Rubicon has gone up $5000 since 2021?

[Whaler27]

you do know and you just stated it above. It was what I was trying to get through before in my comments. I know plenty boomers that live for today that ask me "how did you retire so early? I wish I could have done that"... when in reality a good portion had bigger salaries than i did.

I fully agree with you . Whining about our circumstances and being the victim just allows us to not look in the mirror and figure out a better way. we are human beings with brains. we can figure out a better way.

the examples here about people from other countries needing to learn the language and work their asses off and get ahead are pure examples the american dream still exists.

I have a friend that moved from Morrocco joined the marines, went to college and worked for a fortune 500 company. He told me about 4 years ago he had saved/ invested and made $1million in 18 years. He also lived in a more expensive neighborhood than me and drove a used BMW. it's not like he was eating Ra Men.
That's not bad for arriving in the USA with $300 in your pocket.

Like so many, he owes his success to lessons and behaviors learned in The Corps!

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[Whaler27]

My cousin married a guy from India. Frugal like i could not believe when i heard about it. Use washer at night when electric rates are cheaper, no dryer. Wash dishes by hand because dishwasher uses more water and electricity. Barely any air conditioning in the summer, etc etc. He's a successful engineer and saves every penny possible then goes out and buys houses to rent....generally cash.

My sister’s father in law was a crusty old new englander. He served as a submarine officer during WW2, worked as an engineer after the war, and retired in 1975. He never earned a salary over $30,000 (pretty good money in 1975). He was nearly blind by the time he was 90, so my sister and her husband, both recently retired, moved back east to help him the last few years. His list of frugal behaviors was long and irritating, including insisting on rinsing and reusing the trash bags, and heating the farmhouse only with wood (which my then 68 year old brother in law was expected to split). The furniture coverings were worn out, the roof needed to be patched, and there was a long list of other needs he wasn't managing. He wore patched 20 year old clothes and had only three pairs of footwear: work boots, snow boots, and church shoes. That’s it. My sister assumed he was struggling to live on his social security. When he became too blind to see my sister had to take over his banking. She and her husband were amazed to see that he had no debt, almost five thousand dollars in his checking account, and almost $2 million in his investment account. When they informed him that he had plenty of money to make repairs and add some comfort to his life he refused to do it. He was STILL worried about running out of money. I think it’s because during the worst of his childhood poverty there was no government safety net. No freebies. No unemployment. No “snap” benefits. People expected to provide for themselves or risk being without food and shelter. (In those days the society would not have tolerated tens of thousands of people sleeping and pooping on sidewalks…the cops would have removed them.) His life was very hard until after WW2 and his childhood left an indelible mark. I‘m concerned that the modern “everybody gets a trophy” message (regardless of contribution or performance) has left an indelible mark too.

 

[40Caliber]

My sister’s father in law was a crusty old new englander.

Us New Englanders are known for being frugal. lot ......LOL

My grandfather was a New England Dairy farmer, dog catcher and bus driver. did 3 jobs to make ends meet. heated with wood, had a piss pot under his bed and outhouse until he died in 1987. (born in 1899). Saved all his life. He was 35 when social security started. He was able to opt out of social security some how and saved his own money. he lived on his own savings after he retired for 25+ years until he died. He never had any trust in the government to deliver on promises so he wanted nothing to do with this new social security thing.

about 1978, He had glaucoma in both eyes, was legally blind and still driving around town. Mom takes him to the doctor. . he shows up looking like he's worth 10 cents and no medical insurance. The doctor tells my mom there's nothing he can do as he doesn't have health insurance. Mom says he will pay. The doctor tells him it's $4,000 to fix his eyes (remember this was 1978).. He reaches into his wallet, peels $2,000 of a wad at least twice as large.

