[clue-talk] computers, gas, mortgages and bears - oh my!

[Nate Duehr]

Brian Gibson wrote:
[snipped huge reply that missed the point completely...]

Good lord man, slow down.  I know everything you typed.

You said, "Apple is usually six months behind on hardware" and I 
corrected it.  No biggie.

Summary for the original poster:

Anyone who bothers to shop for what they want and watches for sales, 
will do fine in today's computer market, if they know what they want. 
If they don't know what they want, bottom-of-the-line usually works 
fine.  If it doesn't you didn't know what you wanted anyway, maybe you 
will by the time it dies, and you won't have spent over $1000 on 
something you didn't want.  :-)

-----

Now for the Dave Barry style rant/response to your other totally 
unrelated comments, just for fun:

As far as gas prices go...

I use 11.66 gallons of gasoline for my weekly commute (required to 
maintain my income), not including side-trips or errands.  @ $2/gal 
$23.34.  @ $3/gal  $35.00.

$23.34 * 52 weeks = $1213.68/year
$35.00 * 52 weeks = $1820.00/year

$1 in gas price changes my ANNUAL costs of operating my vehicle $606.32 
  to get to work and back.  $600 a year.  Pffft.

My personal calculations show for me, that's $11 bucks more a week.

For the median household in 2004 of roughly $45,000 a year, that's just 
over 1% of their gross income.  If you take out the 28% average tax 
rate, you still don't bust 2%.

Ain't no big deal, but people sure are whining.  Many (very slow at 
math) people pay more per gallon for bottled water (wow, what a rip-off) 
than they do for gas.

I'd save more money by moving 15 miles closer to work than the $1 
increase in gas costs me.  That's not worth the hassle though.

[I've done the math on hybrids too.  A Hybrid wouldn't save me much at 
all.  The break-even point for me on a Hybrid including tax incentives 
is about four and a half years.  If I can get three more years out of my 
soon-to-be paid-off vehicle... at the lower insurance rate... wow! 
Taking that into consideration, a hybrid something like a 10 year 
payback for me.]

[Oh... forgot... My wife's diesel Jetta kicks a Hybrid's ass up one side 
and down the other, too.  We're seeing 35 MPG City, 40 Highway.  I have 
to get to off-road places for my hobby and public service activities, 
so... until there's a hybrid that can double what my vehicle gets in 
mileage -- I won't be buying one.  A diesel truck, perhaps... just for 
the utility of it that I require, but no hybrid.  If Toyota would market 
a 4-cylinder diesel pickup, I'd be all over that.  A Tacoma extended-cab 
4X4, with a 4-cyl diesel would rock my world.]

I see people waste more money than what gas at $3/gal is REALLY costing 
them in a single shopping mall session at Park Meadows mall every weekend.

(Well, I guess I don't see them that much, I don't do "shopping mall" 
trips.  Only when forced to or for items I need quickly instead of 
ordering from somewhere, or a really good sale.  No, I rarely do WalMart 
either.  I don't find much that they sell lasts very long, other than 
the $11 towing receivers and ball hitches.  My wife's a Target freak... 
and I do think I may start the Costco membership up again... but for two 
people, the Albertson's a block away vs. the Costco two miles away, 
really does fine.  If there were a good quality mom and pop grocery 
store nearby or a Whole Foods, I might be willing to splurge on a few 
"premium" products too, just for the sake of enjoying them.  I don't 
need the 400 pack of toilet paper, or the three-pack of upright pianos, 
thanks.)  [Thanks for the piano joke, Family Guy!]

Now to be fair, I understand that when fuel prices climb, the cost of 
EVERYTHING goes up.  I get that.

But... I think people doth protest too much at $3.00 a gallon.  $4.00 a 
gallon would double my operating expenses from where most people say we 
"were", but even at that...

Percentage-wise for the median U.S. Household income in 2004 (roughly 
$45,000), the entire fuel bill is 5% of overall household income.

-----

Adjustable Rate Mortgages:

Here we come to the REAL kicker that's kicking people in the butt 
financially.

Anytime a banker says, "come here, have I got a DEAL for you" I run 
screaming the other direction.

Typically interest on a house adds 2/3's of the total FULL cost on most 
typical mortgages these days.  Very roughly.

