Everybody Loves Your Money

Here’s a link to the movie trailer for “Keeping Up With the Steins”.  I think my favorite quote in the trailer is, “It’s not how much money you have……  It’s how much money you spend”.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/keepingupwiththesteins/trailer/

I saw this post on Fatwallet. The poster tends to make the point that people are eating out based on any sort of economic consideration. Check out the original post to see some of the other responses. Here’s the initial post:

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“I’m surprised that, on a site devoted to financial prudence, more people haven’t savaged the notion that it is consistent with the ideals of financial discipline to eat out one or more times per week.

At a time when there is a growing disconnect between what food costs at the supermarket or wholesale level, and what restaurants charge for the same items, it is sheer economic folly to pay 5, 10, or even 25 times as much or more for comparable items of food cooked at home and at a restaurant.

Examples: 12 ounce sirloin at Outback Steakhouse = $14.99 plus tax, plus tip, or $17.82!!! That’s more than $24 per pound, NOT including a tip ($1.50 per ounce).

The same steak, bought on sale at the grocery store, and prepared with minimal effort at home, is no more than 32 cents per ounce, or $3.71.

To eat the sirloin at Outback is 500% more!

Let’s use the example of a side dish, such as a baked potato.

A baked potato, if not included with a meal, is about $3.00 at Outback.

The same baked potato, of comparable or better quality, is about 14 cents, if prepared at home, with all acoutrements.

So, the baked potato at Outback is 2100% more than the one at home!!!

Soft drinks?

Ones at home are about 28 cents. The same one at Outback is $1.75

Beer? Ones at homes are 45 cents. At Outback? $3.50

Eating out is not consistent with habits of financial discipline.

Edit #1 - Let’s assume John and Mary, a couple, eat out twice a week and get carry out or Pizza once a week, and the bills for this indulgence are $16 once a week for the carry out Chinese or Pizza, one meal without drinks during the week for $34, and one meal on the weekend with drinks, for $54 (this would include 2 drinks per person, at $5 per drink for beer, wine or mixed drink - average of price).

So, that’s $104 per week for 3 meals (one carry out, two sit down), or $416 per month, or $5,408 for the year.”

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http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=1803117

Workers have retirement “overconfidence”.  There are some great statistics in this article.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500

Check out the most profitable companies in the U.S. Probably not a huge surprise that the top companies are mostly energy and financial companies.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/31/pf/saver_parker/index.htm

Extreme savers. Meet the Parkers. They are living well below their income level and, in fact, save her entire paycheck each month.

http://biz.yahoo.com/special/realestateapril06_article1.html

Where are housing prices going?

http://www.fox12news.com/Global/story.asp?S=4649111

Lots of credit card debt these days. It’s interesting to hear about other people’s situations.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/business

Owning a home makes sense, even if you are making $60k per year.