He says.. here's half...... "fix one,, I'll close one eye"....,,,,,,,,,,.. so the doctor did...

true F*cking story or may god strike me dead........LOL

 

[Whaler27]

Us New Englanders are known for being frugal. lot ......LOL

My grandfather was a New England Dairy farmer, dog catcher and bus driver. did 3 jobs to make ends meet. heated with wood, had a piss pot under his bed and outhouse until he died in 1987. (born in 1899). Saved all his life. He was 35 when social security started. He was able to opt out of social security some how and saved his own money. he lived on his own savings after he retired for 25+ years until he died. He never had any trust in the government to deliver on promises so he wanted nothing to do with this new social security thing.

about 1978, He had glaucoma in both eyes, was legally blind and still driving around town. Mom takes him to the doctor. . he shows up looking like he's worth 10 cents and no medical insurance. The doctor tells my mom there's nothing he can do as he doesn't have health insurance. Mom says he will pay. The doctor tells him it's $4,000 to fix his eyes (remember this was 1978).. He reaches into his wallet, peels $2,000 of a wad at least twice as large.

He says.. here's half...... "fix one,, I'll close one eye"....,,,,,,,,,,.. so the doctor did...

true F*cking story or may god strike me dead........LOL

Great story.

I’ve paid into social security since 1976. Almost 47 years now. A while back, after seeing my unremarkable projected social security benefit, I calculated the value of my contributions assuming they were just invested in DJIA-tracking mutual funds. Not surprisingly, the government has delivered the hardest f@cking of my life while packaging it as a “benefit”. To add insult to injury, my kids complain because they will be “paying for my retirement”. (I think they say that stuff just to light the old man up. They know how hard I worked, and they know I would have preferred to follow your grandfather’s path, but that wasn’t an option.)

 

[40Caliber]

Great story.

I’ve paid into social security since 1976. Almost 47 years now. A while back, after seeing my unremarkable projected social security benefit, I calculated the value of my contributions assuming they were just invested in DJIA-tracking mutual funds. Not surprisingly, the government has delivered the hardest f@cking of my life while packaging it as a “benefit”.

the next F@cking comes when they call and say you have too many assets and social security is now "means testing" That's what you get for being "rich"

the definition of rich is you have one more dollar than the other guy

I was army , you were marine but we both know what BOHICA means

 

[Whaler27]

Remember the “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations”? Being poor provides the incentive to work as hard as it takes to escape poverty. Unfortunately, many who grow up easy and entitled never learn to work, save, and tolerate discomfort. They don’t appreciate the value of money, so they move back toward poverty.

 

[Kyanche]

I don’t know.

I worked 60+ hour weeks for most of my adult life, and there were long stretches where I averaged over 70 hour weeks. I missed a bunch of my kids growing up as a result. I could have lived more frugally for sure, but I wanted to live more comfortably, give my kids more opportunities, and indulge myself too. I wouldn’t want to live like that restaurant manager in the example above — so I’ll never be as successful/wealthy as he is.

I’d definitely do some things differently, and I’d avoid some of my dumber purchases, but I’d still default to working hard and saving money. I don’t really know how not to work. It’s one of the challenges delaying retirement. I can’t figure out what all the healthy, young, non-workers do all day. There’s only so much hunting, fishing, recreating, and screwing off I can do before I start feeling useless.

I guess we all get to make our own choices and then live with the consequences. One thing I’m sure we shouldn‘t do is whine about our circumstance and pretend somebody else is responsible for it.

I DO worry about ending up with a whole culture that’s less interested in work. Our society won’t function as it always has unless a fair chunk of us remain willing to pull the country’s economic plow and fight our country’s battles. It seems like our latest generation isn’t much interested in either.

That's pretty hardcore. I can attempt to offer up another viewpoint, as someone who seldomly works more than 80 in a 2 week pay period. I'm an engineer and I've been working in the space industry almost 10 years now. They don't really encourage working too much overtime, because once you get past a certain point your efficiency drops and your likelihood of making mistakes is higher. When our work queue gets too big, we're pressured to hire more people.

When I do need to work overtime, I can usually take a break afterwards.

I do have hobbies, and a (fairly high maintenance) family. How did you do 70 hour work weeks? That's 14 hours a day! Figure in 8 hours of sleep and a 30 minute drive, and you only have 1 hour at home. Was that time on the clock? These days things like lunch aren't considered billable for sure. I mean, I doubt they were at your job either though.

 

[rickinAZ]

When I was in the workforce, working smart was more valued than working long.

 

[Kyanche]

Mmm Yep. Work smarter not harder.

