Poll of the Day > Did you read that story about that couple who raise 400k for that homeless man

(+) Yeah! (+)

Zeus posted...

$13k would be fine if you were making and living comfortably on $26k/year.

What if I wanted to move to another state that's cheaper to live in than Hawaii, and then find work that would pay about that much?
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Darth_CiD posted...

Mead posted...

The story seems pretty complicated

Theyve given the guy a furnished mobile home, an SUV, and 25K and hes already spent all the money and sold off everything for drugs

Theyre afraid to give him all the money because it will likely be the end of him

I'm sure thats the bullshit story they came up with, doesn't explain why they spent that money on themselves instead.

Exactly. If their story is true, which it very likely could be and would be super easy to verify, they should have found another charity to take the remainder of the donated funds. Not spent it on themselves.
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Btw, a little research will show you that while rental prices are up in general, there are still places you can rent a 3 bedroom apartment for $600-900. Witchita Kansas is a quick example but there are many places like that.

In such a case, with 2 other people sharing the cost, you could still get by with $200 a month base expenses. Use a bike to get around, and don't spend a ton on food, and you could probably live fairly well (still having internet...which is all many people need at this point lol), for $6k or so a year.

If your not having to work and looking to retire asap and spend as little as possible, that is by far the best plan.

Heck, even if you did have $1k a month to spend (say SSI etc), it's a good idea since you can use that money to go on trips and enjoy yourself etc, instead of wasting it on rent in a more expensive place.

Used to be people would live right over the border in Mexico, and collect their social security here, then spend it there where it went further. Now, it's actually better to just live in a really cheap place in the US instead.
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wolfy42 posted...

there are still places you can rent a 3 bedroom apartment for $600-900.

I have a 3 bedroom 1 bath for $750 a month...
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wolfy42 posted...

400k, not taxed, straight up, and you can retire no matter what age you are.

I'm not so sure I agree, buddy. I mean, there are a lot of other factors. Where you are living, your normal lifestyle, any expense you have. But then again, you only said retire. Not retire comfortably. Sure, you could probably retire at an older age comfortably. But not at a younger age and live comfortably. Especially if you have a lot of expenses. But it really depends...
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It really can't be that surprising. You gave an obscene amount of money to a woman that managed her own personal finances so well that she had to borrow $20 from a homeless guy for gas.
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DoubleOSnake posted...

.....but apparently spent it all on themselves? Their new bmw was apparently hauled away

https://www.yahoo.com/news/couple-allegedly-spent-money-raised-161446762.html

Yes and all I can say is we have scammers everywhere especially now with so many people hurting financially.

Shrug, it all depends on what you consider comfortable. You can get by on very little money if you don't need to be in a specific location. This does also mean you don't have medical expenses, or can have them covered by a program or something.

I mean, you could still have a car, internet, a roof over your head, and eat decent food for less then $1000 a month pretty easy in most places in the US.

You won't have your own house/apartment probably (although some places rent 1 bedrooms for as little as $400 still (like witchita like I mentioned above), so if you don't have any specific location requirements, even that is possible.

There are also places where you can buy homes EXTREMELY cheap, like Cleaveland Ohio was one not that long ago (Believe that was the spot), $50k 3 bedroom homes were being sold for $12k because there were so many forclosed on, and so few jobs in the area. The rental cost on those homes was more per year, then the cost for buying one.

Normally you pay property taxes based on the goverments value of the home, but you can fight that if the amount you can sell it for, and/or recently bought it for, is much lower then the amount they are charging taxes on. Even taxes on a 50k home isn't too bad, but if you can drop the tax to only be on say $15k (cause you bought it for 12), then that would only be about $1000 a year in taxes, no HoA fees, no mortgage, and pretty much no way the house can go down in value over time (just gotta wait till people can afford to pay for homes in the area again.

Obviously not everyone can do that, but if you want to retire? You can do it right now in the US.....I'd argue i could probably set someone up for life (in other words, doesn't matter how long they live) for about $100k. Again this does require no medical expenses though.
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wolfy42 posted...

I mean, you could still have a car, internet, a roof over your head, and eat decent food for less then $1000 a month pretty easy in most places in the US.

I live in a pretty cheap area, and I don't think that would be feasible. Alone, at least...

wolfy42 posted...

Obviously not everyone can do that, but if you want to retire? You can do it right now in the US.....I'd argue i could probably set someone up for life (in other words, doesn't matter how long they live) for about $100k. Again this does require no medical expenses though.

Maybe some.

But we both agree it depends on the person and what comfortable is to each person, it seems. You're talking about living cheap. But most people who retire probably don't want to be frugal with their money. They usually want to have enough to actually do stuff. Usually, at least. Maybe travel, or have more time for a hobby, maybe even game(since you said any age) But it really does depend. Plus, not everybody would want to move somewhere cheap just to retire. I feel like most would either stay where they are, or move somewhere they want(which could be cheaper or more expensive)...
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Yeah, it's not as crazy as it was, but here are a few places in Cleaveland ohio right now, on Zillow.

