Cash Only Living: news links

When futurologist talk about jobs being taken over by AI and robots, people often ask what workers will do. The answer is often that the people will build robots or fix robots or oversee the work of robots. In this article I came across today, apparently robots are now building robots. Yikes.
Another article was about "three tips to avoid running out of money in retirement". I think the article kind of missed the mark. One suggestion was to leave the city to find cheaper housing. Of course if you buy at the top of the market in a city you will pay top dollar for housing but if you live in a city in a paid off house with a senior exemption on your property taxes, living in a city may end up being cheaper as it allows you to use public transportation instead of driving, provides better access to medical care, better access to cheap food, etc. The second suggestion was to cut entertainment spending. In a city there are a lot of free options for entertainment, the library is free, and, paying a little for entertainment (like a senior bowling league) may be worth the cost when it comes to your health because you are getting more exercise that way. The third tip was to create a budget. Of course having a budget is a good idea but you can budget a set amount of retirement income per month (say $3000 per month) but 20 years from now, fixed expenses may overtake the amount of your fixed income then what will you do? I thinking having multiple sources of income (social security, pension, small gigs, a small business, investment income, etc) will be the way to go.

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

...our resident pimp died (brothels and prostitution is legal nearly everywhere in Nevada except Las Vegas).
...medical internships for high school students are now a thing here (and a brilliant idea IMHO).
...the Lotto is now up to almost a BILLION dollars! We don't play the Lotto and Las Vegas residents need to drive about a half hour to the California border in order to buy tickets (the Lotto is illegal in Nevada) but there are plenty of people who love to play the lottery here.
...like in many states, there is questionable activities around the state's voter rolls (you can bet I will be voting in the upcoming mid terms!).
...someone crashed their Aston Martin on the Las Vegas Strip yesterday (absolutely nothing that happens in this city surprises me any more).
...our Golden Knights ice hockey team is losing this year (disappointing since last year as a brand new team they made to to the Stanley Cup playoffs).
...our weather has went from hot to cold. It's in the 70s now and everyone is wearing coats!

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

5 Things from the News Today

In no particular order...

Olive Garden's Never Ending Pasta Pass goes on sale tomorrow. These passes which give you eight weeks of all you can eat pasta for $100 usually sell out in minutes. Some call it frugal, a cardiologist would probably call it job security!
I can't believe Aretha Franklin (as well as all of these people) died without a will. It is simple and inexpensive to create a will and saves your family lots of money, time, and drama.
We need a new set of bed sheets and this article popped up on my news feed. I swear these news feeds are reading my mind (or it's less sinister and when I did a bit of online shopping for sheets my searches are curated to toss back relevant articles to me...creepy how that works these days). I'm sure I won't be buying $150 sheet sets and will probably buy some nice (discounted) sheets at Ross.
Another article which popped up on my feed was about this couple who left their jobs to travel for a year. We did this some years ago and it was an amazing experience!
A hurricane is heading for Hawaii which is a good reminder that everyone should be prepared for a disaster with plenty of food, water, and supplies stored in their homes so they don't have to run out to the store and fight for the last remaining gallon of milk or roll of toilet paper!

Thursday, May 31, 2018

In The News Today

Some random news links...

It's sad to see Sears circling the drain. I grew up day dreaming with the Sears catalog and we use to buy nearly everything there--from appliances to clothes, from linens and housewares to tools and tires.
Vermont will pay remote workers $10,000 to move there. Now that's an interesting idea!
Work fast food and make $17 an hour? Wow!
Apparently those old Trapper Keeper notebooks I used in high school are worth a lot of money these days. Who knew?
Can you live off Amazon Prime? I'm thinking in the near future we won't even need to ever leave our homes, everything will just be brought to our door!

Monday, January 29, 2018

In the (Financial) News

It's been a busy day in financial news...

I read this story about Aetna Insurance Company refusing to pay a woman's ER visit bill because her visit wasn't for a serious enough reason however she had no idea if the pain she was feeling was serious (potentially deadly if it had been a ruptured appendix) or not that serious (which is what it turned out to be). Guess people will now have to guess if their condition is serious or not before deciding to go to the ER :(
Most people (myself included) believe that preventative medical care saves on overall health costs. Apparently that isn't true. "In 2009, as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Synthesis Project, Sarah Goodell, Joshua Cohen and Peter Neumann exhaustively explored the evidence. They examined more than 500 peer-reviewed studies that looked at primary (stopping something from happening in the first place) or secondary (stopping something from getting worse) prevention. Of all the interventions they looked at, only two were truly cost-saving: childhood immunizations (a no-brainer) and the counseling of adults on the use of low-dose aspirin. An additional 15 preventive services were cost-effective, meaning that they cost less than $50,000 to $100,000 per quality adjusted life-year gained." Who knew?
Bank of America is no longer offering free checking. Years ago, most banks offered free checking but sadly over the years, the number of banks that provide this service has dwindled. All of our bank accounts are still free (two at credit unions we have used for years and another at a commercial bank which gave us a free checking account because we have our mortgage through them) but this sort of thing can really have a negative impact on poorer people.
In weird news today...there is a bill in the California legislature that would fine restaurants $1000 for providing customers straws if they don't ask for one. Yeesh.
I am a big fan of passive income. Letting the money roll in while you are sleeping is a great concept IMHO. Here is an article that showed up on my feed reader today on 15 ways to earn passive income.
Finally, as I get ready to file our taxes, I came across this tax prep checklist which, if you are new to filing taxes, gives you a checklist of all of the documents you need to gather before sitting down to do your taxes.