So for a "typical" $100,000 home loan, which isn't so typical anymore, 
people are shocked when I say that I don't gamble with things that can 
change my overall payout by anywhere from $100,000 to $200,000 over the 
life of the loan.  What?  But you can save money NOW!  You would have 
more cash to spend NOW.  Right?  Right?

VERY BAD IDEA.  Unless you're a uber-whiz, and already know how to a) be 
disciplined enough to put the money you're saving into investments, and 
b) know damn sure those investments will out-pace both the inflation 
rate and also make your principal payments for you... and you HAVE to 
stay in the house for the full 20-30 years to pull that off... IF it 
works...

People who won't risk $10 at a Blackjack table will risk $200,000 at the 
drop of a hat if it's a home loan.  It amazes me.  Guess what your odds 
are of winning a single Blackjack hand?  Guess what your odds are right 
now of the interest rate climbing at least 1% a year for the next three 
to five years?

Mortgage gambling is both dumb and risky.  And for most people, 
downright dangerous.  ARM's and Interest-only loans are EXCELLENT tools 
to have in your arsenal under VERY specific circumstances.  But...

I saw a statistic I can't confirm the other day that 23% of all 
mortgages in the U.S. are INTEREST ONLY.  Wow.  I'm no macro-economist, 
but that sounds like housing prices are in for a REALLY big tumble.

I also can't truly believe that 23% of the homeowners in the U.S. will 
win that sucker-bet they just placed.

I think I'll stick with my boring old 30 year mortgage, thanks.  And try 
to pay enough extra on it NOW so that it magically becomes a 20 year 
mortgage and takes 1/3 of the total cost off of my loan.  (And to do 
that requires roughly ONE extra principal-only payment a year.)  An 
additional $1000 today near the beginning of the loan saves me tens of 
thousands later.  Not a bad ROI, really!  And it's a guaranteed ROI if 
the house can sell later for at least what I paid for it.

Today's dangerous mortgage lending practices are going to cost us all 
FAR FAR FAR more than the $11 a week a buck more in gas prices is 
costing me.

But the soccer mom's think they need their Lexii (isn't that the plural 
of Lexus?) and their weekly trips to the mall and they'll happily 
fore-go paying PRINCIPAL on their house loans to do it.

That's not good.  For any of us.

-----

2.5 kids...

Nope.  2 pets.  That costs plenty enough for me, they keep me company 
(along with my wonderful wife) and they don't need me to send them to 
college, which would cost more than the aforementioned mortgage.

You all feel free to have enough kids to replace yourselves and also 
replace me and my wife and pay for the ankle-biters to go to school.

We're good.

-----

REALLY unrelated stuff:

I spent two hours shopping tonight and crunching numbers to figure out 
how to join my wife (she's already paid up and going -- long story) on a 
trip to Las Vegas.

If I'd have just clicked on the convenient "Package Deal" and flown to 
Vegas, had a rental car (I need to drive when I'm there, darn it -- 
again, long story), and a hotel... the cost would have been roughly $525 
all told, including taxes, fees, etc.  NOT including fueling the rental car.

I ran the numbers to drive the diesel, and... driving the diesel, and 
estimating 10 MPG LOWER than I think I'll really get on the highway 
(need to see how it pans out in the mountains, but I'm going up and then 
back down, so... should even out!)...

Staying at the same (cheap) hotel over on Fremont Street (the "old" Las 
Vegas strip), $305.  Anything above 30 MPG makes that even better.

I don't mind driving 12 hours in a day, and can afford to lose the one 
extra vacation day (no real monetary loss to me, just using up an 
additional day of vacation time I already have "in the bank" so to 
speak)... and I'll lose a day in Vegas on the weekend coming home... but 
the timing works out as my wife will fly out early also...

So I saved myself $220 bucks just running the numbers and shopping as 
hard as I could for two hours.  Since I'm EXPECTED to go, and the trip 
really isn't optional (again, long story)...

I just "paid off" 1/3 of my costs for gas being at $3/gallon this year 
by deciding to DRIVE somewhere and blow 8 hours of paid-time-off!

How's that for twisted and ironic logic, eh?  :-)  Funny how that stuff 
works out sometimes.  (Heh.)

Okay, there's my long-winded missive about totally unrelated stuff.

   Enjoy.  :-) :-) :-)

Nate