Money Diary #32

Morning: Up at 6, help Dad with laptop stuff, and drink a cup of tea. Make scrambled eggs for everyone, and sit down to work. Work for several hours and then connect with my manager. I am really tired but want to power through before I take a break for a shower. 

Afternoon: Work for a while, shower, and then finally eat lunch (cauliflower fried rice & fish stew). I am still hungry so I have a pineapple coconut cake & tres leches combo for dessert. Work for another few hours and then call it a day. I am so exhausted. Dad air-fries the plant patties, and they don't look great, so I have negative expectations of it. One bite later, and HOLY CRAP -- THEY ARE SO GOOD. Text SO the great news, lol. Have a cup of tea, followed by a glass of orange Fanta afterwards.

Evening: Eat some homemade sugared cottage cheese. Read for a bit since Dad is on a call until 9. Then dinner is cauliflower fried rice & veggies, and bed around 10:30. Here is what I learn:

• On why it's important to remain mentally active: He retired at 65 and then developed dementia a short time later. The main issue was that he had no plans to remain active. Rather, too many hours (and subsequently days) were spent in front of the TV for hours on end.

• Average or rich: "Average folks are not rich. Rich folks are not average."

• On income: "Income does not matter if you spend away all your income" and therefore have no savings.

• On why mental health is so important: "You can't pour from an empty cup."

• On being grateful for SO: "If you're in a good relationship, it feels like a haven of comfort and relaxation to spend time with your significant other." 

• On being on the lookout for real estate deals: Someone mentioned "There will be folks that overspent on their houses. You can count on it. And, that is the source of cheaper housing down the road." I asked, "How do you locate people who overspent on houses?" He replied, "Why do you need to locate them? The average gross saving rate is less than 5% and almost everyone has no emergency fund. Hence, almost all house owners overspent on their houses."

• On inflation and real estate prices: He sold his house for $460k to a young couple with kids that had clearly stretched every possible time to afford it and were only able to do so because of interest rates hovering around 2% at the time. Zillow says the house is now worth over $600k. On the one hand, that couple bought more house than they could afford now that things cost more in our inflationary environment. However, with inflation, their wages could have gone up, and they are locked in for 30 years at an incredibly low interest rate. According to him, people will generally leverage themselves to the hilt to hang out to their houses. Which could mean no more family vacations, no eating out, whatever it takes to keep the house, they will do it. For his own situation, he is worried he will never see the opportunity to buy back the house from the couple for anything near what he sold it to them for (less than two years ago!), and he'll be stuck continuing to rent. In a way, he was the one who downgraded his lifestyle, not them. And it sucks because getting back into that kind of house just doesn't seem possible anymore.

• When meeting someone for the first time, ask yourself: "What tribe do I think they belong to?