Still think TITNC3: Return of the Iceberg was peak

Oh I'm quite stingy on a day to day basis. I was young, new job, not particularly concerned about such things at the time.

I know where all my pennies are now.

How I actually found out is kinda funny. I kept getting mail from the 401k provider and always just binned it, thinking "I don't even work there anymore, stop sending me shit." So for years I just tossed it in the trash. Finally one day opened up one of the envelopes, and surprise!

 

I know where the pennies are, just lose track of the $50's and $100's I have stashed around the house.

 

Yeah it was more of a rhetorical question. Going to sell in the morning. But thanks for co signing on my bad ideas.

 

lol and here I am hoping to find some change under the seats to buy another can of potted meat

 

I was just adding to it on pay days back then at 20 years old. I had no idea what I was doing back then so ohwell. I am still stupid when it comes to this stuff but learning more each day.

 

catch some fish from the river

 

no. and its actually 650 shares of Fidelity. They were playing for me while I forgot about the money. I am going to sell them in the morning.

 

Just forgot about the account. Quit the job and moved on. Apparently I have been following Warren Buffets strategy for the last 10 years haha

 

Exactly what I have been doing. Except i opened a new account not the mail. hahaha

 

I'm confused on what "of fidelity" is? Fidelity isn't public. You have 650 shares of a mutual fund or something?

 

oh man, true story about that. Went on some wilderness camping, canoeing and fishing trips in Canada with my oldest son and friends, week to 10 days each trip. First trip took way too much gear and food, have to carry it when portaging across land to the many lakes there. Second trip went light, too light, ran out of food except a few packs of noodles 2 days from end of the trip lol. Fortunately fishing was excellent and we survived off fried fish and noodles with fish last two days and ate like kings!

 

Oh youre right I am reading the ticker wrong (see I am ignorant) Its in the Fidelity freedom fund FNSBX. So its just the plan I signed up for back in the day. But shows as shares. I got more digging to do to see if I can get out of it and do something different with the money.

 

They NEVER tell people this, you need to set a default fund to buy or it just buys the "Fidelity Bucks" shares that stay the value of a dollar...so that money then gets moved to fidelity's coffers and they us it as loan leverage 10x...and make all their $$$$ off that
My wife did the same thing for YEARS...uugh...
It's in their best interest to keep this as the default.

 

You could fill untold volumes of literature with "things they don't tell you" about banking, finances, funds, markets, etc.

It's really quite disturbing. I've learned a lot over the last couple years and I still don't even know what I don't know. Every page turned over reveals another rabbit hole of corruption and fuckery.

It's ingrained into the very core of the system and permeates throughout every tendril of our financial world.

I find this to be quite apt:

 

Do people not know how math works? 9% of 300 is 27. So if last year's grocery bill was 300, this year its 327. Not preferable, but nowhere near the hyperbole of wherever you got the absurd image.

How bout the CPI itself as a source?

https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2022/consumer-prices-up-8-5-percent-for-year-ended-march-2022.htm

All items less food and energy was 6.5%.

You'll see on that same chart (chart data tab) that used autos were 35% YOY inflation, so when you remove them from the 'all items less food and energy' category, you're running around 4%-5% depending on your specific purchase habits.

Hows that work for ya?


Edit for additional thoughts: The picture gets even rosier when you remove both new and used autos to fit my original statement of "not trying to buy a car".

The other large outlier in the "non Food and Energy" category is Airfare, which was up about 23%. So I guess the more perfect original statement would have been:

"If you're not trying to buy a car right now, don't drive much, and aren't planning to fly right now"

 

Anthony Hopkins fed him his own brain in Hannibal and made Julianne Moore dry heave. So there's that.

 

Thats what I am learning currently. Looks like I will be paying a small penalty getting out of it but at least it will be making me money instead of being stagnet and not making anything. More research to do tonight. How did your wife get out of it?

 

From what I’ve seen my groceries cost more than 9% more. But I don’t keep track of money going out or coming in. I just know my mattresses aren’t on the floor yet, so I’m good.

 

Freakonomics did a great study on this...Opt In vs Opt Out and how it works...
Basically they concluded people should automatically be opted in to 401K (with a general retirement age based fund) and Organ donor and that would be the 2 greatest positive impacts on society...
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/all-you-need-is-nudge/