What's the point of amassing wealth and living below your means?

[Gailete]

I just got SSDI and have heard about their programs that let you "practice working" for a while and you still get their benefits until it is clear you can carry on with a job.

That is called the Ticket to Work. You can earn up to around $900 currently for a set amount of time without losing benefits or Medicare (if you are already getting it). I'm not working under that program for the side line business I run (only I need hubby's help to do it). I don't have the energy or stamina to work set hours daily. This week was rough since my husband is recouperating from a corneal transplant and he has had some sutures taken out over the last couple of months that has distorted what vision he has to the point if would probably be declared legally blind for the last two months. That means I'm the only driver. I had to take him to 4 appointments over the last 5 days. Now I'm about to leave and go with my son to get some groceries, etc. before we run out of toilet paper LOL! Do I really want to go out one more time? Not in your life. The other day my hand was in so much pain it felt like it was going to go into a charlie horse any minute from holding onto the steering wheel. I just now got up from a 3 1/2 hour nap. Anyhow, when I have weeks like this, I can't do much more than ship any orders we get. So I never can do what it takes to net the amount covered by the Ticket to Work. And without my husband to move and shuffle boxes, help with scans and take things to the mailbox or PO, I wouldn't be able to do what I am doing. I consider this more of an occupational therapy (my hands being too stiff to close first thing in the morning so keyboarding helps loosen them up) that also helps earn me some grocery money and some to set aside for when I can't even do what I do now.

The Ticket to Work is a way for someone that is physically well enough to want to try to go back to work without yanking the ladder out from under him for things like benefits (Medicare). If they can't do it, he can quit and try again later. This is especially good for younger disabled people that wants to retrain, etc or see what accomodations must be made for them to successfully work. I'm currently 60 and have been out of the workforce for 14 years. I need lots of naps due to the fatigue of arthritis. Most businesses wouldn't think providing a bed for naps to be a normal accomodation, but I sometimes wish CVS did. I feel like at times I spend half my life there.

I wish I was able to work and give this business everything I used to have physically before I got so disabled with the arthritis. All things considered my income is way down from that of an RN which is what I was.

Would I have done things differently if I could have? Absoluting! I would have never made a foolish 2nd marriage mistake that drained me dry of all my earnings and savings including retirement funds and still left me heavily indebt until the divorce was done and the house sold. I had put $20K of my own dollars into the downpayment. When it sold and the bills paid off I was left with around $1K and was thankful for that and the ex called a few years later saying I owed him some money! Don't think so. Can you imagine where my finances would have been if that $20K had been put towards retirement and at the time I married this guy, HALF my paycheck that wasn't going into taxes was going into savings. Four years later all gone. Never to be returned.

To be a financial success, you have to not only watch the pennies, which I can easily do, but watch the other decisions you make in life. I know whatever I can set aside is going towards retirement living and I'm not talking retirement travel, etc. Just normal everyday things.

[FLA]

thanks for the info, I'm sorry you've had so much trouble


you are so right that it's the life decisions that can affect your financial standing more than decisions you actually make about your finances. I wouldn't have to worry about a thing if I had not married a fool who likes to argue in court as a hobby. What's that saying- measure twice, cut once? I cut once when I decided to get married, lol

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I talked to buy outside long term and short term disability insurance for DH before he left his job. We couldn't because the company provided the maximum 70% and up to 80% you could buy so we bought whatever we could. We couldn't buy more outside because the insurance companies put policy limits. We were hoping to just buy 30% to get 100% just in case. But I talked to multiple people who said what we had was extra generous and we were unable to do more.

Also the short term we had maximum as well. Trust me as a one income family we were just overly concerned. But some industries the benefits are so generous that it's hard to get things outside. We also have our own life insurance term and company gave us 5x his income on top of us have 20x his income. So what else could we do?

[FelicitaHarper]

I guess for some people it's just not enough! so they keep on amassing it!

[Gailete]

LivingAlmostLarge - With long and short term insurance, if you PAY for it out of your paycheck, it is generally non-taxable. When I got mine, I was literallly getting a bit more than my normal take home paycheck after deductions, so not really any need for more than that since you have been living on it anyhow. (Not meant to give you a pay raise )

In my state, unemployment insurance is taxable, but not short term disability (if you paid for it) nor is worker's comp if you got injured on the job. I hurt my back once working and after a year of sticking it out at work they sent me home on disability. I was shocked, but then when I found out what my checks would be I was even more shocked. I had a month or two in the quarter they loooked at to determine the amount I got, where I had been working 56 hours a week and getting paid as if I had worked 68, and because of that chunk of higher pay, I was getting a rather high check. I was never able to get back to my highest earning power so they eventually paid me off. So some of these policies, even if they don't pay 100% since they aren't taxed or have the SS taken out, don't put you in hardship mode. I know unemployment can as it isn't as dependent on your actual income but what the state pays for that income and last I knew it was taxable so that is no fun come tax time.

[Gailete]

I guess for some people it's just not enough! so they keep on amassing it!

I don't think that is entirely true. My son and I were talking about this last night as my younger austic son has finally found out after working part time for one company for years that he finally gets to go fulltime in July . We were joking around about how he was going to be so rich and my son said yeah 'he never spends anything'. And I told him, that wasn't true. He is extremely careful about money. He lives alone and is totally self supporting. But he does find a way to have the things he really wants such as cable TV for the sports channel which is important to him, a samart phone (I don't even have a cell phone of any sort). But living with insecure jobs for the last several years he has become very conservative on what and when he spends. He does surveys to earn gift cards and he also buys gift cards at a discount to save every penny possible when he shops at places like Walmart. He does have a savings account and owns shares in stocks. It isn't like he is amassin it for the fun of it but because he needs to. He will probably always be in this mind set, unless some dies and leaves him several million$$$. I'm not sure I have ever met someone who has more than they need. We don't always know someone else's life or why they may need the money.

