Fixed income.

[Bagga]

"You are on a fixed income? Well, that's lucky, because it will never get any lower, so you are able to BUDGET FOR WHAT YOU BUY! My income is variable, because I am on commission/paid by the hour, and it can be really difficult sometimes, I can tell you."

[blas]

I don't mean to offend anyone, but if I work 40 hrs a week and can't afford a luxury, then there is absolutely no reason someone whose income is based off of taxpayers' money should be able to have it either. That's the way I see it.

[Seshat]

As I understand it, the concept of a 'fixed income' originated in the early days of welfare payments. Noone had yet realised that the payments needed to be adjusted for inflation, so they were "fixed" against inflation.

Welfare payments were a subsistence income, just barely more than starvation levels. So once the calculation was five or ten years old, being on a fixed income meant you needed charity (or supplementary income somehow).

The idea of people in fixed incomes deserving a break comes from the fact that many of them, at the time, were war veterans disabled in the service of their country.


Neither of these are the case, anymore. (Well, not usually.)

[Gurndigarn]

On a side note, I had to deal with a woman, who I will call Flashlight Lady, who was like a lot of SCs on this thread. This woman came in a few times, to buy flashlights because she didn't have electricity and was on a fixed income. She would buy the cheap, $3.50 flashlights with the even cheaper batteries, which I should say are notorious for burning out early, especially when they are used for hours at a time.

In general, quality pays for itself. One of the tricks to doing finances is figuring out when higher price tags indicate higher quality, and when they just indicate higher profit margins for the manufacturer.

[myswtghst]

People like that don't ever consider totals. They look at how much cash they have at the time, and rather than thinking that they could burn candles (cheaper) or just save up those couple bucks each time to pay a bill at the end of the month, they spend the money as soon as they have it in hand.

[Spiffy McMoron]

On a side note, I had to deal with a woman, who I will call Flashlight Lady, who was like a lot of SCs on this thread.

Wouldn't it make sense for the lady to pay her bill? I'll bet she was spending more than a month's bill in flashlights and batteries.

[Rocko]

I guess I would be on a fixed income now, what with the hour cuts after the holidays and having to pay for rent plus my car payment plus the utilities as well as keeping my car full of gas. But am I complaining? No. It was my choice to move out and I have to deal with it. But by taking my lunch to work and cutting back on buying a lot of crap like DVDs and CDs, as well as various other things, I save money, which stays in the bank and makes sure that I always have a little backup cash if I need it.

On a side note, I had to deal with a woman, who I will call Flashlight Lady, who was like a lot of SCs on this thread. This woman came in a few times, to buy flashlights because she didn't have electricity and was on a fixed income. She would buy the cheap, $3.50 flashlights with the even cheaper batteries, which I should say are notorious for burning out early, especially when they are used for hours at a time. She came in a few times, bitched about how they burned out too early, then would buy another one. She would also rebuff any suggestions I made for lights that might be more expensive but would definitely last longer. Finally after the third time or so of her coming in I talked her into a much better light and I haven't seen her since.

[protege]

Fixed income? Shut the fuck up and stop buying the shit you can't afford, you cheap whiney entitlement whore pains in our collective asses!

Exactly. Too many people try to use that "argument" to justify whining about the prices of various things.

One thing I made sure of when I graduated college...is to get things paid off early. These included the student loans, as well as the car. Both of those were paid off several years ahead of schedule. I didn't have any bills for a long, long time and was living with my parents. The car I had then was paid for...so my "nest egg" just grew and grew. Of course most of that is now gone--the last bit went for the down payment on my house, but I'm not complaining.

As if that wasn't enough, I decided to scale back my hobbies a bit. Before I signed on the house, I'd built up a stash of models and other items. I figured, that if I was going to be spending most of my income on house-related things. Now, the only hobby-related things I get, are paints, glues, and maybe some locomotive parts. That's it. No more kits, no more freight cars, etc.

With that said, it just pisses me off that people try to make that argument. I don't complain about the prices of things--I deal with it and adjust my finances accordingly. Too many people *can't* do that. They're careless with their cash--spending it on expensive crap, and then can't figure out why they get into trouble, and start looking for someone to blame. They'll blame retailers, utility companies, mechanics and everyone else but themselves.

Just the other day, my brother was whining about how "expensive" his bills were. At that point I lost it...and said something along the lines of "until you buy a house, you're not allowed to complain. My monthly mortgage payment is slightly more than 3 times the pittance you give Mom for rent every month. Plus, I have utilties and insurance....so shut the fuck up." The look on my mother's face was great--she'd been wanting to say that for months!

[BusBus]

When someone uses the term "fixed income" with me, it usually does mean that they are retired (and therefore living off of their pension/CPP/RRSP etc etc) or that they are on disability. However, in my line of work, you need to have a reasonable amount of $$ handy, so throwing that line at me does not garner any sympathy. My employer does not offer life-essential services either, so 0% sympathy from me.

What drives me even battier are the people who whine because they are students. This bothers me because when I was a student, I had to a)work full time to support myself and b) I had to pay for my schooling. I would not have been able to step foot in my current workplace because I would not have had the money. Now I get all of these students who whine about it all. Honey, come back when you have had to live off of stale bread and condiments that you snagged from work and talk to me then.

