If you lost your job tomorrow how long would it take for you to get evicted and be homeless?

29 days. Or till the end of the month.

a while

@ARE_you_kidding_me :: Care to add anything with substance?

25 years

About 3 weeks

60 days before the Sheriff came and forced me out.

Well, that is an awkward question because although the house is paid off and we own it now I still have to come up with over 9k a year to pay the taxes (mostly for a bunch of ungrateful fucking students, not a single one of whom are related to me) and another 3k to keep the lights on and water flowing. So I guess I probably would have about three years, maybe five if the government is a little slow on filing the necessary paperwork.

Exactly 3 months.

How long has it taken me to save up that amount? 2 years.

Assuming my partner remains employed, indefinitely. If we both lost our jobs at the same time, we’d have about six months. It’s highly unlikely that he’d be out of work for that long. Also I fall within Burger King’s demographic (not far off 50 years old)

I’d probably swallow my pride & move in with the butler, it’s only got six bedrooms, but hey, needs must.

@rojo It sounds like you’re in my neighborhood. No mortgage but taxes are just below $8000 per year (it pays for the same ungrateful students plus snow plowing ) Utilities, less heat are another $2000. If I were elderly or infirm and had to rely upon oil heat that would be another $3000. Internet service, telephone $1500.
So my expenses are $14,500 per year – like renting a $1,200 per month apartment only I have to worry about keeping the roof intact, the grass cut, the gutters clear….

I can manage until I die – but my lazy relatives would start to have trouble.

probably over a year

2 months

If I was very careful with the money I have, I might have an entire year. No longer than that though.

About a year, maybe two with some luck and smarts.

With my wife’s income we’d be able to pay most bills, but we’d have to cut back, a lot.

Just me? 1 month.

@LuckyGuy Good for you. Your hard work has paid off!

I can quit my job at anytime and not worry about ever going back to work. Our house is paid off (property tax is only $3,498 per year and utilities and insurance $9,600 per year). We have no debt and have a very large nest egg that yields large dividends, rental income properties, 3 retirement pensions (not including Social Security). Oh and did I mention I’m retiring on 1–1-2015?

@gondwanalon Good for you too! When you are off the treadmill please plan on a trip out East to Western NY. Consider it wood burning stove training.

I have been fortunate. In junior high and high school I did my homework, didn’t screw around or get in trouble and got into a good college. I got my graduate degree and was immediately hired by a well known large company. I got married, invented some things, didn’t get involved with drugs, smoking, or alcohol and was able to bank a good portion of my salary. Every beer I didn’t drink back then is paying me back now with interest and undamaged brain cells. I left the company with a pension and started my own business which is doing well. And there you have it. No apologies.

@LuckyGuy That would be cool tho swing by your house and learn a few new things about wood stoves. My wife is in training for the Boston Marathon in 2016 when she will be 65. so perhaps I could visit you then. I don’t do full marathons anymore. I’ll jog with her from the start for a few miles and then take a bus to the finish.

Working hard and doing the right things does pay off. I love to talk to and work with young people. They are so full of life and had have the world of opportunity in front of them. I try to offer my advice whenever they ask for it.

Here are some of my thoughts for young adults:

As Benjamin Franklin said, “Failure to plan is planning to fail”. Believe me you will be at my age (64) much faster than you think. It’s important to plan even though no one knows what the future will look like AND there are no guarantees. You can invest in the stock market all your life and then lose everything. You could do everything right for decades to maintain good health and then have a terrible accident or get cancer. But you have to try for financial and physical success, because if you don’t then failure is pretty much certain. We see sad, weak, overweight, disease ridden older folks all the time in our clinics. Think about how they got that way. Each patient will tell their own story but likely it comes down to years of personal neglect. Many or most just let themselves go with too much bad foods, alcohol, tobacco, other recreational drugs and not enough physical exercise. So I suggest that you take charge of your health and investments now and make it a part of your routine and continually work on them.
Here’s the simple basics:
1. Study hard in school.
2. Take advantage of our company’s 403B plan.
3. Start and maintain an IRA.
4. Maintain other savings and investments.
5. Do at least a little physical exercise everyday, not a lot occasionally.
6. Eat a healthy diet and get your sleep.
7. Lay off the recreational drugs, alcohol and tobacco.

