NPV wrote: ↑Thu May 03, 2018 2:43 am
thrifty++ wrote: ↑Wed May 02, 2018 2:20 pm
@Sclass - a lunch lady at the local school who brags about her 3 million dollar house and struggles to afford her expensive car and jewellery and looks down her nose at you. My god she is the antithesis of ERE.
Not necessarily. If she owns her $3M house outright, she could sell it and would be retired instantly with a close to 6-figure income at a ~3% SWR
This is really interesting. I’ve mentioned this to her when she complains she’s cash poor. She always replies “but then where would I go?”
Oddly she is not the only Bay Area senior I’ve heard say this. It actually sounds kind of ridiculous if you haven’t had a sip of the Bay Area (“bestest place on earth!” ) koolaid. It has gotten to be a going joke with my SO...when somebody starts saying how their house is worth millions, then they say, “but if I sell it...,” we cut them off and say in chorus “but where would you go?” It has made us really popular with these people.
See, they don’t want to move. The just want to tell you how much their home is worth so you can recognize them as millionaires. But if they sell out and leave, well I guess they won’t be able to tell me about their $3,000,000 home. The other scary thing is being successful investors in only one thing their entire life, they aren’t confident about putting cash to work to sustain life at X% SWR. Seriously they did exactly the opposite their entire career - pump all earnings toward a mortgage and spend the rest on luxury goods. At this point, putting $3,000,000 - fees and long term cap gains tax in their pocket may not be a smart bet. So perhaps they are really smart staying put. The home is useful, it is a self esteem prop.
I know three people like this. They complain about retirement income but they won’t sell out and invest their millions of home equity for income. One even went as far as to buy a small place in Kauai using his savings but didn’t want to actually retire there. When he realized he didn’t use his vacation home much he sold it...at a loss and stayed home in his $3,000,000 home and continued to complain to me about retirement income and not having anywhere to go.
I hope I don’t act like this when I get old. Wait, I don’t own a $3,000,000 home so it’s impossible. Funny people. I get the idea they are frustrated because they cannot play the home comparison game with me. They seem to do it with one another a lot.
To make things worse, I am a living breathing example of what is possible if they sold their homes and invested purely for income and lowered themselves to a lowly renter like me.
Seriously what could poison our friendship more that answering their stupid rhetorical question “but what would I do?” by pointing at myself? They know the answer and it just doesn’t work for them.
Why? I dunno. Connection to “friends” and community. Unwillingness to downsize. Unwillingness to clean out fifty years of accumulation. Unwillingness or inability to find and acquire a new self esteem prop. I dunno.
The real answer? Well I could tell them but I’m losing popularity by the second. “You’re going to the assisted living facility, then to memory care, then to skilled nursing, then to the ICU.” See Sclass knows stuff
but not how to win friends and influence people.