[Jester]

Aren't all of us on a fixed income?

No. Some of us work on tips, which vary greatly. Even the one time I had a semi-"real" job, in a call center, my income varied when I received incentive pay for good numbers. (I was always in the top ten, so I always received a decent amount of incentive pay, which varied.) Frankly, I can't remember a time I was on a fixed income. Ever. Even when I worked briefly at an hourly wage, my HOURS varied, so my total income wasn't fixed.

And, that being said, there ARE people on salaries, which are fixed incomes, who make far more than me.

AND....for people who are whining about their "fixed income" as if that is by definition a bad thing, remember this....if I work all week long, 40 hours, and no one walks through those doors and sits down, I am making far less on my variable income than they are on their fixed income.

Fixed income? Shut the fuck up and stop buying the shit you can't afford, you cheap whiney entitlement whore pains in our collective asses!

(Sorry, bit of a mood....had to deal with a boy "situation" with one of my nieces.)

[ladodger34]

Lemme tell ya about a fixed income (I'm not complaining)..

I work at a school so I only get paid for 10 months of work. I can usually pick up enough umpiring work during the baseball season and adult softball stuff in the summer that it doesn't hurt me.

Still, not getting a regular paycheck in August and September kinda stinks. My income is very fixed at that time of the year.. as in $0.00! My job is pretty cool and will help with the future career, so I'll just shaddup about it!

I feel for all the people having their hours cut. A couple of years back when I still worked for the city, our department faced a major funding crisis. Even though they had the money to pay us (budgets being approved and passed in earlier years), they (the bosses) decided to make the department look more fiscally responsible by cutting some of our hours. We weren't allowed to work more than 25 hours a week.

For me, it wasn't a huge deal. I still lived at home and my old car was in decent working order. I didn't have many financial responsibilities at the time. For some of my coworkers, it really sucked. It may not seem like much, but even losing 10 hours a week was a huge hit. I wasn't so pissed about it, because it was almost like having the summer off with an allowance. I was more pissed that they told us they were doing right before it happened. For the people that might need to look for other work to make ends meet, they told us at the wrong time. Rather than tell us a few weeks before they did it so people would be able to get summer type of jobs, they told us when it would be really hard to do so (like end of June, early July).

[Primer]

The DH makes more money on his "fixed income" than I do teaching 32 credit hours per year (12 in each the spring and fall, and 8 in the summer). Now if I could just teach him how to be a bit more frugal with his money....

We live out in the boonies, and I refuse to pay for satellite, so all we have is broadcast tv, and dial-up (28Kbps) internet. About the only thing I will splurge on is my animals. If they need something done at the vet, they get it. I just spent $1000 on getting the 3 poms I'm fostering neutered, vaccinated, and their teeth taken care of. The 8 month old puppy had to have 11 baby teeth pulled that were not coming out like they were supposed to! But hey, that's part of being a "mommy." The fur-kids come first in my house.

We'll be splurging on me this summer. I have to have surgery for a torn rotator cuff, and I'm trying to postpone it till May so I'll miss only 3 months of work instead of five. Yes, it's a direct result of the wreck, but that's still in litigation. Everything is still out-of-pocket and has to be planned and budgeted for now.

[tollbaby]

I lost my job back in October, and when I went back to the temp agency out of desperation, I knew I'd be taking a huge pay cut from what I'd been making before. yeah... like $500/MONTH pay cut. ouch.

So I'm really not making ends meet anymore, and things have been pretty difficult. Do I go around being shitty in stores because I don't have the money to buy all the nifty stuff that other people buy? no. Hey, here's a thought... tailor my spending to my income! I got rid of my cell phone! I suspended my internet account (my computer was broken, and it took four months before I even found out you COULD suspend your service without cancelling it outright *blush*. I tried to cancel my satellite (I had fulfilled my contract on all these things, so wouldn't have paid an early cancellation fee).

Funny thing was, when I tried to cancel the satellite, the guy asked me why I was cancelling, so I simply said "job situation has changed, and the money's not there anymore". Well, he could hear my kids babbling in the background, and he said "well, we wouldn't want your kids to have to go without tv, so how about I give you two months of free service"... *dumbfounded* Seriously? THANKS!!!!! Dude totally saved my sanity (there are only so many times I can take watching the SpongeBob movie *snicker*)

The thing is, I didn't whine for a discount and I didn't blame anybody else for not being able to afford stuff anymore (well, except for the bitch who fired me, but I don't blame her to her face LOL). And when I least expected it, a total stranger did something damn decent for me and I appreciate it heartily

"fixed income". *snort* Try "no income". It's a lot more challenging.

[Kiwi]

Just cause I keep seeing it misspelled, it's Queue, not cue. Queue=line, cue=a place to start, like a musical cue.
No offense meant to anyone, I'm just sayin'.

hehehe well Im dyslexic, I reserve correct spelling for unversity assignments or emails at work. It sounded the same....

[powerboy]

I am on limited income, just about 28 hours aweek, now, it was down to 15 hours. So with that being said, I pay bills, and what I truly need. Gas is killing me right now, with it being as high as it is. Damn, I need to get off my ass, and start looking around at land, for the apartment complex, I am wanting to get built.