Quote from Sandybestdog:
Thank you. I sold a lot on eBay and enjoyed that very much. I donât have anything to sell right now. Itâs very difficult to find good stuff. Eventually something will work out, but in the meantime it just keeps getting harder and harder to stay afloat.
I never said people should have a free ride toâget aheadâ I am saying for my generation it is much more difficult to get ahead than the last. Why do we play the blame game so much instead of coming up with solutions to fix the problem? Our job markets are eroding. How can we bring back good jobs? Up until recently housing prices were out of control. Letâs have them keep falling so my generation might one day be able to afford it. Why are bankers allowed to print money out of thin air and the consumer has to pay for it through inflation? Why has health insurance gone up 50% in 5 years? How do we bring down the cost of medical care?
Not to mention the baby boomers are going to make out nicely with Social inSecurity while my generation will pay for it. Or weâll just borrow more from China. If Iâm ever able to retire, there will either be nothing left, or the dollar will be so inflated that it wonât buy anything.
I list a bunch of items all at once, get the emails when they sell, print the postage labels, throw the item in a box, and drop it at the post office. Probably not as easy as it sounds, but it was pretty nice. What is so bad about that? The goal is to get something that I can make money at consistently and pay the bills, and then roll that money into other things like what you talk about. I used to have a few vending machines, but itâs just a few quarters here and there and it is hard to find a lot of locations to make it worthwhile.Quote from marketsurfer:
You are thinking the wrong way. Selling stuff on ebay will normally get you nowhere fast. you need to think in terms of systems not selling stuff piece by piece. Business to me is one that runs by itself, a systematic money machine that has nothing to do with you "selling" directly. Setting up a recuring income stream is easier than you think-- start thinking in these terms and you should be able to start something that willl last.
surf
You seem mad at the world. Well the baby boomers benefitted for years from inflation, so I have no problem with their portfolioâs being cut in half. Buying the Dow 30 years ago at 500 and buying a house for 30k that is now worth 500k, doesnât make you an investing genius or hard working.Quote from Mav88:
Sandy, the boomers are not doing too well judging by their retirement savings and they should just about break even with SSI. SSI was supposed to be welfare for the old and sick, now it's a 25 year retirement...
solutions? I'm afraid only pain will make americans realize that they need to produce more and borrow less. Good jobs? If you mean a union job that provides 75K a year, full health care, and pension at 55 all for tightening bolts at a factory, then I'm afraid that was all just a temporary blip of history since that has shown to be unsustainable. Productivity is what underpins living standards, not unions. We need more high productivity tools like the computer.
Affordable housing? In my area I can buy a double wide in the country for $40K. Pretty cheap. Once again though americans think a 4 bedroom mcmansion is a need. I have good news though, housing should come down. I also suggest moving to somewhere cheap.
Health care is so damned high because we are so damned sick, expect too much, and produce too litte. Old people on medicare need to die instead of laying in a home costing $150K a year, we need to stop saving every single crack baby, and mostly people have to take more responsibility for their lives and health- that won't happen though. The endgame is bankruptcy.
Quote from Sandybestdog:[/
75k jobs are a bit of an extreme. I get $4.50 an hour plus tips when I get them and no benefits. Iâm barely getting by on that, so even twice that would make a huge difference.
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Bartender,_Hotel/Hourly_Rate/by_Employer
Look Sandy, this is twice per hour rate more than pizza place that is making you stressed and frustrated, and your tips will be very good. Look at the other information on benefits at the top of the page. It is a start. You sound like you feel defeated so much that you lost hope. Get away from that pizza place and you will feel positive again when you make a little more money.
Quote from gnome:
That is ESPECIALLY true of career traders. For the most part, (1) few survive "many years", and (2) those who have "survived many years" have done so because the conditions which could hurt them have not come around... YET. Unfortunately it takes only 1 or 2 significantly bad decisions to wipe out 20 years of gains...