Better rates than a CD ?

[gfretwell]

I am not seeing that here. Store brand bread was $1.50 a loaf, Now it is $1.79. Meat his higher across the board with the possible exception of chicken. Canned goods are up 15 or 20 cents a can. I do all the shopping and I am in the store a few times a week.

I am not going to argue with you about that but the real issue is we don't have the saw mill capacity. We shipped that all overseas. The logs themselves are a glut on the market right now and logging is at a standstill ... but wasn't that what the tree huggers wanted in the first place? With the wage demands people are placing on producers, that saw mill capacity is not going to get better.

It still represents up to half of the budgets of many Americans and that is inflation. Maybe you do not understand what most people think inflation is. You may have some University of Chicago definition but most people think it is the cost of living and your home is a big part of that living cost.

[Tekkie©]

On Mon, 19 Apr 2021 13:27:54 -0400, [e-mail] posted for all of us to digest...

Is this what I posted a few hundred posts ago?

Past Performance Is No Guarantee of Future Results.

[angelica...]

Lucky you. In January 2019 it was $1.99 a gallon. Now it's (if I recall correctly) $2.32, although the online shopping site at my grocery store says $3.09.

Cindy Hamilton

[Ralph Mowery]

I intend to spend for me and the wife. I just hate to take out money from the IRA because of the taxes,but do take out some so I do not hit the higher tax brackets.

For some the financial advisor is fine, but not for me. Reading much of the financial advice on the internet is about opposit of what I want. They want you to work to you drop (70) so your SS will be the max. I stopped at 62 when SS took effect. I would have quit 2 years sooner, but the company changed owners and screwed me out of over $ 1000 a month and they were going to pay for 80 % of the medical insurnce that I had to come up with all of that.

The wills and power of attourny is up to date for the wife and I.

I have most of the IRA in some mutual funds and am playing with a little less than 10 % of that in the stock market myself just for fun. When I get a fair ammount of profit in that 'play' stock, I take it out to buy something I would like to have, but no real need for . Like the new lawn tractor . The one I had was about 5 years old, but I just wanted a bigger and better one.

For the nursing home, if you do not have any money , you get a free stay. If you do have some money, you won't have it long. Have you ever priced the stay in the nursing homes ? It may run a couple of thousand or more a month. Probably more as it has been about 15 years when I was looking a the homes for my dad. As he was a prisoner of war in WW2 I put him in the local VA hospital. We were lucky enough to have a very nice one in the town we live in.His body was so,so, but his mind was really bad.

[gfretwell]

Reading that Wiki page it appears Biden is going down the same "anti dumping" road Trump took with Canada. They started another review Mar

4.

[rbowman]

Quit your bitching. Around here the cheapest store brand milk is $1.99 a half gallon with the grass fed, hand pumped, ecofriendly stuff going for a lot more.

[Retirednoguilt]

You make a perfect case why most people need to try to learn the lingo and read widely, learning as much as possible about all alternatives. Then, given their own specific circumstances and threshold for risk, they can determine what and how to organize their finances. There's no one correct strategy that can meet the wide variety of preferences and circumstances for all who are fortunate enough to have discretionary income.

[invalid unparseable]

Look up state charges. They are staggering. Guy across the street was paying $14,000/month for his mother. If you go in poor you will share a room and a medicade room has to be available. Assisted living is just as expensive. This is the US but I believe in the UK you get the same facility whether or not you can afford it so people there spend all their money.

[Jim Joyce]

We used to have stuff scattered around in a dozen or so brokerage houses, but we've consolidated everything at Fidelity. It's not better than the others, it was just more convenient to transfer there.

We do 100% of our trading online. Like every other financial institution of that type, they have advisors on staff but there are two big problems with using them.

1. They seem to know less than we do, so they just agree with everything we say. At first that comes off as being friendly and supportive, until we realized they were just agreeing with everything, even things that we knew better than to do.
2. This is a big one - They are usually not a fiduciary, meaning by law they are allowed to serve their own priorities even when those priorities do not benefit us. So when they make suggestions or recommendations, we just ignore them.