But still, that hard work is needed in some places and very much appreciated.

I will say, my parents worked hard and were supportive so I'd have more opportunities. It worked, and I do! I try to treat my mother like a queen, as much as I can! She was there for me when I was in school and college. So was my father! Unfortunately he didn't live to see me go to college. Still, he thought I could go further, and I didn't want to let my parents down.

Same goes now. A lot of my coworkers have parents who work in the same industry, I do feel they had a bit of a leg up. That's ok. I don't resent it. Someday, if/when I have kids, they'll have that leg up, too.

I don't know, I suppose I'll offer another analogue if it helps. When I was a kid, there were a lot of chinese food places in the area I grew up. They were FANTASTIC! Today, most of those places don't exist anymore. It kinda makes sense. At the one my mom and I used to regular the most, the owner's kids were usually doing their homework (and watching TV) after school. I knew them well enough since we liked the same TV shows lol. They grew up and went to college and became doctors. The parents still run the place! Eventually they hired someone to take it over. Some of my other friends had a similar upbringing - after they went to college their parents retired.

It's not necessarily that people got lazier, they just worked smarter and there's fewer people starting at the bottom of the ladder right now. It does lead to some interesting problems - like there's no shortage of people at the bottom of the ladder, but they can't afford to live in places with better business/employment opportunities! Ahh that's an annoying catch-22.

 

[Whaler27]

That's pretty hardcore. I can attempt to offer up another viewpoint, as someone who seldomly works more than 80 in a 2 week pay period. I'm an engineer and I've been working in the space industry almost 10 years now. They don't really encourage working too much overtime, because once you get past a certain point your efficiency drops and your likelihood of making mistakes is higher. When our work queue gets too big, we're pressured to hire more people.

When I do need to work overtime, I can usually take a break afterwards.

I do have hobbies, and a (fairly high maintenance) family. How did you do 70 hour work weeks? That's 14 hours a day! Figure in 8 hours of sleep and a 30 minute drive, and you only have 1 hour at home. Was that time on the clock? These days things like lunch aren't considered billable for sure. I mean, I doubt they were at your job either though.

My job is different than it was before I promoted, but my workday still starts when my computer is booted up and my butt hits the seat of my work vehicle. These days, I typically come on duty at 0615 and I generally get off between 1730 and 1800. I don’t take lunch breaks, and neither do most of the guys I work with. My wife packs me a simple lunch and lots of water in a small cooler. (Yes, I’m lucky.) Most days I can get to my sandwich as I drive, though I occasionally get home with much of my lunch intact. It’s a simple, easy, pattern we’ve maintained for many years while I was on regular shift work. I also keep jerky, protein bars, and bottled water in my go-bag.

These days the above work schedule generally averages 55 or 57 hours per week, though I am still subject to some call-out on nights and days off. Call-out happens much less these days, as I’m old, at the end of my career and, frankly, less operationally useful than I used to be. I also rarely volunteer for extra duty these days, as I don’t need the extra money, I tire more easily, and I know I am less useful. Still, although I’m in my 60s, I wear 30 pounds of duty gear most days, and my body has been pretty beaten up over the years, working 50 to 60 hour weeks doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. Some weeks are hard, of course, like those working crashes all day in extreme heat or cold for several days in a row, but I still don’t consider this schedule a hardship. I worked much longer hours in my 30s and 40s and, aside from the time away from family, that didn’t seem so bad either.

When I was younger in my career my theoretical work schedule was either 4 tens or 5 eights, but the days routinely extended two or three hours, extra overtime shifts were generally available, (and I wanted the money), and I often had to work a chunk of my scheduled days off due to court subpoenas or call-out. This combination almost never produced less than 50 hours of overtime per month, and it usually averaged well over 100 hours of OT. In law enforcement, OT is a self-accelerating cycle, as the more we work, and the more active we are, the more OT we get due to court (especially when our normal schedule includes nights and weekends, as court takes place only during the weekdays, so it’s guaranteed to be on OT.) Also, some of my special assignments, like working homicide, guaranteed that I’d get called out more and the shifts would be long. If the homicide was a whodunnit or a manhunt, we’d occasionally work eight or ten days straight with 12 to 14 hour shifts, sometimes longer. Still, this schedule is MUCH better than the military schedule on deployment, and it’s not unique to law enforcement.

