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Home > Interesting article and last 2014 mortgage payment coming up...

Interesting article and last 2014 mortgage payment coming up...

December 3rd, 2014 at 10:36 pm

I found this article in the Wall Street Journal and I don't now why, but it struck a chord with me. Maybe because it outlines in clear numbers what I and many other Americans have felt: we're losing ground. We don't have as much money, everything is more expensive, we haven't gotten a raise in years, and yet we're told we're out of the Great Recession. We're told inflation is low and we are all okay. Well, not so. And here are the numbers to back it up.

Text is http://online.wsj.com/articles/americans-reallocate-their-dollars-1417476499 and Link is
http://online.wsj.com/articles/americans-reallocate-their-do...

(If the link hits a paywall, just paste the title of the article into google and click on the link. You can read it then.)

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In other news, on Friday we will be making our (most likely) last mortgage payment of the year. So I'll know by Saturday morning if we met our mortgage pay down goal for the year. I'm pretty sure we will, t;s just hard to guess by how much until the payment posts and the math is done!

I was looking back at our past yearly goals. In summer 2011, we owed about $86,000 on the house. It is amazing to me that we have managed to knock more than $40,000 off that amount. Fingers crossed we keep on cruising for three more years and get this house paid off!

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I haven't been posting much. Life has gotten in the way. Yes, work and two little kids. But in other ways. I just completed an urban farmer mentorship program (mentoring me to be the urban farmer) so I have been very very busy with that.

It took a weird turn in November because I had to give two urban farming presentations in public. I've never been fond of public speaking, but apparently when you get me talking about plants, I turned out to be very good at it. The garden clubs both sent me nice notes. So that was unexpected!

I've also been busy editing and significantly revising my first novel. It's so close to being finished. My friend is a NYT best-selling children's author and said she will help with my book proposal when the time comes to send it out into the world to be rejected. I am so happy when I'm writing fiction, I'm hoping I can turn it into some sort of second act or career. Since my first career: journalism. Well, you've heard the news about how well THAT industry is going!

6 Responses to “Interesting article and last 2014 mortgage payment coming up...”

  1. LuckyRobin Says:
    1417651079

    I read an article the other day and it used the phrase "the roaring economy" and I had to laugh derisively. The only way it is roaring is if it is heading into a waterfall going over a cliff to be pounded on the rocks below. This country is still in the worst depression we have ever seen. They sugar coat it with the word recession. But there is no recovery happening. All one has to do is step outside their homes to see the truth. It is just more lies told by the media.

  2. Kiki Says:
    1417653360

    It asks me to subscribe or log in to read the article?

  3. Another Reader Says:
    1417653723

    The economy is bifurcated. Here in Silicon Valley, houses are selling with multiple offers for top dollar, rentals are extremely expensive and hard to find, everyone I see is driving a new car with lots of Tesla, BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus models on the road, the restaurants are full and the traffic is worse than ever before. The wealth displayed here largely belongs to people in their early 50's, their 40's or even younger. A lot of money is being funneled in from overseas, particularly China.

    However, many folks I know around the country, especially those nearing 50 or older, are either unemployed or underemployed. They used up most or all of their savings when they were out of work during the Great Recession. In some cases, they used their retirement savings as well. Some lost their homes, some filed for bankruptcy. These people are just starting to recover. They don't have a lot of time and many will never get back to where they were in the mid-2000's.

    College educated people under 50, especially with STEM degrees, seem overall to be faring the best in our economy. The 30 year-old with a $120k journalism degree, folks over 50, or younger people with limited educations, not so much. The jobs these people would have held in the past are gone or the wages are stagnant because of an oversupply of labor.

    The future for a lot of people certainly does not look as bright as it did in the past. Not sure what can be done at this point to change that.

  4. ThriftoRama Says:
    1417665644

    Kiki, if you go to Google and type "Basic Costs Squeeze Families" it will pull up a link to the WSJ article. If you click on the ink from Google, you don't have to login.

  5. snafu Says:
    1417763364

    The only people I see whose income and benefits are increasing are politicians, sports figures and those in the executive suites who are in a position to give themselves raises or have raises built into their contracts. The rest of us are struggling to keep the lid on basic expenses. We've no control of heat, electric, water & sewerage and the rates have escalated at an astounding rate. They tacked on a basic water rate to an already doubled unit rate and at the same time we sell water to others so there's no shortage.

    The local politicians spend 3 months arguing about the next municipal tax increase and finally, big announcement 4%. Two days later we who pay using their preferred monthly system, are notified of a 9% increase effective January 1 followed by the 4% increase as announced commencing June 1. It took the media 4 days to figure out that sleight-of-hand.

    Have you noticed the increased cost of meat and produce? We live in beef country, the biggest ranches are about 20 minutes out-of-town. It's now a luxury item on my list. I'm sure our stream of summer visitors we surprised that we rarely BBQed beef. I tried to serve one beef based meal to our international visitors staying 3-4 days since we're famous for grain fed beef yadda yadda.

  6. ThriftoRama Says:
    1417790487

    Beef is very spendy. Due to price increases at the grocery store, it is now the same price or lower price to buy grass-fed and free-range meats of all kinds from a farmer we know. It used to cost way more. Now, it costs the same or less for better quality meat. It makes me wonder what's going on to boost meat prices overall.

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