[Nutria]

I don't think that is entirely true. My son and I were talking about this last night as my younger austic son has finally found out after working part time for one company for years that he finally gets to go fulltime in July ... He lives alone and is totally self supporting.

If he's that highly functioning, maybe he could get a job in software QA.

[Nutria]

What's the point in having a lot of money, if you live like you don't have it?

The money you amassed buy you time, but if you can't spend it because you are always micromanaging, wouldn't it be easier to work a little longer to actually be able to make something with a part of that money?

What happened to people learning Aesop's Fables like the Ant and the Grasshopper?

[Gailete]

If he's that highly functioning, maybe he could get a job in software QA.

Just because an autistic person is high functioning, doesn't mean he is super at computer stuff. My son's 'special' skills are spelling (he puts me to shame and has most of his life, I don't think he has every spelled a word wrong) and keyboarding. He does medical transcription which makes the most of what he is really good at. And now the place that he has worked part time will get him full time. They think he is great where other places he has worked didn't like him and weren't patient with his learning curve. Technically he is probably eligible for a job coach, but he wants to do it on his own, so getting and keeping jobs is a real struggle for him. He had worked at a grocery store for years managing to finely make frozen food manager. Customers loved him because not only did he keep everything possible in stock he would let them know that their favorite flavor of ice cream was in and got the lactose-free type ice creams in for people and even with non-frozen items he would go and find it for customers. Boy do I miss him there. I had to have the bag boy go find me something yesterday and he couldn't find it. My son would have had it in no time. His memory is phenominal assuming it is something he is interested in. Thankfully he is also insterested in saving and investing as well

[Nutria]

Just because an autistic person is high functioning, doesn't mean he is super at computer stuff.

QA ("quality assurance") doesn't mean "programming". It means following scenarios and finding out where a program doesn't do what it's supposed to do.

Very detail oriented, very repetitive.

My son's 'special' skills are spelling ... and keyboarding. He does medical transcription

So he can follow instructions and doesn't mind doing the same thing over and over. Software QA should be right up his alley. It pays well and programs always need more testing.

[Gailete]

My son got an Associates degree in Medical coding and transcription and still has 2 years of school loans to pay off. I doubt he wants to go learn something new, that isn't his cup of tea so to speak. He can use computers for his work and checking baseball stats and paying surveys but that is about how far his interest goes with them.

Not all autistic people have special talents, but those that do, do have an edge up when it comes to employment. I feel sorry for the ones that would love to live independently but can't even though they have decent jobs, because of the failure of other systems in their lives, such as understanding how much things cost and budgeting in relation to living on their own, so they live for life with their folks or in group home situtations.

I still remember when my son was ten he couldn't yet tie his shoes so about 7-8 years ago he was telling me about this old lady at the grocery store coming through his department, he had stopped her because her shoestrings were untied and he was scared she would trip. He tied her shoes for her. That brought me to tears.

I know this doesn't have anything really to do with the topic, but some people that you think may be hoarding money and living below their means, in reality really don't. They may have their own problems that they are trying to overcome or may be saving to leave for a handicapped child who will need extra assistance when they are gone. At this point I think 1 in 68 children (mostly boys) are diagnosed as being on the autisim spetrum/continuum. Then add in those children born mentally retarded, physically handicapped, etc. and you may be looking at figures somewhere in the vicinity of 1 in 50 kids will need financial assitance from parents and the state for the rest of their lives. Many are hesitant to discuss their childrens needs (besides the current cost of caring for them), so stranagers may never realize that they have a huge need to accumulate wealth as much as possible since custodial care is so expensive and depending on welfare to pick up the tab means no say in the facility that those kids end up in. Then there are couples, one I know, with dad a doctor battling a weird disease, one of five daughters retarded/autistic in a group home, and yet the doctor still goes on medical mission trips to help care for the less fortunate. People hear someone is a doctor and immediately think 'made of money' when in reality he had to give up his practice here as it was too much for him. And any spare money he has goes to pay for his trips to 3rd world countries to care for people there.

It all comes down to we don't really know why anyone does what they do financially and it isn't our business unless it affects us. I know a man who went bankrupt I think in the the 80's. Aftwerwards he worked the rest of his life to pay back all those that he had owed money to. Not that he was required to but he felt it right. Several weeks after he had paid in full, he died. He had accomplished his goal and I'm sure that people that didn't have a clue what he was doing couldn't understand why he was making good money but lived poor. I'm sure that is a rarity with folks that go bankrupt. Yet another type of story that you may not know and might misinterpret his actions as a hoarder.

I'd rather see someone 'amassing wealth' and looking like a hoarder, than seeing someone spending any penny they make and quite a few that they didn't. Watch Life or Debt if you have cable and see the messes some make of their lives.

[Nutria]

My son got an Associates degree in Medical coding and transcription and still has 2 years of school loans to pay off.

It was a suggestion, not a mandate.

[Gailete]

It was a suggestion, not a mandate.

I realize that. Just wanted you to realize that he has trained for a career and is now finally going to be working full time in what he has trained for.

[~bs]

It depends on what your definition of "living beneath your means" is.

If you define "living within your means" as spending every last dollar, then the point of "living beneath your means" is to save money for the future/retirement.

In fact, one should consider spending plus 20% (or whatever) savings to be "living within your means".