One of my sons just finished his surgical residency. Years ago Congress passed a law which prohibited hospitals from working surgical residents more than 80 hours per week. According to my son, hospitals completely ignore that limit. When he first got to the hospital as an intern the Chief of surgery addressed the whole class of new interns and said, “The hours are very long. You will be exhausted. Most of you won’t want to work this much, but you have a lot to learn. You can either learn it in five years of 80 hour weeks, or you can learn it in ten years of 40 hour weeks. Which would you prefer?“ It wasn’t really a question, and they weren’t really 80 hour weeks either. They were routinely well over 100 hour weeks, and most of the residents slept their 4 to 6 hours per night in the hospital bunk room at least three or four nights per week, because there wasn’t time to go home. It’s a terrible life, and the suicide rate among young surgical residents is alarming — but ask any surgeon you know and you’ll hear a similar story. My son’s hospital even had a computerized time-tracking program which would generate a red caution pop-up when he recorded over 80 hours. The pop-up required him to write an explanation for the hours beyond 80 (which I’m sure nobody ever read). It’s a complete fiction. My son just got in the habit of writing “required” — because it was required of every surgical resident. Depending on the specialty, it’s five to seven years of boot camp, and they are doing surgery after days of sleep deprivation. It’s not a good plan from a patient care perspective.

Late one night during my son’s chief resident year he walked out of the operating room after almost six hours of surgery. He was on a trauma rotation, he’d worked nine days straight, and he’d had less than eight hours of sleep over two days and seven challenging surgeries. As he walked past the nurse’s station he heard one nurse tell the other, “I’ve been working 36 hour work-weeks. I don’t know how long I can keep this up!” My son stopped, counted to ten, thought better of saying anything, then kept walking. This isn’t a slam on nurses — they’re great and have tough jobs — but it was a great illustration of how “stress” and “hard work” are relative concepts. My brother in law was a teacher…. He worked 40 to 50 hour weeks, with lots of breaks, and he got almost 17 weeks off per year. He thought his job was “high stress”. Sheesh. But everybody tells their friends and family they work “hard” and their jobs are “stressful”… We just operate on radically different scales. The LPN cleaning bedpans 36 hours per week has a miserable job, and I wouldn’t want it, but compared to being a marine deployed in combat, or a trauma surgeon working 100 hour weeks, or the skipper of a nuclear sub, or a cop working in south central LA, or a fighter pilot, or the lead on a forest fire-crew.… you get the picture.

Sorry for the book — but I didn’t know how else to make the point that work and stress are all relative. Most of us can do MUCH more than we think we can do, or we choose to do. That’s one of the many useful lessons from boot camp. We can all do more and, once we do “do more“ for a while, we get used to it and it resets our expectations and the way we see ourselves. The depression taught this hard lesson to a whole generation, just as starvation, threats, physical abuse, and persecution have taught that lesson to so many who are coming to this country from the third world. I don’t think you could convince any of those folks that working over 40 hours in a comfortable office is a hardship.

 

[Whaler27]

When I was in the workforce, working smart was more valued than working long.

It still is.

But working smart and long produces more results than smart and short.

 

[Whaler27]

the next F@cking comes when they call and say you have too many assets and social security is now "means testing" That's what you get for being "rich"

the definition of rich is you have one more dollar than the other guy

I was army , you were marine but we both know what BOHICA means

Can’t wait!

It helps to have the lowest possible expectations. The screwing would be much more painful if I actually expected a good deal.

 

[Steph1]

At the end of the day, the employer needs a job to get done, whether it’s you or another that covers the empty spot, it doesn’t matter. Took me a while to get this, as we tend to think that the force can’t go on or won’t be the same without you….. think again, rookies that meet me call me the legend as they heard about me in training, but the job still gets done and days go on….. realizing and more so, accepting this is priceless.

 

[Jeep Dude]

It still is.

But working smart and long produces more results than smart and short.

I respect your opinion, but sorry I don't buy that narrative at all.

 

[Deleted member 59498]

Man this sure took a turn from Rubicon prices into.... well whatever it is.

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