways to manipulate the outcome).  Perhaps overall cost of living is a better indicator.  I think the stock market makes 7%/year on average, and government measured inflation is less than that, actual inflation - who knows.  I live in Toronto and our publicized inflation rate is very low, however house prices around here have doubled in the past ~7 years (different areas will have different rates of appreciation), so the cost of living has increased significantly as well.  For those that have participated in those gains, it hasn't been a bad transition, but for people that were not home owners, it's an uphill battle.

Well since interest rates have been held very low, pension funds are being invested into the market consistently, into blue chip, stable equities.  So I have invested in these heavily regulated cash cows.  Canadian banks and telecoms fit into this picture.  Look into it.  The stock price holds a price/dividend yield ratio of about 4%.  Each company raises the dividends each year, which pushes the stock price.  Each company also posts higher revenues each year, and there regulation doesn't allow for new competition.  I don't consider these risky investments.  If the dollar collapses, you're right that these investments will fall, but the implications of a collapse will be much greater than losing a few thousand bucks in the market.  You'd need to worry about your safety when people no longer trust money.  There would be martial law and weapons would have very high worth.

Don't make stupid investment decisions.

Like i said its up to you if you save or not,but in my opinion save as you can and don't blame the economical stability of your country. Just enjoy your money and don't forget to save. We have choices so choose the best and think about it and think if your decision will make you happy.

Not really as I said before you need to have higher income than your expenses. And majority of people are only living on the edge of their economical stability (or below it). If you want to have something more from life you need to spend additional money and we have a problem. Either you live as a monk or life slightly better life with a "little savings". Choice is up to you.

Saving is always possible. You can't thar you can save when your monthly income is good. It is all depend to y you cant save if you dont like or you are negative thinker. And if you are going to invest like i said. Trust the power of compound interest, it will give to you a better profit .

I posted mostly the same points earlier in the thread, bit I disagree. A home is an  investment, but it helps of you can pay it off early. Tangible assets like real estate are great to add to your portfolio

Think what is your need and make you happy then do it as long as you dont underestimate other.

I am using EURO, and given the fact that the EUR/USD is dropping now for 6 months straight, if i would hold my money in dollar i would be better off. Off course not in a bank account, either in cash or a trading account.  And the eurozone really doesnt like people holding dollar over here....

But i`m talking about short term trading here, i dont have any confidence in the dollar in the 5 year term.

Also your stock market investment will probably evaporate after the FED stops the printing press. And if they dont then it could go up, however the underlying dollar would eventually evaporate.

A US. stock is a derivative of the dollar so if the FED prints a bunch of dollars to buy a few stocks then unless you pick the specific stocks that are bought (or the indices) then you wont see big return.

I mean its already inneficient with the comission and the trickleing effect, i bet that for every 1% inflation you are lucky to gain 0.7% stock market growth, so its absolutely not efficient (ok those numbers are not exact, but its not 1:1 ratio definitely).

And because of this a rally in the stock market from inflated money is really a shitty investment as you would not beat inflation that way.

There is always a way to save and it all depends on how one does it. And the worst thing is that after having saved some money, people tend to leave it in accounts or placing it in fixed deposit which eventually earns negative returns. Investment is the way to go and the best investment is still in yourself upgrading your knowledge and education level. 

saving is impossible unless you get a good amount of cash every month. which will then make you buy more stuff because wants always overcomes needs. there are people who are able to save from little to big. but it wont be long before they have to use the savings again. life is too unpredictable to try find ways to save money. just find a way to invest it somewhere stable. i think its far better

I agree about the relative appreciation against other currencies.

When you say buy the dollar, what would you be buying it with?  I assume the dollar is the default form of money.

I haven't had much faith in the stock market over the last few years, but have started trading again, and I'll give you an interesting example.  I have a company pension that gets thrown into a bullshit portfolio of mutual funds and bonds with limited options.  I don't really touch anything in it, and made about a 15% return in a year.  I consider that a crappy investment, but decent return for managing it passively.

Has the fed talked about a possible QE4?  I just hear them talking about hinting at an interest rate hike, and then delaying it, pushing the markets higher each time.