Homeless Lose a Longtime Last Resort: Living in a Car

> It's only an invitation for police harassment if you're breaking the law.

Edit: it is often more of an invitation, however, if you are a minority or poor.

I see this a closer to something like prostitution laws that are selectively enforced in many countries and lead to large scale police corruption/harassment.

Random rant: my limited experience of police treatment of homeless people in San Francisco leaves quite a lot to be desired. I've spent about one month in total there and I saw police hassling homeless people quite frequently. Anything that makes that easier is bad in my mind. Sure - poor people are an "irritation" by some definitions but they remain people even if their existence is inconvenient to some.

If they are stupid but shouldn't be enforced, the place to fix is to have the law removed IMHO. Police judgement shouldn't be the solution to bad laws. It's a band-aid that can cause serious long term damage I think.

Also, in my experience, moving is expensive. At least if you want to take more stuff than fits into a suitcase.

Another thing that bugs me about the moving advice is this: It is good advice for an individual or a family, but it becomes extremely problematic if too many people do it. Many of the places where living expenses are low are also places were the public finances at the local level are in a catastrophic state. "Unemployment tourism" can be the deathblow for the municipal level if, as is the case in many places here in Europe, the municipal level has to finance much of the social infrastructure.

I can understand the sentiment, but I think it would be more heartbreaking to be homeless...

Perhaps it is slightly unfair, but I think they are reasonable assumptions based on the information given.

1. Worked in tech for 30 years (which implies pretty good salary) along with actual number of 150k for at least some of those years.

2. We have a first-hand account from his step-son that says he was really bad with his money.

3. Then we have irrational behavior staying in a place that he most definitely can't afford and choosing to be homeless in expensive area instead of not homeless in more reasonable area based on his SS income.

> The fact is, there are people who aren't making anywhere near $150,000 annual and these people will inevitably run into the same problems this man is facing

Yes, people who don't make a lot of money will have more problems than someone who does make a lot of money. That's why I said kicking them while they are down doesn't make sense. That doesn't mean that the guy who made a lot of money and pissed it away isn't responsible for his current situation.

Yeah, and that's what really makes this not a great article, and it's why I added the last point to my comment. The article starts off as if we're going to talk about this great injustice and then uses an anecdote that says this guy is an idiot who made poor life decisions.

Have a look here http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started

My advice:

* Save at least 10% of your income. "At least," because you want both long-term/retirement savings, and a "rainy day" fund for unexpected expenses. * Minimize your debt. If you have lots of debt, prioritize paying it down. * If you aren't good at the first two items, create a budget, and stick to it.

Also, if you want professional advice, ask around and find a good financial adviser, particularly if you are looking for an investment strategy for long-term savings.

To start simple, make sure you don't spend more than you earn (excluding exceptional circumstances). A simple table, GNU cash or even pen + paper are enough for that: record every transaction you make, no matter what tools you use, as long as it's reasonably low-friction.

I used a simple table with columns date, account, value, purpose. "account" helps getting a sum total for each bank account and for cash, to check how my table compares with reality (ie. bank statements and the content of my wallet).

Simply by tracking money flow you already learn a lot about your habits, while collecting data that helps you optimize it if necessary. I also found that making spending a conscious matter like that already reduced impulse buys.

After that, the other ideas are good ones - and you'll know if they're achievable for you and how.

I don't know about links, but the basics are simple enough: track what you spend and save some % of what you make. Avoid debt for things that lose value (e.g. cars). Debt for things like houses that retain value can make sense, though. Always keep money in reserve. Pay off the high-interest debt (e.g. 30% APR credit cards) first. If you do buy any complex investments, keep in mind what conditions cause gain or loss. For example, I recently saw an annuity/ETF product where they let you invest in indexes and cover the first 10% of any losses, but you gain at most 10% annually (they get the rest). It took me a while to realize that this means you get a 10% upside and 90% downside.

I'm sure others can give you more common sense advice.

