Posts tagged ‘finance’
NEWARK MEMORY: LIFE ON A SHOESTRING
We have just finished the annual ‘season of shopping’. What follows are some shopping memories, a time when you only bought what you could afford.
LIFE ON A SHOESTRING
Some time ago I heard a report which stated that the average person carries about eight thousand dollars in debt. I am sure that that amount has increased since then. I have only a couple credit cards and try to keep my debt under control. I also use my credit cards as seldom as possible for they can be easily compromised. But on hearing this broadcast, my mind wandered back to my youth, a time when people not so much lived without but lived with what they could afford.
For most of my youth credit cards did not even exist. They started flourishing in the 60’s so, when I was young, they were not even an option. My parents didn’t even have a checking account. When there was a bill that needed to be paid we went to the drugstore and got a money order. Money orders were the only way we sent money through the mail.
In my neighborhood, credit was not as much a way of life as it is today. People lived on what they could afford. With the exception of houses and cars, you bought what you could pay for then and there. I must admit just writing about life without credit seems so foreign and unreal. Buying just what you can afford seems like such an odd concept, yet that is the way it once was.
The way a person received their pay was also different in my youth. Friday afternoons, my dad was home from working at the tannery for hours, but he had to return Friday afternoons to get his pay. I would sometimes take a ride with him; you could smell his place of employment long before you could see it – Ocean Leather – gaining this name because it was the only tannery at that time that could tan shark skins. We would drive around to the loading dock where drums of chemicals stood, the soil, stained shades of purple and green was soil to be an OSHA nightmare. So, into the building we would go, past large rooms where various stages of tanning was taking place, and into the office. Here my dad was handed a brown envelope with bills and change and that was his pay. That’s the way people were paid back then; you actually held your pay in your hand. It was not electronically sent to your bank from which you electronically paid your bills. You were able to hold what you earned, actually see it.
Friday was also allowance day for me, as it is now for my children. For completing my choirs, I received fifty cents a week, and when I could really control my spending – not wanting another model or book – I turned those quarters into a dollar bill, real folding money, which I would immediately take to the cellar and hide. In some respects, I never did get over the hiding fetish. I still have hordes of Kennedy quarters and half dollars along with a plastic bag stashed away for the new state quarters being minted. To this day a quarter to me is still real money. Although my kids make fun of my concept of value, with a quarter in my pocket I’m okay. How things have changed, and how I remain the same.
ANOTHER RETIREMENT OBSERVATION
ANOTHER RETIREMENT OBSERVATION
I have reported, in the past, that ads saying they can tell you how much money you will need upon retirement to maintain your lifestyle, in my opinion, are scams. I feel the most important question which needs to be answered is how long you will live. The only people unfortunate to be able to answer this question with relative accuracy are those with a terminal illness.
Not long ago I heard statistics which gave me pause. It concerned salaries. I thought salaries are an important consideration needed in planning retirement. How long you will be retired and the changes in salaries and the price of goods are also important in determining how much money you will need, and I don’t see how anyone can accurately make those predictions, of course coupled with lifestyle.
I look at my own experience with starting salaries and length of retirement.
When I graduated from college in 1969 if you could find a job paying $10,000 a year you were lucky.
Not long ago I heard a report on salaries required by 17–28-year-olds seeking employment. One thing I found interesting is that it used to be during an interview salary was never mentioned until maybe the end. Now it appears that one requirement of the job posting is to list the salary along with the job description. Also, consider that the salary wanted by this age group, for many, is probably what they want to be paid for their first job.
Some applicants in this age group required a salary of $50,000-$100,000 to consider applying for the job. Twenty-five percent of this age group required a salary of $100,000-$250,000 to consider applying. Granted the salary considered great at $10,000 was 56 years ago. But some could be retired for 30 years or more. I’ve been retired for 17 years and can’t believe the increase in salaries and consumer prices since I’ve been retired.
Therefore, I think for anyone to advise you, upon retirement, how to have a financially worry-free retirement they would have to be able to predict the impossible.
First, and most important, is to determine how long you are going to live. That goes hand in hand with the salary you were making when you retired and at what rate salaries will increase during the rest of your retirement. And finally, the rate at which the price of goods will increase taking time and inflation into consideration. The answers to all these questions, I feel, would provide you with a worry-free retirement. But who, with any honesty, can provide the answers to all these questions?
WALT’S OPINIONS: INFLATION?
INFLATION?
I, like I’m sure most of you, go grocery shopping. And I still have the remnants of a memory and remember prices from one outing to the next and note the price increases.
What follows is pure conjecture on my part.
There are times when I see the price of a product increase, a large increase, at times in a week or two.
Why?
Is there a valid reason for the price increase or is there something else at play? Could it be that the manufacturer is taking advantage of the fact that inflation is constantly in the news. Could it be that there is no good reason for the increase? But, because of the constant discussion about inflation the manufacturer is relying on that fact and assuming the customer will not question the increase. The customer, because of all the inflation hype, will accept the increase as part of life. Could it be, in some cases, that the customer is being manipulated in the cause of profits?
You can try an experiment. For every product there are remarkable number of brands these days. When you buy something search the brands to see if the increase of the price of one of the brands stands out. Just an experiment.
When a company makes a tremendous increase in price, say a certain percentage in a certain length of time, they owe the public an explanation?
What do you think?
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