[Jim Joyce]

In other words, no evidence.

That explains the lack of evidence. You know, they publish detailed info on how they calculate the CPI, how they select products, the records they keep, etc. You can look it up, or maybe this will get you started.

[Jim Joyce]

Thank you. I'm glad I could help.

Now we can stop the nonsense about playing chicken, etc.

[gfretwell]

I just know my grocery bills are higher, my energy bills are higher, used car prices are higher and the rents people pay are higher. Buying a house is a distant dream for most of them. What do you think drives the cost of living for the majority? You millionaire democrats claim to care about the working man but you seem to be totally out of touch with the reality of their day to day life.

[gfretwell]

The chicken part is still true for the ones you say you are helping. If someone is trying to micro manage their withholding to minimize their return, they can guess wrong. If you don't have a pretty good sized slush fund, paying might be a burden. The average American would be hard pressed to come up with a few grand on short notice. As for me, I just look at it as a T bill that pays 0.04% less than the going rate. I can afford the two bucks I am missing out on.

[Jim Joyce]

If I may... Please pull to the side of the road and disconnect the rope that you're using to drag the goalposts around.

Now, addressing your post:

1. Your example is anecdotal. One person doing some grocery shopping in Florida does not inflation make.

1. Use the link I gave you and learn what goes into the actual calculation.

2. I forgot my third point, but I think it was just a reminder that running after you as you move the goalposts is exhausting.

[Jim Joyce]

No.

It's not rocket science, but people have got to know their limitations, as Clint Eastwood more or less said once. If the subject of taxation, income, and withholding all sound like black magic, go ahead and give Uncle Sam a nice big interest free loan. He won't complain one bit, but when he pays it back in the form of a refund, it'll be without interest. I don't choose to do things that way.

As I pointed out earlier, it's probably more like $500, but you've been clear that $500 isn't going to break the bank either way.

[gfretwell]

We were talking about inflation as seen by normal folks. They notice the extra dime or quarter hike in a can of soup. People whine about it everywhere, including letters to the paper. Grocery prices keep going up, it is just true and Cindy said the same thing from Michigan. Store brand milk was $3.52/gal here today. Fancy "milk" (low lactate, soy, almond etc) is ~$4.50-$5.99 a half gallon. Store brand bread was $1.89. It isn't just the nickel here and the there on various [products you are going to buy. They don't have as much stuff on sale and they haven't had the gas coupon for 6 weeks or so. Lots of little stuff adds up pretty fast at the store. Rents and energy bills are up too. At a certain point, what do working people actually buy?

As for that puff piece from BLS a few things were made pretty clear. The computation is 3 years old the day it is published "CPI data in 2016 and 2017 was based on data collected from the Consumer Expenditure Surveys for 2013 and 2014"

I also question exactly what is meant by "food and beverages, housing, apparel, transportation, medical care, recreation, education and communication, and other goods and services."

One thing stands out right away. Only a moron thinks medical costs haven't gone up much more than the "CPI" would indicate. The same is true of education. We already talked about the housing.

[gfretwell]

I made it clear, I have investments and I have cash parked. Parking at the IRS is as safe as parking it in a T bill and I am only giving up

0.04% with a whole lot less hassle. The bank isn't much better either. I barely notice it missing nor do I see much when it comes back.

[Jim Joyce]

It's OK. Not everyone is good at managing their money.

[Jim Joyce]

No, we were talking about inflation as measured and reported by the CPI. You kept trying to drag it into your personal housing or food shopping situation. You're doing it again below.

[Ralph Mowery]

If you just want to park some cash it does not make much difference where you park it. With most places under 1 % it takes lots of big money to even notice it.

Probelm I see with parking it with the IRS is that you have to wait a year to get it. A money market account would seem better to me as you can get the cash when you want it.

I did well with the IRS this year. Got back about $ 650 from the feds and paid about $ 550 to the state. As most of my money stays the same from year to year except some stock I am playing with which does not ammount to too much profit I can come out very well on the pay or receive from the IRS. The only unknow unknown is how much I take out of the IRA, but tax money comes out of that at the ammount I tell them to take out.