All good advice in the peer comments, when I was in my 20's I was putting the maximum I could in a 401k (pre-tax), and putting 10% of my salary into the employee stock purchase program. Before we had kids my wife was putting most of her salary into savings for a down payment on a house. Unlike many of my peers I was bringing my sandwich in for lunch (still do that). I tend to own cars for 5+ years, I don't take annual vacations to places I have to fly to (hiking and camping is pretty inexpensive and easy to do in California) and generally I always try to keep my monthlies (phone, power, tv, internet) under control. Every month payed off the credit card (used for book keeping more than credit) and cook food rather than buy pre-prepared food.

All designed to keep my 'burn rate' low.

As someone else pointed out, http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ is popular although arguably extreme.

This is also a good general post by someone who now writes about business for Bloomberg http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/03/10-quick...

At the big picture level though, it's mostly about living within your income and putting some money away on a regular basis. (Someone else mentioned at least 10%.) At some level, everything else is keyhole optimization assuming some sane diversification of savings--don't put it in Bitcoin or all in your company's stock. It's useful to get other things right but they're much less important in the big picture than outflow < ~.9 * inflow (after tax).

This seems somewhat helpful:

esplanner.com

It's, among other things, a consumption smoothing modeler (i.e. make sure that you don't oversave or overspend). It will tell you about how much you need to be saving each year, given a bunch of variables like how much you make, how much you plan to make, etc.

Don't spend >30% of your gross income on housing.

Debt is evil. Unless you can get a higher rate of return than the interest rate of your debt, pay off the debt as soon as possible.

Have at least 6 months of expenses in an easily accessible, liquid place like a bank account. Once you've got that rainy-day fund in place, plow the rest (at least 10% of income, 20% is probably a better target) into investments and take any tax advantages possible:

Traditional IRA + Roth IRA ($5500 combined max/year)

Traditional IRA contribution is tax deductible if you aren't covered by a work retirement plan or if you're under a certain earning threshold.

Take advantage of 401(k) if your employer offers it, contribute at least enough to get any matching they offer. These are pre-tax dollars, but some plans have shitty investment options, so YMMV. $17,500 max/year.

Put the rest in an individual brokerage account and invest regularly (monthly or quarterly) in low-cost, broad-market index funds or ETFs like VTI, VOO, or QQQ.

The rest is your fun money...you're young, so make sure you're also investing in yourself by going on trips, having fun experiences, etc, just keep the future in mind and don't go TOO crazy!

If you work as a programer or similar, your salary will probably increase significantly over the next 10-20 years. Your spendings will increase over time as well.

If you are not crushed by debt, just try to make your spendings increase much slower than your pay.

Specific advice:

1) Housing tends to be the biggest expense. So try to share an apartment with flat mates until you're sick of it, or even stay at your parents place for a few years (if that's possible).

2) If you need a car, buy a used one in good condition and keep it that way for many years. Make sure you change the oil and filters at recommended intervals.

3) If you like to travel, learn to do it cheaply! Long and wonderful trips in south-america or asia can easily be had for 1000$-2000$ a month - sleep in hostels, eat what the locals eat, don't drive/fly around to much, travel slowly. :-)

4) Learn to cook.

5) Learn to make and fix basic things around the house: installing fixtures, plumbing, wall painting, furniture (fixing and making), etc. Doing things yourself is more satisfying and saves money.

From the article, it sounds like he didn't have good financial habits.

Stated a little more neutrally: give at least some care what you spend money on in the context of what you're making and what resources you want to have left when you stop working.

Until you're dead? Why? What sense does it make to have a lot of money saved once you're dead?

If you have high salary now and do not save for retirement, I really hope you won't burden society when you are out of job at 65 by either dying young or living exclusively on social security. Spending all income is as selfish as it gets.

Many people want to be where other people are - the center of the action for their particular universe. They vote with their money.

You're right that status is a big part of it. Manhattanites look down on the "bridge and tunnel" crowd.

Ahhh, but you see, if they were taxed, then Palo Alto would have the money to build more shelters.

That might be something the legislature could do (Sacramento, maybe Washington) -- corporations buying municipal bonds are exempt from the tax.

I'm not familiar with the real estate situation there beyond "people are being priced out of Palo Alto". Is the city averse to all new construction or just lower-cost housing?