There is nothing special about me. As a lab tech I’m no big success story and my wife is a dietitian. My heart problems are due to too much running. Remember too much of any good thing is bad for you. But I have always maintained good physical fitness as well as relentlessly investing in the stock market strategy for the last 34 years. Yes I admit that I still get sick and injured but my high fitness level helps me to get sick/injured much less often and I recover more quickly than a weak sedentary person.

@gondwanalon You and I are reading from the same playbook, brother.
There is one minor difference. I do almost no exercise as exercise. I stack wood, I swing my chain saw pruning trees, I am up on the roof cleaning out the gutters, shoveling snow, ... I have honestly tried running, but got bored. I can’t do it. It is too repetitive. And the engineer in me says if I am going to be expelling calories I should have them go into the house for heat or somewhere where they make electricity. I am fortunate to have a place that requires physical work. It honestly keeps me healthy.

Young people do not realize how much that item they buy today will impact their savings upon retirement. “I want that purse now!” “I need that new phone.” In my case every $1.00 I saved back when I first started working is now worth at least $5.00. Being a good boy back then is helping me enjoy life today. Skipping that beer when I was in school allows me to enjoy 3 glasses of wine today.
I’ve never given a penny to a drug dealer, Mexican cartel warlord, or poppy pusher. Nor have I needed to break, damage, or steal property to fund a habit that sucks the life out of life.
I got a bit of a raw deal with my rotten prostate but my young self sacrificed so that was just a minor bump in the road.

@LuckyGuy Wow. I had not even considered that. At some point, it might be to my advantage to rent. I gotta go look into it. Thanks for the heads up!

@rojo I know you are speaking slightly tongue in cheek. But it is a fact. The dollar you save now will subsidize your future. I actually heard a friend of my son say “A few years ago I was collecting Coach bags. I have about $3000 worth. I was working at the school and living with my parents so I had nothing to spend my money on.” I said nothing but was silently screaming at the top pf my lungs W. T. F.!!! SAVE IT FOR CRISSAKE!!!

If money grows at an average of 5% per year, $1000 will double every 14 years. In 28 years you will have $4000 in 42 years it will be $8000. (Try the math yourself)
That $4 for coffee a 22 year old spends at starbux today will be worth $32 when they are 66. Was that coffee so freaking important?
And don’t get me started on “recreational” drug use. $20 or $100 for a hit of something?!?! Really?!?!. That one hit will be worth $800 in retirement. That memory had better be worth it.

I was being very conservative with the 5% number. I have seen actual numbers that range from 7.4% to 11% for long term growth of the stock market. Let’s call it 10% . That means a dollar will double in 7.2 years. 15 years you will have $4, 30 years it will be worth $16 and at 45 it will be worth $32!
Instead of spending that $4 on a cup of nonsense and it will be worth $128 when you are ready to retire.
My Dad taught me this early. He was a smart man. Thanks Dad.

Years. Probably never, and I haven’t had a steady job for over 2 years already. Not touched a dime of retirement. As a matter of fact, the 401K is growing nicely right now, and my rental building is covering taxes and most utilities.

@LuckyGuy Our bodies need regular vigorous physical activity in order to maintain good health. The activities you describe seem more than adequate. It’s working for you. Keep it up. You don’t have to jog or go to a gym or have a coach design a scientific workout for you. In my work we do no physical work all day. We just stand around the lab and push buttons and turn knobs. So we have no choice. We have to take time to exercise. I also do yard work, chop and stack wood but not nearly enough.

You are right about investing and the power of compounding interest over time. But no one can tell what will happen in the future. For various reasons the stock market could remain flat for the next 30 years. More likely there will continue to be ups and downs. But we have to invest in the stock market. Because like I said above, that gives you at least a chance of building a large nest egg for retirement. If you don’t invest in the stock market then you will be hurt’n for cert’n when you are old.

I got started investing in the stock market by listening to Bob Brinker on Money Talk radio back in the early “80’s. He’s an arrogant SOB but he is a genius about investing.