*blah it wouldn't let me put the links here, if you search cleaveland ohio, forclosures and zillow you will see them though*

First is 13k, second 11k and 3rd 12k (listed at 13k). The last is the best though with 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.

You could, for instance, easily buy that home for 13k, then rent out 3 of the rooms (you live in the 4th, and have your own bathroom), for $300 each. You get $900 a month that way, say $100 of that goes for repairs/taxes etc. That is $800 a month net income (just about as much as you can have coming in without paying taxes actually), and all of that can go towards food living expenses (not to mention splitting the utilities/internet etc cost with 3 other people.

So yeah, forget 100k, if you have 20k, I could probably set you up to retire for the rest of your life fairly comfortably.
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LinkPizza posted...

Plus, not everybody would want to move somewhere cheap just to retire. I feel like most would either stay where they are, or move somewhere they want(which could be cheaper or more expensive)...

Oh, yeah, I agree, it's not for everyone. It is just possible for everyone to do this, doesn't mean everyone would want to. That being said, if your willing to rent a room where you are right now, I'm pretty sure i could set you up in that area spending less then $1k a month and be comfortable (internet, hulu or netflix (alternate), money to eat decently and a bit left over for expenses/fun stuff).

Most places (even in some rare cases places like the bay area) still have rooms for rent for $500, so it's really down to what you can do with $500-$700. Again this is all based on having no medical expenses, or being covered by a plan that provides them (although in theory you could just use ERs, but that is horrible and a waste of resources).
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Would your become a landlord once you start renting out rooms. Which then technically means you're not retired?

Also, probably wouldn't work for me. Haha. When I retire, I plan on doing lots of things. Which will cost probably a good amount of money.
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LinkPizza posted...

Would your become a landlord once you start renting out rooms. Which then technically means you're not retired?

While I don't condone this, many people do so under the table, which means there is no lease, and they only get paid in cash. I am not suggesting you do this, but......it happens.

As far as being a landlord, it's not really a job, and they are not tenants actually if you live in the house as well (they are lodgers), and if you don't make more then your deductable per year from renting out the rooms, you won't get taxed either.

And by retired, I mean your not working basically. You could be disabled, or just freaking lazy, point is you don't have a job you go to every day.
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Also, it's actually not a horrid idea for you even if you want to do tons of things when you retire. Renting out rooms is actually one of the best ways to make money off property. If you work for 20+ years and save up, buy a few homes, and rent out the rooms, once you have paid the homes off, it's mostly all profit. Only prob is you'll have to pay taxes on it, but, it could easily set you up with a decent amount of money to spend each year, while you travel around and just enjoy yourself.

Say you bought 4 homes in Cleaveland Ohio for instance right now, all for $12k each, so a $50k investment...and you had almost no money to put down ($10k). If they were just 3 bedroom homes and you rented em out for about $330 each room, that would give you $3000 a month total, you would pay off the remaining 40k in the first year.

After that, it would be pure profit, about $30k a year after taxes for the rest of your life. If you were still working for awhile, you could take that money and invest it in other homes, or in a savings account or investments etc. Do that for another 10 years, and you'd be making enough money from all that to spend $60k + a year for the rest of your life, which is enough to travel etc if you wanted.
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wolfy42 posted...

Also, it's actually not a horrid idea for you even if you want to do tons of things when you retire. Renting out rooms is actually one of the best ways to make money off property. If you work for 20+ years and save up, buy a few homes, and rent out the rooms, once you have paid the homes off, it's mostly all profit. Only prob is you'll have to pay taxes on it, but, it could easily set you up with a decent amount of money to spend each year, while you travel around and just enjoy yourself.

Say you bought 4 homes in Cleaveland Ohio for instance right now, all for $12k each, so a $50k investment...and you had almost no money to put down ($10k). If they were just 3 bedroom homes and you rented em out for about $330 each room, that would give you $3000 a month total, you would pay off the remaining 40k in the first year.

After that, it would be pure profit, about $30k a year after taxes for the rest of your life. If you were still working for awhile, you could take that money and invest it in other homes, or in a savings account or investments etc. Do that for another 10 years, and you'd be making enough money from all that to spend $60k + a year for the rest of your life, which is enough to travel etc if you wanted.

Once you buy multiple homes to rent out, you're a landlord. And that's a job. Especially since you have to make sure you're getting paid, but that you also solve their problem. Like with the house and stuff. Not to mention, you have to make sure you have a way to receive payment. Especially if the house is somewhere you're not living. For example, I know I'm not retiring in Cleveland. So if I bought houses there, it would make things complicated. And where I'm probably retiring isn't probably that cheap, tbh.
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