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Well, I would certainly be interested in learning more about such a job. My first thought is that if it pays $40 an hour, either I’m not qualified (don’t have the right skills) or it might be illegal and/or immoral, or maybe it involves something extremely unpleasant. (I’ve seen the Dirty Jobs show on TV.)

So your house cost less than $28K?

How much was your rent before you bought the house?

Um, I was referring to people who struggle to barely get by. I don’t think they walk on the moon or write great music.

But that’s an inspiring thought.

I’m jealous. I had my first paper route when I was twelve - I was told that was the minimum age. When I was ten I started shoveling snow around town. I opened a bank account and started saving my money.

By the time I graduated high school (early 1970s) I had saved up more than $4K.

What did you do when you were old enough for a “real” job?

I’ve worked for many years, at the bottom of the economy. So I figure I’ve done plenty of grunt work, and I am not allergic to work.

As Dave Ramsey would say, I’m living like no one else. But he says if you’ll live like no one else, later you get to live like no one else, and I don’t see that happening.

To move to another town I would have to find new medical providers and make arrangements in advance - this would take a while - and since there aren’t any non-menial jobs I’m qualified for, a move would be on spec without any assurance of success - only of substantial cost. (Is there any place where an unskilled worker could make a good living?) Even a move would cost money and I don’t have that right now.

I admire the pioneers and the settlers who moved across continents on spec with only what they could carry, but I’m not sure how feasible that is today if you have no money.

I quite understand that; I want to start a B2B service business but I’m kinda light on the cash and I feel like I am generally spinning my wheels without making any progress.

Nope, but beater cars for work transportation are something the private sector can do - and something that is done when moral individuals step up to the plate. Voluntary credit for productive enterprises is not an entitlement or a handout.

Lars Larson likes the idea and I agree with him. (Which is hardly a surprise since I mostly agree with him.)

GAG! BARF! I think I’ll stick with my menial job here!

That was a scary thought. Brrrrr.

Yeah, I see where that happens. But I think that generally, $1000 credit on a $1000 beater that is tied to employment does not constitute excessive or frivolous credit.

I guess my problem is that I just want to earn more money and I’m not interested in skipping or scamming, and while I can see the concerns involved - that once you extend even minimal credit (and especially when the credit is minimal), you effectively lack recourse in getting back all the money you are owed and making a profit - I’m not enjoying the idea that I should be denied an opportunity to earn more money because other people are deadbeats, or that others who legitimately seek credit to get ahead should be out of luck. The subprime scam and the bailout really soured my attitude - we who didn’t cause the problem are paying for all this while the miscreants are getting handouts instead of the time they deserve.

I really want to see people prosecuted here instead of bailed out. They have caused huge problems and should be held accountable.

So how do you escape a menial dead-end job when you are older and have no marketable skills?

Now THERE is a plan. (If you have teenage kids and a business, you can put them to work and there are great tax and financial advantages.) Plus your kid(s) get to learn a skill.

$625/yr in 1952 for car insurance? That is mind-boggling. I remember attending a parochial high school 20 years later and paying $600 a year on a half scholarship.

$625 in 1952 would be about (I think) $4000 or so today.

Ouch.

Credit for productive enterprises is usually a good thing and should not be discouraged.

Unfortunately there has been entirely too much credit extended for frivolous purposes, on the speculation that borrowers would continue to have incomes capable of sustaining the debt and/or their mortgaged homes would continue to increase in value.

Minimizing the latter and expanding the former would increase growth and wealth.

That was hard, especially during Feb and March (brrr). But I’m assuming you didn’t have a really long walk. At least I hope not considering where you were.

Good job getting rid of the extended maintenance. That’s one of those not-worth-it extras dealers try to sign you up for. Dave Remsey gets calls from people who signed up for it and found they owed too much.

“I think we’re undergoing a fundamental shift from living on borrowed money to one where living within your means, saving and investing for the future, comes back into vogue,” said Greg McBride, senior analyst at Bankrate.com.

This was the first comment that hit my sore spot. (More generally, I’ve read a number of things on Bankrate that have hit my sore spot.) I’m still trying to figure out how someone earning minimum wage is supposed to live within their means (this part I can do) AND save and invest for the future. (My solution is to let people privately invest the taxes extracted from their paychecks for Social Security and Medicare.) If I knew how to do all that I could write a book and make a fortune.

I don’t go to DU and wouldn’t go there if someone paid me. (And considering how much I need money, that’s saying something.)

Never did I suggest more government or higher taxes. The private sector is helping people become more productive where moral individuals are getting involved. No government needed, just less judgmentalism.

I am coming at this from the perspective of a low income person with financial constraints to becoming more productive. And I thought becoming more productive was a good thing which should be encouraged in the private sector.

I’d just like to know how someone is supposed to be productive and all that if they can’t get to a job.

I’m comfortable with libertarian and conservative websites - but I can’t even take websites like DU(H) in small doses. The private sector does great things when it is unfettered and moral individuals step up to the plate.

Nobody should give anybody anything, and the nothing-down financing of the past to just about anybody for anything was wrong and totally ridiculous. The $1,000 down bit is just a way for a dealer to eliminate risk while retaining a huge upside. You sell a $500-$1,000 junker for $1,000 down and if you never see another dime you at least break even and if the payments are all made on time you hit the jackpot.

You can oppose usury and still support capitalism - Dave Ramsey does it on a regular basis, and nobody has ever questioned his conservative credentials. What I don’t understand is the attitude that someone who wants to be economically productive should have to remain unproductive because $1,000 of car financing (to be repaid through proceeds of employment) is viewed as a handout or evidence of an entitlement mentality.

I have missed out on thousands of dollars of earnings and more than a few jobs because I don’t have a car, so this is a sore point for me.

No, I’m not saying people are entitled to a car. But Lars Larson has on many occasions noted that access to a car provides a greater boost in earnings than a high school diploma. There is some private-sector program which helps finance beaters for people who want to go to work, (that’s a loan, not a handout) and we should be supporting this sort of activity, not scorning it as an entitlement issue.

And taking the damn bus isn’t always feasible. There were some swing shift janitor jobs at a top tech firm I wanted to apply for but the place is 90 minutes by bus and the shift ends too late to get home by bus. Just a few minutes ago I found a job on Craigslist and there’s no bus that runs anywhere near there. (You can actually plan a bus trip online, unless there are no buses that go there.)

So if someone lives in BFE and they don’t have a car and they can’t get to a job, how do they pull themselves out of it?

We need to be prudent, but we also need to realize that this is the one material life we will have and we weren’t put here merely to struggle through and barely get by until we drop dead of worry and regret.

Millions of people do this - I do - what else were they put here for?

Save your money and pay cash.

(scratching head) If he just got a job, and was previously unemployed, what money was he supposed to save?

Let’s see if I’ve got this right:

No cash -> no car - no loan for you!

No car -> no job -> no income -> no money to buy car to get job.

Looks like a bad loop here.