Most of us at 3 bad months away from homeless, &...

[leighbythesea2]

None of us are 3 good months away from being billionaires….
I know which side I’m on.

Can JUST this simplicity be a Democratic Party talking point?

— Rick (@rickylongthread.bsky.social) 2025-02-20T22:02:28.269Z

[Cartoonist]

1. I'm one Social Security cut away from being homeless.

One cut in Medicare away from being dead.

[leighbythesea2]

4. Medicare is

An important leg of the 3 legged chair. SS, Medicare, & good budgetary management. I’m incensed & apoplectic at all this talk about cutting Medicare. Effectively, paying into SS was the medical insurance part of that!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. While I would be closer to homelessness

than billionaire-dom, I am considerably more than three bad months from homelessness.

I have been relatively poor much of my life, and have learned to live on remarkably little. Like not ever having a car payment (paid for my first car with a $100 loan from my credit union back in 1968, and I've never had another car payment since. As a for instance.

[babylonsister]

3. You must be a helluva mechanic. nt

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. Uhhh, I'm not any kind of a car mechanic.

Although I still do drive a stick shift.

My current car is a 2017 Honda Civic purchased used in 2018. It had been some kind of fleet vehicle for a year. Had only a couple of thousand miles on it, essentially brand new. I currently have have about 45k on it. as I drive very little.

My point is: You buy your first vehicle. Whatever kind you like. Just don't borrow more money than it's actually worth (oh, yes, sadly that is a thing) and when it's paid off, you bank that payment in a separate account until the first car needs replacing. This time, you should have a very large down payment. Maybe even enough to pay cash for the next car.

Get the idea?

Oh, and be sure to buy a stick for your next car.

Sigh, the truly sad thing as that stick shifts are almost extinct. I'm glad I'm so old that this is likely my last car. As it was, I'd intended to purchase brand new when i went to buy the Civic, but there wasn't a new one to test drive. The wonderful salesman did NOT try to talk me in to an automatic, which certainly helped him make the sale, but called me back two days later to drive the fleet car. He also told me, when we were driving, that 2017 was the last year Honda put a CD player in the card. "Sold," I said.

It's a wonderful car.

[babylonsister]

8. Ha!

I wrote that because your post I responded to was misinterpreted by me; I thought you had the same car all these years, thus the mechanic comment.

I paid off my last two USED cars when I bought them. I do not like bills and try to pay everything off. I finally had to get a credit card last year because I needed to rent a car a few times, but have not used it for anything else.

[leighbythesea2]

5. I like the no car payment strategy

Grew up with family used car lot. Taught never buy new, drive it til it’s dead. Do your maintenance.

Usually have an older back up car for the in-shop times.
It’s a big deal! Also, my mom’s advice of rent or mort should be 1 weeks pay (net) no more.
Tough ask for millennials & Z as everything is so high. But it worked in my gen X timeline thank goodness!

[Yavin4]

7. We went from poverty to being a moral failure to..

not being a billionaire is a moral failure.