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Fucker

Fucker

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Seananigans said:
Even considering (spending the mental capital) not paying off the mortgage is fucktarded… I seriously don’t understand the “min-max” financial mindset. Money is the goal to the exclusion of literally all else? Yeah your life must be amazing.

I imagine them as someone who would min-max a wizard to 18 int but 3 str. Yeah ok I bet it’s absolutely amazing having a carrying capacity of 13lbs. Tell me about all the cool things you can do.

Agonizing over that sort of decision is a mindset that is completely alien to me.
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People who are good with money are always min-maxxing, and always optimizing for various results. It isn't agonizing at all. It is about achieving the best outcomes for your goals. This is a vast generality of course, and there are extremes all over the place. This isn't necessarily about money being the end all to the be all, either. For some people it is, for others money is just a means to an end.

I'm pretty well off, and still approach certain financial decisions with a great deal of thought...because it is intrinsic to my nature, not because I need to save a buck. For instance, I still consider Total Cost of Ownership when I purchase a vehicle even though I don't need to. I still primarily buy used cars even though I don't need to. I bought a new vehicle a few years ago, got a smoking deal. It was my 3rd new vehicle, and not a fancy one at that. Mid-range trim, non luxury model. My lifetime losses on vehicles (not including write-off, maintenance and wear items) isn't even $10k...and I've had some nice hardware.

Houses are the same. I've made a lot of money on every house I have owned, save for my first big one, which IIRC I lost 5-10k on overall.

I do all this through min-maxxing money.

It beats the hell out of crossed fingers, a pile of worthless lotto tickets, and walking around banks at night with a divining rod.
 
Seananigans

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Fucker said:
People who are good with money are always min-maxxing, and always optimizing for various results. It isn't agonizing at all. It is about achieving the best outcomes for your goals. This is a vast generality of course, and there are extremes all over the place. This isn't necessarily about money being the end all to the be all, either. For some people it is, for others money is just a means to an end.

I'm pretty well off, and still approach certain financial decisions with a great deal of thought...because it is intrinsic to my nature, not because I need to save a buck. For instance, I still consider Total Cost of Ownership when I purchase a vehicle even though I don't need to. I still primarily buy used cars even though I don't need to. I bought a new vehicle a few years ago, got a smoking deal. It was my 3rd new vehicle, and not a fancy one at that. Mid-range trim, non luxury model. My lifetime losses on vehicles (not including write-off, maintenance and wear items) isn't even $10k...and I've had some nice hardware.

Houses are the same. I've made a lot of money on every house I have owned, save for my first big one, which IIRC I lost 5-10k on overall.

I do all this through min-maxxing money.

It beats the hell out of crossed fingers, a pile of worthless lotto tickets, and walking around banks at night with a divining rod.
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Yeah, I don't consider entering into a transaction (and the due diligence that should accompany it) the same thing as deciding whether or not to extinguish debt, which was what I was talking about. I think everyone should evaluate potential transactions thoroughly, it's a no-brainer.

I understand why people have a mindset that includes voluntarily staying in debt because they can get slightly better "returns" on their money over time. It's a natural result of our corrupt debt-based financial system. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the type of thought process that results in whether or not to extinguish debt in the aforementioned case as not being a foregone conclusion.

To offer a reductio ad absurdum: There is probably a subset of the fin-min-max population that, when presented with option A) receive 10% return on money or option B) receive 12% return on money but get punched in the nuts 2x daily, they'd choose option B because number-go-up-higher. Godspeed, I guess.
 
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Intrinsic

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Seananigans said:
Yeah, I don't consider entering into a transaction (and the due diligence that should accompany it) the same thing as deciding whether or not to extinguish debt, which was what I was talking about. I think everyone should evaluate potential transactions thoroughly, it's a no-brainer.

I understand why people have a mindset that includes voluntarily staying in debt because they can get slightly better "returns" on their money over time. It's a natural result of our corrupt debt-based financial system. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the type of thought process that results in whether or not to extinguish debt in the aforementioned case as not being a foregone conclusion.

To offer a reductio ad absurdum: There is probably a subset of the fin-min-max population that, when presented with option A) receive 10% return on money or option B) receive 12% return on money but get punched in the nuts 2x daily, they'd choose option B because number-go-up-higher. Godspeed, I guess.
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I would need to know the time period and frequency of the nut kicks to really evaluate that decision. 2% at 20 years for $100,000 is only $15ish thousand dollars. If that’s 1 kick in the nuts per year that may be worth it. 1 kick per quarter and I’m not so sure.
 
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Seananigans

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Intrinsic said:
I would need to know the time period and frequency of the nut kicks to really evaluate that decision. 2% at 20 years for $100,000 is only $15ish thousand dollars. If that’s 1 kick in the nuts per year that may be worth it. 1 kick per quarter and I’m not so sure.
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Original offer was 2x/day but I’ll give you the half-nut discount: 1x/day for as long as the interest premium is desired. Final offer!
 
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Intrinsic

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Seananigans said:
Original offer was 2x/day but I’ll give you the half-nut discount: 1x/day for as long as the interest premium is desired. Final offer!
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Hah! No way I’m no sucker. That’s like 7,600 nut kicks over 20 years or $2 a kick. We’re done having kids (I think?) but my nuts are worth way more than that!
 
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Furry

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Khane said:
Paying down debt is never, has never, and will never be "retarded". It won't ever even be foolish, or dumb.
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It's 100% retarded to pay off a house while carrying 100k in CC debt in today's world. While that is a more extreme example, I can think of a 100 steps between retarded and perfectly fine where the decision would be foolish and dumb.

I understand that doing math hurts some of you non-autists, but the claim that math is inconsequential to math is rather bold and stupid. Especially so that I need to argue this when I am generally on the side of paying off your house is a good financial goal. I would just say that generally eliminating bad debt and being ahead of the curve for retirement should be goals you should accomplish first.
 
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Khane

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Furry said:
It's 100% retarded to pay off a house while carrying 100k in CC debt in today's world. While that is a more extreme example, I can think of a 100 steps between retarded and perfectly fine where the decision would be foolish and dumb.

I understand that doing math hurts some of you non-autists, but the claim that math is inconsequential to math is rather bold and stupid. Especially so that I need to argue this when I am generally on the side of paying off your house is a good financial goal. I would just say that generally eliminating bad debt and being ahead of the curve for retirement should be goals you should accomplish first.
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Oh I get it. This is one of those situations where you can use the "R" word if you are the "R" word.
 
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