Most recent college graduates will have debt and will not look forward to your starting salary.
As such, I do worry that stories like yours may serve not to motivate your peers, but cause them to envy. People tend to compare- especially people who read blogs like this.

The take-away is that early adulthood is a great time to scrimp (to the utmost of your ability) for the purposes of delayed gratification. 3clicks is right that this message doesn’t seem to resonate with most young adults.

I worked my way thru college and took on no debt. The tuition that scholarships and grants didn’t cover my parents paid for (~$2000/yr). I had 2 jobs in college, i waited tables and worked @ a self storage center where I could be paid to study. I paid for books, rent, food and all misc costs. To save $, Freshmen year I commuted to school 60 miles from my parents’ house, and had roommates the other 3 years. I graduated with >$10k in savings at 21.

I got a job out of college @ $60k. The signing bonus ($5k) was immediately put into savings. I moved in with my bf (now my husband), so we shared a 1 bdrm apt. My half of the rent was $650. After taxes and 401k my takehome was ~$4000/mo (granted, now i make more and can save more). But w/o student debt, car loans, designer handbags, etc., a recent college grad can easily save $2k/month. I normally put away more like $2500/mo.

Currently, I’d say my husband and I save about $6k/month after all expenses. We rent a 1 bdrm apt, which is currently fine by me. We live frugally, but blow about $7k/yr on vacations and only go out to a fine restaurant or the movies 1x per week. Another thing to note is that we don’t have expensive toys, no boats or ATVs, and everything we do own was probably bought on sale.

I don’t have the financing lined up yet.

Best to all.

Buy my Dad always said, ‘if you end up being a Honey Truck driver, be the best Honey Truck driver there is’ – obviously, I wasn’t born with a spoon in my mouth. My Dad graduated only went to high school and never made more than $40K per year his entire life, but he put three kids through college. He has NO debt and is a triple dipper and owns a home free and clear. Some continually just don’t get it.

BTW, I’m all for saving too, but I, personally, can’t manage saving 2K a month NOW at ~70K and an old paid for car.

What about those who are not CPAs or Engineers upon graduation? I had a Bachelor’s Degree and made $18k a year at my first job. Living in So Cal. I still remember my overhead: $750/mo. rent. $283/mo. car payment (I bought used, you misers – don’t worry – a $10k, 5 year old car). YOU do the math. I managed to save what I could which was at the time $42 worth of company stock. I bought 7 shares at $6/share over the course of a few months (couldn’t drop it all at once!) I sold it in 97 for about $500. It was the best I could do.

Don’t give people false hope about what is financially possible. I am all for saving. I am definitely called ‘frugal’ ‘cheap’ ‘millionaire next door’ amongst my friends, but not everyone has advanced degrees and no college debt out of school!

I’m still interested in buying down there, I just have my wife go down instead (had her bidding on one today in fact).

Hey Jim, I’m interested in hiring you to help me land a Trustee sale for our next owner-occupied that will need some financing, but I have not heard back from you.

Was at the trustee sale about a month ago to try and buy a property. Before the bidding starts on each one Jay asks if anyone wants to qualify (which means you show him your cashiers checks and ID).

I move towards him and say that I want to qualify. Instead of discretely looking at my funds, he says within earshot of all the other potential bidders… “How much are you going to go?” I sheepishly say 275K, not wanting to tip my hand to all of my peers.

The bidding starts and I jump in at about 250K. The “pros” that are there every day have the time-wasting habit of bidding in $100 increments. I decide to jump in with 5K increments to announce my presence. A couple others start doing the same thing and before you know it the bidding has quickly gone from an opening bid of 220K to 275K.

At this point Jay stops everyone in their tracks, looks up at ME and announces “YOUR DONE”…….I was flabergasted and said “What?” He says “you told me that you only had 275K, your done!” I say, “I have more”. Then he goes ballistic and yells “It’s against the law to bid more than you have”. Again I fire back “I have more”.

So then, still in the middle of the bidding process with everyone huddled around he says, “show me your money”. I was so belittled and embarrassed at that point that I said “to hell with you, now I’M DONE”. A couple of profanities are exchanged and then the coward summons one of the courthouse guards over to have me removed. (yeah, like I’m really gonna initiate a physical confrontation).

I volunteered to go, but not without announcing to everyone that Jay was nothing more than an hourly paid MONKEY! I think that simple jab really got to him since he is one of those cocky SOB’s that really relishes his master-of-ceremonies role down there.

Would’nt surprise me a bit if he’s dirty and giving preferential treatment to his “regulars”.

Billyfeet | November 12th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
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It’s this notion that housing is a commodity that “intelligent and skilled” people trade for a profit (new lingo for “savvy” investors?) that makes some of us doubt this “recovery.”

See, it’s the same attitude and behavior that brought us “The Greatest Recession Since the Great Depression” and the “Financial Crisis.” (love quotation marks!)

The fact that the govt didn’t let these fools burn is what’s bringing them out in droves now. Moral hazard and all that…

One of the biggest red flags during the bubble was the speculative fever and rampant flipping — the mindset that housing prices always go up. At the peak, about 40% of purchases were speculative purchases/investments. I’m guessing the ratio is getting awfully high again. This is the kind of market reasonable people should be very afraid of — especially when one considers all the manipulation going on, especially the artificially low interest rates.