Couch 223: Jan 4: Darn Tootin'!

h is on a rampage again wanting to force our son (who is 22) to buy a house instead of rent. i am having to sit through multiple lectures a day and i wish he would shut the **** up.

Does your husband want to provide the down payment? I'm sure he can't expect him to have that kind of money already saved, especially at his age.

Maybe that would start a new tirade about your son's spending, or maybe it would shut him up.

He's probably going over it in his mind to reassure himself that buying another house is a good move for the two of you.

Have you got any earplugs? :sadhug;

So now there are Lady Gaga Oreos.

I mean...what does Lady Gaga even taste like? Hopefully not that meat dress she wore once.

"Can you imagine Augustus flavored chocolate covered gloop? Ew. No one would buy it.”

Haha....Gene Wilder was the best Willy Wonka.

I preferred the J Depp version for this, although I do generally enjoy gene wilder - more in mel brooks movies

I had not thought of that - that is very likely.

I'm not up on what the housing market is like right now (I think low interest rates, at least?). But my H and I were basically stuck with our house for a long stretch of time because he bought it (before we were together) in a time when houses were more expensive. Then with the recession, it lost a lot of value, so we were underwater on it--as in owed more than what we could get with a sale. (Part of that was the types of loans he used--I think he was a victim of some predatory lending back in like 2005, where they sold him more house than he and ex-fiance could really afford.)

We maybe could have rented it out, if we'd desperately wanted to move, but his sister had a really bad experience with that. She ultimately ended up selling hers at a bit of a loss, I think...

So that's a risk your son could have. Yes, there are advantages to earning equity in a house, but there are no guarantees it will hold or increase its value. And you don't tend to start earning that till 5 years in, I think? So he could end up stuck. Also, I forget, is he engaged/married? If not, if he bought a house with his girlfriend (or even if fiance), if they end up splitting up, it could get really complicated. H had to refinance the house to get his ex off the title. My name still isn't on the title because we'd have to refinance for that, and doing so has only become viable in the past few years. But not sure it's worth it at this point.

I've never seen the Johnny Depp version.


Love some Young Frankenstein. Perhaps I should watch that again soon...need to see if it's available on Prime, Hulu, Netflix, or HBOMax....

Johnny Depp all the way. That is a very dark story (turning kids into chocolate?), and Dahl is a dark writer, and Wilder just sanitizes it.

But we have had this debate before. It's invariably me and SD preferring Depp and everyone else Wilder.

Power to the people no? Thought it was pretty cool tbh.

I'm not brave enough to buy individual stocks or even want to attempt to day trade, so just started off by watching youtube videos about buying ETFs- which are groups of companies. You can buy stocks for the largest 500 companies in the US in one go which is less risky than just one. I got my first dividend payment recently of £4.12p which I was happy with.

There will always be crashes, and extreme events but in the 1930s the banks also went too. I'm not sure how it is in the US, but here we also have FSCS compensation up to 85k per bank and that includes the investment company I mainly use (Vanguard) so we have protection unlike before.

Crashes generally mean it's a good time to buy, but the number one rule is always don't put money in if you're going to need it in a short while - ideally you should be able to leave it for 3 years minimum. Second rule is always make sure you have an easy access emergency fund sorted out first.

You lose money if you panic and sell seeing the downward spirals. I'm negative £29.99 for one fund and -£2.29 for another. I fully expect everything to go into red soon and full much further. It doesn't mean anything to me as I'm not going to sell and at times like this they also say don't check too regularly.

I originally started off with just £1 with the company moneybox, who do everything for you, but I read around more and wanted more control.

But invariably the bubble will burst and it's the small investors who will lose their shirts. Much less cool.

Hedge funds and the big guys rarely lose their shirts.

Both have advantages and disadvantages, but it depends on your son's present needs. He's still young and only 23 or 24?

Renting offers a lot more flexibility and there's less hassle if the cooker or bathroom light isn't working. Someone will sort it out for me. I've rented for the past 5 years, but i do want a home of my own eventually. I don't like the annual inspections and I can't paint the walls.

That's a really good point about someone else fixing it if you're renting. I really missed that once being in a house--plus you never know what repair bills will be.

I do agree with you. In a way it is survival of the richest. There's been a crash approximately every 10 years. The 2009 was caused by greed and trying to make even more money, because of their actions we've had years of austerity measures and millions shaved off public spending on the NHS. It is the smaller people who ultimately see their homes repossessed or get scammed by the Bernie madoff's of the world.

I've read that you should budget 2-3% of your total house cost just for repairs.

We also have stuff like home insurance, but also council tax. In my parents area we're band G which is £50 over 2k a year and that is one thing you can actually go to prison for not paying.

Even though I'm officially in therapy anymore, I ordered one bar for R for his upcoming birthday.

I was trying not to be over the top like I usually am, but feel like I should have bought two as a minimum as they're only 75g each. They also plant a tree for every bar you buy.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY" Honeycomb 41% Milk Chocolate | Love Cocoa

We have home insurance here, too, but it tends to have a really high deductible. Like it wouldn't be worth using it unless, say, the home ended up seriously damaged by fire, weather, etc. (though flood insurance here is really weird, like homes in flood zones often aren't eligible for it, so they're kinda stuck).


Our house is weird, because it's a townhouse, but technically a condo. We have what's basically rental insurance on it, because our condo fee includes insurance of the building itself. So we just insure the contents (like computers and such).

He's just really barely 22. I think some of it is also that H has kicked himself for a LONG time that he didn't buy a house when he was working for coca-cola making a **** ton of money (why he got himself fired from that job I will never understand) long before I ever met him, in San Jose, CA before the insane housing prices were a thing... he always says "if I had just bought a house at his age it would be worth over a million $ now." My h is a loser, isn't he. Why am I still with him? don't answer that.

You have to make your own mistakes. If H knew better he would have done better. My aunt was one number away from winning the lottery- she asked my cousin's son 4 year old for numbers, but was talked out of putting the last one which he did also pick out for another.

No judgement artie bean, but I think those last few sentences highlight something very important going on.

It wasnt Wilder who sanitised it. The movies major backer was Herseheys who wanted it not so dark. The opening sequence are Hersheys Kiss being made.

Sometimes it's the really little things T's do that have so much meaning. OK, this is a big thing, but Dr. T gave me a session today, adding an extra hour to his Sunday sessions (he generally only sees a few clients). That's a big thing, not a little thing, and I really appreciated it and told him.

The little thing is that when I confirmed via text that I still wanted to keep my session tomorrow, he thanked me, then sent "Happy Birthday 2u."And that mean a lot. Because he could have just left it at my thanking him (just said "you're welcome" or "no problem" or something or nothing at all).

So artie, does h think he'd be engaged to j-lo now instead of watsisname? Or partying on the regular with matthew macconaughey?

At one place i worked, everyone was obsessed with going to buy lottery tickets together. I got sucked into it for a while, then i decided i couldnt live WAITING to be happy, i needed to be happy now. I mighta just started eating more ice cream or something, but i remember i got off that horse.

In 2008, by the way, the US used an economic strategy (quantitative easing) basically invented by the Roman emperor Tiberius during the Roman financial crisis of AD 33.

who knows...

i'm probably just tired... coming down with a cold too, I've been sneezing all day.